Prior to January of 2024, when I started SCing on a regular basis, I had only been to a strip club twice, summer of 1999 and spring of 2000.
There was quite a contrast between these two clubs.
One was the higher end, glitziest one in town, fully nude, the dances were not two way touch, and no alcohol was served.
The laws in Missouri at the time were that if a strip club has full nudity, no alcohol is to be served.
My second visit to a strip club was not a so-called high end club. It was a total hole in the wall dive in a rougher part of town.
It was a few blocks from my apartment. I was 19 and living on my own for first time. Said area is where I could afford to live at the time.
On the bus one day, as the bus rolls past said strip club, I hear two young dudes, looked younger than me, talking.
"All they show is the tits." (And it was a pasties club at that.)
I thought well, fuck, they look younger than me. I should try to get in there.
I tried on a Friday night in April, and it worked. I just waltzed right on it, found a spot to sit, ordered a few drinks, no ID was checked.
One dancer really left an impression on me. A curly-hairded brunette, but not curly as in poofy or fuzzy, but tangley ringlets.
She didn't have movie star or model looks, but I remember she had incredibly sexy, smooth legs.
She went on to Nine Inch Nails-Closer.
I've touched on the subject of that song in another posting.
As far I'm concerned, that is the ultimate stripper song.
Trent Reznor has said that the song is not about sex, yet about some form of a man's self destruction, but so many listeners make a sexual association with the song.
I get that, and it's off of an album titled The Downward Spiral.
But it sounds like sex: pulsating, pumping, throbbing, thrusting.
Then there is the chours. "I want to fuck you like an animal." And what always did it for me "I want to feel you from the inside."
It's an example that an artist can have limited control over how an audience interprets a song, especially when the song deals in the abstract, indirect, metaphorical, or the esoteric.
The dancer in question really knew how to work it. Her bottoms were the V cut style.
She would pull her bottoms below her waist, just a few inches away from showing her pussy. The pull them up.
At one point, she had her hand underneath her bottoms...and to my surprise and delight...she was playing with herself, she was masturbating.
Was that even allowed!?
The thing about strip clubs...There are supposed so called "rules," yet many to most of them are malleable, flexible, and seeing this woman masturbating on stage was my first glimpse of that.
I tip her, just $1.00.
She replied with "Thanks, baby."
Minutes later, she comes over to the table I was sitting at and offers a "table dance."
I look at my wallet, to my disappointed surprise, it's empty. This was on a Friday night, I had gotten paid, went to a record store, got some drinks, then decided to check out this strip club.
At the time, I didn't even have an ATM card. I thought the government could more so track me if I did. I know, hey, I was 19.
In telling her I was out of money, she then tells me her schedule, and to come back and see her.
She then bends over and kisses me on the cheek.
A light bulb went off in my head: If $1.00 gets a kiss, then what would $50 or $100 get?
It was also my first inclination of awareness of MMMV.
None of the dancers at the more higher end, glitzy place kissed me, but she did, at a seedy, divey, hole in the whole.
Knowing what I know now, I know I could have fucked her. Hell, I knew it back then.
Epilogue...So what happened?
I returned to the same strip club 5 months later, and to my surprise, there is a big, burly, biker-looking dude at the door.
He asks for an ID, I tell him I don't have it on me, but it wouldn't have done any good. I was 19.
He tells me he can't let me in. I left, make my way to my apartment, and have never been back to that club.
For quite sometime this was a big regret in my life.
What if I hadn't made purchases at the record store?
What if I had an ATM card?
What if I went back sooner?
What if I had a fake ID?
This what if of desiring this dancer (I still remember her name) could have been a fantasy fulfilled.
The regret of this is far less raw than it once was, the passing of time, 26 years, and the enjoyable experiences I've had with dancers since then.
It becomes a learning experience, about preparation, planning, and time.
Sometimes it's act now or lose the opportunity.
But with the strip club environment, a new opportunity can later and often easily be found when one is lost.
That night is now a faded (yet fond) memor, the initial proto stages of the start of something that would resume and grow in my life 20+ years later.
^ I’d write something like that after smoking a joint.