Page 10 of Triplet Tease

He shook his head. “We’ll see how it goes.It’ll be an experience.”

That was true. It certainly would be. At ourage, perhaps it was high time we’d been to a stripper bar, but theoccasion had never arisen. There were always other things to do.

“I’m glad Eton isn’t here.” He’d hateit. He had old-fashioned values and romantic opinions aboutrelationships between men and women. The truth was, we all did.

The lady smiled at us, and Derry led us away toa distant table against a wall. I sat next to him, and we had anexcellent view of the entire room. Finn sat opposite me with his backto the door. He a good view of the stage, at least, which stretchedout into the middle of the room like a narrow catwalk at a fashionshow.

There were two women on the stage. One climbedto the top of a tall pole and hung upside down; she wore silversequined shorts and a matching top.

I’d never seen a pole dancer — not a properpole dancer in real life, at least. This woman knew what she wasdoing. She had amazing skill and strong legs. It looked impressivebut not sexy. I wondered whether I had enough paper money on me. Ofcourse, I hadn’t expected to pay for entertainment, just drinks.

The other dancing woman appeared more like astripper, dressed in high heels, dark stockings, black lacy pantiesand a matching bra that struggled to contain her voluptuous cleavage.She gyrated at the edge of the stage, surrounded by men waving dollarbills.

Derry leaned forward. “I don’t see Liamyet.”

Finn and I both glanced about the room, whichwas pointless.

“This Liam, what does he look like?” Iasked when I returned my gaze to our new companion.

“You’ll see when I introduce you. The nightis young, and the entertainment is good while we wait to see if heturns up.” Derry waggled his eyebrows, and I took a definitedislike to the man. He seemed a bit of a creep to me.

“What can I get you gentlemen?” I hadn’tnoticed the waitress approaching the table. When I looked at her, Idecided she was sexier than the women on the stage. It was probablybecause I’d prefer women wearing more than underwear the first timeI meet them.

“A beer. Beers all round?” I asked theothers.

“Sure, yeah.” Derry agreed. “The usual.”

The waitress nodded at Derry. She seemed toknow his usual. “I didn’t see you arrive,” she said to him.

“Really, sugar? I thought you’d cleanedthis table just for me.”

“Ha. I think Siena did that.” She laughed alittle and nodded toward the bar. “The new girl cleaned all thetables when she started her shift twenty minutes ago. You’re not sospecial; everyone’s had the clean table treatment.” She smiled asshe spoke. She wasn’t hostile so much as cheeky and playful. Itwasn’t just the dancers who worked for tips. “I’ll be back withbeer for you boys in a minute.”

After watching the dancers on the stage forseveral minutes, Finn turned to Derry. “So, how does it work here?”

“Sit back, and eventually, dancers will cometo this table and offer to dance right here up close. If you can’twait for that, you can go sit closer to the stage and start emptyingyour wallet. That’s fun. Or the third option is to choose a ladyand book a private dance. Simple.”

Finn bit his bottom lip, and I saw his mindwhirring.

“They’ll tell you the price for a dance,and it will be a low figure. I’d suggest giving them double.”

“Double?” Finn repeated while rubbing hishand over his chin.

“Why double?” I asked.

“If you don’t like the look of the girl,don’t waste her time. If you do like the look of her and she offersto dance right here by the table for twenty dollars, then give herforty. It’s simple. You show her you really appreciate her. Flatterher and make her feel good. And in return, she’ll want to give youa good time. Twenty, forty, sixty dollars. We’re not talking abouta huge fortune. She’ll go away feeling happy about the transaction,and so will you.”

Finn rubbed his top lip with his thumb. “Thatmakes sense,” he said before returning his attention to the stage.

Derry chuckled and turned to me. “I thinkyour brother might want to spend some money. And why not? You may aswell enjoy yourself while you’re here.”

“Yeah. Why not?” I agreed just to befriendly. In fact, there was no reason why not. We were single. Andit was all harmless fun among consenting adults.

Nevertheless, I hadn’t come out that nightlooking for a good time. I’d come out expecting to meet criminalsand find out a little bit about the bad guys behind a cruel, illegalbusiness. Beyond that, we didn’t have much of a plan at all. Itwasn’t as if we could arrest anyone or stop them from doing whatthey were doing.

My gut instinct told me to leave. It didn’tfeel right to think about enjoying the show, because my head wasn’tin it. We hadn’t known we were coming to see this until we wereliterally here. And over the phone we’d told Derry our cover storythat we were looking for unique exotic pets for our girlfriends.Girlfriends that we didn’t have, but he didn’t know that.

I turned my attention to the back of the room.Beyond Finn, a woman wearing hardly anything gave a lap dance to aman who sat with a bunch of people, both men and women. They alllooked like they were having fun. I should be doing the same,relaxing and enjoying the entertainment instead of feeling like adisapproving old killjoy.

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