GOOD CATHOLIC GENE

My old friend, Gene, was raised a good catholic boy. I respect that. He was the kind of kid who went mentally ill at age eleven when he learned from the other street kids about blow jobs. Gene told me it took him years to recover from the mental image of the act and it was also the first time he faced the horrible, cold unknown of our universe. Later he would get a heavier dose of the latter when we were both in the military, but I never actually understood which trauma was worse for him. Frankly, I don’t think he ever really recovered from his childhood revelation. Pictures of screwing, in the pre- internet days, were always easy to find from “nature” documentaries. Children saw what the daddy lion did to the mommy lion and got the idea right away. But, learning the actual truth about bj’s was a matter belonging to an entirely higher dimension. Blow jobs blew Gene’s mind.

A few years ago, when I was still living in Las Vegas, Gene, now a full grown man, called and said he was coming out for a visit. When he arrived he was primed for casino gambling, just as any other gulled tourist. He had read up on poker and blackjack strategy for weeks. He had his money management scheme all worked out in his head. And, he had researched the best casinos for table games. Meeting him at the airport, and hearing his plans in detail for the first time, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn't give two shits for gambling. My life, at the time, centered on the lap dancing clubs. In fact, just a month before Gene’s arrival, I had broken up with a dancer from the Olympic Gardens. She had been surprisingly faithful and she caught me with another woman who also worked there. When it came to dating dancers outside the clubs, I had no will power at all.

I let Gene twist in the wind for a few days losing money steadily while he occasionally wondered what had become of his Las Vegas gambling fantasy. That’s the delusion that all visitors have about Sin City and it’s the hardest hallucination to let go. Yes, gambling visitors to Las Vegas are certifiably insane! Deep down, I mean, at the bottom of their life’s core, they really do believe all the commercials that show those deliriously happy people winning big at black jack or craps. Gambling success is the moment of triumph that Americans covet most. Forget Lance Armstrong and his seven Tour de France victories. Big shit! Screw that sweat! Successes in biking, golf or tennis, are a mere bagatelle compared to lucking out at a table game with the impeccably gorgeous waitresses from the TV commercials at your side (actually they are all chain smoking old ladies who push the money carts through the crowds on the casino floor while farting). Gene, like all the other losers gambling in Vegas, truly believed those vivid advertisements about a paradise on earth where money could be had without actually working for a living.

Near the end of his stay, I popped the question. “Hey, Gene,” I said in my most nonchalant way, “How about skipping gambling for this evening and coming with me, instead, to a nudie bar?” For all I could tell, I might just as well have mentioned a trip to Antarctica; the idea really was that foreign to him. “Nudie bar?????” he replied, with one of those severe grimaces of disgust on his face. “Yeah,” I countered, “you’ll have some fun for a change.” Gene still didn’t get it. He was locked in to his gambling mode and willing to spend the last nickel he had on a chance at winning some real wealth. What could he possibly do at a lapdancing club, he must have wondered. So, I had to spell it out for him. “Look,” I said, “here’s the scoop. At the titty bars there are these incredibly hot women and you can pay them to take their tops off while they sit on your lap and rub against you in time to the music.” Gene’s reaction to my description was very much like the one to the wise eleven year old who clued Gene in when he was a kid about bj’s. Of course, Gene, knew about lapdancing. Give me a break! I don’t have stupid friends. He had seen the TV shows and movies. He had heard other guys talk about it. He even knew that Vegas was crawling with sex industry workers. All of these things, Gene knew and understood. However, Gene, as the good Catholic boy, now lapsed because he no longer believed in a god at all, but that is another story, was not capable of imagining “lapdancing.” His brain short circuited at the very thought of a woman, any woman, made in the image of Mary, mother of Jesus, willing to expose her breasts while riding on top of a strange man, despite the fact that the guy was fully clothed. This lapdancing arrangement was simply something that Gene refused to acknowledge; just as the idea of a blowjob was also too much for his brain to handle.

Desperately seeking to alter his behavior for the better, I told him that I would pay for him and that, if he didn’t like it, I would drop him off at the casino of his choice. That did it, and we were off.

The real challenge I faced was deciding which club to take the virgin. Frankly, I didn’t want him to screw up my chances at scoring, if, by the very slim odds that existed, I managed to get lucky that night. I could, for example, play it safe and take him to one of the really tame clubs on the Strip, like the Olympic Gardens. But, then I realized that my ex would be working there. Although I didn’t want to, at first, I decided to take him to Cheetahs, since it was a fast track club and it was also a place I went where I wasn’t serious about the women, i.e., where I couldn’t take the women seriously. They were too young with nothing really to say and too drug addled. In contrast, I certainly wouldn’t take him to my favorite club, Crazy Horse II, because it would be an embarrassment. Of course, there were other options, but Cheetahs was a good bet for the evening. The heavy chested, young babes, despite all the coke sniffing, would definitely blow the Pontiff’s brain. That was a sight I wanted to witness.

Cheetahs is one large rectangular room. It has a stage running almost the entire length of one wall with three poles that could accommodate that many dancers, if necessary. Against the other wall was the bar which was about as long as the stage. Directly in front of the bar, just after the chairs and a slim aisle, they had placed two thin stages with poles. The VIP room was against the short- sided wall. It was narrow at both ends and long. On the opposite side, at the entrance to the club, there were pool tables and some chairs for dancers to hang out with “special” customers.

Any male wanting to make the most out of a night’s lapdancing experience should understand the role of space or location in a club. Good times depend on it. Most men, in their more typical “dick for brain” mode, simply walk into a nudie bar and sit down at the first available seat. This idiotic move fits the other one of going off with the first available dancer. Yet, psyching out the club’s space ranks with psyching out the women themselves. And, every club is different because their geometry and crowd behavior is different. Whenever I went to Cheetahs, I always sat at the bar. That was because the women were voracious. Just as a school of Piranhas tackle food, they could devour huge quantities of male money every hour. They sifted through the crowd systematically and hit hard. Once they entered this club, like Dante’s fellow travelers, male customers never had much of a chance.

Thinking strategically, which meant in Gene’s case keeping him as far away from the dancers as possible so that he wouldn’t skittishly bolt, I chose two chairs at the far end of the wall almost at the corner with a side view of the stage. When the waitress came over I ordered Gene his favorite beer. I had a shot of tequila with a beer chaser just to take the edge off of the evening. It wasn’t long before my buddy had a big shit eating grin on his face. In fact, he stopped talking to me all together and became mesmerized by the action on the stage. At that point, I figured I had done my good deed for the day and settled in to observe the club scene. I did repeat my offer about paying for a lap dance if Gene wanted one, but he could no longer hear me.

