--Kori--
My acceptance letter arrived today. Three months left of the school year, and I'm holding my acceptance to my number one in my hands. I'm going to Harvard and it has just occurred to me, I have no idea what Will is doing.
Aside from Chemistry and English, Will isn't taking any of the same classes as me. As far as I know he isn't taking any AP classes, and I don't know if he's even applied to any colleges.
Instead of figuring that out, we're about to go to 'Pucker Up' and I couldn't care less about what he doesn't remember. What does he have to gain from it anymore? Why are we still exploring this insanity?
We drive up to the club whose parking lot was much more full than when we initially found it. It's pretty much a full house. I never realized the amount of desperate women that were in this town. I'm kind of worried my mom is here.
"Ready for this?" Will asks me, turning to face me with a reluctant smile.
"This is going to be hilarious," Samantha says from the back.
"Ready as I'll ever be," I say and open my door first and exit the vehicle.
The others follow me and Samantha seems ready to lead us to the door, Will and me walking slower than her. There is a bouncer at the door who's checking IDs and is also stamping hands or giving people wristbands. We all get wristbands. I assume this is how they differentiate between people who can and cannot drink.
We enter the door and are now in a short hallway that leads to a coat room next to a small flight of stairs going down into a room blaring 'Disco Inferno'. There is a woman working the coat check, mid twenties with black dyed hair reading a book, completely immune to the fact she's working as a coat check for a male strip club. I guess you can get used to anything. The woman raises her purple eyeshadow above the top of her book, and now I see she has a visible tattoo of vines on her neck and a piercing on her lower black covered lip.
Placing her book on the counter she smiles at Will and waves at him with just her fingers that I now see are all painted in purple and black alternating fingers. With all of the effort she's taken in making herself look this way, the girly gesture was incredibly awkward.
"I was wondering if I'd see you again," the girl says, leaning on the counter, cradling her chin in her hands while balancing on her elbows. Not another one. Please not another one.
"Take it he's been here?" Samantha says with a grin, leaning on the counter as well. Samantha is way too invested into this.
"The regulars have been talking about him for the last month. The Great Gatsby."
"Get the fuck out of here!" Samantha says with a laugh, slapping Will in the arm, "Did anyone film it?"
Without a moment's hesitation coat check girl pulls her phone out and starts scrolling through it. Of course there is a video. Why wouldn't there be a video? Why wouldn't we be here investigating this increasingly meaningless night.
I need to calm down.
"What song is that?" Will asks, leaning into the video as well, it nearly incomprehensible due to the screams from the audience.
Why do you care Will? Why are we here...calm, be calm. I think I'm more upset over the fact he doesn't realize I'm upset. That's hardly fair, he's not a mind reader. I know that isn't a rational complaint, and suddenly I understand my friends who have been dating much longer than I have. In latin, the difference between the words lunatics and lovers is only one letter.
"The Charleston, the song of the flapper," Coat check girl says with a grin. My curiosity gets the best of me and I lean between Will and Samantha. 'Pucker Up' has to have an incredible wardrobe department because Will is on the stage with a full 1920's suit, and I'm actually incredibly impressed with his dancing. Where did he learn this?
"You are dancing your ass off," Samantha says and Will frisbees his hat into the crowd to fanfare. Without missing a beat he undoes his tie and snaps it off his neck like a whip. Moving with the tie like a streamer he moves across the stage, the tie hitting the women across the face, before draping it around a cougar, sitting on the edge of the stage and pulling her face into the crotch. The crowd loses it.
"I would ask what you were on if I didn't already know," I say, not trying to be funny but that's how it was received. I feel my hand clench that he still doesn't realize.
"Not likely I'm going in there incognito huh?" Will asks.
"Like zero chance," Coat check girl says, "Have fun."
"Guaranteed," Samantha says, skips to the stairs and sits on the center railing before sliding down it. 'Disco Inferno' ends and the woman are getting their final cheers in before the MC takes the stage with the microphone. She's waiting for the room to settle down before she proceeds.
The space is a large open room with the tables and seats facing the stage that extends like a runway across the center. Along the edges of the runway are lights that shoot into the ceiling, creating pillars of light completing the ambiance when combined with fog. It's cheap but it's effective. Some of the main acts have additional props but for amateur night I doubt much of them have real production value.
