I Think I Am In Love With A Stripper

…and I thought the joke was on her when she said she found a new job, something that wasn’t retail at a show club in Phoenix, way further northwest than I’ve ever been, cause then I’d finally be able to see her naked. She had turned me down before, at parties where we met and that time she came over and we got drunk—though I was drunker—and she said I cared too much as I went in to kiss her. Now I take out twenties from the ATM and go to the grocery store and change half of them for ones. And now I go to where she works with its club music and flashing lights and small, round table of a stage. And they call her by a different name and she does this thing where her legs, longer than I ever realized, are pointing straight up to the ceiling and she brings them down slowly, spreading them slowly. The first lap dance I buy from her is awkward. She narrates for me and tells me its weird for her too cause she usually only dances for strangers, for people she doesn’t care about. Then I buy another, and another. I keep giving her twenties and she stays with me for most of her shift, until it isn’t awkward anymore, until it almost feels right and she moves her hips to the beat and does this thing where she lifts herself up till her crotch is near my eyes, then she lowers herself on top of me, as if descending from some cloud and then the song is over. I tell her to go again and she smiles and tells me I am out of money but oh god I can pay, you have no idea how much I can pay, I have uncashed checks from work, I have a credit card I rarely use, I have left over loans from FAFSA and all of its coming to you, just take it, just take it, and let’s go again and again and again.