Carol

Outside the restaurant, I said, "Now we get you a little bit drunk."

She guffawed. "You think I need help getting wild?"

There was a line of Taxis queued in front of a hotel on the same block, so we went over and stood in line. It was a short wait to get to the front. As the next cab was pulling up, I opened my shoulder bag and pulled out a bra and a pair of panties.

She looked at them with surprise as I shoved them into her hand, along with a twenty dollar bill. I leaned in quickly and whispered, "Put these on in the cab. Tell him to go to 45th and Lexington. There's a bar there, Hutton's. They let drunk girls dance on the bar. But you probably want to be wearing underwear. Now you have a place to tuck your ID card. And the bra is for... well... they collect bras."

"You're sending me to a meet-market?" She seemed excited by the prospect.

"Yeah. Go into Hutton's, flirt and tease, drive everybody crazy. I'll pretend not to know you."

The hotel valet was holding the cab door for her, and eyeing her covetously. She held up the bra to eye level, and grimaced. "This is going to look a little dumb. I'm supposed to be bare under this dress."

"Just close the dress up some. Probably people will think you're strange, or they may feel a little sorry for you, being so desperate or out of touch. Besides, if you want, you can get out of it soon."

She kissed me softly. "See? It's about humiliating me."

"Maybe a little," I smiled.

She slid into the cab, all leg and chest and gleaming skin. The valet lingered over her as he held the door. She turned back and leaned past him, saying, "But I just thought of something. I don't ever get humiliated anymore. How weird is that?"

The valet closed the door on her, and let out a big breath. "Dreamboat," he told me.

I leapt into the next cab, and gave my cabby the same directions. It was almost a straight shoot to Hutton's, so I knew the cabs would stay close to each other in traffic.

I kept my eye on Carol's cab as we flitted through the traffic. We were pretty close for most of the trip, and I watched as Carol leaned back from talking to her driver. I couldn't see much through their rear window, but I saw the back of her head, as her back straightened. I saw the straps come off her shoulders.

When her dress was off (I guessed), I saw her head dip down. For a fraction of a second, I caught the tips of her breasts, as she arched her back against the seat -- pulling her panties up.

Then I saw her throw her head back and laugh. They were at a stoplight, and her cabby was turned around, talking to her. He had a big smile on his round face; he was a heavy man with curly red hair, and he seemed quite comfortable having a college co-ed changing clothes in the back of his cab.

Carol held up her bra in the spray of lights, and then shrugged into it. I'd picked it out earlier that day, with the underwear. They were both white and lacy. The bra was semi-sheer, fastening in front.

When we pulled up beside them for a moment, my cabby gave her a wolf-whistle. Of course he had noticed her.

"I wish there were more like her," I said.

"Me too!" he sang, and laughed.

I watched as Carol slid out of her cab, and then tried to hand her money to the cab driver. He wouldn't take it.

She spun on her toe, and stepped unwaveringly into the crowded bar.

The meet market

I paid my own cab driver (no freebies for

me!

), and got out. Though it was still quite early, the bar was packed, to the extent of spilling out into the roped-off area in front. There were tables and chairs on the sidewalk, all of it full of boisterous New York twenty-somethings. Handsome men and drop-dead gorgeous women in tight little outfits.

I eased into the crowd, and made my first priority the procurement of a pint of stout. Something I could sip for a long time before I had to visit the bar again. The bar was jam-packed, with a haze of cigarette smoke. Music was blasting in a continuous assault on the eardrums.

Carol was near the bar, already surrounded by several guys. Her bright blonde hair, piled in ringlets, was like a traffic light for guys. She could have entered wearing a turtle-neck sweater and jeans; they would have jumped on her no matter what she was wearing. Next to her open smile and friendly willingness to meet your eyes, the other girls in the bar seemed over-serious or even furtive. It goes to show, a willing smile is a lot more attractive than a showy outfit. But her outfit helped.

Someone had bought her a drink -- it was something that she didn't normally order for herself. She was shouting in people's ears, and they were shouting in hers, leaning in over her. She'd fastened the brooch on her dress so it was tighter, but the V in front still, at times, pulled open to below the clip that fastened her bra in front.