The audience is about what you'd expect. Mostly older women, and by older I mean mid-thirties and up. Some college aged women are here too, but it's mostly the menopause brigade.
"God damn did it get warm in here, and I ain't talking about hot flashes!" The MC shouts, the room laughing and cheering. She's an older southern woman, far more redneck than southern belle. She's wearing tight black leather pants and a flannel shirt that plunges into her cleavage. Your imagination doesn't have to wander far to know the bottom is tied up toward the middle. Her hair is long and black with double braids, the left braid over her shoulder, the right behind it.
"Let's hear it for the hunk of burnin love again," She says and the women whistle and applaud, "He certainly bent the line between amateur and professional. Speaking of professional, we got a man here tonight, with a license to kill." A few women went whoo, but not the entire crowd.
"Are you ready to be seduced by a suave motha who fucks firsts and shoots when he's done!?" I assess the room is in fact ready. "Look toward the bar, because he's ordering a drink right now."
The lights suddenly and audible snaps off and the stage is dark. They snap back and the room is deathly quiet, but the void of silence is filled with the sound of approaching footsteps. The spot light snaps back onto the bar where the bartender is wiping the counter with a towel. The footsteps end when a man in a tuxedo approaches the bar.
"Sir, dry martini, shaken," the tuxedo man says with a decent but noticeably fake english accent. They must have planted a mic because his voice echoes through the room.
"Do you wish to open a tab?"
"I do."
"What's the name?"
"Bond. James Bond."
And the room goes insane.
---
--Will--
James Bond has an entertaining dance that is a choreographed fight scene where his opponent is the one ripping off his clothing. All to the James Bond theme.
I feel someone sit next to me, so I turn and see the MC who reminds me her name is Sweet Caroline. I imagine that's not her real name.
"Gatsby, audience or participant tonight. I'd have to get you in last, but I can wiggle you in."
"Audience," I say with a small laugh. It's fun, fuck you. "This may sound weird, but I don't remember being here..." I start and go into this song and dance for the billionth time. Maybe song and dance wasn't the best thing to say considering the atmosphere. Oh look, James Bond is now in only his bowtie and thong like a stereotypical dancer.
I look over at Kori who's half watching with Samantha who's drags her over to the bar, likely to get some ones. Samantha is having a blast and she's trying her hardest to get Kori into it. Kori looks back at me for a moment, and I can tell she's not amused in the slightest. She doesn't want to be here. All she sees is my lost night.
'I don't know how much further into your rabbit hole I can go.' I remember her saying.
We're pretty deep now.
Suddenly I have an idea.
"Caroline, I got an idea actually," I say with a grin, "You got some people in the back to help me out?"
"For you Gatsby, I can work it."
---
--Samantha--
I solemnly swear I will never make fun of women who go to strip clubs. This is a riot. James Bond wraps up his routine which was amazing. Kori doesn't seem to be getting into it. What a wet blanket. We can double team your boyfriend but you can't watch this show?
"Kori you seem bummed," I say, trying to find the root of the problem here.
"I don't need to be here. I have a boyfriend."
"Girl I got a husband waiting at home. Have fun, let your hair down," an older woman says to her.
"Thank you. Next guy who comes out, I need some woos from you," I say and Kori sighs and shrugs.
"Fine," Kori says and gives me a forced smile. "Woo." She says unenthusiastically. She's cute when she's being sarcastic by the way. "Where's Will?"
I turn to our table and Will is gone, Kori looking over at me for an answer. "I've been with you. Maybe he's getting ready to go on again."
"I hope not," Kori says and groans.
"I hope so. He's can move that ass. Part of you doesn't find it awesome you have a guy who isn't afraid to do shit like this?" I ask.
"He is though. That's ativan him. Real Will isn't that brave."
"Bullshit," I say, her eyes adjusting straight to mine. "Ativan Will is the real Will. Remove his fear and anger and anxiety and you get who he is. If Will is going on stage tonight, he's doing it for you. Just to show you that you guys aren't a fluke. That he can be brave without drugs. That if he met you sober, you still would have happened."
I see a small smile slowly starting to fill Kori's face. Her facade cracks and she laughs. There is something I love about her, and seeing her smile is part of it.
