Scores

  Customers are to be charged a twenty-dollar minimum for every four-minute lap dance.

  No free drinks except with authorization of a manager or owner.

  No touching entertainers during lap dances. Call a manager for control.

  No sexual activity of any kind with customers, no talking about it either; expect undercover vice cops to be in constant circulation.

  And the most important rule, there is to be no sexual activity among staff: no dating, no kissing, and no playing around. No boyfriends or girlfriends in the club. Violation will be cause for immediate and permanent firing.

  Interestingly, the first person to violate the “most important rule” was its author: Bildstein.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Welcome to Scores

  OCTOBER 31, 1991

  Opening night, and two giant Hollywood-style sky lanterns shoot broad beams of light into the heavens from trucks parked in front of Scores. The block between First and Second Avenues is immaculate, bearing no resemblance to its appearance on the first afternoon we came a-looking. The city’s bridge machinery is gone, the homeless have moved, and there’s no evidence of giant roaming rats.

  Faithful to our promise to an ungrateful community board, the entrance is low-key in the extreme. A simple black-and-white canopy printed with our logo and motto breaks the uniform building line, and a red carpet extends from the glass entrance doors to the sidewalk. A doorman, in full braided uniform with matching hat, opens the doors of arriving vehicles, and a string of tuxedoed managers stands primed to answer questions and escort guests into the club. No posters or pictures of any kind grace the exterior, and no uninformed passerby could possibly glean any clue as to the nature of the entertainment offered within. Even the front doors are filled with mosaic stained glass to prevent peeking.

  Upon entering through the front doors, the patron finds himself in a small, unspectacular rectangular anteroom. Along the right wall is a wood-and-glass case containing objects of Scores memorabilia and souvenirs for sale: hats, towels, T-shirts, and the like. Behind a waist-high counter, in a strapless and sparkling evening gown, stands a remarkably stunning hostess. Payment of a twenty-dollar entrance fee results in a manager opening the next portal into the awaiting inner sanctum.

  Passing out of the spartan anteroom and through a second set of doors, the patron steps onto a beige marble floor and faces a circular wooden counter offering an impressive array of cigars and tobacco products from yet another model-quality hostess. Stepping to the left, and for a fee of five dollars per item, coats, hats, or briefcases are exchanged for retrieval stubs; each fee, an unwitting donation to the mafia.

  The customer now retraces his steps and travels counterclockwise around the sales kiosk to a semicircular series of twelve ascending marble steps. On the way, the patron passes a set of 100 humidors resembling a wall of a bank vault’s safe deposit boxes. For a mere $1,000 per year, a customer may purchase the rights to a locked box containing a small cigar humidor and room for other personal items, and can request a name prominently engraved on the face of the box. As it’s opening night, no humidors had yet been offered for sale and, obviously, no names engraved. But, in the coming years, some of the world’s most celebrated and recognizable names will appear on the vestibule humidors, and a long waiting list established.

  As customers climb the marble steps, their senses are bombarded with a scene out of Vegas and Monte Carlo combined. To the right is the main theatre, where a quick set of carpeted stairs lead to a sunken floor. A long, standing bar sits on the left with large television sets adorning it; and on the right, a sprawling area is filled with tables and chairs, booths, a large central stage, and multiple solo dance pedestals. Additional television screens featuring professional and college sporting events are everywhere.

  The main theatre room and bar area are filled with rainbows of bouncing colors. Neon signs blaze, offering direction arrows and identifying areas of interest; red, blue, and green spotlights affixed in the ceiling provide alternating showers of tinted glow. The general aura of lighting is muted, providing a sense of privacy—yet more than ample to prevent blind stumbling.

  Topless dancers move sensually on the solo pedestals; others dance on the central stage. Rhythmic music pours out of a battery of enormous speakers and pervades the club, while the DJ, in overly emphasized and dramatic tones, introduces each of the ever-alternating performers. Not a single customer appears to be watching the sporting contests; other pursuits have captivated them.

  Except at the bar, all of the customers are seated. A few are sampling complimentary finger foods, most are transfixed by the occupied stages, and many are draped by topless female forms, and are enjoying lap dances. The entertainers who aren’t on stage circulate in evening gowns, in search of guests willing to engage their services for erotic fantasy.

  Few New Yorkers have ever previously experienced a lap dance, and after the initial introductions and explanations of the charges to be incurred, the dancer turns away from the patron, removes her dress, and turns back covered only by a thong. Of course every dancer has, before entering the room, had her nipples coated with latex paint matched to her natural skin tone by our professional cosmetologist; the practice seems to go unnoticed by our patrons.

  As most of the dancers sport long, straight hairdos, the rite uniformly begins with a showering of hair. The entertainer next moves ever closer and simulates the gesture of an intimate kiss. By this time, the customer, who has been alerted to the “no-touching” rule, is gripping his chair arms as if in a dental treatment chair, enjoying the exotic moment but fearing a breach of the rules.

