A Baptist Girl’s Innocence Goes Down in a Blaze of Fire

The music from Santana’s Abraxas album filled the room while a tall black woman sauntered down the runway and looked at the customers through half closed eyelids. Ani had heard “Black Magic Woman” many times since it had first been played on the radio, but she had never thought of the words in this manner. She could feel the pull of the music and of the woman as it touched something deep inside her, and she almost felt sorry for the men in the room.

Black Magic was the epitome of haughtiness. Her long muscular legs bore her around the stage with such a regal bearing that Ani half suspected the woman had once worn a crown of some sort. Her silhouette was like an hourglass, yet each muscle was firm and defined.

Standing behind a pillar, Ani marvelled at the color of the woman’s skin as the lights reflected off of it, catching points and hollows as she turned and moved. Browns morphed into blacks and back into gold, making the men drool. If she had any blemishes, her color concealed them and gave her skin a smoothness of tone that the white women lacked. Every single movement was languorous and sexual, yet so full of remote disdain that Ani wondered what attracted and captivated the men.

Seeing a black woman naked was not something Ani had ever expected to see and she gathered that most of the men in the room had felt the same way. Thinking back, Ani knew she could count the number of black people she had seen in her entire life on one hand. For some in the room, their count was probably more like zero.

When the song switched to “Oye Como Va”, Ani came out of her reverie and glanced around her section to see if anyone needed a beer. She was astonished to discover that no-one was paying the slightest attention to their drinks unless they felt the need to wet a throat that had gone dry from panting.

Shrugging her shoulders, she spared a glance in the bar’s direction. Ed leaned nonchalantly against the beer coolers, while Syd hung over the swinging half-door that separated the stand-up bar from the serving area. She could see Pete leaning against a pillar on the upper section, and it took her a minute to find Hank leaning against the far wall. Every single eye in the house was fixed on the woman who glistened under the bright lights.

She had removed a long gold sheath during the first song to reveal a gold spangled bra and a matching g-string that glittered like fish scales as she moved. Gold metallic bracelets wound around each of her upper arms, while smaller gold bangles jingled against one another at her wrists. More gold was wrapped around her ankles and she had smeared gold makeup over her stomach and thighs. Her neck was encircled with layers of thin golden bands that made it look long and the overall effect was almost tribal. As the hot lights beat down on her, she shimmered.

A myriad of colors sparkled around the dark room as she reached behind her and undid the clasps of her bra, sending the palettes that covered it into a spasm of movement. As the material fell away and exposed her nipples, a collective gasp echoed throughout the room.

Ani felt her mouth fall open as the woman turned to face the audience and her nipples came into view. Ani almost took a step forward to improve her own view and stopped herself when she realized that someone might be looking at her. Instead, like everyone else in the room, she strove for a better look at the woman’s nipples and the surrounding areola.

Taking a deep breath she felt a twinge deep inside her which caused her to fumble slightly with her serving tray. On the stage the woman’s breasts were beautiful and globular, the nipples standing out tightly, their deep brown color almost shocking in the harsh glare of the spotlights. As she twisted and manipulated her body with supple ease, the room held its breath; waiting for the g-string to come off. Black Magic almost seemed to be dancing for herself, and Ani found her own lip clenched between her teeth as she waited with the rest of the room.

Again, the dancer bent and swayed her butt around in circle eights, tantalizing and teasing the crowd with the perfect orbs of her buttocks. Not only was it perfect, but it exemplified the buttocks of  black women to perfection. There was many a man in the room who might have been happy with that performance alone, but when, mysteriously, the g-string was no longer there – a raw roar went through the room and sprung back from the low-hanging ceiling. Each craned neck and bulging eye yearned for a closer look at the wiry hair that nestled between her legs. The woman was no fool and had shaved her pubic hair into an arrow that pointed directly between her legs. In the end, they all wanted the same thing – and she knew it.

In one smooth movement she lowered herself to the floor and crawled along the runway like a jungle cat. She flicked her tongue at the men who leered from the safety of their tables and pawed at them with shiny red fingernails. Drawing it out, she worked both sides of the stage until she finally reached the bed. With languorous ease, she slid onto her back and spread her legs into a wide V shape. Men almost lunged onto the stage when her labia came into view but she ignored them. Instead she took her time and showed them everything they had only imagined in the darkness of their rooms and dreams.

When the music ended and the speakers eked out the last notes, she slipped into her cover-up and held her head high as she retrieved her music and departed.

