The Stripper

The Stripper

by: Dennis R. Humphreys

“When was the last time you went out and just had fun...get drunk and maybe get laid?” Morri asked.

“Up until a week ago I was married for fifteen years...hell, it's been that long,” I answered him.

“Yeah, I know. That's what I mean. Then you find your wife is screwing around with your boss and hits you up for a divorce like you were the one fucking around. Buddy, it's time you let your hair down and have some fun before your hair gets too thin to let down,” Morri enlightened me.

“I second that thought. You need to get out for a man's night out. Let's go to that new strip club downtown. I hear the strippers there are primo,” Rob added.

“Good idea,” Morri agreed. “We'll get a couple of more of the guys and go there Saturday night and have fun.”

“I'm all for it. I can't even remember the last time I did something like that. Hell, I lost my wife and my job all in one week. There has to be some retribution,” I told them.

Morri and Rob were both divorced. Rob was last month and Morri was about nine months ago. It was getting to be a club. I knew these guys for years and they were fun. I was always the stick in the mud especially since Morri's divorce.

It was settled and that's what they planned with me along for the ride. They got two others, Max Davidson and Tank Farley, nicknamed Tank, since he was eighteen because he was built that way. The guys even rented a limo for the night planning to get blasted in honor of my new freedom without having to drive.

We had a quick bite to eat at a pub along the way. I had been there before with my wife. I liked the place but she found everything she could that was wrong with it. Before we left the pub, Morri gave me a gift he had gotten and insisted I wear it. A shirt that read 'newly freed bachelor'. I slipped it over my dress shirt and we left.

The driver left us off in front of the place, 'Barely There'. It looked like one of those old movie and stage theaters with the flashing marquise out front. It wasn't one of those dark, dingy clubs hidden on a block of bars and other seedy places. This was illuminated like the fourth of July and there were a number of people going in the front door.

The guys managed to get us a table directly in front of the stage and center. Morris talked to the manager about my recent plight and I guess he slipped him something extra so we could sit there. We ordered drinks and waited only a short while for the show to begin. There was a shiny brass pole mid stage that went to the top of the twenty foot ceiling and an open second story floor was built for the various performers and their numbers.

A booming voice announced the first number that almost blasted me off my seat and the place quieted. The room lights dimmed and a single spotlight appeared on one of the most incredible brunettes I had ever seen. We all watched as she gyrated and did splits that were humanly impossible. She didn't use the pole but she didn't have to, I was mesmerized. As she danced in front of us, the guys and others in the front stuffed money into her thong which eventually came off as well. Where did she put all the money? I wondered. Then as forcibly as she appeared she quietly disappeared into the shadows.

“Wow,” I told the guys, “she was something else. So this is what I've been missing?”

The break then gave us time to drink more. I certainly didn't drink while that woman performed. I didn't want to miss a thing. Then after about fifteen minutes, that booming voice came out of nowhere again, announcing the next performer, an Anita Peece ... hey, that sounds like an x rated video actress. She was a compelling as the first dancer. I was enthralled and in disbelief of her gymnastics. She was every bit the athlete as an Olympic contestant. I gave her a ten.

We all stood when she finished, applauding and hollering aggressively as humanly possible. We drank more and when the announcer introduced the third performer of the evening, I still wasn't prepared and almost slipped off my seat. I think it even sobered me a bit at that time. The music started, a really hot sexy number with a raspy sax soloist. A spotlight illuminated a young woman on the second floor as she began her descent down the pole holding herself on with one gorgeous, fishnet covered leg. Fishnet stockings on a hot women send me into convulsions.

This woman had long, light blonde hair. There was something familiar about her but I couldn't quite see clearly at the time. She consumed me from the very start though. She strutted and twisted, rolled and flipped and my senses were right there with her. I was engaged and enamored. I watched as she performed feeling things I thought were gone. We were all yelling and whistling as guys do at places like that. I was almost laying my head on the floor watching her in amazement when she dropped on the floor in front of me meeting me face to face...

“Mr. Hampstead?” I heard her say.

“Lori?” I answered her question with one.

She smiled and proceeded to move then in what appeared to be a dance for me and directed at me. She smiled the entire time and I couldn't take my eyes off her. What do you say when you see a woman like her performing in front of you that you knew since she was a little girl...the next door neighbor's little girl. I even dropped her off at school a few times with my daughter.

She broke my thoughts off as my mind wandered about her as a little girl when she clasped my head between her legs and swayed to the music.

