Bosco & Ding Dong

I picked up the nickname Bosco because of my smooth as chocolate milk skin. Some guy I dated said I reminded him of the drink and the name stuck. Now I dance under the name.

Dancing is what you make of it. I grew up in Poughkeepsie. I worked the Hudson Valley while I was finishing high school. I know what you are thinking. But I had good fake ID. Actually my older sister's real ID, and it wasn't like the guys who ran the joints checked too hard. I didn't touch the customers, in that way, anyway, usually. My gig was that my Catholic schoolgirl uniform seemed all the more authentic-cause it was. Most of the white girls in that area are from Russia, just off the boat, and kinda hairy. Clubs themselves have those big guys that work security. The Russian girls all seemed to have an extra layer of security, a big guy or two who would bring 'em to work and take 'em back home to the city at night. I kinda learned what that was about later. I was pretty independent just trying to make cash so that I could move on when I finished school. I hated home.

I worked a few places-"Slips and Slides," "Bends" "Girls, Girls, Girls." My favorite Hudson Valley club was in Poughkeepsie itself. Place called Elmer's. Used to be a sandwich shop. Girls all called it "Fudd's," cause the guys who came to the place all reminded us of that guy from the cartoon.

The thing about Fudd's was that about half the girls "did," if you know what I mean, and the other half "didn't." But Elmer didn't really care what you did after work. No pressure.

For some of you guys who are slow about what I mean. Let's say, on what fragment of the strip remains in Baltimore you are in a place with dancers. For the record, I won't work in Baltimore. And I don't know which places do this anymore. But let's say you liked a dancer. If she liked you back, you could buy a "bottle of champaign," and the two of you would have an hour to share the bubbly in a locked private room in the back. Champaign and a tip just wipes a girl's inhibitions and I am sure sex sometimes happened.

Well Fudd's wasn't a place with a locked champaign room. You could buy a private dance. But private dance meant me naked on your lap in a very dark mostly public corner at the back of the club. No sex happened. The guy always stayed fully clothed. The rule was no touching, but I would wink at the bouncer and let a generous guy or regular touch me however I might be touching him, if you know what I mean. My best private dances were always finger lick'n good.

But anyway, with the girls that "did" at Fudd's, the deal worked like this. If a guy seemed generous, maybe he bought a second private dance. You would talk about your rent being due. Or your car broke. Or some other big bill. If only you could find $350 by morning you would get through tomorrow. Most of the guys who wanted action knew the secret handshake and soon a deal would be consummated, one of my college words, and the girl would meet the guy down the street at an all night diner after she finished her shift. Diner would usually lead to motel. And somehow the next day the girl could pay the rent.

I wasn't one of those girls. But since guys didn't know that when they first met me, I could work a horny guy for a few private dances if I let him be generous with his hands. The fact that a few girls "did," made the rest of us a whole hell of a lot of money when guys went prospecting for dates.

I liked Fudd's because you didn't have to put out. All you had to do is dance. You split your tips with Mr. Elmer at the end of the night and that was that. He didn't have to tell you to push dances, cause heck, you push dances to make more tips.

Why did I start dancing? I guess 'cause it was safe and I wanted to escape. My dad was black and my mom was a white Italian girl from one of those old country type Italian families. Grandpa ran a barbershop and when he found out that my mom not only was pregnant, but had moved in with a black man he tried to get a couple of his buddies who were "made men" to castrate daddy. Good Italian girls don't get together with that kind. My older sister was born. I was born three years later. But pretty soon that "castrate the n----" talk scared daddy away. I was too young to remember, or know what actually happened.

We moved back by mom's family near the fire station and they made us go to Catholic school. I am a black girl who can't speak ghetto talk to save her life cause my Italian relatives wouldn't let me near a black person while I was growing up. But I can make a mean gravy the old-world way. And it was always weird at school with all the Irish girls, Polish girls, Italian girls, and then me and my sister. We didn't know what we were supposed to be.

