What Are You Looking At?

I’m starting to lose feeling in my face. It’s just as well. I have to be hammered to get through this. Apparently, you can still smoke in bars in Milwaukee, or at least in strip clubs.

My eyes water from it. I rub them, coughing. When my vision clears, I see her.

Sliding down the length of the pole up on the side stage, her eyes closed, her skin paper white. Thick blue eye shadow, flaming red hair, smooth like a shampoo commercial, cascading down her shoulders.

She dances to a song I’ve never heard, something grungy with a sweet female voice singing candy words to a pulsing beat.

I take a big swallow of my Southern Comfort on the rocks. I have no idea where my friends are.

It’s not her hair or her white skin or her makeup or her closed eyes. It’s her age. She’s the oldest stripper I’ve ever seen. Maybe in her 50’s, or a hard 45. Wrinkles at her temples and on her neck. Her breasts look soft and heavy in their gold bikini top.

I can even see it in her knees. They look bruised.

Still, she moves to the beat, and the whiskey in my blood makes me start to dance, too. Just a little. Just a swaying of my hips.

Jessie materializes out of the smoky darkness, shrieking “This bachelorette party took a turn for the amazing!” She grinds her hips up on mine.

The dancer’s eyes fly open. She looks right at me, unsmiling.

I stand up straight and push Jessie off of me.

“Is it time to go?”

This is a work of fiction inspired by the title prompt at my writers’ group meeting.