Anastasia

I don’t often go to strip clubs.

Lately, my right scapula has been killing me. I had a rough day three weeks ago, and ever since, it’s been seized up, tight, tense, aching, throbbing, pretty much all I can think about. I’ve had a couple of massages, I’ve taken a ton of Advil, a ton of Tylenol, a ton of Advil and Tylenol, a couple of oxycodones, a couple of muscle relaxers, and a lot of weed.

It still fucking hurts.

Circumstances conspired to provide me with an opportunity to go to a strip club. My experience of strip clubs has long been that they suck. They feature lots of women with lots of silicone, and lots of Botox. Where I live, at least, the aesthetic in strip clubs is not well aligned to my aesthetic. The one thing strip clubs have to offer that I enjoy is what they refer to as massages. Massage girls in strip clubs.

Enter Anastasia

Anastasia (says she) is 37. She’s been in the United States for fifteen years. She’s from St. Petersburg and she’s worked at this particular club for ten years. “It’s a good company, a good place. Why work elsewhere?” 

She’s worked in every job there. She has a five-year-old son and she’s still with her baby daddy, who doesn’t like what she does for a living, but he tolerates it, because it brings in money. She works in the VIP room sometimes, with a select few guys, but she doesn’t tell her baby daddy. He doesn’t like that part of her work, but he does like the results – even if he doesn’t quite know it. They have better sex, she told me, after she’s had a good evening in the VIP room.

She told me she’s 37 and I believe her. I would have guessed she was younger. But. When she told me her age, I would (now) guess she’s older. Not because she looks older (she doesn’t – she could pass for 30), but because no one is honest about their age in a strip club. At least no women are.

A 37-year-old woman in a strip club is 45. Anastasia looks much younger than 37, but if she told me she’s 37, she’s 45. I would guess.

Anastasia

She’s 5’2″, maybe 5’3″. Her hands on my shoulders felt really fucking good. I didn’t notice any of the various naked women around me. My mind was fully in my body as she applied pressure, as she helped me ease the tension in my scapula. By the time I left, my shoulder felt almost normal. She told me she’d be there Mondays through Thursdays all month.

She seemed to hope I would take her to a VIP room.

My relationship to VIP rooms is mixed. If I’m with a date, they’re fun. If I’m on my own, they’re depressing. That’s mostly true of strip clubs too, although tonight, not so much. Tonight I was there for the massage. I got the massage. The massage was fucking awesome.

Anastasia is guarded, cautious, careful. In the first instance, she didn’t want to answer my question about whether she was still with the father of her 5-year-old, but as the massage progressed, as I disclosed a bit more about me, as I shared with her my blog, as I told her my story, she shared a little more too.

I don’t know much. I don’t know what the father of her son or daughter does for a living. I don’t know about her child, except that they’re 5, and 5 is a great age. I don’t know much about how she relates to her work, except that she has the jaded distance of someone who’s been working in a strip club for a long time.

In spite of that, I like to imagine that I pierced her defenses at least a little, that I got from her more than the average guy. Not in terms of sex, not in terms of touch, in terms of connection.

We talked a bit about St. Petersburg, where she’s from. I told her that when I was a teenager, I had tickets to go to St. Petersburg. Tickets that I allowed to be wasted, to go unused, because of a girlfriend in Seattle, who was a sure thing.

She told me if I’d gone to St. Petersburg, I surely would have gotten laid. I tried to communicate how unsure I was that she was correct. Back then, and even now, I told her, I just have never done a particularly diligent job of hooking up with women whom I don’t know.

We talked extensively about one-night stands. Not so much about her experience of them, but a bit about mine, and a bit about them in theory. I explained to her that, to my mind, a one-night stand is a disaster. If I have sex with someone once, I want to have sex with them again, and for fuck’s sake, if I don’t want to have sex with them again, then the first time must have been terrible.

Why would I want to have sex with someone I don’t know, what’s the point? Body parts just aren’t that interesting to me. Brains are. What’s hot to me isn’t my sliding my cock into her cunt. It isn’t my sliding my finger into her pussy. It isn’t my licking her clit or her sucking my cock. I mean, yes, all of that’s hot, for sure.

But none of it is especially hot in the absence of a good conversation, of a good connection.

2 comments

  1. Hey N. Likes! Your narrative about the encounter with Anastasia is both compelling and raw. The way you blend personal physical pain with the unexpected connection at the strip club is captivating. Anastasia’s guarded nature juxtaposed with the intimacy of your conversation adds a deep layer to the story. It’s fascinating how a chance meeting can evolve into a moment of genuine human connection. Thanks for sharing such an engaging and thoughtful piece—looking forward to more of your insightful stories!

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