Throughout my stay on the Caribbean island of Trinidad, Cleo and I remained in contact every day. Though a stripper, she is first and foremost, a woman. By communicating online, we’d grown close, even without having actually met up outside of her club. On March 14th 2026, once I’d wrapped up my research into Obeah in Trinidad, I flew back to Atlanta via Miami in earnest.
It was a Wednesday. I went back to the Clermont Lounge and Cleo was there in her thong and heels. It had been three weeks since we’d last seen each other. The tension between us was different from before. We edged towards something closer to being a couple. I was still paying for private dances as before, but the time we spent in the far corner of the club just talking was getting to be much longer than her actual dances.
Strippers are notorious hustlers. The hustle is a con. A skill of the night. The art of reeling in a sucker to spend as much money as possible whilst giving nothing in return. Japan has its own version of them working in hostess bars up and down the country. Was Cleo the real thing, or had she cleverly hooked me in with an alluring look and her irresistible Southern charm? Distinguishing intent between money and pure interest was the first test:
Cleo: “The money I make stripping is great, but money is everywhere and it comes and goes. I genuinely enjoy spending time talking with interesting people like you.”
J: “Alright then. Meet me outside tomorrow. Thursday’s your day off, isn’t it?”
Cleo: “It is. OK. I’ll make it happen. I’m sorry about last time. I won’t stand you up tomorrow, I promise.”
By now, I’d overcome my hesitance and made a habit of touching her during her each dance. She never resisted, but she did have this tendency to move her body at a frantic pace regardless of the tempo of music. She says it’s her style, but I asked her if she’d slow it down, just for me. Cleo dropped her speed and began swaying her naked body left and right to the rhythm of the slow jam. Finally, I could take her in properly. Her taut nipples and perky, supple backside were tantalising in slow-motion. Her silky chestnut hair that reached down to her waist flowed, releasing her scent with each movement. She really is beautiful. As her back was turned, and she bent over, I leaned in, brushing my beard across the skin near her vagina. Cleo let out: “Oh my god, you’re making me horny right now.” It seemed her own feelings were beginning to stir. We made plans to meet outside the club the following day, and I left the Clermont Lounge at 2 in the morning.
Outside, the security staff had drawn their pistols from their holsters. I asked what was going on. “Three hoods are gathered nearby. It’s not safe”, they told me. Atlanta, it seems, is a dangerous city.
Lap Dances: $120
Cumulative Total: $280
＊＊＊
March 19th, 2026 – First Date Outside the Club
The day had come to meet Cleo outside her club. A message arrived: “I won’t flake you this time”. She suggested meeting at a café near the Clermont Lounge before her shift began.
I waited for her outside the café. Would I succeed in extracting a bona fide American stripper from her natural habitat? I wasn’t nervous exactly, but my pulse was going through the roof, and each second felt longer than the last. After a while, a familiar silhouette in a long black dress appeared, walking towards me. It was Cleo. She looked nothing like a stripper – just an ordinary girl. We hugged on the pavement and the tension dissolved at once. The club had been too dark to see her eyes properly, but in the evening light, her eyes beamed a vivid green hue. They drooped off slightly to the sides, making her look beautiful in a gentle, comforting sort of way.
Going on a first date with a girl you’ve already seen naked is a novel experience. With a square girl, the man works tirelessly towards the end goal of undressing her naked. A date with a stripper inverts the whole dating experience. I’d already seen Cleo naked numerous times, and I already liked what I saw. In a way, this order of things made much more sense to me.
Her height surprised me – she must have been about 150cm. In the club, she struts around tall on thick platform boots with heels, but meeting her in a normal setting felt completely different. “What are you so surprised about? I’m just a regular American woman!” she said, laughing at my obvious stupefaction. I bought her a coffee and she thanked me. What a well-mannered, sweet girl she was. We sat on a bench outside the café and talked:
J: “I’m feeling a bit strange right now. I’m not exactly nervous, but I’m feeling really high.”
Cleo: “Look, chill. I’m just a regular American woman.”
J: “Yeah, but meeting you like this after having already seen you at the club is not like a normal date. It’s a first for me, and I’m enjoying the sensation of that dynamic. I’m actually so chuffed that you agreed to meet me outside the club.”
Cleo: (laughing) “Well! I don’t often meet up with customers I met at the Clermont. But there was something unusual about you. I get plenty of invitations, obviously, but in this industry you have to be very selective. There are many stalkers and sexual predators. Most of the men are very dangerous.”
J: (laughing) “Fair enough. I’m selective too, you know. There’s something different about you compared to the other strippers. The others look like they’re dancing purely for the money. But I got the sense that you had a different motivation.”
Cleo: “Oh? And who made the first move, then? I’m pretty sure that was me when I approached YOU to offer YOU a dance. And yes, the money is wonderful, and I’m grateful for it, but dancing, at least for me, is an energy exchange. I could see from first glance that you had an unusual presence and aura about you. Like, I feel I’ve seen you before… somewhere.
I have Scottish blood in me originally, but I also have Creek (Native American) blood mixed in, as well as some Jewish. I’m guided by a Kachina spirit called Kokopelli. Kokopelli is a very important spirit for my family – a spirit in the form of a flute-playing lizard. I play the flute too, so I feel his influence on me.”
