Backstage At Chippendales Read Free

a bit of a dump! Well, what nightclub wasn’t after all? I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door at the bottom of the covered stairs, which was obviously the main entrance.  The door was old, creaky, and not hung right--like the wood and metal door to an old schoolhouse or a barn.  It was still light outside, but as I opened this door, the darkness from the nightclub seemed to reach out into the daylight and grab me even in the waning sunlight. It smelled dank, and it was dead quiet, and then some indiscernible clanking.  I stood there for a moment, in the perforation between the day and I knew not what of night.  I had time still--I
     
     
    was early.  Well, I thought, whatever I’m getting myself into, I’d better get to getting into it, then.  I’m not doing myself any good standing here with one foot in and one foot out. So with that, I stepped into the darkness, and began climbing the dimly-lit staircase in front of me, the heavy door slowly creaking shut behind.  I was keenly aware, then, of each waning milli-section of daylight as that door swung slowly shut, and finally, clank! There it went.  I was on the third step, climbing ever higher on the stairway to heaven or hell, I knew not which.  I could tell, even in this horribly-lit stairwell, that the red carpet was so full of gum, dirt, drinks, pukestains and whatever, that you could only tell what color the carpet actually was by looking at the sides of it.   Yeechh! Better turn those lights down a little further, I thought.

Chapter Four
My Job “Training”
[Or Lack Thereof]
     
    So 34 steps later (I counted them one time), I reached the top of the landing, which turns to the right and there’s a couple of velvet ropes, a podium, and a dark hallway, which I begin to cautiously walk down, when all of the sudden I hear “Scuse me” from my left.  I turn, and here’s this plexiglass window with a booth behind it, and a pretty, middle-aged, black woman with what might aptly be described as “huge” hair and nails behind it. “Uh, hi, I’m Greg…I’m supposed to start work here tonight,” I stammered. The woman replied, “Oh, I figured that, honey, I’ll tell you what to do. My name’s Geneva.”  Geneva and I would spend the next half hour or so talking, but she would never come out of the booth, nor even get up from her chair. I couldn’t have told you if she were five foot or six foot tall, but what I could tell you was that she surely was my best friend for the moment.
    “Now honey,” Geneva  began, “You’re gonna be the front door Greeter…so, when the ladies come in that door, and up those stairs, they’re gonna want to come on in to the club.” 
    “And I let ‘em in, right?” I replied. 
    “Nope!” Geneva began laughing, “You’re just gonna keep ‘em there and keep ‘em there and let ‘em pile up and pile up, until the line runs down those stairs and out that door, and all the while they’ll be screaming to get
     
     
    in…and you keep makin’ ‘em wait until I TELL you , and THEN you start lettin’ ‘em in, one party at a time, and I charge each one of ‘em, and THEN they can come in!” 
    Omigosh, I thought, “So, what am I supposed to do while they’re all in line waiting?” 
    “Well,” Geneva says slyly, with a furtive wink and a knowing nod, “THAT’S…up to YOU.” 
    Omigosh, I think again, you’ve GOT to be kidding me, THIS is my orientation?  THIS is my preparation for entertaining not just one woman, but throngs of them? Jeez, not just entertaining them, but somehow fulfilling fantasies for them…being ‘fantasy-man’ for an entire crowd of pumped-up, man-hungry women?!?  THIS is IT ?  A FRIKKIN WINK AND A NOD FROM A BIG-HAIRED WOMAN NAMED GENEVA IS SUPPOSED TO BE MY GUIDEBOOK ON HOW TO PERFORM THE IMPOSSIBLE?
    Not to be ungrateful for her thoroughly explicit and detailed instructions (NOT!), I think, but… “Um, Geneva...are there any of the guys here that I can talk