Such a Tease

      

     “I want to rub my naked breasts all over your face,” she whispered into my ear.

     “Wow, I’m flattered, but no thank you,” I replied.

      This middle-aged stripper was being incredibly forward.

     “I want to touch you and feel you,” she said in broken English through the gaps in her teeth, “I’m not just saying this, I like you.”

      “No thank you,” I said, trying to get her to leave me alone. All I wanted was to have a relaxing night out, but obviously I had done too good a job looking sexy that night; the strippers were all over me.

        “Do you have a lover?” she asked.

         “Nope,” I was being rather short with her but she deserved it for all her inappropriate sex talk. We hadn’t even had a first date yet and she was already looking to get into my pants.

         “You are adorable,” she put her hand on my shoulder, “I love your baby face.”

          “What about you, do you have a lover?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation towards her.

          “Yes,” she said, “she’s over there but she is mad now because no one wants to dance with her.”

          I looked into the direction she pointed and there was the skinny stripper sitting by herself with her arms folded across her chest.

         “Well, I mean you can’t take it too personally,” I said, “This type of place isn’t for everyone.”

          “Then why you come here if you don’t wan a dance?”

           This was a good question and one I did not expect this gap toothed, vaguely European stripper to ask me during the middle of my spring break in Miami. I looked around and saw a sea of strippers, most of them unattractive and filthy in their own individual ways. They were all someone’s daughters, someone’s emotionally abused trailer trash stepdaughters to be more specific. Why was I here and, more importantly, what did coming to a place like this say about the type of person I am? There’s never a better time for some moral self-evaluation than when a smelly stripper is breathing into your ear.

       When the three girls you go on spring break with suggest going to a strip club, the answer seems obvious. I thought it would be amusing to go to a strip club to be a silent observer, but the girls had another plan in mind. They wanted to chip in and buy me a lap dance. I protested. I was a good, kind person and becoming an active participant in a sleazy dive strip club was the opposite of what I had come to expect from myself. Although the amount of laziness and apathy I regularly exhibit exceed normal levels, I do still have a decent amount of self respect and I wasn’t about to throw that out the window in exchange for an unpleasantly awkward “friction dance” from someone who had long ago lost all of her self respect. I’m not sure what I was expecting out of going to a strip club, but I certainly didn’t expect such a need to assess my own morality.

        The wrinkled stripper was waiting for me to answer her question, why was I there to begin with.

        “I’m just here to watch, I guess. I’m here with my friends.”

         I pointed to the three girls as they chatted with a Puerto Rican stripper and shoved singles into her thong.

         The stripper gave me a perplexed look. At this point we were practically friends and I felt as though I owed her a better explanation.

         “Look, I’m a good guy. I appreciate what you do but I just wouldn’t feel comfortable.”

          “Ok,” she said, “You really are sweet.”

           I smiled. Maybe I had gotten through to her. Maybe I had taught her that she doesn’t need to be objectified for people to like her. I know it’s her job, but being a stripper has likely forever altered her perception of men and what she needs to do to be liked. Maybe I had showed her that there are good guys out there. Maybe all it took was one good guy like me in a strip club to change some lives.

         “But if you change your mind, I can give you a 2 for 1 deal on a dance.”

          Or maybe I was just another bro in a strip club on spring break.