Several dancers stopped by even though we were clearly on the periphery for a reason. I let Gene do the talking and, once he got an opening, like the woman asking him where he was from, he rapidly blurted out his life story. All the years that had past when he couldn’t get a decent woman to listen to his personal experiences and feelings, spilled over in a flood of non- stop self- indulgence. Watching the spectacle I thought that what Gene was doing was also probably typical of many men who visited the clubs. They just wanted a non-threatening woman to talk to. Gene certainly did! The first recipient of his one way therapy session grew a very pained expression on her face. I laughed to myself when I saw it and watched carefully because I knew she would run at the very first opportunity. Sure enough, when Gene paused, just at the juncture in his life between discharge from the Marines and adjusting to civilian life, this dancer literally vanished, as if beamed up by Scotty himself.

A few more dancers came by with almost the same results. It seemed that Gene didn’t much care about not capturing a woman who would stick with him from the beginning to the end of his story, i.e., from birth through adolescence to that very evening. He was happy just to talk to a beautiful babe without possessing a clue that he was actually supposed to ask her to go for a dance. Finally, I had to remind him. I made my offer again. He leaned towards me and whispered that he simply couldn’t do it. “Maybe, if I came back here again and prepared myself, I might be able to go lapdancing, but I can’t do it now.” Then he added out of desperation, “Please don’t put me on the spot. I can’t do it!” Being totally sympathetic, I asked him if he wanted to leave. With immense energy he quickly responded, “Oh, no!!!! I really like it here.” Then, he added, “Let’s just sit for a while. I promise you that the next time we come here, I will have lots of lapdances.” Then he ordered a new round of drinks for us. Significantly, he took the money he had set aside for gambling and was eagerly displaying it now. “Maybe he will go for dances, yet” I thought.

About a half hour later there was a slight commotion to my left, towards the entrance to the club. I didn’t pay it much attention. A few minutes later, one of the beefy, shaved head bouncers came by and told us that we would have to leave that section of the floor. I asked him why. He said that Rod Stewart was in town and he was coming over with his “entourage.” They needed to make room for Rod. Now, revealing the truth, I have a short temper. Almost all the time I keep it well under control and my years of kung fu training help. After leaving the Marines, I also had some therapy for the problem so that I could hold on to a job. Anyway, I instantly got pissed off at this bouncer and the thought of having to disrupt the happy Gene for some asshole has- been singer. Keeping control of my emotions, I devised a strategic rap. I told the bouncer that I was with my buddy who had just been discharged with war wounds from the VA hospital and that we weren’t going to stay very long. I then suggested that we move our chairs even closer in to the corner so that Mr. Stewart and his “entourage” would not be physically constrained by our presence. The bouncer agreed and we moved our chairs.

Even though we were now pushed into the corner, barely able to see the edge of the stage, we were not out of sight of the lovely ladies working that night. Slowly, slowly they dripped by only to be frightened away by the look in Gene’s eyes or, more likely, by his eagerness to chat. As for me, I had to stay close to Gene in case he freaked out, so I didn’t even think about getting dances. Just as well. Cheetahs was not my favorite place for dances. The women bounced on your lap, rubbed their implants on your chest and then held their hands out for cash before they moved on and without trying to chitty- chat. I had hung out at Cheetahs for days and days, when I lived in Vegas, but I always found it to be a cold place.

At about 10:30 there was another, much bigger commotion to my left. Rod Stewart and his entourage had arrived. Rod, himself, took up residence at the opposite end of the row from where we sat. The bouncers had pushed tables together at that end and the waitress had already brought out the first bottles of Crystal even before most of the people had sat down. I saw some skinny guys with Rod who I assumed were in his band. Dressed in suits and lurking slightly back from this bunch were a couple of WWF meat heads, who I took to be the Rod’s body guards. There were also women that had come along for the ride and they sat in between the skinny guys. They were skinny, too, but pretty; more model types than dancers. Finally there was an assortment of rather ordinary looking guys who were with the entourage. I guessed that they might have been roadies, techies, or just “friends of Rob.” In all there were over twenty people stretching from just beyond my left arm to near the entrance of the club with a big sheltered space in the middle where Rob and the champagne sat.

When I turned back to Gene, I couldn’t stop laughing. If people really could pop their eyes out from surprise, then he would have. With a dropped jaw, drool at the edge, bulging, unblinking eyes, and a statue stiff stare, Gene was clearly in another life zone entirely. He was handling the scene well simply because he was obviously catatonic. If I smashed a bottle over his head, I knew then that he would feel absolutely no pain.

The best part of the evening, the legendary part, was yet to come. It commenced about ten minutes after the entourage had settled down. They were swarmed over by lapdancers like flies on shit. The single guys closest to us were the first to leave with the women. They just disappeared. Not very long after that two of the dancers came over to Gene and I. One gorgeous young blond with a well toned butt asked me if I was with Rod. Before Gene could say “no,” and launch into his life story again, I shot back a resounding “yes.” Then I asked the woman for a dance. At that very moment, I sincerely admit that I simply abandoned Gene. The situation was just too good to goof up. I would certainly die for my buddy, but this little bit was something entirely different. It was now every one for themselves. As I followed the nice ass into the VIP room, I told her that she could take as long as she wanted because the entire tab was on Rod. “Of course,” she said. “Who else!” Then she added, “But, can you introduce me afterwards.” “Noooooo problem,” I assured her already completely alive to the evenings prospects.

Back at our chairs, Gene was entertaining two ladies. They sat rapt while he told them his life story. They didn't flee because he was a "friend of Rod's" now. Suddenly Gene realized that Jesus loved him.

Lapdancing: OUT OF CONTROL

Planning strategically before going to the clubs is the best way to improve your chances of having an enjoyable lap dance experience. Knowing yourself, especially your weaknesses, is also important. Some guys drink too much, some jump at a dance when asked instead of waiting things out, some get suckered in by ugly implants just because they are huge, and, you name it. Do you know your own personal demons? If not, you aren’t prepared to meet the voracious money grubbers waiting just the other side of the club door.

Early on, when I first started frequenting titty bars, I encountered a serious problem because I could not resist the temptation of going off with a beautiful woman for a dance, I should say “dances,” and, once I did that, I spent all the money on me, no matter how much I had at the time. Resisting that kind of breakdown required strict control. Knowing my weakness, I vowed never to bring more than I was willing to spend on any given night. This was a defense mechanism I learned by resisting financial ruin during my years living in Las Vegas and gambling at the casinos. The same strategy applied at lap dancing clubs.

Last night I blew it big time. For some stupid reason I took too much money with me; more money than I could afford to spend. I had a vague idea about hooking up with a dancer for after hours sex, but, in reality, I just felt like flashing a big roll around while I concentrated on getting a good alcoholic buzz. It’s not every night that I decide to drink heavily, but last night was the exception. In the back of my mind I also wanted to be able to take advantage of whatever unexpected encounters might arise. Cruising the clubs was the best way to maximize those chances. It was also my downfall.

