The Whole Package

by Cynthia Ellingsen

  “I’m . . . I’m Doris,” she said.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, then escorted her to a front-row table, right by the stage.

  Jackie and Cheryl stood stock-still, mouths dropped to the floor. “Can he smell a sucker or what?” Cheryl finally said.

  “Well, whatever it is,” Jackie said, leading the way to the table, “I have a feeling this will be good for her.”

  Three margaritas later, Cheryl couldn’t help but agree. Doris was watching her sculpted stripper gyrate on stage with rapt attention. The straw from her fourth margarita was plastered to her mouth and her fist rhythmically pumped at the air in time to the pulsing bass of the music. She was clutching a handful of crisp bills and giggled like a schoolgirl as her stripper steadily removed them with his teeth. The moment her hands were empty, Doris moved back to her bag and refilled her stash.

  “Does she have an ATM in there?” Jackie said, watching the transaction in confusion.

  “If she does, her PIN is c-o-c-k,” Cheryl said. Pounding her fist on the table, Cheryl shouted, “Tequila shots!”

  A scantily clad Puerto Rican sidled up. His hair was slicked with some sort of gel, making him look like he’d just eased his way out of a hot tub. After thanking her in a thick Spanish accent, he held her gaze and gave a sensual lick to her hand. His tongue was soft and warm and even though Cheryl should have been disgusted, she was too entertained to care.

  “Ew,” Doris cried, tearing her eyes away from the stage. “He licked her. Jackie, did you see him lick her?”

  Jackie nodded. “I sure did.”

  The waiter grinned. As he strutted away from the table, Cheryl looked him up and down. He wasn’t bad. His skin was smooth and dark. Those broad shoulders tapered down to a thin, cut torso where a pair of brown leather pants hung low over powerful hips and a bulging crotch. “That man can lick me anytime,” Cheryl said, “and anywhere.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Doris told her, before turning back to her dancer.

  Eyes narrowed, Cheryl formulated a plan. The moment the waiter returned, sloshing a tray of tequila shots onto the table, Cheryl cried, “Hey, Doris! Watch this.” Pushing back her chair, she beckoned to the waiter. Without a moment of hesitation, the waiter straddled her.

  As Doris looked on in dismay, the stripper pressed his hard body against Cheryl’s. He smelled like alcohol, cigarettes, and hair product. Deliberately, she lowered her shoulder and leaned in. The waiter came in even closer, then slowly nibbled the exposed flesh just underneath her ear. Cheryl made a big show of gasping and squirming beneath his touch. For a moment, Cheryl even considered letting the hot lips grazing her body come in for a kiss but thought better of it.

  Instead, she whispered, “Thank you, that’s all I need,” and pressed twenty dollars into his palm. As he winked and writhed away, Cheryl pressed a glass of ice to her heated neck and then smiled big at Doris.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Doris practically shrieked. “You could have caught something.”

  “Boire,” Jackie said, getting up and walking over to Cheryl. “This should kill the germs.”

  Taking a glass of tequila from the table, Jackie brought it to Cheryl’s lips. The spicy tequila burned down the back of her throat.

  Watching them through slit eyes, Doris swayed unsteadily and grabbed for a shot. She downed the ounce of gold liquid and reached for another.

  “Slow down, sweetheart,” Jackie purred, sliding the next one out of the way.

  “Let her,” Cheryl said, pushing it back. “Drink up, Dori.”

  “She’s a lightweight . . .” Jackie’s voice tinkled.

  Doris downed the tequila and gave her the finger.

  Cheryl screamed with laughter. “VIVA LAS MUJERES,” she cried, pounding her chest like an ape. The women around them cheered and hooted. “Oh God, this is so incredibly trashy,” Cheryl laughed. She half-wished her former coworkers could see her.

  Through a blurry haze, she took in the wide variety of shapes and sizes of women in the strip club. There was a table of sorority girls wearing matching sweatshirts and blond ponytails, pretending to blush over the raunchy display. There were several tables filled with women who obviously had money, dressed in expensive outfits and sipping at martinis. There were even old ladies with blue hair, fat pearls, and open wallets.

  “This place is making bank,” Cheryl said in surprise.

  “As long as there are women like our Doris in the world, the strippers will clean up,” Jackie said. “Non. Look at her now.”

