Strip

by Andrew Binks

  “I make all the costumes for all of the shows,” he told me.

  Despite my amusement at the missing essentials, like seats missing from pants, necklines plunging to the crotch, or openings where skin could show through, I noticed the variety of texture and colour forming the most elaborate patterns.

  “Those are from albino peacocks.” He carefully touched a clump of white feathers drooping from the back of one of the outfits. Who’d have thought? He flew them in from Honduras. Why didn’t the Company’s costume department know about these?

  “I’ll introduce you to Bobby when he gets here. He’s in the show and he strips as well. He can help you,” Marcel brushed his hand across my behind, “with the stripping part.” This was going to be good. I’d finally get to add a new fantasy to my repertoire: me being trained by a male stripper.

  In the corner of the basement the magician, Patrice, was trying to tie a long narrow balloon into a shape, but when he looked up at me, it fluttered away in an extended fart. The showgirls wandered into the area one by one. Suzette and Nadine, the only ones who stripped and did the spectacle as well, had large assets compared to the other two showgirls who were pretty, slim and small-breasted. “I’ve got a family to support,” Suzette whined, then repeated that she had a bun in the oven. “Dat’s why d’ey love my tits.”

  A little guy—sagging face, bumpy complexion—rushed in when we were all in the final stages of getting decked out and ready to go. “John, Bobby (Marcel pronounced his name with the emphasis on the second syllable BawBEE), Bobby, John, introduce yourselves later. You can zip John in for now.” I recognized him from the night before, but he looked so much better onstage. In the harsh lights of the basement he looked more like an old hippie than a stripper, but he filled out the bell-bottoms. There I was, checking out the competition.

  We lined up one by one as soon as we were in costume. The girls balanced their headpieces and held their tails up off the ground. The top of Bobby’s bare rear end stuck out of his pants. I hoped mine was as alluring. We followed Marcel single file, my nose next to Bobby’s butt, up a narrow spiral staircase to the stage. The girls brushed stray feathers and lint off of their behinds, breasts and cleavage like they were flicking mosquitoes. There was nothing sexual about those moments before, and not much sexual about the backstage—compared to the dim lights upstairs forming shafts through the smoke-filled air, coating everyone in a filmy translucence while music oozed and throbbed beneath every curve and shadow, lulling the clientele into an open-wallet trance.

  There was the familiar recorded announcement from the night before, on a loud and scratchy sound system, and then we were on. I remembered most of what I’d seen. Walk, walk, walk. Suzette partnered with me most of the time, talking over the music and chewing on her gum. Donna Summer was deafening. We walked, stood, posed. “Relax,” she said. “This isn’t the maudite ballet.” I tried to be more casual with my movements. I held out my arm and escorted two girls around the edge of the stage. The lights made it difficult to see anything including the audience. Suzette started to smile. “That’s better.” She seemed happy to have a guy who knew how to walk. I was completely relaxed—weird to be onstage and not have adrenalin giving you an edge. It was fun, but it was flat; there was no tension, no stakes, which allowed for moments throughout to think of just how pathetic it all was. This was my bread and butter.

  We did the first show to an empty house. The only hard part was the costume changes. Some disappeared down the narrow spiral stairwell connecting the stage to the basement—plumage, sequins and crinoline disappearing through a hole in the floor—while others made their way up. Breasts and bums, crotches and bulges in each others’ faces, meeting, passing, squeezing to avoid getting stuck to each other, tugging here, squashing there, in a most unflattering way, the likes of which a ballet dancer with the Company may have never seen.

  It was over quickly and then we were changing out of our costumes. “How was that?” Marcel asked.

  “He’s a ballet boy,” Suzette said, her hands on my shoulders, “but we can fix that.”

  “Suzette was a dancer at the Conservatoire.”

  “A lifetime ago. And I have life now. It’s not like I miss it.” She was like the Mother Earth of this place. I could see her baking marijuana birthday cupcakes decorated with pills, and encouraging everyone with smiles, winks and hugs. She grunted, and squeezed back into her baby dolls for another round upstairs. Her English was good, and usually to the point. “My days are numbered.”