I started out the evening at the “same old club,” aka, The Ritz. This was a poor choice that just got compounded as the night zipped along. The Ritz is my local club; it’s the place I go to on most nights when I just want to unwind, have a few beers and chat up my favorite dancers and waitresses. Last evening I planned on having a marathon night by club hopping in search of a “special” dancer that would curl my toes and get me off. In retrospect, I should have just gone for the big time clubs in the Miami area, instead.

My visit to the Ritz started out just fine. I had a few beers, had a good conversation with my favorite waitress and joked with dancers who were my friends. I had become relaxed and ready for dealing with the fast track places on my mental list. Then, across the room, I saw “Eva,” a dancer I had connected with outside the club for a few months one year ago. I hadn’t seen her since our trysts. Eva was Czech. She had a drop dead figure, natural blond hair and big blue eyes. She always looked tanned, healthy and athletic. Once she told me that she played water polo while growing up. After a few extra- curricular meetings, during which she gave me a workout that kept me wanting more, she allowed me to meet her at her place, instead of motels. I recalled, then, how much I liked spending time with her. She was very smart, had graduated university back home, spoke five languages fluently—Czech, Slovakish, German, French and English—and several others, like Spanish and Italian, just enough to get along. During the days we had some great times in her leased Jeep Sahara barreling through the Everglades or just watching the sunset behind Ft. Lauderdale, after riding up and down near the ocean. At that moment I recalled that Eva went back home to Prague about a year ago to visit her family, and that was why I hadn’t seen her for so long.

At the same time I noticed her, she noticed me and came right over to my table. We hugged and she joined me for drinks. Of course, I realized I was now a dead man. There was no possible rescue slated for my future after being reunited with that gorgeous woman. “Dead man walking,” I thought, or, at least, “Dead man sitting with extra bucks in his pocket and getting drunk in front of knock out lap dancer.” What do you do when all hope is lost? You “go with the flow.” Certainly, it did not take long before Eva popped the question and I was being led sheepishly back into the modest VIP room of the Ritz. I wanted it. Having not seen Eva for about a year, I needed to re-connect with her, because we did have some good times together. I got my wish and I also jump started my slide towards out of control spending that night.

Eva and I had three dances together. Starting with the first she did some excellent grinding with her crotch on mine and I became rock hard. I stopped at three because there was no way to take things further. Wishing to resume our relationship, I was about to ask her if we could meet again outside the club, when she stood up, got dressed fast and informed me coldly that she had to move on because she needed to make money. I sat in our little booth dumbstruck. She added that she couldn’t spend time with me just chatting and then she was off. “What brought on such cruelty?” I wondered.

Back at my seat I ordered another beer. On my extreme left I could see Eva talking with a table of businessmen who had just stepped into the club. She was definitely entertaining them. I became supremely jealous. “What a bitch!” I thought. Then I was distracted by other nice looking dancers circulating around the room. It wasn’t hard to shift my attention.

Much later, after a few more beers, I was still sitting in the same spot and my plans for club hopping were on hold. I began to see things a little bit Eva’s way by pushing my hurt ego off to the side. She had just come back from the Czech Republic after a year’s absence and she needed to make American bucks fast. She wasn’t being cruel to me as much as she was just acting like a smart lap dancer. She anticipated that we would still be friends even after breaking off our brief encounter, trusting that I would forgive her because of the wonderful times we had before she left. Despite these insights, in my view, she was still mean. She could have explained herself better instead of leaving me to add up two and two after drinking a good six pack worth of beers with one tequila chaser that evening. “Maybe it’s because of her English as a second language problem,” I thought, giving her the full benefit of my empathy. Then I thought, “Well, screw her, anyway!” And, that was the very end of our relationship, as far as I was concerned.

From the very beginning of my lap dancing experiences, I hated that kind of cold, calculated parting that some women used to move from one customer to the next in search of quick bucks. It never left me feeling good after a dance, and, why should it? The better dancers, the ones with repeat customers, always had a way of letting you down slowly, gently, before rocketing off to plumb the wallets of other men. It was part of the total experience and the smart ones knew that, because they knew men. Eva might have a problem expressing herself in English, but, really, she wasn’t attuned to the male ego. For that reason, she would always be an exciting dancer, a great lay, but a bad businesswoman.

It took some time before I left the Ritz last night. I stuck to my table drinking for a gentle buzz to eradicate my pain. Another dancer caught my attention. She was tall, even Julie Newmar- statuesque, had dyed blond hair, big boobs and a beautiful, muscular butt. Without noticing a change in my thinking, and, despite my great strategic plan for the evening, I was now primed for another dance. I tried to get this beauty to notice me, but she didn’t. Instead, she sat down at a table directly in front of mine. Now my ego was being bruised in a different way. What torments it was possible to suffer at lap dancing clubs! As she sat talking, I noticed that she had unusually broad shoulders for a woman. “Maybe she is a body builder,” I thought, in a generous mood all of a sudden. Then she got up and went behind the DJ booth which was a sign that she would be on stage next. After being introduced, she attacked the pole and popped up and down the stage with athletic moves. I noticed more things about her. The shoulders still bothered me. They were TOO broad. She had no hips. Her ass was TOO muscular. When she took off her bra, I could tell that her implants lay highly exaggerated on her chest. “OK, OK,” I thought, “I get it!” This was not the first time I witnessed a dancer who previously was a guy that underwent a Danish operation. There was one other time. In both cases, the man/woman looked like a body builder with tits. I think it was the NO HIPS that really gave it all away. At this thought, I got up and left the place as fast as I could for a change of environment.

The next and, in reality, last club that I visited that night was one of the best in the Miami area, the “Cabaret,” or, “Tootsie’s Cabaret.” Tootsie’s is a large, glitzy club chocked full of dancers (this is not a review, but see www.lapdanceguide.com). Most of the women were relatively young, so they were good looking, even if they were slowly going to seed from drugs, or alcohol, or poor choices in men. The Cabaret was a great place to observe, but a piss poor one for a truly memorable lap dance. Why? Because there was just too much action, too much money changing hands. Still, when I was in the mood, and last night I was definitely in the mood, there were more than a handful of women from whom I enjoyed getting dances.

Every single club requires a different strategy in order to maximize your chances of hooking up with a fabulous dancer. One strategic aspect involves location or positioning. At the Cabaret I always sat at the bar. Over the years I discovered that in this club it was the best way to view the parade of women. Also, they often stopped at the bar so you could chat them up. Last night I arrived at the crest of the coupling; a poor choice of time to visit this fast track place. Still, I made the best of it by squeezing into position at the bar and ordered a beer. Within minutes several women already had stopped by asking if I wanted to visit the VIP room with them. It was tough for me to refuse their invitations, because they were all beautiful.

