Erin looks at herself in the bathroom mirror, feeling dejected. She hasn’t slept well the past few nights and she has bags under her eyes. She rubs on a moisturizing cleanser, then brushes her teeth while the cleanser works its magic. She splashes water on her face and re-examines herself in the mirror. Pretty much the same. Though she refuses to believe she’s no longer attractive.
She lifts off her shirt, unclasps her bra. She turns to the side to look at her profile. Her large breasts slope down like miniature ski jumps; the undersides form soft curves. There’s a slight droop, but nothing more than you’d expect from 34Ds. She flattens her hand and places it palm up against the bottom of her breast. She raises her hand, lifting the supple breast, then quickly releases her hand and watches her breast fall back to its natural, teardrop shape.
She turned thirty-two last month. Sure, she thinks, she could afford to lose three or four pounds, but she’s tall, large-breasted—the few extra pounds are barely noticeable on her frame.
“Erin, are you coming to bed?” her husband Mark says, raising his voice so he’s heard through the closed bathroom door. “I have to get up early for work tomorrow.”
She opens the door and leans her head out. “What the hell? I thought we were going to Newport tomorrow.”
Mark is sitting up in bed, the covers pulled up to his stomach, his reading glasses on. He reads Sun Tzu’s The Art of War for Corporate Managers. “I know...sorry. We’re busy at the office. They need me to come in. What can I say?”
She shuts the door emphatically. Her dejection turns to irritation as she again faces the mirror. She isn’t irritated simply because he’s cancelled their plans for tomorrow. It’s been building for months, perhaps years. She still loves Mark—she wants to love him, more than anything in the world—but things have changed so much. She’s not sure what’s happening to them.
When was the last time they’d even had sex? Almost two weeks ago. And then it was probably because it was her birthday. It took no more than fifteen minutes and was more procedure than passion, which has become the standard.
She raises her arms over her head, her breasts rising in sync. She sways to the left, then the right, trying on a few sultry expressions. She brings her arms down and corrals her breasts between them, squeezing the pliant mounds together. She gives the air a provocative kiss, then laughs at herself, realizing how goofy she must look. You bet I’m still sexy, she thinks, as she clicks off the bathroom light and walks across the room to her side of the bed.
She walks slowly, watching Mark out of the corner of her eye to see if he looks at her. His eyes remain latched onto his book. She steps out of her jeans, her underwear. She doesn’t usually sleep nude, though she’s begun doing so more often. She gets under the covers and snuggles up to her husband. She runs her hand over his T-shirt, then under his T-shirt and up his stomach, her fingers snaking through his chest hair. He closes his book and puts it on the night table, puts his glasses on the book. He turns to her and kisses her. She kisses him back harder, brings her hand to his face and kisses him harder still. He holds her wrist and brings her arm back to her side.
“Honey, I’d love to, but I’m tired. I really have to get some sleep. I have to get up early tomorrow.”
“I know,” she says.
He leans over and turns off the lamp. She rests her head on his shoulder, tracing patterns with her finger on his chest.
* * * * *
“I’ll make it up to you tonight,” Mark says, knotting a tie around his collar. “Justin and Colleen are having people over, but we can go out, just the two of us—we’ll do whatever you want—and maybe swing by their place later on.”
Erin hasn’t yet gotten out of bed. “I’m working tonight. At seven.”
A disgusted look flashes across Mark’s face.
“What?” Erin says.
“You know what I think of that...that job. I can’t even call it a job with a straight face.” Mark shakes his head and looks away from her, finds his watch on the bureau and puts it on. “It’s so...it’s...kind of embarrassing. I mean, people ask me, ‘So, what does Erin do?’ And I have to say, ‘Oh, you know, she’s a clown.’ For God’s sake, we’re not kids anymore.”
Erin had taken a few theater classes in college. They’d stirred her interest, and when she graduated—nine years ago—she decided she hadn’t yet had her fill. She took a few more acting classes and performed in several local theater productions. She’d had to get a job that gave her some flexibility. She was planning on doing some waitressing, until she came across a job performing as a clown at kids’ parties and events. It wasn’t a long-term career move, but it allowed her to pursue activities she considered just as worthwhile, and she enjoyed performing tricks and funny acts for people, making them laugh. It had now been almost two years.
Then Mark asked her to marry him. She’d known him since their freshman year in college, had been dating him since junior year. He was everything she wanted in a man: strong, loyal, responsible, yet with a healthy wild streak in him. She didn’t have to think twice; she said “Yes” on the spot.
They’d driven cross-country to visit friends in Los Angeles that summer, and had stopped in Las Vegas along the way. They came across a vintage, used-clothing store and were browsing the wares when Erin saw a 1920s flapper dress complete with feather boa.
“Oh my God—look at this. I have to try this on,” she said.
She put the dress on and spun around in front of a three-sided mirror, kicking her leg back, her arm extended, her hand flattened and bent back at the wrist.
“How do I look?” she said.
“You look like you need to be kissed. And often. By someone who knows how,” Mark said, mimicking Clark Gable. He tilted her back over his arm and kissed her long and hard.
She found him a gangster-style zoot suit and, the dressing rooms being occupied, he changed right there in the aisle, Erin acting as lookout. They held each other in front of the mirror.
“Let’s get married,” Mark said.
“We are…aren’t we?”
“I mean, let’s do it here. Let’s get married here, today.”
She looked at him with surprise, then jumped into his arms, nearly knocking him over.
They bought the clothes, wearing them out of the store, and found a small, white chapel with a neon sign out front: “Weddings, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Witness provided.” They were driven in the chapel’s limousine to the marriage license bureau, also open 24 hours, then back to the chapel where a non-denominational pastor, with a handlebar moustache and cowboy boots, conducted an impromptu service. They made love all night long and left for Los Angeles late the next morning.
Though only a four-hour drive to L.A., they stopped after an hour and a half and got a room in a cheap motel to make love again. After another hour of driving, they pulled over to the side of the dusty, desert highway—instead of spending more money on a motel—and made love in the front seat of the car as traffic whizzed by at eighty miles an hour.
Those days seemed like they would last forever.
“Do you remember when we got married?” Erin says as she sits up on the edge of the bed.
“Of course I remember.”
“I mean the first time…in Las Vegas.”
Their parents had made them have a formal wedding ceremony when they returned from their trip. But they always celebrate their anniversary on the date they married in Vegas.
“Why would you ask me that? Of course I remember,” he says. Then he adds, “Thank God those days are behind us.”
Erin sounds annoyed. “Why thank God those days are behind us?”
“That’s not what I mean.” Mark sits down beside her, putting one arm around her shoulders and a hand on her thigh. She puts her hand on his and holds it tightly. “I just mean...we’re so much better off now. Thank God we’ve made it. Those were great times, of course they were, but we wouldn’t want to live like that now.”
She looks from his eyes to the floor. “I guess not.”
Erin had decided, around the time they’d married, that she would have to get a higher-paying job if they were going to make a life together. She thought her performance background might lend itself to a job in sales. She got a position as an employment recruiter and did well, though over the years her enthusiasm waned. She found it increasingly difficult to feign excitement about a prospect’s multi-tasking skills to potential employers.
Unsure of what he wanted to do and finding nothing appealing, Mark had switched jobs several times his first few years after college. Shortly after they’d married, he found an entry-level position in a boutique brokerage firm. He wasn’t sure about it at first, working long days and studying for the series 7 and 63 license exams at night, but Erin gave him much-needed moral support, encouraged him when he considered giving up. He soon passed his exams and moved swiftly up the company’s hierarchy. He assimilated himself to the position more fluently than Erin did to hers. His personality’s rough edges, which Erin had found so charming, became more polished. Material possessions took on a heightened importance. A certain amount of spontaneity was lost.
“Will my car be ready today?” Erin asks.
Mark puts the finishing touches on a gelled hairdo. “I’ll call the shop, but I don’t think so. They said Monday or Tuesday, most likely.”
“I’ll need to use yours then.”
Mark doesn’t say anything. His objection to her job hangs silently in the air between them. He finally picks up his briefcase and walks over to her.
“I’ll be home by 6:30.”
He kisses her on the cheek. She turns to kiss him back, but he’s already stood up and is walking towards the door.
