Just out of college I got a job working at the local paper where I wrote mainly business articles. I’d have to call up businesses and ask them their annual income and profits.
There isn’t a single business owner that wants to tell the newspaper their average annual income. Not one.
My editor insisted that I ask the question every.single.time.
The only thing scarier than calling businesses for their income report was my editor.
Growing up, I was raised that you don’t talk about money. You don’t ask to borrow money, you don’t ask how much money other people make, you don’t ask how much money other people have.
I was also raised to make everyone like me. The not-talking-about-money rule fell under the general umbrella of “Be Likeable.”
Asking strangers about their finances was a hard no.
I’d have a nice interview with a local business owner about their upcoming expansion where we were getting along just dandy, and right before hanging up, I’d have to do the thing.
I learned to phrase it as a single sentence, whispering, as though that somehow made it count less. “What’syouraverageannualincome?” I’d mumble.
To which they’d ask, “What?” and I’d repeat my one-word sentence about three more times, palms growing sweatier, until they finally understood what I was asking, got offended, and declined to respond.
To which I would reply in an awkward falsetto, “Ok, thanks, bye!” and hang up. The exchange was mutually uncomfortable for everyone involved.
For someone with a total of about twenty seven dollars in their bank account, writing about business felt like a fraud. It was baptism by fire in the absolute.
I got yelled at a lot, I got hung up on a lot, and besides one company that sent me flowers which I ethically probably shouldn’t have accepted but I did anyways, I got a lot of people mad at me.
Fast forward ten years later, when my friend Christian invited me to a kinky techno party. I was just anticipating some deep beats and lots of body glitter.
What I wasn’t expecting was to learn more about business in one night than in my entire time working at that paper.
1. Nobody wants a Christmas tree in July. On a typical night out, our girl group gets its fair share of male attention. While we are indeed strong independent women with sparkling personalities and even sparklier intellects, the male gaze is mainly because of our boobies.
However, seeing as “kinky techno party” ended up being code for lots of gay men in leather harnesses and underwear, it was our guy friend and his mullet that was going down a treat.
We were the same women, with the same fantastic boobies, in front of the wrong audience.
We were Christmas trees in July, and he was a hot dog.
2. Your mentor matters. As far as sex dungeons go, this one didn’t disappoint. It was one of those rooms where you wonder what kind of use it has outside of sex parties, until you realize that it has no use outside of sex parties.
It doesn’t even moonlight as a storage closet, this baby is full-on sex dungeon even in off season.
I’ve never felt more like a tourist than holding hands with the squad and squeezing ourselves between layers of naked bodies. We spoke in library voices, because talking felt inappropriate.
The low ceiling trapped in the smell of bodies and the echo of grunts gave the general impression that if you weren’t willing to sit in the sex swing, you should get out of the room.
I headed back upstairs where I ran into a friend and yelled at him over the music that the sex room had felt “a bit weird.” He marched me back down the stairs, as though my skepticism had been a personal critique.
I grasped for the hands of nearby friends. If I had to return to the room, I was making them come with me.
It was a different world when accompanied by a gay man. The go-away looks went away, and nobody even bothered to look up at all.
We were no longer tourists, we were his harem.
3. Always have an exit strategy. If anyone knows how to put on a good party, it’s the gays.
From dancing platforms and a pole, to an artist selling watercolor nudes, to a section full of fur carpets and pillows reserved for just lying and being held, everything was thought of. Everything, I noticed, except an exit plan.
I’m not usually a nervous person.
In relationships I tend to be the less-paranoid partner, and once prompted an ex to start a two-hour conversation about responsibility when I stood what he felt was “too close” to a cliff edge.
However as I watched a fire eater juggle flames in the packed underground nightclub, it was enough to make me inch towards the edge of the crowd.
Feeling me move, a friend asked what I was doing.
I had to choose between giving up all of my cool points (like all of them) and telling him I was going to stand by the emergency exit until the show was over. Or taking a few deep breaths and testing my chances.
I figured I had the rest of my life to be uncool, it was worth suspending the belief for as long as possible.
Inhaling through my nose and out my mouth, I memorized the exit route and fervently prayed that it was just the fire eater’s lack of clothing that made her appear unprofessional.
4. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Half of our friend group got accidentally drugged from accepting what turned out to be not-water from a stranger.
I’d watched them drink it and not said anything because I’d assumed they knew it was not-water, and that they wanted the not-water.
I did not drink the not-water, not because I’m any wiser, but only because I’ve drunk what was not-Powerade before, thinking it was Powerade.
The takeaway here is that when a good samaritan offers you water in a club, it’s not water.
Because there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but there are free drugs if you’re a woman.
5. Find your niche. I looked at her the way you do when you know you’re going to write about something. I imagine it’s how an artist looks at a scene (I wouldn’t know as I only draw stick figures, and they’re usually by memory).
I took it all in. Her by herself was enough for an essay of its own. Her against the backdrop of a kinky techno party, sheer delight.
She had a few less teeth and a few more chins than average, and was balancing a large witches hat on her head.
Every few sentences she took a drag of her cigarette, even though I don’t think you’re allowed to smoke inside.
But once you introduce a sex dungeon at a party, all rules go out the window.
We squeezed into the bench as she told us we were her last readings of the night. We’d had to wait in line to see her, and her exclusiveness made me even more certain she was the real deal.
She asked us to shuffle the cards and split them, before she threw them on the table, explaining what each one meant.
This is the part of the night where I learn that I can not lipread in Spanish. Breaking any social boundaries regarding personal space, I lean in so that my ear is inches from her mouth.
But with the pounding of techno, I can make out a total of two sentences from her five-minute monologue. If there ever was an actual fortune teller, I’m convinced it would be her.
I thank her, put some money in the tip jar, and walk away contemplating how there isn’t a nichier niche out there than being a tarot card reader for kinky techno parties.
It’s a questionable business model, but I can’t help but think that even my editor would have been impressed.
Excellent, you made me remember some "antros" in Buenos Aires. Very good text, a good story turned into art.