Memoirs of a Stripper
by Marie Tsuguda

Chapter One: The Idea

People always ask me, “How did you get into stripping?” Actually, I’ve told so many lies in my career as a stripper—it’s kind of weird to come clean. How did the idea get put in my head? I wondered.

And then I remembered. Oh yeah, it all began in a bar, naturally. I was an alcoholic who didn’t know it. I knew I had a drinking problem, but was sure it would work itself out.

But it didn’t, and I’m sure it contributed to my decision to embark on a career as a stripper at the tender age of thirty-six.

Looking back, I realized that certain situations and behaviors facilitated an easy entry into the world of exotic dancing. So…allow me to give a brief description of where I was before I started to strip.

I was in Nagoya, Japan, a large unexciting industrial city for five lonely years, trapped in a loveless marriage with my absentee Japanese husband, Haru.

I originally went over to Japan to work with a dance troupe. Yes, a long time ago, I actually was something resembling a real dancer. Anyway, I know this sounds so trite you probably think I made it up, but Haru saw me in the chorus, was bedazzled by my energy, and asked the Mama San if he could meet me.

***

Haru was adorable in a roly-poly way—he looked a little like a stuffed teddy bear. He had unusually big saucer eyes that made him look innocent—even though he was far from it.

Haru came from a long line of wealthy samurai. But, his family had fallen on hard times when Haru was just a young boy. Even though his family would always be able to maintain their high social stature, it became slightly tainted because of some of his father’s dealings with some shady characters, aka Yakuza Members. (Japanese Mafia.)

Haru’s father was a real estate mogul. If he needed a loan that a bank wouldn’t provide, he’d use the Yakuza. If he had property that he wanted to bulldoze and build something else, he’d use the Yakuza for that too. The reason for this is it is very difficult to legally evict tenants in Japan. So he would force them out by moving low ranking Yakuza thugs in as many units as he could. These Yakuza’s job was to wreak havoc and mayhem on their neighboring tenants. They’d employ tactics such as drawing graffiti everywhere, destroying any part of the building they could, playing loud music constantly, or bullying and intimidating anyone that got in their field of vision. Eventually, the tenants would get so fed up they’d move.

Needless to say, Haru followed in his father’s footsteps. Although he rationalized that he, unlike his father, tried to do everything as legit as possible and only used the Yakuza as a last resort.

I didn’t know about any of this when I first met Haru, but through the years, his uneasy relationship with these criminals became apparent. I never actually saw the ones that did the dirty work, but I did meet some of their bosses, who looked exactly like respectable businessmen.

Haru was kind and charismatic and promised to love me—and I couldn’t resist. I also wouldn’t be telling the truth if I didn’t admit I had a severe Cinderella complex and was enthralled with the idea of being taken care of. So, we got married.

The first six-months were lovely. We spent our evenings eating the Japanese food that I labored over all day; I really wanted it to taste authentic. It made Haru very happy that I had almost gotten the hang of traditional Japanese food. Haru, like many Japanese, considered food to be almost sacred—it had to be done exactly the way it was done five-hundred years ago; exactly the way your mother taught you, no deviation allowed.

While we ate, we would analyze the food. Did I put enough fish bones in the broth, and did I take them out at the right time? Did I get the sauce just right? Did I put in just enough ginger to give it a tangy flavor?

After dinner, we’d talk about our day briefly, then curl up and watch a movie. Haru loved American movies. And lastly, we’d pull out our futons, and he would make love to me. He was so skillful; he had this unbelievable technique. The only thing that bothered me was it seemed like he was somewhat detached; almost like a male gigolo that knew every trick there was. He just was too smooth and sophisticated. But lacking in passion. It was as if he was doing something he was so effortless at, he had lost the enthusiasm for trying. But I have to say I enjoyed it immensely, mechanical though it was.

Then, the situation changed abruptly. He stopped coming home. And when he did, he showed no interest in lovemaking.

He spent every night entertaining business clients in Japanese bars. I was never asked to go along because I was a wife and wives stayed at home.

 I stubbornly persisted in trying to make our marriage work, but without him around, my efforts became ludicrous. (I’d see him for a few minutes in the afternoon—if he came home—and never at night, because he didn’t get home until four in the morning.)

I never questioned his love for me—I knew he loved me. I thought if I was patient, he’d eventually come around and love me like he did in the beginning.

