Lapdancing: A Day at the "Same Old Place" When NOTHING Happened: June 27, 2005

These days I mainly live in Southern Florida, outside of Miami. There are lots of lap dancing clubs in the region. I go to the good ones with the spectacular babes when I clearly want to hook up with the women and spend money. But, that isn’t always the case. There are also places that have the more ordinary dancers and ones that have a very relaxed atmosphere most of the time. After a few false tries, I picked one out, The Ritz, and visited it regularly when I just wanted to get out of the Florida heat and do some beer- driven people- watching. The Ritz was a club that came with no expectations. Most of the dancers were not attractive. If you refused a dance with them, they left you alone so that you could kick back and drink and look. I liked that about the place. However, there were also a few truly beautiful women who worked there and, eventually, I got to know them too by getting dances. They preferred working at The Ritz precisely for the same reason I liked going there—it was low key and relaxing. Getting to know the attractive dancers put me in a bind. I wasn’t able to accept a lap dance from any of the other women in anticipation of eventually spending some time with the babes I liked. As a result, I couldn’t relax at the Ritz completely. I never liked to hang out at a club and refuse dancer after dancer. I needed to be rescued by some outrageously gorgeous looker. That didn’t always happen. It didn’t happen today. In fact, nothing happened.

I got to the Ritz at about 2:00 because I needed to get out of the heat and wanted the kind of ice cold beer that I couldn’t get out of my own refrigerator at home. There was only one other customer in the place at that time. I guessed that the lunch hour crowd had evaporated, if there really even was one. This guy was black and had taken a seat tucked away further back than mine near the far wall. At first I thought I was the only one in the bar. There seemed to be a couple of girls over by the kitchen hanging out at the pool table. They were totally unremarkable. There was a group of about four girls who were congregating at the front of the bar in an open area with stools and they were having a good time joking around. I could see a few wearing thong bikinis and one had an appealing butt.

There were also two black women who were sitting on the side near the bar. They looked very bored. I wondered why the African- American “sistas” weren't hustling the black dude. Maybe they had already tried. A small proportion of the dancers at the South Florida clubs were African- American, but the businesses made sure to limit their number. Most of the time these women were from the States, but, often they were from some Caribbean country and were nothing like Americans. They had English or French accents and seemed middle class and educated. I rarely saw white men, in racist South Florida, going off to lap dance with black dancers, although they did get table dances from them. Usually they were around for the convenience of the African- American males, and the whole arrangement seemed weird to me. There was only one black dancer at the Ritz who I knew the management allowed to work there consistently. When I usually saw her in the afternoon, it was in the back lap dancing area where she always had her head between some guy's knees, so I was only familiar with the back of her neck.

There was a woman on stage that was really young and she was a terrible dancer. She was the kind who tapped to the beat. That turned me off. As I sat there the door kept opening and more girls kept coming in for the late afternoon shift. I had never seen this place so crowded with women. But, the big problem was that they kept their street clothes on. I noticed that a few looked phenomenally sexy. Their muscular dancer asses filled out their jeans just in the way they were intended. Most of the women I had seen at supermarkets or malls that wore jeans had terrible flat behinds with wide hips, or, big fat cabooses that strained the denim material to its point of rupture. The ladies at the club that afternoon appeared awesome—better looking in their clothes, compared to other women, than with them off when it was no longer possible to fantasize about their bodies.

All the freshly arrived dancers were congregating at the open area in the front. It looked like they were having some kind of reunion. They were talking excitedly to each other. Maybe they had been on a vacation and had just returned. I really didn't recognize most of them. One I had seen before, but the others were new to me. Then I noticed that they were all speaking Spanish. While several continued to blabber away in Spanish, the others in street clothes went in the back to change. After a while one dancer working the floor came towards me. She had her lap towel with her. She asked if she could sit down. I told her that I wasn't interested in a dance at the moment. She was one of the girls I had been with before. Her name was “Cindi.” She had impressed me as being smart because she could carry on a conversation. I wasn't in the mood to hook up with a woman right then, so I had to refuse her and she went away looking disappointed. I had been going to the clubs long enough to know that Cindi wouldn’t take it personally and that next time around, she would be just as nice as before. That day and I probably should have let Cindi sit down instead of chasing her away. I regretted my decision later.

