Strip Club King

Gabe only meant to flip through the book before laying down to sleep. The other guys didn’t seem intrigued by it, even though the title alone was so fitting for their situation he wondered if it weren’t planted there for discovery by God. So he meant to flip through and investigate. But before long, flipping through became reading, the late night quickly turned to day, and Gabe hadn’t slept a wink. The unlisted author had such a voice, such a way of convincing the reader that everything he wrote was absolutely true; Gabe only read the first couple of chapters, but already he knew he’d had an epiphany.

He could hardly wait to go into the club that evening, so he grabbed his cell off of the bedside table and sent out a furious text to his fellow dancers. Gabe almost hit ‘call’ on Lana’s number, but saw the time and thought better of it. Instead, he laid his head down, forced his eyes closed, and willed himself to sleep just enough to keep him awake that night.

xxxxxxx

“Smith, Brendan!”

Brendan looked up from his sitting position at the sound of his name. A woman with short hair and a jacket with shoulder pads motioned for him to follow her. The pair walked down a row of cubicles before she ushered him into hers.

“Have a seat.” Brendan did his best to get comfortable in the plastic chair across from her desk. He pulled nervously at the tie around his neck.

“Mr. Smith, your resumé is full of experience, but it’s pretty limited-“ The woman flipped over to the second page. “We don’t exactly work with any employers for, er, your line of business.” She glanced up at him with one eyebrow raised. Brendan cleared his throat.

“Well, I was hoping you would be able to help me find a more… professional job, I guess. I mean, I definitely didn’t come here to, uh, stay in my old line of work.”

The woman stared at him for a moment longer before flipping back to the first page and opening one of her desk drawers. She rummaged through before pulling out a few paperclips and a date stamp.

“I can’t guarantee we can get you anything Mr. Smith,” Her voice sounded hopeful despite the less than great news for him as she adjusted the stamp to the correct date, “But we’ll do our best, as always.”

After fiddling with his resumé, the woman pulled one of her cards out of her holder. She scribbled on the back with a frilly purple pin.

“I’ll be in contact with you after I send it out. That’s my number, there.”

“Thank you,” Brendan looked at the card as he made to stand up, and flipped it to see what she had written on the back. The woman cleared her throat.

“That’s my cell.” Her voice was no longer professional, and Brendan looked at her face, meeting a smirk. “In case you need to make some money on the side.” She winked before shaking his hand.

Brendan walked out of the cubicle a little dazed, but put the business card in his pocket anyway, swapping it for his cell phone. There were no new messages, but a check of the time reminded him of Gabe’s early morning text. It was cryptic and almost nonsensical.

We suck. But I figured everything out. We need to meet EARLY tonight! Can you get to Starbutts by 4????

It was already almost 4 o’clock, and Brendan still needed to get back to his apartment, change clothes, and eat a late lunch. He finally responded to Gabe’s text, saying he’d be there as soon as he could, before getting in his Sedan and pulling into traffic.

xxxxxxx

“See? And then here, he talks about all kinds of different strategies and how women and men have different brains that don’t work the same, and how we have to do all of the work, and in this part he-“

Gabe was talking fast and waving his arms, flipping through pages and pointing to passages so quickly that Lana couldn’t keep up. Tyler and Michael sat on either side of him, nodding up and down with eager smiles on their faces like a pair of bobbleheads.

“Stop, stop stop stop.” She started waving her arms in between them, standing up from her desk. Gabe went quiet, a look of concern on all three of their faces. Lana sighed heavily and ran her hand through her hair. She’d had so much information thrown at her she couldn’t get her brain to stop spinning. She asked the only thing she could think of.

“Where’s Brendan?”

As if that were the queue line in a play, Brendan strolled into the room, smiling, then looking concerned when Tyler, Michael, and Gabe all jumped up at the sight of him.

“Uh, hey guys. What did I miss?”

“They’re trying to convince me to let you guys run rampant on this club for one more week,” Lana spoke up before anyone else, “And Gabe thinks that one week is all he needs to haul this place out of the negative.”

“Brendan, remember the book we found last night?!” Gabe pulled him into the group, shoving the book in his hands. “I swear, this thing is genius! The guy who wrote this is a self-proclaimed ‘Greatest Male Stripper of All Time’! I read the first two chapters, and everything he says makes sense! Look,” Gabe grabbed the book and started giving Brendan the same treatment he gave Lana, pointing to sentences and flipping around.

