Stripped

by Zoey Castile

  Everything happens quickly after that. The DJ comes on through the speakers, a low rumbling voice that reminds me of warm butter spread on toast. “Welcome, sexy ladies of New York Cityyyyy! The Deluxe Astoria proudly presents Mayhem City, the hottest men from around the world. Remember, no photography is allowed until after the show, but tonight you can look and certainly, most certainly, you can touch.”

  The women in the audience holler excitedly. Each table is designed to face the stage with easy access for the waitstaff to take down drink orders. Two more bartenders appear to help Rachel out, and then the overhead lights come alive. Brilliant strobes that crisscross on a floor-to-ceiling white screen.

  “Ladies—are you ready for the show tonight?” I recognize the voice as Ricky’s. Over a hundred women answer with whistling screams. I vaguely remember feeling this way the first and only time I saw NSYNC in concert.

  A blaring bass and light show thunders across the stage as Ricky comes out. He’s a little bit older than I imagined from his voice, but stunning all the same. Even from the bar, I can see his light eyes sparkle. His black-and-plum suit is tailored to a tightly sculpted body. His blond beard is closely trimmed to killer bone structure, and when he walks across the stage, he commands attention.

  “I said, are you ready for the show tonight?”

  The crowd goes wild, and I feel a contact thrill right through my center.

  “We’ve got a special show for you. As some of you might know, we’re new to the city, but New York is one of our favorite places.” He hypes up the crowd, shouting out Brooklyn and the Bronx. He’s got a way of moving his body and making it feel like he’s there just for the girl he singles out. “I’ll be here to make sure you’re entertained, but most importantly, we’re all here for your pleasure. Now, allow me to introduce the men of Mayhem City.”

  It’s a fine moment for my phone to light up. I silence it as quickly as I can, and Rachel loads me up with a Jack and ginger refill. It’s Lily. If she only knew what I am doing right now.

  I nod along to the sexy roll of hip-hop beats as six silhouettes appear behind the white screen. They stand tall, shoulders back. My heart thrums because even though I can’t see their faces, I recognize Fallon’s build. The shape of his body. I can find him even in the darkness.

  The screen rises, revealing every part of the boys. They look down, waiting for the song to come to the right beat and then they sway from side to side. They’re in button-down shirts open down to their chests and tight trousers that highlight their asses just so. Fallon is on the far right, closest to the empty table where I was supposed to be sitting. I catch the slightest moment of when he looks and realizes that I’m not there.

  I should’ve said something. I should’ve sent word. But now it’s too late. I think I prefer looking at him from back here where he can’t see me. I can concentrate on watching them, all six of them. They glide across the stage, each one of them showcasing a different specialty. Twin brothers whose names I don’t catch because of the screams are mirror images of each other. Another guy break-dances his way onto the floor and spins on his head. Two more guys are expert at acrobatics, spinning across the stage in somersaults that could win them gold. And then there’s Fallon.

  It’s a side of him that leaves me completely perplexed. There’s the funny, charming, sweet man I’ve been around. He’s always sexy. When I met him he was sexy. He’s never stopped being sexy.

  But on the stage, his smile speaks of things only whispered in the cover of darkness—or at the top of a Ferris wheel. His face is smoothly shaved, his hair styled back. He stands center stage and points at a girl. She looks up at him as if god himself were asking her to stand. Then he twists his torso and flips one handed in the air, lowering his body slowly, like the ripple of honey along skin.

  I scream.

  I can’t help but scream. I cup my hands around my mouth and holler. He looks up, and I don’t know if he can see me through the bevy of lights that rake across the audience, but he still smiles into the crowd.

  My head is pleasantly dizzy, and when I turn around to Rachel, she refills my drink and leaves a water bottle. But I don’t feel drunk. I feel so much more.

  The boys return to a line formation and, in one fluid movement, rip off their shirts. They toss them off into the dark where they disappear behind the stage. Every movement is followed by high-pitched screams, and I wonder if the whole city can hear it.

  Each guy smiles as they turn, bend over, and pull their pants off. I blink and it happens. The lights beam on their rock-solid asses covered by skin-hugging briefs.