"As for letting your hair down." I say before I run my fingers through her hair and mess it up, "This should suffice."
A few more acts go on, Kori wooing and tossing ones on the stage until the MC Caroline takes the stage one last time for the final act. Fingers crossed, come on Will.
"That was going to be our last show for you, but we had a late visitor who decided to take you to Wonderland," she says, a few woman vocalizing their intrigue. Me included, come on Will!
"Some of you ladies might remember the Great Gatsby." From the eruption I take it they remembered. "Well tonight he's taking you down the rabbit hole." A ticking filled the room, and everyone got quiet to hear it. "What's that I hear, someone sounds like their late."
"I'm late, I'm late," A male stripper in nothing but his bowtie and thong with rabbit ears on his head. White rabbit, classy.
"Oh Alice, where are you!?" Suddenly the entire room wants to be Alice. Except Kori who's looking away before a spotlight finds her. "There you are!"
"What?" Kori asks as the dancer has an extended hand to pull her onto the runway. Kori took a half step back with hesitation and looked to me to help her, which was a horrible decision considering I immediately nudged her back.
"Get up there Alice!" I shout, and a few women join me in encouraging her. Not sure if humiliation or curiosity get's her on stage, but she's led to a chair and table that was set up discreetly between dancers. Already sitting opposite from her on the table was someone in a Mad Hatter hat. He's stirring his tea, or whatever it is looks up at Kori.
---
--Kori--
Jesus Christ Will, what the heck are you doing? First question is actually what are you wearing? Are you the Hatter?
"Why is a raven like a writing desk?" Will asks as he stirs the spoon in the cup I can clearly see is just water from here. I'm actually impressed he knows this riddle.
'Poe wrote on both' is a possible answer. 'There is a 'B' in both but an 'N' in neither' is another one, which makes no sense because there is an 'N' in both of them. Unless it's a misleading answer, referring to the 'N' in the word 'Neither' which is more likely because neither have a 'B' but the word 'Both' does. I'm fond of the answer 'Both have inky quills' as raven is often used to describe things that are blacker than black...I feel my mind is occupied on the wrong thing at the moment.
"When the raven is perched they're both stationery," I answer, even though I'm pretty sure it was rhetorical. A few women snicker, and I feel good knowing a few people got it.
I hear music start to play and I try to identify the song. My music knowledge is limited, so I don't recognize it, but it is Will's cue to dance. He crawls across the table, haphazardly knocking off other cups that I think are full of water that hit the runway and splash onto the women who absolutely love it. I laugh a little.
I still have no idea what the song is, but when the words 'baby take off all your armor..' was sung Will ripped his shirt off. I blush and look, laughing for real now and the woman are in entranced.
Will proceeds to strip in front of me to this song in front of this crowd and I can't help but feel he should be more embarrassed than me but I know that is not the case. Part of the chorus of the song goes 'take me to wonderland' so Will tilts the chair back and drags me before softly lying my back on the ground and dancing with his crotch above my head. If I said I wasn't turned on a little I'd be lying. I kind of forget the crowd is there.
---
--Will--
All of the dancers from the night are brought back onto the stage, standing more or less in the order we performed in. I'm standing at the very end obviously. Caroline selects draws tickets from a bowl one by one, each ticket correlated with a ticket an audience member has.
"Ladies, for the new comers, let me explain how our voting process works. If you're lucky enough to get your number pulled, you get to come on up on lay a kiss on whoever you think was the hottest, kinkyiest, sexiest man of the night," Caroline explains, holding up a tube of lipstick. The women get their woos out before Caroline draws. "61."
A tall brunette soccer mom with a huge rack comes on first, applies the lipstick and plants a kiss on James Bond. "Can't resist a man with mystery." Caroline says and draws "34"
One of the college ages girls get up, mildly overweight but still cute and plants a kiss on me.
"104"
"Fuck yeah!" I hear Samantha off all people shout and jump on stage. After all that celebration and she kisses a guy whose routine was dressing like a 1950s letterman athlete to the song 'Lollipop' by the Chordettes.
"Traitor," I say as she winks at me.
"I have to look somewhat impartial."
Five of the next seven kiss me, giving me six of the ten votes and thus the win. I win the prize money as well, which Caroline hands me after kissing a big red pair of lips into the bill.