One by one, they come to me. I dance for them, I sit on their laps, I stroke their hair and they are absolved. In the dark, under a blanket of throbbing bass, they confess their sins; the lustful, primal thoughts that lure them away from their wives or girlfriends and into a chair by my stage. They come to me for the blessing of my motion against the pole. I’m their saint of singles. Blessed Sister of the G-string. Salvation at hand and beer by the pitcher.

Amen, amen.

But when the lights go down and I wipe the make-up away, I think about what my father told me all those years ago, and I wonder if prophets even exist anymore. Am I the angel or the sinner?

I have a bottle of vodka in my freezer. I pay it a visit most nights.

A prophet’s work is never done, he said. He neglected to mention that prophets and madmen are separated by the thinnest of lines.