Many Westerners today (particularly those of pale skin) pursue foreign belief systems due to a kind of spiritual vacuum that has opened as a result of the academic war on Western culture. Some go to Bali to learn yoga and show each other their stretching routines. Others play at being monks, like what I encountered at the Vipassana Meditation Centre in India, a truly terrible place. But Cleo showed none of that confusion. She knew her own family’s traditions and tried to live by them. How refreshing.
J: “That’s interesting. Through my Eurasian Odyssey, I’ve sought to continue the tradition of ancient Greek mythology – the Odyssey. Ancient Greece is the foundation of Western culture and civilisation. I try to keep it alive, or rather, bring it to life by continuing our tradition of adventure and exploration.”
Cleo: “Oh, that reminds me. I’ve been meaning to ask you: Did you get the COVID vaccine? I’m a pretty hardcore anti-vaxxer, just so you know.” (laughing)
J: “Of course not 😏.”
Cleo: “That explains it. You are so full of energy, and your skin looks really, really healthy.”
J: “Thank you. You’re in decent shape yourself.” (laughing)
Cleo: “I fast regularly. It’s Lent right now so I don’t eat anything during the day. I’ve never been overweight in my life.”
J: “Good for you. That makes you one of the good ones. I have a running joke amongst my mates that the truly evil people of this world are all fat. Ha. It’s a joke, obviously. Nevermind. Anyway, I have a proposal for you. I really want to give you my first book, so how about a barter trade: two lap dances in exchange for one book. The prices come out the same. What do you say?”
Cleo’s face beamed with excitement at this.
Cleo: “Yes! I’d love to read your book!”
The café date was going well, so I used my classic move: asking to hold her hand. She let me. She was very receptive, so moments later I pushed my luck and lifted her small frame, sitting her on my lap like how a small bird settles onto a branch. She didn’t resist at all. It was a very sweet moment. I pushed my luck some more, asking if I could kiss her. “No! My kids have colds and I don’t want to pass it onto you!” Cleo protested, flustered.
(Cleo has three sons. Each has a different father. The eldest and second son were born out of wedlock. The third was born to a husband she later divorced.)
J: “I’m not afraid of any germs! Aren’t you an anti-vaxxer anyway?” (laughing)
Cleo: “Yes, but… I’m just not ready to kiss you yet. It’s too fast!”
J: “Fair point. I understand. I’ll respect your boundaries.”
Cleo: “Thank you, Julian.”
She remained seated on my lap with my arm around her waist as we talked and enjoyed each other’s company. Then, a young man walked past the front of the café. Cleo greeted him with a “Hey”, but he didn’t respond. He just looked, and kept walking.
J: “Do you know him?” I gave Cleo a suspicious look.
Cleo: “Yeah. He lives nearby. He’s been struggling without a girlfriend and came to me for advice once. How rude of him to ignore me! But actually, I think him seeing us like this will be good for him.”
J: “Why?”
Cleo: “Because seeing me sitting on your lap like this, with the two of us holding each other – he will learn something about how to approach a woman. He needs to be more direct.”
J: “….”
The first date with Cleo lasted for about an hour and a half. After she left for work, I paced up and down the neighbourhood, replaying everything in my head, running on an immense emotional high from the euphoria of a successful date. Next to the café was a fairly stylish thrift store. I walked in and spotted a decent pair of sneakers. I seldom make impulse purchases, but for some reason, I bought a pair of purple/yellow Nikes to mark the occasion. After dark, I made my way to the Clermont Lounge. I flung the door open and there was Cleo at the back, already in nothing but a thong and platform heels. I took a seat at the bar, and when she noticed me, she walked over, swaying her hips confidently from side to side as she traversed the length of the strip club – coming straight to me without hesitation.
Cleo: “Thank you for earlier! I had such a great time!”
J: “Me too! I was so high after that that I spent about an hour just wandering around trying to come down.” (laughing)
Cleo: (laughing)“Me too!”
J: “Alright then. How about a couple of dances for the Odyssey?”
Cleo: “You got it!”
We moved to the dimly-lit far corner of the club. It is somewhat of a blind spot, and the music barely reaches that far, so it’s much easier to talk in private there. I took a seat and Cleo sat down beside me. Before her dance, we talked, and as we talked, I gently ran my hand across the small of her back, caressing her, in a manner no other customer or dancer could see. When she danced for me, her performance was more sensual and heartfelt than before. She turned her back to me and brought herself close before bending over. In that moment, an unforgettable scent reached me – the most compelling, intoxicating ambrosia of any woman I had encountered in all of my years. I was dazed. From that moment on, I was held in a state of entrancement.
Her scent remained on my mind for well over a month. What’s more; more than wanting to kiss her, I wanted to taste her. It was not even a question of wanting. I simply had to. Perhaps Cleo knew the spell she had cast on me and the effect it would have. That must be why she smelt like that. Human beings are animals too. We have animal attractions, pheromones, the same as any other creature. Cleo had stimulated me with that kind of powerful attraction, and she kept herself in reserve as a reward for how far I’d be willing to pursue her.
