Waiting for Monty

“This is so creepy,” my friend said as we turned into the driveway of Gold Club Centerfolds. An overhead lamp barely illuminated the gruff-looking bouncer guarding the strip club’s dark doorway. We parked and stayed in our seats. Centerfolds’ Web site specified a separate entrance for its monthly Fantasy Knights Male Revue. Clearly, we weren’t meant to approach the bouncer, but what was our alternative?

We might have sat in the car all night if we hadn’t spotted two middle-aged women chatting next to a nearby tree, wearing office-approved slacks and sensible shoes. I felt instant relief. If representatives of our mothers’ generation were here, the show couldn’t be that dirty.

My friends and I screwed up our courage and left the automotive sanctuary. A Centerfolds dancer had joined the bouncer and she called to us across the parking lot. “Are you looking for guys?” she yelled.

Well, yes.

She pointed toward the club’s boutique. Inside, ladies ranging in age from post-menopausal to barely legal lined up to buy VIP wristbands at the register. We did likewise and then ran the XXX accessories gauntlet to the “separate entrance” in the back of the store. Theoretically employed to help women feel comfortable in a strip-club atmosphere, our portal was a dark hallway lined with photos of porn actresses spread like Miracle Whip on Wonder Bread. We emerged in Centerfolds’ main room, where a naked stripper performed athletic feats on a gleaming pole. Her silent male audience shifted uncomfortably when the VIP ladies giggled on their way to the Platinum Room.

A half hour before show time, the Fantasy Knights party was on. Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds blared from the speakers. Bachelorettes ruled the scene in bridal veils, penis nametags and T-shirts that said “Bride to be” and “It’s so ladies night.”

We ordered the first of many all-you-can-drink sodas from a shirtless waiter. Centerfolds does not serve alcohol, a fact that shocked more than one occupant at our long banquet-style table. “OK, who brought a flask?” the woman next to me demanded. We shook our heads and laughed.

Fortunately, the sold-out crowd needed no cocktails to drown their inhibitions. When the first dancer—an “auto mechanic” named Captain Hypnotic—hit the stage, the shrieks were deafening. After polishing a wrench at waist level, Hypnotic stripped off his jumpsuit and selected a bacherlorette from the audience. She held onto the pole center stage as he pumped his hips, clad in boxer briefs, against her rear. He peeled a banana and guided her to kneel down and fellate it. He covered her crotch with a paper towel and whipped cream, and licked it off. He stripped to a neon-green thong and the ladies in the front row rubbed oil on his pecs.

“Dear God,” I thought. “This is only the first act. Where could the show possibly go from here?”

“How many of you ladies want to see his screwdriver?” the emcee yelled.

My friend and I turned to each other with identical Macaulay Culkin Home Alone expressions. I honestly didn’t expect the men to Full Monty us, and they didn’t—until act four.

Mind you, this was after the soldiers poured hot wax on their chests, the gladiator fished a dollar out of my T-shirt, and my friend won a DVD titled Cheerleader Tryouts 6, so things had loosened up. A dancer named Thunder was wrapped only in a sheet, which he opened to reveal everything his mama gave him. The women screamed like banshees. When he dropped the sheet, my neighbor yelled, “Mandingo warrior!” with enough force to make me drop my pen.

By evening’s end, chaos reigned. The men climbed into our laps and sucked dollars from our mouths. They stuffed candy in our bras. They sprayed whipped cream on cleavage and licked it off. “Who let the animals out of their cages?” my friend yelled as we ducked yet another sweaty, thong-clad rear.

The office moms had lured us into a false sense of security; this show was plenty dirty. All their presence proved is that you should never judge a woman by her age.