  Cheryl turned and stared. With that last tequila shot, Doris’s remaining inhibitions had flown out the window. “Funky Cold Medina” was blasting through the club speakers and Doris had ripped off her light pink cardigan and was waving it in the air. Through the thin shirt covering her, Cheryl could see the outline of Doris’s bra straining against those huge breasts. They were shaking like maracas in time to the music.

  “Doris, are you stripping?” Jackie called over the din.

  Doris nodded earnestly and undid her belt. With a quick motion, she pulled it off and twirled it over her head. Ducking, Jackie scampered over and pulled Doris back down into the chair, taking the belt and smoothing her hair.

  “But I wannna dansssh,” Doris slurred, trying to get back up.

  “This is a male strip club, honey. No one wants to see you naked,” Jackie said. She shot a helpless look at Cheryl.

  “I wanna get naked! I’m shhhhexy . . .” Doris insisted, struggling to get to her feet. She stood up. Confused, she started to lift her shirt.

  “TAKE IT OFF,” Cheryl cheered, pounding the table. She grabbed her cell and cued up the video camera, eager to document this moment. At the very least, she could torture Doris by threatening to put it on YouTube.

  “Cheryl, stop it,” Jackie pleaded, pulling Doris’s shirt back down. “Darling, you can get as naked as you want back at our hotel room, okay?”

  Another round of tequila shots arrived. Cheryl looked at the waiter in surprise. “But we didn’t order these.”

  “From her dancer,” the waiter said, nodding toward Doris.

  “Thankshhh, lover,” Doris cried. She could barely hold the glass but threw back the liquid like an oyster at Mardi Gras. “I’m show happy,” she sang, pushing past Jackie to stroke the legs of a tanned and beefy waiter. “This is why Doug goeshhh to Hootersssssh. We need a male Hootershhh,” she shouted with a slur.

  “That’s right,” the girl at the next table shouted. Her friends cheered in agreement.

  “Oh my God,” Cheryl marveled. “Why didn’t I think of that?” She surveyed the room, calculating totals in her head. “If every woman in here was having dinner . . .” Cheryl turned to the ladies at the next table. “Would you really go?”

  “Russshhhh the ssshhhhttage,” Doris begged, tugging at her arm. “Russshhhh the ssshhhhttage!”

  “I’m in the middle of a focus group,” Cheryl said, shaking her off. “Would you guys go? To a restaurant with male strippers?”

  “I’d go,” an older lady said, taking a satisfied drink of her frozen piña colada. “And bring the sisters in a heartbeat.” Her friends hooted in agreement.

  The dancer on the platform did a series of pelvic thrusts, thinking he was inspiring the cheers.

  Doris hit the table, yelling, “Russshhhh the ssshhhhttage!”

  “Oh, Doris,” Jackie sang. With a big smile, she set down her drink and stood up, pushing a chair next to the wooden platform. “Did someone say rush the stage?” she said, hopping up onto the platform. Cheryl scampered over to the chair and boosted herself up, carefully copying Jackie’s salsalike moves under the bright, hot lights. She prayed she wasn’t so drunk that her depth perception was off and she’d fall and crack her head open. Again. For a brief moment, the half-naked dancers looked panicked at the breach. Then they seemed to realize the full potential for their performance.

  A baby-faced stripper with torn, frosted jeans grabbed Jackie, bent her ove
r, and started slapping her ass. A dirty-hot dancer wearing a cowboy hat, chest dripping with sweat, thrust his way across the stage and pressed up against Cheryl. His sculpted body gyrated wet against hers, hips rocking with the rhythm of the bass. The crowd went crazy.

  The theme music from Top Gun started to play. Men of all shapes and sizes began filing onstage. They wore white thongs fitted over swollen packages and sea caps cocked jauntily on their foreheads.

  Doris jumped up and down with glee. “Chhhharrggghshe!” she shrieked, arms over her head. At Doris’s command—and the sight of this unabashed naval erotica—women surged forward. All shapes and sizes threw down their purses and hurried to the stage, desperate to climb onto the tiny platform.

  Clearly proud to be the mastermind, Doris looked somewhat confused that she wasn’t climbing onstage, too. She eyed the wobbly chair, fumbled, and steadied herself.

