Feminist Capitalism

I fucked her and paid her with cake. That was her fee. 15 minutes for a shop bought lemon sponge, 30 for a homemade chocolate, an extra 5 if the cake was good. That was all her calling card had on it. I always got 32 exactly. I knew this because she wore a stopwatch on a piece of rope around her neck. She never checked it during but as soon we were done, she clicked it exactly on 32.00. She’d then give me this blank, hallow stare, like an entitled child who had been proved correct.

Her ‘work’, according to her, was ‘’Feminist Capitalism.’ Where only the most adept at role reversal are rewarded… If you can cook, we can fuck.’ That was the tag line she reeled off as an opener every time I visited. Her self-perception was based on a delusional theory that she was a reward of some sort. Just from looking at her, you knew that she had drawn a bizarre conclusion. Her cake eating and genetic makeup had fused to create an almost spherical ball between her hips and neck. Her skin was stretched and thinned by her girth, and her breasts were these unfathomably small little balls. Like two tomatoes on a space hopper. Two asteroids in space. This concoction made arousal difficult. It felt like getting into the cold sea. – 10 minutes of genderless numbness and physiological critique had to be endured before you could start swimming. 

Other than fucking this woman and baking, nothing else was happening. I was at the back end of a period of unemployment. The fortnightly dole payment gave me enough to live but it didn’t matter. Doom is doom. November was adding to the bleak and my roommate, Peter, had just entered another phase of OCD. This restricted my movements to an inhumane level within the basement studio we shared. I was prohibited from touching anything of his, anything which could lead to a security or safety breach, or making any foods which left residue or crumbs. This made cooking for the whore a covert operation. As we were both unemployed and both pretending to seek work, we spent most of our time in the basement. He analysed any movement I made from the bottom bunk, taking gasps if I dropped a spoon or left a tap loose. Any major fault of mine would propel him into a routine of touching objects and counting under this breath. It was a mental asylum for the unmotivated.

It was Tuesday when I received the phone call from Dexter. I told Peter he was ‘my agent’, but he was just an administrator at the job centre who offered me minimum wage work. He mainly suggested catering jobs as I’d once drunkenly told him about the whore. From his wheezing gravestone voice, Dexter sounded ugly, but he was a good man. I especially appreciated that he never pushed me too hard to become motivated. He took my own diagnoses that I was ‘depressed’ at face value, and never questioned whether I deserved my dole payments. He acted more like my financial secretary on occasions. There were even times where he’d ring up, say ‘hello’, I’d say ‘no’, and he’d say ‘okay’, and then he’d hang up. A week later the money would come cartwheeling into my account. His incompetence allowed for mine. 

Anyway, he phoned me on the Tuesday,

‘Mr Joblinko.’

‘Mr Dexter.’

‘Yes, erm, Mr Joblinko, are you free to work anytime soon?’

‘Yes, for the right job. Do you have any work that pays more than you do? For me to work, I will really need something that is at least double. When you’re paying me to do nothing, it’s going to take real cash to make me do something.’

‘Well, Mr Joblinko, I do have a proposition for you that I think you may like… Sorry I thought you were going to say something, okay, well, I’ll get right into it. So, I remember you telling me about the cake whore… I think you were drunk.’

‘I would never be intoxicated for one of our phone calls Dexter, I told you about her in the spirit of sobriety.’

‘Well, yes, there is a job available at a club she’s opening. She’s apparently made so much from cake that she’s opening a bar of some sort. Anyway, she emailed a few days ago asking if you and a guy called, ‘Jonny Bing’, were claiming benefits. She said you two should get the first offer.’

‘Right, well, okay. How much does it pay?

‘10 an hour, plus tips. She said you could triple your wages with the tips.’

‘Oh right, okay, yeah. Well she did seem to like me. 32 minutes.’

‘What?’

‘Yeah, never mind. Where is this place? Is it an interview or do I just start pouring drinks?’

‘I don’t know Mr Joblinko, she just said that you and Mr Bing should arrive at the bar tonight at 7pm. It’s called, ‘The Banjos and Bulbs’, on Clarence Street.’

‘Right, cheers Dexter. Do I need to do anything if I get the job?’

‘No, she’ll sort it if you do. Goodbye Mr Joblinko and good luck.’

Working for a whore for hundreds of pounds… It was not something I’d ever dreamt of, but I think that was more a lack of imagination rather than a lack of desire.

I got down there at 6.50, so I stood outside and had a cigarette. From the outside, the bar looked good. Considering she’d obviously eaten a lot of her cake payments; it was clear that she’d been fucked an incalculable amount. I sincerely hoped that at least some of the money was inherited or from a business partner. Regardless, I promised myself a trip to the doctor.

At the entrance, I met Jonny Bing. He was tall and thin, with silver greased hair. His t-shirt and jeans were loose, but his thick wrists gave you the impression he was hiding a strong frame. His head was an oblong shape and looked like it had been stuck in a vice. The skin on his face was thin and strapped to his cheeks, and his whole demeanour gave you the impression he either looked beautiful or gaunt depending on whether he had a tan or money. He clearly had neither. The whore arrived with her blank stare and led us through to the bar.