About fourteen I felt really ugly cause I'm really flat and cause I didn't have the alabaster skin that the popular Italian girls at school had. Black girls seem to come in about two or three types. The one type just gets big and round. The second type gets d-cup boobs on a tiny waist figure and has that pale brown skin and big dark nipples-they put them in Playboy. Then there is the third type-the ones who are skinny, skinny, and flat. I am the third type. Ever since I turned eighteen guys couldn't tell if I was thirteen or thirty. I stand about 5' 3". I have the biggest brown eyes. I got "good hair" from my mom. I think one of the reasons I dance is cause it makes me feel pretty. Some guys in the clubs go for the girls with plastic tits. Some guys go for those girls with tits and hips, chunky girls with curves. And some guys love flat chested girls. I am about as a-cup as you can get. I don't fill out a training bra and my boyish hips don't give much shape to a pair of jeans. There are always a bunch of guys who can't get enough of my teen boy body.

Anyway, when I graduated form Our Lady of Perpetual Virginity I was gone. Did I say you can make decent money dancing? You do the math. Three songs play while you are on stage. Fifteen guys ring the stage. You give each guy enough show that he gives you a buck a song as you move around the stage. Some guys will give you five. Some guys stiff you. But that likely means $45 per hour or so from just the one set of dancing, sometimes more. $50 per lap dance. $10 per drink when I sit with a guy. It adds up. I would usually take home about $450 for a night's dancing. Some nights it's less. Weekend nights it's a lot more especially if you run into one of those generous old guys who's got a bad case of lonely. I worked four or five nights a week junior and senior year of high school. I think mom thought I was waitressing, at least that's what I told her. I had a lot of cash when I left town.

I bought a sensible car and I was on the road. Dancing is a portable skill. It's like being able to write computer code or to fix the brakes on a car. You can dance anywhere. I got as far away from family as I could. I wanted to do something with horses so I moved to Kentucky. I started in Louisville cause I had seen the Derby on TV and that was about all I knew.

I learned real fast when I started in the Hudson Valley that every dancer is a college girl. The story wears thin fast for lots of girls cause they can't carry it very far in conversation, but for me it always worked like a charm. At Fudd's, I always said that I attended "Vassal College," guy's laughed. In Louisville I just said U of L if a guy asked. College girls are supposed to be smart, so I read a lot and could talk intelligently about a lot of things. I learned to ride horses while I was in Louisville. Made my ballet-trained legs even stronger. I also learned that you can major in horse stuff at UK, so before too long I moved down the road to Lexington.

Not a lot of places to dance in Lexington, but I found one and soon became pretty popular. The place is in what looks like an old remodeled Ponderosa Steak House on the north end of town. The DJ with that "let's get ready to rumble" voice introduced me, "Your mom always told you to drink your milk and here at TP's we can't help but agree. From New York, our milk chocolate treat, Bosco...bet you guys want to take a long drink of this one before the night ends." It was in Lexington that I met Ding Dong.

Think geek. Think plastic pocket protector. Think gentle. Think shy. I first noticed Ding Dong on a Friday. One of the girls, Heather I think, pointed at him and said "Ding Dong." Heather's pics are on a website. I think she wants to move into porn if only someone would look at her pics and discover her. Heather's looks always bothered me 'cause her one breast is a lot bigger than the other and she has an ugly snake tattoo over the small breast.

"What?" I asked.

"Ding Dong." Heather said.

"What?" I asked again.

"We call him Ding Dong.?"

"Why?"

"Cause he's here all the time. Every Friday and Saturday night. Just sits there watches the stage. Ding Dong. Like hello. Light's on. Anybody home?"

"Good tipper?" I was scoping out the territory.

"Never gets a dance. Just watches the stage. Ding Dong. Answer the door."

TP's does this thing where all the girls line up on stage, the DJ says a few words about how hot we are, and then we all strut off stage for "half price" couch dances. We all have to walk up to a guy at a table and ask if he wants a dance. About the fifth time that night we came off stage I wandered to Ding Dong's table, cause all the other girls had run to the tables with the paying customers.

"Ding Dong"

"What?" he said.

"Ding Dong."

"You talking to me?" he asked.

"Dance?" I asked.

"No."

"Company?" I asked and sat down.

He meant to say no.

"I'm new in town," I kept talking. "I plan to study equine management at UK starting this fall. Lexington is so different from New York, don't ya think?"

"Um." He meant to say that he didn't want to have to pay to buy me a drink as I had pointed at the waitress, then at his glass, then help up two fingers.

