Strictly on business.

I caught the bouncers' looks of what the fuck? as we went down the stairs. That was okay. I was clearly not suitably attired, in my polka-dot dress and scruffy flats, for celebrations of the night.

The dimly-lit room was brought alive every night with swirling lights the exact shade of Barbie's heels. A rotating stage, adorned with padded stools and gold bars in the shape of a circular cage, formed the centrepiece and a group of eager beavers had laid claim to the prime seats - the sofas closest to the action. One of the dancers, her platinum blonde hair perfectly straightened and cascading over their laps, sat among them. Another man leaned heavily on a nearby bar table, ankles crossed and a beer in hand, unabashedly captivated by the figure gyrating on the stage.

We took a leaf out of their books and anchored ourselves to another table, with three tall bar stools, to the far left but close enough to be within arms' reach of the entertainment. Like we'd pressed a magic button for service, a busty waitress in black strappy lingerie, her hair in generous waves arranged tantalizingly down her front, paid us a visit.

'So, what are we doing here tonight?' Half-cheekily but more-than-half-curious.

My partner raised his eyebrows in a silent challenge, relegating all responsibility. Yeah, tell her.

I pursed my lips, took a moment to think through our agenda, then made it up. 'We're actually here on business.' Half-cheekily.

'Reeeally?' She giggled. She had this oh-so-annoying but endearingly ditzy way of elongating her e's that made me instinctively overprotective of her. 'So are you two together, or what?'

You answer this one. He stuttered, 'Yes. Yes, we are.'

'That's cute. You never see a girl bringing her boyfriend in here.' She draped a perfumed arm over my shoulder, almost lovingly, and the intoxicating scent of just over-ripened tropical fruit wafted in my direction. 'Well, if you need anything, give me a yell.'

$10 gets her bra off, $20 for her panties. Three tracks per dancer, then they swap. He brought us drinks - they were free before 7pm - and we watched some routines, with wide-eyed attentiveness, even picking favourites. Mine was the third: a smoky-eyed brunette who glided effortlessly though her dance with an air of exclusive indifference - setting her apart from other desperate, painstakingly practiced performers. He chose two: a blonde, and a dark-haired girl, but he also liked our waitress, who danced her turn as well, and I can't know for sure whether his marking criteria was based on technical finesse, or other physical attributes.

Ungluing my gaze, I scanned the bar. Two strippers chatted idly, one of them curling her ringlets around her middle finger, drawing attention to the heart-shaped tattoo on her right shoulder. To my amusement, another stripper, in red, was sitting at a bar stool, mesmerised by her friend's performance. I hadn't seen her dance, and I hadn't seen her come in. Through her lacy get-up she was visibly more wiry than lithe, her cheekbones and rib cage positively popping out from her body. By the time I'd taken my seat next to her, I had also become acutely aware of her age. She was in her late forties, at the earliest, maybe early fifties. Not too far from my own mother.

'Is she your favourite?' I probed tentatively.

'My favourite? Non,' she replied emphatically. The thick French accent was consistent with her husky voice. 'But she is good.'

'So you work here most days a week? Or just on the weekends?'

'Three days a week. Most girls make enough that three days is plenty - plus you have to rest in between. That -' she jerked her chin towards the stage, ' - is tiring. It is quiet now, but when it hits ten o'clock, eleven o'clock,' she shook her head. 'Very busy. We used to have more girls, but down time now. Wait for summer - busier season.'

'How long have you worked here?'

'About three years now. I've worked at other strip clubs before, here and overseas. I started in France, of course, worked in America for some time, and worked all around Brisbane. Sometimes I take weekday shifts at other clubs in Brisbane, for a change of scenery - but I always end up coming back here. This one's the best.'

'What's the best part? About working here - about this job?'

'There's good and bad.' She paused to think. 'It used to be better - more girls, not as tiring, and we all had our top off to start with. Easier to make money that way. But then they said we couldn't dance naked without being tipped first.
We also used to get training when we started. We had a dance teacher and lessons, twice a week. Now we don't - we just get the girls in for an audition, see how they go, and they learn and get better on the job. See, this one -' she interrupted to draw attention to my favourite dancer, who had just begun another routine, ' - I like her. She's very classy.'

'I admire her too. I think she's very skilled.'

'She is. She makes it look easy. Some girls try too hard, too much dancing, too much big hair and perfume and makeup. Anyone can have big tits!' She slapped her own in frustration (I was mildly alarmed). 'Anyone can have a pretty face! There are lots of boobs on the internet. Our job is not to look pretty. It's to entertain. That's why I like this job - I'm not a dancer, I'm not a stripper, I'm an entertainer. I like making people smile. You know, they teach us - not to dance, but how to talk to customers, how to make them feel at home.' I would later relate this to my friend, who would scoff and say, yeah, how to make them spend money and buy more drinks and lap dances. But I was intrigued. 'They teach us to be good company, how to make them enjoy themselves. That - I am good at.
So - how about you? What do you do?'