“I just heard you got a divorce and moved out from next door,” she told me looking down at my face being tightly held between her gorgeous thighs. “I hope you didn't move too far away.”

The guys were going wild seeing we had some kind of connection. I think they were jealous too. They went overboard then when she took my hand and pulled me to the stage and had me sit on a chair that was there as a prop. She straddled me on the chair and completed her strip but not her dance which all I can say I was an innocent bystander as she slid down the front of me with the length of her body. I was completely sobered.

She whispered things to me about seeing me again and how she had always wanted me and that she could take care of me in ways my wife never imagined. Probably in ways I never imagined. When her number was finished so was I. I left that stage forgetting I had ever been married. I joined a group of newly created fans sitting at the table I had come from while Stacey strutted off the stage in a fishnet body stocking that obscured nothing.

After five minutes sitting back at our table my back ached from everyone slapping my back and calling me a lucky dog. I'm not even sure what that term means or where it came from. Then I noticed the guys looking up in awe. I turned to see what they were looking at. It was Lori. She had put on wrap to cover herself and come to the table. Well, it didn't really cover her since it was see through. She came over and planted a big kiss on me. I thought her tongue would come out of one of my ears. She sat then on my lap. Did I die and go to heaven? Maybe I had jumped off a building when I got the divorce papers and now I'm faced with an eternity of this. I wish. The one thing I've learned in life with my four plus decades of existence is the universe is in balance. There is a give and take. Thermodynamics say the tendency is towards chaos and since the universe is not in chaos but is orderly and mathematically logical, someone out there causes this. An algorithm has been assigned by someone greater than ourselves to achieve this order. All I can say is thank you, God.

“Why don't we go in the back for a private lap dance. I'm not back on for an hour and a half. We can talk better there,” she told me leaning into me.

“I hate to abandon my friends here. They're throwing this night out in my honor, with the divorce and everything,” I told her. Sure she was eighteen now and on her own but I still felt a little strange.

“Bring them if you want but this dance is for you Mr. Hampstead,” Lori told me.

“I think, under the circumstances you can call me Danny.

“Sure...Danny,” she said standing and holding out her hand to lead me to one of the back, private rooms. Everyone got up and followed. It was like the seven dwarfs minus two following snow not-so-white.

It was a relatively small room with a little pill box stage and a pole attached to an eight foot ceiling. There was a spotlight over the area that illuminated an eight foot diameter. Lori sat me front and center while the rest of my friends occupied some other chairs around me. She played around with something in the back of the room and soon some very loud, percussion dominated music sounded. She moved across the floor seductively towards me, her stare intense and hungry. Once again I seemed to be in her control...willingly. I saw Morri out of my periphery and thought he was a man about to have a heart attack. The others just needed drool buckets.

My breathing as she stripped quickly seemed to become labored and it suddenly got very hot in the room. I was aware of the stares coming from my friends. By the time her lap dance was over I felt used, but willingly so. Whoever new this little six year old that I dropped off at school with my daughter would grow up like this! Somehow the images were incomparable.

She had to leave and go out on the floor but before she did she pulled a pen from my pocket and wrote her number on my hand.

“You call me...promise Danny,” she pleaded quietly. “I live in the Camelot Apartments and when you call I'll tell you how to get there.”

“Camelot Apartments? I just moved into Camelot Apartments,” I told her. This was no coincidence, as most people believing in a universal intelligence would tell you, but for some reason was ordained. Lori obviously saw it that way too.

“Oh Danny. It was meant to be. I live in 1239 Dawman Court,” she cooed.

“I think I live right behind you...our backyards are together...I'm 1339 Sesame Court.

“Oh my God! I'll be leaving here at 2am. You guys probably won't be getting home until at least that time. How about if I leave my porch light on for you. I'll leave the front door open too. You just come in and wake me up if I'm asleep. Make it interesting,” she told me as she cupped my face in her hands and kissed me deeply. I think that time my inner ear got wet from her tongue.

We went back out into the audience. The guys just wouldn't let up on me. We all watched as Lori made her public relations round in the audience picking up enough private lap dances to occupy her time until she was on again. Meanwhile we packed away enough beer and shots to make us unintelligible by Lori's number.