The fact that she was finally wearing a bra didn't seem to change men's behavior in the slightest. When she leaned over, or twisted at the waist they still gawked in a way that was hilarious to watch. I started to understand Carol's viewpoint, how going with or without a bra in daily life made little difference... guys stared no matter what.

I eased in closer, to try to listen to their conversation. When she noticed me there, I just pretended to be one of her admirers. The guys around her seemed to know each other, and they gave me the cold shoulder rather than talking to me. That was fine -- I was content to play the solitary weirdo on the fringes.

"My name's

Easy

," she she seemed to be telling the guys. "E. Z."

They all lit up at that. Three of them simultaneously leaned in to deliver bad jokes. They were in their zone: They were drunk enough that they knew they were immensely clever, and Carol was so pretty they knew she simply

had

to desire them.

Throughout the conversation, she built up more of a story. She told them she went to a city university, but didn't say which. She told them she was pre-med. She told them she'd heard about this bar, where you could get your bra nailed to the wall if you took it off. She said she had some guy friends who were always trying to get her to come here, to Hutton's.

"We're always going out and getting drunk, and they always end up trying to get me here. I'm like, 'I'll dance anywhere. In a club, on top of a bar. I'm Easy!'"

They loved her. They asked, did she go out a lot?

"Oh, yes," she laughed. "My family was really controlling, so when I finally got away to college, it's like I'm on a mission!" She had everything but the all-girl Catholic high school.

"Is your name really Easy?" one of them asked.

"E.Z." She spelled it out. "Elizabeth Zaftig Watkins."

She continued, "But at school, everybody called me 'Easy,' and it stuck. I always wondered why, but the football team never told me."

"You gonna lose your bra tonight?"

"Depends if there's a good song!" She raised her arms, and started dancing to the music. Other people in the bar were grooving too, but there was no real dancing as such. In her tight ring of guys, she could do little more than gyrate in place. Her circle watched appreciatively.

One of them bravely reached out and snagged her dress with a finger. He pulled the V over her breasts open slightly, revealing the semi-sheer lace of her bra. He grinned suggestively at her, and she smiled back, still dancing. The guys craned their heads to see.

Thus far, she was only acting flirtatiously. Nothing a normal girl wouldn't do. Who wouldn't be flattered by a guy who couldn't restrain himself from reaching out? Well -- most girls, maybe. But Carol was unique.

I leaned in, shouting to be heard over the music. "You have

got

to be the hottest girl in here tonight!"

Her face lit up, and she smiled at me without any hint of recognition. "Thank you!" she cried, and leaned forward. She gave me a kiss on the lips.

I acted stunned, though I'd kind of expected it.

She spun back to her other friends, and started dancing again. "Sorry if I surprised you!" she yelled over her shoulder. "I get really

kissy

when I drink!"

"I think you're beautiful too," said the one who'd hooked her dress open. He seemed to be the smartest, or the least drunk. He caught on the quickest.

"Then --

mwwwah!

" She danced up and kissed him too.

Their reserve broke. As she gyrated around, their hands were on her back, her waist, or her cheek. They leaned in to talk to her, and often ended up kissing her cheek. Anybody who kissed her got kissed back, on the lips.

The lights were getting slowly dimmer as the crowd got wilder. A few girls in tight jeans and tighter tops were helped onto the bar. To raised hands and guttural screams, they twisted and spun among the glasses like go-go dancers. I watched them like a hawk -- I was turned on by any public display, not just Carol's. That's how we'd gotten started, so long ago -- by discussing the ripped-up jeans of a woman on the sidewalk in front of us.

One of the bar-dancers finally raised her shirt. The noise from the crowd redoubled in intensity. This caused the other girl to pull her shirt out of her jeans, and raise it up over her bra. The two of them shared a dynamic. They didn't

seem

to know each other, but they fed off each other's moves, each escalating as the other tried to catch up.

They had wide, loose smiles on their lips, their eyes were glazed -- they weren't seeing individuals in the crowd, just the crowd itself. The crowd's attention was a strange, distorted feedback, which grew in each girl until their movements became jangly. The crowd was, in fact, controlling them. (This is my theory. I can only project.)

Then the first girl reached up and unsnapped her bra. It opened in front. It flew open, and there were her breasts, swaying unrestrained below her shirt. Whistles rose from the crowd.

