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LOCAL
FAVORITES
for the 2011
Top of the Hill
SPEAK
Medium Rare
One Jayplay writer shares an interesting first experience at a gentleman's club
The morning of my first strip club experience I trimmed an overgrown bush. I showed up to a house near 14th and Massachusetts around 9 a.m., and my boss was there waiting with two hedge clippers. The sun was bright, and it was excruciatingly humid for that early of an hour. My friend and co-worker Pierce was already there. There were two bushes on either side of the front porch that my boss wanted us to trim. They had grown up against the siding, and they had gotten so tall they covered the bottom half of the front windows. There was a time constraint associated with the task: our boss wanted us done before noon so he could take us, and the rest of our co-workers, to a local strip club for a steak lunch.
| JEFF KARR |
Few things in this world garner a more masculine appeal than steaks and naked women. Neither Pierce nor I had ever been to a strip club, so we worked diligently. Pierce started trimming the bushes back from the house, and I worked on cutting them down so they didn't obscure the view from the windows. We finished the job before lunch, and by the end we were
ooth drenched in sweat and covered in dirt and bites from the insects that inhabited those horrible hedges. Our co-worker, Shawn, showed up to the site around noon. We walked around the house to rinse our hands and arms with a garden hose, so as to be presentable when we set foot in our first gentleman's club. When we finished we climbed into Shawn's Volkswagen, reeking of sweat and vegetation. Shawn laughed. It was our first time and he knew it.
On the drive I ruminated about what the next hour might entail. I knew there would be food, and I was sure I'd see some breasts, but other than that my conception of strip clubs was vague. We crossed over the Kansas River at the north end of town and took the first right after the bridge. We passed through a neighborhood before taking another right and pulling into the club's gravel parking lot.
Inside, the club was dim. There was a bar opposite the entrance, and to the right of the bar there was an empty stage surrounded by mirrors. We took a seat with our bosses. They had acquired a table next to the stage, and I got
shafted with the chair facing away from it, so if I wanted to watch the dancers, I had to turn around. This, I thought, was problematic. When we sat down I took a second to look around the club. We appeared to be the only ones under 50. There were people at the bar drinking, despite the fact that it was only noon. There were two strippers at the bar and one sitting at a table mingling with patrons.
Our waitress came to the table and took our order. She gave us all glasses of water and she had a very pleasant disposition. She smiled at Pierce and I as if it were perfectly clear that we were first-timers. She took our order, and I ordered a medium rare steak. I would have preferred medium well, but I thought it better to act in accordance with the implied manliness of the ritual. After a while I realized the club was quite clean and that Pierce and I were undoubtedly the dirtiest, least presentable people in the establishment.
Contributed photo
Stripped Down: A typical day of work turned into a new experience for one Jayplay writer.
Soon after coming to this realization, a stripper took the stage, and I swallowed my pride and turned around in my chair. She had light brown skin and tattoos down her side and on her back. She was really quite beautiful. She strutted across the stage, and wiped down the pole before she began to dance. My co-workers and I watched her sway her hips, and slide up and down the pole to the beat of the music. She was talented. She removed her top and soon many of the patrons approached the stage and began giving her money. Some handed her $1 bills, and some gave her $5. She took time to fake affection with every one of them, wrapping her arms around their shoulders and allowing them to kiss her cheek.
Our steaks arrived, and a new girl took the stage. I set to work eating my steak and baked potato, turning around in my chair intermittently to watch the new dancer who was also young and attractive. The previous performer pulled up a chair next to an older man at the far side of the club. They talked, and though I couldn't hear the content of their conversation, I imagined them working out some perverse deal. My plate was bloody, and I turned around in my chair to watch the current dancer. She was
topless, wearing only a thong, and she sat at the front of the stage with her legs spread and her thong pulled to the side, revealing it all to the entire club. It was the last thing I wanted to see while eating a medium rare steak. When I looked back to the first dancer and the old man, she was on top of him, rubbing her backside up and down his crotch and thighs. He clung to his chair with a look of total concentration and she bit her lower lip as she danced. I lost my appetite. 'This is lust in its most depraved variety,' I thought to myself.
When it was all said and done, our boss paid the bill and we thanked him for the meal. Pierce and I were sent to an empty house to clean. I spent the afternoon scrubbing a wretchedly filthy bathroom and gagging on oven cleaner, thinking about the woman with her legs spread and the other woman on top of the old man. We joked halfheartedly about what we had seen throughout the rest of the day. 'I guess they aren't for everyone;' I told myself, but I replayed those images in my head for a long time after. By the end of the day, I reeked. I was covered in soot, and my back ached. I went home and cleansed myself of it.
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