Talulah Underground

Nicola was on her belly, pressed against a platform stage under low blue-purple lights--her strawberry blonde hair around her face, long legs stitched tight together with the chrome pole snug between the milky white of her inner thighs. She hadn't planned to visit the club this evening. She never really did. Arriving at Talulah always felt like something that happened to her rather than a place she decided to visit. Ben had introduced her to this place, and even though the breakup was six months old, stabbing pangs of love-loss still snuck up on her. The smell of a rental car. A flat rock--the kind he liked to skip across water. Christmas lights. She wasn't sure if she was drawn to Talulah because it was a piece of him or because it helped her feel alive and connected to her erotic self, the way he used to. Dancing at the club was physically arousing, to be sure. But it was also an emotional indulgence, agonizingly pleasurable.¬

It was like that--her hips rising and falling, slowly rubbing the V of her legs against the cool, smooth surface of the pole that she first saw him. Her freckled cheek was pressed flat against the stage, and he emerged sideways through a haze of hair and swirling lights. He stood out from among a small cluster of boring men seated in folding chairs in front of the platform stage, watching. His appearance was the first thing she noticed--his café au lait skin, the tidy, elegant wrap on his head, the delicate silver bands around each of his wrists in tender, almost comical contrast with his muscular arms. She arched her back to rise up to her knees as she took him in.

It wasn't just his clothes that made him different. It was his countenance. The men who sit in those chairs most nights have two ways about them: 1) Naughty schoolboys jerking off to a dirty magazine in the bathroom stall. Like they're doing something wrong and afraid to get caught. Shame all over them. Or 2) Slobbering dogs after a bitch in heat, slaves to their own urges. Disconnected from their humanity. Nicola hated them, which was part of fun of torturing them so. One of her favorite outfits to wear to Talulah was an oversized, cropped tee that flowed when she spun on the pole--the bold text across the chest read "NOT YOURS".

That drove them mad. When she had drinks with Drew, she'd tell her "Nic babe, the only thing you're fucking in that place is your own head. You gotta find a healthier way to get over him. Get on Tinder or something. Get laid!" Nic thought of her friend's suggestion as she took in the man in the chair. There was a simmering dignity about him, a confidence and self-assuredness that she found sexy. Nic swung around the pole to stand, her body still moving involuntarily to the music coursing through her. When she met his eyes, she noticed a little smile pull at the corner of his mouth. She blushed behind the lacy black mask she wore to separate herself from the men, cloistered in another dimension. But the gaze of his dark-dark eyes pierced through the veil. They got to her.

Nic's arousal fed on the control she felt on stage--she could make men cum in their underwear with the right timing, the right gestures in the right order. Her therapist had suggested that perhaps this was a coping mechanism: controlling to avoid being hurt again; wearing a mask to avoid vulnerability. Maybe it was, but whatever the reason, Nic loved playing her audience. Facing the back of the stage, she bent one knee and draped her slim body over her other, extended leg, caressing it from the ankle strap of her stiletto, up over her stockings, through her inner thighs. She playfully snapped her garter straps while peering over her shoulder. The men leaned forward. But not the broad-chested man in the turban. He sank into his chair, draping one arm around the back, settling in. He looked at her unabashedly, maybe gratefully. It made Nic feel like a shy little girl. It was exciting. Different. She let that hot, flushed feeling soak through her as she released a breath and took a graceful, lazy spin around the pole, landing back on her knees. She noticed the man's hand had found a way into his lap, slowly rubbing what Nic could see what a generously sized erection, even at this distance.

Nicola was turned on--surprisingly so. Her experience at Talulah up until now was more about radical, erotic self-expression than it was sexual attraction. She had never found herself this engaged with a man at the club--a "watcher" as she derisively called them with Drew. But he wasn't "watching", really. He was participating. His hand moved over his cock in rhythm with her movements, and she began to feel that he, like the music, was the one moving her. Nic pirouetted around the pole and dragged her heel on the ground to slide into a slow split. The man's mouth parted a little and he rested the palms of his hands on his thighs. She got the sense he was willing himself to be still for her. It felt like an invitation she couldn't resist--like an open door. Without thinking, Nic sensuously pulled through the center of her split and slinked in the direction of the front of the stage, where the platform dropped off.

She crawled toward him, vaguely aware of the watchers surrounding them as she zeroed in on his features coming into focus. Full lips nestled in a meticulously groomed jet-black beard. Long lashes. Wispy black hairs peeking out from an unbuttoned, crisply ironed shirt. A tight, muscular waist, with the belt undone. Now, as she crawled toward him--was pulled toward him--he leaned toward her, and with the palm of one hand toward the sky, crooked his finger in a slow "come hither" motion.

Nic's body responded immediately. She felt an electric sensation between her legs as she watched his long, deliberate finger beckon her. She imagined how it would feel inside her, moving like that. Nic blushed scarlet, but didn't break her gaze. The lights danced in watery, marbled patterns on the flat of her bare stomach and fair chest as she spilled over the edge of the platform like melted butter. She had never crossed this threshold before. It felt thrilling, like trespassing. She pressed her hips into the edge, and bent over the side of the platform to tease her full backside toward her onlookers. Nic paused there, raking her fingernails over her ass, leaving little pink trails in their wake.

She turned back around, pressing her back to the short 4' wall behind her and again found the dark eyes of the man in the front row. She opened her legs for him, her hands tousling the tangly waves of her long hair as she ground her hips in slow circles to the music. He was lustful, but in control. Smoldering. Hypnotizing. Commanding. Nic was stuck in limbo, pinned against the stage platform--hesitant to approach him, but not wanting to back away. She slid to the ground and writhed in a feline manner. He was stone-still as he drank her in. That's when she heard his voice for the first time: Low, confident, playful, commanding. Just loud enough for her to hear over the music, like they were the only two people in the room.

"Here, kitty kitty. Come here."