Skin Dance – Page 3 – Inside The Mind of a Psychiatrist

Some years ago, a friend had a bachelor party and invited a dozen friends out to dinner. After dinner, someone said, “Hey, let’s go to a strip bar”.

An hour later, we were seated next to an s-shaped stage, as a buxom blond raised her leg 180 degrees onto a silver dancing pole. As we watched, Rod Stewart screamed, “If you want my body, and you think I’m sexy…” so loudly that everyone within earshot was guaranteed a visit to the House clinic, a famous ear hospital in LA, for middle ear surgery. Just as I was wondering whether my insurance covered such a procedure, a woman tapped me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear.

“Are you Doctor Smukler?”

“What?” I said, startled, and pivoted toward the pretty, sweet-smelling whisperer.

“Remember me? I’m Cathy. They call me Candy here.” She had full, pouty lips, 5’6” tall, long dark hair, and a costume that left nothing about her figure to the imagination.

“I do. I remember you,” I said, getting my surprise and embarrassment under control. A year ago, 22-year-old Cathy/Candy was sent for therapy by her parents to help her “find herself”. She attended 3 sessions and never scheduled another appointment.

“You really helped me, ” she said.

“Jesus”, I thought, wondering what sort of help that might have been.

“Thanks!” I said loudly, having to compete with Rod.

“Bye. Nice seeing you,” she said, and undulated away, leaving me staring at the naked, blond woman dancing around the pole.

A few weeks later, I signed up for a class on how to start and run your own strip bar. Really! There were a lot of Tony Soprano types, women with big boobs, and me.
After a few more months of research , the journal kind, I started my own strip club — just kidding. What I did do was start writing Skin Dance, a mystery.

Our experiences, often the most embarrassing ones, can be the nidus that begins our story. It takes a lot of passion to write 300 or so pages. Accepting that it’s okay to have all sorts of feelings, especially the politically incorrect ones, is as necessary as including sugar in a cookie mix.

If you enjoyed reading, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist, you might also enjoy Dr. Smukler’s novels, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, Skin Dance, a mystery, and The Man with a Microphone in his Ear. All are available as paperbacks and eBooks.

I’m talking about the regulars, the guys who get hooked and blow hundreds and hundreds and maybe thousands of dollars.

It might start off innocently enough. A group of guys go out for a night of bonding and laughs and wind up at a strip club. For most, it’s a few drinks, a bit of ogling, spending more money than predicted, and there it ends.

For some, it’s the beginning of an addiction.

In Skin Dance, a mystery, the main character Jake Robb, a psychiatrist, winds up talking to Candy, one of the dancers.

“Hi Honey,” an attractive young woman said, standing just inches from Jake, her breasts right in his face. She was dressed in black-silk shorts and a skimpy black-silk bra. Her hair was a mass of dark tangles and curls hanging halfway down her back. “I’m Candy. What can I get you to drink?” The researchers catalogued this type of behavior as counterfeiting intimacy, Jake remembered with a sigh. When it was actually happening it didn’t feel at all like it was counterfeit. Candy’s perfume floated around him, an aromatic web that under most circumstances would be difficult to resist.

Strip bars offer visual candy, rocking sound systems, a full bar, and pseudo-sex (lap dances). Any of these might be attractive, but are they worth investing hundreds of hours and lots of money?

When you’re in love, anything is possible. The addict watches the love of his life up on stage, bumping and grinding and playing up to anyone silly enough to drape money over the brass rail, but still believes, with all his heart, that what she really wants is him.

The addict is empty and hungry for love. Candy capitalizes on that need and instinctively knows just how to work her way into the heart and wallet of this desperate, lonely character.

One day when this fantasy ends, it will be with a dose of emptiness, recrimination, and possibly the knowledge that searching for love in a strip bar is doomed.

Art Smukler MD is the author of Skin Dance, a mystery, Chasing Backwards, a psychological murder mystery, The Man with a Microphone in his Ear, and the blog, Inside the Mind of a Psychiatrist.