I'm married. Is it cheating if I get a lap dance?" asks Mary, a plain 34-year-old with tight curly hair slicked back into a short ponytail.
"I don't know," I reply. "How would you feel about your husband getting a lap dance?
"If my man wasn't touching anything while he was getting a lap dance, I wouldn't consider it cheating."
"Then the same rules should apply to you."
"Then I'm going to go get myself some butt shake tonight!" she yells and flings her arms in the air.
We're standing about five feet from the dark stage at Martini Bar (5701 Sunset Dr., South Miami). Plush burgundy couches and a zebra-stripe half-moon bar give the place a clubby vibe that lacks the opulence of a place like Mansion. But hey, opulence would look ridiculous across from a Pottery Barn in the Shops at Sunset Place, South Miami's megamall.
It's 7 p.m. on a Friday, and Mary and I are among 50 rowdy Amazon women looking to chase away Excel-induced workday hangovers. We're here to see the men of LaBare (2750 E. Oakland Park Blvd., Fort Lauderdale), a strip club that provides lust for the labia. They're doing a special performance down here, perhaps to draw business to the South Miami lounge as well as the Broward club.
Having decided to join the mass flow of estrogen, Mary stares at the stage with two wide brown eyes. A stagehand lights a fire, and a shirtless Latin stallion walks over to the flames and kneels down. He dramatically extends his oiled chest toward the fire and then slowly brings it back, rolling his stomach all Shakira-style. Next he takes off his belt, sets it on fire, and whips it against the floor. He finishes off his act by gyrating around the flames and then prances off the stage — polyester trousers intact.
That's it?
He returns 10 seconds later with his pants still on, holding a bundle of rolled-up calendars picturing topless LaBare men in suspenders and bowties; one named Dominic has a pierced belly button. He throws them out into a dense sea of tight jeans and heels — the ladies are roaring like hungry tigresses. Then hosts CC and Ivy, from The DJ Laz Morning Pimp Show on Power 96, take the stage. One of them asks, "Are you ladies moist yet?"
No, CC and Ivy. No, I am not.
No dick-flapping? No pistol-whipping? No shy, overweight administrative assistant forced by her friends to endure the stench of ball sweat through some silly hot-pink sequin Speedo? Being that I am human, and not a cat, I don't grasp the concept of arousal caused by sexually questionable dudes humping the air around a fire.
Strippers do acrobatics as they slide down 50-foot poles and pick up bills with their crotch. On this night, in this mall, so far it seems we ladies are getting the short end of the, uh, stick.
Then a dumpy brunette in a long-sleeve lavender shirt and (what else) tight jeans, walks onstage with a stool and sits on it cross-legged. She giggles nervously.
"Girls make the show wack," Mary says as she turns around and heads outside for some fresh air. Through the open door, I can see the patio. A straight-up Greek bath of about 30 men waits patiently like scavengers for the show to end.
Onstage, a new hunk with an ample ass walks toward the girl on the stool. He licks his fingers. He licks her fingers. She rubs her nipples. He tries to lick his own nipples. He spreads her legs and replicates what seems to be choreographed cunnilingus to Britney Spears's "Piece of Me."
"Ugh," I hear a female voice behind me scoff, "this is gross." I turn around to discover a pretty twentysomething in a miniskirt. "Men aren't supposed to be sexy. This just makes them look cheesy."
Then a puppy's head pops out of her Dooney & Bourke bag.
"What are you doing with that dog?" I ask.
"I'm trying to sell it," she says.
Ahh, so this is what a strip joint in a mall comes down to ... peddling a mutt.
After the dancer has had his way with the girl onstage, he kicks her off and prepares for his solo. He turns his back to the audience, pulls down his pants, and reveals two firm (and shaved) butt cheeks scarcely covered by minuscule black briefs. He flexes one cheek and then the other, synchronizing with the beat. He starts out contracting to a slow rhythm, but once the song kicks into its climax, with beats aplenty, he has a full-on ass-quake.
"I love watching all that flesh," says Mary, who again stands near me, reeking of cigarettes from her 10-minute smoke. "I like getting the full experience."
"Full experience?" I ask, slightly perplexed. "But they never take all their clothes off."
"I think that is the best tease," she says with a mischievous smile, "because that will make me go to Fort Lauderdale and finish the rest of the show."
A stagehand approaches the butt-blaster, still going full force, with more calendars to pass out. The audience, of course, has a seizure — hooting, howling. The dancer stops, takes the calendars in one hand, and tries to hike up his pants with the other. Then he stumbles, accidentally busting the snaps that line the seams of his pants.
Looking embarrassed, his face as red as his ass must've been post-wax, he stands with his pants around his knees.
"Mary," I say as the music stops and men creep into the bar like hyenas, "I think he just saved you a trip to LaBare in Fort Lauderdale."
