Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love and Porn

CHAPTER 19 Dancing Queen

After things started settling down after my return from St. Vincent’s and my medicine started kicking in, I started feeling strong again. The fog was lifting and I was back in fighting-for-my-rights mode. Evan wasn’t only my rock through all of this, but he also took over as my manager. Evan has managed his band Biohazard for years, so managing wasn’t something new to him and I trusted him.

Evan had a very important thought one night. He said to me, “You’re obviously a very powerful commodity. If you weren’t so special and worth so much, these scumbags wouldn’t be fighting so hard to keep you out of the business. So there’s something here, and I really think we should get you back in business on your own terms.” It was hard for me to see the light at the end of the tunnel at the time, but Evan knew what was at stake and that’s why he fought so hard for me.

Evan started making phone calls and lining up allies. We needed people to be in the Tera Patrick camp if we were going to give my career another shot. Evan was calling on anyone and everyone he knew in the industry to get me work. One of his first calls was to his old friend Dan Davis, editor in chief of the adult magazine Genesis . They made me masthead publisher and gave me a column, which I titled “Teravision.” I was honored, and it was yet another way to express myself. It was a great chance to use my brains instead of just my body. It proved that I wasn’t just some dumb porn chick, but that I could actually write and had something to say. I discovered a new talent that I never knew I had in me and felt proud that I could share my experiences in a positive light. And it paid well and we needed the cash. Over the next six years, I wrote approximately seventy columns, appeared on the cover a dozen times, and was featured in a bunch of layouts.

The next ally we found was my old friend Teri Weigel, the former Playboy Playmate and porn star who took me under her wing at my first AVN convention. She’d been in the industry for a while and I needed some sage advice on what to do next.

Teri asked me, “How are you making money right now?”

“I’m not,” I said.

“You don’t dance?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean what do I mean? Are you doing feature dancing?” she asked.

Unlike many other porn stars, I didn’t come from the world of strip clubs. In fact, I’d only been to a strip club with an ex-boyfriend a few times. It wasn’t really my thing. I always thought that stripping was something you do in order to get into porn and not something you do once you’re already a porn star like me.

“Feature dancing? What is that?” I asked.

“Oh, honey,” said Teri. “When you’re a huge star like yourself, you can make a ton of money doing feature dance shows. It’s notches above stripping and you can make ten times the amount of money a regular stripper makes. You need to call this guy, Tony Lee. He’s going to introduce you to a whole new world.”

Tony Lee is the number-one booking agent for adult film stars on the feature dancing circuit. Evan had already spent all of the money he made from the last Biohazard tour, as well as his music publishing advance, on my legal bills, and we were running out of money. (We ended up spending about $300,000 to fight the suit.)

I soon found out that feature dancers are essentially special strippers. If you have a name and a following, the club makes a special event of your dancing engagement. You’re paid a guaranteed fee. You get to keep 100 percent of the money on the stage and you do a meet-and-greet after your show where you sell the fans your merchandise: autographed photos, DVDs, posters, T-shirts, etc. And you get to keep all of that money too. It sounded like the perfect way to make some fast cash.

Evan called up Tony immediately. “Is Tony Lee there? This is Evan Seinfeld.”

“This is Tony Lee. What can I do for you?” he answered.

“I’m Tera Patrick’s manager, and Tera Patrick has expressed an interest in dancing,” said Evan.

“Can you hold on for a second?” Tony said very businesslike. Tony must have just placed the phone down without hitting the hold button because the next thing Evan hears is this loud, “Whooooo hoooooo!” on the other end of the phone.

Tony got back on the phone, tried to play it cool, and said, “So, Tera Patrick is interested in dancing? This is the phone call I’ve been waiting for my entire career.”

“There’s one catch,” Evan said.

“What’s that?”

“We’re in litigation with Digital Playground and—” Evan said.

Tony interrupted, “I know all about it and I don’t care. I would love to work with you guys.”

Tony Lee became my next ally, and he soon booked me on my first feature-dancing gig. He promised me that I would make more money than any other feature dancer ever did dancing and that I would be paying my legal bills and have money left over.

There was just one more problem. I didn’t know how to dance. Tony wasn’t concerned about that. He hooked me up with someone who could show me the ropes: Lisa Ann, a performer in the business who now runs a talent agency. Lisa Ann gave me a one-day crash course in what feature dancing is all about.

Our first stop was a sleazy lingerie store in Hollywood. She helped me pick pieces that were easy to get off and I ended up going with a four-piece outfit that consisted of a bra, panties, an overcoat/robe, a skirt, and, of course, five-inch stripper heels. I had one piece of clothing to take off for each of the four songs I would dance to. In the early days, I danced in themed costumes, such as a French maid, various schoolgirl outfits, and a few versions of a biker babe—one in leather and one in denim. My idea was to act out men’s fantasies with these various personalities.