The bar itself tracked the back of the room and was made of mirrored steal. There were no seats at the bar itself as they were clustered in spherical rows around two podiums. The podiums were equidistant from the bar and each other. Each podium was surrounded by four rows of bar stools. It looked like two small stage productions had been prepared for. The whore spoke.

‘Right, did Dexter tell you what I wanted?’

Bing responded, ‘No.’

‘Great, well. You both know my politics, yeah? Both understand I am feminist sex worker by trade.’

We nodded.

‘Well, with your help, amongst some others, I’ve got this bar and I am now able to put the money to good use. In ‘Banjos and Bulbs’ you have the first male strip club in the city for women only. This is a form of entertainment, but it is a bar making a political statement. It’s Feminist Capitalism. Women can come here, watch men dance and verbally abuse them. Slipping a £5 note in their thong if they wish.’

It felt wrong to hear her speak about something other than cake and sex. My release had come alive and had started talking. My shameful need had become my boss.

‘So, I thought of you two as I know you need the money and you always made the cakes from scratch. Can you dance?’

I looked at Jonny Bing with vacancy, hoping that he’d wake her up from this vision and somehow persuade her to pay us to work on the bar instead. Jonny responded.

‘A little.’

I gave him another look, this time rolling my eyes up and down his face to find some sarcastic clarification. It never came.

‘And what about you?’

‘A little… Sorry, just to be clear, you’re employing us to dance on the podiums for money and abuse?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right.’

‘So… is there an answer coming?’

I looked back into her putty ham face. I didn’t really want to, but outside of the bar only Peter’s neurosis and the basement’s bottom bunk waited for me. I knew no one in the town except Peter, Dexter’s voice and the two maniacs in front of me. Although humiliating, it was somehow terrifyingly low risk.

‘Yes. I suppose I can do it. But what am I actually doing?’

‘Well, your shift is 4 and a half hours, split into three, one-hour dancing sessions. You dance in a red thong. You can have one drink whilst you dance but, during a break, you can have two. Your break is 30 minutes. The shift starts at 12 and finishes at 4.30. We stop you from being attacked, but you have to take any verbal stuff. You get 10 an hour, plus anything that gets thrown on the podium or in your thong.’

Bing upturned his mouth at this and I nodded.

It got to twelve far quicker than normal. Me and Jonny spoke rapidly in the build-up, sweeping through his two packs of Indian cigarettes with medicative ease. I learnt almost nothing about who he was, we didn’t even discuss the whore. Instead, we established that we were both terrible dancers and were surprised at the others acceptance. We then danced in front of each other, for a few minutes at a time, giving each other tips on how to look better. In the last half hour, we put on our thongs and had a dress rehearsal. In the thong, Jonny moved as poorly as he had in clothes, however, his large frame and malnourished body gave him a model quality which would forgive a lack of talent under the lights. Jonny said I moved a little smoother and looser than him in the hips but looked, ‘out of place in a thong’. In the dressing room mirror, I could see the paunch of my stomach wallowing over the crease of the leather and the hair of my genitals sprouting out from the sides. I felt inferior and it felt wrong. Although, Jonny’s act was not polished, it was understandable. You’d deduce a drug problem probably. However, I looked too iron deficient to be a stripper, too strained in the face.

At 12 she came to get us and we entered the bar to the faces and noise. A small ladder was offered by a waitress and I climbed onto my podium. The whore started over the microphone.

‘Laaaadddiiiesss! Tonight is history! Feminist Capitalism has arrived! Where only the most adept at role reversal are rewarded! If you dance, you advance!… You know what to do ladies! Get those fives, tens, twenties at the ready for these filthy little gimps! Dance for mummy boys!’

She passed the microphone back to the DJ and picked up a large slice of cake, becoming distracted by her appetite. I looked over to Jonny who had already responded to the music and had started to move in front of his audience. I looked down at mine. Three rows were full, with a few faces in fourth. Thin white spotlights appeared and raped up and down my body in a random pattern. Every few seconds they’d flash across my eyes and I’d squint in the midnight sun. In between blindings, I could see their goblin expressions. All they did was scream into each other’s ears and up to me, begging the world to hear them. Gesticulations for more booze, cigarettes and for me to dance rolled off their pendulum arms. When they clapped to the music, the fat of their bodies rippled through their frames and into their necks. I was surrounded by aggressive demon women who were on the edge of their composure. It felt like they were going to attack. In reality, it felt like I’d taken acid.

I started to dance through the trauma and looked away from the hogs. Jonny who was doing the same mechanical routine he’d rehearsed earlier. A few hip swings and a few pointing fingers were all they got from him. His face didn’t look down and he stared at the entrance of the bar blankly. He’d found his coping strategy, his groove. I followed his example. I swung my hips to the left twice before swinging them in an larger swing to the right. I rotated on the spot a few times and pointed in all directions, being careful to avoid singling anyone out. – I didn’t need any more attention. I then squatted once before zigzagging my palms down my front. The women liked the squat and whooped the most when it happened. I had to fight my natural urges to do it quickly, as I needed to give them the opportunity to stuff my arse and crotch with notes.

