A Lap Dance to Remember
Dean always looked askance at conventioneers and itinerant business travelers, those adolescence souls who saved up a year's worth of tomcatting and partying until it was time to join their lodge buddies in Vegas, Miami or New Orleans for a long weekend of margaritas, strippers and peep shows. He could spot them within 5 feet of the front door. Invariably they would enter the hotel or nightclub with their voices raised a few decibels, and their eyes opened just a millimeter or two wider than normal. They were on the town, away from the ball and chain, with some or all of their cash flow augmented by the miracle called an expense account. Pathetic clowns, they wasted energy and brain cells in the pursuit of things forbidden, or unattainable back at home — the elusive uncovered D cup or the sure thing that delivered orgasm without demanding similar benefit in return.
No, Dean was a connoisseur of commercial sexuality. Any idiot could stumble into a bar on Bourbon Street and find himself within groping distance of a silicon or saline-enhanced bimbo. And when you thought about it, how difficult is it to chat up the female sales rep for a pharmaceutical company while sitting in the bar at the Holiday Inn? To convince her that you're two misunderstood souls who could surely benefit from a Merlot-fueled evening of slap and tickle? The saddest thing about all of that was the closet desperation, the belief that failure to get laid somehow cast a pall of failure on their trip or accidental vacation.
He'd encountered enough of these people (male and female) to know that they usually went home struggling with a hangover and a load of guilt that would support their neighborhood florist for the coming month. No, Dean had discovered long ago that the exchange of currency (furnished in whole or part via the largess of the expense voucher) provided a cleansing factor that enabled him to preserve his liver and maintain that air of "gee, it's good to be back home" at the end of the week. Why waste karma and chromosomes in the pursuit of divertissement, when a little oil to the macroeconomic engine could relieve stress, enliven the libido and still enable you to return to the family without having to look over your shoulder?
Not that he was immune to the charms of the navel-pierced twenty something behind the counter of the Seven Eleven. But who wants to worry about cute little Donna borrowing your business card — just in case she ever decides to move to the city and needs a job while she gets started on her modeling career? His one encounter with a social disease had originated from a relationship like that. And that was back in the era of free love, when the only sexual connotation for the letters A.. I.. D.. S .. dealt with plastic penises and cock rings, sold through catalogs for the benefit of married couples and young widows. Okay, call him a sentimental pervert if you will. But Dean was a man of honor, albeit a skewed sense of honor who saw a clear distinction between the betrayal of marital trust and a business transaction that might involve some use of the words "nude" and "lewd."
Years of traveling as a field service engineer, a euphemistic term for "shit fixer" in the heavy machinery business, had allowed Dean to work his philosophy of guiltless, retail sex into a wealth of memories and information that allowed him to obtain sexual dalliance with a minimum of physical or emotional effort, no matter where he happened to visit. Let's face it, how many people east of the Mississippi even know that there IS a topless bar in Topeka? Not to mention find it, without directions, one hour after driving through the city limits?
Is it worthwhile to pop for the extra twenty dollars to pass into the realm of the "VIP" room at the Baltimore gentlemen's club? Ask Dean, he could confirm or deny the potential of additional comforts to be gained. He knew which cities offered decent prostitution behind the doors of their massage parlors and modeling studios, and which ones were littered with rip-off joints that offered the satisfaction equivalent to a Penthouse inspired masturbation session illuminated by the light of a stack of twenties burning in the ashtray. Let the itinerant rubes go off in their feverish pursuit of poontang at the titty bars. Dean knew where, how and how much it took to obtain some measure of sexual gratification in almost every corner of the country.
Thus it was that he found himself touring the length of Cathedral Street in Houston, in search of a watering hole with a name akin to "Sophisticated Lady" or "Lips of Elegance" — something reminiscent of classy femininity. He'd been made aware of this new (to him) establishment through conversation with the excruciatingly shapely Misty of El Paso. She'd provided him with a full hour of one on one conversation, followed by one of the more memorable twenty-dollar lap dances he'd ever purchased. Almost any dancer could find the wherewithal to smile through the chitchat, up to the moment of truth when she inquired about the possibility of a private dance.
