Book Excerpt

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Back in February or March, Vic had invited me to his cousin’s bachelor party. I didn’t know his cousin, but I had never been to a bachelor party and it sounded like fun. We had dinner at some German restaurant in the Northeast neighborhood that served dark beer in ridiculously tall steins. The weather that night was mild and we decided to go bar-hopping downtown. We ended up at a place in the Warehouse District called Escapades. I had been to places like it before and I always thought they were kind of tacky. Something about the music (lots of obnoxious stuff by Guns ‘n Roses and similar bands) and the perfunctory solicitations or twenty-dollar lap dances just didn’t seem that erotic.
I was sitting at a table with Vic and a couple other guys I didn’t know. We were having a good time watching Brian, Vic’s cousin, be humiliated on the main stage by some aggressive dancers. He was sitting on a folding chair and grinning like an idiot as an assortment of bare tits were pressed against his face. After it was over and he stumbled back to his table, he looked over his shoulder and waved at us. We waved wildly back at him, cheering and laughing. Then Brian caught the attention of a passing dancer and shouted something in her ear. He pointed in our direction and slipped a couple twenties into her hand. The dancer nodded and walked over to our table. She wore a slinky red dress over a petite frame and her platinum blond hair was short and spiky. She leaned over the table and looked straight at me.
“Are you James?” she said, shouting to make herself heard over the pounding music.
Before I could answer, Vic and the other guys enthusiastically confirmed that I was indeed James. The dancer, whose name I never did catch, informed me that the gentleman at the table over there had paid her to give me a private dance. More hooting and hollering from Vic and his friends. I felt my face grow hot and I couldn’t think of anything to say. She asked me to follow her and so I did, the other guys’ shouts and catcalls still ringing in my ears. She led me into a back room that was lined with couches. It was darker than the rest of the club, but I could still see the naked bodies of other dancers as they gyrated against their customers. One kid who looked barely eighteen was staring in slack-jawed amazement as a leggy redhead dry-humped his knee. In another corner, a couple guys in expensive-looking suits were being attended to by a pair of large-breasted women in high heels.
The petite blond asked me if I wanted to get out of my chair and I said it was probably easier if I stayed where I was. She said no problem and had me park my chair so that I was facing one of the couches near the back of the room. The next song started to play and she positioned herself between me and the couch. Her body swayed in time with the music and she slid her thumbs under the straps of her dress. With one quick movement, the dress fell to the floor. Her skin was pale and she had a small but noticeable surgical scar on the left side of her abdomen. She squeezed her small breasts together and licked one of her rose-colored nipples. I wasn’t sure where I should be looking and my discomfort must have showed because she laughed and mussed my hair. “Don’t worry. I won’t bite.” She leaned forward and I could smell cigarettes and perfume and sweat. She slid up and I realized that she was practically sitting in my lap.
That’s when her knee or elbow must have pressed against the joystick connected to my armrest. I had forgotten to cut the power to my chair and suddenly we were flying backwards across the room at full speed. I heard the customers and dancers behind me yelp and shout at each other to get out of the way. The dancer in my lap was screaming in my ear and trying to get her legs out from under herself so that she could get off me. But her weight must have shifted or one of my wheels must have hit a run in the ancient shag carpet because the room tilted sharply and I felt something hard smack against the back of my head. When my vision cleared, I realized that my chair had tipped over and I was lying flat on my back. A halo of concerned faces was looking down on me. The dancer disentangled herself from me and ran out to get help. By the time she returned with Vic in tow, the two guys in expensive suits had already righted my chair. She was crying and she kept asking me if I was hurt. I was still a little dazed, but I managed to joke that other than not being able to walk, I was fine. I don’t think she got it at first, but then she smiled a little. A big beefy guy who must have been the manager came rushing back carrying a fistful of free admittance passes and porn magazines, probably hoping that it would be enough to protect his club from a potential lawsuit. But the only thing I was thinking about was getting the hell out of there, away from the stares of naked women and anonymous men. Vic drove me home and I went to bed with my head still throbbing.