[Facts first so you can skip...

[Facts first so you can skip the rest: Hots is a well-lit, darkened roadhouse dressed almost up-to-date with sports bar quality teevees by a long-ish bar, a groovy stage with annoying lights and a middling sound system playing the "new rock," "modern country" and "r+b" blah that qualifies either strippers or strip club DJ's for a "worst taste in music in the world" trophy that I'm sure doesn't exist. If the jams are not being "jammed" in mp3 form, they sure sound like it. Evening and nighttime both feature beautiful women, and as night came on so did a ramped-up vibe: all dancers on duty took stage at the top of each hour, either waving as if they were on a parade float or engaging in a battle royal of sarcastic/erotic girl-on-girl action. The girls would then descend from the stage and fan out to dispense $1 dances: a bargain at twice the price!]

I told Sinful I was rarely turned on at strip clubs and she smirked. We'd been sitting together for a half-hour or so since I'd walked in and sat down to an almost empty bar and a totally empty stage. It was an off-hour, 4pm on Friday, and S kindly sat down with me and very casually started a conversation.

We talked about what had brought me in. I was en route to a rock show another couple of hours' away from Battle Creek: 'just passing through, ma'am. [I would learn later that night not to cop a "rambling stranger" vibe because, duh, dancers like locals and their frequent-flying dollars.] Quickly I let the topic turn to Sinful and her work, all the while thinking that she was very young but also a grown-up, and how was I to play it if/when she asked for my attention down the road. Strangely, although I lingered hours and hours at Hots and never made it to my stated destination, Sinful never did offer me anything besides groovy, leggy pleasantries when I sat by the stage and watched her dance. She danced like a rad rock rhythm section - maybe Jones and Bonham? - not 'laying back' but instead powering through the song, the pole, the stage and the audience. It is silly to talk of motives, sentiments or passions in a strip club when so many of us visit them for something much more simple, but Sinful dances As If the dance matters to her. That's a nice shift from contexts in which dancers treat their stage work as auditions for more lucrative and private one-on-ones.