The room suddenly took on an emptiness and some of the customers stared into their beer glasses, obviously in another world, and some hurried for the bathrooms at the top of the stairs. Others boasted amongst themselves which soon developed into an argument. In moments the braggarts were pushing back their chairs and Ani was treated to her first bar fight.

A Baptist Girl in a Strip Bar – Part Three

By 9pm, nearly every seat in the bar was taken and Ani was continually on the move as she filled orders and emptied ashtrays. Memories of working in the university pub had kicked in and helped her with taking orders, and taking the teasing that went along with the job. The university bar had been an entirely different set-up and nearly everyone had approached the bar for their drinks. However, it still involved going out to the tables with some orders, and of course cleaning up after the drinkers had left.

Ani felt like she had just gotten her feet under her and that she had developed a routine, when the stage lights came on and Syd started bellowing into the microphone again. Dear God – not again! Ani thought as she looked towards the front of the room.

“Gentlemen! Put your hands together and welcome Diamond Girl!”

Ani’s tray clattered onto the metal sink as she lost control of it and Syd glared at her as he quickly clapped his hand over the open microphone. With a horrendous clang it hit the taps and bounced onto the floor next to the boss’ feet. Shaking his head he snapped off the microphone and threw it into the entertainment booth, then made a show of picking up her tray and handing it to her. She could feel the heat radiating off of her face as she took it out of his hands and hurried down the bar. She poured herself a glass of ice water and took a long sip before she turned to Ed to give him her order. ‘

“Don’t worry about it Ani. He loves to hear himself talk on that thing and you just spared us and everyone in here more of his blathering.”

Ani giggled and glanced again at Syd. “I keep wondering who he reminds me of.”

“It’s Kotter. You know that show Welcome Back Kotter? Doesn’t Syd look exactly like Kotter?”

“You’re right!” Ani gasped and threw a hand over her mouth to stop herself from bursting into a belly laugh.

“Lucky for us, Syd will hang around here until eleven when the last girl goes on, and then we won’t see him that much again until closing.”

Ani could tell Ed was being sarcastic and she tried to put on her most innocent of faces. “Why does he do that?”

“He likes to play the big-shot, you know, and introduce all the girls. He’ll run back and forth between here and the nightclub all night. But ask him for something? Man, it’s like pulling teeth!”

“Just how many girls are there?”

“There are three girls this week. They start at 12 noon and rotate through until the last one dances at 6pm. Then there’s a break until 8, and the last dancer goes on at 11pm.”

Ani shook her head in bewilderment before hurrying back to her customers with her order. This time around she wasn’t so embarrassed when the girl’s breasts seemed to leap into the spotlight and bounce around. With more customers in her section, she didn’t have the time to stand around and watch and she barely noticed when the girl got up on the ‘bed’ and spread her legs.

The men clapped and hooted when she finished her routine, and they looked at the stripper out of the sides of their eyes as she strode through the crowd to collect her music before heading up the three steps and out through the dented metal door.

As the minutes ticked away and the men watched something about sports on the big TV, Ani noticed the atmosphere in the room beginning to change. It was like they were all on edge and they peered into their beer glasses and shifted in their seats as they waited for something momentous to happen.

When the stage lights flickered on again, it was if the room breathed in together and then released it in one huge sigh. The audible click of the microphone could be heard throughout the room and the men held their breaths again as they waited for the next introduction.

“Gentlemen.” Syd took a very long deliberate pause as he gauged the room’s atmosphere before smiling secretively to himself. “Put your hands together Gentlemen, and welcome to the stage the star of the week – Black Magic!”

In the thundering applause that followed, Ani thought that if Syd could have manufactured a drum roll into that introduction – he would have. Shaking her head, she watched as each man in the room seemed to gather himself together, as if trying to sharpen his appearance by just thinking about it. At the same time, they all seemed to drool and turn into stalking beasts as their eyes focused on the stage and Black Magic ascended the short flight of stairs. When she placed her first glittering shoe on the flat surface, the room again inhaled and forgot to breathe.

A Baptist Girl in a Strip Bar – Part Two

Finding a dark corner she watched in disbelief as the woman bent over and rotated her bum for the men to see. Her silvery top had been removed and underneath she wore a sparkly bra with something that looked a little like panties from the front, but was only a piece of string up the back. Ani didn’t consider herself a prude, but she had never seen a g-string before and she gaped at how uncomfortable it looked. She not only wondered how the woman could stand that small piece of material right up against her anus, but also if it rubbed when she walked. Secretly she wondered if it smelled too once it came off, but she knew she was never going to ask anyone that question.