  When the first dance ends, the entertainer inquires whether the patron wishes her to continue. If not, twenty dollars is exchanged; if so, the dance goes on. With each new retainer, the atmosphere grows in allure. Life stories are exchanged and, as amazing as it may seem, the entertainer finds every word out of the patron’s mouth both amusing and insightful. As the dances flow, and the customer grows more confident and self-assured, he reaches out and gently brushes the dancer’s legs. The touch is so light he can always claim it was an honest mistake if admonished. When she permits this intimacy, there’s a genuine thrill resulting from a combination of naughtiness and adolescent rule-breaking.

  Once past five dances, and a hundred dollars owed, even greater heights of familiarity evolve. The dancer may rest a moment in her new friend’s lap, or massage his neck, or hold his hand. By this time, customer and dancer are old buddies, and he is proud that the sheer force of his personality and sexual “scent” have engaged and amused this beautiful young stranger. She feels his mystique and wants to know him better, learn his inner self.

  When the customer declares the session over, he inquires as to when his new intimate will be dancing again at the club, and he debates whether to send flowers to her as a reminder of their new “connection.” By the time he reaches his car, there is momentary worry whether his wife or girlfriend will detect the aroma of a hot twenty-year-old blonde, blue-eyed cowgirl from Dallas. “But I didn’t do anything,” he assures himself. “I didn’t even really touch her.” Then he smiles that smile he hasn’t engaged for many a year and adds, “Not yet, anyway.”

  To the right of the stage in the main theatre sits the “Champagne Lounge,” identified as such in scripted neon. The lounge provides more comfortable seating and a better view of the main stage; it also offers a sense of greater privacy as it extends to the club’s back walls where there are shadowy nooks and crannies. For a modest tip to one of the accommodating managers, a customer can climb a magical staircase into the first level of Scores prestige.

  To the right of the Champagne Lounge sits the half-court basketball court. Since the doors opened, patrons have rolled up their sleeves, climbed into the netted pit, and challenged one another to contests. There have been two injuries in the first hours of operation and we are obviously going to need better wall and floor padding, or a bigger insurance policy.
The basketball court was plainly a mistake to be rectified.

  To the left of the main stage is an area filled with sports and sports-computer games: basketball foul shooting, golf putting and driving, baseball and hockey games. Few if any customers are curious enough to spend any time or dollars in this section; other available activities seem to have overwhelmed any desire for arcade entertainment. The viability of this area will need to be reevaluated as well.

  After ascending the initial semicircular stairway, had the customer chosen a left turn, away from the main room, he would have encountered the bejeweled doors to the club’s restaurant, offering a full range of continental cuisine. The dining area is separate, completely walled off from the balance of the club, but music is pumped in from the main theatre. A full-service bar stands available, and multiple solo pedestals are in use by gyrating topless entertainers. Table dancing is certainly permitted in the dining area, although most patrons seem to prefer eating without naked women in their laps.

  On this opening night we see, for the first time, a fetish-like desire in some patrons to have bare-breasted companions share their tables for meals, the price being negotiable. Scantily clad massage girls also circulate, offering immediate relief from tense and overtired muscles at lap dance prices.

  And finally, at the rear of the restaurant lies the locked entrance to the height of Scores’ preferential status treatment, “The President’s Club”—the exclusive area reserved for the rich, the famous, and the gullible. The Club is for “members only,” with memberships offered on a yearly or nightly basis. For approximately $100 per person per night, or $1,500 per year, the doors swing open. While the club inside is intimate, lined with champagne magnums, and serviced by a higher ratio of staff persons to patrons, there is no appreciable difference between a night at Scores or a night in its President’s Club. Membership is a matter of ego and status, of bragging rights, although since the wealthy gather to hunt there, and the space is defined and confined, there is a true sense of increased and stylish privacy.

  There is also a secret area of note offered to a valued few within the President’s Club’s walls. A spiral staircase leads up to the “Crow’s Nest,” the only truly unmonitored and impenetrable section of the entire space. It holds no more than ten people and requires a fat “bribe” to a manager to gain access. Forgive me for saying this, but what happens in the Crow’s Nest stays in the Crow’s Nest; and no undercover government spy ever breached its holy barrier.

  Opening night was a stellar success, with wall-to-wall approving and impressed patrons. Our ownership group was thrilled by the line around the block waiting for the privilege of entering, by the drinks poured without relent, and by the favorable comparisons made by our entertainers to established haunts throughout the country.

  One must recall that Scores on opening night was not the Scores of its own future, not yet the favorite night spot for celebrities, movie stars, television personalities, and professional athletes. Such lofty status was not even a dream on my radar and, in fact, the only “stars” on opening night were Regis Philbin and Jackie Mason—not exactly the stuff of watercooler gossip. No, our opening-night crowd was made up of our targeted base: lawyers, stockbrokers, businessmen, and a smattering of politicians; all in suits, carrying briefcases and platinum American Express cards.

  As the night began to slow, an older gentleman in an unimpressive polyester suit ambled over to me, inquiring if I was the club’s owner. I responded warily, identifying myself as corporate counsel and owner’s representative.

  “You’ll do just fine, then,” he retorted, adding, “I’m an investigator with the SLA, the Liquor Authority, and I’m serving the club with a summons for activities I observed here tonight which violate our rules.”