“Bye,” he says without looking back.
“Bye.”
When, three months ago, Erin gave her two-week notice at the employment recruitment firm, no one was more surprised than Mark. She had quit abruptly without considering what she would do. After a week of browsing the classifieds and the Internet, and wondering what might appeal to her, she dug out pieces of her old clown outfit from a box in the garage. She filled in the rest at a costume store and called the agency that had supplied her with clown gigs seven years earlier.
She explained to Mark that she’d get something more career-oriented soon, that she wanted a break, to maybe take a class or two, to reassess things. Mark suggested an MBA degree, but she wasn’t too sure about that. She said she’s think about it.
Now, two months later, she still hasn’t made any definite decisions. He can’t understand what she’s doing, says that she’s wasting time, acting foolish. She feels the Mark she married seven years ago would have understood.
* * * * *
Several containers of face paint are scattered around the bathroom sink. Erin applies a white base, rosy red cheeks, tall black arches for eyebrows, some blue around the eyes. She feels phony when she paints a beaming red smile over her lips and up past her dimples, but then she remembers what compelled her to perform as a clown again, and the character begins to set in. It gives her an outlet to escape the buttoned-down demeanor that has gradually and insidiously seeped into their private lives. A genuine smile grows underneath the painted one.
She wears a pair of snug-fitting cotton shorts and a tight T-shirt that exposes plenty of midriff. She becomes aroused just looking at herself— her eyes trail over her breasts, across her exposed stomach, down her long legs. Then she looks in the mirror and sees the clown face attached to her body. The dichotomous being is a strange sight. She imagines it might work as a B-movie: Attack of the Sex-Starved, Man-Eating Clown Women. She tries to sneer like a sex-starved, man-eating clown woman might, but the painted smile hides any expression she makes.
Those aren’t the things to be thinking when going to entertain a bunch of kids, anyway, she thinks, as she slips into her clown costume: a billowy red jumpsuit covered with white polka dots and three yellow cushy balls, like buttons, up the front. She ties up her long brown hair under a curly yellow wig, notices the time—almost 6:30—and throws her bright red nose and oversized yellow, plastic feet into a bag and waits for Mark on the front stoop.
At 6:35 she calls his cell phone.
“Hi, honey,” he says. She hears the noise of a crowd in the background.
“Mark, where are you? I told you I need the car tonight. I’m working at seven.”
“What? Can you speak up? I can’t hear you!”
She says it again, this time almost yelling into the phone.
Mark pulls his silver Audi into their driveway at ten minutes of seven. She jogs down the walkway and, seeing as he isn’t getting out of the car, gets into the passenger’s seat.
“We closed a really big account today,” he explains as they drive, rain drops beginning to dot the front windshield. “A few people went to celebrate at McCormack’s. I guess I lost track of the time.”
She doesn’t want to get into an argument so says it’s no big deal, and though she’s slightly miffed, she tries to sound enthused about his closing the account. She changes from her sneakers to her clown shoes as they drive, not saying much for the remainder of the ride.
“What time do you want to be picked up?” Mark asks as he pulls into the customer’s driveway at five minutes past seven.
“They booked me for an hour and a half, so about 8:30. Are you going back to McCormack’s?”
“I’ll probably swing by and have one more beer.”
“Just don’t forget—8:30, okay?”
“I won’t. Bye, honey.”
Erin says bye and runs as fast as her clown feet will carry her to the front door, shielding her painted face from the rain. She hears Mark’s car accelerate up the road as a guy with a shaved head and goatee, no older than 24, opens the door. He gives her a perplexed look and says, “You’re the entertainment?”
“That’s me, Dotty the Clown,” she says in a happy and energetic voice, though she thinks, How often do clowns come to their house?
“Dotty? Huh. Well, I’m Matt. Come on in,” he says, letting her in and leading her down a hallway. As she follows him into the house, a prickling sensation dances underneath her skin, all her troubles washing away, the identity of a joyous and carefree clown taking their place.
She hears deep voices coming from another part of the house. She follows Matt around a corner and into a large, rectangular-shaped living room. She stands in the opening along one of the long walls. To her immediate left are an empty chair, and an entertainment center with a large-screen TV—showing a Red Sox game. Two guys sit at a red-felt-covered card table in the center of the room, one is dealing to the other. Another guy sits in a love seat to her right. Across from her is a long couch, occupied by two more young men, flanked by end tables and plants, with a coffee table in front of it. Matt joins the two on the couch. They’re all around the same age—early twenties.
As Matt sits down he points his finger like a pistol to a thin guy with dirty-blond hair at the opposite end of the couch. “That’s Brian—the birthday boy.”
She pauses, confused. Someone turns down the volume of the baseball game. There are beer bottles scattered around the coffee table and card table. The voices quiet down as attention focuses on her.
“I thought we asked for the French maid,” someone says.
“A clown? That’s kinda weird.”
“It’s what’s underneath that counts.”
“True, true.”
“You’re the birthday boy?” Erin asks, looking at the dirty blond. “Aren’t you supposed to be, like, five?”
He looks as confused as she is.
“You are the strip-o-gram, right?” Matt asks.
“The what?” she says, a feeling of lead weight supplanting the carefree attitude she’d felt only moments before.
“The strip-o-gram. Party-Time Entertainment? We ordered a strip-o-gram for a twenty-first birthday. You were supposed to wear a French maid outfit.”
“I’m from Party-Time, yeah, for a kid’s fifth birthday party,” Erin says. “Not a...whatever you said.”
“Oh, man. You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Matt says.
“You guys ordered me a stripper?” asks Brian.
They confirm that, yes, they did order a stripper, but there has apparently been a mix-up with the address. Various groans of disappointment shoot around the room.
“Party-Time does clowns and strippers?” a guy wearing a baseball cap over a shaggy head of hair asks.
“Apparently so,” Erin says.
One of the guys calls Party-Time to explain what’s happened. “It’s an answering machine,” he says. He starts to leave a message explaining the situation when several guys in the background chime in with increasingly louder volume: “Hey, what’s going on? We want a stripper.” “We wanna see a naked girl, not a clown.” “You suck Party-Time!” “We want big tits, not big feet!”
Erin looks down at her large, yellow feet and begins to feel awkward just standing there.
“That went well,” the guy who made the call says, hanging up.
“Umm…sorry about the mix-up, guys,” Erin says. “But I guess I’ll be on my way. Hope you have a happy birthday anyways.” She waves and receives a few waves and Byes in return, and she turns and walks to the front door.
She opens the main door and looks out the screen door at the rain pelting the street, the walkway, and the tops of cars. She takes her cell phone out of her bag and speed dials Mark’s number. His voice mail answers. She hangs up and immediately tries it again, gets his voice mail again. “Mark, it’s me, I need a ride, like now. There was a mix-up and I’m at the wrong house. Call me as soon as you get this.” She walks outside onto the steps and closes the door behind her. She tries Mark again, gets his voice mail again.
She stands as close as she can to the house to try to avoid the rain, but it’s not working. She looks at the raindrops splashing off her yellow, plastic feet. She feels it soaking through parts of her costume. She waits outside for five minutes before deciding this is ridiculous, and steps back inside the door. She thinks of whom else she can call, then dials her friend Loralie, whom she has forgotten is visiting her parents in New York this weekend. She calls Mark, gets his voice mail. Frustrated, she exhales deeply.
“Are you still here?” Brian walks down the hall toward Erin with two bottles of beer in each hand.
“Yeah. I’m so sorry. My ride isn’t supposed to pick me up till 8:30 and I can’t get a hold of anybody.”
Brian shrugs as if to say no big deal. “You can sit inside if you want.” He walks up to her and looks at the floor. “I think you’re letting in water.”
“Oh, sorry.”
He reaches around her and closes the main door. “We won’t be heading out to the bars till nine or ten, so whatever. Just take off your, ah...feet. They look kinda wet.”
She looks at her big yellow shoes, glistening with rainwater. She feels uncomfortable, unsure of what to do. She can’t stand here in the foyer for an hour and fifteen minutes. She can’t wait outside in the rain. Where the hell is Mark, she wonders. Is she really going to sit with a bunch of college-aged kids in her clown costume? Does she have a choice?
