I diverted my eyes back to the table I was at.  I was trying to contain my growing annoyance, but it was becoming more difficult by the minute as I observed my surroundings.  Most importantly, my husband was just as much a part of the sexual innuendo as the other horny men in the club.  I watched the pleasure and glee play across Scott's face, from the smile straining the corners of his lips to the smoldering gaze of undivided attention as he sat in the chair on the left of me.  Attention that should have belonged to me instead of the stage before us.  My only response was to let the anger simmer inside as I gritted my teeth.
            I had no business sitting in the Playa Lounge gnawing away at my enamel.  My husband had no business foaming at the mouth over a stripper named Delight and we for sure had no business being there together.

Scott looked my way and the smile disappeared.  He could tell my displeasure instantly.

"Hey, Are you okay," Scott asked as he leaned towards me with concern in his eyes. 

He rubbed my back as I choked when another ring of smoke took assault on my already sensitive throat. 

"Yes, I'm fine," I forced from my lips.  I had agreed to come.  In fact, I was the one that insisted that I come.  Thought it would be better to indulge in his fantasy, instead of arguing about why he couldn't enjoy his evening the way he wanted to.  It was his thirty-fifth birthday and I didn't want to ruin the night for him, but no matter how I tried to convince myself to relax, my mind and body wouldn't cooperate.

My husband smiled with relief and captured my lips, "Good."  A single word with two different meanings.  Good to him meant that he could continue enjoying his entertainment.  Good to me meant I had to endure him enjoying his entertainment.  Scott then went back to drooling over Satin who was removing the flimsy material that rendered her topless.

I glanced at Cherish to gauge how she was taking in the scene, but to my disappointment she was hugged up with her husband and Scott's best friend Damon, smiling just as hard as the men.  I felt entirely out of place.  Evidently I was the only one in the whole club that didn't think pole dancing was a suitable activity for married couples to be watching.  God was not pleased with this scene, not in the least.  I felt ashamed to call myself 'saved'.

"Hey man, check ole girl out over there.  She must be new.  I haven't seen her in here before.  Now that is what I call a fine specimen.  All that big juicy booty..."  Damon's tongue hung from his mouth like a dog in heat as he gestured towards a caramel sister with black and burgundy streaked hair that hung to the middle of her bare back in loose waves.

            I tried not to grunt with disgust as my eyes roamed in the direction he pointed near the bar.  The girl had on two silver dollars and neon green dental floss perpetrating as underwear.  I could do nothing but close my eyes and shake my head.  This is what I agreed to, taking my husband to lust over another woman.  The first book of the Bible basically warns about the repercussion to dabble in temptation.  I must have been stuck on stupid and dangling on dumb to let this happen. 

I cast my eyes on the Missoni lace stitch dress I got on clearance from Nordstrom for seventy-five percent off.  When I picked up the sleeveless cowl neck little outfit, I thought it was extremely sexy.  I was convinced that me in it would drop Scott’s mouth to the ground and I'd have to help him get his jaw back in place.  When I first put it on and strutted in front of him he slid his hands down the soft wool from Italy as I twirled to give him a full view.  He acted like I was the finest thing alive.  How quickly that changed.

"You know who she reminds me?" Damon asked Scott like wives weren't present.

Scott scrunched his eyebrows and squinted like he was trying hard to figure it out.

Damon licked his lips and grinned devilishly, "Tandy.  That's who she favors.  That honey from high school.  You remember her.  I know you do because you had a hardcore crush on that girl back in the day.  You drooling and stuff every time she walked by smelling like peaches and cream from Vicki's Secret.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was her.  She seemed like she had a little freak in her back then.  That female even sways those jumbo hips like Tandy."

Scott tilted his head slightly and looked the girl up and down before disagreeing, "I don't see it."

Damon stood up and pulled his wallet from his back pocket, "You crazy.  We just need to see her up close."  He was intent to prove his point.  "I'll tell you what I'm gonna do.  Thirty-five only rolls around once.  You deserve a birthday lap dance to make it memorable."

I was appalled.  I boar my eyes into Cherish and willed her to check her husband.  Once again I faced disappointment.  Cherish was staring absently into her glass of Grey Goose as if being disrespected was a normal thing.  I understand being open.  I came to the Playa's Lounge with the full intent of being open, but it wasn't that much openness in the plains of the Maharia Desert.  I wasn't about to sit back and get humiliated, birthday or no birthday.  Damon was out of line and if I had to end this fiasco then the ugly might come out of me.

"It is not going to happen." I blurted out loudly as Damon waved three crisp hundred dollar bills in the air and the dancer approached the table.  Money exchanged hands.  In seconds, I could imagine a lustful interaction between Scott and the mostly naked sista.  Scott scooting his chair back in anticipation and her gyrating thick hips between his legs.

"What?" Scott blinked twice at me like he saw an apparition.

"Scott, I'm ready to go.  This is not my type of thing. I tried to get into this for your sake, because I thought...I don't know what I thought.  I don't know what I thought at all, but I'm not feeling this." I chuckled sarcastically as I waved the dancer away from the table.  I rose from my chair, snatched my purse off the table and put the chain strap on my shoulder, "this whole raunchy, sorted little scene is more than I can take."

My husband rose too, obviously disappointed.  He nodded his head.  "Alright baby, we can go.  It's no problem."  There was no point in arguing about it in the middle of the club.  Eyes had already diverted towards us.

Damon objected, "Whatcha mean it's no problem.  I just spent three hundred bones for a lap dance.  It is a problem.  That ain't refundable.  I don't have money to be throwing away like that."

"Well I suggest you call her back over here and let her grind on you, because me and my husband are leaving!"  I snapped at Damon.  I had to maintain my composure and act like the lady I was raised to be.  Then again if that were the case, I wouldn't be here in the first place. 

"Somebody must be feeling insecure," Damon snapped back.

"Look man we're leaving," Scott cut in to diffuse the conversation before it became more heated.  "Are you riding with us or catching a cab?"

"Oh, its like that?" Damon asked holding his hands in the air like he was the one offended.

I turned on my heels and walked out of the club. How Damon got home was of no concern.  He was a real piece of work, but I didn't have to put up with him.  That kind of ignorance belonged to Cherish.

I walked to the car in a parking lot across Davidson Street, barely waiting for traffic to clear.  I didn't know what came over me, whether it was purely irritation or something stronger.  But like flies on mess, I had to get it off me.