When the sparkly bra collided with the chaps, Ani thought she might die. The woman’s bare breasts seemed to expand into the whole room and they were the only thing Ani could see when she looked around.

Her Baptist upbringing hit her like a brick as she stood in a dark corner and she was suddenly acutely aware of how few women’s breasts she had actually seen in her lifetime. Suddenly she was back in the girl’s change room at high school and she remembered how she had been one of those girls who had waited in line for the private cubicle with the curtain for a door, while the other girls changed in front of each other out in the open. She had averted her eyes every time and blushed with embarrassment. Her parents and the church had ground into her psyche the dirtiness of a naked body.

Now this woman’s nipples jiggled and bounced as she shook them to The Captain and Tennille’s, ‘Love Will Keep us Together’. Ani couldn’t help but stare at how erect the woman’s nipples actually were, and she wondered if baring them in front of these men excited her.

The woman pressed her breasts together and flicked her tongue at the men who lined the stage; bending forward and dangling her nipples in their face. A man with a hopeful look on his face jumped up from his chair and stuck a dollar bill in the woman’s garter, and she flung him a slightly scornful look when she realized the value of the bill.

Strutting up the stage in time with the beat, she took a filmy scarf from the ‘bed’ and draped it around her neck, before strutting back to the end of the runway. Turning her back to the crowd she bent over again and with a fluid motion that Ani couldn’t follow, she undid the clips on her g-string and it snapped into her hand. Grinding and rotating her hips from side to side, she remained bent over, giving the men a good look at her genitals.

Ani glanced around the room and discovered that except for the serving staff, every male eye in the room was focused on the woman on the stage. Particularly on her genitalia. A little groan escaped the men’s lips when she straightened up and strutted to the front of the stage where she gyrated in front of the mirrors. With nearly every eye in the room on her, she watched herself dance in front of the mirrors while she ran her hands over her nipples and down her hips. Taking the scarf from around her neck, she ran it between her legs and see-sawed it back and forth as she balanced on her high heels and licked her lips.

It was when the woman climbed onto the round bed and lay back and spread her legs that Ani wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. With flaming cheeks, Ani wriggled further back into the dark corner and held her tray in front of her as a barrier.

On stage the woman put her one leg straight up into the air before letting it fall to the side, revealing her vagina and anus to all who wanted to see. The stage lights reflected off her bare white skin while Jim Croce wailed ‘Time In A Bottle’ through the huge speakers. Ani watched horrified as the woman turned over and got on her knees and imitated intercourse, her buttocks grinding and pulsing to the music as the sweat beaded up on her back and some men pulled at themselves under the tables.

When the music finally stopped and the stage lights dimmed and went out, Ani feigned wiping tables as she slowly made her way back to the bar. The owner’s son ignored her as he handed a tape over to the sweaty woman who stood by the entertainment cupboard wrapped in a silky but ratty housecoat.

Ani noted her stage makeup and the glitter on her hands as the woman walked past her and up the stairs, finally disappearing through the metal door that Ani had come through at the beginning of her shift.

She was quiet as she dumped her empties and headed back out for a sweep through her section. The entire room seemed fuller, and Ani realized that this must be a nightly routine for some of these men as the other two waiters greeted some regulars as they drifted in.

Some of her customers grumbled at her that they had been waiting a while and she mumbled an apology. She wasn’t going to tell them that she had never seen a stripper and had been hiding in a corner totally embarrassed. Instead she beamed the complainers a huge smile and hurried off to fill her order.

Gerald nodded at her wisely when she glanced in his direction, and when she made it back to his table he shook his head almost sadly.

“First time?” he asked her quietly.

Ani wanted to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about, but he had been so kind to her that she felt she owed him an honest answer. “How did you guess?”

“Although I couldn’t really see you, being dressed the way you are, I could see your tray over there in the corner while that girlie was up on the stage.”

Ani knew her laugh revealed her embarrassment but she couldn’t help herself. “Shouldn’t you have been looking at the ‘girlie’ as you call her, while she was dancing around up there?”

“I’ve seen so many of them over my lifetime that one more doesn’t make any difference. Why do you think I like to sit this far from the stage?”

