This is usually my favorite time of day. My first breath of fresh air. I walk slowly and pause to watch the tall palms sway, stoned and pleased, thinking, How lucky am I to be living in Hollywood? But I haven’t felt that way—grateful— in a while. Today I just feel hot. I look up at the bright blue cloudless sky and my stomach sinks. A bead of sweat drips down my arm.

I get to the Mirror Box at 3:15 P.M. It isn’t technically open, but the door guy likes me ever since I made out with him after too many Mountain Dews one time. Only a few of the dancers are here at this hour, the rejects. That’s why I like it. No lurking sleazeballs or girls with bodies that make me envious. I admire the women who perform at this hour, dancing not for an audience or tips, but for pure seductive expression, impervious to market expectations. When I started making money it was very much by accident. And after that I started coming here more, throwing petty cash at rookie dancers in exchange for a lap dance or at least a sliver of attention. It’s easiest in the daylight when no one else is vying for it. And without other patrons, I’m less aware of my own sleaziness. I can trick my brain into thinking the dancers are legitimately interested in me.

While I’m waiting for my Mountain Dew and enjoying the ruby darkness, my least favorite dancer, Cinnamon, comes up and tries to talk to me so that I buy her a drink. I can tell she’s fiending for alcohol from the way she’s tapping her pink acrylic fingernails on the bar. She has sleepy eyes and is wearing a chemise, a word I know only because last night I hit the bong and followed an Instagram ad to an adult women’s sleepwear website.

“Wow,” she says, getting close to my face. “Your eyes.”

This happens to me all the time. In fact, Cinnamon herself has said this to me before. Everyone is obsessed with my eyes, which are an arresting ice blue, like a husky’s. I ordered an ancestry report from this website called ChromoZone in hopes of discovering Finnish or Estonian blood, something glamorous to explain my cosmic irises. But no such luck. I am 98.9 percent Irish. ChromoZone really fucked me. I am still not over the fact that I paid seventy dollars and generated twenty minutes’ worth of saliva for ChromoZone to tell me I am Irish.

“They’re like a husky’s,” Cinnamon says.