Brian walks a few steps down the hallway then turns to see if she’s coming. She kicks off her clown feet and follows him in her red-and-white-striped stockings.
“Can I use your bathroom?” she asks as they near the end of the hall.
“Yup, it’s down here.” Brian leads her in the opposite direction of the living room. “Right in there,” he says, extending an arm toward the open bathroom door.
She steps inside and closes the door. She doesn’t have to use the bathroom, but wants to compose herself, maybe call Mark again. She dials his number. “Mark, where the hell are you? Why aren’t you answering your phone? I need a ride. Call me, okay?”
She hangs up, puts her phone in her bag and takes a deep breath. She doesn’t want to look at herself, but she inadvertently catches a glimpse in the mirror, sees the glowing red smile that now looks utterly preposterous. She remembers when she was a freshman in college and there was a dance in her dorm. It was a week after they’d moved in, a way to get to know other people in the dorm. She was the only one to dress up for it. She wore a fancy black dress while everyone else wore jeans, T-shirts, sneakers, even flip-flops. She felt completely out of place, just like she does now. She’d met Mark at that dance. She was going to go change, but he and a few of his friends told her not to. Instead, they went and got dressed up themselves, and several others followed suit. Though she wouldn’t officially begin dating him for almost two more years, she’d felt an attraction to him from that very first night.
But Mark isn’t here, and he hasn’t made her feel like that in a long time.
She opens the bathroom door and steps into the hall. She hears someone in the room across from the bathroom. She peeks in and sees Brian going through a desk drawer. She steps in.
“Is this your room?”
“Yeah. Kind of a mess, I know. My folks are away and I don’t clean too much when Mom’s not nagging me to do it.”
Erin looks around—an unmade bed with clothes piled on it, a cluttered desk with CDs strewn across it, Radiohead and Reservoir Dogs posters on the wall. She walks further in and surveys the CDs.
“No way,” she says, picking one up. “You listen to the Pixies? I used to listen to them all the time in college.” She remembers the frenetic rhythms and piercing guitar riffs. When’s the last time she’s even heard a Pixies song, she wonders. Probably not in five or six years.
“Yeah, they’re pretty cool. They just got back together and toured again, or at least played again,” Brian says.
She puts the CD case down and looks at Brian. He’s cute—tall and lanky, narrow face, scruffy billy-goat beard. But definitely cute. He tells her that he and Matt, his older brother, are home from school for summer vacation. Their parents are away and Matt decided to take advantage of it and have a small gathering before heading out to the bars to celebrate Brian’s twenty-first birthday. He wasn’t aware they’d ordered a stripper.
Erin and Brian laugh together at the odd situation.
“Hey,” Brian says, “at least you’re not the stripper that showed up at the kid’s birthday party.”
She begins to feel comfortable talking to him, almost forgetting she’s in a clown costume, but then he says, “I better take these in before they get warm,” and picks up the four beer bottles he’s set on the desk. She follows behind him, bracing for the drunken crowd.
“Hey, it’s the French M— Nope, it’s just the clown again,” one of the young revelers says.
“It’s the clown!”
“And the beer. Plant one of those over here.”
“Hey, fellas,” Erin says tentatively, and takes a seat in the unoccupied chair on the left.
Matt has joined two others at the card table. Brian distributes the beers and sits on the couch next to the shaggy-haired kid wearing a hat, whom Erin learns is named Jesse.
“You couldn’t stay away, huh? I sometimes have that effect on women,” Jesse says, and then promptly receives several jeers and put-downs.
“That and the fact that I can’t get hold of my ride,” Erin explains.
“Do you want a drink?” Matt asks Erin. “Brian, did you even ask if she wants a drink?”
“Oh, shit. Sorry,” Brian says. “Do you want a drink?”
“No thanks. I’m good.”
The three guys at the card table concentrate on their card game. Brian, Jesse and the guy on the love seat watch the baseball game and talk, occasionally tossing a question at Erin, though mostly she just sits quietly, unobtrusively.
The Red Sox have started a rally, and, with the bases loaded, the card players pause from their game and turn up the volume on the TV as everyone focuses their attention on the baseball game.
“Come on, Varitek, you bum—earn your ten million.”
“One time. Come on, one time.”
Erin isn’t a big baseball fan, but their enthusiasm is infectious, and she finds herself hoping the hometown team will get a hit and score some runs. After fouling off several pitches, the Sox batter hits into an inning-ending double play. The guys hurl boos and curses at the screen as the volume is turned down and the card game resumes.
“So if you don’t take your clothes off, what do you do?” Jesse asks Erin.
She isn’t quite sure how to answer that one. Her intonation reflects her puzzlement at the question. “I, ah, act as a clown.”
“I mean, you don’t just stand there. Do you do tricks or something?”
“Oh, well, yeah.” She laughs, reflecting back to his original question, as if taking off your clothes was the foremost entertainment option. “I have an act, ya know, I do jokes and things, some physical comedy.”
“Let’s see it,” Jesse says.
“Yeah, let’s see it.”
“Let’s see your act.”
She considers it and then shakes her head reluctantly. “I…don’t think so.”
“Boooo!”
“Ripoff!”
She senses a good-natured kidding in their heckling, so laughs, and says, “Really, it’s geared towards little kids. I don’t think you’d be too interested. I have balloons though—that you make into shapes and things?” She says it like a question, not sure how interested they could possibly be in that either.
“Oh, yeah? Can you make a dog?”
“How ’bout a duck?”
“A French maid. Can you make a blow-up French maid?”
“I can start with the dog,” she says. “The French maid might be a little too advanced for me.”
Matt stands up and walks towards the kitchen. “Are you sure you don’t want a drink?” he asks her. “It’s Brian’s twenty-first birthday. How can you not celebrate that?”
They seem nice enough, she thinks—a harmless and friendly group of guys. And, between this and everything else, she really could use one. “Since you put it like that,” she says. “What do you have?”
“Beer, rum. I could make a rum and Coke. Vodka. We have orange and cranberry juice, some 7UP.”
“All right, how ’bout a vodka-Seven?” she says.
“Comin’ up.” Matt disappears into the kitchen.
She blows up a few balloons and quickly twists them into a reasonable semblance of a dog. She stands up and hands it to Brian.
“For the birthday boy,” she says.
He passes it to the guy sitting on the love seat. “Caleb, you can have the dog, since you’re in the doghouse.”
“Oh, yeah?” Erin says. “Whatcha do?”
As she sits back down Matt walks in and hands her an icy drink in a tall, clear glass.
“I don’t even wanna think about it,” Caleb says.
“And you were gonna watch a stripper tonight?” Erin says to Caleb, shaking her head in mock condemnation.
“I wasn’t, I swear. I was gonna leave the room.”
Erin sips her drink and contorts her face so much that it’s even visible through the painted smile.
“Too much vodka?” Matt asks.
“Just a bit,” Erin says.
Matt goes into the kitchen, returns with the bottle of 7UP. She holds her breath and takes a few swigs to make room so he can pour more soda into the glass. The drink is nice and cold, but she feels the alcohol immediately—her head feels lighter, a shimmering wave ripples through her body. She sets the drink aside and resumes her balloon twisting, making one that looks like a court jester’s hat, then, as the hat is a big hit, two more that resemble baseball caps. The guys wear the balloons on their heads as if they were normal, everyday baseball caps.
“How did you start working as a clown?” Brian asks.
“Does it pay a lot?” someone else says.
She answers their questions as vaguely as possible, not wanting to venture into the area of her marital problems. Though the thought stirs in her head: Is that what they are—marital problems? She never envisioned herself as the type of person that would actually have marital problems, and the thought that, yes, that’s what they are, is a depressing one. But the vodka-Seven and the group of guys, who she finds she kind of enjoys the company of, help take her mind off Mark.
Their questions engender more questions until, finally, Caleb shouts out from the love seat, “How come you don’t work as a stripper?”
“Yeah,” Jesse says. “If I could get paid to take off my clothes, I would.”
“What a nasty thought,” Brian says.
“Well,” Erin says, “I guess the world needs all kinds—clowns and strippers. I just happen to be a clown.” She reaches for her drink and takes a small sip, then a larger one.
“A philosophical clown,” one of the guys at the card table says.
