Report: Strip Clubs in America Part 1/2

日本語版

This report documents the delights and possibilities of the American strip club – a cultural institution that is unequivocally American in origin. My objective was twofold: to explore the allure of this side of American nightlife, and to gain insight into the private lives of the women who work in these clubs.

January 21, 2026 – Arrival

I arrived at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) after leaving Manila, the capital of the Philippines. It took an unusually long time for my bicycle and gear to be unloaded from the plane. While I waited, I opened one of my social apps and started watching short video reels to pass the time. Usually, I scroll through videos absent-mindedly one after another, but this time, a particular reel captured and held my attention. It was a long reel which told the story of a man who meets a stripper. They started dating and eventually moved in together. They both get hooked on drugs, lost their home and ended up on the street. He was with the stripper for five long years of his life. But by the way he spoke, those were the best years of his life. That was the gist of it. Though it was a trivial story, it was a strangely foreboding American tale that tightly gripped my attention right til the end.

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To begin with, let me share my prior experiences with strip clubs.

When I was eighteen, I graduated high school and left London, setting off for Hawaii on a one-way ticket. There were few people of mixed Japanese heritage like me in London, and I assumed based on a motive unthinkable to me now that Hawaii would have a large population of Japanese-White, Eurasian people that looked like me. In London, there were white gangs, black gangs, Asian gangs, but no Eurasian gangs. My desire to “belong” was strong and stupid, as I was young and dumb. So, I moved to this remote American island where I knew absolutely no-one, in the hope of fulfilling a need to belong. On the night I arrived, I somehow managed to make it from the airport to Kuhio Avenue in Waikiki, the centre of action. As I walked down the street at night looking for a reasonably priced hotel, two white women in their twenties called out to me: “Wanna party with us?” It seemed to be too good to be true, and it was. In fact, the two women were prostitutes. Once I realized that they were soliciting me, I got spooked and left them in a hurry.

American culture was all so baffling to a young Londoner. One night, while I loitered outside of a 7-Eleven on Kuhio Avenue, a mature white lady approached. “Hey, do you wanna come to a strip club with me?”, she asked. She seemed non-threatening and nice, so, curious, I said “OK” and followed her. The strip club was located in a basement on Kuhio Avenue. That was where I was first exposed to American culture and the female form.

All this happened twenty years ago, yet I remember it so vividly. A row of anonymous men sat around a large, square table. The table was in fact a stage, with a single pole erect at its center. Following the lead of the lady who had brought me to this place, I took a seat on a stool by the table/stage. The room was dark, but red neon lights lined the horizontal edges, providing a cool, relaxed atmosphere. Seconds after I sat down, a song began to play. It was one by an artist I knew, but a track I hadn’t heard before: 50 Cent’s “Somebody’s Gonna Die Tonight.” Heavy bass pounded, resonating deep to my core. Then, a woman burst energetically from the back room and onto the stage. She was clad only in lingerie and wore thick clear plastic platform heels. Swaying her hips and kicking out her legs to the dark and heavy beat, she stripped off her bra and thong, captivating the audience. I glanced to my side and I remember feeling intensely relieved to see that the lady who had brought me was thoroughly enjoying the performance herself.

The dancer struck various poses. She seemed to notice that one punter – me – was unusually young. Honing her attention on me (I hadn’t yet tossed any dollar bills her way), she directed her dance right at me. She thrust her pussy right in front of my face! That was the moment I first caught scent of the ambrosia of a woman. Although I wasn’t a virgin, my experience with the opposite sex was limited and disappointing. I had not even had a girlfriend. So you could say I discovered the natural allure of the female for the first time in my life in that strip bar in Waikiki, Hawaii.

Since then, I seldom visited strip bars. Because my older American mentors taught me that squandering money on women like that was something only losers did. They’d say: “When you’re young, go out with older women because they’ll teach you a lot. Then, when you’re older and have money, go out with younger women.” It was sound advice. Yet, that first experience at a strip club was etched into my memory and left a lifelong impression.

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Ten years later, I met my friend “Kenty” – the infamous protégé of the North Korean pimpmeister who I wrote about in the first book of the Eurasian Odyssey. Kenty introduced me to the adult entertainment industry once again, but this time in Tokyo, Japan. I must disclose that I do owe Kenty a debt of gratitude. Through the company he worked for, he gave me my first contract just as I was starting out as an independent English teacher. The contract involved conducting English training for the company’s human resources: escorts and porn stars. Their office was located in the tight, seedy backstreets of Shibuya, in a tiny office that was always filled with gorgeous Japanese working ladies waiting on punters. My job was to hold English conversation classes for them while they waited.