  Then the stage goes pitch black and I can’t hear myself think over the screams. Ricky comes back out onstage. He’s changed blazers to a sharp red number that makes him look like a sexy devil.

  “Okay, ladies,” he says, “we’re going to kick it into high gear. I’m going to need a volunteer.” He picks a middle-aged woman wearing a DIVORCED AND FREE sash across her tight hot-pink dress.

  “What’s your name, baby?” Ricky asks her. He holds her hand and walks her all the way upstage, as if she’s a princess being escorted to a ball. He’s so delicate, I forget what he’s bringing her up there for.

  “Nanette,” she says, a nervous quiver in her voice. The white lights flood her face, and I bet she can’t see the audience at all. She stands at the center of the stage, completely exposed, with Ricky still holding her hand.

  “Well, Nanette, I see you’ve got your freedom stamp,” he says. “Should I offer you congratulations?”

  “You should offer me a drink!” she says, and then hoots into the mic. Everyone cheers her on with whistles and praise.

  “Have I got a drink for you,” Ricky says, his voice a bedroom growl into the mic. “Two of them, actually. They’re going to fight for your affections, is that all right with you, baby?”

  She raises her hands and howls like he’s the full moon.

  “Perfect! That’s what I love to hear!” Ricky turns and winks at the audience.

  I’ve finished my water and Rachel leaves another drink at my side. I fish more singles out of my purse. I thought I’d be needing them, but so far, it isn’t the kind of stage where you make it proverbially rain.

  While Nanette is being taken center stage where a makeshift boxing ring is set up around her, I study the faces of the women near me. They come alight. They scream and smile so hard their cheeks are pink. They cheer for her. They clap for her. This entire place is designed for them and them only.

  Then, the twins appear. Their bodies are slick with some sort of oil, every muscle defined to perfection. They’re younger than the other guys, and I wonder if these are the new kids that Fallon was talking about.

  They wear boxing gloves, silk robes with names emblazoned on the back. Vinny Suave in red and Wonderboy in blue. The spitfire reggaeton beats blast through the house, lights flashing in tune to the heavy thud of the song. They stand on either side of Nanette. She keeps her legs crossed on a wooden stool, turning her head back and forth like she can’t decide who she wants to keep looking at. They’re both all-consuming, swiveling their hips toward her, closing into her space. She rakes a hand down each of their torsos, and pulls at the tie that holds their robes together. There’s another holler as the gloves come off. Then the robes. Without the robes, I can’t tell them apart. Twin #1 takes her hand and trails it down and across his abs. Nanette bounces up and down, as if her adrenaline is taking over her every movement. Then, Twin #2 pushes #1 away, play-fighting for her attention. He lifts her from her seat and starts to carry her away. But #1 comes back, takes hold of her waist. She looks back and forth between them, and makes a decision. She pulls them both against her, and the Sauve twins grind and dance, sandwiching Nanette, the divorcée, like jelly between two generous slices of toast.

  The song comes to an end, and both of them hold her arms up, and lead her into a bow. When she comes back up her hair is in disarray but the smile on her face is unstoppable.


  “Yeah, baby!” Ricky shouts. His blazer is a bright white number now. “I like the way you think, Nanette. Why pick one when you can have both?”

  Ricky moves on to a bondage set. A beautiful black guy picks a birthday girl and sits her on a chair. He dances on her, taking her hand down his body, but he doesn’t stop there. He keeps going into the waistband, and the birthday girl lets out an excited scream.

  Each set is different from the other, from solos to group numbers. There’s a baseball number that involves a lot of phallic symbolism with a bat but the crowd is undeniably into it. Next up is firefighters doing a set to “It’s Getting Hot in Here.” They jump off the stage and dance on tables, stripping down to their underwear, dozens of women’s hands reaching up their legs and abs. They tease and pull and pump their bodies, and all I can think is Where is he?

  But then Ricky comes back out, all in black this time, and introduces Fallon.