She’s not sure how philosophical a remark it was, though several beers probably lower the requirements.
“By that logic,” Matt says, “you could just as easily be a stripper.”
“You could,” Jesse says. “You very well could.”
“Have you ever worked as a stripper?” Matt asks.
“Ah, no,” she says definitively. Though there was that one time just after college when she was looking for work. A friend danced at a club and made good money doing it. She had gone to the club one evening to check it out, thought it seemed exciting. All those guys gawking at you, throwing money at you—it looked like a big ego boost anyway. But there was Mark. She was in love and decided not to test its limits.
The Red Sox start another rally, but this line of questioning proves more interesting to the guys.
“But would you?” one of the guys at the card table says.
She hesitates before answering. She isn’t really sure. She hasn’t thought about it in so long. It had seemed exciting back then, but that was a long time ago. Sure, her life isn’t brimming with thrills nowadays—but stripping?
“No…no, I don’t think so,” she says.
Her hesitation is all the encouragement they need.
“Oh, you totally have to do it.”
“A clown stripper—that would be so hot.”
“Way better than a French maid.”
“Come on…pleeeaasse do it.”
Erin laughs dismissively at the idea. “I don’t think so guys, really. Balloons I can do, but I’m afraid the costume stays on.”
Her insistence doesn’t deter them.
“How much do you make being a clown?” Matt pulls a wad of bills out of his pocket.
“The stripper we hired was gonna charge two hundred, and we could probably get some more together.”
“It’s really not the money,” she says.
“Are you wearing anything under that costume?”
“Ah, yeah,” Erin says.
“What are you wearing?”
“Has anyone asked you to be a stripper before?”
“Are you hot?”
She rolls her eyes, somewhat exasperated, though also faintly amused. Their questions, though course, have a tone that is more naively innocuous than threatening. She knows she shouldn’t dignify the last one, but a sense of pride wells up inside her. Even if Mark has lost interest, she knows she is pretty damn hot.
“Yeah,” she says. “I’m not too bad.”
“Oh, man.”
“We gotta see.”
“Do you have big…ah, are you, ya know?”
Her laugh cuts off the stumbling question. Their eagerness over the possibility of one naked girl makes them seem more like adolescents than twenty-somethings, but she finds it oddly charming.
“I guess I’m…well-proportioned,” she says.
“You so gotta do it.”
She feels their eyes upon her, their attention enveloping her. For a moment she is leery, but she hasn’t felt this kind of attention, this sexual desire, focused on her in some time. Though it’s just a group of drunken college guys, it feels good.
“It’s Brian’s birthday,” Caleb says. “He got his hopes up that he was gonna see a stripper just to have them come crashing down.”
“His birthday’s totally ruined.”
“Look at him. Look how sad he is.”
Erin looks at Brian, who flashes an exaggeratedly sad puppy-dog expression.
“And only you can fix it.”
“It’s all up to you.”
Erin smiles amusedly, not only because of the guys’ desperate attempts to convince her to take her clothes off, but because she can’t believe she’s actually considering the idea, or at least imagining what it would be like to do it.
“Look,” she says, trying to momentarily focus their attention on something else, “I think the Sox are winning.”
They’re not; it’s a tie ballgame. But a few guys do glance at the TV.
“How’s this,” Matt says. “If they hit a home run this inning, then you do it.”
What are the odds of that? she thinks, shaking her head.
“How about if Ortiz hits a home run?”
“Yeah, if Ortiz hits one out then you have to strip for us.”
She doesn’t know much about baseball, but she knows the odds of one person hitting a home run on one specific at-bat aren’t too good.
“And what do I get if he doesn’t hit one?”
Matt pauses and thinks. He holds up the pile of bills. “You get the money. You get paid to sit there and drink our vodka.”
“Are you crazy? That’s two hundred dollars,” Caleb says.
“So what?” Matt says. “We were gonna give it to the stripper anyway.”
“Let’s go for it.”
“Ortiz could jack one.”
“Whatta ya say?” Matt says.
She probably wouldn’t take all that money from them for one lop-sided bet anyway, but the excitement of putting so much on the line is starting to get her revved up. She doesn’t think there’s much of a chance that she’d lose the bet, but the idea of her taking her clothes off lingering in everyone’s mind titillates her. Since the odds are so greatly in her favor…
“Okay,” she says. “Okay, if…what’s his name?”
“Ortiz, David Ortiz. If he hits a home run, then you’ll do it?”
She feels the butterflies swirling in her stomach, dancing to her outer limbs. When was the last time she felt this kind of anticipation? “Sure, yeah…why not? Is that him?” she asks, watching a large man step to the plate.
“That’s him.”
“That’s Big Papi.”
“Come on, Ortiz!”
“Hit one out, Big Papi!”
The guys sit on the edge of their seats, cheering and hollering for David Ortiz to hit a home run. Erin sits quietly, nervously. She isn’t sure what’s stronger—the nervousness she feels considering the possibility that he might hit a home run, or the excitement she feels imagining doing it, showing her naked body to the six guys that sit before her. She takes a sip of her drink to try to placate her nerves.
Ortiz swings at and misses the first pitch. He lets the next two go by for balls. Then he hits one high and long. The guys jump up, screaming, the camera following the ball against the dark night sky.
“This is it!”
“Stay in, come on. If it’s fair, it’s gone!”
Erin’s insides freeze. The ball sails into the upper decks, but too far to the right—foul ball. The guys sigh and groan. Erin is nearly panting with relief. Ortiz hits the next pitch, a soft ground ball, to the second baseman, who throws to first base for the out.
The guys again voice their disappointment. Erin’s not sure if she’s relieved or not. Was it the prospect of coming so close to standing here naked that excited her? Or did she actually want him to hit a home run? She can feel the guys’ lustful desire for her, even sitting here with her clown costume on, and, though she knows she shouldn’t perform a striptease for six guys she’s just met, she doesn’t want it to end.
“One more time,” Jesse says.
“Yeah. If Manny hits one out, then you do it.”
“If not, we won’t bug you anymore.”
“Who’s this guy?” Erin says. She watches a disinterested-looking player with dreadlocks step to the plate. He swings hard at the first pitch, but misses. Strike one.
“Manny Ramirez,” Caleb says. “He’s not even that good.”
“Whatta ya say? One more chance.”
“Yeah—two hundred bucks, that’s gotta be worth at least two chances.”
“A hundred bucks a chance.”
Manny twists out of the way of the next pitch—a hanging curve ball—but it hooks at the last second and catches the inside corner. Strike two. The guys berate the umpire. Erin laughs at their zeal, quite sure the ump can’t hear them.
She knows he has two strikes already, and that puts the odds even greater against him.
“Okay, fine, one more chance.”
“You’ll do it if Manny hits a home run?”
“Yes,” she says definitively, “I’ll take my clothes off if this guy hits a home run.” She likes saying it—take my clothes off. The verbalized thought makes the idea of it even more palpable.
“Everything?”
She thinks for a second. Everything? What are the chances that he’ll even hit a home run, anyway? “Fine, yes, everything.”
The pitcher fires the ball to the plate as she finishes talking. An inside fast ball. Probably meant to brush the batter back, to set him up for a slider, low and away. But it hangs a little too much over the plate. She doesn’t even have time to get nervous. Manny turns on the pitch, watches the ball soar through the air, then flips his bat and begins his home-run trot. The ball sails over the left field wall, out of the park, and onto Lansdowne Street.
The guys cheer uproariously, raising their arms over their heads, exchanging high-fives. Erin is stunned. Did she really just agree to this? Imagining taking her clothes off was one thing, but actually having to do it is something else entirely.
“Wait a minute,” she says.
“No way, you agreed.”
“You have to.”
She puts her hand to her forehead and shakes her head in disbelief. She can’t believe she’s found herself in this situation. A half-hour ago she was walking up to their house intending to perform a harmless clown act for a group of children, and now she’s lost a bet to take her clothes off in front of six guys she just met. It’s beyond absurd. Yet she’s not entirely opposed to the idea; she still feels titillated thinking about it. She sits silently, incredulously. A reluctance causes her to stall while an urge pulls her forward.
She finishes the last few gulps of her drink. “I think I need another one of these,” she says.