But I didn’t care to simply teach English; indeed, I don’t even know how to. Instead, I introduced a training program that was culturally engaging, fun, and unorthodox. It wasn’t about teaching English language terms for sexual encounters, but rather of teaching the art of the American striptease – in English. I didn’t teach them striptease myself (obviously!), but I showed my students videos of American strippers and had them ape the moves. Under Japanese law, “delivery health” (outcall sex services) that involve genital penetration is illegal. Therefore – at least on the surface – the women had to provide a satisfying service to clients through other means. So, I trained them to mimic striptease moves using sofas and chairs like those found in “love hotels” where the women would go to meet their tricks. Girls who were confident in their bodies were delighted with my training program, gaining a new, almost supernatural level of feminine allure by way of American culture, though some were invariably too shy.

Going out at night with Kenty, we would often visit strip clubs (his idea and treat!). On a business trip to Osaka, we visited the “Apollo Building” – a hub packed with strip clubs. In Tokyo, we went to a hidden strip club in Roppongi called “Tantra”. At the Apollo Building, about thirty women stripped down and surrounded us and talked to us for drinks. While they were all nice and attractive, I was under the influence of elixir and couldn’t mentally deal with the sheer number of naked women. Here, quantity was prioritized over quality; it seemed to me that management didn’t understand the true essence of female allure – the presence in a man’s life of one woman he would gladly fight to the death for – and not two dozen random whores. Eventually, overwhelmed by the sheer number of sexy women, I got up and shouted at Kenty: “That’s enough!!!!” and stormed out of there, dragging him by the collar.

In this regard, American strip clubs have a far deeper understanding of what makes a woman truly attractive. Simply gathering an array of young girls to line up and dance all together crowds out the individual girl’s personality and charm, and they ultimately end up competing against one another for the male gaze, effectively canceling each other out.

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Later, in 2020, I left Japan at the height of COVID-19 to embark on the bicycle journey: The Eurasian Odyssey. Along the way, I allowed myself to visit some strip clubs (if they were open – there were many restrictions during COVID). I didn’t go all that often, but such venues did provide a cozy, welcoming environment to interact with locals, to gather information and to get a feel for the atmosphere of the city. I visited strip clubs in Tirana in Albania, Sofia in Bulgaria, Odessa in Ukraine, and Manila in the Philippines.

European strip clubs tended to mimic the American style whilst pointing to their fancy interior decor and premium pricing to project the image of a high-end service. However, the Europeans had very poor musical taste, and the atmosphere they created wasn’t all that relaxing because they were far more focussed on selling individual, private dances rather than having a girl take the main stage and dance for the room. Worse still, the dancers didn’t strip completely naked like they did in the States. Consequently, I visited European strip clubs primarily to gather information (about local COVID enforcement, etc), and I never had the kind of enjoyable experience that I did in America.

In the Philippines, however, I had a completely different kind of experience.

Thriller in Manila (January 20, 2026)

Before arriving at LAX Airport (the timeline takes us back to the beginning of this report), I was in Manila, Philippines. The reason I was in Manila was because I missed the direct flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles. But I wasn’t too disappointed about that. Because, thanks to my tardiness, I could re-route and catch another flight that transited in the Philippines – thereby giving an opportunity to meet up with my friend Kenty, who now resided in Manila.

Kenty was heavily dominated and mocked in the chapter Covidian Victimè in the first volume of the Eurasian Odyssey. He suffered much due to COVID. Devastated from losing his job and then getting openly clowned on in my book, he blocked me on social media for over two years, never attempting to reach out to me. Kenty lost everything due to Corona: his work and his self-esteem. He was so jealous of the adventures of the Eurasian Odyssey that he even flew from Tokyo to the island of Shikoku in the middle of the summer and spent several weeks engaging in a Japanese Buddhist pilgrimage through the woods there (called Ohenrō), wading through the shrubs carrying a heavy sack on his back. He went in a direction that I found difficult to understand: that by imitating the perambulating ancient monk Kuukai by visiting the 88 Buddhist shrines of Shikoku, maybe he thought he could emulate, or even usurp the legendary Odysseus. Not a chance, mate.