  “Cheryl, we need to help her,” Jackie said, pulling Cheryl out of the grasp of a dancer. They hustled to the edge and peered down at Doris. Extending a hand, Jackie said, “Come on.”

  “I . . . I . . .” Doris covered her mouth with one hand and held up a wobbly finger with the other. Taking a deep breath, she hiccuped and then cringed, eyes widening in surprise.

  “What’s the problem?” Cheryl demanded, peering down at her. “We’ve got to dance with the strippers. Get up here.”

  Doris’s face flushed bright red. As women continued to claw, push, and scratch their way onto the platform, Doris dove for her Coach bag and fumbled with the shiny latch. The purse burst open just as Doris did, filling her purse with rejected tequila.

  “PLEASE CALL AN ambulance,” a voice moaned from underneath a stack of feather pillows.

  At that, Jackie put down her newspaper and stood up with a stretch. “Debout, debout,” she chirped.

  An old friend of Robert’s owned the hotel they were staying at. He had been more than happy to give them a suite overlooking the high-end shops Jackie used to patronize on a regular basis. Delighted to find herself in luxury yet again, Jackie was already up, showered, and thumbing through the room service menu. There was little she liked more than a stay in a sumptuous hotel.

  “Get up, girls,” she said. “We need to figure out if anyone had promiscuous sex with a stripper.”

  There was movement under the blankets on Cheryl’s bed. When her pale face poked out, Jackie cringed and suggested, “Ooh. Just ease it back down to a steady horizontal.”

  “Can you call an ambulance?” Doris repeated, arms flailing.

  A tiny crack of sun, white like bleach, poked through a slit in the heavy curtains.

  “I know what you two need,” Jackie decided, padding over to the curtains. She threw them open, revealing harsh white sunlight and an expansive view of Michigan Avenue. At the unexpected light, Doris shrieked like a vampire.

  “Who’s hungry?” Jackie sang, holding out the room service menu. “Pick something out, then let’s talk about Doris’s idea. I placed a call to George and he’s looking into logistics.”

  “For . . . ?” Cheryl asked, rubbing her eyes.

  “Why, the male version of Hooters,” Jackie said. “We can pull it off. It’s a wonderful idea.”

  “Are you kidding?” Cheryl demanded.

  Jackie shook her head. “Totally serious. It’s hilarious.”

  “It’s horrible,” Doris protested. “Men serving food half naked? It’s completely inappropriate.”

  “Wait,” Cheryl argued, struggling up onto an elbow. “Women serve food in their bras at Hooters. TurnKey takes clients there. Why is that okay?”

  “That’s different,” Doris said, voice husky from a night of debauchery but somehow still prim. One hand rested against her head while the other reached for the glass of water Jackie had placed on the bedside table. At Cheryl’s outraged look, she said, “Cheryl, it’s a man’s world. You know that. If you can’t accept it, then you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.”

  “If it’s such a man’s world, then why can’t Doug bang Katherine Rigney?” Cheryl demanded. “And anyone else he wants?”

  “That has nothing to do with anything!” Doris’s face went red with rage, and then she lowered her head, moaning.

  “I think we’ve all had a little bit of disappointment this week, haven’t we?” Jackie spoke quickly. “And maybe we should get mad at the disappointment instead of each other, don’t you think?” At their silence, she picked up the phone and placed an order for pancakes, eggs, fruit, and a large pot of coffee. “The male version of Hooters,” she laughed lightly, setting down the receiver. “I guess it is silly . . .”

  “It’s not silly,” Cheryl argued, pushing off the covers and stumbling out of bed. She fumbled around in her purse and pulled out the crumpled-up strip club brochure. It was covered in promotional photos of half-dressed firefighters, naval captains, and businessmen. Waving the brochure at Doris, Cheryl muttered, “It’s brilliant.”

  Jackie’s eyes widened, innocent. “Well, then . . .”

  “Toss me that notepad,” Cheryl said, forcing herself into a sitting position. “We’ve got some plans to make.”

  Chapter Twelve

  THE WEEKEND IN CHICAGO FLEW BY. PAMPERING AT THE HOTEL spa, fabulous meals on Rush Street, and little trinkets courtesy of Doug’s credit card did much to put the women back in good spirits. When they returned to Doris’s house two days later, Jackie felt much more capable of figuring out the next step to put her life back on track. But Cheryl had beaten her to it.