After we suited up, Lisa took me to the Spearmint Rhino strip club in Van Nuys to watch some of the girls there dance and hopefully pick up some tips. I took mental notes as the girls would twirl around the pole and do their splits on the shiny stage. I was inspired and excited at the idea of being the girl up there twirling around in fancy lingerie for a captive live audience. It was so different from performing for the camera.

I was intimidated by the strippers’ more advanced moves, i.e., the upside-down pole work, splits, and other fancy footwork. I didn’t know how I was going to pull off all that stripper trickery onstage. “Don’t worry about it. You’re a big star,” Lisa Ann explained. “The fans just want to see you. You don’t need to impress them with complicated moves or fancy pole work. You just need to get up there and do what comes naturally.”

That took the pressure off. Still, I practiced in our Brooklyn loft the night before my first gig, which was at the Admiral Theatre in Chicago. I pretended there was a pole and practiced how I would walk around it and what kind of simple little twirls I could do. I just kept reminding myself that if I didn’t know what to do, the stripper pole in the middle of that stage would be my safety net. I thought out all of the ways I would use the pole to my advantage: I could hang on it, walk around it holding on with one hand, slide down it with the pole going between my butt, lick the pole seductively, etc. But I had no real routine to speak of. In retrospect, maybe I could’ve prepared a little more.

Tony Lee just kept reminding me that the fans would love whatever I did, but I couldn’t help but wonder: Are they going to expect me to shoot fire out of my ass? What are they going to expect to see? I was terrified but excited before my first show.

We get to my dressing room backstage at the Admiral, and I immediately felt comfortable as I saw photos of Chasey Lain, a gorgeous Vivid Girl, on the wall. I felt like I was in good company and it eased my fears a little bit. I got suited up in a pink/black/white punk-rock schoolgirl outfit and walked out of my dressing room to see what the stage looked like, and I was shocked. It wasn’t called Admiral Theatre for nothing! The “club” was actually an old theater with theater seating and a traditional stage… with no stripper pole! I was horrified. I had planned to walk out onstage and head straight to that pole, but this stage didn’t have one. What was I going to do? Panic set in. They announce me; my heart starts pounding, and all I can think is, “I have no idea what I’m doing! I didn’t plan for a stage without a pole!”

The curtain opened and there were five hundred fans out there all standing up and cheering for me to come out and do my thing. The lights were bright and the crowd was loud and I still didn’t know what my first move was going to be. It felt like one of those dreams where you find yourself naked in a classroom and everyone is staring at you. I was petrified. But I knew I couldn’t disappoint. So I put on a huge smile and I walked out onstage as if I was walking onto a catwalk and I did my best runway walk. The crowd went crazy and I immediately felt more at ease.

After a few introductory bend-overs and kisses blown to the crowd, my stripper instinct took over and somehow I just knew exactly what to do. Every girl has an inner stripper, and I was no different. Off my clothes went. One by one, I peeled off my lingerie and threw it on the stage like an old pro. It was exhilarating. Every move I made, the crowd cheered me on. I was trying to keep my sexy face on, but I couldn’t help but smile. I’ve never done anything so raw before in front of such a large audience. It was a thrill.

My early shows were more like a photo shoot in slow motion. I would walk around the stage doing various modeling poses to the music. But it was very sexual. The first song was like the foreplay and I’d take off my sheer robe or little top. The second was where the sex begins and I’d take off my skirt or shorts. The third song was the big reveal and off my top would go. And the fourth and final song was the big climax when my panties would come off and I’d do my giveaways of posters and photos.

A typical set-list for my show was:

1. AC/DC, “Girls Got Rhythm”

2. Def Leppard, “Pour Some Sugar on Me”

3. Marilyn Manson, “Great Big White World”

4. AC/DC, “Givin the Dog a Bone”

When my fifteen minutes were up, I ran backstage, pleased with my performance, still panting and hot from the show. Evan rushed in and immediately yelled, “What did you do?”

“What? No, ‘Great job on your first show, honey’?” I thought.

“You forgot to take their money!” Evan said.

The bouncer then walks backstage and says to Evan, “Why didn’t she take any money?”

Oh my God! They were right. I forgot to take the money from the customers! I was so excited to be onstage performing that I forgot to even one time bend down and take that 20-dollar bill from the guy’s hand like you’re supposed to. It was flashing back to me now. The stage was lined with girls and guys holding up bills, waving money at me, and looking up at me in anticipation. And I forgot to go to those fans and take their money!

“You did not take one dollar from the customers,” Evan sighed, completely exasperated.

No worries. I could make up the loss by selling them my merchandise. I powdered up my face, put on fresh lipstick, and threw on a sexy robe and went out to greet my fans. There were about 300 fans in line waiting to spend their money on me. For $50, they could pose for a Polaroid photo with me topless, and I would sign the photo. For $30, they could buy a signed DVD of one of my movies. And for just $10 they could buy a signed 8 x 10 glossy photo of me. Between the guaranteed fee of $3,000 and my merchandise sales, I made close to $10,000 that night.