I resumed my drinking pace and settled into a good groove of observing and imbibing. The alcoholic buzz that I craved kicked in. Then I had one of my “ Sha- Wing!” moments. Standing in front of me was a truly gorgeous babe. Her name was Kimberly and she was stunning—long blond hair, athletic hard body, big boobs, fleshy butt, and a beautiful, beautiful face. Kim was a spectacle all by herself. I got aroused just by having her near me, in front of me, touching my knee, as I sat on the bar stool, with her bare thigh. Of course, you know the outcome of this pairing. In fact, I asked her to go in the back for dances even before she had a chance to ask me! Of course, as well, our session was purely for my benefit. I was not so deluded to think that she had any interest in me at all except as her “next customer,” despite the little, truly little, things that she said which were technically engineered to turn me on. Kim was a man- killer. In the movie, The Matrix, there were these hunter/killer tentacled things that flitted around inner space looking for the magno ships from Zion. If you were unlucky enough to run into them, you were dead meat. I ran into Kimberly that night, and I was lap dance road kill, once again.

I emerged from the VIP room with a light wallet. Only my strong realization that, après Kim, I would need to drink many alcoholic beverages at the bar in order to recover from our separation, helped prevent me from spending every last penny I had on me, not to mention signing my house and car over to her just for a few more dances. I went back and took a seat. My brain was fully buzzed by the juice of lap dance stimulation. Basically, I didn’t know where the hell I was, who I was, where I was born, where I was living at the time, etc, --- every man that has ever connected with an object of desire at a club knows the state I was in at the time. I got a nice cold beer from the bartender and tried to return to reality. When I started my evening, I had $600 in my pants, and a quick check of my finances told me I had $80 left. For that reckless time-- last night, that is-- it was still too much money for me to take home, even though it was actually hundreds of dollars more than I could afford to spend.

My beer was just about finished when another woman came over to me. This one wasn’t a hunter/killer, she was an ordinary mortal. She sat down on the vacant stool next to me and said “Hi.” Her name was Blaise. She needed a drink. I asked her what she wanted and she said “Smirnoff Ice, with a glass full of ice.” I ordered her set up and Ice. When it came she drank a long swig and folded back into a slumped posture, as if she was deadly tired. “What’s happening with you?” I asked. Taking me by complete surprise, she instantly began babbling. Beer drinking to excess, as I had done all that night, wasn’t my problem, either. I simply could not follow what she was saying, although it did strike me that she was telling me something about her night working at the club. Taking a stab at an appropriate response, not that it probably mattered to Blaise, I said, “That’s really tough.” The magic words seemed to work and off, again, she went ripping into a one way conversation. She only paused to take slugs of her drink and, soon, I had to order her another. I was now below $60; basically running on empty, pure money fumes, when it comes to being at a “gentleman’s club.”

Blaise was a sad person and I eventually adopted a brotherly response to the fractured tale she was telling. I learned, for example, that she started dancing straight out of high school, that she never got into the coke scene, that she loved to drink (she was an alcoholic, I guessed rightly), that she had little to show for her years of dancing, and, that she was having a really bad night because one of the other dancers had set her off and she started drinking seriously much too early in the evening. Throughout her babbling, it was the story about the other dancer that I could not interpret. Anyway, she certainly was tipsy by the time she collapsed on the seat next to me.

Blaise appealed to me for money. It was approaching 10:00 PM and she needed to pay her floor fee to the manager, otherwise, they wouldn’t let her come back to the club for a week. “Fifty bucks,” she said, when I asked her how much. I couldn’t resist. I gave her the money. Down to “seeds and stems,” I thought. She happily popped off her stool and told me that she would be right back. Impressively, she still had the presence of mind to ask me to watch her drink. An insidious, totally reprehensible aspect of working as a dancer, was the way some low life men slipped “date rape” drugs into the drinks of the women when they were a bit stoned and distracted. I knew several female friends, over the years, that had to take trips to the emergency room while working at the clubs. Others hit by this crime passed out in the VIP room and got robbed. At least Blaise proved she was a pro. Despite her drinking, she knew enough to have me watch her drink, and, this meant that she also trusted me. I realized then that I could probably connect with her outside the club another time, because she was bonding to me. When she came back, she reinforced my assumption by positioning herself in front of me, leaning forward and hugging me. She lingered and allowed me to caress her side. She had a nice body. She smelled good, too. Then, she kissed me on the cheek and sat back down.

After a bit, Blaise said that she had to go on stage. She asked me to watch her drink again and I said, “Yes,” and stayed, because now I could see her in action. Unfortunately, the heavy slurping had taken its toll. She acted uncoordinated. Then she yelled at some guy at the foot of the stage. Another customer yelled “Boooo!.” “This is much too painful to watch,” I thought. At that point, I wanted to leave and was resigned to calling my expensive night over, finito, genug, passé. Still, I had promised to watch her drink and I would do just that. “Damn it,” I thought. Being in the military had turned me into a big boy scout when it came to women, even if I still loved beating up guys in bar fights. Her dances on stage were just something I had to endure. When the agonizing spectacle was over and Blaise returned to her drink, I told her that I had to leave. Meekly, she said, “OK,” and I knew she was disappointed, even though her hanging out with me meant that she wasn’t making any money—a real “no, no” from the perspective of professional dancers. Then she said, “Why don’t you give me your number?” That surprised me. I actually wanted to say, “No,” but I didn’t. I knew we had connected and I guessed that, during the next days, she would still remember me fondly. She certainly was nice looking. So, I gave her my number. She entered it into her cell phone register. It took what seemed to me to be several hours. “No, not three, two, nine. Three, nine, two!” And, so on.

When I eventually got the hell out of Tootsie’s, I had four dollars and fifty cents out of six hundred bucks left in my pocket.

Lapdancing: HOW I GOT TO BE FIT

Two years ago, on a particularly hot summer day in South Florida, I went to The Ritz, aka, “same old place,” in the late afternoon. I arrived at a little after 6:00 PM and decided to sit at the bar because, that day, I was much more interested in just having a few cold beers than a hot lap dance. Even from this vantage point, I was still able to be stimulated by the parade of boobs and butts both on stage and also circulating around the room. There were only a few dancers working that day, about six or so. It was hard to tell exactly how many, because some women were always tucked away in the lap dancing areas either dancing with customers, smoking, talking with other dancers, or recovering emotionally from a "day at the office."

I settled in at the bar making myself comfortable on a stool and I ordered a shot of tequila with a beer chaser just to get me buzzed out quickly so that I could then relax. I noticed that there were a few women working the place who were regularly picking guys off and taking them up to the lap dancing areas one at a time. There was a woman with lovely long, straight blond hair and a terrific body, just like a Playboy fantasy of a "California girl," who was lap dancing with one guy, and, as soon as she finished and got her money, another man, who had been waiting in the wings, came over, passing the first guy, and she hopped on him. I looked hard but couldn't tell whether this woman had implants, but she sure was making lots of money, a perfect "bunny" fantasy-- wet dream for the working class. For a brief moment, I thought of joining the queue, then snapped out of it with a reminder to myself that I needed to drink cold beer and cut my expenses.