Every time I dropped to the podium; I got couldn’t avoid their eyeline. You had to focus on one of their faces at a time as it felt like you were staring into your own uncut mental illness if you looked at all of them at once. Howling and gawping and shouting, challenging their lungs to make a much volume as possible. You’d get snapshots of what they were saying when you were at the base of the squat which resonated in your bones when you rose back upright.

‘Hairy cock! That fucking hairy cock!………. So I just shat in the sink! All over iiitt………Hahahahahah! Cunt!……… Comes! Yeah, give him 5!…….. Fuck Sandra!’

The first hour passed and the trauma and adrenaline started became a bit more normal. I saw Jonny in the dressing room. I felt like I knew him better.  

‘Fucking hell Jonny! That was awful!’

‘I know, I can’t do another session! I can’t. All of those mouths crushing into each other and all that anger! Why?! We can’t do it again. It’s £10 plus, these three fives. This isn’t the answer.’

‘Thank God! You looked relaxed Jonny, I thought you were dealing with it.’

‘No, I want out. I’m going. Where’s the whore?’

‘I don’t know.’

Then she appeared through the curtain, her mouth outlined by cake.

‘Well done boys, I saw you that you were popular! This is going to be a success, I can feel it! Now, I have had a request…’

‘Look, we’re leaving. I’m not a dancer and this is mental. You’ve got a load of dykes out there trying to scream their way into fucking us. We’re going home. Here’s the tips.’

‘Boys, no! We can’t have this. Not when we’re all doing so well. Look. Have a moment to think and cool off. In the meantime, I want you to think about something else which, if you accepted, would get you more than your half hour break. Do you do extras?

‘What?’

‘Extras, you know, more than what you’ve given.’

‘Obviously not.’

 ‘Two women have expressed a keen interest to fuck you both with strappons. One thousand. I take 200, you boys get 400 hundred a piece.’

I looked at her. She was completely devoid of anything we needed. Her eyes held mine and then Jonny’s.

‘Soooo…’

‘So, what? We’re going home! Jonny told you. This is fucked.’

‘Jonny.’

‘I told you, he told you, I told you. This Feminist Capitalism shit is off the rails. You need shutting down.’

She sighed, rolled her eyes and went through the bead curtains. I could feel Jonny looking at me. I looked back. We smiled dark ones at each other. Finally, with the freedom of repression off our shoulders, a smile could be permitted.  

Once dressed, we were ready to face the bar apes as equals. The whore greeted us from behind the bar on the way out.

‘You’re really going?’

Jonny replied, ‘Yeah, these women are fucked int the head! And so are you!’

A woman from my podium lurched on his words and grabbed his hair.

‘Hey! You fucking hooker, she runs this place! She’s making money! What you making? I bet it’s not even rent!’

A few of her pigs started oinking.

I’d had enough. I took a few steps towards her but was stopped by a big one. She smiled her ashtray mouth down into my eyes. ‘Sorry son, no heroics.’ She patted my back and spat in front of my shoes before holding the scruff of hair below the curve of my skull. My forehead was pulled into her cheek and her breath seethed down to my ear. ‘I would have paid good money for that.’ Patting my ribs, she moved her hand to my stomach. It flinched inwards as I held my breath. My boxer shorts offered no resistance and she approached my cock. Just before she held it, her hand paused and her body moved back an inch. She looked into the charcoal of my eyes. I looked straight ahead, at the hammock of skin under her neck. With delicacy she, lifted my chin with her index finger and made me witness her pleasure. Adrenaline surged through my sense of reality as she yanked at my cock. It was a corpse. She smiled, licked my cheek and pushed me towards Jonny.

I looked into him and he looked into me. The noise then started. Gawping and ghooling and whooping us out of there. The Feminist Capitalists taking it all away. Jonny tried to offer council outside.

‘Are you okay? You want a drink?’

I gave Jonny my number and earnestly offered to meet him another time, however, the promise fell empty as soon as I was on the bus. I felt far safer alone and away from the bar. Some of what I’d witnessed needed to be repressed and he was not the solution.

The phone rang. It was Dexter.

‘Mr Joblinko, your boss rang. She said it didn’t work out.’

‘No, it didn’t.’

‘So…’

‘No.’

‘Okay Mr Joblinko, speak soon.’

‘Dexter.’

‘Yes Mr Joblinko.’

‘Did you know about it? The bar, and what it was like?’

‘It’s just a bar isn’t it? A few dancers… Is that what you’re referring to?’

‘Yeah. I suppose.’

‘Sorry, I forgot to tell you. It’s a but racey, but, you’re a man of the world. Surely you know about this stuff. A few beers, a few dancers. Girls will be girls.’

‘Yeah, you’re right. Sorry Dexter, maybe call in a few days.’

‘No problem Mr Joblinko, finding the right job can be tough can’t it?’

‘Mmm.’

Dial Tone.

Dial Tone.