Disclaimer: Oh for crying out loud, can't we just assume if you're writing fanfic, you do not own the object of your devotion? Sheesh.

AN: This challenge from Droolia. How *does* Paris make ends meet in S6, when everything went weird(er)? There's got to be more than serving at a DAR event to pay those bills while LL derail and so forth.

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Eight: Capitalist Pigs

In a life longer by experience than by years, Paris Geller had encountered many puzzling situations. Some of this was attributable to her biological mother's mental struggles, her heart-mother Nanny speaking Portuguese and rendering English a second language to Paris, and her father being such a distant figure that she could only determine his personality by second-hand reports. She was even aware that dating a professor was, in retrospect, something of her need for an older man's love. She did, after all, also find Richard Gilmore a fine-looking man. She had discovered valedictorians often ended up with eating disorders, that Doyle was a soulmate despite her refusal to believe in such things, and that role models were doomed to roll into the pit of disgrace.

The paycheck for the DAR event, however, stunned Paris out of the capacity to think.

She had to feel.

She felt afraid. Disgusted. Resigned. Angry. Puzzled. A child of high society, accustomed to wealth and its advantages, she had to face an ugly and horrible demotion.

She was the working poor.

Her paycheck had seemed glorious at the time it was promised by Rory Gilmore, via the catering company. She had been on her feet for eight hours, even though it was a four-hour event, because of setting up and taking down, and ten dollars an hour for eight hours had seemed like enough to buy groceries for a month, and she was in a total panic because her eighty dollars had disintegrated to a mere fifty-three dollars and odd cents. Which would pay her water bill, but not her electricity or rent or groceries.

Eighty dollars minus state, federal and local taxes had not seemed bad at first. After all, everyone knew the rich paid the most taxes.

Suddenly at the other end of that arithmetic, Paris Geller discovered why her father had so many accountants and lawyers around. It was to keep him from having to pay those petty problematic taxes. Exemptions abounded. Legal, and a sign of intelligence, by all accounts Paris ever heard, and so common that Paris never realized that the poor couldn't afford to hire the people who made sure they didn't have to pay taxes. It was the way of her world, until her tax-evading parents' assets were frozen.

Paris Geller had joined the great unwashed proletariat.

She knew now why they were unwashed. They couldn't afford soap.

The obesity and poor skin epidemics were further explained when Paris totted up her utter lack of tips for her night's work, and discovered she'd be unable to eat anything but ten-a-dollar noodle and soup packets. Studying the package of one such, she muttered, "Flour paste with chemical sprinkles. Oh my God. We expect people to function like this?!"

Had a Romanov been present, Paris might very well have driven them to Siberia herself. She also noted to formally apologize to the Marxist philosophy professor, Nanny, and the pizza delivery guy whose job she might well have to take if she wanted to avoid homeless starvation.

Swallowing hard, Paris summoned up the steel backbone she most certainly had, and set off with a page of ads in hand. "Maximum money for minimum time," she reminded herself. "I still have to get into med school. And law school."

Head held high, Paris marched into her hopefully temporary future.

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Paris folded her hands and stared at the man across the table. "Look. I'm blonde. For real blonde. I'm under twenty-five, I am physically fit, and humiliation is irrelevant to me at this point. I once cried on C-span. Also, I took six years of ballet, three years of modern, and a week of tap dancing. I am qualified for this job."

"Yeah, but you're about as, uh, sexy as, uh…" The club manager shrugged. "Well, you ain't. Sorry."

Eyes narrowed, Paris stood and pushed her face down to the club manager's. "You have any visitors who like the Mary Sue school girl thing?"

"Uh…" said the man, scratching the mole on his collarbone.

Paris announced, "Back in five, give me the audition, and they'll be handing me twenties."

"Ah crap," said the club manager, sat back, and sipped his coffee. He called over to the daytime bartender, "Dial up something for Her Royal Highness."

"Like what? Beethoven?"

"I dunno. You're the music nerd, figure it out."

The bartender rolled his eyes, fiddled with an ancient CD-radio combo behind the bar, and announced, "Ha. NPR. That work for you?"

The manager laughed. "Let's see her dance to that crap."

Shrugging, the manager wiped cups and set them up for the midday rush. The popular idea of strip clubs being only open at night did not take into account how many men liked ahem-ahem "dessert" at lunchtime.

