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.