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And also Penn’s bachelor party, to which he granted me an impromptu invitation, which is how I find myself at The Lion’s Den, a strip club.
I’m expected to get turned on by women who gyrate their booties for cash.
This doesn’t turn me on.
I see naked women all the time at the club.
Of course…I haven’t been to the club in a month.
Seeing Ben at work is more than enough right now.
Do I miss it? In some ways. I miss being around people who understand me. But going to the club and finding a submissive to do a scene with? I just have no desire.
I don’t want to be with anyone right now, which is bizarre. I’ve thought of Mandy—a lot, actually—but each time, I consciously wipe her from my mind. My fears have come true. Our friendship has been ruined.
I’veruined it.
She hasn’t called me, and though I yearn to call her, I can’t. I won’t put her in the position of having to talk to me when she doesn’t want to.
What happened between us should never have happened. Frankie was wrong. Mandy’s not in love with me—a fact that scars me in my soul. Am I in love with her? I can’t even entertain the thought, not when I’ve ruined everything between us.
So here I am, sitting at a strip club with Penn, who I don’t even like very much, as he gets a lap dance from a dancer who looks kind of like Morticia Addams.
She holds out her fake tits, and he latches onto her nipple.
That’s a no-no. You’re not supposed to touch the strippers. They can touch you, but you don’t touch them.
However…many of them relax the rules when money is dangled in front of them.
Hey, no judgment. Everyone has to make a living. It’s not the stripper I’m judging. It’s Penn. He’s about to get married, and he’s sucking another woman’s tit. Not cool.
A pretty stripper approaches me, dances in front of me. “Care for a lap dance, stud?”
She reminds me kind of…
Can’t go there.
The thought of Mandy dancing around a pole…
Except it kind of excites me.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“No thanks.” I stuff a twenty in her thong. Maybe she’ll leave me alone now.
Penn’s friends are buying him beer after beer. I’ve been nursing the same gin and tonic since we got here.
I was a last-minute invite, to be sure, which says a lot in itself, since I’ve known Penn for the six years he’s been dating Frankie. I’m Amanda’s plus-one at most family events, so Penn and I have been thrown together a lot over the years. Has Mandy been blackballing me in her family?
I shouldn’t care.
Idon’tcare.
Yeah, I’ve become very adept at lying to myself over the last month.
I finally finish my drink. It’s after midnight, and this party shows no signs of breaking up. Penn is between lap dances at the moment, so I rise and go to his chair.
“Thanks for the invite, man. I’m going to head out.”
