First Encounter

an old fling

I met a stripper today. Correction, I met many strippers. Fascinating characters. But I started this bit in the singular for a reason: I met one stripper who stood out from the rest. I have no idea if anything she said or showed was true, and no clue whether I will ever see her again. I am not in love. I have a crush. She is beautiful, but so many of them were. Maybe it was her smile. Radiant. She had the ability to go from frigid, icy and constantly scanning the room with her restless eyes, to beaming, shimmering, alive like lava. It’s genetics, and not for a moment was I convinced that the lava was content with herself.

The lava had just run down from the ashen hillside, and not yet hardened or settled. The lava was uncertain. The lava was alluring, but I never tricked myself into thinking she’d let me in. But I’ll never rule out a volcanic surprise. Bury me, I dare you.

We talked about random stuff, writing and acting, and I just wanted to steal her away and let her crash on my couch for eternity. I can’t even remember her name. I gave her a fake one right when she approached me, and didn’t correct it until later. We talked, and she revealed that she has only been on the job for 2 days. Another stripper said the same thing, but I still believe her. I could tell. She wasn’t professional. All the other strippers would approach you, talk to you for a length of time depending on their personality and individual strategies, and then ask to take you back for a dance. This girl never asked. She was tired, maybe afraid, maybe expecting or hoping for me to ask her, to save her the embarrassment.

Or maybe she had intended to ask, but we begun to talk, and our conversation assumed a normalcy, a charming flavor, and suddenly asking me to pay for her to grind up against my jeans and motorboat her t*****s in my face seemed vulgar, grotesque. Her paradox may very well have been the task of establishing an escapist front for her work while simultaneously searching for a homey and relatable niche for settling into her new home. How can she connect if the code of her job requires her to disconnect? So she sat there with me, and our talking would stop and go, my arm harmlessly touching her shoulder and our eyes both towards the floor, beehives of thought formations gathering behind them, fighting different wars within ourselves, eyes toward the floor, side by side, the stripper who wants to write and the thinker who wants to act, not in love, not in lust, an unlikely pair on sunset blvd. 

We somehow negotiated exchanging information. I initiated it, and she insisted that I not try to help her. She hates that. It was precisely what I wanted to do, but I agreed to just ‘talk’. I had to find a pen. I did, and then couldn’t find her.

I come back from a dance or something, and find her. She writes it on my hand. Sitting in silence. Me asking her why she isn’t trying to pick up anyone, joking about the guy on the left looking receptive. She isn’t into it. Burnt out on the second day, or just not warmed up, never burnt in? What a character. She seems to briefly try with somebody else, walks out the exit door, and that’s the last I see of her. I leave over an hour later.

Before she got up, another girl approached me. I had just told her that my name was *****, and that Hektor was a lie. The other stripper starts up the sales pitch disguised as a come-on, and its not working. She asks me my name. Hek-tor, I say. She asks me what’s on my shirt. Blood-stains. Haha. Where are you from? Camelot. What are you on? A stool. I am on my game. I don’t want her. I want her to leave. I never tell her to leave, I just play around, the silent angel of gloom to my right, listening, or perhaps zoning out. Finally the earnest stripper gives up; I’m not interested. 

I turn to my unlikely friend, or the friend of my dreams, and give her a little look, maybe a smirk that probably was so subtle it wouldn’t have shown up in a mirror. She gives a weak, forced little reaction back, jerk of the neck or widening of the eyes, the most basic admission that she had been there. Both our sets of eyes flicker back to the floor. She’s failing miserably at the role of stripper, and I just taught her a lesson in her own game. Play, play, play, get them to give you what you want, and eyes to front. Her eyes never left the front, and my eyes hardly rested on her, even though they wanted to. I didn’t fall in love, or in lust, but my couch is empty and my mind is full, and whether that number she wrote on my hand was real or fake, the actress who couldn’t play the stripper was real as hell, and reminded me of the lava that set long ago under the asphalt of sunset boulevard, my new backyard. 

Reviews

[DIVYA]

Great story-telling and narration. Kept me glued till the conclusion.

[Imogean Tweetie]

Interesting. I felt you… I read it through--even though it was fairly long for the Cafe. Good job. It is not easy to keep my attention, so it must be good. Introspective writing is one of my favorites.

[Rossen]

You have what it takes to write your own play or movie ticket...
Easy to read, pulls you in, keeps you in till the finish. Good story Thaddius, 100/100

Rossen

[Edmund S. Obumba]

This piece seems so real.I could picture myelf in that particular club,wnd even juxtapose myself to you.You have a way with simple expression..but your word smith capabilities come out from your fluency and diction.
I loved the story.

[Juliet]

This pieces was very deep and real in more than one sense. It's not always the glamour and allure that everyone sees it for, but maybe as just a means of getting by, and they aren't always that proud of it. It brought about a sincere honesty and was written very well. I like it. Great work.

[Sarah H. (Shadow Mage)]

This is a very nice write. I liked it a lot and it was interesting.
Keep up the great work!

[Shirlena]

So the one who wasn't a professional was more alluring and captivating than the one who was experienced. Sometimes a certain talent is also your niche or one of them, somethings you are a natural at. This is one of those situations where you either have it or you don't. A friend of mine had a brother who asked him upon meeting me, if I was a stripper. I wasn't offended at all because all strippers don't strip because it's an aspiration or goal in life but for money or necessity so I took it as a compliment, it meant I was sexy but I'm rambling. Let's just say this was an engaging and well written piece and well, intriguing.

[junaid altaf]

i enjoyed this piece and u always dont meet intresting strippers

[junaid altaf]

well i enjoyed this piece!

[Fragilebrokendreams]

Hmm.. an interesting write this one. I like how the language transitions to a mixture of poetic yet modern like philosophical words. It does make you wonder and want to know more about the story of this young stripper. We know they are in our world and many of them don't belong there, but they are and so it is rare that someone would come to show them symphony whether it be by their lust or love or anything for that one person. It does make a difference.
Very nice, just keep working on it.