Go-Go and Ezili are dancing cheek to cheek on a Friday night. That is to say they're spinning, glute to glute, on a polished chrome pole at a strip club.
A thunderstorm leaves puddles in the parking lot under a sign that boasts "OMG! These girls are hot!" The strippers try to "make it rain" inside, too: When patrons approve of their gyrations by slipping credit cards into machines that look like ATMs, the sound of recorded thunder rolls across the stage. Sure enough, $1 bills flutter from the ceiling onto the twirling twosome.
The joint is all mirrors, throbbing music, flashing neon and spotlights. Voluptuous young women wearing G-strings, stiletto heels and not much else teeter over the spanking new, Day-Glo acid trip of a carpet. But there's no liquor served here, because in Tampa they can't offer both booze and totally naked women under the same roof.
Speaking of the roof, there's a spaceship up there that features $80 semiprivate "quick launch" lap dances.
After the 10-minute show, which includes a gravity-defying "death lay" against the mirrored ceiling, Go-Go retires to another mirrored room, where she boots up a laptop and chats with fans online via a program called "Club Cam."
Ezili, who is studying to be a dental assistant, strolls in clutching two fat stacks of dollar bills -- $85 for her and $85 for Go-Go after the house takes its cut. Not bad, but they're hoping for a whole lot more when the Republicans come to town Monday. They're counting on the GOP convention to make it rain for a whole week.
Photos: Strip clubs prepare for convention
Go-Go's boss says she's "the best pole girl in Tampa." She says it's hard work and should be an Olympic sport. She's in it for the money, and she swears it's only temporary. Pole dancing is not, as she puts it, "my career path."
A big plus, she says, is the friendship forged with other dancers. "We see each other naked every day," she explains, "so we kind of open up to each other."
sourceBy Ann O'Neill, CNN
updated 10:32 PM EDT, Thu August 23, 2012:
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