  “Now, we shipped this guy all the way from Boston,” Ricky says. There’s a smattering of laughter, and he goes, “I never get tired of that joke. Now, I need a very special lady.” He scans the audience.

  Rachel appears beside me. “You’re up.”

  I shake my head. “Me? No, no, no.”

  “Why do you think they set up the front for you?”

  “To watch?” I say.

  “Is there a Robyn here?”

  Two women in the audience stand up. “I’ll be Robyn!” another shouts.

  Rachel grabs my hand. “Come on. Time to bite the bullet.”

  I’ve never wanted to bite any kind of bullet before. But now, my legs are betraying me, and I’m walking down the yellow-lit floor, a soft blue spotlight shining over my head. My heart thunders in my ears and my hands are so sweaty I slip out of Rachel’s grip.

  She gives me a friendly slap on my butt, and Ricky takes my hand.

  “You are looking lovely tonight,” he tells me.

  “Thank you,” I say, and my voice is louder than I wanted it to be.

  “Robyn,” Ricky says. When he says my name, I get a chill up my spine. I can’t see the audience at all because the lights are so bright but I can hear them cheering for me, their breaths bated as they wait for Ricky to put me on blast. “I didn’t tell you when I was on the phone with you earlier today, but I wanted to surprise you with being part of our world. Tell me, love. What’s your fantasy?”

  I can feel my mouth open up but my words won’t come out. I shake my head.

  “Can I surprise you?” he asks, quickly picking up the silence.

  “I think it’s safe to say I’m already pretty surprised.”

  Ricky turns to the audience. “To give you all a little backstory, this is Robyn’s first time at our club. Give it up for her. Now, we pride ourselves here on making fantasies come true and inventing new fantasies along the way. Give it up for our boy pumped with Boston cream filling.”

  The curtains open and a plush rectangular white bed is brought out on one end of the stage. Ricky sits me right in the center of the silky sheets so the audience can see my profile.

  I try not to move. I hardly even breathe. I can feel hundreds of eyes on me, the heat of the spotlight, the brush of a hand down my arm.

  The music drums, the lights dim, and Fallon, dressed in white from head to toe, appears right in front of me.

  FALLON

  Robyn isn’t sitting at the table I reserved for her. It was a stupid idea. But I can’t let that affect my performance. Still, my eyes drift toward the red rose that has a table to itself.

  When the song ends and we turn around to leave the audience with a look at our asses, I feel like I’m going through the motions.

  She didn’t come.

  I go backstage with the others, as the twins’ routine is next. The backstage room is a mess of clothes and costumes draped over leather couches. Each one of us has a vanity mirror with exposed lightbulbs. The two makeup artists that we hired for our stay in New York get busy touching up anything that needs to be touched up. I don’t wear makeup. It isn’t a macho thing. It’s more of a “it looks terrible when it’s dripping off my face after sweating” thing. But two of the guys have futuristic sets, and they do a wild routine to “Alien Sex.”

  I start to stretch when Rachel, one of the bartenders, pops her head around the door.

  “Fal?” she says, her long red hair tumbling down her back like a curtain. “There’s someone here to see you.”

  I don’t say anything. My heart is too busy doing the mambo. I hate this feeling. This stupid lovesick feeling that shouldn’t make sense. Because it’s not love. It’s hard infatuation. I can’t fall in love. Not when I’m leaving so soon, and not with a girl who’d probably be embarrassed to be seen in public with me.

  But my heart, the Epic Fool, will do what it wants. I follow Rachel through the yellow-lit hallway that leads to the main floor. We step into the dark room. Women stand up from their seats and scream. Ricky is at the top of his game. It’s like he lives off the chorus of voices and the air teeming with hormones and lust.

  The music is too loud to hear Rachel speak, so she points to her bar, then gives me a smile that says, “You’re in trouble.”

  Robyn.

  Her posture tells me that she’s not comfortable sitting there by herself in a den of male strippers. It’s cute, the way her dark eyes flit to every corner of the room. The way she clutches her cocktail and takes long sips. Her eyes are trained on the stage now, watching as Greg takes it off for this one woman. I don’t want her to look at anyone like that except me.

