Soon a cocktail waitress in requisite white shirt and black skirt approached us.

"Hi, ladies," she said cheerfully. "What can I get you?"

"Hi," I said, feeling apologetic. "How about a Sierra?"

"Calistoga?" Carol squeaked, and I shot her a look. "I'm not much of a drinker."

"Well," I said, after the waitress disappeared, "how do you feel being the only women in the room that aren't working?"

"You are working," she reminded me.

We sat there for a while, the mime and the Eskimo with our drinks, watching the interactions that were being played out around us. "Such a power structure!" Carol commented, and I was about to ask her if she meant the men, or the women, or the security or the club owners. (But I realized it didn't really matter who she meant -- each group had power or didn't have power, depending on your perspective.) Burly men in tuxedos paced around like the Secret Service. Cocktail waitresses chatted among themselves, or with the dancers. Nobody bothered us -- no one even looked in our direction.

"We're invisible," I said finally. It was gratifying in a way, watching all these men watch all these women, who each corresponded to a certain female stereotype: the exotic Asian, the bodacious African-American, the fat bad girl, the skinny snooty dancer, the elegant courtesan. The club was a strange mixture of sleaze and civility, with private rules and dress codes and tightly run security and money surreptitiously changing hands. It was not in the least bit a turn-on.

"I'm sure they think we're together," Carol said dryly. She turned to me suddenly. "Where's your friend?"

I'd forgotten all about Vickie. In fact, I'd even forgotten to call her beforehand. Now I wondered if she would scream if I saw her here. Perhaps she'd think I was stalking her. This must be how men feel, I thought: paranoid about how an innocent action might be perceived by a woman.

We went upstairs to the "VIP" room, where a man finally asked us to remove some clothing: He was the doorman, and he told Carol she couldn't enter unless she took off her hat. It was more of the same, but with more warrenlike rooms off to the side: dancers straddling men's legs, shaking their bare breasts and G-strung asses in the men's faces, talking with them intimately, stroking their shoulders and thighs. Music from the stage show thumped loudly, making chit-chat too difficult unless you were sitting right next to your interlocutor.

I was beginning to understand how this all worked. The women ran the show and if the men didn't like it, well, then they could leave. But most seemed perfectly happy with the arrangement -- all were "good boys," wagging their tails, forking out 20s and 50s, overjoyed that a beautiful, sexy woman of their choice was paying attention and being nice to them. Just what Vickie said. In some ways it was all so sterile and unspontaneous, but in other ways it was much dirtier than she'd described -- more skin, more bare asses, more mock sexual intercourse being played out on the floor. But of course to her, it was all business. Naturally she'd describe it in terms more fitting to an office environment than how Carol and I perceived it.

"There she is," I said, as Carol and I started to make our way out, after an hour. Vickie was in a skin-tight ankle length white Lycra gown, her hair piled on top of her head, delicately weaving strands of angel hair pasta around her fork as a couple leaned in on either side, talking intimately into her ear. I wondered if I should wave, but Carol looked at me as if to say, "Don't."

Outside, Carol unlocked her bike and tugged her hat back on firmly. "You know, that was like a dream," she said.

I knew exactly what she meant. "It's like the dreams when you do outrageous things -- pee in your shoe, sleep with your disgusting neighbor, fly to Azerbaijan to visit your childhood home -- that feel completely normal during the dream but when you wake up you think, 'What in the hell was that?'" She nodded and we said our goodbyes before she pedaled away into the night.

I waited for a cab in the brightly lit entrance. A man -- one of the well-groomed suits -- emerged from the club, eyed me and very deliberately stepped in front, looking for a cab. I started to seethe: How typical -- guy goes to one of these clubs, pays to have some semi-naked chick feign sexual interest in him, then comes out here and is going to jump the queue and unchivalrously steal my cab.

But a yellow taxi roared up and he stepped away, ushering me to it with his hand and smiling. One of the burly tuxedo guys sprang into action and opened the door. I thanked him and jumped in, wondering if perhaps I just wasn't meant to understand this gentleman's club idea, that there was a reason that the private code would remain, for me, always elusive.
SALON | April 29, 1998

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