Four Minutes

We had a flight scheduled the next morning for 5:30am to Liberia, and yet there was little resistance against where we planned to go that night. Ever since we arrived, we joked about the possible night life and the skirted around the prospect of finding something fun – business trip styles. And it wasn’t until Day 2 did one of us break down and ask what was on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

“So where are we going to find some girls tonight?” Carlyle blurted, his mouth half full will juicy local steak. I didn’t know if he was talking about hookers or club life. It’s normally hard to tell with my partner, but typically on business trips, I just assume he’s referring to hookers.
“Strip club,” George replied. “There’s some great places here, get yourself a Latina girl, and unlike the U.S., you’re allowed to touch. In fact, they encourage it.”

“Really? They don’t let you touch in the States. It’s hands to your side and don’t move.”

“CIA calls Costa Rica the ‘Client Nation,’ now you know why.”

Carlyle nodded as if he understood. I didn’t think he did.
$20 a song and a dance. Private room. It was standard price, but it was also the year of the credit crunch and spending that kind of money in Central America at the same rates as San Fran seemed ethically wrong especially for someone in finance. I indicated to the girl that I wanted just one song. She was cute, short, young looking but she had soft dark skin and big eyes. She looked Philipino with a small nose and round face. I’d find out later she was 21, and she had the bone stature of a teenager but fully blossomed booty. Then again, a full booty is standard issue in these parts of the world, so I remind myself that I shouldn’t be at all surprised.

The room itself was small and remarkably clean. Management obviously made a concerted effort to maintain an image of poshness. The lazyboy chairs out in the main room however made me feel like a fat American rather than a refined gentleman. They were deep leather bucket seats shaped like TV chairs they sold on the ground floor of department stores, and were specially hinged to rock like a rocking chair or an EZ crib. We were like adult babies rocking to the rhythm of young hot mamas on stage, mesmerized by mounds and curves. Old guys sat in rocking chairs. Fat guys sat in Lazy Boys. The dancing was full disclosure. I remember a line that some comedian said a few years ago, “9 months to get out of womb and the rest of our lives trying to get back in.”

Inside, the dancing booth was a short sofa built into the wall and a small speaker filling the room with the same hip hop remix playing outside. She dived right into the dance, turning around so that her backside came right up to my shoulders, a pair of perfectly round soft cheeks hovering close, jiggling up and down, bristling against my shirt; so close I could probably guess the tensile strength the red g-string hiding in the valley. Nelly Furtado was playing, "Say it right." I kept my hands to myself politely on my lap, but she pulled them from my sides and placed them gently on her thighs as she curled lower towards my groin. My hands were cold and from my touch, I could see the goose bumps on her skin, from the shoulders all the way down to the sphere of her young booty. She let loose a shiver and inhaled sharply. I apologized. She turned to look at me over her shoulder and dismissed it with a wave and a giggle.

It took me half the song to relax and allow myself to adjust to stranger in front of me. The smell of her perfume and hair was not stereotypically strong, and she was in fact a very pretty girl; I could tell she was friendly with no airs about her. I tried to take in the full view of her body, but I couldn’t fully settle into the moment. The last time I was in a strip club was about 7 years ago, and I thought maybe I was just out of practice, but it wasn’t that. It was something else entirely.

Something inside was holding me back from an otherwise very “guy” moment. I was distracted, and I felt thoughts and worries skitter against the walls of my consciousness. My mind was filled with clutter. I felt burning vile of stress pour down my chest and into the pit of my stomach like a bad shot of tequila.

I realized I was thinking about my life, all the changes that were happening, all the same time. Images of all my previous trips, the work, the numbers, the spreadsheets, the endless pitch books, my friends come and gone, family, death, swelled in my head. It looked like a mental monopoly board and me, a silver plastic board piece teetering across the squares, struggling between other players’ properties, houses and hotels towering over me. And yet it all seemed inconsequential. The deals, the travelling, the status, the shop talk, and all the small steps taken to build my mini-empire; all of it seemed to be reduced to nothing.

It was like an epiphany, but instead of elation, I felt morose.

The dancer took off her bikini top revealing two swelling teardrops, and with one hand, she pulled me in for a closer inspection, the smell of her hair rushing into my head. But I didn’t flinch, no chubby, no heightened senses, no twinge, no priapism on demand. And then suddenly, from having my head filled with everything, it evacuated and a quiet came over me, and there was nothing.

It was all nothing to me. And I felt nothing. Nothing mattered and I realised that was the problem.

I bought 4 minutes of her time, and it felt like years as my adult life flashed before my eyes. Maybe that’s because it was precisely how long it would take to describe the last 10 years at that moment. Four minutes. The second song ended and I left without saying thank you. I felt shitty and just wanted to go to sleep.