When Clayton says the cover's fifteen, I believe it,
he's paid my cover before,
but now the hostess is saying that ladies get in for ten,
and I've got to pay twenty.
I've only got twenty,
but Liz has money, earlier, she made me say,
You're my sugar mama! but now,
she's got me covered, so she pays the girl.

One girl comes out into the entrance, and she's wearing
a mesh shirt and sheer panties, she looks good,
and she looks like she's naked from behind.
She walks outside to talk to the DJ, and
he's smoking, and I forget that it's cold outside.

Inside, Lizzie and I sit down,
and I explain to her about how strippers work,
that the best strippers are the just-okay ones,
because the hot ones don't have to work as hard for their money,
they're just hot.
That girl we just saw,
she could be a tease, it's trick enough
if she spreads her legs apart for a dollar, I guess.

If they're ugly, they have to try too hard, actually,
like this one stripper we saw a while back, she was old, and
her stomach felt like old velvet when you touched it,
she would masturbate on stage, rub at herself, and we gave her dollars
when nobody else would.

I let her know to keep an eye out for the weird ones,
they're the good ones if they scare you a little bit,
someone with a skull purse,
or someone dancing to Nine Inch Nails.

Shitty strip clubs are fun anyway, I whisper that
one girl let Clay spin around on their ceiling-mounted wheel,
until he got dizzy and fell off,
and another offered him a trade,
her panties for his shirt, but he didn't take it,
because he was wearing it at the time, and once
a stripper offered to buy me a lap dance for my hat.

I tell her that local strip clubs are cool, because
you might see girls you went to school with, and that,
if they spot you,
you have to give them a dollar,
because the two of you go way back.

I tell Liz all of this, and I give her a dollar
of her own money, here, I say, hold this.
She holds it out, like to hand it off,
Hey, it's not a baton or a pair of scissors,
just hold it and be cool, she can see it.
The stripper's vision, I tell her, is trained
for low level lighting, and she can sense you
like a shark can sense blood in the ocean,
because you're a girl.

I give Lizzie a look of far-reaching wisdom when
the first stripper comes over, she crawls over, actually,
and, up close, she has unfortunate tattoos
all over her body, tattoos of stars
and pentagrams, I think,
fire too, and faded flower blossoms
spread around each nipple.

We both have our dollars, creased
stiff on the stage, and she sees Liz first.
I've already explained that what the stripper does is
she takes the dollar, and she folds it,
then she sets it between your lips,
and then she does her trick.

Liz learns quickly that what this stripper does is,
she presses your face against her chest, then
she rubs against you, and you feel her powdery skin
on your skin, and
you smell and taste her perfume.
The stripper does this to her, and then
the stripper nuzzles against her denim lap,
while I watch from the next seat over,
and my eyes move
between the stripper and Lizzie's lap.
I look at the stripper's platform heels too,
and her toes, and the tattoos on her thigh, and
her green micro skirt with its pattern of pirate Jolly Rogers.
She's burrowing her face, it looks, I'm not sure what,
then she comes up for air,
then the stripper moves from Lizzie's jeans to her shirt, and lifting it
above the ribs, kisses her stomach,
whispers something in her ear,
then takes the folded dollar with her mouth.

When she comes over to me, she crawls,
and I smile, give or take,
and she puts my dollar in my mouth,
and she moves her head to my lap, slowly,
and she blows,
it feels like she's making a raspberry against my penis,
like you would a baby's stomach,
and my foremost thought is Oh what the fuck?
and when she tries to take the dollar from my mouth,
it doesn't work, when she pinches her breasts together,
and she knocks it out.

For the next song, she eases her g-string down,
somewhere on the other side of the stage,
and when she saunters back,
she kneels down, then,
shifting the weight from her stilletos,
lays out on her back,
spreading her legs.

I'm confused more than anything,
it doesn't look like a vagina should look,
it looks like a fissure
running deep inside a wall,
or a coin-operated slot.

We give her more money,
a dollar is worth seeing where this goes, I think,
and she moves toward my dollar first,
then stops, with an intense look on her face,
she then says, He's too far away,
and moves toward the other dollar.
My chair and I bounce toward the stage,
I think, The hell I am!
I gave you money for this,
but she's busy,
the whole full-service girl-on-girl job,
the stripper has Liz standing while she kneels on stage, and,
as I watch,
she moves to lift Lizzie's shirt again, but only
she lifts it above her bra,
and I think,
Hmm, I didn't see that happening,
and then the stripper moves to lift the bra,
and as she does this,
I watch their faces,
and they both seem pretty into it,
and I wonder how many people are watching this,
and I think,
Wow, I really didn't see that happening,
and, after the stripper finishes
sucking on her left nipple,
she moves back on stage.

As she finishes, I decide,
That's quite a trick,
though I whisper to Liz
that I've had a stripper bite my nipple before too, once,
but she doesn't really hear me.
My dollar is still on stage,
and it's my turn,
so I hold it up for the stripper,
and she has me stand up too,
so I do,
and she grabs my shirt, and,
as she grips it,
she makes a motion,
like she's fucking the air between us,
and my torso bobs back and forth,
my arms locked against my side,
and my face blank.

She then releases me,
her song ends, and,
without show,
she quickly grabs her money and clothes
and walks off our stage.

Without show,
I drink the twenty dollar coke I bought with my cover,
and I look over at the other side of the stage.
A naked girl is on her back,
running her hands up her legs and stomach and breasts.
I turn to my side and point this out to Liz,
and she also looks.
We watch the girl's back arch,
and her heavy shoes hit the stage in deliberate crashes,
as a young man rains money
onto her body, and at first,
I think it might be the girl from earlier in the night,
but it's not.