There was another girl on the floor who I had never seen before, and she was more attractive to me. She had natural red hair and white, white skin. She was short, but had a fleshy, well shaped backside and a small bosom with a large cup size. It's the cup size that makes up for smallish breasts and many women built like this red head, including her, were very lovely. The red head walked over to me and I smiled, but she may have seen me reject Cindi so she took a sharp detour around my table and went over to the African- American man further into the bar instead. I watched her sit down and start talking.

During the afternoons, when these places were not very crowded, I noticed many times that the women would not ask you directly to dance with them, since if you said "no," they had few other men to ask. Instead, as a common practice, they would sit down at your table and hustle you first by engaging in conversation. Of course, this precludes the fact that the women knew how to be conversationalists. They didn't have to be particularly smart; they just needed some energy and a lively interest in life. Cindi, the dancer I had refused that day, was an entertaining talker. One of the other things I noticed about the clubs was that most of the babes would stick to customers of their own kind for conversation, such as the low life, coke heads I had seen who preferred sitting with bikers or guys who worked for lawn services with those dim eyes and excessively sunburned bodies. The black women usually stayed with the black male customers, because it was racist Florida. Some dancers only liked to talk to young guys; some to older men; some exclusively chatted up businessmen, and so on. The clubs also differed in regard to their atmosphere for talk. Some clubs were strictly business, while at others, you could find many dancers willing to have drinks when offered and willing to spend some time with you. I liked The Ritz because it had babes like Cindi who could carry on an entertaining conversation over beer and shots.

The red head was hustling the black guy by sitting at his table. I was curious about their conversation, but couldn't hear anything. I was also jealous, because I was sitting alone, after having rebuffed Cindi that day. The red head was also attractive to me. A few times I had seen guys who were aggressive customers go over to a table where a lap dancer was hustling some other guy and ask her for a dance. I thought about doing this, something I had never done before, but I couldn't, especially since the place was practically empty. So, I just sat there and began to feel miserable.

Then Cindi was called on stage for her routine. When she mounted the stairs with her characteristic energy, it occurred to me that, had I known she was going to be up next, I would have let her sit with me. This way I could have gotten rid of here without effort. As she did her first number, I noticed that the red head had risen and was now doing a table dance for the black guy. The table dance is a very benign event. It cost half of the lap dance charge, usually $10. The dancer stays at your table and either works you at your chair, or, if there is a special mini- platform for table dancing, mounts the platform and becomes more visible. This club had dance spaces next to most of the tables. The red head was on one platform. Usually in a table dance the women take off their bras during the first song and then their bottoms during the second, if it goes that far. When they get your permission to continue, they act more and more seductively getting in real close, bending over so that you can smell their perfume, or pushing their cheeks almost into your face. But, men were not allowed to touch. That was the key rule of the table dance that made it token in comparison to the real lap dance.

Out of the corner of my eye I watched the red head, while I also did my best to pay attention Cindi on stage. Bucking tradition, she took all her clothes off during the first dance. By the second she was way in close with the African- American dude, scraping her blanched white butt against his face. During the third dance, Cindi on stage did her best to keep my attention. She crawled over to me and made a comment about how I looked bored. An interaction of this kind could only happen in a mostly empty club. The remark was also meant to put me on the defensive and it worked. I denied the fact. I also smiled and arched my eyebrows as if I was really being entertained. I always vowed that I would never act like a jerk with the women on stage and I kept my behavior low key. In the past I had seen unfortunate men become provoked into the most outlandish acts by dancers that targeted them from the stage. I never wanted that to happen to me.

The third dance ended and the Cindi looked disappointed for the second time that afternoon, because I hadn't climbed up on stage or offered her money in other ways. Meanwhile, the black guy told the red head to stop. She sat down but stayed at his table for more conversation. I watched some more dancers walk in and joke around with the others that were standing up front in their street clothes. It was quite a scene; there were even a few more men in the bar now.

