"Who exactly is this charity event benefiting?" I repeatedly asked the golfers and volunteer strippers drinking around the pool at Gopher's Hole Country Club.
"It's for the kids," replied most of them, with a grin engorged by alcohol and arousal.
Exactly which kids was unclear. The strippers' kids? The strippers themselves?
That wasn't the only question that went unanswered. There was also confusion as to what exactly the golfers were paying for — beyond a barrage of sexual innuendos involving strokes, balls and holes — when they bid on the exotic dancers to be their caddies for the day.
I don't play golf nor do I participate in charity auctions, so it's hard for me to say how this event differed from other charity tournaments. One participant I talked to claimed that Gopher's Hole hired extra security this year to limit the number of forays the golfers and their unlicensed-caddies made into the woods surrounding the course. All I can really say with certainty is that Gopher's Hole made a smart decision by banning children and wives from the country club that day, particularly when it came to the pool party following the tournament.
I had wondered who would show up to a charity golf tournament on a Monday. The answer is corporate men who could afford to write it off as a team-building exercise.
Officially, I attended the event so I could write about it, and my buddy Brian came with me to take accompanying photos. But really we were there for the same reason as the golfers: to get drunk around promiscuous women.
Within minutes of our arrival, two sweet young ladies, J and D, began pulling off our shorts as an invitation for us to jump in the pool. In the water, J and D climbed on us like dogs searching for their footing in deep water. They informed us that they were cocktail waitresses, not strippers. In fact, most of the women we met claimed to be cocktail waitresses. Considering their propensity to get naked and molest strangers, I'd say they missed their calling. When J and D realized that Brian and I didn't pay to play in the tournament, they immediately climbed out of the pool and began tugging on the shorts of the nearest two golfers carrying a liquor bottle.
Within minutes of jumping in the pool, rain began pelting our pool party. Brian and I took cover in a cabana rented by our friend Amanda. J and D followed with the two golfers they lured into the pool after us. Luckily these guys brought liquor and cigarettes, which, along with cash and the occasional drugs, is pretty much all it takes to keep most "cocktail waitresses" satisfied.
"This actually isn't so bad," said the golfer cuddled between J and D. "If only we had ice."
In answer to his prayer, hail bombarded our cabana and smashed the cement around the pool. It was biblical. Apparently voodoo Jesus doesn't approve of charitable events for kids — though his powers weren't enough to stave off the debauchery for long.
I decided to get to know J and D before we were all obliterated for partying in the heart of a thunder storm. J was tan and tattooed down to her soul. Her loose bikini was no match for breast implants that complemented her thick frame. The mascara puddled around her eyes was mostly concealed by huge designer shades that sat crooked. D was a younger version of J with a lighter tan, fewer tattoos, and natural tits. Her Kool-Aid red hair bled into a towel. She didn't want me to write about her hair. I asked what I should write about. D suggested I write about her boobs. I asked what vegetable I could compare them too in order to paint a visual picture.
"Strawberries," she said.
Her answer still confounds me. Her nipples maybe. She described her ass as a watermelon. Juicy, I believe, was the word she was going for. In any case, the fruit similes were appropriate in describing these women: ripe specimens that would soon turn and be replaced by a younger crop.
When the storm blew over, the attendants dispersed to semi-secluded seating areas around the pool. Brian took covert photos of men getting lap dances on benches and in cabanas. Gold wedding bands shined against tanned asses. In one cabana, a lap dance got so vigorous it tipped over the sofa hosting the dance.
A $1,000 bikini contest ensued. A more appropriate name for the competition would have been "a topless ass-shaking and make-out contest." Some of the less attractive cocktail waitresses went onstage in pairs. A threesome of women got on all fours and clapped their asses, which might have been impressive had the skill not been predicated on them possessing an excess of loose fat.
Amanda, Brian and I provided unsolicited commentary.
"I fed that one once," Amanda said of one of the dancers who seemed to be on an extreme diet.
"They have some really meaningful tattoos," Brian said. "That one has a tattoo on her stomach that says 'gorgeous.'"
"It helps remind her clients in case they forget," I said. "So after a private dance, the guy can go back to his buddies and say, 'She was gorgeous.'"
"I like the boobs on the one in the purple bikini," I said. "Or the one who was previously wearing the purple bikini."
"Yeah, but she has a bruise near her nipple," Amanda noted.
She was right. I'm still uncertain how one gets a bruised boob or why bruises on dancers are unsavory. Perhaps it's the same visceral reaction we get when we see bruised fruit.
Amanda did not think these women were a good representation of the strip club sponsoring the event. There were several factors at play there. Sunlight isn't a stripper's natural setting. Flip-flops don't elevate an ass and legs the way six inch pumps do. There was also the question of what motivated this particular batch of women to come to this event. Were they the proverbial strippers with hearts of gold, donating their bodies for some good cause? Or were they simply party girls who enjoyed hanging out with men who showered them in alcohol and money? The type of dancers absent from the event were the professionals who had day jobs and college classes.
Still, there was something liberating about the cocktail waitresses making a splash at the pool that Monday. Many were in their prime, flaunting bodies that had yet to suffer the consequences of age and partying. They were the embodiment of their carpe diem tattoos, sucking up life like cigarettes.
The ladies were escorted off the stage, one-by-one, eliminated from the bikini dance-off — a foreshadowing of what was to come of their stripping careers.
I'm still not sure who won the bikini contest, or the golf tournament for that matter. Amanda had a bottle in her cabana that needed attending. As I drank, I became more self-reflective. I wasn't so different from the cocktail waitresses and golfers I was judging. We had all taken different paths that ended up at the same party. I had simply taken a path with fewer putting greens and smaller paychecks.
At one point Amanda's assistant asked why I was still wearing my swim trunks — making her the second woman to ask the question that day. Perhaps she asked more politely, or maybe the alcohol had simply loosened my drawstring. Either way, my trunks gave way to my red boy-shorts.
A few strippers approached me for photos. A few patted my junk. Our actual cocktail waitress allowed me to hold her in my arms while I did various bun-enhancing exercises. Guys who thought my moves were funny became my new friends. They realized my boy-shorts were just another gimmick to meet women, no different from the money they could dole out for bottle service or lap dances.
I knew eventually I would have to come up with a new gimmick; one day I would have to retire my party boy routine — but not that day. That day I was standing proud, shimmering in sunlight pouring through the cracks in the passing storm while hosting a one-man bikini-brief contest I could not lose.