Chapter 77

Liz took another sip of her shaken beer and made a face. I figured that her attempt to fling it across the room had caused it to go flat.

“I’ll get you another,” I said, standing. “I was thinking about having one since we’re in for the night.”

“No,” she replied. “I’ll get you one.”

She took my hand and led me to my favorite chair before looking around the room.

“Don’t you have a sound system?” she asked.

“No,” I admitted. “I listen to music off my tablet or through my phone. I can pull out a set of speakers for my tablet if you want to play something.”

“Cool,” Liz said. “You do that and I’ll find something to play.”

She was flipping through my limited musical selections when I returned.

Liz stopped and went into the kitchen. She came back with a single beer, already opened, and put it on a coaster beside my chair.

“That’ll be $10,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“Ten dollars,” she repeated with her hand out. I pulled my wallet from my back pocket and looked into it. I had a ten, two fives and a one from my trek to the fast food joint earlier in the day. I figured, “what the hell” and forked over the ten-spot.

Liz winked at me and put her foot up on the arm of the chair.

“Aren’t you going to tip your waitress?” she asked as she lifted her sundress up to show the bottom of her bikini. She hooked a finger in the elastic around her thighs and pulled it outward. I slipped the dollar bill in.

“Jesus,” she said. “Lousy tipper.”

“Sorry,” I said. I stuck the one of the fives inside, too.

“Better,” she said. “I work for tips, Mister. Want me to dance for you?”

“Uh, sure,” I said.

Liz looked at my forlorn wallet and shook her head. She left the room without a word. After a couple of minutes, I started to go look for her but she reappeared. She handed me a small roll of currency.

“Here,” she said. “It’s obviously your first time at the Liz’s Gentleman’s Club. You’ll need some cash if you want to have any real fun.”

I looked down at the bills and back to Liz.

“This is what I would be doing if I hadn’t made it in Nashville,” she said with a smile. “I started to think about this when you told me Stephanie used to work in a strip club. I thought I’d see if those dance lessons would have supported my secondary career.”

I chuckled. It had been many years since I’d entered a strip club. The cost of the beer made a little more sense to me. I unrolled the bills. Most of them were hundreds but there were a few fifties and a couple of twenties mixed in.

“Shit,” I muttered.

“I always have Jill carry cash with us,” Liz explained. “That’s the leftover from our trip to Dallas. It’s about $2,100 so you have a little to play with. Are you game?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Good,” Liz told me with a laugh.

I fanned the money out and Liz lifted an eyebrow at me.

“Let me find a few songs,” she said, ignoring me and eying the currency that belonged to her already. She pulled my tablet out again and shook her head. “A bunch of country crap. I can’t dance to that.”

Liz shut off all the lights in the living room and walked into the hallway.

“Gentleman!” she said in a faux husky voice. “Taking the stage for the first time anywhere, please give a warm welcome to Luscious!”

The opening lines of Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page” hit and I sat down in my chair again.

Liz had told me that she had taken a variety of dance classes – tap, jazz, modern, some ballet and even ballroom. I had seen her abilities from the stage but she was more impressive from a few feet away.

I’m not sure how she did it but she managed to keep the short dress from flying up as she twirled and sashayed in front of my chair. She sang along with the song coming from the speakers as she shook her breasts and her butt at me. At the halfway point, she put a leg up on the chair again.

“Tip?” she asked.

I frowned at her. The first rule of gentlemen’s clubs in the state of Arkansas was that you never tip the dancer until she showed some skin (well, the second rule, I suppose. The first is that touching any of the dancers will cause a very large man to beat on you for a long time). I thumbed through the bills and found the last $5 I’d contributed.

Liz saw the denomination and eyed me speculatively.

“I guess you’re not impressed,” she said.

“Oh, I’m impressed,” I said. “I’d just be more impressed if you had on fewer clothes.”

Liz offered her half smile and lifted the side of her dress upward until a pair of maroon silk panties came into view. The waist was a band of elastic and she pulled it out for me to put the bill inside. I folded the money and slid it next to her hip.

She caught my hand and moved it closer to her mound. She spun away when I tried to “accidentally” brush against her. This time, however, she made no effort to keep the skirt from flipping upward. I saw that her panties neatly bisected her bottom, leaving most of each cheek bare.

