First Strip Club: Part 2

What we got, for 20 dollars a person, was not the world. It was access to a shady strip-club (redundant?) and a ride in a 12-seater bus that had one woman in the corner puking into a paper-bag, and 4 other people, having a logistically-improbable 4-way make-out session that was not so much interesting to observe, but more perplexing to try and wrap one’s head around.

Things went from bad to worse on the ‘party-bus,’ as the middle-aged woman next to me put her hand on my leg, winked at me, then proceeded to spill her vat of margarita all over my lap. Talk about moment ruined.

It wasn’t the cool spill that you see in movies, either. You know, the one where the attractive woman ‘accidently’ splashes some red-wine on your khakis, then dabs gently around your lap so it won’t stain, meanwhile she seduces you with her beautiful eyes and smile.

No, this was more like, “Oh F***!” then a gallon of margarita soaked through my shorts. Before even pretending to make an effort to clean up the Atlantic ocean of alcohol that now saturated my lap, she tried to save what was left of her drink, scooping up the ice off of the floor of the party bus, and dumping it back into her gigantic cup.
“Sorry, sweets,” she said.

It was at this point that I realized this woman was old enough to be my mother.

It was 2 minutes later when I realized she was taking off her top, twirling it above her head, and standing on the seat, incoherently shouting “Wha’ happen’ in Vega’, stayed there, okay? F**k! Now, guys got wet-lap! S**t!”

And the fun was just beginning. Once we got into the stripclub, I was horrified. A large man with facial hair asked me for 20 dollars to get in. I politely handed the large man my money, and calmly said, “here’s your money, don’t beat the s**t out of me.”

To which he replied, “you look like you are 12 in your license photo.”

To which I replied, “You look like you’ve never looked like a 12-year-old in your life. Even when you were twelve. Please let me go.”

Finally, we pick a spot in a dark corner. A strip club is a physically impossible structure. It’s like that never-ending staircase in “Inception.” Normal rooms have four corners. Strip clubs have an infinite amount of corners, constructed for the sole purpose of doing sexual things, and consequentially, making me feel really uncomfortable.

“One for the big man!” My friend incoherently slurs.

I look up, and there is a petite Asian woman walking up to me, sliding her bra strap off of her shoulder. It reminds me of the start to a really bad porno-flick.

“Um…” I stammer.

“It’s fine sweetie,” she says, in a way that makes me believe it really is fine.

“I’ve never done this before,” I blurt, like that nervous seventh-grader that got flashed a vagina for the first time.

“Oh, you funny!” She laughs.

It is at this moment that my mind clears, and I become extremely offended. The stripper-lady doesn’t believe that this is my first strip club. She thinks I am a pervert. Do I look like a pervert? Do I look like someone who would go to strip clubs often?

She is now giving me a lap-dance, and I have no idea what to do. She keeps asking me “are you okay?” and I keep saying, “I have no idea. This is weird.”

Now, she starts lifting up my shirt, and I am pulling it down feverishly, like a prude prom-night date, refusing to let her date get to second base.

“This is MY body, and you’re not TOUCHING IT!” I envision myself squealing.
“Eeeuukk. Hah, eh…um, er…hah,” I say, in reality.

“Ooooh, baby. You work out?” She asks me.

I then go into a detailed explanation that, yes indeed I do workout, and my desire to do so if fueled by the fact that I am a collegiate athlete, and play basketball for a small private school in Salem, Oregon. I use words like “training to prevent injury,” and “core strength.” Before I could get to my problems with my free-throw stroke, it appears that she wants to murder me.

This random unveiling of information to small-Asian-stripper-lady is met with little enthusiasm.

“Your friend pay for conversation, or dance?” she asks me, which in stripper language means, “Listen, kid. You’re a bit of a p***y. Stop talking, let me rub on your body and call you muscular. It is my job. Odds are, I don’t even think it. Just put your hands back or something. Or touch my butt, I really don’t care, because the reality of it is…I just made 40 dollars in the time it took Ludacris to say ‘We want a lady in the streets, but a freak in the bed,’ so, good for you for playing a sport or whatever, but please, never try to make conversation with me again. Unless you have more money, you idiot.”

It is at this point that I stop talking, and begin brainstorming things I would rather be doing than having this small Asian woman rubbing her bottom all over my lap. This list included, but was not limited to; knitting, P90X, dipping my head in hot-lava, watching “Blue Crush,” eating cinnamon toast crunch, and memorizing the entire first verse of Jay-Z’s “Hard Knock Life.”

Finally, the dance is over, and I wish the woman a good night. To which she replies, “(hair flip, butt shake, walk away.)”

I caught my breath for not even a minute before my drunken friend returns.

“Two for the big man!” he spits.

That’s right. Two. For the big man. That’s me. Instead of one attractive woman, this time I get two sort-of cute girls, who ambush me from left and right.

They are not as conversational as little-Asian-woman. This causes quite an inconvenience for me, as my natural reaction to nervousness and anxiety is to run my mouth.