But more important, it helped pull me out of my depression because: (1) I had a job and we needed the money. (2) I got to go on a dance tour and see new places. And (3) There is nothing like standing onstage and having a room full of people cheering for you. I felt like a rock star. It was a creative new outlet for me. It’s something so terrifying and so freeing at the same time. And dancing turned me on. When the crowd cheered for me, my nipples would get hard and my pussy would get wet. Dancing was another way to turn guys on and be the exhibitionist that I am.

I think dancers are among the bravest people in the world. You are going out onstage whether you feel you look good or not and you are taking money from people. The average person has that nightmare of being in class or in the boardroom and suddenly they are naked, or on a busy street and naked. We live that nightmare. But for me, it was my dream.

Proud of my earnings as a stripper

That dream soon took me dancing all around the world from every major city in the U.S. to France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Hungary, Croatia, England, Scotland, Australia, and other countries. I made $3,000 for my guaranteed fee at every show, but took in between $10,000 and $60,000 per engagement with the tips (which I never failed to remember to pick up after that first time) and merchandise sales each night. I danced three weekends a month for about four years in a row. The Foxy Lady in Rhode Island was one of my biggest bookings—$35,000 for ten shows. We came home with nearly $60,000 in twenties, tens, fives, and singles that night. The strangest place I danced was at Anthony’s Showplace in Tennessee. It was a converted church. As I strutted my stuff onstage I kept saying in my head, “Sorry, God!”

But hands down, the craziest performance I ever danced was on July 24, 2004, at the Pink Pony in Atlanta. I was into my third song, which was either Marilyn Manson’s “Great Big White World” or Deftones’ “Change,” and I do this move where I’m on my back on the floor with my back arched and my legs slightly spread and I do a little shimmy. All of a sudden, I feel this girl right between my legs and she’s trying to take my panties off. There was no security, and Evan was off getting the bag of merchandise that I throw out to the crowd for my final song.

I bolted upright and tried to push her way, literally kicking her away with my legs and she’s still clinging on to me. I was screaming, “No! No! No!” but kind of laughing at the same time. The girl was clearly wasted and she was just going for it… going for me! She was relentless and wouldn’t let up. I think she just got really excited and couldn’t contain it. All of a sudden the DJ says, “Wow. We got a live one!” Evan finally saw what was happening, rushed to my side, and pushed her back down.

One of my favorite dancing gigs was at the Trails Men’s Club in Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s a gorgeous club with a long, winding stage with rails on the sides that you can really use to your advantage when dancing. And it was a pasties club, which meant that I didn’t have to get naked! Once in a while, I liked not having to get naked. I felt like a true rock star there. They put a star with my name on it on the outside of my dressing room door and gave me monogrammed towels to use for my shower that night. I still have those towels. And my dressing room was filled with gift baskets of champagne, soaps, perfume, lotions, body sprays, and other girlie things that I loved.

Two very pretty strippers walked in and said, “Hi, Tera. We’re really big fans. And we have a little present for you.”

“Oh, no,” I thought. “Are they going to get naked or something? I’m sooo not a lesbian.”

“We heard you love pot, so we got you some marijuana popcorn,” they said.

Strippers aren’t usually that nice. You know how girls can get.

The only place I didn’t feel welcome was in Las Vegas. Vegas is such a strip club town that they don’t really need to bring in feature dancers, and when they do, the girls get pretty snippy about it. Such was the case one night at Little Darlings. I didn’t ask for this, but the club owners gave me the entire dressing room area instead of just one room. Naturally, this pissed off the regular dancers there. As I was getting ready for my show, I had to listen to strippers bitch loudly, “Tera Patrick has our dressing room. Who does she think she is?”

I’m usually nice to the girls. I always gave them free Polaroids with me and hung out and talked with them. But if these girls were going to be bitchy, well, two can play that game.

I fired back: “That’s right, bitch. I have your dressing room. You know what? You get your pussy ripped on set and you can have your own dressing room too!”

Now that we’d become famous, there was terrible gossip about Evan and me in the adult industry trade papers and on gossip sites. They were saying things like Evan got me hooked on heroin and he was just using me to get ahead. Here is this guy who has a crazy fiancee who’s been institutionalized, is on medication, had filed for bankruptcy and who he spent all of his money on, and they are saying he’s the bad guy? It really hurt me. He treated me so well and I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for his love and support.

The worst rumor was the drug thing. Evan’s been sober since August 1, 1988, and I quit drinking for a while the January after I met him, thanks solely to him. I’ve never done heroin, cocaine, or any hard drug—just Valium when I was young or some pot here and there. But I do still drink, even though I went to AA and spent 2003-2007 sober. AA got me through a period in life where I was abusing alcohol and using it as way to cope or escape. Once I became more stable, I learned that I could control myself and handle a glass of champagne or two with a friend or at a party.

Now would be a good time to set the record straight on the other rumors that have plagued my career….