I told her.

She nodded sympathetically. 'I went to Chemist Warehouse the other day, to buy a cream, and I ask the girl what is in the cream, and she couldn't tell me! Nothing! And I think, Australian pharmacy - ' she made a rude gesture, ' - bullshit. No good. But yes, not enough work, and bad pay.' She pondered this. 'You have children?'

'Oh, god no.'

'Then move to France. Or to America. They make lots of money there. And the chemists in France - beautiful. But never have children. Never be tied down, that's what I say. That's why I've been everywhere - France, Italy, America, Thailand, Australia...as long as you don't have children, you can do whatever you like. Go wherever you like, anytime. Don't have to plan for school, or holidays. Just pack up and leave, with nothing in your suitcase, and start somewhere new. That's my life. Perfect.'

Her eyes lit up, and I almost saw sandy beaches and palm trees reflected in her irises. I thanked her for her company, and her advice, and she leaned in close, taking me by surprise, air-kissing my right cheek. 'No worries, darling - thank you. You take care.'

I watched her dance, later. She ended up getting enough tips to remove both her bra and panties, and I thought, good on you. Good on you.

Out of sheer desperation.

At twelve, I was just little enough to still have to share a room with my sister, but definitely big enough to know that I wanted to write for the rest of my life, even if - or especially if - I wasn't good at it or if I couldn't make any money from it. Even though I had never heard of workspaces like desks and studios that real artists with a capital A used, I felt like I needed a special space.

I diligently cleared out my favourite corner of our shared bedroom, dragged in a tiny plastic writing table - the only one my twelve year-old muscles could safely carry - and an old beanbag facing the window, and called it mine. The carefully selected corner was graced with an uninspiring view of the backyard fence and a small section of lawn, much to the confusion of anyone who must've suspected what I was doing (possibly my sister, certainly not my parents), but it was also the second-last corner in the house to capture the sunset before lights out. Admiring the blood orange splashing across my bedroom walls was like witnessing a beautiful murder.

I never wrote a single word there. Kept it fastidiously neat for years - and then, the little table was moved out, the beanbag was thrown away, and my new bed was backed right up against the windowsill. (It would later become the backdrop to a summer memory - legs propped up against the glass, the smell of freshly-cut grass and morning dew tangling between my toes, and my ear pressed against the cold metal of the phone, sleepily listening to his calloused fingers strumming the chords of the saddest Paramore song.)

I'm sitting here now, in a master bedroom that opens onto a spacious balcony with a view of the sun setting behind the canopies of tropical trees, beside a cold cup of apple and pomegranate tea, remembering that first, unused writing desk. Fire-engine red and decorated with crayon scribbles, courtesy of my younger siblings, so that if you applied too much pressure the underside of your paper was polluted with purple and green wax demarcations.

Last weekend was tough. I had prematurely ended a - let's say, unsavoury - date. But my resentment about it grew like a tumour. So in a moment of weakness I skipped out of class, bought the most expensive sweetened iced drink money could buy (iced chocolate with an extra syrup shot, two scoops of vanilla ice cream, topped with whipped cream / $8), and hopped on the bus to the nearest furniture store.

'Excuse me, but how much does this cost?' It was a simple, no-frills, white computer desk. It was $135, but a thrifty $25 extra for delivery, which - the shop assistant then must've scanned my frame with x-ray vision, weighed up my body composition and mentally calculated my lean muscle mass to body fat ratio - I would most definitely need. I thanked her, made an off-hand comment about browsing around, then promptly exited the store.

The motivation was sheer desperation for emotional - and thus, creative - release, but in the end abandoning the impulse buy was probably a good thing. I'm not sure it would've helped.

The realisation that perfect views of apricot skies, new computer desks and fruit-flavoured teas have done little in staving off writer's block is moderately depressing, and not only to me. I hear twelve-year-old me sigh with resignation, from somewhere inside. She wants to know whether her meticulously maintained corner was for nothing. I'm not sure what to admit to her, that perhaps we aren't artists with a capital A, that we don't deserve special spaces.

Having said that, a friend of mine wrestled with the same frustration today. I read his prose in class, my fingers ready to switch to the histology slides in the case of perusing tutors, and listened with an empathetic ear to his struggles with 'the block'.

So, to Leo, to whom I suggested a change of scenery and thereby debunking all theories regarding expensive desks and sunsets - this is a token of my gratitude, for your writing, and for sharing my little grievances. To my twelve-year-old self - sorry, we aren't artists with an elaborate, cursive A. Perhaps just artists, with a lowercase but nonetheless expressive a. We should try a change of scenery next weekend.


PS. To everyone else - I hope this explains the lack of goss. Rest assured, there are some bits and pieces waiting in the wings (though not necessarily tasty bits, so we'll see how overprotective I'm feeling about letting them fly).