In any case, after he spent a few weeks meandering around the forests of Shikoku being a weirdo, Kenty was faced with the reality that he had to rebuild his life and career. So even as I was blocked, I consciously stayed out of his way to allow my friend to recover himself in peace. I always believed that he would eventually contact me when he was in a position where he could stand eye-to-eye with me. And finally, like clockwork, on the eve of the new year of 2026, I received a message from Kenty for the first time in two years. He must’ve finally felt confident enough to speak to me. Things must be going well for him.

And so, the flightpath I chose included an 8-hour layover in Manila. I grabbed a taxi from the airport to meet him in the lobby of the condominium where he now lived. It was a great reunion. It had been such a long time since I had seen this bastard! I presumed that he would have gained weight, but to my surprise, he looked slender and in excellent shape. Even though he was now 36 and we had both aged substantially, we were still like kids that wanted to play. First, I went with him to visit his new office in Manila which he had set up (a call center for a Japanese escort service), went to a Chinese restaurant, and then we went to get haircuts at a stylish salon in Trump Tower Manila. Then, as darkness fell, he took me to Manila’s red-light district, his specialty. His home turf.

We entered a bar/strip club called MAISON on Burgos Street at around 5:30pm. There was a little stage at the back where strippers could dance, but not a single woman was dancing. There were no customers. We headed straight for the sofa in the back and took our seats, when immediately, a number of topless Filipino women jumped out of the woodworks and crowded around us. Three of them surrounded me. Two were pretty average, and to be honest, I didn’t need them – but one was very sexy. She was in her early 30s, with lovely perky breasts and a pleasant scent. This girl rubbed her pussy against my thigh, but I didn’t say anything – I just reciprocated and pushed my luck. The sexy one clung to my left leg, while the other two clung to my right. They all badgered me in sync for drinks and tips, but I didn’t react at all and started fondling their breasts without uttering a word. Ignoring all of their constant requests, I just rubbed their nipples and smelled their scent. As I did so, they started feeling up my crotch with their hands and I became hard. Then, they stuck their hands in my pants, and I didn’t resist. I even helped; taking my dick out of my pants. I looked into the sexy one’s eyes and motioned for her to suck, but she didn’t go for it. But the other two to my right picked up the message and started sucking my dick right there and then, smack bang in the middle of the bar.

Kenty, seated about 50 centimeters to my left, was himself surrounded by four girls and a bartender. He hadn’t realized what was happening to me. I again made eye contact with the sexy girl, asked her her name (Apple), and told her to suck me too, and that I only wanted her. Apple then knelt between my legs and started working me right there.

At this point, Kenty finally turned to me and gasped in shock at what he saw. Within 3 minutes of entering the bar, I had three girls sucking on my dick. His big round eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets with excitement and fear. Fear, because he knew I only had 100 pesos in my pocket (less than $2USD), so he knew who would be footing the bill.

Apple was an attractive woman. Negotiating with her was interesting. Always nagging for tips and drinks, I never gave in – yet – I never said “no” to her either. My tactic was simple: evade the requests and escalate physical contact. The counterparty is a woman, and in this situation, she was already highly committed. Moreover, the 3 girls had already canceled out each other’s bargaining power through competition with one another. And on top of that, they all jumped at me – the one who didn’t have any cash! For the 30 minutes I was in this bar, I did absolutely everything to Apple save for having sex with her. When the waiter came around to ask me to sign the bill, I raised my palm and refused. This was a trap for noobs designed to make them commit their signature into paying a big tab.

I glanced at my left and witnessed Kenty signing his bill. Fool. He was made to pay 4,000 pesos (about $70USD). When it came time to leave, I gave Apple the only money I had – 100 pesos. She looked disappointed and said she wanted Japanese yen. Although I wanted her, sexually, I didn’t have time – I had a flight to catch, and this layover was only for 8 hours. I promised her that I would save her until next time because I was going to get on a plane to America tonight. I handed her a sole Japanese 1,000 yen bill (about $7USD) as a souvenir, and she was elated. She also gave me her phone number and invited me to meet up with her outside of work. As we said our goodbyes, she got on her knees and openly sucked my dick in front of her co-workers, which was a nice send-off.

Kenty who was already outside the bar and waiting for me, was overwhelmed with shock and awe. He said he’d never seen anything like that before. He was astonished even though he was the one who was supposedly a veteran of the escort industry and familiar with the ways and dark arts of women in this business. He was ecstatic that I, a mere English teacher, had received (practically) free blowjobs from three women. I laughed and explained that serious research requires the good researcher to be committed and to push any and all boundaries: meaning it was my duty to test those women to the limit.

