Free Who is Charlie Conti? by Claus von Bohlen Page B

dark main room. In the middle was a stage made from three interlocking circles. The intersection of the three circles was raised higher than the rest and had a silver pole rising from it. Each of the three circles also had poles rising from their centers. Pete made his way over to a table at the far side, one of only two empty ones next to the stage. There seemed to be plenty more tables towards the back, but the chairs were upholstered in black and the tables were black and the lighting was all centred on the stage, so it was pretty hard to see what was going on back there.
    As we sat down the loudspeaker announced, ‘The Palace of Pleasure is proud to bring you the flower of Pensacola beach, ladies and gentleman, the one and only Cristal!’ I heard a soft swishing noise behind me and turned round to see Cristal sashay her way from a darkened doorway to the steps leading up to the stage. She was wearing a pink silk robe and pink diamanté stilettos. She climbed to the central pole and turned to face us. Her peroxide hair was impossibly bright in the spotlight that lit her from directlyabove. Then she undid the pink belt of her robe and let it slide off her shoulders.
    ‘Oh my God,’ whispered Pete.
    The fluffy pink bikini top and the pink g-string that Cristal was wearing underneath accentuated an absurd, cartoon-like figure. She had not only the largest breasts I had ever seen, but also the slimmest waist. As the music started she made her way to the front of the stage where she would occasionally squat lithely down to stroke an onlooker’s face or to accept a dollar bill into the elastic of her g-string. When she reached the part of the stage closest to our table Pete leaned across and slid another bill behind the seven or eight that were already neatly folded against her hip. She had a perfectly sculpted nose and huge collagen lips. Sparkly silver eyelash extensions cast a shadow over her eyes. She seemed to stare straight through us.
    Cristal returned to the central pole and Pete said, ‘Ain’t that the most perfect creature you ever saw?’ I looked across to see whether he was waiting for an answer but he was staring intently at Cristal. There was something strange about his expression: his concentration was total and yet at the same time there was a certain far-away look in his eye. You really had to see it yourself – it’s hard to explain.
    A few minutes later Pete placed a five-dollar bill on the stage in front of us. I ordered a couple more beers from the waitress, increasingly aware of my dwindling resources. When I turned back around I saw that Cristal had her knees on the stage and her hands on the arms of Pete’s chair; she was swinging her enormous breasts just above his nose. Then she turned round so that her peroxide curls fell across his face. Looking at Pete I was struck bythe absence of desire in his features. His expression was one of beatific contentment. As if to confirm this he leaned across and said, ‘It’s wonderful. So perfect but you can’t touch,’ then he fell back again and stared in adoration at the peroxide curls.
    It made me think that maybe the urges that drive men to strip clubs are not necessarily seedy. Or at least, maybe there is a small part of it that doesn’t have to be. Watching Pete I realized that in some way his pleasure was the pleasure of being granted a glimpse of a more perfect world: a world of breasts that defy gravity and hair that does not pretend to be real. It is a world of pure fantasy and Pete seemed happy, not despite the fact that he couldn’t touch, but precisely because he couldn’t touch. Maybe he loved Cristal like some adults love fairy tales, because they are always out of reach.
    I felt a warm pressure against my hand and, looking up, I saw that a beautiful black girl had sat down on the arm of my chair. ‘You feelin’ lonely, sugar?’ she asked.
    ‘I’m doin’ ok, thanks,’ I replied.
    ‘What’s wrong? You afraid of chocolate