Selected Writing
"In the Parking Lot"
When you come back in you feel strange. It’s cold outside. It’s probably only just below freezing but the way the wind is blowing it feels much colder. The blond and the brunette are back in the front row and they’re both nonchalantly sucking on beers. You don’t know why, but that bothers you a bit. They’re so nonchalant about it.
A skinny rail of a young woman is stretched out naked on her back in the middle of the stage. Another rookie stripper who’s all nipple, you think. Her legs are spread wide while a guy with a beard throws coins at her crotch. She’s got another coin stuck there. If he hits the coin, he gets a prize. On the scale of demeaning this coin toss thing is a ten.
The music is booming through the club. A waitress with a circular tray comes over and before she asks you if you want a drink, you nod at her and she goes away.
You saw the two women sitting in wanker row when you came in. They were laughing loudly while strippers performed a metre in front of them. You had a hard time deciding which show to watch: the parade of naked women on stage, or two fully clothed women sitting front and center in a strip bar populated mostly by men. They probably wanted you to look at them. That’s the reason they were so loud. They were running interference; trying to get you to notice them instead of the strippers.
When you got to the club, you remember looking over at them and thinking: they’re drunk. Not blisteringly drunk. Not to the point of falling down. But they were quite hammered. And they were touching each other a lot, you noticed.
The blond has short hair with several small colourful burettes in odd places on her head, and the brunette woman has shoulder length hair with a slight wave to it. You do not question their sexual orientation. That’s not who you are. Some women you know really enjoy watching other women strip. It’s fairly common in your experience. It doesn’t automatically follow that they’re lesbians.
On stage, the peelers are young, inexperienced and flat-breasted. The young part bothers you. You could have daughters this age, you think. You love the older strippers with their perfectly round tits. More than likely fake, but who the hell cares? They’re nice to look at. There’s something real in older women, something beyond their stuffed tits. Perhaps something ruined. Something blatantly sexual. The older ones know how to tease, how to titillate, even have fun.
You’re a bit intrigued by the lack of experience showing in these young women. You find it interesting. We all have to learn somehow, you tell yourself. It’s interesting to see budding strippers. But they’re so young. A deer caught in headlights, comes to mind.
You begin to question the morality of being in a strip bar. But what harm are you doing? You are not sexually stimulated by this any of this. Not really. To watch and enjoy the female form is a pleasant experience. That’s all. To sit back and have a beer and watch a naked woman can’t be morally wrong. Weren’t Adam and Eve naked? Before the apple. Sure. And we didn’t emerge from the womb fully clothed did we? What’s all the fuss about nudity?
Ahh, but it’s never that easy is it? The Hell’s Angels, who almost certainly sell drugs, own this club. They probably sell these drugs to guys who push to school children. Kids. So, by sitting here innocently watching women strip and paying four bucks a beer, you’re killing children. But don’t think about that right now. Don’t think about it at all. Just think about the women.
The flat-breasted part doesn’t concern you in the least. The fact that the last three strippers haven’t had a decent handful of breast between them doesn’t matter. Even with luxurious breasts they would be awful.
One of the strippers barely likes her body, is shy and stiff on stage. She won’t spread her legs. Doesn’t even try to dance. Looks like she doesn’t quite understand why she’s there. She gets two songs and then she’s gone. The next knows a few of the tricks, manages to almost dance. Slaps her ass like she enjoys the sting. Both these young women do that thing with their hair that teenage girls do. It’s a pulling down of the hair near their faces. This motion is something you’d expect to see in a junior high school playground. That hair is a barrier. It hides a good portion of their doe-eyed, insecure faces. It gives you the creeps to see it on stage. Given that these girls are probably only 18, at best, you don’t expect them to be any good. They don’t understand the power of their own bodies.
They’re probably learning their trade from strippers who aren’t particularly good in the first place. The inept teaching the inept.
There ought to be a course in erotica, you think. Maybe a degree from the university. Include philosophy, a language, dance, yoga, religion and psychology. Produce dancers who understand flirtation, who know how to tease and play, and also that sex is created in the head.
The two women in wanker row watch carefully as the stripper on stage, a plumper and more experienced woman, finally, moves along the edge of the stage, placing her stilettos delicately between rows of light bulbs. This new woman is not afraid of them. She looks directly at them.
Then the brunette woman from wanker row is sitting next to you. She comes over to your table, plops herself down in the chair beside you. Fine lines around her eyes and mouth. Not a bad looking woman. Full, round breasts under a tight gray top. Her purse is slung across her chest. The strap accentuates her cleavage. Just enough booze in her to allow this brashness to surface. She points towards the door and says something but the music partially drowns it out.
“What?” you say.
She’s looking at you hard and even. Completely serious. Her eyes say: you heard me. She does not waver.
Did she just say what you think she said? Does she need money. Or is she in it for the thrill? What the hell is this about?
You lean forward. “What did you say?”
She averts her gaze downward and smiles up at you. In her smile is intention and conviction. In her smile is everything you need to know.