Mouse's Ear Memoirs: Rachel Roberts

I have very mixed feelings about the complex dancer at Mouse's Ear known as Khaleesi. I debated whether or not I should even use her real name, and decided, yes, I will doxx her because she is aggressively abusive, but I will also celebrate her for the rebellious budding feminist who stands up for labor rights that she is. A coward Khaleesi is not, and I can respect that.

Rachel Roberts is of partial Jewish descent. After her friend Lizzie was fired for putting a hex on me, Khaleesi began taking photos of all the dressing room graffiti, including Selexa's Hitler stuff, while talking about how she was going to sue Mouse's Ear and needed evidence. While she was yelling about Lizzie getting fired and threatening to stab me in the head, I was quietly sitting there thinking,

I already took photos of all the Hitler stuff Khaleesi, I'll be your witness and I support your future lawsuits rebel girl. Sue, sue, SUE!”

I didn't say any of that stuff though. I just sat there quietly freshening up at my locker, not looking at her. Khaleesi was loudly and maniacally rambling about me being a demon for repelling Lizzie's hex, so there wasn't a lot of room for constructive dialogue. Khaleesi identifies as a Christian, so while she doesn't practice witchcraft herself, she agreed with Lizzie that I was demonic. She was also claiming that Lizzie was fired for practicing her pagan religion, and called it a termination of religious discrimination. I don't think any lawyer would invest in that argument, but I was impressed by Khaleesi's litigious inclinations. Khaleesi has stated that she is bipolar, and I can believe that. The night Lizzie was fired wasn't the first time Khaleesi harassed me; that started weeks before.

Khaleesi had an unpleasant habit of falsely accusing dancers she didn't like of having vaginal infections, telling management about her suspicions, and then wrangling other people around her to try to determine if there was an infection. While the dancer in question was on stage naked, she'd encourage staring in an impolite way. She did that to me as well as others. She expressed concern about going on stage after such diseased people were up there before her, infecting the stage. None of these infections actually existed that I knew of, but that didn't stop her from reminiscing about all the past vaginal infections she thought she saw.

Khaleesi was in her early twenties, and very emotionally immature. She perpetually smoked cannabis out of her vape pens upstairs, and graduated from a high school within walking distance of Mouse's Ear. She had no children, and did rely on Mouse's Ear as her full time job. She mentioned a few times that she spent over one thousand dollars per month on cannabis.

Khaleesi became aggressive with me around mid-June, about a month after I started working at Mouse's Ear. While she was on stage, a customer who was sitting at her stage turned around to talk to me. I don't normally approach customers who are sitting at the stage, because it is a disrespectful thing to do to the stage dancer. It's also against the rules at most other clubs. So, I told him that and tried to defer his attention back to Khaleesi on stage. He got up from sitting at Khaleesi's stage though, and asked to buy a table dance from me. So, I sold him one. While I was dancing for him, Khaleesi got off of her stage, got up close to me and started yelling things at me such as,

“I'll run you out of the club! I'm sick of you stealing customers!”

Khaleesi is much smaller than me, so she wasn't a physical threat. I did tell the Brownings about it though, and they attempted to prevent her from bothering me in the future. After that, like Lizzie, she also called me “cut throat” with regularity, and went out of her way to encourage other dancers to dislike me.

Khaleesi sometimes misplaced her belongings and accused me of stealing them. While I steal from corporations such as Whole Foods, I'd certainly never steal from Khaleesi or any other dancer at Mouse's Ear. It was likely Khaleesi just couldn't find her belongings because of the fog of cannabis and mania.

Khaleesi often made fun of me for having a wave to my hair, because she thought I should straighten it. Many strippers in the past have made fun of me for not straightening my hair. Most strippers use straightening irons on their hair. Khaleesi would say things to me such as,

“If you're going to steal something, at least steal a hair straightener, Fluffy!”

Her nickname for me was “Fluffy,” due to my fluffy hair. Khaleesi regularly taunted me because I am much taller than her, but my bosom is modest compared to hers. Khaleesi is one of those rare women who is very petite and skinny, but with very large, natural boobs. She has done swimsuit modeling because she is so naturally physically beautiful. She was unable to understand why I sold so many more dances than her. While I'd certainly agree that Khaleesi looks better naked than me, many people think I am beautiful as well. Khaleesi was mean to the customers on a near constant basis, did not talk about interesting subjects with them, and did not have as much practice faking it, so those factors probably had something to do with me selling more than her. I don't blame Khaleesi for hating the customers; I hate them too. It just takes practice to fake it when you're not a dumb scab who thirsts for customer attention. I always appreciated the fact that Khaleesi was an angry man hating shrew who called out their disgusting existences. I'm a shrew too. She was never one to sit and talk to them for very long like the scabs did. Khaleesi's disgust for male entitlement has the potential to develop into something good. We agreed on many things, but she did not know it. I was unable to articulate my thoughts to her, because she was so damned mean to me. I do have feelings, and it was hard to handle all that she spewed at me.