"So what do you do?"

"Engineer," he said. I was surprised to get that much out of him. He suffered from a bad case of lonely complicated by a worse case of shy. He didn't have a twang to his voice so he must have come from somewhere else originally.

Waitress came with the drinks. I handed her a twenty and waived off change. Ding Dong blanched.

"Won't you get in trouble for that?" He didn't look eager to put his money where his mouth was.

"I just made sure that TP got his share for my time. He doesn't care whose pocket it comes from."

I didn't say anything more. It was Ding Dong's turn to talk. He didn't take it too quickly. I'm a polite listener so I waited for him to finish. Before he could, the DJ rudely interrupted with my introduction..."and now from New York..."

I dropped a single on Ding Dong's table.

"If you have a moment," I said. "You could wander up to the stage and give that back to me. Just slide it under the garter when I get to you." I wanted Ding Dong to know that his wallet was safe with me.

I wandered off to make love to a brass pole.

I give good dance. I push the limits on most nights. First two songs I always show some great dance moves and I prove just how strong and flexible I am. Years of ballet are good for something. Usually on the third song I lay down on the stage, lean back, kick my legs behind a guy's head or back and pull him into my puss. All the customers in the gynecology row know that this 250-pound brick of a bouncer will break their head if they grope a dancer so the guys keep their hands to themselves. Guys are shocked when the dancer touches them. But dancers make their own rules. When the guy's lips touch mine its nirvana for me. After a good show I am pretty wet. The third or fourth guy I pull into my puss gets a mouth full of pussy juice if I am really on. I made sure Ding Dong was that fourth guy. He came to give me my dollar back.

I'm sure Ding Dong had seen me give guys a face full of puss at least half a dozen times that night, but he still wasn't expecting it when it happened to him. I rubbed myself obscenely and made sure my pussy lips were wide open and ripe as I stretched my legs. Ding Dong's body went real stiff when my legs pulled him in. I think he genuinely was embarrassed to have his mouth squarely planted so that his lips met my clit. I slid my clit up and down his lips, short strokes, gentle, a few quick times. Catch and release.

After my round on stage I had the usual couple of guys who hadn't had their fill and wanted a couch dance. $200 later I was back in the main room and saw Ding Dong back at his corner table. I picked up a drink at the bar and joined him.

"Ding Dong."

"Me?" he asked. He had a kind quiet air about him. I am sure he didn't expect to be chatted up again by me that night. He looked embarrassed at my hello. His eyes wouldn't meet mine.

"Yeah you," I said. "Was that your first time at the stage in how long?" I knew the answer. Other girls told me they couldn't remember Ding Dong ever sitting closer to the stage than his corner table. He paid his cover, bought himself a few drinks, but never ventured up to gynecology or to either of the couch dance rooms.

"Don't know."

"Where you work?" I changed the subject.

"With computers," he said. He finally looked up.

"And whose computers are these?"

"Good ones. Top of the line." Ding Dong obviously didn't trust me. He was being very careful about what he said like all the answers were state secrets. I don't know what his mom told him about dancers when he was growing up, but part of it stuck. He got in the door to our club, but it wasn't entirely clear he was having fun yet. I knew he would relax if he saw I wasn't out to take his fortune.

"You like it here?" I asked.

"Sure."

"What's the best part?"

"Pretty girls."

"You mean the best part ain't my company?" I smiled at him and touched his arm just a little. I took a sip of my soda.

He blushed. He actually blushed. Ding Dong is a white guy, somewhere from 35 to 50. One of those middle aged ageless kind. Dark hair cut short. A few wisps of gray. Not fat. Not thin. Not tall. Not short. I wouldn't call him my type. But he seemed gentle and kind in his manner. He wasn't out to take anything from anyone. He probably had a story to tell, but he would tell it only very slowly. I was starting to get the first few lines down.

A couple kinds of guys come into clubs. There are the guys who come in with a bunch of their buddies looking to act a little crazy and have some fun. Maybe it's a bachelor party. Maybe it's a guy's birthday. Maybe its some guys closing a business deal. But these guys just want a little something they think is over the edge, something that Miss Pretend Virgin at home thinks is too naughty for her to do especially with the kids asleep down the hall.

