The Dancer Girl (Prelude) A story

     When I was 17 years old I was a single mother to my son William and living with my mother, brother, and sister. I was working 12 hours a day for minimum wage at Whataburger. I hated my life, my husband was in prison, and I never had money to support William and myself.
     I've always hated my body because I had always been flat chested and a really late bloomer (The Ugly Ducking Syndrome). So for my 18th birthday as a dare my friends told me I either had to strip or skydive. I'm also afraid of heights and needed some money, so I chose a day of stripping. Big mistake.      On June 11, 1999; I walked up to the doors of the Wild Zebra with my shoes and my friends at my side. Everything is such a blur, yet it feels like it was yesterday. Because I was so young I didn't know that I had to come up with a fictitious alter ego, a stage name they called it. I couldn't think of anything, so the managers Paul and Richard came up with Sierra and so she was born.
     I was so nervous that I almost threw up and ran away. Instead, a waitress brings me a shot and then another (Remember I'm 18, not 21) until finally I'm able to go on stage. When you dance you do one song with your clothes on, then the second is when the clothes come off.
     The first song I was great, the second not so much, but it scared me of how easy it was. Then again maybe its because I was buzzing. The lights were in my eyes so I tried focusing on that instead of the men looking at me down below the stage.
     At that moment, the manager Richard appears on the stage with a cake and the whole crowd singing "Happy Birthday." "They did all this for me?" I thought excited by all the attention. I look down at the cake and it reads, Happy Birthday Sierra!
     "Who is Sierra?" I thought, "Wait a minute... That's me."
     The new me. I made 450 dollars that night and the rest is history. Everyday I lost a little of Genevieve and Sierra began taking over. I never knew a person could actually be two people, but  it can happen.
     Genevieve was a child raising a child, still scared and unsure of life, people, and men. Sierra was the exotic woman who no inhibition. She had the ability to manipulate men out of thousands of dollars and enjoyed doing it because every man in Genevieve's life had betrayed her. Her father abandoning her, his brother molesting her, and her husband cheating on her days before their wedding. So instead of men hurting her, she loved the thrill of hurting them, taking their money, and cheating on them first.  
     Sierra began consuming me. She made me begin to hate myself and love myself too much. By the end of my first year, many people never knew who Genevieve was and only family was calling me by my born name. How does that career change you? Well it sucks every thing that made you you. It's like a leech. Every thing you knew about your life and self gets replaced by flatirons, body spray, glitter. Hundred dollar outfits and enough money to live for months that Sierra would blow in one day. The rest went up my nose and blown on alcohol. How did I let it go so far? I didn't think it could get worse, but it did. Oh it did.

                                                I should've went skydiving instead.