She Doesn’t Even Go Here

Outcast, aberrant, different. That’s me… I never quite fit in anywhere. Not in school, not in social situations, or any environment for that matter. I was everybody’s friend, but no one‘s best friend. Good at a lot of things, great at nothing. Jack of all trades, master of none.

Welcome to my life! Started off great, promising future, great parents, comfortable lifestyle. Straight A’s, played in band, danced, wasn’t popular, but had what seemed to be great friends, until life took a dramatic turn. In came the bullies, the pressure, the need for acceptance from the perfect Attenhofer family. Dad moved out and on, to a new family, as he’d done a couple other times to the siblings born before me. Dad had a new wife, two new better versions of the kids born before them, new cars, new house, new life. I wasn’t “daddy’s little girl” anymore, I was Don’s deaf, ex wife’s little awkward looking child with coke bottle glasses, braces and hair that looked like a poodles. Less and less, I was included in family gatherings, visits at dads, or anything to do with his super competitive, ultra savvy and rich family.

I was always told I wasn’t pretty enough, or not as pretty as my cousins, not near as smart, or as good at soccer. Whatever I had, I was sure to see quickly, they had better. My mother was amazing, but due to lack of support from my father, ( besides his $400 a month child support checks), she was left to handle any and everything I needed growing up. For her this meant working 10 to 18 hour days, seven days a week while my stepfather worked tirelessly to build his own business. The two of them provided everything I needed, no matter what it took, but unfortunately, I was a very lonely child. I spent a lot of time alone in my room, thinking, dreaming, wondering. At school, I was picked on, never could quite find a really good friend. I had lots of friends, but never a best friend. My teeth were awful, my hair was frizzy, and my glasses made me look like a frog. Fraggle Rock is what they called me.

The summer after 8th grade, before I started high school, was the summer that changed me. My braces came off, I got contacts, and my awkward body filled out, nicely. Men around my neighborhood started taking notice, and so did the boys. When ninth grade started that year and I went into high school school the first day, all eyes were on me, the boys that picked on me, wanted to date me. Or should I say, sleep with me? My extreme desire for attention and to be wanted by someone, anyone, turned me into a monster. Soon, I went from being unnoticed, to noticed and with that came a new type of bullying… Being called a hoe. I wasn’t sleeping with everyone, but for some reason, everyone accused me of sleeping with any and everyone. The rumors and lies had become so intense, I no longer wanted to go to school. Every day I would fight with my mother, begging her to let me homeschool. The answer was always no. So what did I do? I would go to school, hide under the gym in the boiler room until I felt brave enough to make a clean break, then runoff the back of the football field into the Neighbourhood behind the school, and from there, I went where life took me. Sometimes it would be another friends house, or riding the city bus to the mall, hanging out in a fast food restaurant, or just spending the day in the woods. Soon, I was getting caught, getting in trouble, which then grounded me to the house, leaving me more lonely, and without friends than I was before. Fights with my parents got really intense and dramatic, and I pushed every button I could, just wanting my life to no longer include, South Mecklenburg high school.

One night when I was 16, my parents and I got in such a big fight, they allowed me to pack my things and move out. My friend talked her mother into letting me rent a room in their house for $400 a month. I was working at a train model store in the mall, and I could just barely afford $100 a week. The girl I was staying with was a couple of years older, a senior in high school school, and had just turned 18. She went to work at a local strip club, and started making hundreds of dollars a night. Within a month, she had a brand new 3000 GT, all new clothes, always had money to do everything fun and I could barely buy lunch. We were talking one night, and she looked at me and said you know you have a really great body, you should get a job doing what I do. But I was only 16? That’s when she agreed to let me use her old drivers license, as North Carolina had just changed from the old style to the new printed card style, so she had both copies. With 20 or more strip clubs in Charlotte, North Carolina, all I had to do was just go to a different club than she was working at.

The next morning, I took the money that I had from my last paycheck, went to the stripper clothing store I had been to with her, and I purchased a halter top and mini skirt and a pair of stiletto heels. I went home, shaved everywhere for the first time, put on makeup to her advice, and practiced how to dance seductively in front of the mirror. That afternoon, I packed up my outfit in a bag, put on my oldest looking outfit, and drove to the only other strip club I had seen before.