The next dancer was a woman I had seen before. She had a terrific fanny, but no tetas. She redeemed herself by being a fabulous dancer. I was certain she had done gymnastics as a child. She did spectacular dives and splits, twirled around the pole and performed other entertaining athletic moves. When this dancer came within ear shot to my table, I asked her if she were a gymnast. She stopped her routine, bent over the edge of the stage and answered, "I used to do gymnastics in high school." Then she gave me a big smile and danced away. Had she been a babe attractive to me, I would have felt phenomenal at that point in the afternoon. Unfortunately, she was just not my type. Out of the corner of my left eye, I noticed that the black guy and the red head had stood up and were now walking toward the back lap dancing section. She had scored!

While this was going on another woman approached me. I had seen her before too. She had black hair, looked Italian, and had a fabulous behind that was perfectly proportioned. Unfortunately, she had these ridiculous implants. They looked like two huge cantaloupes grafted onto her chest. Pumped with silicone, they bulged out in a semi- circle. No real breasts were ever like that. They don't hang right, boobs have to droop a little. It was more fun to play with them that way. Even the red head that was now probably banging away at the black dude in the back room had nicer breasts because of her cup size. I liked the sultry looking woman now on stage, but couldn't get past my dislike for her funny implants to desire her. When she came up to me after her dance and asked the inevitable question, I had to say no.

There were two other dancers now situated behind me near the kitchen that were chitty- chatting. They looked like typical Florida blonds, except something was definitely askew in both their faces and bodies. Then I noticed that they were speaking some Slavic language. Maybe they were exposed to too much radiation or inbreeding. Whatever the reason, they just didn’t look right. So, as I scoped the place out that afternoon, I marveled at the girls up front busy blabbing away in Spanish, the two silent black girls at the bar and this freaky duo who were engaged in an animated conversation in something like Russian or Slovakish. "Has the 'same old place' gone cosmopolitan?" I thought. Anyway, I liked it.

I was just getting in the mood to enjoy myself when the next dancer came on. She was unattractive, a stringy, skinny blond, and she was also a bad dancer. Whenever the ugly women took to the stage I lost interest in being at these clubs almost immediately. It got hard just to sit there, because I really couldn't watch her for long without losing all desire and surrendering to deep despair. I kept waiting for something exciting to happen, for someone very attractive to show up who would blow me away. In the back of my mind I kept monitoring the place for a sign of some fabulous looking dancer who had just arrived to work, but in vein. Then the place began to fill up with the late afternoon crowd. There were these guys from Ft. Lauderdale with the baseball caps on backwards, wearing T-shirts and diamond studs in their ears, who were noisy the instant they entered. Businessmen in white shirts and suits had arrived, too. A few smoked cigars and stunk up the place. Another group that had shown up at the time looked like service or repair men. They wore jumper suits with the logos of appliance dealers. These men had their names embroidered on their outfits. Just about every one was called "Chris” or “John" There were even a few oldsters who had crawled into the place by this time. They were always a quiet bunch who kept to themselves and were thankful for the smallest possible pleasures doled out by the dancers, when they came their way. Usually the old men just came for the cheap food. I became claustrophobic. Somehow positive energy had seeped out of my body by that point in the day from sitting in the near empty space.

Whenever the clubs filled up like that I noticed that the scene took on a kind of energy all its own. There was an ebb and flow to the noise and excitement. Hoots periodically punctuated the routines on stage. Men jumped up eagerly to have dollars removed from their mouths by dancer bozangas. More men were egged on by others to do the same thing. I had seen some women play off the energy of the crowd by taunting and goading the men. One of the regulars at the Ritz, Tara, who hadn’t arrived yet that day, was the best dancer at whipping the horde into a howling frenzy of excitement leaving the energy level of the room high. Other women, in contrast, had a dampening effect and there could be a momentary lull in the noise when they failed to excite the mob. An ugly, rotten dancer could calm the crowd down almost to deathly silence.

