Back at the Cabaret: Round Two

Well, here I am. It’s some 48 hours later, and it’s the all the same: same scent in the air, same pounding music, same flashes of flesh. Sure, different dancers. Same waitress, thankfully. And, a much bigger crowd. Whereas the other night there were perhaps 30 customers, tonight it feels like twice that. Well, it’s Thursday, after all.

Outside, the palm trees sway in the January air; inside the heat builds from movement and played passion.

Across the room, Amy is busing a table; she leans over and I see cleavage, cleavage I didn’t notice the other night. I can see the shadows between her full breasts. And, when she turns, the tattoo on the small of her back is obvious – tonight there’s more skin showing between her black-clad ass and her black, tight top.

Amy brings my drink over and sits down. She’s all smiles – open like sunshine. She laughs and glances downward. She takes me in. Then she admits; she didn’t read this blog. I’d given her the URL, fully expecting, well, that she might read it, and hoping she wouldn’t, and yet hoping she would, and wanting her to, and yet not wanting her to.

I really don't want anyone in the real world to match this cyber world to my real self. Too much truth here...

The room is spiraling; I wonder if I should add alcohol to the mix. But it’s going around enough, and this is all natural.

I see Alex – she’d dissed me the other night. I’d asked her for a lap dance and she said no. She was ready to leave.

I catch Alex’s eye. She comes over: wide smile. She has the moves and the looks of the Twentieth Century: a cross between a Roaring Twenties’ flapper and a 1950’s pin-up. She dances for me; not a lot of contact, but full of sensuous moves; her hips are in charge. Her skin is the smoothest skin I have ever touched. I caress it: perfection. “Waxing. And coffee grounds,” she says. I’ll never think of coffee in the same way.

I ask Alex if I’m the typical customer. She smirks. It’s not a smile, but a true smirk. “No.” I wonder why. “The typical customer wants me to do illegal things.”

I’d never. Certainly, I’m a dog. After all, I’m a guy. Sure, I’d love to get to know Alex… or Amy… they’re both pretty, intelligent, vivacious: full of life. I’d like to get to know them on any number of levels. Alex – who claims her real name is Alexandra – went to a prep school (like me). I’m sure I know it; I've probably even been on the campus. Aside from the fact she’s some 20-plus years younger than I am, I suspect we have something in common… or at least we come from some similar background. Well, maybe not; she’s actually closer to the rarified air than I am.

She dances to Joe Cocker, “You can leave your hat on,” and then to the Stray Cats. Again. Again, I’m enthralled.

Alex dances, and I can’t write. Her hips move, and my pen remains stationary in my hand. A green, yellow, and read glitter tie tangling between her pert breasts; my black fedora on her had, black curls dangling from over her forehead; garter with bills dangling from it. I smile; I can feel my eyes brighten.

Another guy puts a bill in her panty string. I have a pang of jealousy, her drink on my table. Unreasonable. Unrealistic. Desire, unmatched.

She moves with water grace, a waterfall in motion – predictable but each moment different, a twist of movement, each droplet like the next but not like the rest, building upon the next, one after the other. I could stand under it, water washing my soul, each drop bringing sweetness to my lips. I want to dive in, stand under, my arms raised high, face uplifted, all enveloped in wet sweetness.

I wonder when that sweetness will find me, if ever. Not that I’m desperate for it, but it’s been so long since I’ve tasted the nectar. Kathleen for sure, in that rough hewn cabin along the shores of the Albemarle Sound. The years intervening have turned the sweetness; it's a palatable bitterness now when it touches my lips.

I wonder what a place like this does to us, men and women alike. Along the wall, three women dance for men, lap dances galore. One man’s hand grasps and caresses rounded ass and full breasts and flat belly. A mélange of hands, I’m not sure which is his and which is hers, the four hands caressing and rubbing like from one mind.

Alex notes the dancer, a pretty blonde wearing red, is disassociated. She’s dancing, laying back on the man’s chest, blank stare forward. The life has been tapped out of her. “Sexual trauma,” says Alex knowingly.

I want this to be safe and fun, but in this moment I realize it’s not, always. We are playing with fire; sometimes the flames burst so high as to turn the water to steam, a hissing sound on contact, the flames shooting upward, consuming all.

For the men, we think women are just for sex, exist to bring us pleasure and serve as eye candy. For the women, they feel degraded and less than equals; nothing but a toy to be groped, a flesh bot. In the intimacy of our primary relationships, well we still play out these roles?