  Keeping my face stoic, I accepted the paper from the investigator’s hand and walked slowly into the office. There wasn’t much to read, but I was surprised by the mixed bag of news it contained. We had been cited for permitting our entertainers to perform without their nipples properly covered with an opaque substance—which was completely untrue—but there was no mention of violations of the “eighteen inch in the air/six feet away from a customer” rule. Interesting.

  It was thus on our grand opening night, before the glue on the phony brass had yet fully dried, that New York State unveiled its legal objections to our continued existence as Manhattan’s first table-dance establishment. It appeared the initial battle was to be waged over the opaque properties of theatrical latex paint, and perhaps the legal impediments to lap dancing were to be held in the wings as a secondary assault weapon.

  In the morning, I formally retained my scientific expert from the University of North Carolina and ordered a full spectrum of tests performed on the latex paint. I also called the legal arm of the SLA and worked out a stipulation that no further summonses would be served for the same violation until full administrative hearings and court appeals had determined our guilt or innocence on the charge.

  There was no doubt in my mind—the slow wheels of justice would grind this matter out for years, yet I was startled at how quickly the summons had come. But so what: the fight was now officially on, the gauntlet thrown, and the anticipated challenge to our nipples defined. There was no way under heaven my exuberance over the walloping success of our first night could be, even mildly, dulled.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  How to Own a Strip Club

  TWO MONTHS LATER, DECEMBER 1991

  As the Christmas holiday season arrived, I’d discovered that, at least for me, there’d been “Four Stages of Strip Bar Ownership,” and I’d ripped through each stage in astoundingly quick succession. It was only much later that I came to recognize and identify the subtle processes playing within my closeted gay psyche.

  Discomfort: My first stage of ownership was the most sharply and acutely felt. When I arrived at the club before the doors first opened, our 100 nervous and excited entertainers were crammed into an undersized dressing room preparing their minds, but mostly their bodies, for their performances. There I was, in the midst of wall-to-wall nakedness: gowns being tried on and tailored, pubic hair being shaved to fit thongs, make-up being applied, and countless breasts of every size and shape being colored, powdered, blushed, and latexed. It was all seriously intense—all business and very professional.

  Believe you me, there were more bare breasts in that one room than most healthy and sexually active men could reasonably expect to see in a lifetime. And what was my reaction? Honestly, I was uncomfortable; perhaps embarrassed would be the better description. And it was not a gay thing! It was the sort of discomfort one feels as a child stumbling into a sister’s bedroom at an inopportune moment. My first instinct was to abandon the area, to flee as if I were a wrongful invader of privacy.

  Titillation: But discomfort simply cannot last when you are the only person in a crowd feeling uncomfortable. Almost immediately, word spread that the “lawyer-owner” was in the house. Dancers ambled over to me in the altogether seeking answers to mundane questions of work schedules, tax reporting requirements, and pay periods. The women were wholly at home with their state of undress, and it quickly became impossible for me to retain any continuing feelings of stress.

  Suddenly I found myself titillated to the core. My expert opinion was being sought by naked dancers on the amount of latex I thought necessary to comply with law and, upon request, I started examining breasts for color, tint, and hue. There followed discussions about augmentations, implants, and the prices for those procedures in different locales. I wanted to remark I’d never taken any “breast law” courses at Georgetown, but I was having too much fun to turn snide.

  It was all so matter-of-fact, but within me, there was the undeniable rush of having forever breached a lifelong barrier—a barrier of guilt and shame connected with casual nudity. Before long, I was totally at home, one of the insiders, and I was inebriated in a flood of mammary overload. It was nothing less than lovely.

  Power:
The titillation stage also cannot be long maintained because it finds no physical release; there can be no touching, no passion, no climax. Failure to adjust one’s emotional reactions would surely turn titillation into the constant pain of “blue balls.”

  Faced with this unavoidable reality, the strip bar owner seamlessly moves from feelings of stimulation to feelings of power. Now I don’t mean to imply any sense of power as in “life or death,” or “property rights.” Quite the contrary, it’s more a feeling of empowerment—a right to stand clothed among the naked, a right to have others completely exposed in normal discourse. While all of these nuances of feeling are, of course, illusory and more than a little silly, the sensations of power are real, emotional feelings that truly replace initial titillations.

  Boredom: Unfortunately, it is this final of the four stages that winds up lasting forever. On the first night of ownership, you get to see 200 breasts; after one week, you’ve borne witness to 1,400 breasts; after one year almost 73,000 breasts; after five years, a whopping 365,000 naked breasts!

  Understand this: there’s only so long one can feel embarrassed, titillated, or empowered by dancing glands. After a while, they have all the emotional pull of furniture. To be honest, in my first hours of Scores ownership, my eyes were glued to every passing pair of bouncing orbs. Within a month, I actually preferred to interact with clothed dancers. I do concede that my arrival at this stage may have been accelerated by the “gay thing.”

  Sadly, the presence of constant nudity became so run-of-the-mill that when I was introduced to newly-arrived naked entertainers, my mind wandered to guessing whether their breasts contained double or triple implants, or to which surgeon performed the procedure by eyeing the hidden surgical scars.

  Maybe you can have too much of a good thing.