Then you get the dirty old men. These guys are the fortysomethings who want a nineteen-year-old body as a live playtoy. These are the guys for whom you can't shave smooth enough cause they really want to forget you hit puberty. These guys probably can't get it up without a double shot of viagra. These guys likely haven't touched their wives in years-the stretch marks on their wife's belly from the second kid grossed them out too much. That's when sex with the wife stopped.

Then there are the guys who want to pick up a stripper as some kind of trophy. These guys are all about showing you how great they are. They brag on how big their dick is, or how big their biceps are, or how great a six-pack they got. They tell you how much money they got too. They tell you how important they are at whatever they do. These are the guys who drive hot cars and always tip too much as if those dollars will buy your private afterwork time. A couple girls always fall for the act and play private eye candy for these guys at least until the girl wants a ring, and not just a pearl necklace. Then the girls are out and the guys are back telling us how good they are and how rich they are and on and on.

Then there are the guys who are lonely or shy. That's where Ding Dong came in. Lonely guys go to see dancers because dancers will talk to them and give good ear. Yeah you are paying the dancer to talk but so what. If she's good she actually listens and talks back-a real conversation. It's like this, you pay $10 a drink for the dancer, or you take Miss Propertwat to $150 of theater and $150 of dinner at Dunnwid Phillip's French Bistro. Or you give your shrink $150 an hour to tell you that you really are special. I like to think I am more honest about the deal. I don't gripe that our seats are too far from the stage, or that the waiter is ignoring us. I don't say much about Freud, unless you really want to talk about "An Outline of Psychoanalysis" or something like that. I actually listen to what you say and try to say something smart back, cause 'heck, I want you to drop $10 on another drink and then another and maybe a few dollars more on a couch dance.

About the time Ding Dong seemed ready to open his mouth the DJ called my name again for stage duty. I was tired. We have two shifts at TP's, 11:00 to 7:00 and 7:00 to 3:00. I had worked 11:00 to 7:00 and then TP had asked me to stay extra cause a couple of girls hadn't come in. I had been there about twelve hours at this point and my legs were aching. I had a chat with TP on my way to the stage and said that this set would be my last. I needed to head home. T.P. didn't complain much as I usually made him great money. After my tour on stage I turned down the two men who wanted couch dances cause my legs were too tired to give them my best show. On my way back to the dressing room I stopped by Ding Dong one more time.

"Ding Dong."

"Talking to me?" he asked. He looked surprised that I was back for more.

"Sure I am. I didn't forget you. Hey I'm bugg'n out. I worked the day shift and half the night shift and my gorgeous legs can't take much more." I struck a pose and continued. "After I put some clothes on back in the dressing room, I intend to take myself over to Lenny's Diner and have a plate of eggs before I head home."

"Oh," he said. It dawned on me, that he maybe thought I was one of those girls that "did" and was propositioning him.

"Buy you an order of hash browns or cup of coffee if you drop by. And if you are wondering, my car runs, got no doctor bills, and rent's already paid this month and the next and the next-which is why I'm head'n home at eleven instead of work'n till three. I'm off the clock when I'm out that door and not get'n back on no matter how nice someone asks."

He nodded and smiled. Maybe he got the message that his wallet was safe. I dressed quickly back in the dressing room. One of the girls, Heather, was showing a couple of other girls that she could take all twelve inches of a dildo as her way of proving that she had taken every inch of some monster dicked guy who had been in the other night. It was one of those where the customer wanted to pick up a dancer. Heather gave him a couch dance and happened to feel his big package through his jeans. When she felt it, she knew she had to have it. So they ended up going home together. Heather was good enough not to charge him for her time since he was so big. Heather usually likes to find a customer for a $350 nightcap. The dildo show was Heather's bragging to everyone else on what he was like-its all kiss and tell in the dressing room.

I left the dressing room looking pretty plain in jeans and a t-shirt. I could be any girl just off her shift flipping burgers or working drive through.

I took a booth at Lenny's, usually I sit at the counter, but I had hopes. Ordered eggs, scrambled, bacon, hash browns, toast, and grits. I was hungry.

And Ding Dong showed up. I was surprised.

"My name is Tom," he said as he sat down.

"Anna Maria," I said. "Named after some famous Italian singer."