I was glad when the band struck up again, loud enough to drown outpour conversation. Loud enough to allow the subject to be dropped and forgotten, the one subject least likely to preserve peace in the family, although the old darling couldn't have known that at the time. And never would, hopefully! Lesbians and the like belonged behind a shroud of secrecy; why should it even come up between us?
My fault, no doubt, even though I had only sympathized with the cute young stripper for Jerome's sake. It was good for him, a sop to his waning virility, good for his ego to be included among the wolves on the make. But he had picked it up from there, of course, launching into the taboo topic even as I expressed a proper degree of shock and scorn. Along with a little chagrin! Oh shit, how was I to know that he considered himself an expert on the mating habits of the bare-breasted Tijuana titmouse?
Anyway, no harm done. Except that the next performer was bound to be wearing that invisible "lesbian" label now, and I couldn't help but feel a certain loss of innocence along with my sudden sense of kinship. Rightly or wrongly, I would be seeing her as a lesbian rather than a dancer, a lesbian using her body to excite men she didn't even like. It seemed a bit shoddy somehow, teasing the boys without giving them their money's worth. Unless maybe they knew all about it and just didn't mind being teased. Hmm. Hope springs eternal? Wasn't that the very essence of the striptease, to dream the impossible dream? Yes indeed, hope springs eternal; no wonder so many successful strippers were gay! Look but don't touch, a kind of soft sadism, just perfect for the unwitting male masochist…
That was when the third girl ambled onstage, tall and blond and beautiful and making mincemeat of my theory. Maybe the wolves were still getting their fair share of graciously dispensed frustration, but I could have sworn this one was teasing me! As if she had read my invisible label, somehow, was it so indelible?, and was already stating her challenge in no uncertain terms. Hey, look at us! How about it, tourist lady, blond on blond tonight? A bed full of nice blond cunt? Come on, baby, put up or shut up. And never mind the blank stare, it's no good anymore. Let's go, blondie, shit or get off the pot!
I did neither, straining mightily to hold everything in check like a well-behaved tourist lady should, and was rewarded by a richly deserved sense of triumph that turned cloying and faintly oppressive as she shrugged and swung her attention elsewhere. Just watching her seemed compensation enough, though, and I was soon lost in the erotic sorcery of her spell. Only I couldn't go up there alongside her this time, not like with the fat-assed Mexican peasant, oh no, I just didn't dare.
She was still fully dressed, a vision in floor-length white satin shot with shimmering gold, a dйcolletй gown that made her look more like a singer than a stripper. Quite sedate except for the scandalous display of cleavage. Indeed, her every breath was clearly delineated by the rise and fall of her breasts, the upper slopes naked almost to the nipples. But a change was just about due, evidently, and I could see her body sucking in and storing up vitality from the surrounding tables, moving in a kind of slow abandonment that appeared to grow increasingly sexy. As if the very next intake of outside energy might bring the one potent spark of pollen or semen or what-have-you needed to jolt new and crackling life through the swollen anticipation jelling inside her bosom and belly. An extrasensory conception, as it were. There was an indolent elegance in her flowing form that seemed to be demanding the opportunity to exhibit itself without the constraining shackles of society.
The hot spark landed and the jell came alive. I spilled a little of my drink and then set it down hastily, my transfixed eyes thirstier than my parched lips. Only a fool would miss this part of the show. And yet, unaccountably, I became more and more conscious of my own reactions and responses. There was the sloshed drink, for instance, the leftover dribble of moisture on my chin, I was dying to wipe it off but couldn't go pawing around blindly for a napkin for fear of a far worse spillage. Especially with the blond dancer teetering on one precarious golden heel to lift the other net-sheathed leg through a suddenly unzipped zipper in the gown. So I did the next best thing, I used my tongue. A wise course, as it turned out, the first sight of that breathtakingly beautiful leg was worth the effort and then some. Although I must have looked pretty weird ogling a woman's body with my tongue stuck out like that. In case anyone was stupid enough to be looking in my direction. Oh shit, anybody that dumb wouldn't know a lesbian cuntlapper if they saw one!
