I type in the words Canyon Ranch Spa.
As the page loads, I’m instantly impressed. This place is stunning. Outdoor Jacuzzi tubs, palm trees…This is romantic at its best.
I look heavenward and utter, “Thank you, God.”
Hours later, I can’t sleep.
Beside me, Charles is lightly snoring. He hasn’t touched me, of course, despite the red negligee I’m wearing. I know priests who couldn’t resist me in this outfit, yet Charles is painfully oblivious.
I stroke his arm. “Charles.”
He doesn’t move, so this time I shake his shoulder. I don’t care that it’s two in the morning. I want to make love, or at least talk to him.
“Charles.”
“Hmm?” he finally mutters.
“Sorry to wake you up,” I tell him. But I’m not. I need to talk to him about this, and it has to be now.
“What is it?” he asks in a sleep-filled voice.
“I was wondering…wondering if you might be able to take some time off work soon.”
“What?”
“There’s this place I found out about, and I’d like us to go. It’s in Arizona.”
Charles groans. “Can’t we talk about this in the morning?”
“I guess so…But I’m excited. Do you know when you will have some time?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you check tomorrow?”
“What’s this about?”
Now I hesitate. “It’s about us reconnecting. Going away together so we get out of the routine we’re in.”
“Oh.” He pauses. “Can I go back to sleep now?”
My heart is beating hard as I edge my body closer to his. It shouldn’t be, damn it. This is my husband. I should feel one hundred percent comfortable holding him in the night, comfortable slipping my body onto his, comfortable taking his penis into my hands…But I don’t, because I’m afraid he’ll reject me.
Slowly, I slip an arm around him, settling my hand on his warm stomach. My fingers tease the hairs around his navel.
I don’t realize that I’m holding my breath until Charles does something that he hasn’t done in a long time.
He places a hand over mine.
A surge of warmth rushes through my body. I release the breath I was holding on a low moan. The ache inside me is so intense as I trail a finger down past his belly button, straight toward his groin. I feel the mass of hair and already I’m getting wet.
Finally, Charles and I are going to make love.
I cover him with my hand and as soon as I do, he covers my hand again. I press my lips against his shoulder. “Oh, Charles…”
He pries my fingers off of him.
“Ann, it’s two in the morning. I’m tired.”
I stifle my moan of disappointment as I roll over, but I can’t stop the tears filling my eyes.
I’m obviously desperate.
That explains what I’m doing here this afternoon, at my sister’s workplace, instead of at my studio developing the film I’m supposed to. I absolutely hate coming here, because I don’t agree with my sister’s lifestyle, but I have to face it—she gets laid and I don’t, so there’s clearly a thing or two I can learn from her.
Despite the eighty-five-degree weather, I’m wearing a scarf wrapped around my head, and the biggest, darkest sunglasses I own when I walk into the Pleasure Dome, the club where Samera works. When I called and didn’t get her at home or on her cell, I figured she had to be working, because even if she’s on a hot date, she always answers her cell.
The club is dark and smoky, just the way I’d expect a place like this to be. In the middle of the room, a large stage is illuminated with fluorescent blue lighting. For a Wednesday afternoon, I’m surprised that there’s more than a handful of men in the place, and I have to look around to find a table that’s unoccupied. It’s to the very far right of the stage. I keep my eyes focused on the table as I head toward it.
Only when I’m safely seated do I check out the stripper onstage. The woman performing has long black hair and is wearing a garter belt with no panties. The garter is stuffed with cash. I suspect the long black hair that hangs to her ass is a wig. Probably a French maid’s outfit, I think with chagrin, remembering my embarrassment over how Charles completely rejected me.
The woman does this lazy sexy-type walk to the pole onstage. She wraps a leg around it and does this gyrating thing against it, as if it’s a huge penis. I watch her, both mortified and fascinated by the way she moves. After swinging around the pole, she eases her body forward and presses the pole between her very large and obviously fake breasts.
Finally, I slip my sunglasses off, because they’re straining my eyes in the dimly lit room. Surreptitiously, I watch the guys watching her. No man in the place can take his eyes off her. And I have to say, there’s something about the way she’s using the pole that is utterly erotic. Funny, I can see what she’s doing as erotic today, as opposed to before, when I saw it all as filthy and sinful.
Gripping the pole with both hands, the stripper bends her body backward with the ease of a contortionist, giving the guys what must be a delicious view of her heavy breasts. Oh yeah, the men are mesmerized. I even see one of them lick his lips.
Maybe I need to get a pole like this in our bedroom. Surely Charles couldn’t reject me if I were to do this sort of seductive dance. The idea seems absurd, but it’s not half-bad. I could get Samera to teach me the basics…
Now the dancer slides all the way down the pole until she is on the floor. On all fours, she does this catlike crawl to the edge of the stage. It’s all part of her routine, but I can’t help chuckling at how she collects the pile of cash on the stage. A few more extended legs and back arching and gentle caresses of some men’s faces, and then the stripper gets to her feet and makes her exit.
My eyes dart around the club. There are a few topless women working the floor, serving drinks, but my sister isn’t one of them.
The slow music comes to an end, and the loud, pulsing beat of Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty” fills the club. The next stripper, with wild blond hair and wearing a red leather minidress unzipped to her navel, hurries onto the stage brandishing a whip. It takes me only a moment to realize that it’s my sister.
Her skirt is so short that as she passes me, I see more of her ass than of the red leather. She’s also got these thigh-high shiny black boots on, the kind with spiked heels that must be at least four inches. How she even walks on those things let alone dances in them is beyond me.
The men hoot and howl in appreciation, and Samera slaps her whip against the stage. I glance away. Oh, Sammie. Why do you do it? Why make yourself an object like this?
When I look her way again, money is flying onto the stage. A lot of money. Which pretty much answers the question of why she does it—or at least that’s what I like to tell myself.
Because I know Samera also loves her job. Long before she got paid to take off her clothes, she got off on wearing skimpy outfits and watching men’s reactions to her. She especially had fun with our mother’s second husband, teasing the poor guy until he broke down and screwed her. My mother kicked them both out, screaming about how they’d both burn in hell for what they’d done. I figure that Samera had heard so often that she was going to burn in hell, she figured she might as well enjoy the rest of her life in the most explicitly sexual way possible.
Doing