Matt jumps up, grabs her glass and goes into the kitchen. Brian leaps off the couch and runs to his room, runs back with a CD circling his index finger. He opens the CD player and drops it in. Matt walks into the room and hands her a drink. A few of the guys lean forward expectantly.
“You’ve really never done this before?” one of the guys at the card table asks.
“No,” she says, shaking her head.
“If you really don’t want to,” Brian says, “I don’t care—you don’t have to do it for me.”
“What!”
“Are you crazy?”
“Brian, I think you need to shut up and drink your beer.”
She feels herself tottering the line: This is crazy—she shouldn’t even think of doing something so outrageous; and this is crazy—this is so totally outrageous, it could be fun.
Someone mutes the TV. A bass line, followed by a twangy guitar, a burst of drums, and then a dirty, reverberating guitar comes over the speakers. She recognizes the song. It used to be one of her favorites on the album. The singer wails lyrics she never did understand, but he sings with such energy, she loved it anyways. She realizes she still does. The song grabs her and lifts her off the chair.
“No,” she says, taking a good pull of her drink. “I said I would.” Then, more to herself than to the guys, “Why the hell not?”
Caleb jumps off the love seat and swings one of the folding card-table chairs around so it’s facing the couch. A couple others follow suit, creating a disheveled circle around the center of the room—three guys on the couch, three sitting in folding chairs. Matt steps to the middle of the circle and grabs one end of the coffee table. “Help me move this.” Three guys jump up to assist, but Jesse is there first, and they quickly move the table to give her room to maneuver.
“I’ve never done anything like this, so bear with me,” Erin says as she moseys to the middle of the circle. The guys don’t seem to mind.
She feels all eyes upon her, the music riding like a surfer along her alcohol-tainted bloodstream. It’s not the most danceable music, but she catches hold of an underlying rhythm and begins to sway to it. Her hands reach up to run through her hair, but the wig stops them. She had momentarily forgotten as feelings of sexual anticipation overtook her, but now she looks across the room at a window, which acts as a darkened mirror. She sees the red polka-dotted jumpsuit, the painted face, the curly yellow afro. It doesn’t look as preposterous as it had twenty minutes ago in the bathroom mirror. Being a clown had given her an outlet by which to experience a lost playfulness, but now it takes on a whole new meaning.
“Wait,” Brian says, and Erin looks down at him. “Where’s your nose? You’re not really a clown without the nose.”
Matt slaps his palm on his forehead. “Nuts, my brother is totally fuckin’ nuts. He’s about to see a naked girl and he’s worried about a fake nose.”
But Erin happily complies, retrieving the red foam ball from her bag, which she had taken off after realizing the mix-up. She uses the opportunity to take another swig of her drink, then returns to the center of the circle.
“Anything else?” Jesse says.
“Looks good to me,” Brian says.
The songs are short and, for the most part, fast, with occasional hypnotic melodies thrown in. Erin catches another groove and glides around the floor. The jumpsuit buttons down the front, and she reaches up and undoes the first one. Then the second. The third. Every now and then she glances at herself in the window. Once she laughs out loud at seeing the image of a clown doing a seductive striptease, but the guys seem oblivious to her laughter, transfixed by the slow removal of her costume. Their expressions are the same as if she were dressed as a naughty nurse, a sexy secretary or a French maid. They intermittently cheer and laugh, though their boisterousness has become more subdued, their attention having found a focal point.
Erin slowly unbuttons the costume down to her bellybutton. She pulls the top of it open to reveal, for the first time, a glimpse of what’s hidden underneath. The loose-fitting jumpsuit had concealed the shape of her body, but now the guys see her breasts bulging underneath a tight, gray T-shirt. Their hooting and hollering increases.
“Look at dem apples!”
“Oh, yeah. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”
Though she has gotten, if only slightly, more comfortable standing in front of the small crowd, she’s been shrouded behind the satiny cloth. The first exposure of her actual body causes her nerves to kick into high gear. She pulls the suit a little more off her shoulders. Her breasts push further out of the costume, her bare stomach visible for all to see. It’s the first part of her bare skin to be exposed and feeling the open air against it gives her a chill.
As she turns around the circle, she sees their heads rotating and their bodies leaning, trying to achieve the most effective line of vision. At first she does what she can to please all six guys, but she’s not used to dancing like this and it makes her a little dizzy. She soon finds what works: it’s easier to concentrate on pleasing herself. She stays closer to the middle of the circle, turning every so often, swaying and grinding to the music, reveling in the desirous stares of her onlookers.
She lowers the costume inch by inch off her shoulders. Some of the guys cheer, some “Oooh” and “Ahhh,” some just stare with dropped jaws as the fullness of her breasts becomes more and more apparent. She lets the costume drop to the middle of her back, then her waist. She slips her arms out of the sleeves and holds up the costume with one hand so it doesn’t fall all the way down. Her nipples are poking hard against her tight shirt, and she turns around a couple times so everyone gets a good look. Several of the guys appear ready to fall off their seats.
She lowers her hand. The costume drops past her hips, uncovering the matching pair of snug, gray cotton shorts. The shorts hug a round and firm ass. She lets the costume fall to the ground, revealing her gloriously long legs in one fell swoop. More cheers erupt as she steps out of the costume.
Erin stands there in her tight gray shirt and shorts—a skimpy outfit she’d wear around the house, but never out in public—with striped stockings and a clown’s head. She feels naked already. She bashfully crosses her legs and puts one hand across her chest and onto her shoulder, the other across her stomach and onto her hip.
“How’s that?” she says. “Good enough guys?”
“No way!”
“You can’t stop now.”
“You are so hot, you hafta keep going.”
She shrieks—“Ahhhh!”—playfully revealing her embarrassment, but their praise strengthens her confidence. She hasn’t felt such desire aimed at her in a long time and, as self-conscious as she is about fully disrobing, so many guys lusting after her is intoxicating.
“Okay, okay,” she says, getting her bearings, summoning the motivation for the next step. She walks over to where she’s set her drink and takes a large sip. “How about a change of music?” she says. “I love the Pixies, but maybe something a little more danceable.”
“Put on Pink Floyd,” Jesse says.
“That’s all you ever wanna listen to.”
“You can’t dance to Pink Floyd.”
Jesse shrugs. “I dance to Floyd.”
Brian reaches over to an end table and grabs a remote control. He aims it at the CD player and presses a button. The disk changer spins and then a trickling intro from the cymbals, followed by a heavy, pulsating beat and a blast from a horn section come over the speakers.
“Who’s this?” Erin asks.
“Curtis Mayfield,” Brian says.
“This is soul music, sistah,” one of the soulless white boys says.
The smooth rhythm carries her back to the center of the circle. She still feels self-conscious, so she turns a couple times, raises her arms above her head, glides and sways to the music, trying to accustom herself to standing before the crowd in such a skimpy outfit. She soon becomes more than accustomed to standing before the guys; her nervous hesitation transforms into something more like excitability, even arousal. She can see the round, red nose protruding from her face. It reminds her, since she can’t see her face unless she looks at the window, that she still has the countenance of a clown. It gives her a level of anonymity, which increases her confidence, and the ogles and cheers heighten the sexual energy within her.
She pins the toe of her left sock to the floor with her right foot and steps out of it, then does the same with her right sock. She likes how her bare feet feel against the cool hardwood floor. Then she takes hold of the bottom of her shirt. She pulls it up, pauses, a few inches of her lacy white bra exposed. She can tell the guys’ longing has reached a fever pitch. So has hers. She lifts the shirt over her head and tosses it to the ground.
Her heartbeat quickens as she thinks about the fact that six horny guys are looking at her in her bra. Her creamy mounds fill the fabric, stretching it taut, the outline of her nipples visible through the semi-transparent whiteness. She instinctively crosses her arms over her breasts to cover them, but in one motion, as if she were moving to the music, she brings her arms around in a circle, stretched out in front of her, and back to her sides. It’s been years since anyone but her husband has seen her in such a state of undress, and it takes a moment to get used to it. But when she does, she realizes how much she’s enjoying it.
