Going to a bar with some friends somehow turned into going to a strip club with about ten other graduate students. I will state here that I hate strip clubs: in my work I know teenage girls that strip because they need the money. I see stripping as an institution that exploits the poor. Cheyenne’s view of strip clubs was a lot like her view of the Virgin Mary tattoo: if a man went to a strip club it was vile and a form of oppressing women, but if a woman went it was reclaiming female sexuality. This was, of course, total bullshit but I didn’t say anything.

Over drinks I said I wasn’t going to go the strip club but Cheyenne’s friends managed to convince me. I said I would go on the condition that I not have any lap dances. I should mention that this strip club was not an ordinary strip club––it was something of a landmark featuring women who were too fat, too old, or missing too many teeth to work anywhere else. I think this helped to fuel whatever feminist justification Cheyenne had for going to the strip club.

I found the strip club incredibly boring. I wasn’t bothered that the strippers were ugly—which they were, but I was bothered that I had to keep smiling and giving them money so as not to hurt their feelings. Also Cheyenne had not brought her wallet and in short order I given her the entire contents of my wallet to give to fat naked grandmothers.

At that moment a woman came up behind me and told me to “turn yer chair around.” She had been paid to give me a lap dance. The lap dance went on for something like six minutes. The stripper had only two moves: shoving my had between her tendony shriveled breasts which resembled beef jerky; and getting on her knees to pretend to give me a blow-job. The stripper was missing four teeth and I had no interest in oral sex for a long time after this experience.

It turned out that the lap dance had been financed by a short and devious little man who we’ll call Marl. Marl is about five foot nothing and has never so much as looked me in the eye. I’ve never really had the chance to speak with him but Marl is basically a maggot that walks on two legs.

I left after the lap dance. I didn’t storm out or tell anyone I was pissed. I just said I was tired and needed to go home. Cheyenne got home at 4am, having stayed in the strip club until it shut down. She climbed into bed with me reeking of cigarettes. The next morning I got to nurse her hangover which was considerable.

After the strip club I noticed that all of Cheyenne’s grad school friends started acting differently around me. They seemed vaguely uncomfortable whenever I was around and I couldn’t figure out why. Cheyenne and I had a house party and when her friends came over I could sense something was wrong: everyone knew something that I didn’t and it made them uncomfortable.

End of Part 3. To be continued. Soon. Part 1 | Part 2