I noticed a brunette who also had her male harem stacked up like planes circling O'Hare. She had huge hanging breasts but it was because she was fat, a real plumper. “No thanks,” I thought to myself, “I’ll pass on that one.” As I observed longer, I became aware of the fact that several of the men were having six, seven, eight or more dances with these women. I mean, that's almost $200. So, some guys came there and spent weekly wages. Anyway, I was standing at the bar and wondering why there were so few dancers in the room at the time, compared with the other night, when the waitress walked by and I decided to ask her about it. She told me that it was slow that day, but that I should stick around because the "night shift" would be coming on at around 7:00. "The night shift?" I asked. "Well, yeah!" she said, "There's a day shift and a night shift and the girls usually just work one or the other." At that time, two years ago, I was relatively new to the lap dance club phenomenon. Questions were always important to ask in order to get oriented.

Every time I went to the clubs, it seemed, I always learned something new during those days. That was one reason why I became a regular at the Ritz—just to go to a place where I felt comfortable and where I knew some of the dancers. According to this waitress, there were definitely set hours for the women to work and the girls had to sign up and pay money to the owner in order to be on the floor for each of the shifts. This kind of regulation of the dancer schedule was done without negotiation and at the discretion of club policy. To be sure, lap dancers had no union, nor any say in orchestrating their hours. Another time one woman told me that, if she left early, the club owner would fire her, but that was at a definitively high powered place in Miami. The Ritz is supposed to be more casual. Still, when it came to controlling the dancers, it was as strict as any other club. Being a lap dancer was like factory work except that you wore a cooler uniform and could drink alcohol and take drugs while on the job. Oh, on second thought, factory workers did the latter things, too. The nice waitress then added. "Stick around until later and you will see many more dancers coming in here."

So, I figured that at 7:00 things might change for the better and, if I were sufficiently lubricated, I might have a dance or two. The time before last when I also came to this club it was at night and the place was jammed with lots of action, so I was confused. At that moment it seemed hard to believe that the same thing would happen that day. While I was trying to figure all this out, a very attractive woman entered the club and walked over to where I was sitting at the bar. She was dressed in street clothes, but I could see that she had a great ass and hefty breasts. Also, she looked very young. To my surprise, she just settled in on the stool next to mine and stared out at the stage. I waited a few minutes looking at her, then looked around to see why she was there, and then looked at her again. She didn't turn towards me, but acted cool, instead. She kept her eyes on the stage. Finally, I couldn't take her silence and I began talking to her. "Hey! You come here to see the women dancers? You like watching women nude?" She laughed out loud at my remark thrusting her head slightly forward. Then she turned to me and said, "No, silly. I actually work her." She sounded so definitive. I smiled back at her, she was so pretty, with a cute face and long reddish blond hair. I found myself falling in love again, damn-it!!! Then she said, "My shift doesn't start until after 7:00, but I came early." She then told me that she worked freelance and that, because she wasn't a regular, the club charged her $50 for each shift. So, although she came early, she didn't want to suit up right away, because she would have to pay them $50 and it was already 6:30. "They would make me pay another $50 after 7:00," she said.

Her name was "Terri," and she told me that it was her "real name" not her stage name. Terri was from a rural town in Alabama. “Alabama, I asked surprised, “What the hell are you doing here?" She laughed very hard in response. "Well my sister is a dancer here and she told me the money is real good." "Who's your sister?" I asked. "Oh, she's in the back somewhere. She's tall and has one tattoo on her breast and another on the back by her shoulder." The waitress came by again and I asked Terri if she wanted a drink. She said, "Oh, sure," and ordered a beer. "Alabama" I said again in amazement, just to keep her amused.

Terri told me that her sister has been a lap dancer for five years. She started at 14 after she ran away from home. "How could she do nude dancing that young?" I asked. "Oh. That's not the only thing she does," she said with a tinge of irony in her voice. "She's really tall and she lied about her age." Terri then said, "And you know what? She spent her whole life lap dancing and she doesn't have jack shit to show for it!" "How come?" I asked. "Well, she takes a lot of drugs. She burns up all her money on things like coke and weed and she gets ripped off by bad boyfriends." I understood what Terri said but couldn't quite imagine it. Her sister had spent all that time, her whole life, as Terri said, working at nude dancing bars and didn't have anything saved or invested. "She must be a real low-life," I said. "Yeah, that's true," Terri said, shaking her head but also laughing softly at my remark. She then looked at me and smiled. I melted. I was out of control again and at the mercy of this teenager who could easily be my daughter. Despite all my precautions and pep-talks, I found myself emotionally charged and in love again.

Reaching out like a drowning man at my one salvation, my strategic goals for controlling the lap dance experience, I told Terri that, when she started working, I wanted to have some dances with her, but I also had to know about her rules. She told me that there would be no touching below the waist allowed, but I could touch her “every place else.” She also said, "No licking or kissing." I immediately came to my senses at that point, surprising myself. I thought, "Gee, I really only want to have sex with her. I'm so turned on." I didn't follow up the conversation by asking further about whether she would bend her rules for more money, because I was no longer sure I actually wanted to have a dance with her. At that moment, I was much more interested in trying to have a relationship with her, as if I had met her someplace else like an ordinary bar or at the mall; someplace out in public. In short, at that point in the conversation, I was already DOOMED, I was lost and under her spell with the one thing that I feared most about being at the clubs—I now had a dick for a brain. “Ok,” I managed to squeak out as I stared at her beautiful face. Then she changed the subject and said that she wanted to lie down for a while before the shift change. I watched her walk away with a beer in her hand towards the couches at the other end of the club. Her booty really filled out her tight jeans. Then I watched her pick a vacant couch and lie down. Now, I was surely lost. I didn't know what to do. I was in love and conflicted. My insistence on trying to control the lap dance encounter had brought me more pain, not less.

A few minutes later a tall, stringy blond woman with a tattoo on her left breast walked over to me at the bar. She introduced herself as Terri's sister, "Star." I could tell right away that Star was totally screwed up. She was burned out, too skinny and her hair was bleached to death. When she spoke, she was ditzy, as if she was already stoned out of her mind. "How can a nice, sweet person like Terri have such a messed up sister?" I wondered. Star said, "Buy me a beer." Just like that. I wanted to tell her to ***** off, but I said, “OK,” with considerable tolerance in my voice just in case Terri might hear about it later. I then said, "You know, I really like your sister. I like her a lot." "Well, why don't you have a lap dance with her?" she asked. "Maybe I will," I answered, "If she behaves herself, emphasis on the 'behaves'." What I meant by that was, of course, if she became flexible about her rules, but the reference was so veiled, Star didn't know what I really meant. Nevertheless, she found the way I said it funny, and she laughed. I started to feel uncomfortable with Star hanging around me, because she looked like such a low life. Thankfully, she bumbled off and went in the back to her sister. I saw her flop down on the same couch where Terri was lying and talk to her. "She's probably dissing me right now," I thought.