Her shirt had caught her wig when she took it off, and she reaches up to secure it back on her head. She feels her breasts rise with her arms. She lowers her arms and turns a couple times, squeezing her breasts between them, cleavage pouring out of the top of her bra. The lacy fabric brushes against her sensitive nipples. They swell as a bolt of euphoria shoots from her nipples to her pussy.
“You’re a natural,” one of the guys says.
She doesn’t hesitate to grab the waistband of her shorts, pull them down and step out of them. She wears a matching pair of white, lacy boyshort panties that ride low on her hips and high up her ass, the lacy fabric tugging gently on the fleshy curve of her butt.
For a moment, when she stops to consider that a group of guys are looking at her in her bra and panties, she thinks of her husband. But the thought hits her like a flash frame in a film—barely noticeable, overwhelmed by other thoughts and feelings surrounding it, only a brief glimpse that doesn’t let her consider its full meaning. She’s too consumed by the erotic sensations pulsating through her.
With each step towards nudity her pulse speeds up like an RPM needle pushing into the red, her heart feeling like it will burst. But each time she acclimates herself to the thrill. Not that it dissipates in any way, but she shifts gears, the erotic stimulation penetrating deeper within her, taking a stronger hold. Now she feels like she’s in fifth gear and can’t go any higher, though there is still one more step.
Erin looks at her image in the window. The picture of her nearly naked body and clown face surrounded by six guys makes her moist. Or, more accurately, it increases her moistness. She looks at the guys on the couch, then turns towards the guys in the chairs, feeling her proximity between them. They attend her every move, completely transfixed by the tantalizing sculpture of skin and lace. Their gaze holds her fixedly. The play between exhibitionist and voyeur is an erotic combination of power and submission. She controls where they look and what they see—they are absorbed by every inch of her body. Yet she feels the need and the desire to please, to satisfy their voyeuristic demands. And pleasing them pleases her. She no longer feels any trepidation. Only exhilaration. She has no thought of stopping, though she may tease.
“Is that good? You guys don’t want to see anymore.” She bites her bottom lip, grabs her tits and squeezes them.
“Oh my God—you can’t stop now.”
“You have to keep going!”
She struts around the circle. She looks down her body, at her tits bulging out of her bra, her flat stomach, her long, tanned legs. She still can’t believe she’s doing this, though she doesn’t know the last time she was so turned on.
“Who was that guy? The guy who hit the home run?” she asks.
“Manny Ramirez.”
“That was Manny being Manny.”
“I’m gonna kill that guy,” she says, though truthfully he’s her new favorite player.
The guys egg her on a little more. She says, “Well, since it’s Brian’s birthday…” and looks at him. He looks back into her eyes, but like most of the guys when she looks at them, his gaze only briefly strays from her body. She smiles and shakes her head at their ardent fascination.
She reaches behind her back and releases the bra’s clasp. The bra loosens from her breasts as the straps fall down her arms. She brings her hands up her front and slides them between her bra and breasts, grabs onto her tits, pinches her nipples. They are hard and erect as she rolls them between her fingers, and she lets out an inadvertent moan.
“Sounds like someone’s enjoying herself,” one of the guys says.
She smiles sheepishly, though the sexual currents coursing through her again dominate any other sensation.
She holds the bottom of her bra and lifts it slowly upward, exposing the bottom curves of her breasts. She lowers it teasingly, then lifts it higher, a crescent of her areolas peeking under the bottom of the bra. She finally slides the bra off her arms and tosses it to the floor.
She grabs her breasts self-consciously while the guys holler and cheer. She can’t help but voice her thoughts—“I can not believe I’m doing this”—though her disbelief sounds more like elation.
She composes herself and takes a few deep breaths, then looks down over her chest, her palms flat against her tits, pushing down on them. She slowly lowers her hands. The top semi-circle of her areolas peek out over her fingers. Then her pointy nipples jump up and stand fully erect, escaping the pressure of her hands, until both nipples stare back at the wide-eyed voyeurs. Finally, her tits’ bottom curves are freed and hang in the open air—her breasts now fully exposed for all to see.
Her stomach feels like a wind tunnel. She takes a few deep breaths trying to calm the jittery sensation. She reaches up and pats her breasts, as if she’s confirming that she’s actually standing here naked. She watches the guys cheering with exaltation, gasping in awe; the sight of so many men awed by her naked body makes her feel like she’s floating on air. She doesn’t consider the improbability that she would have been standing naked before a group of six guys, or the absurdity that she’s actually doing it, but instead only revels in the arousing sensation it creates. She gives her breasts a couple quick squeezes, an exclamation point on their revelation.
“So whatta ya think?” she says, raising her hands palm up by her sides.
“Awesome!”
“You have the best tits I’ve ever seen. Seriously.”
“The best body.”
“You should be a stripper, for real. You would make so much money.”
The compliments heighten her elation and boost her confidence. With her hands on her hips, she shakes her shoulders back and forth, jiggling her breasts.
“Oh, yes. Do that again!”
“Turn over here. We gotta see that.”
She shakes her shoulders, the giant teardrops shimmering vibrantly. She turns around so the guys sitting behind her can see. She jiggles them again, then cups her tits with her hands, the supple mounds fitting nicely between her outstretched fingers, and slowly and seductively lifts and squeezes them.
“Oh. My. God!”
“You’re killing me.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna hafta beat off before we go out tonight. Sorry, had to say it.”
The indiscreet disclosure doesn’t faze Erin in the least. She caresses her nipples with her open hands, bending the pointy tips, tickling her skin. She lifts her left breast upwards and bends her head down, takes her nipple in her mouth. She suckles the nipple then tugs at it before releasing it. The guys clamor for a repeat performance, and she happily complies.
She saunters around the circle, walking close enough that they could reach out and touch her, though they respectfully don’t cross any boundaries that may make her uncomfortable. She probably wouldn’t mind, though, as the striptease feels like an extravagant form of foreplay and gets her more and more in the mood. She stops when she’s in front of Brian and holds onto her panties, lowering them just enough to show the top of the crack in her ass. She pauses and looks down at him. His gaze rests squarely on her ass. She lowers it a little more, flexes her butt muscles, then drops her panties to her ankles and steps out of them. She grabs her bare ass with her hands and gives it a light slap before returning to the center of the circle.
She glances at the window and sees the reflection of her completely naked body. “Holy shit!” she says aloud, surprised by the sight of herself. A momentary flash of disbelief at what she’s doing does strike her, but it’s like a lightning bolt, bright and illuminating and gone in a second. She’s more disbelieving at how excited she’s become—her nerves fire like the grand finale of a fireworks display. She doesn’t know the last time she’s felt such a thorough charge of ecstasy.
Her hands glide up her thighs, over her hips and waist to her breasts, and back down again, as she continues to delight in her own erotic image. She sees the clown face, but only after reveling in the display of her naked body does it sink in. It’s still a peculiar sight.
“So you guys really get turned on by a naked clown?” she asks.
“I guess it’s kinda weird.”
“But you’re so hot.”
“Who looks at the face?”
“I think it’s even hotter.”
“Really?” Erin says.
“Yeah. Like you’re not really a stripper, you’re a clown. And you’re totally naked. I mean, I don’t know what I mean. It’s just hot.”
“Hmmm,” she says, “kinda kinky.”
Erin ambles around the circle, running her hands over her sumptuous nakedness, seductively gyrating and squeezing different body parts. She marvels at the ease with which she has taken on the role of a stripper and her adeptness at it.
She is wet enough that her pussy lips have emerged and spread like the wings of a butterfly. Her fingers occasionally drift down between her legs, over her trimmed dark-brown pubic hairs, and graze her clitoris. Though her urges increase with each passing moment, her self-consciousness is still intact enough that she won’t simply start masturbating. Though at this point she probably wouldn’t mind.
The striptease begins to feel like it has run its course. She enjoys being naked and doesn’t want the feeling to stop, but she’s not used to entertaining with only her naked body and she isn’t sure what else to do. She begins to wind down and looks like she may stop when one of the guys offers a suggestion.
“How ’bout a lap dance?”
“Oh, yeah. Great idea.”
“Lap dances all around!”
Erin puts her hands on the back of her hips with her thumbs facing forwards, her fingers reaching down towards her naked ass. She likes touching her bare parts, especially her more private ones. It’s a constant reminder that her naked body is fully exposed, and it maintains a steady state of arousal.
