January 8, 2024:
Lies, manipulation, verbal aggression, disloyalty, cheating. These were all dominance games. Attempts to carve out a space she could control — a space in her life where her own agency ruled.
Were they necessary? You'd think she could gain more in the end by creating alliances instead of victims. Friendships based on loyalty, honesty, and mutual respect.
It was muscle memory, I think. Habituated to sex work, the stripper's mode: take as much as possible while giving as little as can be gotten away with.
The question, then: Why become a stripper in the first place?