Patrick asked me to be the best man for his wedding. Though we were friends, we were not close friends by any means. He had friends he'd known longer and better, even a brother, and a brother of his fiancΓ©e, but he asked me. I really had no close friends. But I knew why he'd asked me. He'd known I'd throw the best bachelor party. Tamara, my girlfriend of two years, was a stripper at the classiest and most exclusive gentlemen's club in the city, one with a reputation for having the most beautiful women that would even do something extra in a back room for a lot of money. Parties there were expensive, only for those with a lot of cash to burn. But he hoped with my girlfriend working there we could have the bachelor party there. He didn't say it, but I knew it. And so I did as he wanted.
I satisfied his desire. I satisfied my own.
I asked Tamara to ask the club manager about it. I told her that we didn't want just a regular bachelor party, but an exclusive after hours party. I knew they did that for the right amount of money.
She got me a good deal on the party. The manager liked her. Though she wasn't his top dancer, she did bring in a lot of clientele. She had a devoted following that came to watch her, bearing gifts, paying for time in the champagne room and private rooms, time at the table, buying drinks, throwing around money, and she flirted and played them up like they were the most important men in her life and that all other men were frivolous compared to these men who spent money on her. She was a master manipulator of men.
She had a look that attracted certain men. She was twenty-three but looked eighteen. She had smallish breasts but round and firm. She had considered implants to compete with the other strippers, the ones who got the star dances, but I wouldn't let her. I liked her the way she was. Plus she pulled in a clientele that the other girls couldn't. She had long voluptuous tanned legs that she always showed off with high heels shoes and boots, sometimes with stockings, long socks, bobby socks, garters, offset with short plaid skirts, pink skirts, tight glittery shorts, and button down shirts tied up to expose her flat stomach, tight blouses, loose tank tops, her lush long auburn hair in ponytails or worn down straight with bows, anything to exaggerate her schoolgirl appearance. This drove some men wild. Her regulars were loyal and paid exorbitant amounts of money to have her sit with them, for a lap dance, for a private dance, to drink with her, anything to spend time with her, have her rub against them, and have her rub her ass into their crotch until they came in their pants.
She was important enough to the club that the owner would allow a private party for her boyfriend and a bachelor party at a good price, with our own party and run of the club once it closed a bit earlier than usual, on a less busy night of course, a Tuesday, when there were no big shows or celebrities planned, but still, the best treatment Patrick could hope for. I'd have to pay the manager and negotiate with any women we wanted to stay after. A bartender and bouncer would stick around.
Other men asked me if I was jealous of her stripping, of other men wanting her, of her grinding on other men for money, and I always answered that I wasn't. I had no reason to be. It's natural for men to lust after women, especially attractive ones that put out all the signals they want to fuck, even if they have no intention of doing so. In fact I was proud to be with a woman who earned her own money, who didn't rely on me for income, who paid her share of the bills once we moved in together. She in turn was thrilled to be with a man who wasn't jealous of her profession at all, who didn't visit the club to watch her suspiciously and get jealous of the customers, and who also didn't have a fetish for it, wanting to watch her to get off. It was just her job. I admit I found it arousing that she did this job, that other men wanted her, but couldn't have her, and I fantasized that if I told her to let those other men have her that she would do it. And I knew the party would be the chance to prove it.
That night I got a limo, which seemed the expected thing to do. We went out for steaks, which also seemed like the expected thing to do. The party consisted of the groom Patrick, of course, then his older brother Richard, an easy-going rugged guy, the black sheep of their family; the bride's brother Stephen, a rather effeminate guy, younger than the rest of us, still in college, and timid; Todd, the best friend of Patrick, who had been in the same fraternity as Patrick and me, though I had never gotten along with him, as he had the affectation of one who comes from a family with money, entitled, boorish, and lazy, but all of it hid his own insecurity and the fact that his family was firmly lower-middle class; and last was Craig, mostly added to the wedding party to even the number of groomsmen and bridesmaids, a friend of Patrick's family more so than of Patrick himself, but someone I liked immediately, confident without being boastful, a large stomach and darting eyes that showed a ravenous appetite.
That was the group for the bachelor party that night, and the group of guys that walked into the Pink Diamond Gentlemen's Club that night, well fed and geared up for a party.
The bouncer at the door let us through easily, recognizing me, and said something into a small headset. Once inside the doors we were immediately surrounded by loud music, pink lighting, leather chairs and booths, men scattered loosely in small groups, flashing lights illuminating a stage where a black woman with large enhanced breasts wrapped her legs around a pool, gyrating her hips, and rubbing her crotch against the pole. The guys stared at the stage until a woman approached us.
"The bachelor party?" she asked.
"Yeah," I told her. "Tamara made us reservations."
"Yes she did," the girl smiled. She had large full red lips that she accentuated with lipstick and liner, pulling men's eyes to her lips and naturally to what men wanted from those lips.