“A lap dance?” she says. “What is that?” She knows full well what a lap dance is. She’d actually seen one being given when she went to check out the strip club her friend worked at—grinding asses into strange men’s laps, dangling breasts in their faces. She just wants a few seconds to consider it.
“You don’t know what a lap dance is?”
“It’s just what it sounds like.”
“You sit on someone’s lap, shake your butt a little, that kind of thing.”
She puts her hand to her chin, one finger resting contemplatively on her lip. She would like to be touched. She would like a hell of a lot more than that. But she’s not sure if she should cross that boundary.
“You guys wanna touch, huh?” Erin says. She runs a hand from her thigh to her breast, as to bring attention to the fine merchandise on display.
They offer a few noncommittal remarks, not wanting to sound too perverted, but not wanting to dissuade her in any way either.
Her voice is blithe and flirty. “I don’t know, guys.” She hesitates not because she’s reluctant to do it, but because she’s fighting it.
“How about a lap dance for the birthday boy?”
She looks down at Brian. Though he’s been watching her with rapt attention, he’s been for the most part quiet, low-key. He seems more the conversational type than the boisterous type. She wonders if he’s ever been with a woman. Probably, though she doubts he has much experience. She feels a pull within herself, a pull towards him. Her erotic cravings have grown with every step of the striptease. Now she stands here, totally naked and thoroughly enjoying it, and still wanting more. She takes a few seductive steps towards him.
Brian sits at one end of the couch, slouched into the cushions, his lanky legs bent like the legs of a praying mantis and planted on the floor. He looks up at Erin with wide-eyed uncertainty and disbelief. She hovers over him, moving her hands tantalizingly over her luscious curves. She turns and shows him her ass, her fingers pressing into her fleshy cheeks. She spins around again and her legs brush up against his. He quickly moves them out of the way. She moves in closer, her feet touching his, her knees bumping into his knees. He has nowhere else to move them, so audibly gulps and leaves them where they are.
She leans over and squeezes her breasts together. As the silky-smooth mounds rub against one another, the friction creates a spark that sets off a reaction throughout her body. She wants to feel Brian—or anyone, really—to have him touch her, more than anything now.
She puts a hand on his knee and leans over him, reaches down and grabs his hand. “Come here,” she says, pulling him up. He leans forward as she takes his hand and places it on the back of her leg. His face is at the level of her stomach, and he looks up at her, over her breasts to her face. His gaze lowers, stops on her breasts, the large globes hanging just above him, so close he can see the texture of her stiff nipples, the bumps on her areolas. She sways her hips back and forth as his hands rise up the back of her legs—her calves, the back of her knees, her hamstrings. His hands come to rest just beneath the bottom curve of her ass. Her pussy quivers.
She doesn’t want him to stop there. She reaches around and places her hand on his, guides it upward, over the initial hump and squarely onto the center of her ass. The guys shout their approval of her proactive techniques. Her stomach leaps upon feeling both their hands pressing into her bare ass. She puts her hand on the back of his head and pulls it forward, his face resting against her stomach. She gently thrusts her hips as if she were having sex.
She turns her ass towards Brian and bends down, her hands on her knees. Both his hands glide over her round cheeks, then down the sides of her legs, tickling her like a feather.
“Hey, did I mention it’s my birthday, too?” one of the guys says.
“What a coincidence,” another says. “Mine was just last week.”
Erin just smiles at them and turns her attention back towards Brian.
She faces him and nudges him so he sits back against the couch. She steps closer, her legs right beside his, her shins bumping into the couch. She balances herself with her right hand on the armrest and leans over him. She places her left hand against the wall behind the couch for support, and dangles her breasts over his face. Her tits hang downward, flop against his cheeks. She steadies herself and moves her cleavage more deliberately up and down his face. His thin beard tickles her soft skin, and her stiff nipples bend against his rigid facial features. She feels her nipple graze his lips. She tries to aim her nipple in the direction of his mouth again, but it’s hard to control, so she holds the bottom of her breast and directs it towards his mouth. She glides the pointy tip along the ridgeline of his lips, picking up a trace of moisture from them. He subtly, almost imperceptibly, begins to open his mouth, as if he wants to take hold of it, but is hesitant to do so. She senses this, and pushes her breast harder at him until his mouth opens and then closes around her nipple. His tongue flicks at and slides over the pointy tip inside his mouth. She closes her eyes and grips his shoulder tightly, inhales deeply, though she is conscious not too moan, at least not too loudly. After a few moments she pulls herself back, her nipple still in his mouth, stretching her breast outward. He lets go and the breast drops back to its natural position.
“Oh, man!” Jesse says, sitting right next to them and turned towards them so he has a front-row view. “Unreal. Truly unreal. You are one lucky son-of-a-bitch.”
Erin had temporarily forgotten the situation she was in. With Brian touching her and suckling her breast, and her neurons pouring ecstasy by the bucketful, she was so concentrated on the joy of his touch that she wasn’t thinking about people watching what was going on. The realization induces a mild shock, though it’s gone in a flash. It adds a dimension to the sexuality that she hasn’t experienced before, and, though she has to acclimate herself to it, she finds it both kinky and arousing.
“Was he just sucking her tit?” one of the guys on the opposite side of the circle asks.
“Totally,” Jesse says. “Had her whole nipple right in his mouth, just sucking away.”
Erin, still kneeling over Brian, turns partially to face the guys. She has a guilty look and, at first, feels mildly embarrassed, though she can’t help but laugh. The situation is too preposterous. Too absurd. Too much fun.
“This is definitely the best birthday present I’ve ever had,” Brian says, leaning around her. He runs his hand up the outside of her leg and onto her ass. Erin’s blood continues to heat up.
Brian squeezes her ass and gives it a slap, as much of a show for the guys as for himself.
Erin looks at him as if she’s surprised that he would do such a thing, though her look is more playful than chastising.
“All I wanted was to do my clown act and now I have someone slapping my butt,” she says.
“Hey, let him suck it again,” Caleb yells out.
“Turn this way and do it. Let us get a look over here.”
Erin is rotated so they can see the front of her upper body. She looks at Brian, who looks back at her and shrugs, as if to say, “It’s up to you.”
“Fine,” Erin says. “Go ahead.”
She puts her left hand on her hip and bends the elbow back to provide for optimal viewing. Brian cups and squeezes her right breast, first softly, then with more intensity, while licking, sucking and tugging at her left nipple with his mouth. He switches breasts and sucks on her right nipple, her left nipple now glossy with his saliva. Erin tilts her head back and closes her eyes, pleasure emanating from her sensitive nipples and coursing through her body.
She opens her eyes and sees five guys watching another guy suck her tits. What the hell is she doing? She knows it is so wrong, but somehow it feels so good. Brian finishes by kissing and squeezing both breasts. Erin wants more. What she really wants is to feel him inside her, but she knows she’s gone too far already. Though that thought is like a dim light in the fog, becoming fainter by the second. She’s too horny to be able to stop now.
“Something tells me this is a little more than a lap dance,” Erin says.
“No, it’s perfect.”
“Yeah, you’re doing great. This is what all the girls do.”
“I’m sure.” She stands up and turns around so her butt faces Brian. As she turns, Brian’s arm grazes her face and knocks off her clown nose, but he’s too engaged with other things to pay any attention to it. “I do know they do the butt grind,” she says, and sits down in Brian’s lap and gyrates her ass on his crotch.
“How do you know that? Have you been to a strip bar before?”
“A long time ago.”
“I knew it—you must have been a stripper.”
“I wasn’t, I swear. I’ve never done anything like this.” She feels Brian’s hard-on poking into her ass. She’s too into Brian to want to continue with the line of questioning, so she looks back at Brian, slides her hand down his leg and feels his erection through his pants. She leans back against him, her head beside his. He touches his lips to her cheek, then looks over her shoulder and down at her breasts, both his hands sliding up her hips, her waist, his fingers finally caressing the bottom of her breasts. His fingers move up and over the creamy mounds and caress her nipples.
“I can’t handle this,” Jesse says. “I think I’m gonna explode.”
Erin turns her head towards Jesse.
