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Deja Vu, by V
All stories on this web site are purely FICTIONAL. The people depicted within these stories only exist in someone's IMAGINATION. Any resemblence between anyone depicted in these stories and any real person, living or dead, is an incredible COINCIDENCE too bizarre to be believed. If you think that you or someone you know is depicted in one of these stories it's only because you're a twisted perverted little fucker who sees conspiracies and plots where none exist. You probably suspect that your own MOTHER had sex with ALIENS and COWS and stuff. Well, she didn't. It's all in your head. Now take your tranquilizers and RELAX.
My Evening at "Deja Vu", by V
In Which The Writer Learns a Thing or Two About Showgirls
A couple of nights ago, I visited a "Deja Vu" nightclub
in the Seattle area. Like "Hooters" (see my article of a few
weeks ago), Deja Vu is a franchise. Like Hooters, they have a
magazine that features their girls, and like Hooters they have a
primarily male clientele. The similarity, however, ends there.
Deja Vu is a nightclub. They don't serve food, nor did the club
I was in serve liquor (although I suspect this varies depending on the
state you're in). Unlike Hooters, they offer nude entertainment.
Since I'd never been in a Deja Vu before, I asked the cashier
to explain the setup to me. Here's how it works:
When you walk in, you are offered two choices: a $5.00 general
admission, or a $10.50 VIP ticket. General admission gets you
to the main stage, where girls come out in a T-bar and bikini
top, winding up nude at the end of their set (about 5 minutes).
There's always a girl out on the main stage. Knowing that
a.s.* readers would want the VIP treatment, I handed over
the $10.50 and went in.
The VIP ticket gets you a copy of Showgirls magazine, free
general admission on your next visit to a Deja Vu club, and
(most importantly) admission to the "VIP Lounge". The lounge
is off away from the main area. There are tables, a smaller
stage with a better view, soft couches, and a tub with a shower
fixture. Naturally, my curiousity was piqued, but I figured things
would eventually sort themselves out.
I sat a table near the small stage, and paid $3 for a club soda.
(You can pay $5 for a "bottomless" drink, which I guess means
that refills are free and that you won't get hassled for not
constantly having a fresh drink in front of you). I watched
a fairly attractive girl strip and gyrate on the VIP stage,
sipped my drink, and waited.
Soon a slim brunette in a bikini top and T-bar slid in next to me
and begin to chat. She was very friendly, with a pretty face,
and quite clearly enjoyed talking to people. Her name was Paulina
(so she said), and as the conversation went on I grew more and
more astonished.
Paulina claimed to be a premed, biochem major at the University
of Washington. To satisfy my skepticism, I asked her to name
the chemical forumla for methane, to describe the structure of
benzene, and to give a short description of how DNA replicates.
She laughed, and gave all the right answers very quickly. I
apologized for not believing her, but she just laughed.
She said she assumed most of her customers didn't believe her, but I
was the first one to test her knowledge of organic chemistry! We
talked for a while, and I eventually asked her how the business
worked.
As with other places, the girls pay to work at the club; the rate
at this particular Deja Vu was $55/night. The club also makes
money on drinks. The girls in turn earn money by selling dances to customers.
Here's what you could get at the Deja Vu I went to:
Table dance: $10
Couch dance: $20
Shower dance: $25
For a table dance, she'll dance right at your table. A couch dance
is over on one of the VIP couches, while the shower dance is done
naked in the open shower stall while she washes herself. We went
on talking for a while, and I figured since she had spent all this
time talking to me the least I could do was buy a couch dance from her.
(Magnanimous of me, I know :-)). We walked over to an empty couch. I asked
her what I should do, and she said "just relax".
The experience was intoxicating. I lay back on the couch, my arms
relaxed at my sides. As the music began, Paulina bent over me
and began to sway. She tossed her hair over me, and moved in very
close. Her scent was powerful and erotic, a very strong, enticing,
feminine smell, not to perfumy, clean and fresh. She wore only
a T-bar and bikini top, brushing her breasts very lightly over
my face and eyelashes, blowing in my ear, and making eye contact
with seductive glances whenever the opportunity presented itself.
The intimacy of the experience was very powerful.
Technically, no physical contact is allowed, although we had a
couple of "accidental" close encounters. The most important aspect
of it appears to be that the girl be in complete control, deciding
where the contact occurs and how extensive it is. When it was over,
Paulina asked me for if I wanted another dance. I told her no, as I
was watching my cash. I wonder, though, if further dances get more
risque', if better tipping lets you touch the girl more intimately,
and so forth. Perhaps other netters can shed some light on this.