We walked through the city streets at night all the way back to Kenty’s condominium, effervescent with elation at what had just happened at MAISON. This night was Kenty’s treat. “Thank you for the free blowjobs”, I teased. Together we analyzed how the situation had unfolded. I explained that I held an advantage, since the women started touching my body as soon as we sat down, giving me an excuse and an imperative to touch them back – and something as simple as a well-placed stroke or a caress excites them – and then the touching naturally and constantly escalates. As a result, all rules of business and bargaining positions that working women are supposed to maintain – go out the window. We are dealing with hot-blooded females, after all. Apparently, this is the most effective way for a man to interact with sex workers.

Kenty, my sponsor for the night, drew on his sage wisdom from over a decade of working in the escort management industry – and proudly explained his own negotiation strategy: “My strategy is to always say no to prostitutes!!!!“. A stark contrast to my own “never say no” strategy. Well, while he was busy saying “no” to the hookers, he ended up paying my tab as I enjoyed three blowjobs.

Manila was a real thriller. It taught me that at the end of the day, we’re all human. And business rules play second fiddle to human instinct. I felt emboldened to likewise try out more strategies at other bars in the future.

Allow me to rewind the clock to October 2025, three months before the beginning of this report.

I came to America on an initial probing visit to promote the Eurasian Odyssey. I got into the car with Leilani, an aunty from Mississippi who takes great care of me. We were about to embark on a road trip from Mississippi to New York, meeting her acquaintances along the way and promoting my books to them. On the long road east, in Atlanta, Georgia, there was a place that caught my interest, so I decided to take Leilani, who is 84 years old, to a strip club there. She protested, saying she had never, ever in her life even thought of partaking in such a seedy experience, but I insisted. I wanted to investigate an aspect of American culture that had earlier in my life given me pleasure and delight, so I forced her to accompany me to the famous Clermont Lounge, a popular and historic strip club.

Admission was $10. Beer is priced low at $4 a can. When I flung open the door, I immediately saw a petite, white woman with flowing chestnut hair shaking her ass on the stage. Her face was beautiful and exotic, her expression sombre as she casually danced on the stage. Punters threw in crumpled $1 bills her way. The music was great. Just the songs I liked. It strongly reminded me of the first ever strip club I went to in Hawaii 20 years ago. Rock music like Tool was played, as well as 00’s rap like 50cent. The volume was just right that I could enjoy the music whilst having a conversation.

The woman on stage (Cleo) was finishing up her dance, so I threw a final one-dollar bill in her direction. She noticed it, and came up to me after her dance and offered a private lap dance for $20. Since I had just entered the establishment, I politely declined at first, but promised to have her dance for me once I was properly settled in.

The other strippers who got on stage and danced were really bad. It was a shambles. Cleo bared everything, dancing completely naked, but the others didn’t even take off their bras. One was very old and her face looked terrible. Some of the strippers were obese, others were grotesque from bad plastic surgery and silicone implants.

I took Cleo’s private dance at a table in the back of the club. It was the great. What was curious was that we talked for about 15 minutes before her dance, even though the dance itself lasted only 5 minutes. She seemed to be a very sincere person and listened intently as I rapped to her about my travels and books: The Eurasian Odyssey. I told her of Sardinian olive oil and pure wine. The strip club provided an insouciant and friendly atmosphere where it was OK to have a chat with the girls. Many female patrons were also present, and they enjoyed themselves dancing to the music off-stage (though they kept their clothes on). I took two lap dances from Cleo that night.

After our first private dance, I liked Cleo so much that I told her I wanted her to dance for my friend Leilani, who was sat waiting for me at the bar. Excited, I ran to the bar and proposed my idea to Leilani – that I would pay for a private dance from Cleo for her. Leilani scoffed vehemently. An 84-year-old black woman, she said she would never accept a lap dance from a “nēkēd skinny white girl” . Her anger continued, as she protested that she wasn’t a lesbian. So, I sent Leilani out on a scouting mission instead. Because Leilani seemed to be prejudiced against strippers, believing that all strippers engaged in this work because they were the victims of abuse and poor upbringing, and because I thought that maybe women wouldn’t lie to each other, I asked Leilani to go and talk to Cleo to see if her theory of the abused stripper was true. Leilani returned with some answers: Cleo was doing this job to support her three children and to earn money to train to become a nurse.

