I was 17 years old and my parents divorced after 23 years of marriage which of course left me spinning. One of the worst things was that my mom left my dad for a younger man and left me with the choice of living with her and dealing with him and his children or living with my alcoholic dad. Don’t get me wrong I love both of my parents but at the time I had to choose between the lesser of two evils. I chose my dad.

My dad lived in the house that he had built and my mom lived next door. The constantly used me as a pawn in their divorce especially my mom. During this time my half sister came to move in with me and my dad, I was actually excited because she had never lived with us. Kathy was ending her 5 year marriage to Jim and was on the rebound. So I had these two people who were on the rebound living under the same roof. They often went to bars together leaving me to fend for myself; I was 17 so it was fine. The thing with Kathy was that she was really into finding a ‘Sugar Daddy’ so she did all these crazy things like buy every book about landing a millionaire for a husband to calling psychics. I thought it all a bit strange but fun at the same time. Kathy had this notion that if she worked as a cocktail waitress at a strip club then she would surely find her ‘sugar daddy’ and he would sweep her off her feet and all her dreams would be answered. I was less sure but it sounded good and jumped on that bandwagon.

The first night at Rick’s as a waitress was a huge shock. Here I was this prude still in high school with a fake id because you have to be 18 to work there surrounded by topless girls and groping guys. I kept thinking ‘what the fuck did I get myself into?’ at the same time I wanted to act like it wasn’t a big thing so I could make some money. Kathy was eager and a bit excited. The world’s most bitchy manager explained the job sizing both of us up. She also let us know what she thought of suburban well to do kids and said she was expecting both of us to fail. She was right.

I went around wide eyed to my mistake. I saw men with running shorts on with no underwear slid to the side and women running their hands up and down their dicks. I saw triangle tops slid over so men could not only see but taste nipples. I saw plenty of women bouncing up and down on top of a guy’s finger. It was too much for me. I burst into tears after only 45 minutes of being on the job. I made $10 cashed a $1 into quarters and called my dad. He was really upset but happy that I had called and when I told Kathy what I did she said she was coming home too. I guess she had to or she would look bad because she didn’t really want to leave.

My dad made me promise that I would never do something like that again and I had no problem telling him I wouldn’t, it was disgusting. The only problem was that I couldn’t predict the future.

I had enrolled in college after graduation and I was already familiar with the campus since I did running start in high school. My home life wasn’t as predictable. My parents fought more and more with me being the person in the middle. My dad tried to hurt my mom with flaunting slutty women and my mom didn’t really care but cared all at the same time. During this time I was working as a nanny and lifeguarding on the weekends while going to school. It was pretty daunting but I was saving up to move out because my home life was getting more and more hostile.

The pinnacle came when my mom had wanted her dad’s pool table back. Since she moved out of the house she didn’t have a place to store the pool table and left it at my dad’s house. My dad just assumed that it would then be his. My mom finally had a place for the pool table at her boyfriend’s house. Obviously my dad was less than thrilled. My mom pleaded with me to talk my dad into giving the damn pool table back to my mom. I didn’t want to but I did. I had no idea that my dad would fly into such a rage. He pushed me into my room slamming the door and throwing me on the bed. He started screaming at me that I loved my mom more than him and how could I betray him after all he has ever done for me. I tried to explain the situation but it only made him more enraged. He started hitting me and picking me up by the shoulders throwing me up against the wall and back to the bed. My dad is 6’2 and 225lbs of solid muscle I am 5’6 and weigh 115lbs, he certainly had the advantage. He started screaming he was going to kill me and I really thought at that moment he would. The thing was I was obviously really scared but I looked into my dad’s eyes and felt such sorrow for him. His wife and family had been decimated because of a lot of things but everything he had built was crumbling. At that moment I stopped telling him why I had asked him for the pool table I just told him I am really sorry and I loved him. He stopped raging and fell to his knees sobbing. He just leaned his head on my bed and sobbed. I felt for him but I also felt a huge sense of self preservation and realized that I had to do whatever I could to get out and fast. I had no idea how or if I could survive another raging session.

I walked into the offices of Talents West and saw Bobby the guy who originally gave Kathy and me the job at Rick’s. I told him what had happened and that I needed a job that could yield enough money so I could get out of my dad’s house. He gave me another chance at Rick’s but told me I would have to have thicker skin.