So the other girl unfastened her bra, and slid it out of her shirt. She swung it over her head like a lasso. They looked so hot. If I'd been there alone, I'd've been

ga-ga

and speechless the whole night. I'd've returned to Hutton's as a place of worship, alone, with a note-pad. I really

am

that desperate and uncool. Just by standing and watching, cheering and shouting, my febrile masculine brain could basically

will

women to strip in front of a massive audience.

I finally glanced over at Carol. She was rapt, staring at the bar-dancers with a sort of hungry expression, with an edge of something else --

distain!

She told me later: "It wasn't hot seeing them half-naked up there. It was hot seeing how they had given control to a crowd of strangers. They were basically following directions up there. The first girl out of her bra -- I saw her boyfriend telling her to do that. So there are others like us out there! Like a secret society!

"And," she continued, "the girls weren't

nearly

dirty enough. They missed out on so many opportunities. I mean, if you knew you'd be dancing on a bar, why would you wear jeans and not a skirt?"

Carol wasn't noticing the guys around her. They were staring too -- but they hadn't forgotten the gorgeous blonde twisting around in their midst. She was dancing between two guys, and they were feeling her ass rock and sway as she moved. They were getting a pelvis-workout, as they held onto her and did the "man-dance"... rocking inertly as she did all the work.

Her hands were above her head, and as they shifted her around, their hands brushed over her breasts. A few times at first, and then for longer. Carol noticed not at all -- not even when their hands were motionless and she was still dancing, basically rubbing her breasts across their hands.

As I watched, another guy came up behind her. In the press of the crowd, it was probably easy for her to dismiss it. He was standing much closer than he needed to, with his lap against her ass and his nose in her hair.

Carol was oblivious, or at least, she didn't let on that she knew what was happening. Then I realized I was catching a glimpse of her daily life. The girl had

no

personal space anymore.

I marveled at her. For myself, I needed to actually like and feel comfortable with a person to even just say hello in the street. But Carol didn't need anything at all before she could relax with people rubbing up against her and breathing on her. She didn't need names, she didn't need to converse, she didn't even need to see a guy's face. She seemed to have no boundaries at all, no trigger that engaged her defenses, no line that couldn't be crossed.

She danced on, eyes fixed on the girls on the bar, while the three guys around her attached themselves to her swiveling body and copped merciless feels off her chest, ass, arms, stomach and thighs.

The girls on the bar finally got down. The braver one -- she tossed her bra to one of the bartenders, to a chorus of cheers from the crowd. The bartender made a big production of lifting it above his head, and then hooking it on the back wall. The multi-color bras of other bar-dancers heavily festooned the wall and the rafters of the ceiling, making it look like a very strange coral reef.

Bar dancing

"Wow!" said Carol pointedly. "That looks like fun!"

Her circle was immediately interested.

"You want to go up there?" one asked.

"If the song is right, why not?" said Carol. "I think I should take this bra off... it doesn't go with my dress."

"But you'll come back to us when you're done?"

"If I can find you again," she teased.

They (we, because I was sort of in the group) closed around her possessively. "We'll keep track of you."

She looked around at the masculine faces above her. Her face was open and without guile, but she still asked, "You

really

think I should go up?" (It was her pattern, asking over and over when she'd already decided.)

"Hell yeah!" said one guy.

"Do it, Easy! Do it!" cried another.

A new song was starting up -- "(You) Rocked Me All Night Long" -- seriously danceable. Carol studied the crowded bar, looking for the stairs (she later told me). Her new friends took her arms and lifted, basically propelling her forward. The bartenders saw her immediately, and pulled her onto the bar. With her hands on the bartender's shoulders, she scooted up, getting the last boost from no less than three hands on her ass.

In less than five seconds, she was standing above the crowd, giggling down at us. We were chanting, "Ea-sy! Ea-sy! Ea-sy!"

She half-closed her eyes and started swaying. The lights lit up her white silk dress, the wrap parting down her front as she twisted her shoulders. Her legs were apart, for added balance, with her elevated clogs planted firmly on the wood. She was so close to the track lighting, that the white silk seemed to glow. The white of her panties and bra reflected even more light, standing out in stark contrast to her darkly tanned skin. She looked like she was in lingerie. She looked

otherworldly.

