A Way to Capture This

I don’t care how nice your city is, if more than a few hundred people live there, there’s going to be a bad part of town, with seedy drunks and past their prime men and women who ask in gravelly smoking voices, “How old are ya, sweetie?” with sickly sugar smiles. And how exactly Alex ended up on Randolph and Grand, the first street corner south where you could buy a night of fun, he wasn’t sure. But he had been drawn in by a building a block down from there, a building with a neon sign out front that read Desire with an I that flickered. The summer sky was just starting to darken when Alex’s watch read 9:30, and he hadn’t changed from his work clothes yet. He unbuttoned the top button of his black dress shirt and skimmed his hands over his jeans, then pulled open the dented metal door.

“Welcome to Desire, big boy.” A girl with blond curls and long legs in an itsy bitsy green bikini pressed herself against Alex’s side, trailing french-tipped nails down his chest and resting her head on his shoulder, leaving bits of body glitter on his shirt. “What can I get you - or who?” Her voice was remarkably low and smooth, but Alex’s skin crawled from her breath on his skin.

“Not a girl,” Alex said, stepping away and allowing himself to breathe, now that a girl covered in cloistering perfume and desperation wasn’t hanging on his arm. The girl, who upon further inspection he noticed had a pink butterfly tattooed on her lower back, turned away from him like he had been a waste of her time. Her hips, with the slung-too-low bikini bottom, led him up to a staircase.

“Upstairs, Star’s the first door on the right. There’s three guys in there, take your pick. They all like dick, like you.” She dismissed Alex up the stairs, and her hips swung side to side as she left, which Alex subconsciously and awkwardly imitated.

“Welcome to Star, because only a man knows how to treat a man right.” A muscly guy with tattoos and brown hair stood by Alex, waiting for two other guys in the room to stand. One was tall, skinny, and had some sort of skeleton tattoo stretching across his chest. The last boy was neither tall nor short, and moderately thin, with a lip ring that was shiny with spit. “Room next door’s free, take your pick.”

Alex pointed at the boy on the far right. “Come with me?” Lip ring boy stood and adjusted his tight briefs, black because really what other color would they be? Alex and lip ring boy locked themselves into the room next door, which was empty save for a bed with dirty sheets and a chair missing one wood slat in the back.

“Well then, twenty-five gets you a lapdances, fifty gets you head, and a hundred gets you top if you don’t tell the cops.” Alex hesitated. He had fifty on him, but he wasn't sure that was what he wanted.

“What’s your name?” Alex was searching for something to fill the silence, he supposed, as he dug through his pockets to produce a crumpled twenty and a five. He presented the money to lip ring boy with more than a little bit of awkwardness. It wasn’t his first time at a strip club, what twenty-five year old hadn’t been to one at least once, but he was nervous.

“Matt.” Lip-ring boy - Matt - snatched up the bills from Alex’s palm and folded them into his waistband. He moved to the corner of the room where Alex hadn’t noticed a little black stereo before. Matt bent to press play, his legs loose. A dirty, wordless beat filled the windowless room and Matt the lip-ring boy strutted easily to the middle of the room. He began to swivel his hips and put his hands up and down his chest, crossing over and letting his eyes slip closed. He dropped to the floor, displaying an ass that might barely rival a girl’s in fullness. He backed up and lowered himself to Alex’s lap, their height difference making it easy for Matt to put his hands up and around Alex’s neck.

Alex reached his hands around to Matt’s hips and held them gently, guiding his movements. Matt continued to grind against him, a light sheen of sweat shining against his skin, and Alex wished that he, too, was rid of his clothes. Maybe Matt picked up on that, or maybe it was at a point in the dance when it was the club’s policy to do so, but he bent to unbutton Alex’s shirt, opening it so that the expanse of his chest was visible. Alex pulled Matt against his waist and Matt grinded on him, slow and dirty. Matt was facing him now, and they made eye contact. It would have been almost romantic, had Matt not been almost naked, and low, hot rap filling the room. The music faded out softly, but Matt stayed on him, touching each other much more intimately than a prostitute and a customer maybe should?

Matt became aware of this after a few seconds and stood up, holding the door for Alex. “Thanks for visiting Star.” And Alex buttoned up his shirt and left with a curt nod, trying to ignore the boner in his pants. Because after all, he was at a strip club on a Thursday night, and even though he wished that it would last forever, it didn’t. He walked back past flickering neon signs and cigarette butts to a train stop, and he washed the sweat and smell of Matt off in the shower. When he laid in bed it was Matt the lip-ring boy from Star the gay club inside Desire who wouldn’t leave his mind.