Lap Dances: $60
Cumulative Total: $340
＊＊＊
The following day I had to leave Atlanta. My travel itinerary was heavy: Atlanta to Paris, France, then Paris to New Delhi, India. A one-way ticket to the other side of the world for only $300! My plan to promote the Eurasian Odyssey in America this time hadn’t worked out, but there would surely be other occasions to try again.
I left Cleo behind, but we stayed in touch daily via Instagram. Every day, we sent messages back and forth, with the occasional phone call. In doing so, I introduced her to my life of mythology. Calling her whilst eating plov at a canalside чойхона in southern Tajikistan. Calling her the day I crossed the Afghan border overland by bicycle. Calling her from a hotel lobby in Bangladesh over coffee. She gradually came to understand that the man she’d met lived a life that by any normal standard, made no sense. For my part, that siren scent of hers still lingered in my head. I promised to be back in Atlanta for her birthday in May. Separated by half the circumference of the earth, we were steadily falling in love.
Cleo’s scent had re-oriented the Odyssey’s trajectory the way the Siren Song causes a ship to stray from its course. In the myth, it was Odysseus’s ears that were enchanted by the Sirens’ voices. In my reality, however, it was this traveller’s nose that was entranced by Cleo’s ambrosia – decisively turning my vessel towards America.
＊＊＊
America is a country with so many problems. Rampant inflation is one. Culturally, the people are terribly confused about themselves (particularly regarding race). Some Americans place flags outside their homes to proudly show they are homosexuals. Then, there are the bad manners. There are those who prop up their dirty shoe soles up on the furniture that people sit on without a second thought. They clearly have not thought about the shit and piss they’ve been walking on all day. America is a place with an almost uncountable number of problems. And yet, there are good reasons to care about this place.
America is the closest thing we will ever get to a “Heaven on Earth”. This land that was promised. Manifest Destiny. Our project. Because if America fails, it means that humanity has failed. That’s the kind of place America is. By contrast, the diverse and noble cultures of the Eurasian continent are all very old. Meaning – everything there is already done and dusted. Building a new future in those places requires tearing down something precious, ancient and, dare I say: better. That destruction and gentrification threatens the rich histories of Eurasia. But America is the predestined Heaven on Earth – still a work-in-progress, the youngest of nations, where we still have so much work to do. That duty and need for creation is the manifest destiny of every person who comes to America. I had sensed this already, which is why I wrote “For the Americans” on the back of the final volume of the Eurasian Odyssey, dedicating my final and proudest book to these people.
Donald Trump first took power by shouting from the podium: “Make America Great Again!”, some ten years ago now. But that call was never meant to be aimed at old men like him, and if it was, it was a misplaced call.
“Make America Great Again” was, to some of us, a calling from the Great Orange Man: To come here and to make it happen.
＊＊＊
May 24th, 2026 – Return to Atlanta
To complete a full lap of the globe, I flew from Tokyo to Atlanta via Houston, Texas. The flight was delayed and I arrived at midnight, with only a few hours before the Clermont Lounge closed. The moment I landed I messaged Cleo to tell her I was assembling my bicycle double-quick to head to the club where she worked. “I’m here until 3am so don’t worry. Be careful”, she wrote back. The long walk from the gate to baggage claims at Atlanta airport (reportedly the world’s busiest, and least efficient, apparently) took a whole thirty minutes. By 1:45am I’d finally assembled the bicycle. I rode flat out towards the strip club, covering 25 kilometres in just over an hour. Then, a message arrived: “It’s been quiet tonight so we closed early! But I’m outside waiting for you on the street. Take your time, don’t rush.”
Cleo flashed the headlights of her car once so I could find her in the dark, guiding this dishevelled cyclist grinding up a hill with full bags attached all over his bicycle. She was in the driver’s seat smoking a joint after her shift. She got out of the car and greeted me with a wide smile. We stepped into the shadow of a tree on the sidewalk and held each other for the first time in two months. There was a lot to talk about, but first, I asked if I may finally kiss her. She looked coy and said yes. And right there on the street, it happened: our first kiss. The forcefulness of her first kiss surprised me. “Hey, hey. Slow down” I teased, stopping her.
That night, we walked the streets around the Clermont Lounge until sunrise. Hugging, kissing, expressing the kind of raw affection you would associate with teenagers rather than adults. I’d enjoyed long-distance relationships a few times in my life, but one where we messaged each other every day, eagerly anticipating a reply – Cleo was the second. Long-distance love is as old as love itself. Indeed, Penelope and Odysseus managed to maintain their bond across time and space even without the aid of social media. But in our epochal times, technology bridges the chasm of time and distance in ways that weren’t possible before. Some say it dilutes the experience of love. Between us, at least, it hadn’t.
Cleo: “Oh! By the way – and please don’t be angry, but I ran a criminal background check on your name.”
J: “What?! Why?”
Cleo: “I’m careful. I have to be. If someone I might get involved with turns out to be a criminal, like a rapist or something, then that would be a red flag.”
J: (laughing) “And? Did you find anything?”
Cleo: “Yes. That’s why I wanted to ask you about it directly.”