Cleo was fascinating – especially since the other strippers were so comically bad. It was as if management had assembled all the extreme examples of female unattractiveness and then, as a joke, threw in a solitary beautiful, petite, perfectly-built young woman.

I tried counting the number of dollar bills being thrown onto the stage. The worst-looking, laziest stripper jigged about to three songs and earned about $25 to $30. Not bad.

In Cleo’s case, her stage dance was so mesmerizing that I couldn’t even count the dollar bills that were being thrown on stage at her. That’s how captivating she was, and that’s the difficult part. Beautiful women are so entrancing that you can’t even do something as simple as count bills. Indeed, during her lap dance, I couldn’t take my eyes, hands, or nose away from Cleo’s taut nipples, her graceful figure and flowing hair, the lithe way she moved her body, and above all, the ambrosial scent of her pussy.

Later, I saw Cleo giving a young white man a lap dance. He was drunk and kept touching her, making her visibly uncomfortable. I witnessed her warning him not to touch her while she’s dancing for him.

The moment I stepped out of the club after the night’s festivities, a wave of shame and embarrassment washed over me. I was unsettled by my own behavior inside of the strip club. I realized I was no different from the losers who sat there mesmerized by naked women, squandering their money on them – just as my American mentors had warned me 20 years ago in Hawaii. Did I really turn out just like them?

There had to be a different way to interact with strippers. What was it? I needed to find out.

The following day, I went with Leilani to a Starbucks for a debriefing. During our discussion, I concluded that my visit to the strip club had yielded a few valuable lessons:

・I had taken two lap dances from Cleo, with a break in between (even though Leilani reluctantly accepted my gift of a lap dance from Cleo, midway through it Leilani sent Cleo back to dance for me instead). During the second dance, I found myself totally stiff, unable to move. The reason was that, after her first dance with me, I witnessed the drunk white man getting a lap dance from Cleo; he was completely captivated, eyes wild with deranged excitement, and he kept trying to touch her ass – something she clearly disliked. The sight of it made me tense. After all, the club was her workplace, and management sets the rules. Normally outside of such an establishment, as a man, I would take the lead and touch my girl as much as I pleased. But in a place like this, I had somehow become convinced that, as a customer, I needed to strictly abide by their rules.

・Yet, during the first lap dance, I hadn’t worried about any rules. Indeed, I had caressed Cleo’s legs while she danced to the music, and she in turn turned around and grinded her ass against my chest – so it was OK to touch her. It was only during the second dance that I was affected by having seen Cleo dislike the drunk man’s touching. So during our second dance, when I briefly and unintentionally touched Cleo’s legs as she danced with her back turned to me, I impulsively let out: “Sorry!” Then, she stopped dancing for a moment, turned around, and asked with a puzzled look, “Why are you apologizing!?” In other words, that might imply that she had actually been allowing me to touch her all along. Perhaps she selectively chose which customers she lets touch her and which ones she rejects?

・During the second lap dance, I didn’t touch Cleo at all – or rather, I couldn’t bring myself to. I tried to figure out why. It was likely because I was intimidated by the club’s unwritten rules, and was being overly deferential to them. Outside the club, I’m the kind of guy who always takes the initiative and actively pushes boundaries – especially when it comes to physical contact. In any other situation, I’d lightly smack Cleo’s ass, blow on her genitals, and pull her close however I pleased – yet, inside the club, I was so nervous that I stiffened up. Consequently, I probably came across timid – both in my own eyes and in hers.

Emboldened by these lessons from the strip club, I continued the road trip with Leilani onwards towards New York. The events of that night, however, served as a sort of wake-up call, and I resolved to eventually return to the Clermont Lounge to complete my investigation of American strip clubs.

Lap Dances: $40
Cumulative Total: $40

February 7, 2026 – Clermont Lounge 2nd Visit

Allow me to take you back to the very beginning of this report.