There is also an ebb and flow to the crowd. Men csme and went. They arrived in bunches, bringing noise and excitement with them and then suddenly they disappeared. Things quieted down again. That afternoon, the bar had become too crowded and too noisy for me. Then some of the men left their seats, approached dancers and went off to the booths. The whole table of guys with the baseball caps went behind me to play pool and parked themselves in the back. The energy level began to drop. Some men left the bar; others chose partners and disappeared for a lap dance. Just as quickly as the place had filled up, it now began a great exhale of its contents. I was staring at empty tables again. It was about 6:00 PM. There were just a few men around now, mainly the old guys finishing their food. Instead of whooping and hollering, the Ft. Lauderdale gang had become sedated by pool and beer. Several took turns talking on their cell phones completely oblivious to their surroundings. After all that noise, the room now became quiet. Then, one of the Spanish women took to the stage. She was too fat. Slabs of flesh wobbled as she moved through her routine. At that precise point, I lost my taste for female nudity. There was no longer a reason to remain at The Ritz. I got up and began to walk out. At the door I paused and looked back. None of the women left in the room were attractive. All the pretty ones had been dragged off by either "John" the repairman, or, some suited insurance salesman. The fat of the woman on the stage glistened in the floodlights. As I left I passed through the lobby of the club. One dancer was standing in her thong bikini talking on the pay phone. I heard her speaking Ukrainian, or something like that, and as I walked to my car, I thought about how I had blown the afternoon by piss poor timing. Afternoons at the clubs can be fantastic, but I had clearly arrived too early. It’s imperative to drop in after the bar scene had gathered momentum. That day, I came when the negative energy of the start up still pervaded the space. By the time things began to cook, I was already exhausted from waiting and picking and fantasizing. Too early is no good. And, too late is no good either. However, by repeating visits, I learned all about getting my timing just right.

Lapdancing: Last Night—June 24, 2005

I went to Cheetahs in Las Vegas last night for the first time in over a year. It’s not my favorite place there, Crazy Horse Too is, but the club saturates you with astonishing looking women (see www.lapdanceguide.com for reviews of Vegas clubs). Too bad they are so predatory. After my divorce I moved to Vegas for a few years and became a regular at Cheetahs as well as the CHT. Having been absent so long, I endured a particular kind of experience that can only occur after frequenting a bar for an extended period and then disappearing completely for an equally extended period. The incident can teach more about the relativity of space and time, or at least duration, than can all the books on Albert Einstein.

Many more years ago, I first learned about this cosmic phenomenon while an undergraduate attending the University of Minnesota. I had come out to the northern Midwest from back east because I couldn’t afford college and they had given me a football scholarship. Being such a screw up, I dropped out after two years, but stuck around anyway because the farmers’ daughters loved sex and the bars had cheap beer. My favorite place was called, The Mixers, and it was just at the edge of the campus and quite near the local Minneapolis version of the Bowery. In other words, it had cheap beer and the kind of urban decay that the middle class college kids found “exciting.” I became a regular at the Mixers, and, on any given night, I could equally wind up out on the sidewalk at closing time deranged and pissing drunk, or, slipping out with a big boobed, blond hotty for some nighttime recreation. In short, it was always well worth the visit.

After consciously avoiding making anything worthwhile of myself until I was 24, and after thinking about doing something with my life for at least two and a half years prior to that, I woke up one day and left town. It wasn’t until several years later, after landing a job in Los Angeles, that I decided to return for a visit. On the date I arrived I went to the Mixers at about 7:00 PM, when I knew it wouldn’t be crowded with horny college kids, but when the regulars were there. Sure enough, my old friends were firmly ensconced at the exact same table, drinking the exact same drinks, as they did when I, too, was part of the group. As I approached them, one recognized me and said, “Hey, Seeker, how’s it going?” “Haven’t seen you lately.” Then another dove into the alcohol addled conversation. “Yea. Must have been about a month or two.” Then, the entire table shook their heads in agreement as if this second guy had said something incredibly profound. After that cosmic high point of observation, every one took their turns guessing at how long I had been gone. One said, “no, it must be about 3 weeks.” Another-- “the deuce you say, it has to be at least a few months!” Another—“get lost, man, the Seeker hasn’t been around since Larry Sullivan had his motorcycle accident. It’s got to be at least 6 weeks.” After the furor of virtual time travel, or time “guessing,” more likely, by the regulars, I said, “Hey guys, I’ve actually been gone for three friggin years!” “Whoah!” went the chorus. After that, I just sat down and got drunk. It wasn’t until a day later that I realized I had been privy to a special kind of experience that illuminated the very mystery of time itself.