J: “It’s nothing serious. I got in a bit of trouble when I was younger, that’s all.”
Cleo: “OK, good. My past relationships were always with men who were in and out of jail. I don’t want to make the same mistake again.”
She told me her life story in full. Cleo just turned 30 and has three children, each by a different father. Her eldest was born when she was 17. Her second when she was 21. Both out of wedlock. The father of her eldest was sent to prison for burgling a vacant home soon after making her pregnant. The father of her second was or is a heroin addict who cut off all contact with Cleo, starting a new family elsewhere. The father of her third son she did marry, but divorced soon after as he displayed a propensity for domestic violence, once even stabbing Cleo’s brother in his chest with a kitchen knife over an argument. Needless to say, none of them pay any child support. All three children are raised by Cleo and whatever family around her able and willing to help. By any conventional measure, hers is a thoroughly broken family, on paper. The sheer weight of responsibility borne on those small but powerful shoulders of hers was staggering.
In spite of all of this, Cleo’s maternal instincts functioned. Rather than pushing for legal child support – which she felt would put undue pressure on the fathers and reduce their willingness to see their children, she tried to keep access arrangements flexible for each of them, for the sake of her boys. But the fathers all moved on with their lives. New partners, new children. They showed precious little interest in her boys, which she found deeply painful. Even so, as a mother, she continued to prioritise having the fathers present in her children’s lives. I couldn’t fathom it. How can men of such ilk be forgiven, much less accommodated? But perhaps that’s maternal love – unconditional and emotional in a way that our simple, self-centered male minds can’t understand or rationalize.
Cleo: “I’m thinking of introducing you to my sons at some point. But first, you would have to meet their fathers.”
J: “Umm. Why?”
Cleo: “It’s a matter of respect. If I make a new boyfriend and the childrens’ fathers don’t know who that person is beforehand, that would cause problems down the line.”
J: “Oh… Cleo…”
I was stunned. From the outside looking in, her family structure looked and sounded like a train wreck. But the edict she issued me made perfect sense. I saw the pillar holding everything together: Cleo herself, at the centre of her own family, putting her children first above all else, calmly managing all of the many, many moving parts around her. Like an Apis Regina, she epitomised the modern American family.
Japan and much of the so-called developed world currently faces a serious population decline. I had long thought that the cause of that sterility was individualism and the abundance of choices available to self-interested people. Financially speaking, having a child in today’s post-agrarian, post-industrial economy is a liability, not an asset. And in a capitalist society that promotes self-interest, population decline is arguably a feature of the system, rather than a bug. But here was something to learn from America and from Cleo on this matter. Money isn’t everything. You make it work regardless. Her life was unconventional, chaotic, but she kept it going, and in doing so, was pushing back against harsh economic realities and the kind of apocalyptic population collapse you see in countries like Japan and Italy.
Cleo’s slight body carried an enormous load. She stood naked before strangers in the Clermont Lounge to dance, and she stood tall doing it. She was a mother. And… what’s more… She was thinking to make room for me in her family. For that, I was deeply moved, and grateful.
＊＊＊
May 26th, 2026 – A Day Together
Cleo took the night off work to spend the day with me. We met at the same café as before. The weather was horrible. A torrential downpour of the kind you only see in North America. I rode ten kilometres through the deluge from the east side of Atlanta where my AirBnB was. She drove in from the west side of the city.
I wanted to give her something. A necklace I’d bought at a jeweller’s in Afghanistan during my research there a month earlier. I had the necklace customised. It was not the polished, Western-style jewellery you’d find in a regular shop. It was something complex, intricate in design, and altered to fit the body of the wearer. Afghan jewellers will happily accommodate any request and modify designs on the spot. It was a gift with a slight “intent” behind it, customised by a man who had already seen the future wearer dance naked. Indeed, I intended for Cleo to wear it at the strip club. Five triangular shards of Lapis Lazuli (a striking blue gemstone native to Afghanistan), suspended on a chain that would hang low, in between her breasts.
The café was attached to a small museum of sorts. With the rain keeping people away, not even the staff were present. I took her hand and led her into this empty space, and the two of us sat together in the quiet. I reached into my bag and presented her with the necklace.
Cleo: “Oh my – are you sure? This is beautiful.”
J: “Of course. It was made for you. Please, let me put it on you.”
The American stripper standing before me blushed. I reached behind her slender neck with both hands and fastened the chain. Then, stepping back, I gently slipped the shoulder strap of her blouse to one side, exposing her bosom. She didn’t resist. Of course, given that she undresses for work, being a little bit nude here probably wasn’t a problem as such. But her countenance conveyed a slight unease. It was as if she was asking herself who this man was. This man, a traveller, a foreigner, appearing out of nowhere at her strip club, over and over, pouring affection over her like a waterfall.
