Imagine that you work the afternoon shift in a strip club off exit 126. It’s dismal. It’s so dead that you have time to chat with your coworkers, even the ones you’ve never spoken to but you’ve passed on the shop floor dozens of times and thought, “She seems interesting.”
When it’s slow like this, job duties include playing pool in a bikini with Paul, a client who sits at the bar doodling on a napkin until he’s ready to ask if he can tip you to play pool.
You say sure. Paul gets shitfaced on vodka sodas and says he will pay you and your coworker, Rosie to play and he’ll play the winner. He’s been hoping you guys would meet and talk, he mumbles. During the game, you notice bruises on Rosie’s inner thighs, and on her upper arms. At first you look away because your impulse is to be polite by pretending this woman is not covered in fucking bruises. After a while, she begins to relax with you and while sitting, she pulls up her white lacy thigh-highs and catches you looking. You ask her about herself and soon enough you’re commiserating about the shitty club and the treasure hunt the boss insists you do at the end of your shift where you have to tip the dance counter, the floor manager, the DJ, the bouncer, the cocktail waitress. You say it’s the opposite of a treasure hunt.
She’s from South Africa, which seems really far away and hard to imagine coming all the way here to this dinky club in the middle of the desert, just outside of Palm Springs. She tell you about her dog. Soon, you’re in the smoking patio and she’s telling you she’s in a bad situation. She tells you Paul knows about it and he will help her get a phone. You tell her she can keep the phone in your locker. you share the combination with her. She tells you that one other person there, a dancer, knows about her situation. You give Paul your number to give to her and there are many texts and phone calls that happen over the next two weeks that involve coordinating to get Rosie’s passport and ticket home and a phone.
This is only one story out of several stories where a sex worker is trapped and being hurt or held captive and the people closest to her are other sex workers and folks inside the club. Sometimes my coworkers just disappear.
The Epstein class believes that their wealth will purchase them impunity from their crimes. Trump has always believed this. This belief is only more pronounced in Trump’s second term. Trump and Epstein. Epstein and Trump. They blur together in one big cash pussy grab in a burning world.
I believe, more than ever, in the possibility of accountability. And I stand with the victims of Epstein as they demand justice. Let the house of cards collapse.
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