Another thing began to irritate me. For no earthly reason, I found myself resenting the men in the place, all of them, every lusting son of a bitch. How could any hairy-legged male understand or appreciate the aesthetic smoothness of those shapely feminine limbs? Or the beauty of those bewitching breasts, now being laid bare by a flurry of tenderly solicitous fingertips? Such purity was too precious to reveal to anybody, much less a roomful of lecherous brutes with dirt under their fingernails. Or if the divine creature couldn't perform in solitude, well, why not an audience of women only? Attractive women, though, with a sprinkling of sweet young girls to help balance out the glut of sleek matrons. And why not make nudity the rule rather than the exception? Nude women all around. Women of grace and delicacy, of smooth skin and softly lyrical curves to enhance the flawless masterpiece in the center as the many leaves of a flower enhance its single blossom…
No such luck. But I had enough to satisfy me for the moment. Even the combo sounded just fine now, the rhythm honed to a precise edge that matched the unabashedly naked undulations of breast and belly and hip. My thighs felt damp and sticky, and I wasn't even aware of how long ago they had started this business of rubbing and chafing against each other, prickling like a pair of hot and horny porcupines. It didn't matter. Help was on the way. As though he had read my mind, or put a lie detector on my libido, heaven forbid!, dear old Jerome was reaching for me under the table with those nice soft hands of his.
Hmm. Almost soft enough to be feminine, actually, making me all the more conscious of the velvety texture of my own skin. Ah yes, tempting! Wouldn't that bouncy little redhead just love to slide her fingers over me like this? Or even the big fat peasant, the one whose skill almost made up for her lack of beauty; oh shit, that one would know how! Uh-huh. She did, she sure did know how, and as long as I had something more beautiful to gaze at, why not let her go on with that sneaky lesbian caress?
A gentle lassitude came upon me, a limpness I could feel but couldn't resist. Nor did I care to after a while. Something wild was going to happen, something up there on the stage and down here underneath the table. The same thing, maybe, and wouldn't it be grand to tumble into the dark abyss together? Blond on blond, lighting up the darkness, a bed full of nice blond cunt, come on, striptease lade, shit or get off the pot!
I couldn't catch her eye, though, and that was the worst kind of teasing, a mixture of pain and humiliation. So it ended on a disappointing note for me, no shimmering gold beauty, no red-haired hoyden, no pudgy-fingered brunette, only poor old Jerome foraging around down there and doing it pretty much for himself. Awkwardly, too, no better than those lousy musicians fingering their lousy instruments. Clumsy! Like that fat peasant tripping over her own fringe…
“Another drink, Dana?"
“You still want to stay? I figured the show was over."
"We haven't seen the star yet. Pilar. She's supposed to be the headliner. But if you'd rather not-"
"It's okay. I'll have that drink now, too. With both hands on the table, if you don't mind. Or they're liable to cancel the star and just move us onstage instead. Which wouldn't be such a bad idea, you know? If your diddling finger holds out, I can do bumps and grinds all night long. I'll even let you use your tongue and give your finger a rest."
"Hush."
"Don't hush me or I'll put you under the table. Hey, how about that drink you promised me? Looks like show time already."
Appearances were deceiving, though, and we had to suffer through another bilingual announcement and a long stretch of fussing with the lights before the one and only Pilar came on. And even then she took awhile longer, coming on piece by piece, a little bit at a time. An arm first, fingers pointed and bunched, moving slowly into view from behind the curtain; in the murky blue light it looked like a wriggling snake. Then a shoulder, turning the snake into something that gave evidence of eventually becoming a full-bosomed female body, glowing with an eerie phosphorescence that seemed almost spectral. Incongruously so, I thought, especially since the body itself proved to be big and solid and voluptuous as more and more of it came out from in back of the curtain.
Big and solid and voluptuous, -and naked? No. Not quite. But she might just as well have been, considering the size and texture of her garments. The tiniest of G-strings. A gauzy bra that was transparent except for the slight thickening of fabric over each nipple. And the inevitable high heels, of course, but even these were fashioned like dainty sandals, with only a narrow thong-type arrangement anchoring them to her bare feet.
The audience loved her. She drew a vehement round of applause just standing there lazily and scanning the tables, an all-knowing smile on her ripely sensuous mouth. Once again I succumbed to the urge to squirm around in my seat, assailed by a hot spasm of agitation as her all-encompassing glance singled me out for an extra intense moment or two. But then I wondered if that wasn't just a bit of tricky stage technique, the kind of thing that implants the same uniquely personalized notion in each and every onlooker. Although my mind simply boggled at the idea of everyone else feeling exactly the same as I did; oh shit, they couldn't all be squirming!