By design, the stripper profession brings women into close contact with many men. Private dances in the club, public stage dances, and, at some venues, the possibility of being taken to VIP rooms. What is negotiated and takes place behind those closed doors is strictly between the stripper(s) and customer(s). The stripper’s world is one in which the relationship between man and woman is fast, transactional and sexual. Knowing this, I was forced to ask myself: What exactly I was getting myself into, and what was drawing me to this woman standing before me? To be sure, this was not a woman for a man prone to bouts of jealousy. If you’re weak to jealousy, you should go and find yourself an innocent village girl from the countryside who knows nothing of any of this. Fortunately, I myself have never been the jealous sort. More recently, however, I began to gradually turn my back on “square” girls. Their supposed innocence could no longer hold my interest. In a section of the third book of the Eurasian Odyssey, I ventured deep into the seedy underbelly of the world of commercial sex **as part of my research**, obtaining a single, hard-earned truth by my own hands. A forbidden truth. I asked myself the question that nobody should ask: Were the sex workers I encountered worse than the “square” women I had known in my life?
The answer to that taboo question unveiled a beautiful and precious gem of a truth: No. They were not any worse. I could not say that about them. I would be lying if I did. They were not any worse. They were not any less. They were not any lower. They were just… girls.
I knew Cleo’s profession, and chose to pursue her anyway. Something told me that this would work out. We were just two people who had found each other out of the darkness of the world we inhabited, and chose each other.
When we finished our coffees, I suggested going back to my AirBnB to rest. She agreed. I clumsily folded my bicycle, half in disbelief, pinching myself, and shoved it into her SUV. Cleo drove us to the east side of Atlanta. Once we arrived, I took her straight upstairs to my room. At last, we were alone together. And finally, her scent, which I’d been carrying in my head for months – I got to taste. Her scent did not betray the excitement and determination it incited in me. It was not long before we were making love with an intensity that had built up over time and distance.
＊＊＊
In the ancient myth of the Odyssey, Odysseus faces a scene in which he must navigate past the Sirens. Sirens were beautiful feminine creatures of both the sky and the sea, lurking in a strait, whose “Siren Song” enchanted any sailor who heard it, causing him to lose all sense of purpose and direction, until his ship was torn apart on the jagged rocks of the channel. The esoteric moral of the myth is that female allure is dangerous and must be respected. The ever-cunning Odysseus, however, devised a way to both hear the Siren Song and to transit the strait safely. He had himself bound to the mast of his ship, ordered his crew to seal their ears with beeswax, and commanded that under no circumstances were they to untie him. That is how Odysseus heard the mythical Siren Song, and still sailed through unscathed, living to tell the story.
That is ancient Greek mythology. In reality, in my case, a woman named Cleo, a proverbial Siren by any measure, had drawn me back to Atlanta time and time again with something more potent than any song: her scent. My story is not myth but reality. And my reality is that I had a job to do in America: to spread the Eurasian Odyssey – to succeed as an author, no matter what it took. Would Cleo be a part of that journey, or would she be the demise of it? Or was this simply a matter of successfully extracting a beautiful stripper from her club and sleeping with her? Sleeping with Cleo forced me to ask myself what she actually meant to me. Men are said to try their hardest only at the start. The question now was whether this was real love or just lust. The same question must be visiting her as well: was this traveller’s love real? Or was she just another “adventure” amongst countless others?
＊＊＊
I don’t use condoms. As I wrote in the third book of the Eurasian Odyssey, I believe STDs are only for the weak, and that I considered STDs “overrated”. I also think sex without consequence is essentially meaningless. That’s my quixotic view on things. Cleo, by contrast, was far more cautious. She insisted on my using a condom as a condition on the first occasion, and I gave in to her demand. From the second time onward, however, I refused, ensnaring her in an insidious logic trap: “If you’re not ready to go all the way with a man, then you shouldn’t lay with him at all.” And so, we began having unprotected sex. She also revealed that for moral reasons, and because of their harmful effect on female hormones, she used no contraceptive drugs of any kind. In other words, Cleo was sleeping with me raw. I was pleased. If she were to fall pregnant, I wouldn’t consider that a bad thing. It would, in fact, be a cause for celebration. A new life between us would be a major event for a man still without children and a chance for life to change in a profound way.
After sex, I cooked up a meal in the AirBnB kitchen. Porcini pasta. During the olive harvest on the island of Sardinia the previous autumn, I had harvested these prize porcini mushrooms in the wild, sliced them, dried them in the Mediterranean sun, and kept them preserved. I rehydrated them in water and cooked the spaghetti in the mushroom broth, serving it up with pecorino cheese. After sex, Cleo seemed dazed, deep in thought, but my pasta brought her back. “Good?” I asked. “Yes, really good”, she said.
After eating, Cleo stepped outside the front porch for a smoke. She was there for a while, so I went to check in and found her gazing up at the night sky. I crept up behind her and held her gently. “Look,” she said. “Bats. I can catch bats, you know. If you put a small light inside of a sock or pantyhose and throw it up in the air, the bats come towards it. When they get close enough, you can catch them out of the air with your own hands”. I’d never seen or heard of such a thing, so I asked her to show me the technique someday. We stood there holding each other for some time.