Soon the whole bar was screaming at her. The bartenders were working like machines at high speed, grabbing, un-topping, and sliding beers onto the counter, their eyes flickering up to her whenever possible. Money and liquor flowed across the counter-top, some even being passed between Carol's muscle-y legs. A bar like this, with girls like Carol dancing on the counter, was a license to print money.

When the prelude stopped, the guitar and drums kicked in with a wall of sound. Carol began moving in earnest. I'd never seen her dance before, and she'd never dragged me out to a dance club. But I supposed girls might practice in front of the mirror -- either that, or they're born to it. But there are good dancers, and fucking

incredible

dancers.

Some women merely swivel their hips, gyrate, rock the shoulders: baseline dancing, entrancing enough when you add the T&A. But then, some women have

energy

.

Carol's

whole body bopped to the music. The beat was fast, her hair went flying. Where I might nod my head to the beat, she twisted her whole body with a gorgeous, mesmerizing sinuous motion. Her muscles

popped,

all the way down to her ankles; her toes clenched white in the clogs. She

thrashed,

she arched her back -- stuff that, if I'd tried to do it, would give me severe muscle soreness the next morning. She never lost her balance. I didn't know it then -- but she

was

practicing at home. She was already practicing to become a stripper, even then.

In short, Carol was good, and we all wanted to bear her children. Like with the girls before her, people were reaching out to her legs. She couldn't have taken a step, but that was okay, because navigating the crowded counter-top in her clogs would have broken the spell. She ignored the people directly below her, and how the dress split up her parted thighs.

She simply

thrummed

with the music, like a giant tuning fork for the whole bar, resonating with everybody's libido.

Before long, everybody was chanting, "Bra! Bra! Bra!"

The word reached her, and her smile grew. She nodded, and suddenly flipped open her dress. The V of her dress caught on the outsides of her breasts, and she was now dancing with her top open.

The crowd's cheering redoubled. It was a mad-house -- I was getting pushed from behind, as people pressed forward to get closer to her. She was the whole package: the tiny dress that split up her thigh and down her front, the undergarments glowing underneath. Her pneumatic curves. She was eye-glue for every guy in the bar.

"Off! Off! Off!" we chanted.

One hand drifted to the bra's clasp between her breasts. The crowd hooted and cheered. Carol was smiling broadly now, her huge gleaming smile that always made everybody love her. Her fingers twitched, and a hundred-fifty men screamed like they'd been stabbed.

Until then, nobody had been sure if she was just a tease, or would actually open her bra. The bra snapped open, and in a second she had it off and hanging from her hand. Her breasts swayed heavily in counter-time to her dancing, two perfectly-formed orbs completely lit by the lights above the bar. Nothing hidden, certainly not the hard little points of her pink nipples.

For the last minute-and-a-half of the song, she danced on the bar with her dress open over her chest. She half squatted to pass the bra to a bartender, who held it up for everybody to see. Hands stroked her thighs, and even plucked at the hem of her dress, until she stood again.

The song ended with Carol holding the hem of her dress in her hands, lifting it to her waist to the split uncovered the entirety of her underwear. The lines of the lacy panties, with the curves of her muscled stomach and the little detailed curves in the fabric over her vagina, made her snatch look so clean and enticing that I wanted to launch myself at her. Me and the rest of the world.

She dropped the hem, letting it slide over her legs, and stared down at the crowd, breathing hard. Everybody was cheering and shouting. She held out her arms to her friends, who stretched up to help her down. For a moment, she was crowd-surfing on the forest of hands. People were even holding up dollar bills to her, which made her laugh when she saw them.

Back on her feet in our little circle, there were still hands coming through to pat her on the back, stroke her hair. Fingers were running down her arms. It was close to impossible to tell where Carol ended and the hands began. Some of the admirers were holding out shots to her, the reward for bar-dancing.

She soon gave up trying to reach for the shots. She just put her hands above her head, and let herself get passed around from embrace to embrace, while anonymous hands poured the shots in her mouth. Little rivulets of vodka and tequila ran down her chin and neck, intercepted by the tongues of the guys around her.