My first night, drunk and aching for the touch, I spent all the seven hundred dollars I had in this world. 15 women worked the floor that night, and I paid them each in time for a private booth and a song worth. After that night, I was remembered. The old woman at the bar would pop a beer as I was patted down at the door. Girls I recognized would recognize me, occasionally leave other men and come to talk. I always paid in twenties and always tipped, and always wanted one more dance. I rarely watched the stage, I waited for the floor girls and the private boxes.
Months would pass between each visit, but I came back. And the beer would still be waiting and a familiar face would come to sit on my lap. It was pure chance, on those nights, I was the only paying customer. A stout lesbian couple were regulars and always took their chairs at the stage side. Their polo shirts were neatly tucked and I never saw them holding an empty beer. Occasionally a wrinkled and self/unemployed business man would enter, sit for a beer, tickle a dancer's asshole, laugh and then leave. It's all the same. A heavy set Hispanic man would sometimes sit at a table back from the stage, carefully nursing a bottled water he refilled in the bathroom. The gangsters and thugs would come through, silently pay, receive, watch their phones and leave. Time stands slow in the club.
In those days so many girls were my age. Young. They danced for their rent, car payments, kids and pills. I was just another investor and it suited me fine. Just a broke farmer in every sense. They'd call me their farm boy. Maybe one or two meant it-- I was on the same road to hell. Occasionally, their guard and professional face dropped. We're all only human. I would tell them jokes and bizarre stories, and when they laughed I felt like a man.
The older white gals were exhausted with life and professionally closed. There were no older black gals. The young white girls were all eastern European and they were blank eyed and angry-- maybe I was too insulting or just too broke. The young black girls were as human beings should be. I remember three.
Jasmine was very aloof and disinterested. She went through the routines of conversation and the routines of dancing. But she asked about me and so I told her. One night, she stopped. Naked to her heels she squatted between my legs, resting her elbows on my thighs, she stared into my face. She asked-- is it true everything they say about food? Will the poisons on bad veggies tear you up over the years and leave you to die of cancer? She was serious. I couldn't spout farmer market "white" bullshit about politics, morals and... I sighed and was caught in the lie. Eventually, I must have had something to say-- eat how you want or how you can, or there are more important things than what we just shit out. Whatever I said she took blankly, gathered her clothes and left. Never saw her again.
The next girl's name I cannot remember, and I loved her for better reasons, maybe it was Nadine. There was a thunderstorm that night. And I was truly alone in the club. Most of the girls had left, writing off the night as a loss. But Nadine had nowhere to go. I sat at a table watching an empty stage. She sat down across from me and started mid-sentence-- tonight's my birthday, can you believe this miserable shit? I laughed and we got to talking. Bullshit about weather, became jokes about middle aged shitty men, became commiseration on our mutual poverty. Then we realized we knew each other. She was a forgotten-friend of my book-friend's wife. Being real people changed things. Nadine's parents were florists and owned a shop, but her day pay couldn't cut it. So she danced. Nadine's mother was from Atalanta, but her father was an older generation Syrian immigrant (I'm sure I made that one detail up for romance). Her family was in shit--not from money, they managed-- but her older brother had driven himself insane. He was in his thirties and when the recession hit he lost his job, then slowly and terribly lost his wife and children. The brother was still alive, but nearly an animal, he was broken past fixing. We started talking about all this shit the world becomes sometimes. We agreed that luck was bullshit. We talked about what we though was worth worrying about. As closing came, she decided she should probably dance for me. She was exhausted, but with a redbull could pull herself together. I promised to get her one. Except I had no more cash. I went to the atm with the $10 surcharge-- but I was declined. I went to the bar, and the old woman charged me my last $70 to get 60. Embarrassed as all hell, I bought a red bull and a beer and Nadine looked at the ceiling. I got my dance. Afterward Nadine said I should be smart and not go blowing my money on white girls. I never saw her again.
Bree was closer, out of them all. I came out of a night blizzard in the week before Christmas. It was something different and complicated. I smiled at her. And she left a man and came to sit with me. We talked, but I can't remember what because something different was happening. She was a professional. She laughed deeper than the other girls and she whispered the filthiest shit I'd yet to hear. Is it so simple as pheromones sometimes? Or what it is? She was young and so was I and I had money, that's all . After the third dance, things became complicated when she kissed me. Deep to the lip. My belt was off and her hand snuck down my pants as she peaked to see where the bouncer was sitting. We lost track of the dances, but settled at five. It could have been ten, twenty seemed right too. Kneeling in my lap she took my phone and entered her number. Professional. Rummaging my pockets I had cash for four dances. I promised her the rest. Once again, at the atm I paid $10 for my last 50. By then Bree was hiding at the far end of the bar, in the shadows near the backdoor. Her head was in her hands, the bar tender had left her three shots. I gave Bree all the cash and she ignored it. I asked when she was dancing next. She said wednesday, but it might not be a good idea if you come by. I took a drink and left. And I never saw her again. But on Christmas eve Bree sent me a text saying "Happy xma." I thought she meant eczema.
This recent trip by Betty's will likely be the last. As madness fell on me. It'd been months since my last visit and all the women my age were gone. An angry middle aged white woman danced for me and the madness came down. A private dance was $25. A beer was $5. The VIP room was $170 minimum. Average sex was $300ish in this city. I started rolling over the street price of every high school date, every college girlfriend. Which were $700 nights? Which were $2,000? These thoughts made me sick of myself, I felt like a rotted tree. I drove through the city until morning, going around a rotary ten twenty times before turning home.