“I didn’t know. I thought you were shy or something.” Turning to look at the front of the room she waved her hand towards the men who now sipped their drinks and gazed again at the TV screen. “So what are you saying? Those guys have never seen a naked woman before?”

“I think if you keep working here, you are going to find that there’s a huge difference between all men.” Gerald flipped a dime back onto her tray and raised his glass in a little toast in her direction. “And if you do stay, little Ani – I think we’re going to learn a lot about you as well.”

A Baptist Girl in a Strip Bar – Part One

An underlying excitement seemed to be building in the bar, but Ani was more concerned about getting her orders right, than paying attention to what was going on.

The bar was filling up with men more quickly and Ani was a little stressed with keeping up. She wanted to maintain perfect cleanliness at the tables, and perfect service, but she was having a hard time of it. She hated it when she had to add the numbers in her head for the different drinks when someone chose to pay for someone else’s drink.

Hank showed her how to use the straws to mark which kind of drink it was, as the liquid looked the same to her when it was out of the bottle and in the glass. Vodka got one straw and rum got two. Something like tequila got three straws, but Ani could smell the difference with that. She just didn’t want to stand there smelling each glass as the customer waited for his order. It didn’t seem professional to her and it certainly didn’t look it.

Heading back to the bar with her next order, Ani was surprised by the stranger who stood behind the cash register. His suit indicated that he was probably someone in management and she gave him a wavering smile as she emptied her tray.

“You must be the new girl,” he said as he flipped some switches and the sound on the TV died away. “I’m Sid. You’ve met my father already. I believe he hired you yesterday. Do you think you’ll work out here?”

“I’m trying.”

“Well. I’ll be watching you. You report to me as well as to my father you know.”

Ani nodded her head and tried to remember her order as she turned to the register.

The nearness of another boss was throwing her off and she needed to concentrate. Her anxiety caused her to miss the fact that the stage lights had been flipped on, and she jumped when Sid bellowed into the microphone and the sound reverberated around the bar.

“It’s another Thursday night Gentlemen, so put your hands together and let’s hear it for ‘Midnight Dancer!”

Ani’s head whipped around as the music blared out of the speakers at the front of the room and someone climbed the stairs and stepped out onto the stage. From her viewpoint at the register, Ani could vaguely make out an image of something tall and shiny. As she made her way down the bar, she realized that a woman was strutting along the runway wearing a sparkly cowboy hat with matching gauntlets and chaps. ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ blared throughout the room and Ani had to make a conscious effort to close her mouth as she watched the woman turn and sway on her high heels.

“Did you have an order Ani?” Ed’s voice vaguely registered through Ani’s shock as she tried to focus on the paper she held in her shaking hand. She knew she had taken someone’s order, but she had been thrown completely off guard by the woman on the stage.

“Uh, yeah I did…Um…let me think a second.”

Someone let out a wolf-whistle and Ani’s eyes swiveled back to the stage. Glenn Campbell had given way to Blood Sweat and Tears as they belted out Lucretia MacEvil. The cowboy hat had been thrown up on a large round ‘bed’ that was sitting on the right side of the stage. Ani had never noticed it before as she had never been that close to the front of the room, but she noticed it now with the shiny hat sitting on top of it. It looked like it was covered in shag carpeting, and just that image alone began to worry her. When the shiny chaps went sailing next to the cowboy hat, Ani turned back towards Ed and quickly gave him her order.

“You’ve never been in a strip-club before have you Ani?” Ed had reached out and touched her arm and now held it gently as he peered into her crimson face.

“What was your first clue?”

“You look very embarrassed. Were you expecting something else?”

Ani fumbled with the straws as she tried to get out a couple to mark her drink and ended up knocking over the glass that held them. “I thought it was going to be all feathers and stuff like in the old movies.”

Ed made an effort not to laugh out loud and his struggles brought an embarrassed grin to Ani’s face. “I, um, guess things have changed – a lot.” They both laughed and Ani grabbed her tray and hurried to the pool tables where she felt a safe distance had been put between her and the activity at the front of the room.

I Was Wondering

I am going to continue on with the story now and was wondering how many of you would be interested in reading about my first time as a waitress in the strip bar I worked at for over 10 years.

You must remember that I was raised in a strict Baptist family and I had no idea any of this went on around the world.

If you would prefer I don't fill you in on the details of how a stripper goes about her job - please let me know. I personally think my observations at that time and over the years hit the nail on the head of the interaction between men and women - and sometimes just about women.