Aleta was not what you'd call "innocent" or naive but she had never been to a strip bar, either before or since we married. Whenever the topic came up she'd roll her eyes and scowl disapprovingly.
"What do you have against it?" I asked her after dinner one evening.
"Well duh," she said without a pause. "It's demeaning, for one thing."
"In what sense?" I asked, leading her into territory I knew she couldn't defend.
"Oh come on," she said. "Those women are nothing but sex objects. It's dehumanizing."
"Oh, no," I said, "You've got it all wrong. They are sexy women, appreciated by the men in the audience. The girls are having a blast and the men love it."
"Sex is just a commodity for them," she said. "There's nothing personal about it. It's cheap."
"How do you know?" I asked.
That stopped her. She glared at me. "I just know," she finally said.
"No you don't."
Aleta became very focused on clearing off the table and that was that.
A few nights later we were out on the town. Even after six years of marriage we still enjoyed dressing sharp and going out, dancing, having a couple of drinks. I will say I have an attractive wife, especially when she's got a little cleavage going on, legs up to here. It is not unusual for men to ask her to dance when we're out, and it is not unheard-of for them to get a little frisky on the dancefloor. From my point of view, I am glad to know that this hot-looking beauty is with me, and it doesn't take anything away from me if some guy steals a kiss or gets a little handsy on the floor. In fact, it seems to me that after a night like that I reap the benefits when we get home, my beautiful wife is hot-hot-hot and ready for anything. There is also something about that situation that I like, though I can't explain it.
Out of a sense of fairness, I suppose, or maybe because she feels like I do, she sometimes encourages me to ask a lady to dance, especially if she thinks it's somebody I've got my eye on. I don't mind getting some hottie in my arms for a few minutes, and nothing serious ever really comes on it. Some kissing has happened, and actually twice I have been groped rather aggressively on the dancefloor. Poor me. Between Aleta and me this is all part of the game, we are a fairly attractive couple and we might as well enjoy it while we can.
We'd been dancing at Owen's Downtown Hangout, a well known dance place in our city, but there wasn't much going on. The DJ was playing a lot of mellow stuff and there were not many people there. Looked like maybe a convention in town, a bunch of burnt-out guys in suits, some of them hitting the juice pretty hard. So we were taking a break, sitting at the bar, and I said, "What would you like to do?"
"I don't know," she replied, "But we ought to go somewhere else."
"Where?"
"I don't know," she said. "Surprise me."
"Okay, let's go to the El Raton for a drink."
"What's that?" she asked.
"It's a strip club," I said. "We can walk to it from here."
"Why would I want to go there?"
"You might find it educational," I laughed.
"Huh, I can go to school if I want an education."
"Okay," I said. "That's fine. We don't have to go there."
This was a jujitsu move, where you use your opponent's momentum against them. She could not let me claim victory by giving her the last word. I waited.
We nursed our drinks for a few more minutes, watching the few dancers who were in the place, and then she said, "Oh okay then. Fuck it. You want to go there so much, let's go. I'll just keep my mouth shut."
"Oh no," I said, exercising my advanced marital arts. "I don't care if we go or not. If you want to go, we can go."
She glared at me for another minute. She took a swallow and said, "Okay, let's go there."
"Go where?"
"What'd you say, the Rat?"
"El Raton is what I said," I said cheerfully.
"Yeah, okay, let's go there."
"Go where?"
Pause. "El Raton, or whatever you called it."
"Do you really want to go there?" I asked, pulling her in deeper.
"Sure," she said.
"Say it."
"Say what?"
"Tell me you really want to go to El Raton. I don't want to go if you don't want to."
Ooh, if looks could kill. She tried a little jujitsu of her own. "Okay, smart-ass. I really want to go to El Raton. I want to see the strippers. I want to see their tits. Is that better?"
"Perfect," I said, reaching into my wallet for a card to pay the tab.
It was a walk of two blocks. The night was beautiful, cool, breezy, and Aleta was beautiful and radiant, though somewhat pensive. On the way over, she said, "You want to tell me what I'm walking into?"
"Sure," I said. "I've been there two or three times, I guess. You go in and there's a bar on the left, with tables set out on the floor and a stage at the front of the room. The girls dance on the stage, and there's a row of seats right up front. Mostly the more gung-ho guys sit there, and it's good practice for them to tip. They tip by putting money in the dancer's g-string if she's wearing one. If they toss it on the stage she'll get it."
"I see," Aleta said. "If she's wearing one, huh? So sometimes they're not wearing one?"