John Smith’s eyes remained fixed upon the doorway. It was as if it held him in its hot little Sunny Isles thrall.
Nestor shook his head. “Listen, John,” he said, “this is a strip club? You know? There’s girls with no clothes on in here. Okay? But we gotta go to work. We’re looking for only one hot body, Igor’s.”
By now their eyes were getting used to the nightclub gloaming that stretched on before them all the way up to the theater lights—but there were no theater seats. The audience sat in what looked like a furniture showroom with the lights off… couches, banquettes, love seats, coffee tables arranged in no particular order. The only furniture you could really see were ten or twelve bar stools that rimmed the stage at one end.
As he threaded his way through the deep dusk of the furniturescape, Nestor was astonished at just how many barely clothed girls were leaning over the men who lounged back in all that furniture. The place was far from full. Women, any women may have been welcome at the Honey Pot, for all Nestor knew, but he saw only the kind of girl who looked primed to—ziiiiiip—unzip a zipper and shed every thread she had on and let it all fall into a tiny clump on the floor. More girls than he could ever have imagined were making their catches right here upon the upholstery of the Furniture Land lounge, and hauling them off toward that door, the door that so obsessed John Smith. Lots of lovely dirty girls—but no Igor.
A show had just ended. Good; several high seats on the rim of the stage had been abandoned. Once they were seated, it was like sitting at a dining room table… and the stage was the table, where you could inspect, as it were, all the juicy dirty-girls before you and smack your lips… and then eat it… eat it all up.
Nestor was checking out their fellow diners in the bar chairs… Not a very classy bunch. Strip club dress was casual, but these characters were down to the level of wife beaters and T-shirts with lettering on them. Half of them seemed to have dollar bills sprouting from their fingers. Nestor couldn’t figure it out until he saw waitresses bringing drinks to these high-sitters. Scruffy though they were, they were tossing one-dollar bills onto the girls’ trays as tips. There was a regular green blizzard. For protective coloration more than anything else, Nestor and John Smith ordered beers. The girl returned with the two beers and a bill for $17.28. The Treasury, John Smith, gave the girl a fifty-dollar bill. She brought back four fives, some coins… and twelve one-dollar bills, in case they hadn’t figured out the protocol, which was: If it moves, tip it. John Smith gave her four of the twelve.
A disembodied Master of Ceremonies voice—they couldn’t tell where it came from—announced with the jolly gravity of that calling: “And now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome… NATASHA!”
A smattering of applause and catcalls, and BEAT thung BEAT thung BEAT thungs and a girl, the heralded Natasha, came swinging around the pole at the far end of the stage. Like the previous dancer, Natasha was a blonde, a pretty one, too, not gorgeous but gorgeous enough for this crowd… good enough for John Smith, too. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her… Libido-lorn Nestor Camacho could… he kept scanning the men who had started coming toward the stage to get a closer look… “Natasha” wore a bright-yellow outfit that looked like a little boy’s soldier suit. The jacket’s military collar closed around her neck. Two rows of big white buttons ran down the front, which ended three or four inches above her navel… pierced by a tiny shiny gold ring… The pants began three or four inches below it and came down only to the top of her thighs. Her legs looked impossibly long, tiptoed atop a pair of high-heeled yellow shoes… Nestor saw all only in peripheral vision. His head was turned in a different direction… looking for a man with a waxed black Russian mustache… “Natasha” swung this way and that. She swung with the pole right up in her crotch and her legs on either side of it. Ziiiippp—with one zip she opened up the entire jacket and her breasts popped out. They were not very big, but big enough for this crowd. She smiled suggestively as she BEAT thung THRUST thung HUMP thung