The Birthday Girl Pt. 01

A waitress with breasts smaller than mine and glowing eyes—at least under our lights—came by and politely reminded us about the drink minimum. We all ordered our drinks right away and Jamie paid for mine and his, Ethan paid for Kyle's and his own, and we all talked about getting drunk before the next dancer got naked on stage.

From my seat I had a hard time seeing the right corner stage over tall Ethan's head, but I had a good view of the main stage and the left corner stage. It soon seemed obvious the girls didn't get fully naked on the corner stages, although they were the same girls who took the main stage and stripped everything off. I guessed when I saw the black girl with the silver boots take the smaller stage that everybody had their main stage time and their smaller stage appearances. Anywhere they operated, they seemed to rake in a lot of singles, sometimes bigger bills.

"You, like, can't tear your eyes away," said Kyle, and they all cracked up at my expense.

"You wanted me to see what it was like. Pardon me for finding it weird."

"Oh, it's 'weird,'" Jamie mocked. "Not 'arousing.' Not 'sexy.'"

"Most definitely not," I said, smiling thinly. I didn't want them to realize that I was, yeah, the word is "fascinated."

We had gotten our drinks and were finishing the second, Kyle was well ahead of us as usual, and looking for our waitress. Jamie noticed her, laughing to himself when he told us that she probably wouldn't be back too soon for us. Our craning necks and darting eyes found her in the most obvious place—the corner stage beside the door. She was topless, lying on her belly, smiling as she took a twenty dollar bill with her mouth from some guy's lips. When she stood up again, I could see that she was wearing a tiny red G-string instead of the pink boyshorts that I thought were part of her waitress outfit. It was almost funny, I had never questioned why what she wore was so skimpy when she took our drink orders, being in a place like this, but I hadn't considered she was another dancer. Her breasts were really nice, not that I would have said that out loud to the guys. They weren't quite as big as mine, but she had larger nipples. I thought they were so cute.

"I think Felicia's in love," Kyle kidded me, and I dipped my fingers in my drink and flicked droplets at his face.

"Do you like her?"

"She's very pretty—for a stripper," I said, trying not to dig myself much deeper. "I was just wondering if we can tip her regular or if we have to tuck it into her panties."

"Be careful, Felicia, she'll probably be giving you change back." They had a laugh at Ethan's remark, so did I, but I continued to watch our waitress and hoped they would just take it for curiosity. After all, that's all it was.

"Give her a dollar." I waved Ethan away, but he laughed and insisted. He was usually the more quiet of the four of us, but a little alcohol tripped his talkative buttons. "I'm serious. It's rude to just stare at a stripper and not tip. It's like getting six or seven refills at a restaurant and not tipping."

"To hell with you, Ethan. You're the stripper expert, I guess..."

"For real, give her a tip," insisted Jamie. I asked him for a dollar while I thought about it, working up my nerve. "No way. Use your own cash."

"Oh, I would, but some assholes abducted me here without warning me I would need lots of cash. Are you going to give me a dollar or—"

I saw him take a roll of singles out of his pocket and we all laughed and hooted—he had come prepared. He skinned some from the roll and kept tossing them my way, making me laugh. I probably had ten of them by the time he finished.

"You're supposed to tuck them in her underwear, Jamie," Kyle advised, and I stuck my tongue out him lasciviously. I sometimes forgot that Kyle had a thing for me he didn't disguise too well, but I kind of sensed that Ethan did, too. Or maybe that's just what it felt like being the center of attention among three guys. It was only too bad Jamie didn't have a thing for me, I would have jumped on the opportunity.

I believe our waitress was just about to finish her set when I showed up with my singles. I must have seemed like a real dork, handing her a dollar like I was buying a newspaper from a newsstand. I laughed a little bit when she smiled, then she swung her ass my way. Okay, too close, I thought. But maybe it wasn't as bad as my first impulses made me feel. The cheeks of her ass had actual dimples, and the underside of one cheek had a little brown dot; there were a few pimples I saw as well, but they were slight enough that a thin layer of make-up would have made them invisible. You know, if she were dancing in a Lethal Weapon movie or something.