After Cleo got in her car and drove home, I went back upstairs. The room was filled with the sweet scent of her sweat and body. At that moment, I was struck by a wave of deep remorse and dropped to my knees. I realised that, for the duration of her stay, I had completely neglected the five daily namaz prayers I’d been maintaining since my time in Afghanistan. The Siren Scent had spellbound me so utterly that I’d forgotten the ritual prayer that I’d been keeping every single day since I visited the serene mountains of Badakhshan in northeastern Afghanistan. At once, I performed ablutions and fell to the floor to pray for forgiveness.
Then, a strange idea came to me. There was a way to protect myself from her alluring scent: the cinnamon oil I’d been gifted in Vietnam. It was enormously potent, and if applied under the nostrils, would overwhelm the scent of any woman. In the ancient Odyssey, the sailors had their ears sealed with beeswax. In the parallel of my reality, I would saturate my nose with the indomitable odour of cinnamon oil. I reasoned that this would let me keep my head around Cleo, so that the Eurasian Odyssey may not to be undone by my own worldly, primal desires for her.
It didn’t work. We saw each other every day. In the daytime, I’d work alone in my room writing speeches, thinking through different strategies for selling my books. Once it got dark, I’d cycle to the Clermont Lounge to be there as Cleo finished her shift, and we’d talk late into the night, go home together, make love, and then she’d drive herself home in the early hours of the morning. That remained our little routine for days on end.
One Thursday evening, however, before going to work, Cleo came to my AirBnB. We were on the bed together, as usual, moving towards sex. I undressed her, and then, she stopped me in my tracks.
Cleo: “Aren’t you going to use a condom?”
J: “No.”
Cleo: “Then absolutely not.”
J: “What? Is something different today?”
Cleo: “What exactly do you take me for?”
Her manner was nothing like her usual jovial self. Something had come over her. It was as if she was possessed. Her tone turned cold and sarcastic, speaking only cynical barbs. I was perplexed, unable to get a word in as she launched into a tirade built up out of years of accumulated pain and exhaustion from the constant, lascivious, male gaze.
Cleo: “You really played me perfectly. I’ll give you that, Julian. Well done, really. You’re the only man besides my children’s fathers that I’ve ever let inside me without protection. You found my weakness, used me exactly as you planned and manipulated me psychologically and emotionally. You weaponised sex to back me into a corner, making me take huge risks I was not ready to take. You shredded every sacred principle I’d held onto and desecrated them. Congratulations. I actually really liked you. But you’ve broken my trust repeatedly. I thought you were special – different. But you’re weak, just like any other man. Typical. So typical. You don’t deserve my time.”
J: (flabbergasted) “Darling… I … I don’t know what to say.”
Cleo: “I only kept Instagram on my phone to talk to you anyway. It’s time to delete the app. And you should stop coming to the strip club to watch me.”
I reached for her hand. She pulled it away, got up from the bed, and began to dress. And with that, she walked out of my AirBnB, got into her car, and drove off without looking back.
Unbelievable.
Yet again, I had let a wonderful woman slip through my fingers. How many women sent to me by God had I squandered over the course of my life!!! The very thought sent freezing cold shivers down my spine. “A”. Nastasya Filippovna. Fourie. And now, Cleo. I was blessed with encounters and relations with beautiful, wonderful women from around the world, the envy of any man, and without fail, every single time, I lost them. It was as if the blessing was a curse, and that my destiny had been designed with cruelty to wear me out of love and make me give up on the divine expression of the feminine.
But giving up was not an option. That also is, our shared destiny. Man and woman.
Two days later, I was due to leave Atlanta for Mississippi to give book-related lectures. It was a Friday night. Cleo would be working. Before leaving for Mississippi, I had to try one last time to reach out to her. I gritted my teeth, swallowed my pride, and rode my bicycle to the Clermont Lounge.
Friday night at the strip club was jam-packed. I meekly opened the door to a blast of aggressive rap music. Through the throng of anonymous drunken entities, I made out the silhouette of a familiar figure. It was Cleo. She was deep inside of the club, her long hair tied up in a bun at the back of her head. Naked, she gyrated her hips in the middle of three seated men, gracefully strutting on a sixpence in her thick platform-heeled boots. I stood in the shadows resting my hand on a pillar which I leaned onto for support, exasperated, looking on from a distance. Her punters were three rowdy yuppies. One of them grabbed at Cleo’s ass violently. One ogled lecherously, while the other clutched a bundle of $1 bills in one hand, and with the other, forcefully shoved a couple into the garter she wore around her thigh. They carried on drunkenly. They treated her like… she had been rented for their amusement. For her part, she danced with everything she had. I could even make out beads of sweat appearing on her forehead from a distance. The scene etched itself permanently into my bleeding heart.
I just stood there leaning on the pillar holding me and watched.
And I watched.
And watched.
Not knowing how to think of any of it.
I just watched.
I had come to know this woman.
This Siren.
This… Mother.
To feed her three little boys, this mother bore her all for these three drunken men, twirling around to the music of her life.
I watched.
I couldn’t judge what I was witnessing.
I had never been faced with something I didn’t know how to judge.
I just watched.
I had tried to get this woman pregnant. And then I lost her.
Before me, other unscrupulous men had done the same and gotten her pregnant. This was where it had led.
The reality of her existence: stripping naked, bearing all, dancing for strange men who put their hands on her for laughs.
For a few bucks.