  I turned to Marcel. “Well?”

  “Fine,” Marcel said.

  Nadine and Suzette and the two other girls clapped like they’d just seen a toy poodle in a tutu do a back flip.

  A fresh-faced guy with curly blond hair à la Christopher Atkins out of Blue Lagoon stuck his head into our change area. “How was that?”

  “A bit loud for the first show. There’s still no one out there. Steve, this is our new guy, John,” Marcel said. “Steve’s our dj.”

  “You’ll do great.” Steve raised his eyebrows, gave my crotch an intense eyeballing, then spoke. “There’s already a table of women—it should get busy.”

  I wavered and felt a twinge of anticipation. I had protected myself, in the world of fantasy, dreams and the puffed-up superhuman skills that ballet was. You could thrive in that closed world if you gave your soul to it, and never have your feet touch the earth. But now that I had lost the keys to the magic kingdom, I had to pay the price and wallow in mediocrity while Kharkov and my mentors stared down, without pity, from on high.

  “Are they drinking?” Bobby asked.

  “Nuns.” Steve unlatched his gaze. “Drunken nuns.” He tossed his golden curls, turned and left.

  “Bobby, take him upstairs. Louis says he has to wait tables and strip.”

  I don’t know if I was more nervous about understanding raw Québécois drink orders or getting naked, but everyone else seemed blasé about it. I figured no one would be breathing down my neck telling me I was doing it wrong.

  “Now?” Bobby said.

  “Every night. Show him the drill. You could use a little competition.”

  Bobby turned to me. “What have you got to wear?”

  “Jeans?”

  “Button or zip?”

  “Zip.”

  “You’ll learn. Just unzip slowly. I have a tank top you can borrow.”

  “Silk boxers?” I offered.

  “They’ll have to do.”

  It’s funny. I braced myself the way I probably did when I first performed, years ago. The spectacle was nothing, but this would be different. Nervous energy and anticipation sustained me through that first evening. The challenge. I got dressed in the main strippers’ tight and cozy change room. I wore a tank top, boxers under my jeans, a tie. Bobby took me upstairs to the bar and gave me a tray. “Just float. We don’t have sections. If someone wants a drink or a dance, they’ll get your attention. The girls can be pushy about the drinks. If you see them going for a table, don’t tangle with them.” He called to the old guy behind the bar who gave me the free beers the night before: “Hey, Hubert, be nice to the new guy.” Then he turned to me. “Hubert’s an angel. It’s pretty hard to piss him off. You can drink as much Pepsi as you like, and just tip him nicely for anything else he puts in it.”

  There were a few men sitting alone and that table of eight women Steve had referred to as nuns, who came in while we had been downstairs changing. I wandered the room, wondered how to look busy while Suzette danced on the stage. Bobby shadowed me. We stood in the dark by the far wall. “Official strip. It means they have to dance for three songs they pick on the jukebox. Everyone has to do it. Everyone hates it, too,” Bobby said. “It means three songs when you aren’t getting tips for drink orders or making money from table dances.”

  But the room was bare.

  “The first song is usu
ally up-tempo and can be pretty boring because they don’t take anything off. Most of them just walk around to the music. Just a minute.” Then Bobby disappeared toward the bar.

  I was all eyes. Suzette, stuffed into her lace baby dolls, strutted around to “Maneater.” She was larger than life with an “I don’t give a shit” look about it and her main activity seemed to be chewing gum, twirling her hair in her fingers and squinting into the crowd. There was something mesmerizing about her doing this, perhaps because she didn’t care. It’s not as if the girls had years of formal training—learning was watching and copying—yet every move was hypnotic.

  Just in front of the stage was that table of women looking like what I imagined a bank-teller girls’ night out to be. Bobby ran toward their table to deliver a tray of tall drinks decorated with fruit and little umbrellas, and then returned to the table carrying his box high over head. While I had been staring at Suzette, he was the quick one, keeping an eye on the room, and had picked up on their cue. Just as well. I wondered if I’d manage to get on the ball and become a competitive player. I had missed that step once already, and now it would be all I could do to keep up here.