"C'mon," she urged me, giving her hips a shake. Oh. Now I got it. I looked back at my leering friends, I knew they wouldn't miss it, and the waitress said, "You know it'll give them a kick. Go on."

I pulled the red band of her G-string out as if I were going to floss with it, stuck the dollar bill to the skin above her buttock, and let it snap shut. She yelped out, then turned to me with a smile. I tried to get her to turn around to give her a new bill, maybe a little high on the nervousness of the moment, but she only looked down at the front of her G-string, a flimsy inverted triangle. She nodded, then when I wouldn't do anything, she pulled it out. If I let my eyes wander, I would be staring right down the front of her panties. So what? I later thought, on my way back to the table. She is a stripper. At the moment I only leaned my head back as if offended by the sight, smiled weakly, and let the dollar bill hover there until she let her panties slip back into place.

"Aw, she's shy," the stripper said, and that made me scowl a little bit. I couldn't be that shy, I had come here in the first place, I was giving her money where everyone could see it. It wasn't like I needed to spend money to see a naked chick, I had a mirror at home.

I put the last bill between my teeth and raised my eyebrows at her. She smiled wide at me. I realized how ridiculous I must look, but the weed and alcohol were making me feel more bulletproof than usual. I looked back to the guys and clasped my hands behind my back. They were riotous as they watched us.

The stripper put a hand on the back of my head and brought me in like it was a real kiss. She opened her mouth in a way that made me think of giving a guy head and she snapped her teeth down on the single, then pressed in close enough that her lips touched mine. They just brushed each other, nothing really lewd, but it made my heart pump, especially knowing the guys were watching. Her breath smelled like cigarettes, but I didn't mind, which is mostly funny because I had even refused to date smokers before that.

I returned to the table covering my mouth. They were giving me applause, and I wished I didn't like it so much. I knew at the time I was going to have a hard time living it all down the next time we hung out with each other.

"Why didn't you give her the rest of the money?"

I made a face at Jamie and shook my head. "She didn't even get all the way naked," I joked.

A girl came by and said our waitress was on break, she would be taking over, so Ethan bought us a round. We were talking about my birthday night out with the girls and both Ethan and I were running our mouths more than usual. I said some not-altogether-nice things about how Micki wasn't the most exciting girl in the world and how Tasha could never come up with anything better to do than see a movie. We were in the middle of laughing about something like that when our first waitress came up to us again. I blushed when I saw her, and I hoped the guys hadn't noticed.

"Hey, singles," she said to me, which made Kyle laugh obnoxiously loud. "You having a good time? Who here's your boyfriend?"

I worried she was hitting on me, but it was possible she was just being friendly. I told her they were all my boyfriends—Jamie had the best dick, Kyle had the best ass, and Ethan owned a car. Yeah, the alcohol had notched my personality up into another level by then.

She smiled and said, "Well, I'm Star. If I can bring you anything, let me know." To my embarrassment, Jamie asked when she would be up on the main stage. She grinned at him, making me a little more certain she wasn't hitting on me because she probably had a thing for him, and said she had about an hour or so until she got the main stage again. "We all take shifts waiting tables, doing lapdances, working the stages... Wally doesn't like hiring girls who won't do the stage. So I end up slinging chicken wings and boilermakers when I'm not shaking my ass. But I'll be up there. Don't worry."

Jamie pointed at me and slurred out, "She was mad she didn't get to see your pussy."

Star looked right at me, not that surprised, and I sank my face into my hands. As she asked me if it was true, I gasped out, "No, no! That was... that's his idea of a joke."

"'Cause I just have to cover the orders at a few more tables before I can do lapdances," she said. She leaned on the table, her breasts hanging forward between me and Kyle, and she continued, "If your boyfriends really wanted to treat you right, they'd spring for one for you. What do you think?"

"I think I'm going to start sobering everyone up," I said. She grinned at me, stood up again, and reminded us she would be coming back to offer anyway.

Those minutes passed with Ethan, Kyle, and Jamie conspiring amongst themselves to get me into the "red room" with Star. I stopped laughing after a few seconds, when they seemed like they were taking it too seriously. I pleaded with them to stop, but they were sick with the idea. Ethan was a little bit more broke than I was, and I was the poorest of all of us, but he volunteered to pay for a third of the lapdance, and that seemed to make it all happen. I protested, said I wouldn't do it, but Jamie smiled at me.