…
What a woman…
What a mother.
……..
I finally understood: I was about to contribute to this cycle.
As I watched Cleo in her element, I arrived at a single kernel of truth:
We gotta treat each other better.
We have to.
＊＊＊
Cleo’s turn to take the main stage arrived. She stood on the elevated stage platform in front of hundreds and tossed off her robe, bra and thong. She spotted me nearby, lurking. She shot me a look for just a moment. Not quite a glare, and definitely not a welcome one. I knew she probably wouldn’t talk to me, so I threw a handwritten note I’d prepared earlier into the scattering of dollar bills chucked on stage. As Cleo finished her act, she got on her knees to sweep up the cash from the floor. She picked up my note last and dropped it into her bucket. Then, I waited. In the note I had written: “Talk? I don’t want to leave you on a bad note”. But she didn’t come over. Not even to offer me a private dance.
There, I had my answer:
It wasn’t about the money with her.
I waited a while longer. She wasn’t coming. It hadn’t worked.
I rode my bicycle home to my AirBnB through the night, drifting, drunken. I did shed a tear. It was a tear of joy.
A joy to have known, to have held, and to have had.
To have loved.
Lap Dances: $0
Cumulative Total: $340
＊＊＊
Addendum – An Essay by Cleo
As I sat in the driver’s seat of her American-made Buick SUV for a moment of rest, I turned to the woman who had allowed me into her life, her home, and casually asked: “If you ever had a daughter, would you want her to be a stripper too?”
It had been a long day in the sweltering southern heat. For hours, we had been moving boxes, mattresses and bin bags filled with all manner of things from Cleo’s old apartment to her new one. We were tired but motivated. I was determined. They say you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their bookshelf. You can tell even more by helping them move home. Her kitchen was stocked with the most elegant and comforting plateware. They were ornamental yet functional. Although I met this woman as a stripper, what she revealed to me as our relationship progressed was that she was as much a dedicated homemaker, if not more. Indeed, the gradual process of discovering her inner life was far more profound and exciting than the mere act of a girl revealing her physical body to me.
I had come to see Cleo in an entirely new light over the course of the summer. Fucking, falling out, then falling in love over and over again. Each time, she let me in closer to her fascinating American life. It is amazing what you find in the world when you’re simply curious and engage with it, without looking for anything or anyone in particular. Most people know what they want. At least they say they do. And they are poorer for it.
I had found in Atlanta a true southern woman of high taste and sensibility. I was just happy to be with her. But to be able to help her in a meaningful way? The struggle was, in fact, a delight.
Looking shocked that I would even ask such a question, she began to answer. Then, I stopped her, and asked her politely to give me an essay. Here it is:
＊＊＊
J: “If you had a daughter, would you want her to become a stripper too?”
The question is not a simple one. The answer however is much more complicated to piece together. In short, I would say absolutely not as someone who has seen the stripper industry first hand. Its not some glamorous experience like most make it out to be. I want a daughter one day so badly. I want to raise up a little girl to be a big woman. Not so much in size but in credibility. I think if when I have a daughter and she hypothetically chooses to be stripper that it would tear me apart mentally. I would feel as if I had failed in raising her up to be a person of modesty and honor. I dont want to cut down any fellow strippers out in the world today but seemingly being a stripper is a very small part of the “world” that we live in.
I have no respect for worldly things or ideals. I never want to be worldly and I damn sure dont want any of my children to become worldly people. The world is not good and it killed my Gods son. When I have a daughter I want her to be a prize jewel so to speak. I want her to hold herself with the utmost respect that I dont think is possible for someone who becomes a stripper, or if it is then they arent so good at integrating that into their work field. I would want her to use her skills and intellect to do far more than teasing the sexual immoralities of such atrocious men and people. The male psyche is far more sensitive than that of females I believe. Strong women create strong men. Strong men and strong women are the glue that hold society and the moral standing of our humanity together.
When i have a daughter if she were to become a stripper I would be upset that she chose that way of life. More comes with it than what you bring into it. A daughter or a son is a beacon of excellence of our natural processes and how we can imitate our creator. I would feel very embarrassed and quite upset if when I have a daughter she chooses to work as a stripper. Men and women have so much to offer each other than their sexuality and the liberation of such sexualities is to be called into a space of privacy and secrecy for those that dont know the ancient ways of the ones before us. To actually liberate yourself and your sexuality is to free yourself from the ways of the world and become less like ‘them’. Therefore to free yourself in a such a way you have to commit yourself to something far more bigger than your sexual appetite. That’s God and your relationship to your God..not your sexual partner.
We all got here somehow, some way. That way and how is sex. God also created sex, for us. Being a stripper is selling your body and the fantasy of such acts. The Bible says to guards your hearts as if you think of a woman or man that is not your wife or husband in such a lustful way then you have already committed the sin of adultery. I am no fan of such. A daughter is to be raised up to bring much more than sex or fulfilling a fantasy for such unkept societal standards. To be a muse is another story but strippers are no muse. They destroy images of the powerful woman to be had. A son is to carry on the name and legacy of the ones before him and himself…A daughter is to carry on the family genes and values that are placed into the hearts of those that cherish her, which ideally would be the family that she creates for herself. Ive not met many strippers who were to be cherished for the women that they actually are outside of their occupation. Whether they had a family or not.