“It turns out, this place sucks because we’re terrible male strippers!” The way Michael said it sounded like he was talking about the discovery of the microwave.

“Well, not terrible.” Tyler spoke loudly, and grabbed the book. “There’s just a lot we can improve on. I never even thought of half of this stuff!”

“What do you mean? What were we doing wrong?” Brendan’s brow furrowed. He always thought he was pretty good.

“It’s all in the details. Look.” Gabe took the book from Tyler and started reading out loud.

‘Believe it or not, women do not go to the strip club to see men get naked. Women go to the strip club to see good looking men, dressed up and looking like male models, pay attention to them. They don’t want to see ordinary men. They want shiny, ripped muscles and guys in a uniform. They want to be entertained. They want YOU, the male stripper, to entertain them. And entertaining women is no easy task. There are steps you need to follow.-‘

“Steps?! Who wrote this, Chippendales?” Brendan interrupted Gabe’s reading session and took the book.

“It doesn’t say. But from what I read, he really knows what he’s talking about. No offense Lana” Gabe smiled apologetically, the other three following suit. Lana crossed her arms in front of her chest and had a stare-down with the four male strippers in front of her. They all looked so innocent with their puppy dogs eyes and hopeful smiles.

“Dammit,” Lana pushed off from her desk and moved to sit in the chair. The guys cheered. “You can have the week. Only because you four have been so good to me since I opened this place. I just hope you don’t end up costing me more than this is all worth.”

The boys had a jumping, cheering group hug before running out of the office. If they were going to be professionals at the end of the week, they had no time to lose.

xxxxxx

'The first thing I’m going to talk about, is embodying the male stripper. You need to be in love with yourself. You need to make these hens think they are not ever going to see any better than what they are seeing in your club. To achieve this, you need to focus on the little things. For one, body hair. Any woman can go home and look at her husband’s hairy back whenever she wants. When she goes to the strip club, she expects to see bodily perfection, photoshop style. You need to wax that shit. Your chest needs to glisten with oil like the cover of a romance novel. Another thing. You need to believe yourself that you are as good as it gets. Everybody knows women love confidence. You need to get down off of that stage, pick a woman in the audience, and seduce her with your confidence. She needs to look at you and believe that you are deserving of her thrown bills.’

“OUCH, FUCK!” Tyler screamed out, a mix between pain and nervous laughter, his hands pushed over his face.

“Hurry, now pat his chest to make the burning stop!” Michael, the resident waxing expert, put down the box and helped Brendan pat down on Tyler’s now smooth torso. Gabe put the book down next to him and picked up the bowl of hot wax.

“Who wants to go next? We better hurry if we don’t want to be red when we open.”

“Speaking of opening…” Michael sat down in hair next to the table Tyler was laying on, “We’re gonna need to practice all of this new stuff as we figure it out. And, no offense to Lana, but I think we need to find some other girls to do it. You know, during the day and stuff, like a test run. They can give us feedback.”

“That’s actually a good idea.” Gabe and the rest of the heads turned to Tyler, who was sitting up from the table.

“What?” Tyler’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“Don’t you have an ex-girlfriend who would love to let us practice on her and her friends?”

“Dude, she was here for her bachelorette party. She’s gonna be married this week. I mean, I might still be able to talk her into it, but-“

“I have someone.” Brendan spoke without thinking. As soon as he remembered, he thought it had to be destiny. “I know someone!”

A chorus of ‘who?!’s echoed as Brendan pulled the business card out of his pocket.

“This woman from the job search agency. She gave me her cell in case I ever wanted to strip for her!” Brendan pulled the card close, realizing he’d never gotten her name. Tyler and Gabe looked over his shoulder.

“You were at a job search agency?” Michael sounded upset. The guys were like his brothers; after all, you could only dance with other people in your underwear so often before you formed a strong bond.

“Well, yeah, I thought this morning that I was gonna be out of job! But this is a sign! Miss-“ Brendan looked at the card again, “Sarah Potter basically offered to pay me to strip for her today, and here we are, needing someone to strip for!”

“It’s settled.” Gabe stood up and grabbed the bowl of wax. “Brendan, you call Sarah. We have a ton of work to do. Tyler, start reading where I left off. We need to get sexy.” Brendan jumped up to get some privacy while Tyler picked up the book and found the paragraph they had stopped on. Gabe laid down on the table and held out the bowl.

“Michael, wax me.”