I ask Alex how she knows who’s worth spending time with in order to reap the financial reward. “Shoes,” she replies. I wonder what the hell my Birks are saying.

Alex goes off to make some money. There’s a table of guys behind me who, several hours ago, had promised her a trip to the VIP Suite, worth some $200 plus to Alex. They blew her off. Now she’s gone back. It doesn’t last long; they accidentally spill beer on her; she heads upstairs to change.

Dickheads, I think. Amy agrees. One of these morons had gone upstairs to the VIP Suites with a dancer; he decided he didn’t want to pay the $400 fee. When he finally did, after much confrontation, he tipped Amy a whole $5. A fucking fiver on four hundred dollars.

All the dancers have different scents. As they pass by my table, my nose tickles: vanilla, lemon, raspberry, cherry, musk, cinnamon, and the list goes on. A veritable potpourri.

Sylvia chooses to lap dance next to my chair. Tan; full body; I can’t help but look as she rests into the guy, his crew-cut standing at attention. My eyes wander over her boyish-lined body, her nipples hard and pointy, darkness protruding and casting shadows. Nipples I’d like to tweak (see below). She catches me oogling, and tells me not to look; I shy away, not sure if she is serious or not, but not sure if I’ve violated some cultural norm I don’t know about.

Alex and I are playing Twenty Questions. Her father is a famous orchestral musician; she says I’d be able to find his work in nearly any, decent record store. Her mother is an art historian on the faculty of some university. Sometimes, when a dancer tells tale of her self, it’s all spin. I don’t want to think Alex is sitting at the wheel.

Alex is on stage, my pen stationary, my eyes glued to her fluid form. Colleen stops by my table and leans into me: “That guy over there wants me to go home with me. Every girl has her price, but $250? No way.” I wonder why she’s sharing this with me. Have I hung out my confessional or counseling sign?

I have two complexes which have reared their heads tonight. Alex shared some things about herself and her circumstances, and it all came bubbling to the surface. First, I have a Madonna/Whore complex. I am drawn to women who are both. Alex, product of a fashionable prep school and parents in the arts, can certainly play the Madonna. And, yes, she can play the other role, too. I wonder if, like Amy, she is “confident in the bedroom.” I suspect so.

I should say a bit of something about her lap dances, though. They actually tended toward the Madonna side. I’m not sure if that was for me, or if that is the way she is. One dancer came up to me while I was alone and said, “My breasts are big and very real and I’ll put your head right between them. Would you like a dance.” Hmmm, that was direct. I’m thinking that dance would tend toward the Whore side of the continuum. Alex’s dances were, well, art. Not like, say, dances at Lipstick which are all business. I mean, there was not much business with Alex.

My second complex is a Rescue Complex. I am compelled to rescue people. I really compelled to rescue attractive women, but I think that’s where my two complexes intertwine. Anyway, I’m a rescuer. And, yes, I could rescue Alex.

Amy has been swamped tonight – between assholes and the very volume of customers and the lack of other waitresses, it’s been a madhouse. Every once in a while, she’d blow past and apologize. Now, it’s time to close out and she’s headed home. She sits to socialize a bit. I can feel her tiredness. “Stick a fork in me,” she says. She leans back in the chair, eyes still sparkling. I want to gather her up in my arms and brush away the tiredness; I want to hold her tight, so tight that I can feel her heart beating. I don’t, of course, and she leaves after asking for my email address.

Alex comes by to say goodbye; she’s headed home for the night. I cajole her into giving me one more dance; it feels short and forced; I wanted to spend more time with her. I joke about stalking her; she knows I want to get to know her; I know she knows. It’s not that I want to tie her down and make her scream in ecstasy. (Okay, I’d like to do that, but that’s not what this is about; it’s about peeling back the layers of personality to see the real her. We had a moment when I started; she teared up, it was so strong, and I backed away. In some safe place, in some right moment, I want to dip into her soul and see what’s there.)

She is standing next to me, an awkward moment. She says, “Don’t sit too close at the ballet.” I look at her blankly. “You might see it’s too much of an effort.” The metaphor becomes clear, fluid, a waterfall bursting through the green of the jungle. I see her. I see the ballet. I’m sitting awfully damn close.

But doesn’t she understand? Sitting close is when it’s real. That’s life, in all it’s complicated, existential form.

I want to sit close. I want to sit close enough that the flames singe my eyebrows.