“So, is this, like…your job?” I say to the woman on my left. Not only is she intimidating because there are two of her, she’s also intimidating because she is mounting my left leg, and is build like a linebacker.

“No, sweetie. I have two master degrees. I drive here from LA on the weekends,” she said.

“Oh, nice,” I say, as her bare breast is grazing against my cheek.

“What are your degrees in?” I say.

It really sounds more like “Mut mare mour megrees min?” as my voice is entirely muffled by her cleavage.

There are a few seconds of silence, as “Party Rock Anthem” plays in the background. I sheepishly admit to my new stripper-best-friends that I secretly enjoy this song.

“It’s like my guilty pleasure,” I say, oblivious to the irony of admitting a pop-song is my guilty pleasure, at a gentleman’s club.

More silence proceeds my imbecilic comments. I decide to let them know why I am a walking stick of awkwardness.

As they are rubbing their privates all over my lap and body, I ask them to take a second.

“Hey! Hey…” I manage.

They stop dancing for a moment, to stare at the virginal idiot who keeps asking them questions.

“So…I don’t really know what to do with my hands,” I say.

“What?” They reply, in unison.

“Like, while you are dancing, I have no idea what to do with my hands,” I explain.
More silence.

“Like, do I fold them? Do I put them on the small of your back? Do I sit on them?” I continue.

“Baby, it’s Vegas. You can do whatever you want,” she says.

“See, now, that’s not specific, I still have no idea what to do” I say.

She rolls her eyes. “Look, there’s not an instruction manual, okay? Just let it happen,” she says.

“I am not a pervert. Just because it is Vegas doesn’t make it okay,” I challenge the woman that is basically telling me to touch her body.

As I am having this moral dilemma, wondering if I am a bad person for sitting here, refusing to touch this stripper-lady, the awkwardness is gladly interrupted.

“What is your cup size?” my friend barges in and slurs, spilling his whiskey on my lap. The color compliments the margarita spill from before.

“Excuse me?” She says, visibly offended.

Just as things were beginning to be increasingly testy, my other friend barges in.

“F**k this S**t, F**k Keith, F**k these cheap-a$$ girls, we are OUT of here, boys. This girl just tried to charge me 80 bucks for a CONVERSATION,” He says, to nobody in particular, but loud enough to make a few heads turn.

The intimidating women gets up, and looks even more like a linebacker. She is now no longer using the sexy, stripper voice, but the Ray Lewis, I am going to obliterate your very existence in less than three seconds, then bench-press you, you girly-man who wants to talk about my education voice.

“Give me 80 dollars,” she growls.

“Um, what?” I say, pissing myself.

“Give. Me. Eighty. Dollars.” She says, in a deeper, more purposeful voice.

“Um, I didn’t pay. Like, I didn’t even ask for you to dance on me. My friend did…”
“OH, I F***IN PAID! I F***IN PAID THEM!” My friend shouts.

“No. You owe me 80 dollars. 40 for me, 40 for her.” She explains.

A few feet from my table, my good friend is undergoing a similar debate. The nice stripper lady was asking for her money, and my friend, who has a hard time paying full price for Old Navy V-Neck Tees, insisted he owed less than she demanded.

“Eighty dollars,” she demands, which is apparently the going rate for all strippers.

“No. I am not giving you 80 dollars. Are you KIDDING me?” My friend says, after one dance.

“80 dollars,” she says.

“Look, I’ll give you 10,” my friend says. “That’s enough for 2 Old Navy V-Necks,” he probably added.

“No,” she replied.

“Lady, do you want the money, or not!?” My friend responds.

The woman takes my friends 10 dollar bill, and rips it in half. Right in front of his face.

As this back-and-forth is going on, my other friends are managing to get in a skirmish with security guards who could eat me. It is at this point that I realize I am in over my head.

“Okay. Um. Here’s 20 dollars. I am really sorry I don’t have your 80, but at the same time, you are ridiculous, and trying to scam me. I am going to leave now, because, honestly, there’s a good chance I just messed myself. Sorry about the smell,” I say. One of the strippers laughs. The other one contemplates how she is going to bury my body tonight. I run.

We are now sprinting out of the strip club, in the middle of Vegas, as shouts are being exchanged between my friends, myself, and large strip club bouncers in suits.

Between shattered glasses, obscenities and “oh my god I am never going to a strip club ever, ever again,” we eventually escape, and walk a couple miles back to our hotel, at 5 in the morning.

The night concludes with me and my good friend swimming in the shallow end of our hotel pool. It was closed, because it was being chlorinated and cleaned, but it seemed like a good idea, and I was convinced the yetis posing as security guards couldn’t find us underwater.

We watched the sun come up, and I floated on my back, ears submerged in the overly-chlorinated water, drowning out the bright lights and noisy traffic. I take a second to reflect on the madness that occurred that night. I can’t tell if it’s extraordinary, or just another night in Vegas. All I know is, lying there, suspended in water that probably wasn’t safe to swim in, I felt much cleaner than I did in that god-forsaken strip joint.