*Originally posted on OneHandedWriters, a blog for romance and erotica readers & authors.*

No individual is one-dimensional. We’re all different, depending on who knows us. Depending on what parts of our personalities we let people in on. We can be depraved or innocent, cruel or kind, cowardly or strong. And these traits aren’t static. They change from day to day, from person to person.

For me, this is especially true. I have three very separate aspects of myself. I have my corporate self. I’m the girl who worked hard, went to college, and does a stellar job.

I have my writing self. The person who’s free and a bit fucked up and introspective about it.

Then I have my dancer self. This is the most private of my personalities, because people expect very specific things from a stripper and I’m not any of them.

But there are days that these three separate aspects cause me a lot of issues.

Two friends of my stripper self died last month. A couple who were murdered by her ex.

And so I go to my corporate job, and I mourn her, but I can’t tell them of the fact that we always did dances together, that I’ll always remember the way she danced on stage. The fact that she danced to “One” in the most beautiful manner possible.

I can tell them that she was a beautiful person, that she was a true angel, but I can’t tell them about all the times she hugged me because a guy scared me. I can’t tell them how free I felt with her, and how I’d seen her cry naked. I can’t tell them that she used to motorboat my chest and I’d grab her ass all the time.

I can’t tell them that I knew him because he was the DJ at the club. I can’t tell them that he and I used to talk all the time, and how I never felt uncomfortable with him even though we were chatting while I was in a bra and panties. I can’t tell them that he used to drive me home at 3am after we closed because he didn’t want me to have too wait for a cab on a Saturday night.

These two people knew me more intimately than most of the people at my day job ever will, and I can never convey that to them.

I wanted to post this week about my thoughts on the banning, like everyone else, but instead I wanted to mourn her publicly. I wanted to be able to share these soft and tender moments with an audience that knows that it’s like to have to hide parts of themselves.

Paris and Vinny, as I knew them, were wonderful people, and I celebrate their life. They found one another despite the odds and they made one another so happy. They were so sweet together, so compassionate and caring. They filled one another’s life with such joy and appreciation. I was surprised to realize just how much their presence meant to me, as when they both left the club, I no longer cared to go back.

People who work in strip clubs have a certain understanding and comfort level with one another I’ve never found anywhere else. Maybe it has to do with everyone being so exposed. Sometimes that makes people hard, it makes them put up walls, but not with them. With them, they were comfortable with themselves, with what they were, with the life they’d chosen. That’s not easy when you make a living doing something that people judge and loathe you for. Trust me, I know.

I don’t know what the point of all this is. I guess just a place for me to work out these emotions, to work out the fact that I feel my mourning is inhibited by my inability to talk about these things to many people.

Just like so many other aspects of my life, it has to remain hidden and guarded. No matter what people tell me about their comfort levels, and their adoration of me, I still have to keep things things under wraps. I don’t tell people I write taboo erotica. I can’t tell people I used to strip. I can’t tell people that I adore both activities more than I could possibly express, and that both of these things make me feel like a more confident person, more comfortable in my own skin.

I can’t tell them how hard its been having our books banned. I can’t tell them that the reason I’m so wonderful at public speaking is because I used to dance nude in front of a cheering crowd. I can’t tell them that I’ve written feminist blogs about loving rape erotica.

Hiding all of these aspects of myself from the people I spend a good chunk of my week with always wears me down, but it could never compare to the moment I found myself staring at Paris’ picture on the news and having to come up with a lie about how I knew her.