The Dream Girls
Dream Girls. A lone building in the middle of this desert wasteland with a sign over it in pink. Dream girls. It’s a sick fuchsia, buzzing nervously against the night like the whole thing’s about to give out.
We’re not looking for a bar or a crazy good time. We’re looking for girls. Sounds like a simple proposition, but it’s worse than needing drink. When you needed drink, you’ll get drink and it won’t matter what it is, because anything will suit the purpose. With girls it’s different. You need beauty. Beauty is not always easy to find; beauty won’t hand herself over at the flash of ID and the twenty on the bar.
Beauty’s a cunt and that’s why you go to beat-up, tragic places where the girls are hungry for fresh blood and crisp bills.
Dream Girls is it — they don’t even have a liquor license. We walk in; the girls are lined up next to the door, most of them naked save for stockings, smiling like beauty pageant contestants. They’re greenies, I can just tell. “Hi, hi!” they say. One of them, a tiny blonde, probably five-two, braves to break the line. She steps forward with a shy smile and says, “you’re so beautiful.”
Darling little thing. I want to devour her; I look at her little hands in with those tiny, shiny acrylic nails and her little feet in those tragic, white PVC stilettos. Her belly is milk in a glass; no ripples of bones, muscles or tits. Were it not for the honey-colored landing strip, she could have passed herself off as a junior high-schooler. I bet she broke the heart of every teacher she ever had.
“Dance for me.”
“Oh,” she says, “OK.”
My boyfriend and I take a seat. He looks at me and says, “you’re going to leave me for a woman one day.”
“No.”
Men are straight-forward, clear and concise. Women are high-voltage labyrinths, confused and confusing. I only do confusing on purpose. Also, I can’t get on my knees for anything but a dick. And I must be brought to my knees.
Still, when she reaches down halfway through her set and pulls at me, I let the unexpected strength lift me onstage. She kneels and begins to run her hands over me; she cups my breasts, strokes my legs, down, then up, taking my skirt with it. The shiny acrylic nails glisten in the lights. I feel her breath in my ear, fast and hard.
Another girl takes her pole and another crawls up on the stage and begins playing with my hair. She and the nymph drag their lips over every bit of exposed flesh on my body.
Strippers are like married men: fantastic, impossible things. But it never matters — pleasure is a perfect hijacker. Just this once, just this once. Yeah. Just remember to catch yourself before you think this one will be any different than the ones before.
Image by Calamity Hane. Originally published in Black Heart Magazine, Fall 2006.