To my later regret, I forgot to ask Paulina.
Anyway, despite the fact that I didn't ask for another dance, we
went back to my table and talked some more. She said that she
had a 3.75 GPA, and was hoping to attend Stanford medical school
next year. Based on our conversation up to that point, I had no trouble
believing her. She was working as a showgirl during the summer to earn money
so she could finish her last year at the University of Washington.
We talked a lot about college life and working as a showgirl.
I asked her how she got into the business, and she told me she
had a friend who worked at the club. She "couldn't believe how
much money she was making", and decided to do it too. On her first
night, she "didn't have a clue" how to dance, or what to do with
customers, but she picked it up very quickly by watching the other girls.
The money, apparently, truly is astonishing. I asked her for a typical
example, not someone who is a stunning beauty who works 5 days a week,
or a marginal case who's just getting by. She mentioned a friend of
hers who works 3 nights a week, and makes about $500 each night for
6 hours work. That's about $72,000 a year for an 18-hour work week,
all of it in cash. I asked about taxes, and she said you have to be
careful. She knows of a friend who lived a little too out of sync
with her reported income and was eventually audited by the IRS. Still,
based on wht I saw that night, the numbers she was quoting seemed believable.
Apparently, most of the girls have "regulars", customers who know when
they work and will come in and spend $100-$200 a night on them. This
astonished me, since the money doesn't buy anything remotely close to
explicit sex. Perhaps in the age of AIDS men are increasingly unwilling to
use prostitutes. Or perhaps men are not interested in buying sex, prefering
instead the illusion of intimacy.
Intimacy, I think, is really what is being sold. The DJ at the club
is constantly talking about getting the girls for one of those "intimate,
personal, private couch dances". And the girls don't just come up to
and ask for money. They sit and talk first, about themselves, about
you, about whatever you like. They understand that conversation
is part of intimacy, and from what I can tell they seem to enjoy it.
Quite interesting, really, the selling of intimacy to men, since the
standard line is that women want intimacy while men want sex. Life is
obviously more complicated.
I asked Paulina if the couch dancing did anything for her. Did it feel
sexy to wield that kind of power over men? From watching the stupefied look
on most of the customers faces while the women gyrated over them, it
certainly appeared as if the women could do with them whatever they
wanted. Did it give her any insights into men that she hadn't had
before? Her answer surprised me, in that she deflected my question by
saying that she really lived in two worlds, and that when she was here
she didn't think much about how she felt about men when she was on
campus, or indeed about her outside life at all. I said that I now
understood why she smoked (she had lit up as soon as she sat down
next to me). Despite being an obviously intelligent and athletic
young woman, when she was in the club she was someone different, and
it seemed more in character.
I asked her if her two worlds ever overlapped. Had she ever met
someone from UW in the club? It turns out that in fact she had met
one of her Chem TA's while she was working. They were both pretty
surprised, and took it good-naturedly. Usually, though, overlap
doesn't occur. Her mother knows about her job, while her father
does not. Most of her friends do, and she's certainly not ashamed
of it. Some of her high school friends are a little weirded out,
which I guess I can understand. Still, that got me thinking
what I turn-on it would be for me to find one of the popular girls
everyone lusted after in high school (which Paulina certainly would
have been) could be found taking it off in a strip club. I asked if
any guys she knew in high school had ever seen her strip, and she
said no. She grew up in a small town, far from Seattle, and didn't
think it likely.
I thanked Paulina for her time, but told her that it wasn't fair
for me to monopolize her time when she could be making money with somebody
else. I asked her when she was scheduled to go out on the main
stage, and made sure I was in the front row for her set. She
looked gorgeous, stripped naked over the course of five minutes,
flashed me a nice smile, and naturally I applauded loudly. I left
the club, and pondered my brief exposure to a new slice of the
human experience.
My night at Deja Vu taught me a great deal. I learned that showgirls
can make a large amounts of money by simply being close to men,
providing the illusion of intimacy without any physical risk.
I learned that a pre-med college student with a quick mind,
an athlete's body, and a fashion model's face can be a nude dancer
in a nightclub. I learned that being physically close to a beautiful
woman, even with no serious physical contact and even when it's
paid for, can be a powerfully erotic experience. All in all,
quite an evening.
V
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