Last night the same thing happened at Cheetahs. After a year’s absence, the dancers could be divided into three groups. The first were ones who I had never met before. It was refreshing to talk to them. The second were ones that had just started working there about the same year when I had decided to leave Vegas. Most of the women remembered me. The ones that did came up and said, “Hey, you’ve been out of town,” etc. etc., and then each one guessed how long it had been just like my Minnesota Mixers compadres. I picked up on some juicy gossip like why one dancer, Kennedy, wasn’t there any more—“She became a total coke head,” said her onetime friend, “and she was so messed up that she got fired.” Or, “Hey, they’re watching us very closely now because they are afraid the place will be busted. So, more women are doing things outside the club in order to make money.” I was pleased to remind these happy women that I had been gone for a year. That seemed to impress them and, consequently, we had some fun.

The third group, actually just two dancers, were ones that had been working there from the first day I had visited the club. They were already burnt out years ago. One of them, a women who had had a bad boob job about six years before that, and who now had two saggy bags that she had to carry around with her, speculated through her coke haze, “How long has it been? At least about three or four weeks.”

Now every one knows that certain, special drugs can destroy our commonly perceived order of time. They teach us, albeit in a treacherous way, that cosmic duration is completely relative. For an easier exposure to this phenomenal insight into the structure of the universe, simply hang out as a regular among drunks or dope heads at your local strip club and then disappear for a year or two. Unlike fleeing from your wife or children, it won’t matter to the dancers one little bit, and, as I have been saying, they will experience your absence in a way best explained by Mr. Einstein.

Lapdancing: Getting Started-- Part One

When men go to lap dancing clubs they are already primed to be suckered in to the fantasy of simulated sex. They would never buy a car in the same way. Do people go into an auto showroom, pick out the first car they see, and buy it without the slightest hesitation at the very moment a salesperson approaches them? Most of us do at least some preparation ahead of time and know the kind of car and model they want. A few people even do extensive research and compare brands, models, extras and the like, before going into a dealership. The more work you do before an important purchase, the greater your chances of being happy with it. Of course, there may very well be people who purchase a home or a car without doing more than being offered a first choice. But, these people are clue- less and they deserve to be fleeced by the seller. When it comes to visiting lap dancing clubs, if you don’t prepare beforehand, don’t expect any sympathy when you are left dissatisfied, frustrated, horny, and with an empty wallet.

I can’t tell you how many times I have been hanging around at a club watching the scene, when some guy walks in, sits down, and before he even gets the chance to order a beer, one of the aggressive dancers comes up to him and the next thing I see is his back as he is being led, like the stupid jackass that he is, into the dance area. Now he is doomed. Now he will never know how many better, or more attractive women there are at the club, how many better experiences he could have had or how many dancers he could have met for some future visit.

Once I was at the Crazy Horse in Chicago (see later entry for a review) spending some time during the day (see a later entry for day vs. night for a good time). On that occasion I was mainly interested in drinking cold beer and getting out of the heat, because it was July and the humidity was close to 100%. This businessman walks in all scrubbed clean, wearing a nice suit and just plain mesmerized. He didn’t even try to sit down. At this particular club there was an aggressive dancer named “Summer” (see later entry for a story about another Summer). She fit the model for what most dumb guys new to lap dancing clubs look for. She was tall, had fake boobs and, of course, dyed blond hair. Summer was a tall Pamela Anderson. Have you ever looked closely at Pamela Anderson’s face? She has a pig nose, big forehead and beady eyes. Why was she a sex symbol? Simple. She had fake blond hair and fake big boobs. Aren’t guys stupid?

So, Summer goes right up to this yuppie and, without any chit- chat, asks him to go for a lap dance. Of course, he said “yes,” and disappeared with her into the “VIP” room (see later entries for VIP room stories). About a half hour later the jerk stumbles out with a shit eating grin on his face and exits into the blazing mid day Chicago sun. For all he knew, the Crazy Horse had no cold beer, no funny, entertaining, warm, friendly and talkative dancers. Yet, it did. He missed the real experience because he went for the dyed hair and fake boobs. Fantasy trumps reality every time. But, the reality of the clubs is infinitely more incredible than anyone without the minutes to invest in understanding the dancers and the lap dance experience can ever know.