Khaleesi and I disagreed on many things as well. She was a Donald Trump supporter. She was anti-abortion and stated that if women didn't want to have kids, “They should keep their legs closed!” She refused to provide dances for Mexicans. She occasionally called Ralph “dad” in order to try to get him on her side during times of strife. She disapproved of gay male sex and called her ex boyfriend “poop dick” for having a relationship with another man. She was just a really awful person at the end of the day, who harassed me for not “tipping” Alex Cave. A lot of these things about her are just the result of her conservative environment down in Tennessee. She has a long life ahead of her, and she may change completely. I felt stressed out around her, and sometimes had small panic attacks when she started ranting. Her toxic presence effected my mood, which negatively effected my money making abilities.

Khaleesi had knee problems from working at Mouse's Ear. Many strippers have knee problems because of the mandatory heels. When she was in extreme pain, she neglected to go downstairs to do the two-for-one feature where everyone had to get on stage together and walk off in a line. She vocalized how much pain she was in, and Buddy came upstairs to yell at her. Ralph sent her home one night when she wasn't cooperating with doing the two-for-one. She was crying at her locker, packing up her belongings, talking about how her uncle is a lawyer. She stared at me, tears running down her face, and screeched,

“I'm going to sue this place and get every WHORE in here to lose her job when I get this whole place shut down!!!”

I'm not sure if she knew about my litigious history at that point. Even though she's mean as hell and thought I was the enemy, I was just sitting there, thinking,

Good. I hope you do sue Mouse's Ear instead of just talk about it all the time. I hope you sue the Brownings for everything they're worth!”

Ralph told me that he fired Khaleesi for good that night. Some of the dancers who she texted that night said she was threatening to kill herself. At the start of my next work shift, she entered the dressing room and started getting ready as normal. She stated that Buddy called her on the phone and asked her to come back the day after Ralph fired her. She stated that he knew they weren't allowed to fire her and didn't want to get sued, so they let her come back.

In subsequent shifts, Conner began harassing Khaleesi. Conner wasn't nice to Khaleesi anyway, but after she came back, he constantly watched her, reprimanded her, scolded her for not following the rules, and I was watching him. I watched Conner violate Khaleesi's rights. I watched Conner harass Khaleesi for minor infractions of the rules. I knew exactly what they were doing to Khaleesi, because I've had it done to me so many times. Khaleesi didn't have everyone against her in the same ways that strip clubs get the whole workplace against me, because she had enough friends in there to protect her. I knew the Brownings and Conner were after Khaleesi though.

During one of Khaleesi's last shifts with me, we had a nice conversation. We had both danced in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and both got fired in Cocoa Beach, for not allowing customers to put their hands on us. Florida clubs are basically brothels, and sometimes when travelers dance down there, it's easy to get fired if a customer complains that they cannot touch. So, Khaleesi and I discussed how gross managers in Cocoa Beach are for never defending our bodily autonomy or protecting us against customer harassment. She decided she liked me after that, told her friend Aspen she liked me, and was nice to me. Then she was fired.

The official reason the Brownings gave for permanently firing Khaleesi was that she had drugs in the dressing room. They were referring to her cannabis vape pen, which she had for a year and a half at Mouse's Ear and was never fired for before. It was obviously a discriminatory termination because Khaleesi discussed the working conditions of Mouse's Ear and complained about the rules with regularity. It had nothing to do with the vape pen, and everybody knew that. Most dancers at Mouse's Ear didn't use the legalese language or know their rights in a methodical way, including Khaleesi who claimed to have a lawyer uncle. I don't think she ever sued the club. I never saw her again.

Khaleesi is back at Mouse's Ear now, since it is no longer owned by the Brownings. I am happy for her. I hope she's nicer to her coworkers, and I hope she understands that whatever the Deja Vu contract says, whatever lies her managers tell her, whatever misinformation is spread, she can sue the club. Deja Vu would probably offer her a settlement, give her wages for every hour worked, give her all of the illegal house fees back, give her all of the illegal cuts of dances, and every tip she's ever given to staff can be calculated into her settlement. She can file a complaint with the NLRB if she is terminated too. I hope Khaleesi uses her high IQ, angry self to document everything, every hour, every fee that is stolen from her, that she photographs every rule posted. I hope Khaleesi uses her social skills that I don't have, to gather her friends and tell them about their working conditions, how Deja Vu has been getting sued since the 90s but won't change, that unionization is the best way to advocate for the working conditions of the dancers, and I hope she uses all her valid and legitimate rage about male entitlement in more constructive ways than I've ever been able to accomplish with my limited social skills. I hope Khaleesi uses her vibrant passion for justice and rebellious nature for the common good. She has so much potential. I'm rooting for her. I’ve always been.