I managed to organize a series of lectures on the Eurasian Odyssey at an educational institution in Mississippi. Upon arrival at LAX airport, while waiting for my foldable bike to be unloaded from the aircraft, I stood listening to the story of the stripper in the long reel I mentioned at the very beginning of this report. Once the reel ended, almost immediately after, I received the disappointing email informing me that all of my scheduled lectures on the Eurasian Odyssey had been cancelled (these were sales opportunities for my books). Depressed and unsure of what to do, I spent a week in limbo in LA before resolving to concentrate on my research work producing field reports on interesting subjects. And so, I bought an Amtrak 10-journey pass for $500 and boarded a train heading east from LA, leaving behind the stagnation of my situation. That’s how I ended up writing my report: The Amtrak Theory, instantly picking up a sexy belly dancer on the train. I slowly traveled from west to east across the United States before arriving in Mississippi. Leilani lives here, where she put me up for a few days. Leilani wholeheartedly supports my activities in America, helping me by introducing me to her extensive network of contacts. This woman was deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the southern states in the 1950s, and was one of the citizens that withstood the terror tactics of the infamous Ku Klux Klan, a group of racists who covered their faces with white cloth – eventually winning and earning the abolition of racial discrimination in the southern states – alongside figures like Dr. Martin Luther King. In fact, all of my canceled lectures were scheduled to be held in Mississippi. However, since the lectures were cancelled, there was no longer any reason for me to remain in Mississippi for a long time. I already knew that I could take a train from here to Atlanta. There was no hesitation on my part. I wanted to meet with Cleo again – the stripper I met last October – to learn the secrets of women working in strip clubs.

I arrived in Atlanta by train late at night on Saturday, February 7, 2026. After quickly assembling my folding bicycle, I rode to my hotel. It was already 00:30. After checking in and putting my luggage in the room, I immediately took out my bike and headed to the Clermont Lounge. It was pretty crowded on this Saturday night, and the admission fee had been raised from $10 to $25. When I opened the entrance door, Cleo was once again right there dancing on the stage in front of me, and everyone in the audience was watching her brilliant performance (there were about 100 people in attendance that night). After she finished dancing, she walked straight past me into the dancers’ dressing room wearing thick platform heels. Our eyes met for but a brief second, but we didn’t say anything to each other. It was dark inside the club, but it was definitely the same Cleo. Would she remember me?

After waiting for a while, she didn’t come out of the dressing room, so I had the security staff summon her by designation – that there was a customer who wanted a private dance. Soon after, Cleo came out of the dressing room to me:

J: “Hello. It’s been a while. Do you remember me?”
Cleo: “Yeah! I remember! How are you? You’re here again! Do you live in Atlanta?”
J: “No. I went around the world once, and now I’m back here in Atlanta.”
Cleo: “Oh, right! It was a motorcycle, right?”
J: “No, it’s a bicycle.”
Cleo: “Ah, yes, yes!”
J: “So, how about a dance?”

She looked a little nervous. She probably recognized me as a familiar man when she passed me earlier. Would she think I’m a stalker? Stalker or not, it depends on how attractive or unpleasant the guy is, but I had some business with this woman. I got three lap dances in a row from her and handed over $60. Cleo seemed to enjoy talking to the punter during her lap dances, so we gradually eased the tension as we conversed.

J: “You know, actually, I came here to do research into strip clubs. On the second lap dance you gave me last October, I accidentally touched your leg and apologized to you, do you remember? You stopped dancing, turned around and asked me why I was apologizing. That’s when I wondered: What are the rules here? Because, just before that lap dance, I saw you were giving a drunk white dude a lap dance. He tried to touch you and I noticed that you didn’t like it. So I was wondering what the rules were, and so I came back here to find out.

Cleo: “Oh, that’s right! The rules are basically no touching! But that’s not set by the store or the girl, it’s set by the state government. The legal definition of prostitution varies by state. In some states, touching is considered solicitation for prostitution, while in other states the laws are more lenient.”

Cleo spent 5 minutes explaining the laws of various states, but there was so much information that I couldn’t keep up.

J: “You’re very knowledgeable.”
Cleo: “Well I’ve been in the industry for 12 years now, and have worked at over 40 bars. I started when I was 18.”
J: “Hmm. I thought you were about 24.”
Cleo: “No. I’m already gonna be 30 years old this year.”
J: “Are you planning to work here until you retire?”
Cleo: “No! I have my own personal goals. Financial goals. Relationship goals. Career goals. I’m trying to qualify as a nurse. But it’s tough. Six years ago I lost my sanity with drugs and alcohol…but now I’m back on my feet.”
J: “I see. Well, I came back here wanting to be able to talk to you like this frankly and sincerely. Good, good. Well, that’s not all, actually. If I were to ask you if you would give me your phone number, what would you say?”
Cleo: (laughing) “Ummm… I would say that I wouldn’t be opposed to it!”
J: “Then, would you give me your phone number?”
Cleo: (giggling) “Hmm… I can give you my Instagram!”