"Wow," Todd said, staring down at her breasts bare except for pink colored pasties over the nipples.
"Just follow me to the reserved tables near the stage," she said.
She turned and we followed her swaying butt and hips, her high-heeled shoes making the muscles of her legs flex and her hips sway. The guys followed her obediently and I stayed behind, searching for Tamara.
I looked from the neon lit leather padded bar across tables, mostly unoccupied, across the stage where the dancer was now laying on her back, her legs still around the pole and rubbing against it, to leather booths close to the stage where the guys were being led. I saw a couple of doorways, one marked private that I knew led to an office and the dj's booth, and another doorway that led to private rooms. I finally saw Tamara sitting at a table to my right, almost next to me, with two guys who were leaning towards her, as she leaned towards them, wearing her schoolgirl outfit, a button-down white shirt with all but one button undone, her cleavage shining through the opening, her hair in two ponytails across her shoulders, her face with light make-up, fading out her freckles, black eye-liner and light blue-eye shadow bringing out the blue of her eyes, light red lipstick and liner making her lips moist. She didn't notice me as she looked at one of the two guys intently, listening to him talk.
I thought about getting her attention to let her know I was there, but decided against it. I didn't like being bothered at work, and shouldn't bother her at her work. I smiled when she lifted the hand of one guy from under the table and placed it flat on the table, patting it, obviously pulling it from her thigh, giving him a harmless laugh, as if she was appreciative and wanted him to touch her, but it was just against the rules.
I walked away and went to our table, thinking I'd talk to her when she wasn't busy.
The guys were sitting at a table next to the stage, staring at the stage and at the women walking around the club, serving drinks and flirting. I sat down between Craig and Richard, facing the stage and the rest of the club.
"This place is awesome!" Todd yelled. "Congrats on picking a fuckin' great club!"
"No problem," I said.
"His girlfriend works here," Richard yelled at him.
"You told me before," Todd said back. "Which one is she?"
I shrugged, not wanting them to know who she was yet.
"I don't see her right now," I said. "I'm sure she's around somewhere."
"It doesn't bother you that she works here?" Stephen yelled from across the table.
I smiled at hearing that question yet again. "Not at all," I said. "I knew she did this when I met her and it's fine with me."
"How'd you meet her?" Craig asked. "I've always wondered how someone picks up a stripper."
"It's not an interesting story," I replied. "And you can't pick up a stripper. You can however pick up a woman."
I got confused stares from everyone before the announcer asked for applause for the dancer on the stage who had finished her show, and the guys got up to clap and cheer loudly for her.
I sat down remembering how I had met Tamara.
I went to clubs a lot. Strip clubs, dance clubs, whatever. I didn't sleep much; my head wouldn't allow it so I went out searching for something to drain me. I liked the artificiality, the intensity, the overwhelming nature of the loud music, dark corners, bright spotlights, horny guys, sweating women, lust, and drunkenness. It drove all other thoughts out of my head. I'd often take acid or ecstasy to make everything more intense. I tried mixing in speed or amphetamines, but didn't enjoy those as much. I didn't need anything to give me more anxiety, to make my mind race harder, I wanted to distract it; I wanted to be overwhelmed by the world. So, I spent my sleepless nights in loud dance clubs and flashy high end strip clubs, often on whatever drugs I wanted that night, or just drinking if I only wanted to relax, to get my muscles to loosen.
I had seen Tamara several times at the club and found her schoolgirl look more amusing than sexual, not that she wasn't sexy in her outfits. She was. I just found it amusing at the response it got from the men in the club. She had the best legs of any stripper in any club and I loved to watch her walk. Though she had a small frame she had nice round hips and a firm butt that rolled nicely when she walked in heels. Still, I didn't frequent just her club. I tended to do the rounds, going where I wanted, going to several in a night until I found one that had a feeling that I wanted that night. I had no attachments to places or people.
Then, one early morning at about 5 o'clock I was sitting at one of my favorite all-night diners, eating a piece of apple pie and having coffee, thinking the coffee wouldn't make it any easier to get rest but I wasn't going to sleep anyway since I was still coming down from the acid I had taken that night, when Tamara walked in. I recognized her immediately, or rather with my head down reading a book I recognized her legs as they passed my vision, those long tanned legs, high-heeled black boots up to her knees, firm thighs flexing, a tight denim skirt with frayed edges stretch around those curved hips. Her heels clicked up to the counter where she stood between two stools and motioned to the waitress behind the counter.
"Can I get a coffee to go, please?" she asked.
Her hair was loose and hanging down her shoulders, and she ran her fingers through it with a tired sigh.
"You should get something to eat," I said to her.
For a couple of seconds she did nothing, and then turned to look at me.
"Were you talking to me?" she asked.
I nodded.