"I can't believe you would come all the way down here and not do a lapdance. What happened to your research?"

"I'm not researching anything! I just found the subject of strippers kind of—"

"You can't go to your friends and tell them we brought you out to the Paradise Lounge and we offered to pay for a lapdance and you didn't do it. What would they think of you?" Ethan asked.

"They would probably think I'm normal!"

"Normal. Meaning boring," added Jamie. That frustrated me. I knew he was taking advantage of my self-image, always believing myself the wildest one of my friends. But between his playing with my head and the idea of bragging about this story and, well, the fact that I kind of did want to see what a lapdance was like... my resolve eventually broke down. I let them talk me into it.

Star came back around with a few black check holders, credit cards peeking out the top, and she asked me if I was game for the lapdance. Jamie answered for me that I was, which I preferred, since I could always claim to her he had made me do it. Smiling back at us, she waved the check holders and said she would be back to "collect" me in a second. I took slow and steady breaths while I waited, and that made Kyle laugh all the more.

They would have preferred to take pictures, or at least watch the whole thing, but Star said the completely nude "lounge dances" were between the dancer and the recipient. She stood me up and walked me back to the hallway glowing with the sultry red lights. There was a heavyset guy in a suit getting a fully nude dance from a girl with brown hair a bit shorter than mine. Her ass was so skinny, it made me think for a minute she was a little kid, but when she turned I saw she had a big fake rack. I preferred Star's breasts myself, they were natural, like mine. I caught myself thinking that and wondered if I would ever live it down if I had said it out loud to the guys.

"You don't really have to do this," I told her. "They aren't here. They won't know."

"It's against the exotic dancer code to fake a lapdance," she joked, sitting me down in a small seat with marble walls on either side of us. She lifted a velvet rope and connected it to a latch, closing off our little stall from the most formidable invaders. I stared at Star, then laughed self-consciously. "What's your name, honey?"

"Felicia," I said. I couldn't have felt more weird, at least that's what I thought before she started taking her clothes off. Soon Star was out of her bra and her tits were hanging there. Then they were brushing against my face.

"You can't touch me," she reminded unnecessarily. "Sorry, those are the rules. The good news is... I can touch you."

"Oh. Well... um..."

She at on my thighs, making it a more name-fitting lapdance, and wriggled around in her pink boyshorts while I sat there feeling out of place. Star was smiling at me, leaned in, let me catch a good whiff of her breath again, then she blew cold air against my neck, making me shudder. Her eyes were bright blue, very pretty, and she kept her black hair cut pretty short. I envied the look, it was one I had brought myself to the verge of choosing for my own quite a few times.

"The goods are here, sister," she said with a breath voice, shaking her tits back and forth. "Don't be afraid to look. You're paying for this—"

"No, I, no—I'm sorry. Sorry. I'm just... I'm not a lesbian."

Star nodded, seeming a little more ladylike, a little more sincere, but then she said, "I've fucked a few girls, but I'm not a lesbian. I've got a boyfriend. He's proud of the way I experiment."

"Oh. Well, I... I'm not really..."

She stood up, then shimmied back and forth as she worked her boyshorts down. I saw her red G-string still in place underneath and I had a bizarre flash of disappointment. I forgot I wasn't looking her in the eyes and I glanced back up, which made her smile.

"I hate it when guys stare at my body," I muttered. It had nothing to do with anything, maybe.

Star turned her back to me, let me lay eyes on her substantial ass again, then she said over her shoulder, "Are you sure? You've got a hell of a body. There must be something you like about it—"

"No."

"Too quick saying no," she said again, turning to face me. She dropped to her knees and let her head hover over my lap. I went stiff all over, bracing my elbows against the marble walls as if I thought someone was going to try to pull me out of the chair, and Star only laughed a little bit. Her breath blew on my jeans and I laughed loudly, uncomfortably. "What's the matter?"

"That doesn't do anything for me," I said. I should have said nothing, just told her I was cold or something, but nothing would have concealed the effect she was having on me.

