Cal hit the strip clubs every payday. He would cash a twenty at the bar and sit at the rack and milk the small resulting wad of singles for a couple hours. He liked the new girls especially. The ones not yet hardened to debasement and humiliation. He liked to see the shame on their faces. He would make rude gestures and wiggle his tongue every time they made eye contact.
This new karaoke stage made the experience even better. Striparoke, they called it. The patrons sing, the girls strip. The karaoke machine was up on a little stage to the right of the dance floor. Cal stood on the karaoke stage with the mic in his hand. He belted out the lyrics to Get Low by Lil Jon. The little blonde on the stage had a rocket body. She looked like she wasn’t two days past her eighteenth birthday. She looked mortified, just how Cal liked it. She looked like any second she would run crying from the stage. It turned him on.
He shouted out the lyrics to his favorite strip song, keeping beat with the thumping base from the karaoke machine:
“Three, six, nine, moving real fine sing It Till You Show It To Me One More Time!”
The little dancer was down to her G-string and pasties. The place was packed to the walls. A murmur of laughter passed through the crowd. Oh yeah, she was terrified. What a rush!
“Get Low Get Low Get Low!” Cal boomed, pointing at her and shaking his hips.
The dancer looked like a little kitten caught in the headlights. Cal was so excited he could hardly stand it. The only thing interfering with the perfection of the moment was a little chill he felt all of the sudden. Like a draft of cool air blowing up his pants legs. Cal tried to ignore the strange feeling as he sang on:
“Get Low Get Low Get Low!”
The pasties were off. The dancer’s perky young breasts were completely exposed. This is it, Cal thought. This is where she breaks. Then, unexpectedly, she looked right at Cal and smiled. This bothered Cal. Why was she smiling? He wanted her wallowing in shame, not enjoying herself.
“To the Window To The Walls Till the Sweat Drop Down My Balls!”
This did not have the desired effect. Instead, the girl grinned even wider. She twirled around the brass pole, her defiant gaze on him like a hot laser. Some of the club patrons were turned around in their chairs and staring at him, too. They were smiling too. What the hell?
This was her fault. She was trying to turn the tables, trying to get the crowd on her side. Bitch, he would teach her. No slut dancer was going to show up Cal Fyr. He pumped more volume into his voice. He pasted on a disgusted sneer. He jacked out his middle finger, spitting the lyrics at her:
“Bring Your Ass Over Here Ho. Let Me See You Take It Low!”
Damn her, she was laughing at him. Actually laughing! She was not the innocent young thing she let on to be. She was a vixen, a maneater. Cal felt betrayed. Defrauded. Everyone in the club was turned around in their chairs and laughing at him. She had the audience on her side. Why was this happening? Why? And why did he feel so awfully cold?
“Can I Play With…With..Yo Panty Line…Owner Said…Owner Said…”
He lost the beat. He forgot the lyrics. His voice trailed off. The audience found this hysterical. They pointed at him and shouted and made rude gestures and wiggled their tongues. The girl gyrated on the stage, twirling her G-String like a trophy. But no, Cal realized, it wasn’t a G-string in her hand. It was a pair of tidy-white Fruit-of-the-Looms. The same underwear he…no. Oh, please, no.
Cal looked down. His pants were gone. His underwear was gone. His pale, hairy legs and flabby buttocks quivered in the kaleidoscope lights of the machine. His undersized genitals dangled like grapes on a dying vine. He dropped the mic. He broke wind and wet himself. The crowd’s laughter turned to snarls and jeers of disgust.
“Boo! Boo!”
An ice cube thumped against Cal’s shoulder. Then a lemon wedge hit him in the balls. Something hard and wet struck ricocheted painfully off his collar bone - a beer bottle.
Cal’s shrill scream rose to fill the void of the dying music.
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© 2010 by Charles Mirho