But gradually I had to admit he would not be coming around.

I tried to remain active teaching English, aerobics, doing TV commercials, and studying Japanese diligently.

At night, to keep the isolation and loneliness at bay, I took to hanging out in bars for some ex-patriate company, and soon after, became nicely dependent on alcohol. I drank every night.

I always thought the reason I drank so much was because I was stuck in Japan. It never dawned on me the reason I was stuck in Japan was because I drank so much. But looking back now, the irrefutable truth was I would never have stayed in Japan feeling so trapped if I hadn’t been drinking.

It was weird how I crossed over that imaginary alcoholic line, as they call it in AA. Up until the age of thirty I never drank to excess. Being drunk, I thought was a “sloppy high” as the notorious comedian, Lenny Bruce, put it.

Then one night, I was sitting in the popular Americano bar, Baxter’s, with a group of ivy-league college kids that were teaching English over the summer to ivy-league kids in Japan, in some kind of elitist exchange program. The thing that particularly stuck in my mind about these kids was their insouciant, omnipotent—I’ll-rule-the-world-some-day attitudes. They were from back East and trashing Californians—saying we had no substance or background. Feeling sadly inadequate, I overcompensated by boasting. I proudly declared that my grandfather’s house in Des Moines, Iowa, was featured on the A&E Channel in their “Castles of America,” segment. They laughed uproariously at this. Iowa? You’ve got to be kidding. No, honey, we’re talking about New England, and about being blue blooded. All the things you’re not.

Realizing I was losing the battle, I gave up. I thought they were a bunch of spoiled brats anyway; I didn’t care what their backgrounds were. Besides they were blowing it by being tremendous hypocrites and talking like sociopaths in the ensuing conversation.

One girl, Pam, a perky college student, bragged about how she would become a district attorney in Manhattan because she was going to Harvard, and her dad was such a powerful man, he would pull the strings for her. Yet, she had just recently been caught shoplifting at the Hilton Hotel in Nagoya where her dad had been staying. Because of his position, the hotel overlooked his daughter’s little transgression. He must be powerful was all I could think, because shoplifting is a very serious crime in Japan.

Her buddy, Jim, was not to be outdone. He claimed he wanted to be a politician. He then started bragging about how he and some of his friends had desecrated a Shinto Shrine up the street. He told how they had decorated it with smashed beer bottles, and even glued a dildo on one of the stone-carved monkeys with crazy glue.

I was appalled. These are our future? I was only ten years older than them but I felt like an old lady, clucking my tongue. These young people of today. I could feel rage boiling up in me. But I just calmly sat there nursing my drink, ruminating upon my situation. A situation so lonely, I had dragged myself out to this bar and allowed myself to listen to these idiots that I would never have given the time of day in California. But unfortunately, the expatriate world in Japan is very small. So small that I wasn’t in a position to be selective if I wanted to speak American. But I couldn’t help feeling saddened and frustrated that I was so starved for American culture, I had stooped to this. For the most part I found my Japanese friends far more pleasant. Yeah. Maybe I didn’t understand why tea ceremony was so important to some of my Japanese Girlfriends—and why they obsessed about getting it perfect. And I’m sure they couldn’t understand why I wore Levis and rode a bike everywhere (they’d be afraid of messing up their do). And I know they were mystified when catching a glimpse into the chaotic mess of my handbag, because the contents inside their handbags were arranged in a meticulous fashion—always. In fact, the entire time I was there, I never saw one girl or woman who didn’t adhere to having a highly organized, immaculate handbag, inside and out. But still—at least I could count on them to be civil and kind.

So what if you’re getting to speak English, these people ain’t worth hangin’ with—go home! I inwardly chastised myself. But suddenly Pam interrupted my gloomy thoughts.

 “Hey, Martina, how come you never get drunk?”

“Uh, I don’t know, it’s just something I’ve never done. I always stop at four.”

“Well why don’t you get drunk? You’d have a lot more fun if you did.”

Since this was a novel idea, and I was at the end of my rope listening to their bullshit, I thought, Why not—when all else fails, get drunk. Go on give it a whirl, maybe it will make this conversation a tad bit more tolerable.

So I started to drink shot after shot, about seven in a row. And I felt euphoric. I started tap dancing on the table. I suddenly morphed into an extrovert! I became this crazy, fun loving entertainer. And at that moment I fell in love with getting drunk. And after that, there were very few days, where I did not drink to get drunk.