It was now after seven and I noticed that both Terri and her sister had disappeared somewhere. Then, I saw Terri exiting from the back dancer's locker room and walking over to me at the bar wearing a day-glow, lime green, itsy bitsy, thong bikini. She looked like a live, erotic doll wrapped up as a present. She just came right over and stood next to me without saying anything. I could tell easily now that she, in fact, had a great pair of bonkers, large for her size figure, but perfectly arced. "Hi, Terri," I said. "You look real sassy," saying "sassy" the way Jim Carey said it in his film, The Mask. She laughed and smiled at me. She then took my hand and led me towards the back area.

Terri was very happy. We went over to a couch way in the corner that could not be seen from the bar area. I sat down and she stood directly in front of me smiling. She had a fabulous body. When the next song started she took off her top right away. I could see that she had white skin with freckles. Her nipples were little pink gems. She danced for a while standing straight up and then, with a smile on her face, she leaned forward placing one breast against my mouth. I kissed it as she quickly pulled back. I then reached behind her and grabbed both her cheeks and pulled her more towards me. She entered the V that I made with my legs and I closed them while embracing her with my thighs. I gave her a big smile; she laughed and said, "Wow. You're really ready for me, aren't you." I held her tight.

Terri was real buff. I asked her if she worked out and she told me that she did aerobics and "some light work with free weights." "Well. You look great," I said. "How about you?" she asked poking her fingers into my pecs. "No. I don't really do much, except swim in the pool at my condo complex." Terri told me that she was 18. "So," I thought, "she actually is a teenager!" She said that she had wanted to do lap dancing like her sister, but didn't want to be like her sister, so she waited until after graduating from high school. "I'm real proud of myself," she said, "I finished high school." Immediately after graduation, she hit the road and finally caught up with her sister in Atlanta. "Why did you decide to do lap dancing?" I asked. She was a long way from home and was such a young, little girl to be out hanging around in these clubs. "Well the money is great," she said. "I can make $300, $400 a night!" I couldn't help it and said, "Wow!" I was impressed. "What do you do with all that cash?" I asked. "I just bought a car. It's brand new. No one my age back home has something like that!", she said proudly. "I'm also saving up to buy a condo in Ft. Lauderdale. I love the beach." "That sounds like a good idea to me," I told her. "So, you don't want to go back home to Alabama?" I asked, just joking around. "I'm never going back there," she chuckled.

Terri was giving me a fabulous lap dance. She moved when I told her to and took different positions so I could play with her body. She turned around with her back facing me and pressed her beautiful, baby-fat butt into my groin. She let me kiss her when I couldn’t help control the urge. I had been nibbling on her neck just below the hairline and I tried to position myself so that I could kiss her on the lips, but she turned away. I liked playing with her hair, it was such a pretty color; blondish red. After the third dance, I told her to keep going and she was so delighted. We started to grind in earnest. She positioned herself directly on my lap. Ever since the beginning of our dances, I was very hard and I remained that way. I held onto her hips pushing her down into me. I thrust my pelvis up and down and she stayed with me. She pushed in and twisted and moved to the left, then to the right, and all the time she kept her body pressed into my lap.

Terri and I had five dances by the time I told her I wanted to quit. Actually by the fourth dance, she had already worked up a sweat and by the fifth her skin, which I had first marveled at because it was so soft yet buffed, was now all clammy and wet from perspiration. So, after five dances, it was time to stop. She collapsed on the couch next to me, huffing and puffing, and said, "I always do that. When I have more than three dances, I always perspire like a sick drunk." I laughed. She said, "Let's not leave for a while. Let's talk." I was thrilled by her comment. "How do you like Florida?" I asked. "Oh. Its just great," she said still panting a little. I told her I didn't know much about Miami, but always liked to go to South Beach. I then found myself turning the conversation towards trying to get to see her outside the club. This was not what I was supposed to do according to the agreement I made with myself that year. I was supposed to think strategically and keep from falling in love. I was supposed to be ruthless and calculating in obtaining exactly the kind of lap dance I wanted, which I certainly did. But, then I was not supposed to obsess, I had promised myself that I was going to let go after the dance, something I could never do before. I was going to be just like the lap dancers themselves, and call it over when it was over after getting what I wanted. I tried hard. I really did. Except with Terri, I had no chance. We were having too much fun. I loved her company. We talked as if we had known each other for a long time. Later I would have many experiences just like that one. Specifically, I would wind up at some club with only a vague desire to get a lap dancing fix for that day. Many times, I satisfied my addiction through the company of an attractive, but very workman like dancer. Occasionally, however, I would walk into a club on no special day with only limited needs in mind and discover an incredibly gorgeous and desirable woman working there that I had never seen before. These special events turned an ordinary occasion into something magical.

Blissfully, once again, I fell in love. I was filled with desire for Terri and would have abandoned all my other attachments right there just to remain with her. I suggested that she consider meeting me in Miami so that we could explore the city together. "Let's get together during the day," I said, "and you can still get to work at night." At first she liked the idea. She said, "Yeah. That would be fun. We could go to the beach and then eat at a Cuban restaurant," she said. I was so thankful for the way she was actively participating now that it was easy and, of course, appropriate to lie to her. I hung around South Beach all the time. Yet, I told her that I had never been there, had heard a great deal about it and that I would love to take her there. Then she suddenly became quiet and said, "Well. Let's talk about it. I need a drink now. Why don't I go to the bathroom and freshen up and then meet you back at the bar for a drink." I told her "fine," and she said I should order her a beer. She then got up. I said, “Hey, you forgot your money!” I took $100 from my pocket and gave it to her. Her smile returned as she stuffed the bills into her purse and she ran off to the bathroom.

I went over to the bar and decided to sit at a table near where we first stood. The chairs at the tables were more comfortable. After a while she returned all squeaky clean with a big smile on her freckled face. Despite her big boobs and full backside, she was still slightly built. Proportioned but petite. Her reddish blond hair glowed in the light. We started making small talk again. Then she said, "You know, I just started doing this, and I need to keep working for a while." "Here it comes," I thought, "the same old line that I've heard so many times before." I just knew what she was going to say and I dreaded hearing her say it after the wonderful time that we just had. Yet, I also knew very well that I deserved to hear her reject me. I had crossed over the line, a line I constructed for myself in order to emotionally survive the lap dance scene. I had vowed not to get psychologically involved with the dancers. I had vowed to be ruthless in my control over the encounter. All my vows were for naught. Terri made me fall in love with her just by being who she was. I was lost, a victim, lap dance road kill. I deserved my fate.

