One of the worst parts of my job is having to suck up to everyone, kiss everyone's ass, and do everything they tell me to do.
I guess that's three bad parts of my job. And it's hard for me to pinpoint a good thing right now.
Power? Prestige? The supposed ability to influence and change things, make a difference in the lives of my constituents?
Those are all things I used to think of as job perks. But they're becoming a much smaller part of my job as time goes on.
As a new senator representing the state's poorest district, I don't have a lot of power or sway. I have to beg and plead and swap favors for everything I'm trying to work hard for. Further, as the youngest and newest member of the Ethics committee, I pretty much have to do whatever they tell me to do.
And they just told me I have to be a stripper.
A stripper! Seriously. I couldn't even believe it. I still can't.
But that's exactly what happened during last week's meeting.
"We need to ramp up our investigation of the Rossi brothers," Senator Santara said.
He leaned forward in his chair to stress the importance of what he was saying. Before this announcement he had been staring at the clock on the wall as if wondering how early he could leave to go play golf. But this was one of his platform's priorities and now that it was his turn to talk about it, he was clearly all riled up.
"These guys have been rubbing their criminal organization in our faces for far too long now," he continued.
I couldn't help but almost smile, although I quickly suppressed it. Rubbing something in our faces sounded like a purposeful double entendre or dirty pun.
Everyone knows the Rossi brothers. They are the city's perpetual scoundrels, always in trouble for something but too clever to be caught.
And they're fucking hot. God help me but their handsome faces and strapping chests are the first thing that come to mind when I think of them. Even more so than their criminal activities.
"Their latest racket is this strip club. The Fun House," Senator Santara continues. "They think we don't know it's a cover for a prostitution ring and a drug ring, among other things. We need to expose them for what they're really doing. And make the streets of this city safe again. And win the upcoming election by campaigning on the promise of stopping them, and actually doing it."
A bolt of electricity ran through me at the mention of winning the election. I suddenly paid more attention, nodding along with everyone else.
That's exactly what we needed. To win the election. Oh, and to stop the Rossi brothers too, of course.
If I win this election I will be the youngest full- term senator in the history of this state. Right now I'm an incumbent but I was appointed mid- term so it's important that I win enough votes to be retained.
"Obviously Jessica is the perfect candidate for the job," Senator Santara continued.
Everyone else kept nodding along with what he was saying, including me. Until I realized what I was nodding along to.
"I'm sorry, what?" I asked, raising my hand as if I was in my first day of Kindergarten all over again. "What exactly is the job? What am I the perfect candidate for?"
"To expose them," Senator Santara said. "You're perfect to expose them. By going undercover."
"At a strip club?" I asked, wishing I could implode. Everyone was staring at me, trying not to laugh.
Of course he thought I'd be perfect for the job. I'm a woman. I'm young, and I've been told I'm quite attractive, although I've never really felt it.
Nor have I wanted to feel it. I've wanted to focus more on brains than beauty. I've wanted to prove myself and my abilities. I've wanted to use my intelligence and personality rather than my looks.
But all my colleagues want is for me to go strut my stuff— if that's even what they call the thing that strippers do on stage— undercover. Apparently the way to prove myself in politics is to prove that I'm sexy enough to be a stripper. No one ever taught me that in my poli sci classes in undergrad.
I looked around at the sea of other faces surrounding me along the large conference table, hoping someone else would chime in about how ludicrous it all is. But everyone was just staring back at me innocently, as if we were having a perfectly normal conversation.
As if we were not talking about me taking off my clothes for strangers. For money. Even if it's also for an undercover investigation.
Was I really going to have to be a stripper?
Everyone was still staring at me, as if they were waiting for me to answer that question in the affirmative.
"How exactly would this work?" I asked. "I mean, logistically speaking, how does one just do that?"
"You just do it," Senator Santara said with an exasperated sigh, apparently losing his patience with me. "You just go in and you do it, and I'm not saying it will be easy, but it'll be for a cause."
Stripping for a cause wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind when I'd envisioned a political career from a very young age. I can't believe I'd worked my way through my higher education for the privilege of taking off my clothes for a bunch of seedy men.
But it was my job. And it didn't look like I had much of a choice.
Sure, I could say no, but I'd lose all my support in the committee. Refusing this "opportunity" would probably ruin my political chances and the career I had worked hard for so far.
So I'd donned this tacky wig, these stiletto heels and the skimpiest clothes I could find. All of my attire was left over from a Halloween party I’d attended in college, for which I’d dressed in a stripper costume. Looks like my tendency to hoard old costumes had finally come in handy.
I hope my laptop never gets subpoenaed by the FBI because they would certainly find some strange Google searches. I'd looked up stripper makeup on YouTube. YouTube had also come in handy for finding stripper exercise videos and practicing all my moves.
I even went to a real- life strip dancing fitness class and learned how to work a pole. I'd prepared for this undercover role as best as I could.
But nothing could ever prepare me for coming face to super sexy face with Marino Rossi.