Pilar had started her promenade, gliding out upon the elongated apron of the stage. It was more of a strut, actually, a stripper's walk to show off her figure. A damn good figure, too, generously stacked and just about perfect in proportion. Her calves were a trifle heavy but still quite firm-dancer's muscles, no doubt, and those ultra-high heels threw her thighs and pelvis into a seductively prominent curve.
My eyes had grown accustomed to the light by now, no longer bothered by that strange luminescent effect. It was fascinating, somehow, adding an impossibly beautiful luster to her thick crop of billowing blue-black hair. And when the wispy little mini-bra came off, her already aroused nipples gleamed vividly and brought an audible gasp from the crowd.
The music faded, leaving only a soft drumbeat to carry on. Her fingers wandered, playing restless melodies on her own flesh. And for the first time, she seemed to go into a trance that excluded the breathless audience. A highly volatile trance, though, as if the caresses of her hands had at last penetrated her skin and found some deeply buried turn-on switch. Something was taking place inside her, something beyond her control. Her hips began to gyrate wildly, her torso twisting this way and that, apparently in the throes of some exquisite torture. Her face contorted, the gluttonous ripe lips tightening and drawing back to bare her shiny teeth.
It was scary almost, but terribly exciting too as some of that sensation imparted itself to me. I felt a hand clutching way down deep, much deeper.than Jerome could possibly go, an artful hand that contracted and expanded maddeningly. And again I realized that everyone else must have been feeling it, too. I got the impression of bodies twitching all around me, twitching to the touch of hot fingers encroaching and squeezing intimately, the lascivious fury of the performance brushing against a thousand exposed nerves to create an atmosphere of hushed delirium…
The band slammed back in with a violent shock of sound, driving the dancer to an even higher level of activity. Her movements grew more frenzied and her body jerked crazily, leaning backward in arched abandon. There was beauty in it. But now it had become the beauty of raw emotion, an animal thing that went beyond the boundaries of civilization. She wasn't a lesbian anymore, she wasn't even human, she was just a female beast of the jungle copulating with the male of her species.
I hated that. But the invisible hand clutching my vitals never let up for an instant; it was unbearably real now as the inexorable contraction and expansion kept pace with the ever-increasing tempo of the onstage madness. Until my inflamed secret flesh seemed to be shipping itself into an irrepressible rage, about to spark and sizzle and explode right through the prison of my skin. Monstrous, absolutely monstrous, and I couldn't do a damn thing to slow it down!
Then, abruptly, Pilar came out of her distant trance and made contact with the audience again. It happened without warning, so swiftly that even the musicians missed their cue. All of a sudden she was a civilized woman once more, an artiste, a striptease dancer flirting gaily with the people who were paying good money for the privilege of seeing her perform. Her gait turned mincing and then swaggering, lewdly suggestive one moment and impudently disdainful the next, the act of an experienced stripper.
She took her flirtation pretty seriously, too, getting intimately involved with the men at the nearby tables after a while. One of them she grabbed and hauled in close to her body, bending down to mash her bosom against his laughing face. The laughter stopped as he put up a struggle, but her strong arms and smothering breasts held him captive until at last he quit fighting and moaned in token of total surrender, bowing to her will with a slight but visibly tremulous motion of his cheeks and chin. Above his half-hidden head she smirked and rolled her eyes shamelessly to let the amused audience know how much she was enjoying the unseen but obvious fruits of her victory.
All of that calmed me down, naturally, and I too became nothing more than a giggling spectator as she went from man to man using those big breasts of hers. Those big beautiful tits, first as a lure and then as a weapon. It was something to giggle at, too, except for the one time when she chose her foolish victim from the very next table, near enough so that I could sniff her perfume and see the tiny iridescent beads of perspiration on her skin. The poor dolt actually whimpered as her powerful hands pried his jaws apart and forced his buried mouth open. And then I shuddered and almost died of embarrassment as that big naked lesbian bitch winked right at me and pursed her thick lips in an obscene kissing gesture! Worse yet, she followed it with a flash of luridly glistening tongue that made me squirm again, doubly humiliated because of the undeniable surge of heat in my loins…