  Bobby took his cue from the beginning of Suzette’s second song, “Bette Davis Eyes,” slow and mellow, still with a beat, and when the first familiar notes played, he got up on his box and the ladies hooted. At the same time, onstage, Suzette squatted—difficult as it might be for a pregnant woman—and rocked her hips a little but still looked more involved playing with her hair and chewing her gum. Even when she finally started to stroke her breasts and her nipples, it was done as if she were intent on ignoring a scolding parent. She tried to coax a breast close to her mouth but the most she could do was mime licking it. I laughed at the fact that she just wasn’t all that into it.

  “They’re too sensitive,” she shouted toward me. The lyrics to the song described Suzette’s cockiness well. Meanwhile Bobby had to get everything off before the song ended. When he was finally standing there naked, again he looked better than what I’d seen in the change room. I didn’t want to look too obvious checking him out, but the dim lights washed him in a powdery orange glow, took away his rough complexion. I’ll say it again: he had a beautiful behind. I imagine Marcel had enjoyed taking measurements. Judging by the expressions on the women’s faces, I’m sure what they could see from the front was just as pleasing.

  When Suzette started grinding on all fours, her breasts jiggled like upside-down Jell-O being shaken from a mould. The song ended and she awkwardly clambered back up onto her heals. This meant Bobby’s table dance was finished, and he started accepting bills the girls were holding out toward him. Then he sat on his box and chatted and laughed while he dressed. Finally he got up, left the box by the table and came over to me. “They’re going to want you in a minute,” he said. “Wait till Suzette’s finished her third dance and then go over. Fifty bucks. They’re fun.”

  Meanwhile Suzette had thrown a blanket on the floor for her third and final song of the official strip, and was getting all wound up to Kim Carnes, again—which seemed to show a lack of imagination or incredible originality, I’m still not sure—wailing “Miss You Tonite.” She wiggled out of her lace bottoms but didn’t take the naughty route. She was more like a naked kid at the beach trying to get undressed than a woman stripping. Maybe that was her gimmick: to look innocent and leave them wanting. What the hell was I going to do up there? I didn’t have any props, blankets or a routine.

  I thought of the ballerinas, struggling to find the sexuality for parts in Boléro, or as the Black Swan or even Juliet, and the deep soul searching that was involved. Here the women climbed on the stage, or on a box, shoved a stick of Juicy Fruit in their mouths, and that was it.

  An old guy by the side of the stage from the previous night was back for another night of bliss-filled voyeurism. He clapped. Suzette got to her feet, wavering in her heels and ignoring the limited applause, pulled on her bottoms and top, and stomped down the three little steps between the stage and the jukebox. She sat at a table with her feet up on a chair and lit a du Maurier. Bobby caught my eye and nodded toward the ladies’ table.

  I wandered over and the women clapped a little. Steve said something over the speakers—what sounded like Le Grand Blond—and the girls hooted. I looked around and Steve was in his booth smiling like the Cheshire Cat. I pointed to the jukebox but Steve shook his head and lifted his arms and pointed, with large movements so I could see him, down toward the turntable. And then that familiar scratchy and oh so familiar intro to “In the Summer Time” came on. It’s not a song I would have chosen, ever, with its hokey beat and tune. I planned to kill Steve in exactly three minutes. I nodded at the smiling women and climbed on the box. For the time being, I had no choice but to start undressing. I played with my tie until it was noose-tight, and I was more obsessed with breathing than seducing. When I was able to rip it off, I twirled it over my head, tossed it somewhere and that was the last I ever saw of it. Rachelle had given it to me as a novelty gift for a birthday. It was gone. It’s probably still there, in the club, shoved under a table or stuck to the floor with spilled cola.

  I looked at the women, trying to make the best of Steve’s bad choice, and cut the beats in half to get into a slower, more comfortable rhythm—in ballet it could be described as dancing through the music. I then slowly slid Bobby’s loaned tank top over my head. The women looked up at me. They wanted to look into my eyes; they didn’t care about what my body was doing, not then. I ran my hands up my stomach and squeezed my chest, which ended up feeling like the funky chicken. But the girls still stared. I held my belt, pulled at it, twisted a little, ground a bit; I realized I was holding onto a useful prop that was full of possibilities. I unzipped my jeans, slowly—remembering Bobby’s instructions to take my time—and pushed them down to my knees. I tried to focus on the girls. I tried to project sex and allure, but my mind raced. What were they thinking? Did they speak English? What if I had to talk to them? Was I smiling too much? What did I look like? How much money would I get?