I would be highly disappointed to have a daughter and her become an actual stripper. I would feel violated as i would believe that my daughter had become spiritually possessed by a few different demons that were causing her to do this. It would be a dishonor to know my daughter would have to be put in a position in life where she did not learn to value her self and look at herself as the God-like mother of creation that she is supposed to embody and grow into as a woman of God myself. I would feel contempt for the love I have for her as my own mini-me in a sense. It would reveal to me that her self worth would be suffering tremendously and that she had no understanding of traditional values of a woman’s role in the society that we live in today. Or that if she did in fact then she didnt have the means or opportunities to prove that..
If I had a daughter and she were to become a stripper it would mean that I had failed her as a mother and as the God given guardian of her. Human life is far too precious to sacrifice to a false image of destruction and defilement. Most, NOT ALL but most strippers destroy the REAL image of what a woman is supposed to be based on my own experinces of the very topic. To become a parent is to become a Guardian of the child in question. If you have a child and that child grows up to become someone who plays such a negative deconstructed role in society then you did not do a very good job of guardianship for them. I suppose i would disown the daughter that would become the stripper. I would not be able to handle the emotional feats that come with the realization that I had failed at my destiny and being a parent. God chooses me to bring an innocent life unto this world and then I could not show that child how much they mean as someone who is beautifully and fearfully made in the image of God. I would not cope well with that fact. And I’d also be worried about what would happen in the future for the rest of my family to have to live with the fact that she may fall pregnant by someone who saw her in the club which would mean that she most likely in that circumstance would have a bad father to one of my own grandchildren. .. think about that for a moment. Are the men that she’s going to be ‘stripping’ for, are they going to be stand up father’s or is it possible that they would be able to protect her or my own grandchildren from such…
Im not so sure these days. I would fear greatly for her safety and the future of my bloodline. I want the daughter I have one day to be confident and faithful enough in the love that we share for our creator, the Lord above to make sound decisions about what she should do with her body. To bring Glory to God is to honor those values and to make the proper decisions to do the will of God. Stripping would not be one of those decisions. If it happens, I would have more things to look at in myself as a person and mother. It would mean that somewhere along the line of training her up that i did not do something right. If she objectified her body to the point of putting it up front on sale inside the glass display (stage) for the world to see then that means I completely took the gift of life from God and desecrated it. You cannot have the divine feminine without the divine. The divine feminine does not sell her sex or put it out there for a mere gander from some demon possessed individual. Those that are strippers and those that support them in their institutions are all demon possessed at the end of the day(s). I myself have cast out about 5 different demons in my spirit in my own self actualization process of becoming a stripper & mastering being a stripper today. I have also been delivered from Satan and the followers of such during these processes. I could not have done this on my own. I definitely had some help. I have called upon my Lord.
I do not know if I have a daughter and if she were to face these very same things that she would be able to do this as the world we are in today evolves. It gives me a very distraught outlook into the future. I could not approve of my daughter’s decision if this were to happen. Spiritual warfare is a reality and if my daughter were to become a stripper i would think of it as she lost the battle to the devil himself. And then also that she may have lost the battle between herself and the powers inflicted. She would become a victim, and not all victims ever become justified or exonerated. When I bring my daughter into this world I would advocate that she is to be exempt from this reality. There is more to this answer than most will get from reading this passage. Im starting to feel weird here. I should stop myself in my tracks. I feel very weak here as I may have lost a battle along time ago. IT IS said that ANYTHING LOST CAN BE FOUND AGAIN… I have three sons God has loaned me for a short time to bring Glory to The Kingdom. Life as a stripper and as a mother today both individually/alike are no cake walk. Protect your daughters if you have them so they too do not have to end up like this. Personal records and photo evidence of the reality of such ‘situations’. Keep your minds eye open and foster your spirit…or lose sight of your souls intent and become more like ‘them’ who disagree with the message.
20 years old when this photo (on the left) was taken. Pregnant with my second child. A 20 yr old pregnant woman should ideally be taking maternity photos with her partner at this stage of a pregnancy. Some daughters will simply just not make it to that part of life. She will not ever make it to a maternity photo shoot and she will never be seen with a partner in most or any of the photos. She will however be locked away in the back rooms waiting for the moment to be seen. As the smell of alcohol and chemicals(drugs) burn and infected bodily fluids flow around her and inflict her unborn child’s habitat… She waits in travail and she takes her own maternity photos all alone just to remember that this all had actually happened before and to remember the stages of how her body changed with child…and that she will survive and that if she doesn’t then her baby will have a photo of when they were with their mommy if they never got to meet her or if they were to lose her too soon.
Age 21 in the photo on the right. They were taken a couple months after the one above and it was my actual 21st birthday here. I was so big I felt uncomfortable showing so much so I wore the long tank top to try and cover my baby. Although i am wearing this in the photo i couldn’t keep it on as i wished and had to strip it off all the time….. As you can see it did not hide it very well. Happy 21st Birthday to me and to many more.