A military crunch of feet drew his attention.

"Hit the lights, give me a beat," announced Paris from the dark.

"Ah man, poor kid," said the bartender, maxing the volume on the radio in time for the announcer to drone, "And now, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Dies Irae from the requiem in D minor." Then he walked from behind the bar and turned on the house lights, as simpler than the actual light board.

The bartender's jaw dropped. The manager's eyebrows shot up.

Paris's blonde hair stood in a bundle atop her head, sternly pinned into submission. Her white blouse was unbuttoned to show a peep of lace, under her old Chilton jacket. Her Chilton skirt completed the ensemble, along with her knee-high socks and loafers.

"Good music," said Paris, dropped out of the classic ballet position known as third position, and transformed. As the voices of divine wrath boomed across the club, Paris flung her body into space, her control proving her teacher had been fond of the Russian style. A tour en l'air took her to the pole and saw her Chilton jacket spin off as she whirled around the pole, bent backwards far enough to have broken a mere mortal's spine. Then she twirled into an arabesque to reveal a very white lacy set of underwear under that schoolgirl skirt.

The bartender and manager could not remove their eyes from her. They might miss something.

The pole on the stage became, somehow, the male half of the ballet Paris danced, her touchstone for leaps, spins, another arabesque that popped the bartender's eyes halfway out of his head. Somehow in the descant of sorrow, Paris shed her skirt and loafers, shimmying them off after a dramatic drop to the floor, so that she was now leaping with loose hair, a white shirt over sexy lingerie, and socks that rolled persistently down to her ankles.

She concluded with the music, the sonorous "Amen" punctuated by a perfect split, and her arms in fifth position, her hair tousled and wild around her face.

The bartender squawked a low, "Hot for teacher," and grabbed ice water. He gulped it down, cubes and all.

"Heewhaduh?" drooled the manager, tucking his wallet back into his pocket before he handed it over on a wave of testosterone.

Crisply retrieving her shoes and skirt and jacket, Paris demanded, "So? Do I get the job or not? I'm a busy woman. I have classes, I have obligations, and I have bills to pay."

"Der-duh-wha?" answered the manager, hiccupping coffee through his nose.

Paris, back to her usual level of sensuality (zero), finger-combed her hair and pulled it into a ponytail. "English, please. I know French, Portuguese, English, Farsi and Mandarin, but French is my weakest language. Well? Am I employed three hours a day, six days a week, working for tips only, or does the naughty schoolgirl thing not play in this dive?"

An ice cube discreetly flung by the bartender landed in the manager's lap. He uttered a very sharp yip, followed by, "Uh. Yeah. Sure. Good terms. Start tomorrow."

"Excellent."

"How do you know you'll get tips enough to pay those bills?" asked the manager now that he could think coherently again.

"You have any other girls who can get you hot and bothered by Mozart?" countered Paris.

Unwilling to admit total defeat, the manager suggested, "Black and lacy. Shows through the blouse."

"Good point. See you at noon tomorrow. Thanks, boss," said Paris, and vanished into the restroom to change back into jeans and pullover. Upon emerging, she looked once again like any determined Yale student, slicing through life like the well-honed instrument of success she had been raised to be. By her estimation, three hours a day, with approximately sixty dollars in tips per hour, gave her more than enough to manage rent, utilities and food.

She paused in her mental calculations to reflect that she had never guessed anyone other than Doyle would find her Chilton ballet at all worthwhile. It was a welcome surprise. Nor, despite the neighborhood, did Paris fear for her personal safety. All that dancing meant she packed a mean kick. More than enough to earn her way, and work up one hell of a paper for sociology while she was at it, thereby rendering her club job into academic research. Really, all in all, it couldn't have turned out better, and all because men were swine who threw money at half-clad women.

"Huh," said Paris to herself. "Who knew capitalist pigs could be so profitable?"

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AN: Liza Weil, who played the wonderful Paris, is actually a natural brunette, but what the heck. Also, as far as I know, no dancing skills. I just liked the idea that Paris would earn her money as a "suggestive" dancer, recycling her Chilton uniform and the presumably obligatory dance lessons inflicted upon many young girls. Dies Irae translates to "day of wrath", and I decided it was appropriate. Because it's Paris. You never know what happens next. Thus, she performs the tour en l'air more common to male dancers. Why am I explaining all this?