"Can't we get off this damn road and find the motorway?" I complained
"I think you'll find they are called Freeways over here!" Elizabeth replied with a smile, gunning the hired Cherokee a little faster, "and, no, we can't! I'm hungry and we are far more likely to find a place to eat along here somewhere than we are on the freeway. "
I settled back in the passenger seat as the car gathered speed. Once my new wife had made up her mind about something, I knew there were few who could change it.
Elizabeth was a typical product of the English private school system, enjoying her formative years in all-girl schools before being whisked away to an extremely expensive finishing school in Switzerland. Going straight from her father's house, to the sorority house, to my house, she was never expected to do a day's work in her entire life. In fact, Elizabeth would probably have choked at the merest thought of work; with everyone around to do things for her, she didn't even know what a dirty dish looked like!
The marriage between us had been arranged since Elizabeth was about sixteen years old. I'm a prominent figure in a financial institution in London and a great friend of her father. It was decided that, being a wealthy widower and considerably older than her, I would make a good, stable husband. The deal suited me just fine. From the first time I saw her long, golden-blonde hair and neat athletic figure, I had wanted her. Although I'd fallen head over heels in love with her, I was sensible enough to realise that those deep feelings were unlikely ever to be reciprocated. She had married me because it was the right thing to do and because it was her father's wish. I lived in perpetual fear of her first inevitable love affair with a younger man.
The road before us stretched on into the distance and the air conditioning whined and struggled to relieve the excessive outside temperature. This tour of the Southern States had been Elizabeth's idea of a honeymoon. I had agreed, but on the proviso that we only stayed in the best hotels; at my age, I considered room-service to be a necessity rather than a luxury!
"This place looks okay!" Elizabeth suddenly cried and swung the car viciously in front of the oncoming traffic and into the parking lot of a small bar/diner on the opposite side of the road. We came to a screeching halt and I had a sudden vision of my physician reprimanding me for my high blood pressure. I looked up at the bar.
"Oh Liz, surely you don't want to eat here!" I said. "Come on, the Hilton's only another few hours away, we can have a nice, civilized dinner there. "
"I told you not to call me Liz - my name is Elizabeth. " She said indignantly. "If we are going to stay married for long, you are going to remember that! Now, come on, James, I'm hungry and I want to eat!"
The interior did little to dissuade me from my earlier assessment of the bar. The atmosphere was dark and foreboding - as were a lot of the clientele. Cigarette smoke hung thick in the still, unconditioned air and country music pumped out loudly from a decrepit juke-box near a small, roughly constructed stage. Dejectedly, I followed my new bride to a table by the empty stage and we sat.
A bored looking waitress quickly appeared by our side.
"You folk's wanna eat?"
A brief perusal at the grease stained menu, and the waitress was walking back towards the kitchen with Elizabeth's order of hamburger and fries and mine of steak. Within a few seconds our drinks arrived and I sipped gratefully at my neat whiskey while Elizabeth looked around.
"What a great place!" she enthused. "I really hoped we would find a bar like this. I wonder what the stage is for?"
"I think we are about to find out, darling. " I replied
As I spoke the waitress that had taken our order walked out onto the stage a grabbed the microphone.
"Guys and girls... " she announced, "the Log House Bar presents... Miss Candy!"
A roar of applause and cheers erupted around the room as a girl in her mid thirties pranced out onto the stage. Dressed as she was in leather-fringed leggings and matching gold latex bra and panties, it seemed obvious that some form of strip-dance was part of the evening's entertainment. A large Stetson hat sat atop a mass of dark curly hair and she carried a fake six-shooter pistol in each hand. I looked over at Elizabeth. My intention was to grab her hand and leave quickly - a young lady of her breeding should never be exposed to this sort of thing, I thought - but my wife's face was a picture of rapt interest. I knew there was no way that she was going to leave with me.
The volume of the music increased even further as the girl began to gyrate her hips and sway around the stage. It was all "strip" and very little "tease" and by the time the song was only three minutes old, she had lost the hat and the leggings and was in the process of unhooking the front clasp of the bikini bra. She may not have been very good, but the primarily male audience was in uproar. Cheers and shouts for her to lose the rest of her outfit were so loud that the sound of the music was almost lost in the din. By the time the song was over, the woman was completely nude and was sitting, spread-legged in the centre of the stage. The "dance" seemed finished now, but the stripper concluded her act by slipping two fingers quickly up and down her vaginal lips before the stage lights went out and she ran off stage in the darkness.
"Thank you... Miss Candy!!" A loud voice boomed in the darkness.
As the cheering and applause died away, the room lights returned and normal conversation resumed.