“Wow,” I said. Liz smiled at me as she lifted the neck strap of her dress above her head and pulled the garment downward until a single bra-covered breast came into view. The bra matched her panties but had no straps. When the dress was to her waist, she leaned forward and pushed her breasts against my face before shoving her dress down her legs and kicking it to the side.

“More to your liking?” she asked, lifting her leg for another tip.

“Much,” I said. This time she got a $20.

“Hmm, I wonder what I’m going to have to do to get to the bills with three digits?” she asked.

“I guess we’ll have to see,” I said. “You act like you’re the first girl I got to show me her boobs.”

Liz kept her panties on until the first stanza of the third song came on. I was pleased to note that it was a six-minute remake of an R&B classic from the 1960s. I was less pleased when Liz spent almost the entire six minutes tormenting me. Anytime I would try to touch her skin, she would back away and wag a finger at me.

Then she would turn her back to me and find a way that I could see her most intimate treasures. She put her leg back on the chair when the song ended – even though I had no place to put her “tip.” The move was strictly to give me a look between her thighs.

She ran a finger through her slit and then held it out for me to taste – then backed away with a giggle when I moved my head forward.

She slipped her digit between her lips and then traced it down her body again until it rested between her thighs. She bent over the kitchen table with her legs parted so I could watch her fingers dancing around her pink opening.

When she stood and approached me again, I was so entranced by her right hand that I didn’t see that she’d put her left hand out for more cash – until she plucked one of the hundreds from between my fingers.

“So,” she said conspiratorially when she tossed the bill to the side with the rest, “I’m not supposed to tell you this but we have a private area for VIPs.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“You’re not a cop, are you?” she asked, looking around to make sure she wasn’t overheard by the non-existent customers.

“No,” I said.

“Good,” Liz replied. “So, if you want a private dance in the VIP lounge, it’ll be more personal.”

“How much more personal?” I wondered.

Liz pondered the question while she pulled her panties up her thighs again – and tucked her folded money in the waistband.

“You seem like a nice guy,” she said. “Maybe – if you tip well – we can play some. Do you want to buy me a drink so we can talk about it?”

“Sure,” I said, smiling at her.

“Uh, it’s $30,” she informed me.

“Jesus,” I said.

“The house keeps 90 percent,” she grumbled.

“Robbery,” I replied.

“I know it!” Liz answered. I watched her as she shook her butt lasciviously on her way to the fridge. She bent at the waist to grab a beer from the bottom shelf.

She pulled the back of her panties downward slightly when she saw I was looking before arising and touching the cold bottle to each of her bare nipples.

She took a seat on my lap when she returned and put her arm around my neck.

“You can touch my knee but no higher,” she said. “The bouncer here is a real jerk.”

I put my hand on her lower thigh and gave a squeeze.

“Did you like my dancing?” she asked.

“It was very nice,” I replied.

“It’s my first night,” she said. “I’m paying my way through college by doing this.”

“I figured as much,” I said. “Let me see: I’ll bet you’re studying English Lit.”

“How did you know?” Liz asked with a smile.

“Just a guess,” I said. “Here’s the best tip you’re going to get tonight. Change your major. A friend of mine has a master’s in sociology. You know what she’s doing? She’s the personal assistant to some puffed-up pop star princess. She said it was either that or porn – but after a day with the diva, she’s seriously rethinking going the porn route.”

Liz’s eyes narrowed slightly and I saw her poking at her molars with her tongue as she nodded at me.

“Huh?” she asked. “A puffed-up pop star princess? Really?”

“Yep,” I said. “You’ve probably heard of her: Alyssa Grace. Another friend told me that she’s a real bitch.”

Liz laughed and her breasts jiggled very nicely.

“You know, I’ve heard that,” she said. “Maybe I’ll switch to PR or something like that. I mean, really, how hard could it be?”

“I figure about any moron could do that,” I said. “So you should be OK.”

She laughed again.

“Turned that one right around on me,” she said. “I like you. You’re quick. So, have you thought about the VIP lounge?”

“I need a little more detail,” I said. “What’s it run?”

“A hundred for three songs,” Liz answered instantly. “It’s the same as out here but ... we can touch if we want.”

“On your knee?” I asked.

“We can make private arrangements once we’re inside,” Liz told me. “You can touch me ... and I can touch you ... if you tip well.”

“How well?” I asked.

Liz shrugged.