We exchanged Instagrams. When I got back to the hotel that night, I messaged her, but there was no reply. The club was closed the next day, which was a Sunday, and I still hadn’t heard from her, so I seriously considered leaving Atlanta and going to my next destination. But in the end, I decided against it. I was here to do a job. For research. There was no way I could retreat from here without fulfilling the true purpose of this research (which was still a mystery at this stage, but the feeling was unfulfilled). So, without any guarantee of meeting with Cleo, I extended my stay in Atlanta and resolved to head back to the Clermont Lounge the following Monday night.

Lap dances: $60
Cumulative total: $100

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Monday night was quite empty. There were only 4 other customers besides myself. Cleo was there working. When she got on stage and saw me, she cheerfully greeted me with a “Hi!”. I threw a neatly folded dollar bill at her and hit Cleo in the forehead. Cleo cutely pretended it hurt and began her performance. After that, she came to greet me and we sat together, chatting a little awkwardly, then she asked me to wait a moment and disappeared into the dressing room for dancers. After waiting for over 30 minutes, wondering if she would give me a lap dance, Cleo came out of the dressing room, climbed onto the stage again and started dancing. I took out a gift I had bought for her from my pocket and waited for my chance. Cleo was on her knees, naked and swaying her curvy hips when I chucked a bag onto the stage in front of her! Shocked, Cleo inspected the bag and smiled, realizing it’s only a bag of Belgian chocolates – an early Valentine’s Day gift.

After she finished her performance, she came and sat down next to me and we talked with much more ease than before. I asked her for a lap dance. This time, I would not hold back. The two of us went to the back of the club. Cleo stood in front of me, removing her bra and thong and began dancing to the music. I caressed her petite body and slapped her ass – sometimes lightly, sometimes stronger. I put my nose right up to her pussy to smell her gorgeous scent. I really went for it. At one point, when she had her back turned, I stood up from my chair and let her dance for me while standing. Inadvertently or not, Cleo was grinding her perky behind against the bulge in my crotch to the music, feeling me for the first time. That’s when she finally turned and warned: “Quit. Please sit down”. “I wanted to know how far I could go”, I replied, without apologizing.

“I don’t mind at all, but if the other staff see, I will get in trouble later, so please sit down.” she said, gently.

After she finished her lap dance, I went for the next move. “Can I want to meet you outside of here?”, I asked. She told me she had free time on Thursday.

Lap dances: $60
Cumulative total: $160

＊＊＊

Thursday came, but I didn’t hear from Cleo. I guess that’s the stripper’s promise. The young staff in the lobby of the hotel where I stayed was steady observing my daily routine. I would stay in my room during the day, occasionally using the hotel gym. I really did nothing in Atlanta but go to the strip club. There was a happy misunderstanding when the staff asked: “Are you a UFC fighter?” I laughed. When I told him the true reason for my long stay in Atlanta, there was yet another happy misunderstanding: “So you will meet a stripper outside of her work. You must have spent quite a lot of money on her”, he said. I told him that I’ve had her dance a total of eight times for me and paid her only $160, to which he said: “Oh, if she’s willing to meet you outside of work and you’ve only spend that, then she must like you.”

It is important to know the world of American nightlife and the girls that work in it in the context of American culture. On the surface, American culture is all about money. The majority of rap music videos feature a rough-looking black man wearing a thick gold chain around his neck belting out intimidating lyrics whilst showing himself holding bundles of (presumably) drug money, surrounded by half-naked women. In fact, America is a society where people without money are essentially shit. The sheer number of homeless people and the squalid conditions you see them living in in any city you go to in America attests to the fact that this is a truly, truly ruthless society. Even so, just because you have money doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want in this country. The hotel staff may not have understood this at first, but distinguishing between intentions which are monetary and those which are pure is difficult, but necessary.

I finally got a message from Cleo on Thursday afternoon. “I’m sorry but I can’t meet you today”, it said. I had stayed in Atlanta for nearly a week without any guarantees, going to the strip club every day to see Cleo, but in the end, she wouldn’t meet me outside. Next on my schedule was a trip to the Caribbean to Trinidad and Tobago to research voodoo black magic “Obeah”. Yet, the greater question loomed large: what to do once that research is complete? Should I give up now, or should I return to Atlanta to Cleo after Trinidad?

End of Part 1/2.