Brad Teller had an array of interesting clients. One of the first I did work for was a place in the next county east of the city called THE Place. THE Place was a strip club. My mental image of strip clubs was of dark, seedy places with furtive people. THE Place surprised me. It was large, consisting of two big rooms each with its own bar and stage. It was extremely clean. Rather than being dark, THE Place had a lot of white tile and polished stainless steel. THE Place promoted having the widest selection of imported beers in the state as much as it promoted its dancers, who did go full nude.
THE Place had been in business about six years. In that time, it had never had any troubles about its liquor license and there had been fewer calls for police there than any other bar in the county. THE Place employed a full-time director of security and had security cameras all over.
Despite having had few problems and lots of taxes, two of the trustees of the township where THE Place was located wanted to close it down. In a sense, that was good for us lawyers because we always had active matters for THE Place. I represented THE Place in several fights with the township. I also represented one of the dancers who had been assaulted by a drunk state legislator in the parking lot after THE Place had closed one morning. The legislator had tried to rip the dancer’s clothes off. In the process, he had severely cut her left breast with a large ring he wore. Having an angry scar on one of your breasts does cause lost earnings if you’re a nude dancer.
Through these cases, I got to know Joyce Wright, the sixty-year-old owner of THE Place. Vickie and I had been her guests at THE Place a few times during business hours. To borrow from a better writer than I, even when the women were dancing, it was a clean, well-lighted place. As we were driving home after our first visit, Vickie told me, “I wouldn’t want to do it every night, but dancing nude in front of an audience looks like it would be a blast every now and again.” You understand why I love Vickie so much?
During summer of our third year working for Teller, we became involved with THE Place in a different way. Brad called Ron and me into his office one afternoon. “Joyce Wright called,” Brad started. “She has a problem. Jalen Masters has rented the entire club for an evening for an invitation only party he wants to give.” Masters had been a basketball star at The State University and had become wealthy playing professionally. “That’s fine with Joyce, but Masters told her his guest list is about 50-50 male and female and he wants some male dancers to entertain the women. Joyce doesn’t employ male dancers and doesn’t like the male strippers in this town. She turned to us for help. This office always helps our clients when they ask.”
Ron and I looked at each other. We knew where this was going. Brad smugly said, “Joyce agreed to pay $ 400 per hour for each of you. That’s four hours the night of the party, ten until two, and two hours beforehand. You’ll need to get some training from her dancers.”
“Full nude?” I asked.
“I assume so,” Brad replied.
Vickie and Lauren were highly amused when they heard about Ron’s and my latest assignment. Masters’ private party was on a Friday night. Ron and I had to go to THE Place for training the Thursday afternoon before. Of course, Vickie and Lauren went with us.
They paired Ron and me with different professional dancers. I was sent into one of the stage rooms with a lovely black woman named Calla Wells, who danced under the name Tiffany. Calla’s first problem was that I don’t dance. Calla spent about an hour and a half with me clothed, and went through a wide variety of music, before she thought I understood had some basic moves down well enough to try undressing. Undress led to a strict order not to wear boxers for the party. Calla told us where to buy a male thong I could wear the following night.