Yes, alcohol changed my life. Because, you see, if I hadn’t gotten drunk that day, I wouldn’t have known how easy it was to be uninhibited, which of course paved the road to stripperdom.

But finally, even in my drunken stupor, I realized I needed to get out of my marriage and Japan. I started to plot ways of escaping my dreaded existence. I began saving up my hefty monthly allowance that my negligent husband guiltily gave me, and in a year had enough to bail with. I never looked back. It was like, poof! Five years of my life instantly erased like they had never happened.

I moved back to La Jolla, my hometown. La Jolla is a tony beach community where snob appeal flourishes. I had never fit in. There is a reason behind this. My family had been very rich; then we had been very poor. My dad lost all the money he had inherited from my grandfather in a business deal that had gone sordidly south. It was sad to see my family broken like that. But we survived. About ten years later, when I was in my twenties, my mom and dad invented a successful card game, which brought them back to affluence. But the dye had already been cast. I had gotten a glimpse of what it felt like to be ridiculed for being poor—to be laughed at for wearing worn out hand me downs. It was hard to forget how cruel people could be.

But here I was back in this town with a new attitude. I didn’t give a fuck what people from La Jolla thought about me, or my family. Anyway, I was here for the scenery, not the people. You could not match the magnificent cliffs and crystal blue waters of La Jolla. La Jolla means “Jewel” in Spanish, and that it is.

Soon after my return, I recall nursing a drink in some hotel bar in the Golden Triangle, the newly developed La Jolla where all the noveau-riche lived. For me, it was one of those anonymous places you go to drink hard when you’ve made a fool of yourself in your favorite watering hole and have to wait a bit before going back. I thought, Yeah, this is the life. Now you’re talking, you’ve made it kid. Congratulations, you are out of Prison Japan.

I sat there contemplating my new life when the ubiquitous businessman approached me. His name was Dan. He was a salesman with a fit body, a facelift, and curly gray hair. He asked me if he could buy me a drink, and I said sure, I hated drinking alone. Feeling ebullient, I decided I would get drunk with this guy. He didn’t look like he would solicit me; I still looked too sweet and innocent to be taken for a prostitute.

He asked me about myself, and I proudly recounted my tale of escaping my luxuriant prison. I told him how happy I was to finally be on my own and “love influenced by affluence would never corrupt my spirit again.”

Yeah, right…Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

He was impressed with my tale. He then asked me what I planned to do for work. I told him that I had assiduously studied Japanese for years and planned on working for a Japanese company. There was only one thing keeping me back. I had yet to receive the test results for my Japanese translator license. It would take six months to get the results. That suited me just fine, I told him—I loved hanging out at the beach.

He then asked me, “Won’t you get bored just hanging out at the beach?”

“No way. It’s been a long time since I’ve had fun. The only fun I had in Japan were aerobics and getting drunk. Hell no, I won’t get bored. I’m going to enjoy every fat moment of it. I’m a free woman; I don’t live in Japan anymore.”

“So what are you going to do in the meantime?”

“God I just told you, the beach, honey. The beach! But…I might work in a Japanese bar as a bartender or something, just to keep my Japanese up, or teach aerobics.”

“Well I can see you are in good shape.” His eyes traveled down my body quickly and back up.

I replied with the utmost sincerity, “Thank you, that means a lot to me.”

Being fresh back from Japan, I took his compliment of my body with relish.

Japan in my opinion, was a very closed culture, sexually. Your first impression of the Japanese might be one of an asexual people. Not that they are—far from it—it’s just their sexual feelings are so damn clandestine. Even if a man had been attracted to me, I would have never known it—unless he was very drunk.

Probably if my husband had paid me any attention, I wouldn’t have craved a man’s attention. Add to that I’m an exhibitionist by nature, and you can see I might have had a real problem in Japan.

Of course Dan didn’t know what it had been like in Japan—he probably took my warm reaction to his lechery as wow we got a liberal one here, because he followed up with, “Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you dance in a club?”

I was confused. “What kind of club are you talking about?”

Looking a little embarrassed he said, “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

“Not really.”

“Yeah, I forgot you haven’t lived in America for a long time.” He cleared his throat and hunched over close to me and said confidentially, “You know, a strip club.”