  I pushed my jeans the rest of the way, untied my shoes in a panic, and finally stepped out. My silk boxers, a gimmick from my cheerleading strip, were sure to get a smile. But they weren’t looking where I thought they should. When I pushed the boxers down, the girls continued to look intently into my eyes, but now I got the feeling it was because there was not much else to look at. I ran my hands down my front, but was hesitant to touch myself. Finally I squatted, and a quick glance at myself revealed that nerves and too much attention had shrivelled me up and I couldn’t think my way into anything larger; couldn’t tactfully grab it, pull it or give it a shake.

  My life-saving smile barely hid my embarrassment. I wanted to crawl under their table, admit defeat, wave a white tissue and then flee. Some of them smiled sympathetically, and the others looked away. The song ended. No one spoke to me. Some of them spoke to each other. Then one of them handed me five bucks. All I wanted to do was apologize. Even worse, Louis, the owner, was sitting at the bar watching. “You ’aaave to do somet’ing about your dick. Marcel, he tell me you ’aaave a nice dick.” Black light made his false teeth look yellow.

  “I do.”

  “Somet’ing like dat costs me you know. You, too. I can’t afford dat. Doz girls pay my mortgage every time they order another round of drinks. Be dirty. You gotta be dirty.”

  I didn’t think that I would have more worries here. Ballet was worth obsessing over, not stripping.

  The rest of the audience was made up of men. The women had left quickly and quietly—definitely not contributing to Louis’s mortgage—probably to be up early for work, and to tell everyone at the bank about the shrivelled dancer. I didn’t end up table dancing again that night. Bobby said guy strippers were busier on the weekends, with couples and women in groups. Part of me wanted to rise to the challenge, and the other part wanted to take a flying leap off the honeymoon parapet of th
e Chateau Frontenac.

  Then Steve was at my shoulder. “Sorry about the song.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “It’s short, that’s all.”

  “Not the only thing that’s short. It took forever.”

  “I didn’t want you to suffer your first time out.”

  “It just didn’t inspire.”

  “Don’t worry gorgeous. I had a good time, all alone in that booth. Know what I mean? Every first timer goes through it. Don’t worry.” He patted me on the back. “You’re a fresh one. And the sooner you stop worrying about your dick the better. Your dick is your friend. That’s my only piece of advice. Make it everybody’s friend. It all comes from there, buddy: before, during and after. All you have to do is smile, maybe give them a bit of Bette Davis eyes. Get it?”

  Downstairs the others walked me through Marcel’s steps for the second show. By now all of my co-workers had seen most of my white butt and some of the rest of me or no doubt heard about it—I avoided eye contact. No one seemed to care. It was time for another costume change tornado of spandex, Mylar, sequins and feathers. The second show was completely different, but just as gaudy. The third, at 1:30, was a repeat of the first. Since the room was almost empty by then, I ended up playing it to Steve in his booth. He was my biggest fan at this point. His bleached curls and capped teeth glowed every time he leaned near the black light—the mysterious non-light that was the enemy of falseness. Later most of the girls started looking tired, drunk or stoned, although they still managed on their heels, except Nadine, who collapsed on the back staircase with her drink, leaving a mess of blood and spilled vodka on her legs and hands, crying and babbling. Vasili hoisted her into the change room.

  By 3:30 a.m. we had all changed, girls had wiped their mascaraed eyes, makeup cases were shut, outfits hung. Boyfriends and tricks showed up and the last of the drunks were digging absent-mindedly for their car keys in the lining of their coats. When the bar lights went on, the spell was broken; the room was a sea of chipped tables and scratched worn chairs, the girls were pink-eyed and pasty. I had no idea what I looked like, but it couldn’t have been much different.