  The morning after they returned, the doorbell chimed at five a.m. Jackie pulled the pillow over her head, hoping the noise would stop. The bell kept ringing.

  “Son of a bitch—somebody answer the door!” Mandy shouted.

  Jackie climbed out of bed, pulling on a silk robe around her pink pajama set. Fluffing her hair, she headed out into the hallway.

  Doris was already dressed and rushing down the staircase. “Maybe Doug came back,” she whispered, hopeful. Jackie followed her downstairs, not wanting to point out that if it were Doug, he would have just used his key.

  Doris fumbled with the locks and threw open the door, then seemed to wilt against the door frame. “It’s just Cheryl,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Did I wake you?” Cheryl asked. Without waiting for an answer, she pushed her way inside. Her arms were filled with papers, her face heated and manic.

  “What are you doing here so . . . so early?” Doris asked, biting at her lip. She peered past Cheryl as though Doug might still be standing there like she’d hoped, waiting to surprise her.

  “Early bird gets the worm,” Cheryl said and held up a drawing of a penis.

  Jackie shrieked. Ceremoniously, Cheryl plunked an armload of similar drawings on the kitchen table. Bustling back out to her car, she called back over her shoulder, “Hang on, girls, I’ve got lots of surprises.”

  After her next few trips, the kitchen table was full of papers, a laptop computer, breakfast sandwiches, and coffee. “Well? Where are the plates?” Cheryl asked. “I’m starving.”

  Doris sprung into action, setting the table with the finest china. Jackie poured coffee for the three of them, then walked over to stand behind Cheryl, cradling the mug in her hands. Cheryl turned on her Mac and slid on a pair of reading glasses. “All right, here we go. I spent a lot of time working on this stuff so you guys better like it.”

  Peering at one of the graphic designs on the screen, Jackie squealed. It was a man wearing a banana hammock, carefully placing cocktails on a table. As Cheryl clicked through the drawings, Jackie burst out laughing.

  “What?” Doris said, setting down her breakfast sandwich. Jackie beckoned, and with a sigh, Doris walked over and peered at the computer. “This is obscene,” she finally said.

  “Which one?” Cheryl asked. “There’s more on the table.”

  Together, Jackie and Doris sifted through the other papers. Doris held up a drawing and said, “This one.” Jackie burs
t out laughing. Cheryl had cut out one of the firefighters from the strip club brochure and glued a tray of food to his hands. A hose was hanging out of the front of his pants.

  “If obscene means cha-ching,” Cheryl sang, grabbing the paper from Doris and laying it back on the table, “you’re so right. After our little brainstorming session in the hotel, I came up with a few ideas.”

  “You mean, there’s more?” Jackie said, looking around in surprise.

  Cheryl smirked and opened a PowerPoint presentation. “Girls,” she said, “get comfortable.”

  It took about ten minutes for her to blow through the rest of the drawings and mock-ups she’d spent hours creating. Cheryl had laid out an entire plan to open a restaurant with a focus on the male package. “And there it is,” she finished, glancing at her friends for approval. “Look, it’s about time somebody did it.”

  “What’s on the menu?” Doris demanded. “Bratwurst?”

  “No, no,” Cheryl grinned, taking a gulp of coffee. “Normal food but it’s all served by men that look exactly like the one Doris funded the other night.”

  A bright red blush crept over Doris’s cheeks. “That’s inappropriate,” she mumbled.

  Jackie was eyeing the plans, dollar signs starting to form in her eyes. “This could be huge.”

  “I know it’s huge.” Cheryl nodded.

  They heard a giggle. All three heads swiveled to the door where Mandy stood, listening. “Huge,” she repeated. “Get it?”

  “Mandy,” Doris admonished. “Go back to bed.”

  “Wait,” Mandy said. “I have a name. If you’re serving fast food, it could be called Speedy Dicks. Or if you did, like, breakfasts, you could call it Early Risers.”

  “If we had outdoor seating,” Cheryl added, “we could say, Welcome to Eat Outs.”

  “And if you had a long line or something, your dudes could say, ‘It won’t be schlong,’” Mandy said, then collapsed in giggles.

  “Enough,” Doris cried, hitting the table. Her sausage sandwich bounced.

  The room went quiet for a minute. “What is your problem?” Cheryl demanded.