But Misty was unhurried, and seemed genuinely interested in discussing the plus and minuses of the various clubs she'd worked at throughout Texas. She had been most enthusiastic of this one club in Houston, noting that "a gentleman like you will certainly enjoy this place. And if you visit there, be sure and see my former roommate, Shea. Mention me and I know that she'll treat you right." Now, if only he could remember the name of the damned place. Maybe if the smell of the perfume rising so warmly from Misty's notable cleavage had not been so intoxicating, he'd have retained more than "Cathedral Street," "Shea" and this vague allusion to moneyed sex appeal that surrounded the business's moniker.
Maybe he was losing his edge. He was after all fifty-two. But at last, after twenty minutes the cinder block Taj Mahal known as the Sophisticate Room loomed on his right. It looked promising from the start. Turning into the parking lot, he observed a clutch of young women gossiping away near a car. Their dress (costume?) and body language gave immediate rise to thoughts of cheap sex, but the one in the shredded dress caught Dean's eye in a way that would be hard to explain. Sure, she had lovely legs and the type of brown curly hair that practically screamed "blow jobs here," but the dress was entirely unique.
Actually, to call it a dress would have been a stretch as it barely covered her ass. In fact, since it featured a wealth of slits and holes, using the word "covered" was something of a misnomer. How in the hell did she put it on? And how long would it be before she took it off? Parking the rental car, he left it unlocked (in the event of a hurried exit like the one he had to make from that one club in Detroit) before strolling to the entrance; casually checking out the girls, while they remained deep in their conversation.
The contrast between the late afternoon light, and the dark interior of the club could not have been greater. It took him a moment or two to adjust his eyes, and during that moment a cute little hostess pranced up to mouth "welcome to the Sophisticate" while the sound system blared an Aerosmith song at almost earsplitting volume. She ushered him to a booth between two of the three stages and took his drink order. Okay, he would have preferred to scope things out a bit before planting himself, but she seemed insistent and Dean was nothing if not polite to an attractive lady.
Before she had returned with the Coors Light, he was joined by an equally friendly and very exotic looking dancer whose thick, Brazilian accent rendered intelligible conversation nearly impossible. "Shea? Oh she no work days, she only come in after ten." Were it not for the fact that her left nipple kept slipping out of her halter, Dean would have probably downed the beer and chalked the trip up to a wild goose chase within five minutes. As it was, Thea grew impatient after a few minutes of polite head nodding, with no obvious offer of gratuity and moved on in search of a less selective customer.
His solitude was to be short-lived, as the "slit slut" quickly slid into the across the naugahide and practically into his lap. Hell, her hand was already fondling the inside of his thigh before she even opened her mouth. "Hi there, I'm Pam!" preceded a chatterbox introduction, along with the inquiry as to "what do you like to do for fun?" Suddenly the twenty minutes of driving down Cathedral Street didn't seem to be as fruitless as it had fifteen minutes ago.
"Some guys don't care for girls that are too friendly, I hope you aren't one of them" she said, in the biggest understatement Dean had encountered since his mother had noted that "with a draft lottery number like that, you might want to consider the Coast Guard or Canada." Okay, so maybe she wasn't quite the stunner up close, but hey, that dress was a work of art! It didn't take long to discern the complete absence of a bra and that the standard issue t-back panties were crafted from blue lace. Lucky lace!
What was it about her? The legs for one (or two) things, long and smooth, and something about them practically screamed "put your hears between us!" Usually, Dean was content with the label of boob man, but the fact that Pam's tits would struggle to fill a B cup didn't seem to be a factor. Here it was just as well, the rest of her body was slim, but somehow it worked… especially in a dress that his eyes couldn't stop examining. It wasn't really a dress of slits; it was ingeniously constructed of inch wide ribbon. And who cared whether the shape underneath was Pamela Anderson or Kate Moss? This was a feast for the eyes, and Pam was selling it! Her dancing hand in his crotch only endeared her to him even more.
