I made my first trip to...

I made my first trip to Sapphire and only my second trip to a Vegas mega-stripclub on Thursday, May 5 around 1 am. Given what a bad time I had a Jaguar's a couple years ago I had already planned on using the Spearmint Rhino as my backup club for the night if Sapphire was as bad as Jags. That wasn't necessary, but the irony will be evident in a moment. Sapphire may look more like a converted warehouse than an attempt to copy one of the "classy" Strip resorts but I liked it right off the bat, although it seemed fairly empty. If it is the biggest stripclub in Vegas they must be counting in volume instead of area and making use of that high ceiling in the calculation, because it didn't seem any bigger in the main floor than the OG, if we count both the main and the overflow rooms in the OG. The two main stages are higher than I like, but closer to eye level than Jags, and I like being able to put my drink under the edge of the stage so that I don't have to worry about a dancer accidentally kicking it over during her set. I'm damned if I can figure out who the middle elevated stage is supposed to be for. My only complaints are that the sides of the chairs are too high, limiting mobility during a lapdance, and the main floor is too crowded with tables, making it very difficult to walk through, and this was on a night when most of the tables were empty and the chairs were pushed in. I imagine that on a busy night getting a lapdance on the mainfloor means having your chairback pushed right up to the chairback of the guy sitting behind you. Drink service was good and not as expensive as I thought it would be -- double rye and gingers ran me $12.50, same as Cheetahs. Dancers were a bit of a mixed bag in body type, hair color and ethnicity, but generally in the 7-8 range with a few 5s and a few 9s. I started with a set of 5 on the floor with Reyna, a beautiful short curvy latina with the softest, smoothest skin I've ever had the privilege to touch. We moved into the VIP on an offer of 4 for $100, which turned into a half hour for $200 with two drinks (singles) for $25; inflated but better than OG. Reyna was only working there that night because a dancer friend of hers told her to check it out; she normally works at and was moving on to the Spearmint Rhino, and suggested that I follow her or look her up next time I'm in town. I declined to visit her later that night, but I should have. The club was starting to die, the crowd was vanishing and so were many of the dancers but I decided that I didn't want to pay for an extra cab ride and another cover as it was my last night in town and I wanted to spend my remaining budget on laps. I got two from a nice looking brunette named Eden, who was a little scary and not in a good way, possibly wrecked or stoned; five from a friendly, magnificently put together blonde named Amber who was almost as nice to the touch as Reyna; and five from a very beautiful Venezuelan named Jennifer (pronounced Yennifer) who I'd had my eye on most of the night but who unfortunately turned out to be very distant during the dances. If the club hadn't been virtually deserted at that point and if it hadn't been my last C-note for dances I probably would have stopped her after the first or second dance at headed back to the hotel. All in all, though, it was a good night at a club that I will make a point of trying to return to on my next visit, but only after I go to the Rhino first.