Lapdancing: LOVE AND KANSAS-- Part One

LOVE AND KANSAS

Part One

Women make lap dancing work by suckering men into believing that they are in love with them. They sell this fantasy, not their bodies. The men, of course, are all too eager to be tricked and they soon, like all fools, are parted from their money. Most of the time this is hard earned cash, too, that was meant to pay bills, buy stuff for kids, groceries for a family, even money that was owed a bank or an ex- wife. None of this matters when a wily dancer weaves her web of false emotions and traps some weak guy drawn to her by his own desires. If the dancer has done her job, and most of them do it very well, the unlucky fly/man is completely convinced that she really likes him. He’s absolutely sure that, perhaps, for the first time in his life, he has a main chance to hook up with an exciting woman possessing a beautiful body and all the sexuality he ever dreamed of after years of ordinary love-making. Now he has finally connected with the kind of “sex kitten” that he had been reading about and making fantasy love to from men’s magazines since his first wet dream in Junior High School. He’s caught, hooked, roped in, snared, captured, taken, seized, snookered, and hopelessly lost. When this same fly/man finally does wake up to the fact that his favorite dancer doesn’t give a shit about him and was only doing her job making money in the way that she is supposed to, it’s usually too late for him to salvage much of his financial life. Dick- for- Brains is now hopelessly in debt. Whoever depended on the cash he made at work is now after him and he will pay a heavy price. That’s the way it goes. Men simply don’t get the point. Lap dancing is dangerous. Mucho Peligroso, Senior Horny!!!!

The horrible reality, however, is that it’s just not possible to avoid falling in love with the dancers. Some of them are so spectacular, so incredible as women, that even the best prepared male, even someone with vast experience in the ways of predatory females, who has been around them so long that there are absolutely no illusions about the money making primacy of the entire damned business, can still be tripped up by desire and be swept away. Virgil’s sign for Hell is appropriate for the universe created by these clubs. “Abandon hope, all who enter here.” A years worth of learning hard lessons about being victimized by fantasies, several years worth, even a lifetime’s worth, can be just swept away like nothing, like a little straw on a black top highway before a Texas tornado in the span of a single second from an encounter with the right woman. The femme fatale. Very fatale. In my case, at least, I didn’t fall in love very often, but when I did, it always ended badly.

One time I had been a regular at one of those glitzy, tourist oriented private dancing bars, the kind that advertise themselves as “gentlemen’s clubs” only to stimulate even more delusional thinking among the male customers. For a while I liked the place despite its phony ambience and its cigar smoking, golf playing clientele because there was a lot of action at the bar. I would go there just to stand in a comfortable spot near the bartender while the aggressive women at this place, some of whom were unbelievably gorgeous, would parade by and occasionally stop and chat. It was a thrill for a while, but also dangerous. At this place the women took the men down for hundreds of dollars. I had to go there for drinks and voyeurism only. I had to keep my dick well tucked into my pants.

After some months of frequenting this club I grew tired of it. I decided that at that point, I really wanted to experience a different and raunchier, less glitzy, less yuppified environment. There were always other clubs around and, whenever, I needed information about them, I always asked the dancers. Because they worked at the clubs, they knew everything about them and possessed very accurate, very precise information too. I asked one of the dancers I knew where I could find a less fancy place that was also fun. She said there was really only one other place in my area to go to that was both raunchier and more fun and it was called Private Dancers. She told me that it was hard to find because it was situated in an empty, partly industrial area under an elevated highway. She said that I had to take this highway and get off at the exit just before it went up the overpass, then follow the service road around until I was under the traffic and I would find it. I followed her directions and was first put off by the desolate area where I was driving, but then I found the place. The traffic from the highway rumbled noisily overhead. It was huge with a big parking lot filled with cars. No Lexuses or Beamers. I could see several semi-trailers among the autos in the lot.