Again Star turned her back to me, but this time she slid her thong all the way down to her ankles. It was a practiced motion, everything from the stance she chose to the way she scooted her panties aside with a foot told me she had done it many times before. Her full lips protruded between her thighs for those few seconds she was bent, and I liked seeing them. I'm not sure I was sexually attracted to them, although I can't deny I felt something. Maybe it was just seeing a part of a woman that was incredibly intimate, even movies and most magazines shied away from revealing a woman that way. By rights, I thought, no man would see me that way unless he was preparing to fuck me. That's what this felt like, I realized. Foreplay. That made this all feel so much dirtier.

Star was rubbing her ass against my crotch and I laughed anxiously. She was working it hard against my sensitive lap. "I don't... ah-ha... I don't think that's going to do anything for me. I don't have anything down there..."

"C'mon, baby, I know you got something."

She turned back to face me, letting me ogle her tits and her entirely smooth mound, then Star straddled my legs. Her hands touched the back of my head and brought my face forward. Shit, I found my lips glazing her right nipple before I could avoid it. I jerked away, but she gave me a pouty look.

"Okay, I get it... you're straight."

"I'm sorry. I didn't... I didn't even want to come here."

"Then why did your friends bring you?"

I sighed a shaking breath, then said, "It's my birthday. The big two-one. I, uh... I know, this is nuts. They think I'm fascinated with strippers."

Star bounced her tits as she shifted her shoulders. "But you're not? Right?" I shook my head, but she smirked at me. "Honey, I've seen a lot of angry wives and girlfriends in the parking lot. Girls who get brought here and then demand to go home. I've even had some of them come as far as the first few steps into the Lounge... then they get pissed off and go home. They definitely didn't want to be here. You made it this far... so I don't know who you think you're fooling."

I covered my mouth as I giggled, then peeked over the tops of my fingers. "I guess it's a little... I don't really like strippers."

"No?"

"I just... I don't..." I looked away from her, then my eyes fell down to her naked pussy, sliding up and down what might have been a hell of an erect penis, if I had only been born with a Y instead of an X. "I kind of... I fantasize about... being a stripper."

I couldn't believe I had told her that. I smiled at her smile. It felt good to confess that to someone, particularly someone who would never tell.

Matter-of-factly, Star inquired, "Why don't you do it?"

The volume and speed with which I argued against it only served to make her laugh. "I'm not really much of an extrovert."

"A shy girl can get just as naked as a slut," she said, hopping on me in a way that made me feel all the more aroused. "Besides, I don't think you're all as introverted as you pretend. I've got a sister who is shy and she can't even stand to see me in my underwear. You've got a better body than I do, I think. You should try it."

"I do not have a better body than—" Star shut me up with a tweak of my tits, both hands gripping me. I laughed out loud, and it wasn't a nervous yelp. "Stop. C'mon."

"I'll tell you what..." I was already shaking my head. Nothing that followed those words would be anything good for me. Grinning wickedly, Star said, "When I do my show at one-twenty... why don't I bring you up? I can get you a costume and—"

"No, no... that's just... no!"

"Okay. But I was going to tell you... once I take out the house's take, anything we make up on the stage I'll split evenly with you."

"I don't need the money," I lied. Hell, I worked at a bookstore, not exactly the casinos of the 21st century, of course I needed money. But the last thing I was going to do was get up there and dance for money. There were reasons to take my clothes off for strangers, but I couldn't stomach the idea of money being one of them. All the same, all of my ideas of feminist sexuality and the empowerment of public nudity weren't exactly in my mind. "Sorry. I just don't... I'm not ready to do something like that."

"I get it. Fantasies are safer when they're locked up in your head," she said. Star wrapped her arms around me and slid her hands up the back of my shirt, bare skin on bare skin, and I trembled all over. "It's okay, honey. I used to fantasize about this, too. It's just work to me now. But that first time I got up on stage... it was pretty intense."

I actually asked, "Would I have to take all my clothes off?" Even after I said it I seemed to hear it come out in my voice, then started to laugh it off, but Star didn't seem fooled.

"You would love to take all your clothes off," she said, smiling too wide for my tastes. "But you take off as much or as little as you want. I think once I get you tramped up into a little outfit of mine—"

"Sorry, no," I said, then repeated firmly, "No. I... I would kind of like to. But I can't. I just can't."