She maneuvered over towards me again. The dance was definitely directed at me, while all the money my friends were fanning, was directed at her. I think she bankrupted all of them for the night dancing there. I turned into something like a Mr. Gumby doll when she rubbed up against me, she could bend and twist me any way she wanted. When she was through I seriously thought I was the victim of a hit and run. The way my body felt I wondered if the limo driver might drive me to the emergency room to be put into a body cast.

“You're walking funny, my friend,” Morri laughed slapping me on the back as we were leaving.

“Well, I wonder why,” I answered while he laughed hysterically as the rest of them laughed back up.

“You are going over her place tonight, you lucky son of a bitch,” Rob asked admiringly. “I can't believe it she's almost next door.”

“Yeah, just like before,” I answered poetically.

Max and Tank were there shaking their heads in agreement, albeit it was a drunk one since they appeared incapable of speech by now. The chauffeur was waiting for us, holding the back door open. Those two guys couldn't even get into the limo right, they crawled into it while the chauffeur just laughed and shook his head. He probably had lots of exposure to this kind of behavior.

All the way back everyone was singing the stupid songs of childhood, the ones you sang during a class trip on the bus. Morri since he organized the whole night and paid for the driver had him drop each one in the party at their homes. We watched as each on e staggered and fell on their way to their front doors. There would be a couple of angry wives come morning...well. Max and Tank's wives. Morri dropped me off then, the second to the last, Morri being last.

“I can have the driver drop you off at Lori's place if you want,” Morri offered.

“No my place is fine. I'll just walk over there. It's two thirty, she should be there. I'm going to down a couple glasses of water before I head there...I am so fucking drunk,” I told him as if he didn't know , but then he was so drunk he might not have.

“Listen, you have to tell all about what happened with her tonight. We'll all be waiting to hear the bloody details you lucky bastard. At this point we're all living vicariously through you. Promise me you dog...promise,” he asked me seriously holding tightly to my shoulder as I feel out pf the limo. The driver helped me up and closed the door.

“Are you alright to get to you door?” he asked me as I just waved him off zigzagging up my walk.

I stumbled to my front door. I swear it took five minutes to find the keyhole, why do they make them so small? Finally I got the door open and turned around to wave them the limo off.

'I have to sober up a little or I might disappoint Lori,' I told myself.

I went to the kitchen and swiftly drank two tall glasses of water. Then I peed. I went out the back door of my townhouse apartment and staggered across the backyard and then the next one and moved to the front of the apartments to see what light was on. Damn there were two. What was the number she gave me? 1229 I told myself confidently. By now I felt a little better and my confidence was growing as I spotted 1229m next to the porch light. I went to the door, I opened it...unlocked as she told me it would be. I couldn't wait. I quietly went up the stairs wanting to surprise her, as she asked me to in a creative fashion .

She was lying in bed and appeared asleep already as I took my clothes off and slipped in next to her. She was warm and soft, smelling like coconut oil.

“You're a little cold,” she mumbled to me.

“You smell like coconut but I love coconut pie,” I breathlessly answered as I maneuvered under the covers. She was breathing heavily as I passed time there and slowly worked my way up. She buried her face in her pillow to muffle the sounds of her pleasure as I began the final act of passion working my way into my own frenzy of delight.

“Oh God, Lenny, don't stop!” she screamed, lifting her head from her feathered silencer. “Give it to me harder, the way I like it.”

“Lenny?” my desire suddenly coming to a halt, feeling insulted but maybe she was having a dream. “It's Danny from the strip club.”

She moved quickly out from under me turning on the light, then jumping from the bed and turning on me screaming. It certainly wasn't Lori. I tried to calm her down as I attempted to put on my pants to vacate the room and the apartment. I fell twice standing on one leg, attempting to step into my pants with the other one. Failing again I felt it prudent to grab all of my clothes and run.

Down the stairs, two at a time. I was now sober enough to do it. As I went to reach for the front door while the screaming upstairs seemed to reach a higher decibel level, it opened from the other side. A huge brute of a man entered and quickly, before I could react, directed his massive fist into my face.

When I came to I was handcuffed. Someone wrapped a towel around me before being taken out the door to a waiting police car. There was a small crowd gathered as well, onlookers to the event.

“Looks like our Peeping Tom we've been looking for graduated to sexual assault,” the one officer commented as he then read me my rights.”

'I'm in deep shit now. No one is going to believe this. Even if some judge does, I can't live here now,' I thought to myself.

“Why didn't you just come over my place tonight instead of pulling this stunt with her,” I heard a voice say. When I looked, it was Lori.