Inside the place was exactly as I had hoped. No frills. A simple stage without fake smoke, flashing lots or other stupid effects. The women wore stripper outfits but none had the kind of fancy, expensive Las Vegas touches like the other place. It was just straight ahead boobs and butts, taking your clothes off, waving your ass around and back down off the stage to make money. There was no table dancing at this club. All the action took place in the side and back areas behind smoky glass. From the first time I went to Private Dancers, I became a regular and never went anywhere else, at least for a while. I wasn’t interested, at the time, in trying to get "extras," although I heard that at this club stuff like that was happening. I just liked the in- your- face atmosphere which gave the men half a chance because the bare walls and simple stage weren't engineered to stimulate a delusional atmosphere like the more up-scale “gentlemen’s” clubs. These women were always fully capable of prodding the men into the most fatal fantasies themselves.

One night at this club I was entrenched at the bar simply content to let the entire night slip away while watching the plentiful action around the room. I was working on my fourth beer at the time and was feeling pretty loose. Blindsiding me on the right a beautiful woman appeared. She said her name was Kansas. She was comparatively tall, with a great face, blue eyes and brownish/blond hair. She was on the thin side but had a great shape. She was very pretty but that isn’t my point. When she spoke to me and at that same time, when I felt her next to me, when I connected with her presence, it was exactly like someone had rammed a high tension wire up my ass. Electricity exploded all over me, coursing along my nerves, tingling my scalp, sparking the tips of my fingers, numbing my sense of hearing and switching my gut into a turbulent spin cycle. For an instant, I couldn’t catch my breath. In that nanosecond of pyrotechnical wizardry brought on by her face and her presence, I fell totally in love in the cosmic sense.

Now being in love obviously means many things to many people. There are different kinds of encounters and everyone has had them at one time or another. Over the years I had had my share too. But, that kind of love, even love "at first sight," is not how I would describe my meeting with Kansas. I was in love with Kansas, but in my case, above everything else that went along with that deeply felt emotion, including all the common symptoms of love that we all suffer from once we are so afflicted, was one thing that I had never experienced before. When I was in her presence, when she was next to me, I was completely, totally in ecstasy. I could have devoted my entire life using drugs and religion to get to that same point. Back then, for me, it only took her presence to propel me into a physical and mental state where I felt that every cell in my body was alive and happy, where I was completely swept away by the excitement of losing myself totally, of feeling my consciousness melt away into another state of life itself. This was a cosmic connection of immense scale and depth. I didn’t have to do anything with Kansas. Just having her next to me was enough for me to have the most delirious time of my life.

Being in love with Kansas reminded me of that corny, oblique and horribly cliched expression “you complete me.” Meeting Kansas made me feel like I had been ripped in two at the moment of my birth, or, more probably way before my birth, whatever I was, whatever it meant to be a living organism on this planet with a soul, I entered this world with part of myself missing. I think now, in retrospect, that division has more to do with the soul than the body. So, a part of me, of my soul, of the soul that had been given to me, to be correct, was split, that soul was ripped in two. All my life I had been searching for something and when I met Kansas I realized that it wasn’t a thing that I had been looking for, it was the missing part of the essence that made me alive, it wasn’t a part of me, it was in both of us, I had one half, or one part, because it felt more like something that had at one time before my birth been willfully ripped apart, and she had the other part, and when she came into my presence, I could feel that other part that I had craved all my life being in her. She provided the cosmic connection, she alone healed this horrible wound that I suffered at the moment of my birth so that I felt that awesome energy from my being coming together and having its full circuits restored. That’s what it felt like when I was with Kansas. It's not just love, it was like achieving a different level of life.

Now the horrible part. As for Kansas, I was just another customer. She felt nothing. Sure she liked me. But, she liked a lot of her customers. Actually, she didn’t think very much about us as people at all. Men, to her, were just wallets. She needed to make money. She went to work at the club just to make money. She didn’t view the customers as “men” to like or dislike, as potential anythings. Her customers were just guys who helped her pay her bills. Maybe I could even say, without deluding myself, that she liked me after a time, but in her own way. Maybe I was something more to her than any other man that she did business with at the club. But, that extra bit, that thin straw, was nothing. The awful, terrible part of my experience with Kansas was the realization that she didn’t feel the cosmic connection, the pure, essential reunion of souls that I felt. Kansas didn’t feel me coming into her life in that deep down way that she came into mine. To this day, I still feel the same way about her, even though several years have past since I saw her last, and, for sure, she thinks about me not at all.