College is funny. I think on some level, all college students are aware that they’re living in a little bubble, completely separate from the rest of reality. It’s just that none of them care. Until you run out of soap, alcohol or you’re craving something other than what you can find in the food court, you have no real reason to leave that perfect little world.

Then you graduate.

For four years, though, you can live pretty much carefree, and I did. I went to OSU for two reasons. One, both of my parents went there and they seemed to really enjoy reliving their glory days through me. Two, I got a pretty decent marching band scholarship. I wasn’t really any more picky about college than that; I didn’t care where I went, as long as I got out of Broken Arrow.

Taylor and I met the day before classes started. He was a sophomore, so he’d managed to get a single room on the same floor as me. Somehow, despite only being three hours from home, we were the only guys from the Tulsa area on the whole floor, and we bonded quickly over that. Two weeks later, he made the generous decision to give up his private room so that I didn’t have to spend the rest of my freshmen year with Ben the math major, who went to bed at exactly eight o’clock every night.

The two of us couldn’t have been any less like Ben if we’d tried. We papered the walls of our room, and later our off campus apartment, with classic rock posters and made homemade glow lights out of empty liquor bottles filled with water and the insides of highlighters. It wasn’t like either of us used them to take notes for class. We were both psychology majors, but Taylor was insane enough to double major in psychology and drama. Psychology was the sort of major that sounded smart and kept our parents off our backs so that we could worry about more important things, such as, you know, partying and getting shitfaced. That was where our real passions lie —along with music for me and acting for Taylor.

That was why, as soon as he graduated, Taylor was on the first bus to California to try his luck in Hollywood. We had a frat buddy—we’d both failed spectacularly at actually getting into the frat, but we still partied with a few of them—from LA who offered to let him crash on his couch while he got his shit together. Between that offer and the money he’d saved up from his summer gig at Frontier City, Taylor figured he was set for a few months. He could get some job waiting tables or something while he waited for the acting jobs to start.

It seemed like a good plan, in the way that every plan you dream up in a dorm room at two in the morning seems like a good plan.

My plan for the future was pretty similar. I’d joined a band, and through sheer dumb luck and connections, the bass player, who also happened to be from California, had gotten us an interview with a major label. A week after graduation, I was on my way to the coast to become the next big rock and roll drummer.

It didn’t go so well.

The label wasn’t nearly as interested as Rob had implied, and he also hadn’t mentioned that his place, where we would all be crashing, was actually his parent’s place. While he had his childhood bedroom waiting for him, the rest of us were crammed into an apartment above their garage that really wasn’t big enough for three guys and all their musical equipment. It only took me a few weeks to take Taylor up on his offer—move into the apartment his job was barely paying him enough to afford and help ease the sting of the rent. The band wasn’t bringing in much money at the few gigs we’d played, but I could at least chip in on the groceries and stuff, and that was enough for Taylor.

The truth was, I’d missed living with him. It sounded so, well, gay to admit, but it was the truth. We’d just meshed so well in college that living together had been a no-brainer back then, and it was still just as effortless. It almost took my mind off how horribly things were going with the band.

Almost.

After the first label barely even remembered who we were when we turned up for our interview, things just got worse. No other label seemed interested at all in us, we were lucky to bring home enough money for a six pack each after a concert at some dive bar, and the studio we’d scraped together the money to rent managed to somehow “lose” all of our recordings. The last straw was the lead singer, Jacob, getting fed up and quitting. I could sing at least as well as Jake, but I couldn’t play guitar, so that was that. After nearly a year of just barely making a name for ourselves on a local level, none of had the energy to try to find a new guitar player. The band was over.

I sunk into a pretty deep depression for a few months. There was no way I could keep borrowing money from my parents without telling them why I needed it, and moving back to Oklahoma was even less of an option. Taylor wasn’t living his dream, either, but at least he had a job of some sort. At my lowest lows, I followed him to work at night just because I knew his boss would give me free drinks. I couldn’t keep mooching off Taylor indefinitely, though. He let it go on for about two months, with only vague mentions about looking for work, before making what I thought was a joking suggestion that I fill the vacancy at the club. When his boss, Ruby, said the same thing to me the next time I was there, I realized they were serious.

At first, I told them no way. But it wasn’t like I had any other offers that would pay as well. Rent was high, but Taylor really wasn’t suffering that badly with the kind of tips he made. It started out as a joke, but it didn’t take long for my inflated self esteem to convince me I could bring in even bigger tips than Taylor did.

So I took the job. I, Zac Hanson, became a male exotic dancer.