It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon, I was super nervous, and I walked into a club that had two guys sitting at the bar, the rest of the club was empty, except for a fat man with glasses, a flannel shirt, overalls and a shot gun laid across his chest. A beautiful blonde bartender showed me to the dressing room and told me to get dressed and come out for an audition. That day, they were short staffed, which was the normal for that time of day most days, but lucky for me, made for a smaller audience. I got dressed quickly. Freezing and shaking, I walked out into the club and towards the bar. All of a sudden, the attention in the room stopped and was on me. The DJ asked what I wanted to get up on stage too, and when I couldn’t decide, he started to play “sex and candy” by Marcy playground. I pranced around on stage, not knowing what to do, instantly topless and down to a Thong, and the two men sitting at the bar immediately came up and started tipping me one dollar bills and five dollar bills. As the song finished, the patrons screamed for me to stay on for another song. As the second song played, a large group of men came in together, and their attention was immediately on me. The DJ encouraged them to tip me and let them know I was a first timer, and I was doing an audition. They greeted me, with tons of tips, lots of energy, soaked me with compliments and made the unwanted, picked on girl feel like America’s next top model. Never had I ever felt like that. Pretty. Wanted. Popular. When I walked off stage, I scraped up $243 in tips, and was given a hand off stage by the man in the back with the gun. He said you’re hired. I said do you want to see my ID? He said no, it’s probably not yours anyway. Can you work tonight?

Big Al definitely knew I was under age, but that’s what he loved. I was 16, had a perfect set of perky breasts, and I looked just like a Barbie doll. Soon, I was meeting the other girls, going to after parties after work and totally emersed in the fast life. Quickly, I moved in with the beautiful bartender, she had a four bedroom house, with a huge swimming pool and privacy fence, hot tub, pool table, fully stocked bar and freedom! The ugly duckling had become Julia Robert’s in pretty woman.

Soon, I was the “it” girl. I was buying everything I wanted, working all night, partying till morning, sleeping all day, until it was time to do it all over again, day after day. This club had its regular guests, drug dealers, big spenders, famous people… it wasn’t long until I was noticed by a very handsome, suave, drug dealer named Stephen. He was tall, olive skin, green eyes, brown hair, and gorgeous. I would see him pull up at after parties in a BMW, or on a neon green Kawasaki ninja, or in a black Mercedes. All the girls would flock to him to purchase what he had. Not me, I didn’t do cocaine, and had never planned to. Night after night, he would come in the club to buy private dances with me. He would flirt, but as cute as he was, I was enjoying being single and having way too much fun to let him get in my way.

Valentines night, 1997, Stephen managed to finally “get in my way”. It was a slow night, none of us girls were making much money, and he came in. All the girls gathered around, trying to get him to buy a dance from them, but instead, he couldn’t take his eyes off me. A lady came in selling roses for $10 a piece, he bought everyone she had, 21 of them and as all the girls thought he had bought one for each of us, he walked over to me and handed me the bouquet. The man that every girl in the room wanted, wanted me. That night, Forever changed me, and Little did I know would drastically shape my future. I fell hard, and I fell fast, for that man. Crazy, intense mind-bending, fake love and promises. I was so naïve. Before I knew it, I was living with him, in a two-story house, but not allowed to go upstairs because of remodeling. Little did I know he had another woman living upstairs. In fact, I was living in her home. Her being a CPA, she worked during the day, and I being a stripper worked during the night. We never crossed paths. I still had all my things at the house with the bartender, so I would only bring a duffel bag to his house, and we would live out of the spare bedroom downstairs, of which she never went into, and I never went upstairs due to “remodeling”, so he was able to live a double life. He was 27 years old with a 16-year-old girlfriend and a 40-year-old girlfriend.

A few months into the relationship, Steven and I were hanging out with some friends I worked with at the strip club, who just happened to have an apartment above my parents. They were two gorgeous twin girls, Rain and Rhiannon. They were 5 foot 11, had long red hair and smoking, hot bodies. Since we were right upstairs from my parents, I decided to leave one day and drop by and see my parents for a little while. I ended up spending a couple of hours catching up and listening to them Preach about my bad life choices. When I went back upstairs to my friends apartment where Steven was waiting for me, I couldn’t find him, and everyone was whispering like they knew something I didn’t. I soon found out that Stephen was currently in the shower with one of the twins. In just a couple of months, I had experienced my first love, and my first heartbreak.

Stay Tuned!!! So much more to follow!