  Rachel’s right. I am in trouble. I can’t stop staring at Robyn. My heart, which moments ago felt useless and defeated, is back to beating a song I’ve never heard before. She adjusts herself on the barstool, and as she does, she arcs her back a bit. Her small round breasts are pushing against the black dress she wears. That dress looks like it was painted on. She’s wearing shorter heels than she wore when we went on what should’ve been our first date, but they’re still black and leather and all kinds of sinful.

  I head backstage.

  “You’re smiling like my date on prom night,” Gary tells me. “Your girl here?”

  “She’s at the bar.”

  “Why don’t you switch with me?” Gary says. “That cool, Rick?”

  “Fine with me. I’ll call her up. Robyn, yeah?”

  “Robyn.”

  Ricky slaps me on the back. “Go get changed, lover boy. This might just be the biggest performance of your miserable life.”

  I laugh, and they keep on ragging on me. It’s not that the guys are all anti-love. Gary’s been married for five years, and Benny had sworn off serious relationships until he met his now-boyfriend when we were in Miami. The other guys love the lifestyle too much. Sex, booze, and music. I loved it, too. But none of them have danced for their wives or girlfriends or dates like this before.

  I get dressed in an all-white suit and look in the mirror. Why am I nervous? I’ve done this number hundreds of times.

  Because it’s her, the Epic Fool in my chest says.

  “You’re up,” Ricky tells me, and he goes ahead.

  I wade through my own nervous fog, hands slapping against my back, and whistles trailing behind me.

  I can do this. I’ve done this a hundred times.

  I enter stage right, and stand in the dark. I get in position with my hands clasped in front of me, and my head tilted down. When the spotlight hits me, and a boom of voices cheer, I look up at her.

  Robyn sits on a stark white bed with satin sheets. She’s a sensual dark shadow at the center of it all. I want her. I’ve never wanted something so badly.

  As the music cues on, the sultry R&B vocals fill the room. My heart beats in tune to the heavy bass. The spotlight tracks me as I walk across the stage to reach her. It’s the longest walk. Like I’m wading through miles of sea to get to her. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. Crosses them on her bare thighs, rests them on the bed.

 
; I stand in front of her, our profiles to the audience.

  “Hi,” she says, her voice a sigh, looking up at me because sitting like this has her eye level with my abs.

  I give her a smile that she returns easily. That smile, full of amazement and curiosity, turns into a perfect circle when I take her right hand and guide it to my chest. I turn to the audience and wink. Even the subtlest move drives them wild because they keep anticipating the next one.

  I pull off my belt. Fold it. Crack it. The snap echoes across the stage and makes Robyn jump. Her chest heaves, and a jolt of excitement runs through me as the half-moons of her cleavage rise and fall.

  I’ve trained myself how to not get wood when I’m onstage. It’s not that hard, really. Most of the time, they’re women I can have fun with, but the attraction isn’t there. It’s all a show. But with Robyn it isn’t a show. I want her. I need to have her. And getting naked for her isn’t an act. It’s everything I’ve wanted to do since I met her.

  “Hold your hands out,” I say, my voice deep and commanding.

  She does it. I tie her wrists with the belt. Gently pull her up with the strap so she’s standing, and swaying, and I spin her around so her back is pressed against me.

  I want her to feel me. Feel the way my body reacts to her.

  She lets out a startled gasp, her mane of hair intoxicating my senses as she gives in to me and leans her head back a bit. I run my hand from the base of her neck, down her shoulder, her arms. She starts to put distance between us. It’s only a few inches, but I grip her hips and slam her back against me, and when she feels my erection, I can practically feel her heart race against my own.

  There are sharp whistles and we’re egged on by thrilled screams and hollers.

  I spin her, and for a moment, her wide brown eyes settle their lust on me. I give her a light push onto the bed, but I stay just out of reach. She bounces a couple of times, and then the bed starts to move. The audience loves this, and suddenly, their cheer is louder than the blood bubbling in my ears.

  She turns her head to find me.

  I rip my shirt open; the buttons unsnap easily. I press my hand on my chest and move it down my abs.