Member-only story
Show and Tell
When the screen goes up I like to look them in the eye, just once, then I try to ignore them and dance for my own pleasure. I kid myself that brief eye contact will remind them I’m a real-life woman, that it makes me human for two minutes.
The green light comes on to let me know someone’s entered the booth, so I turn the music on and wait for him to put his token in the slot. Then the screen goes up.
And I recognise him.
Neither of us moves a muscle.
There are three types of customer. The first are my favourite, even though I don’t make any money from them. They just want a cheap wank. They look away when I make eye contact, because they don’t want to be reminded I’m a real woman, and they don’t want to acknowledge that this is how they see us. So they stare at their preferred body part, and I might see their shoulder jerking as they try to knock one out in the two minutes they paid for.
The screen comes back down.
We stared at each other, unmoving, for two whole minutes. It didn’t feel like two minutes: it felt like an instant, and my whole lifetime.
He recognised me. I’ve changed a lot since he last saw me, but when I looked him in the eye, he saw my recognition, and he knew.