“Can I?” he says. “I mean, just one little…one soft little…” His hand is extended towards her indicating he would like to touch her, though for some reason he can’t bring himself to say it, as if speaking it would make his intentions more mischievous.
She rolls her eyes. “Go ahead.”
Jesse’s face lights up and he reaches out to touch her breast. But Brian’s hand, still running up and down Erin’s sides and breasts, gets in the way.
“Hey, man,” Jesse says, “don’t bogart the boob. You still got the left one.”
Brian squeezes Erin’s tits as if they are all his, and he and Jesse jokingly berate each other before Brian relents and lets go of her right boob. Jesse reaches over to her and first caresses the nipple with his fingers, then puts more pressure on the soft mound, gently squeezing it and lightly tugging at the nipple.
Erin’s never felt two sets of hands on her before—nevermind a half dozen pairs of eyes—and it makes her feel like she could come at any moment. Her pussy is moist and beckoning attention, and she doesn’t think she can ignore it for much longer. She lets out a few audible Mmmms while continuing to grind her ass in Brian’s lap. Her left hand joins theirs, touching her own soft skin, her breasts and nipples. She moves her hand in a circular motion from her stomach to her thigh, her hip, and back to her stomach, grazing her tuft of pubic hair as it passes by. She repeats this motion, her hand reaching a little further down between her legs this time. She grazes her clitoris and extends her hand along the inside of her thigh. The shockwave of delight from even the mild touch of her clit is more than she can resist. Her hand moves back along her inner thigh to between her legs. She grazes the velvet ridge of her pussy lip, then rubs her clit again, reaches up to her breast, fighting the urge, then gives in and lowers her hand to her clit.
She tries to rub it inconspicuously at first, but it isn’t much use. They applaud her zeal and shout words of encouragement. That they’ve noticed and brought attention to her touching herself doesn’t inhibit her. Instead it fuels her horniness, and she does it with more gusto.
She slides off Brian and sits wedged between him and Jesse, her legs overlapping both of theirs. She becomes more heated, swirling her finger over her clit, occasionally dipping it into her vagina. Brian runs his hand over her thigh. He moves it to her soft inner thigh, inches from her pussy, and massages the pliable muscle. Erin thrusts her hips as if she’s being fucked and moans with increasing volume. Jesse too puts a hand on her thigh, and then he plays with her breast, cupping and squeezing the soft mound.
“You can suck it,” Erin says somewhat furtively.
Jesse doesn’t need to be told twice. He leans over her while lifting and squeezing her breast, and envelopes her nipple in his mouth. She shrieks in between moans as he suckles her breast. Then Brian takes the other one in his mouth, sucking and tugging at the supple mound.
Erin furiously swirls her finger on her clit. “Oh, God …ohhhh…yeaaaah…uhhhh, yeaaaah…” She looks at the group watching her, cheering her on. It’s like a voyeuristic gang-bang. She closes her eyes and feels hands massaging and fondling her, mouths and tongues tasting her. Any thoughts beyond the immediate sexual thrill that consumes every inch of her body exist in an entirely different dimension. She only feels pure, unadulterated sex, a sensation she hasn’t felt so thoroughly in a long time, and she revels in it.
She doesn’t temper her enjoyment when she finally comes.
“Uhhhh…yeaaaahh…uhhhh…ohhhh, ye-uuhhhh, uhhhh…” Her hands clamp down on Brian and Jesse as spasms shoot through her body and constrict her muscles. “Holy. Fucking. Shit,” she says, breathing heavily, trying to compose herself.
The guys give her a rousing ovation upon completion of her orgasm. She smiles, laughs, shakes her head in disbelief, in amazement. The sexual currents flowing within her begin to abate as a glimmer of logic takes their place. She’d been so absorbed by sexual arousal that she wasn’t thinking of anything else. Now she looks at the eyes still gazing at her and the reality becomes more apparent. And the reality is that she liked it. She still does.
She’s never felt so free; all the frustration that had been building up within her cathartically released by that one striptease, that one orgasm. She likes sitting here naked with all these guys awed by her physical beauty. She rubs her hands on her legs, again sensing her nakedness, her place as the center of attention in a group of desirous voyeurs.
Matt stands up and runs out of the room, runs back in holding a camera. “I have to get this. Do you mind?”
She won’t be running for office anytime soon, Erin figures, and she does have the clown face on. She wonders if any of them would even recognize her if they saw her without the makeup. “Go ahead,” she says, putting an arm around Brian and Jesse, the both of them leaning into her. Matt snaps the camera, takes one more for good measure.
“So is that the typical clown act?” one of the guys asks.
“That was definitely different,” she says. “I’d say you guys got the deluxe package, no doubt about it.”
“You should do that every time. You’d never run out of customers.”
“I’d hire you again.”
She wonders if she’d do this kind of thing again. As fun as it was—as it is—probably not. She wouldn’t make a regular thing out of it, anyway. It’s one of those spontaneous things that’s a little crazy but somehow feels right for that moment.
Jesse bends over to pick up the clown nose off the floor. It’s a foam-rubber ball that affixes to the nose by a vertical slit. Jesse spreads the slit, but instead of putting it on her nose, he clasps it to her nipple. Erin jiggles her boob and the nose shakes back and forth but doesn’t come off.
As she’s jiggling her breast a car horn honks outside.
“Fuck,” she says, jumping up off the couch.
“Must be your ride,” one of the guys says, looking out the window. “It’s in the driveway.”
She throws her bra and panties into her bag and quickly gets dressed. She starts to feel nervous again, though a different type of nervousness than when she had begun the striptease. She snaps up the costume and looks into a mirror to make sure her makeup is still intact. She turns towards the group of guys.
“Okay, guys…bye.”
They shout out their thanks and tell her again how hot she is and that they’d love to see her again.
“Don’t forget this,” Matt says, holding out the money to her. “We still paid for a stripper.”
She looks at the money and pauses, then says, “That was the birthday special. No charge.” She waves “Bye” and walks to the front door.
As she steps out the door her nervousness increases. The freedom she had just experienced comes to a crashing halt. Music still rings in her ears, but the only real noise she hears is the idling car. Otherwise, the quiet dominates.
She had been so caught up in the moment, the pure joy of all those men lusting after her, of the sexual arousal she had craved for so long, that she had repressed what it would be like to face Mark afterwards. She had never planned to cheat on Mark, never imagined she would do it. She suddenly can’t believe that she took her clothes off in front of a group of men, that she let them touch her. But she can’t deny how good it felt. That was the best she’s felt, probably the most excitement she’s had, in years. The feeling is still with her, but it mixes with something else. Something stale and confining. Walking to the car is like walking between two worlds, and she feels both of them battling for space within her.
“Hi,” Mark says as she opens the door, the interior light illuminating his face. “I just got your messages like a minute ago. The bar must have gotten too loud for me to hear my phone. What happened? Is everything okay?”
Erin closes the door. Going from being in that house to being in the car with Mark is like driving on a racetrack then a twenty-mile-per-hour school zone. She collects herself, then says, “Yeah. There was a mix-up with the address, different clowns, but it ended up working out. No big deal.”
“Oh, good.”
Mark reverses the car out of the driveway and accelerates up the street. The rain has stopped and the streets glisten with wetness under the streetlights.
“So how’d it go?” Mark says.
She senses a mild drunkenness in his voice. He probably wouldn’t be interested in how one of her clown gigs went if he was completely sober. She still hasn’t entirely gotten her bearings, hasn’t thought out the situation and what she will say or do about it. She looks into her bag and pushes her bra and panties to the bottom, where they can’t be seen.
“It was fine.”
“Just fine?”
All of the eroticism and freedom she had just felt wells up inside her. She feels it being squashed, and irritation takes its place.
“No, Mark, it was better than fine. It was so good actually…it was so great, it was fucking orgasmic. That’s how great it was. Can you believe that—I had a fucking orgasm it was so great. I can’t remember the last time I felt like that. That’s how totally fucking great it was.”
“Jesus,” Mark says. “I just asked how it went. No need to be so bitchy.” They don’t say anything for several minutes, then Mark says, “Justin and Colleen are having people over. If you want to stop by the house and change, we could still make it.”
Erin doesn’t answer. She just stares out the windshield at the road ahead.
Originally published August, 2008