She said that she would love to spend a day with me in Miami, BUT she was going to be very busy for some time trying to make money. "I knew it. I knew it," I thought bitterly. Then Terri added another thought that was truly pure rejection and a response for which I was not prepared. "And, you know, there's also something else. There's a real difference in our ages and I don't think I'm ready for that." Well after I heard what she said, she just might as well have taken a gun out and shot me in the head. She really should have just killed me first before saying anything about "ages." I was so completely devastated that I choked up. I fought hard to keep tears from coming to my eyes. Of course, I realized that I was 38 and she was 18, but it never occurred to me that this would make a difference. How dumb could you get? What was I thinking? Yet, her response blindsided me and I broke apart.

Had I known better, I wouldn't have said anything about the dreaded subject of “age” after that. But, her statement caught me so completely by surprise that I couldn't help being defensive. Unfortunately for me, I then said, "Oh, well I'm really not that old," with a sarcastic tone. In as a matter-of-fact-way as possible she said, "You're about as old as my father, he's 36." Actually I was two years older than her father, but by calling it to my attention, she made it impossible for me to say anything else. I was DOOMED.

I sat there for a while staring at the stage. A great wave of sadness washed over me. I looked down at my beer and realized I was becoming hopelessly depressed. She sensed the change in my mood and took some responsibility for it. "I'm sorry," she told me, "I just have difficulty with the age thing." She said it again and without realizing it, mocked me. I said, "Well I guess I'll never see you again." "Oh. Don't say that. I'll still probably be coming down to this club, if the money is good. Come back and see me." At this point I couldn't help giving in to my emotions. I said, "Well. I'm feeling very sad now. I really enjoyed our dance. Too bad we can't get together in Miami. It would have been fun." She just said, "Yeah," agreeing with me. But, that wasn't what I wanted to hear. "Well. I'm going to leave right now," I said, and I got up and left.

I drove home devastated. I was numb. Entering my condo, I stumbled into my room and flopped down on my bed and jerked around in the throes of agony until I eventually fell asleep. The next day, I recalled the previous night's events. Life had dealt me a low blow to my ego. Just when I had figured out the very best strategy for lap dancing and, in my moment of triumph, when I had strongly taken command of the actual encounter with a dancer of choice before and during the dance, transcending the lap dance situation and all its constraints, Terri's response to my advances proved nearly fatal. I had a thrilling lap dance with her and she satisfied all my wishes, except, perhaps not allowing me to kiss her on the lips. Still, that aside, I had a fabulous time asserting myself. Then my ego was smashed to pieces. The very worst thing any woman that I liked could say to me was said. Had I been called fat, smelly, farty, ugly, unattractive, buggy, and obnoxious, a drag, a jerk, an asshole, or any other explicit adjective, I could have recovered. I had a thick skin for direct insults. Still, I also had a sensitive soul and that's exactly where the barbed spear of her remark about age landed. Terri scored a bull's- eye where it hurt me the most.

In the throes of a deep depression, unable to do any work myself, I sat there the next day crying inside. Life had passed me by. At 38, I was too old. My age was showing. Terri had opened my eyes to a reality that I had chosen to ignore. I wasn't just too old for her, but also for all the other dancers everywhere. Correct that, what Terri had revealed to me by her simple remark was not that I was too old, because that just involves a person's chronological age, but that I looked too old. My core problem was that I looked my age. What a horrible thought that was!!!! Still, it turned out to be an important revelation.

During all that day, a spell of intense humiliation held me in such a tenacious grip that I remained paralyzed, unable to move from my chair, unable even to answer the phone. My depression was too dark, too strong and too physically debilitating for me to respond to the ordinary stimuli of everyday life. I sat there, in the condo kitchen, holding a cup of coffee but not drinking, trying hard not to think about the horrific reality of being 38 years old and looking exactly my age to gorgeous young lap dancers. Then, after a long while, the dark depression in my brain slowly lifted like a lake fog in late morning. I began to focus on my revelation rather than Terri’s rejection.

Thinking about Terri the day after broke my heart because I couldn't bear not seeing her again. Once I made that connection, I acquired some distance from the painful hurt, and I realized that she had given me a challenge. It was simple, in a way. I had to work on my appearance so that I wouldn't look my age! That very day, I devised a plan. The first thing I would do was join a health club. I chose I place not too far from my condo complex. The representative at the club gave me a sales pitch about different options and I could have even shopped around at other places for alternative deals, but I had come there in great need. It was very much like the way I went to the lap dancing clubs. In both cases, I was simply primed to pay. So, because of my new frame of mind, I was in and out of the health club with my one year contract within a half hour.

The second thing I did occurred to me on the drive home after signing up. I looked in the rear view mirror and caught a glimpse of my hair back lit by the car's windows. "Of course, of course," I thought to myself in a moment of satori. My hair was turning gray! "I have friggin gray hair!," I said shaking my head because of my gross stupidity. In my defense, I didn't exactly have gray hair, I just had "graying" hair, gray hairs between hairs that still retained their color. My hair was light brown. If I had black hair, I would possess that salt and pepper look that many people found distinguished, like Richard Gere or Bill Clinton. Because of the light color of my hair, however, I hadn't noticed the increasingly large numbers of individual gray stalks that had been invading my scalp since my early thirties, especially around my temples. Thankfully, the rear view mirror and that curious back light had intervened to show me a revelation. The gray hair invasion, that insidious plot, was now exposed. Before going to my home, I drove immediately to the local pharmacy and bought a box of men's hair dye. I discovered an assortment of brands but they all promised "younger looking hair" in roughly five minutes. "What could be easier," I thought.

That evening I was a happy man again. I was looking forward to a shower before bed when I would use the hair dye. I had purposely bought a light shade. My goal was not to look like I dyed my hair, but to color the gray so subtly that I would recapture the appearance of my youth, or, at least, of my late twenties. The prospect made me very happy. I colored my hair and took the shower. When it was over I looked fine, the insidious gray seemed to be gone and I looked ten years younger, although it was a little hard to tell because by then it was dark and I stood beneath the glare of artificial light. Nevertheless I admired myself in the mirror. "Dyeing my hair could very well be the turning point of my life," I thought.

The next morning, Saturday, I awoke and was very excited. I jumped out of bed and went back into the bathroom to admire last night's work. The stuff had actually worked. My hair was a uniform medium brown with some red overtones. Thankfully, it all looked real. "That little friggin package was right," I thought. I got rid of the offending gray hairs. Now I looked younger. "Screw Terri," I thought, "I'll happily settle for looking 28 or 30." Still I knew that dying my hair was only a partial response to my crisis. I also had to work out. In fact, I had to bust my ass with weights, cardio exercise and diet in order to get myself buffed, and that took time. There were no quick fixes there. I vowed to go to the health club that day and everyday until I actually began to see some results. Terri’s rejection of me became my motivation. I knew she wasn’t being bitchy or cruel, just honest and that was the greatest incentive I had to change my appearance. Still, I vowed that the next time a dancer poked me in the pecs, as Terri had done, she would find them ROCK HARD.

