In the years before I met my wife Laura I worked as a sales engineer for a large electronics company. I traveled a lot in those days. Once a year we had a large annual sales meeting and this year I was disappointed to find out it was in Houston. Not that there is anything wrong with Houston, but I traveled there all of the time. As such, this trip wasn't going to be anything out of the ordinary for me.
At the time the sales rep I had been working with for years was having a tough year due to the economy and there were rumors that a new rep had been chosen to take his place. I knew him. I didn't like him. He was, in a word, a hotshot! We didn't get along from word 'go'. He was a control freak and he didn't like the fact I was experienced and knew what I was doing. The few times I worked with him he wanted to orchestrate my every move and I chafed under his micro-management. We shared an awkward working relationship at best.
I had just arrived at the hotel where the conference was to take place and I wandered into the welcoming reception. Literally the first co-worker I spoke to said, "I hear you are leaving!"
I said, "What?" almost in shock.
"I heard you were leaving. Mike (the rumored replacement sales rep) told me he was moving over to your group and that he was going to bring Travis with him to be his SE."
"Well," I said trying to maintain my composure, "that is all news to me."
The same conversation was repeated three or four times over the next hour and I was seething. Finally I spotted Ron, my current sales rep, and asked him what the fuck was going on.
"I don't know," he said. "I have been hearing much the same thing.
I confronted my boss the next day and he denied everything but he was such a complete 'brown noser' I did not believe anything he said to me. As such, my attitude throughout the day's worth of presentations sucked. As we were all walking out at the end of the day I pulled Ron aside and asked him if he felt like going out on the group dinner that night.
"Fuck that!" he said and we planned to hook up at 7:00 for a dinner of our own. We ended up eating at the bar in a swanky boutique hotel where the 'beautiful people' hang out, and they were 'hanging out' all over the place. There was flesh everywhere. We hung out at the bar for quite a while and the sight of all those beautiful women got our juices going. The next thing you know we are ordering beer at the nearest strip joint. Five minutes after we sat down I had a half naked girl in my lap. Worries forgotten!!
I wasn't seeing anyone at the time. In fact, I was still lamenting over a breakup that had happened some months before. As such, I was more accommodating to the advances of the working girls than I might have been otherwise. I try to avoid those places when I am involved with someone because there is something that just doesn't feel right, but when I am single I figure "What the heck!" One dancer in particular spent a considerable amount of time on my lap but just before she could cash in on her investment with a few lap dances she was called up to work on stage. She asked me to give her a $20 tip for the DJ to get her out of having to dance on stage, but I told her I would just wait.
She pouted at me but took off to do her thing. Not too many minutes later another girl sat down on my lap and asked me if I wanted some company. I had fully planned on waiting for this other dancer, and I told her so, but she decided to stay anyway. At that very moment a friendship was born.
Her stage name was Ginger, but in the first few minutes of talking to her I found out her real name was Jody. I have always hated strippers' stage names. Somehow I always seemed to have had a knack for getting them to tell me their real names, which I understand is unusual.
I immediately knew Jody was unlike any stripper I had ever met. Most were just dumb bimbos. Jody was real and far smarter than she should have been working in a place like that. That first night I told her that I wished I had met her in a library instead of a strip club. She agreed.
Jody was not young. Initially, I would have put her in her early twenties, but she was actually 32. She was slender approaching skinny, relatively flat chested for a stripper, but she had an ass that simply would not quit. He skin was flawless.
That first night our relationship was typical of the stripper/client variety. We talked. She danced for me. I paid her money. As Ron and I left, I turned to him and said, "I think she likes me!" He just laughed. What he didn't know was that Jody had given me a pretty passionate kiss while she was giving me a lap dance, and I knew that was really unusual.
Over the next year or so every time I found myself in Houston I went to visit Jody. It was a strange thing to be a 'regular' but that is what I was. Not too far into it all I began to get reluctant to have her dance for me any more. Somehow it didn't seem right. Still, I knew that when she was at the club she was working so I always made sure I took care of her, if you know what I mean. She still danced for me now and then, but only because she wanted to. She could not let "Jesse's Girl" play without jumping on me. Trust me, you have never had a lap dance until you have had one from a pro who wanted to give you one rather than just doing it for the money. The energy is completely different! By being a regular there was even the added bonus of becoming "inner circle" with the other dancers at the club. I was treated very well every time I walked in, let me tell you!
I had no misconceptions about the nature of our relationship, yet Jody still became someone important to me, and I became important to her. We were friends. When I wasn't in Houston we talked on the phone once a week and we traded emails and text messages constantly. I loved to tease her every time the Rockets lost a game! Somewhere along the way we stopped seeing each other at the club. Instead, if I was in town on one of her days off, I would take her out and we would have dinner like any normal couple. Sometimes we would even go back to the club so she could hang out with her friends but not be required to work. It was actually a lot of fun. Once, while we were there socially, "Jesse's Girl" came on and Jody gave me a lap dance in her street clothes. It was easily the most erotic lap dance I had ever experienced, ironic considering she was wearing blue jeans and a sweatshirt at the time and didn't take either of them off. We kissed a little here and there along the way, but it never went any further than that physically. Emotionally it was a different story.
Somewhere along the way everything changed for us. I am not sure I was in love with Jody, but I loved her. Similarly, I know she wasn't in love with me either, but there was far, far more than just friendship going on between us.
One week I had to make an unplanned trip to Houston. Jody didn't expect to see me, so I thought I would surprise her with a visit. Once I had unpacked and got settled into my hotel I jumped into my rental and made my way over to the club. When I got there, I quickly spotted my favorite waitress, one of Jody's 'girls' and tapped her on the shoulder. "Hey, Linda! Is Ginger working tonight?" I asked her."
"Tim! Oh my gawd!! I am so glad you are here. She's over there in the corner. Something is wrong. She has already had four glasses of wine!" I knew that was a problem because at ninety-five pounds it didn't take Jody much to get drunk. I told Linda to bring me a beer and I headed over to where Jody was sitting. She was staring off into space and didn't even know I was there until I plopped down into the easy chair next to her. "What's up, Buttercup?" I asked as I sat down?"
I could tell from the look on Jody's face that it took her a second or two to even realize who it was that had sat down beside her, but then she broke into tears and crawled into my lap without saying a word. With her head on my shoulder and her arms around my neck she sobbed uncontrollably for a good five minutes. All I could do was stroke her hair, pat her back, and whisper consolations into her ear. When she was finally able to talk I got the story out of her between sobs.