After working out just that first day, I became functionally deluded again. I decided that I would go back to The Ritz that night and catch Terri at work. I would then let her see the new me, or, at least, my new hair, and ask her again about meeting me in Miami. I felt certain that she would notice that I was younger because of my dyed hair, and, also, because we were now friends, she would be in a more receptive frame of mind. Pathetic! What was I thinking???? See how easy it is to be deluded when it comes to dealing with dancers?

I wanted to catch Terri late, because Saturday night was a human zoo at the clubs. People were jammed into the bars, drunks were all around and the girls were making money hand over fist. I knew that I couldn't get a sympathetic hearing from Terri under those circumstances. There would be just too many distractions. Instead, I needed to wait until the club thinned out somewhat, late, towards closing. Then I could speak with her under more leisurely conditions, when she would have also made her nightly quota of bucks and be more relaxed.

At 11:00 PM I rocketed out of the house and headed to the highway that would take me back to the Ritz. Steering carefully, I glanced into the rear view mirror and examined my new hair approvingly. I began to recall the previous time with Terri. I remembered that she told me she came from a completely dysfunctional family. Her parents had her sister when her mother was 16 and her father 17. Her mother had died when she was 10. Her father was an alcoholic who sexually abused her older sister. That was why she ran away from home at 14. Terri said that her father screwed up so badly at jobs when she was young that she was sent by him as a child to be raised by his mother. It was only then, Terri said, that she had a somewhat normal home life. Now I began to understand why my looking as old as her father might have set off some emotional baggage that torpedoed our relationship. "It was the association with her father, rather than my age that did me in," I thought.

She mentioned that the hardest part of living with her grandparents was not being able to rely on them for advice when she got older and started interacting in the high school social scene. She was an uncomfortable and conflicted adolescent and she always got old fashioned and irrelevant advice from her grandmother, even though Terri liked her grandparents as parents. She told me that once she secretly bought some bikini underwear. One day her grandmother rummaged through her room looking for things to wash and found it. Later she confronted Terri with only the best intentions but with a genuine sadness in her voice that could not disguise her fears for Terri's rapid maturation into a woman. After that, all through the later years in high school, Terri told me, she planned that, come graduation, she would leave and get the hell out of Alabama, forever.

I reached the club about 11:30. There was still almost two hours to go before it closed. When I entered I saw immediately that zoo night had hardly abated. The place was packed. There were at least 300 men in the room, maybe even more. The music was incredibly loud as was all the chatter. A thick smog of cigarette smoke obscured my view. In thinking about it, the old writer's cliché came to mind-- it was a scene that "assaulted the senses." The irritating air smacked me in the nose at the entrance. People and beer bottles were everywhere. The noise was unbelievable. Two separate stages were operating with a dancer on each one. Groups of guys were seated all around yelling and hooting as loud as they could. I passed college guys with shaved heads and chin whiskers wearing sweatshirts and baseball caps turned backwards. Most had that vacant stare that comes with too much beer. They hulked around and stumbled like zombie football players at a festive voodoo ritual. It was friggin scary!

I couldn't get near the bar. So much noise and confusion kept me off balance. I chose to hover in the aisle between the bar and some tables. This location required that I dodge people coming and going like waitresses with heavy trays holding beers and assorted drunks as well as half nude dancers. Somehow I managed and tried to blend in. A crowd like that was very forgiving and I had no trouble controlling my small space while I searched for Terri. She seemed nowhere around. I looked at all the lap dancing couches carefully examining each one in turn. No Terri. I observed the dancers as they worked the crowd, no Terri. She wasn't on stage. I concluded that she was:

a) backstage waiting to go on;

b) in the bathroom (where she might remain for hours);

c) at home or gone (the most dreaded option).

Then, as part of the automatic random movements of my head that came from my anxious search procedure, I happened to turn to my left and look down at the tables along one end of the room. And, there she was!!! She was in street clothes. In fact, she was bending down and tying her shoes. Startling me, I noticed that she looked really tiny. She had a bag next to her and she stuffed some things into it with one hand while she positioned her shoe with the other. I walked over to her and stood slightly behind her. I leaned over and said in her ear, "How about a lap dance?" She looked up and saw me. I smiled but it seemed to me that she didn't know how to react at first, although she certainly recognized me right away, and then she smiled too. "Oh. You're too late," she said. "I'm leaving. I'm getting out of here." "Where are you going?" I asked. "Well. You see those two guys over there? They invited me to play pool with them for a while at a place down the road." I was stunned and couldn't say anything. Then she said, "I’ll be back in about a half hour. Why don’t you wait for me until then?" Frankly, I really didn't know what to say. Then, feeling hurt, I told her that I would definitely wait but only for a half hour. If she wasn't back by then, I would leave.

Terri was anxious to go and she got up quickly after putting on her shoe. At that point the two guys waiting for her came over. They stared at me like I was their enemy. "Well, OK. If you're gone, you're gone," she said in what sounded like a cold hearted response. Then she added to my relief, "But I really hope you stay and wait." She had a big smile on her face and I smiled back. I noticed that the two guys were quite young. They seemed even younger than most of the college kids that came to the place. They were skinny and short. One took the bag out of Terri's hand and the other kept staring at me with a strange, disgusted expression. I felt certain he thought, "What the hell does this old guy want???" I watched them disappear. The sight burned me. A torch flared in my chest and my fingers tightened into a death grip. Strange as it sounds, I did wait another half hour and even a bit more, in that smoky, raucous hell, glancing at my watch every few minutes but, of course, Terri never returned. My humiliation at the hands of youth was now complete.

The next day I was not as depressed as I thought I would be. In fact, now that my relationship with Terri was over and I didn't have to think about being attractive to her ever again, I felt considerable relief. Later that day, Sunday, I went to my new health club and worked out just like I had promised myself I would. By the end of my session I had made another decision in my rapidly evolving new life. Being buff was the best way to counter the impression that I was old, especially when it came to judgments made by lap dancers who could feel your body whenever they wanted. Just in the way customers groped and molested them, they felt the men’s bodies and could even poke around to see how firm and athletic they really were. The very best way to make a dancer like giving you a dance, aside from paying her well, was to have a rock hard body that was attractive to young women. Consequently, on that day, I dedicated my future life to building up bulky muscles and slimming down with the help of the weight machines and workout equipment at this wonderful place. With my new hair and, soon to have, new body, I would eventually return to the lap dancing clubs a new, and more attractive man. A real "buff stud," if I had my way. From that moment I worked out with a vengeance. And, that is how I became fit.