Hobby Horse Night

A seventy-nine-mile drive from home, fifty-seven as the crow flies. Across a state line. The car has no GPS, or anything to allow remote tracking. License plates off, an old temp tag on. Phone turned off.

No problems the first six times.

I don't get a rush from sneaking around. If I can keep getting away with this, I'll keep doing it, that's all.

Near the state line, I exit the interstate, work my way to a two-lane road, and turn off between farm fields. When I'm sure there's nobody around, I put on the lipstick, eye makeup, and wig. Then I return to the interstate.

Final approach is along a state road between towns. Truck docks here and there. No housing developments, therefore no schools.

The video board at the entrance gives the official name and pitch.

Club Razzle Dazzle presents:

TGIM!

A bevy of beauties you'll see only on Mondays!

Reduced cover charge!

The employed dancers have Mondays off.

The regular customers have their own name for 'TGIM':

Hobby Horse Night.

Yeah, that must be it, the cash-strapped women who bare their bodies for these cheap losers are doing it as a hobby. It's like scrapbooking, except total strangers grope your tits. It's all a hoot, it's not like we desperately need the paper money that somehow slips inside our garters. And, oh yeah, we're also here for the thrills we can't have in real life. At home, I yearn for frat boys to beer-drool my nipples.

There's a separate parking lot in the back. I pull up to the gate and hold still. Once the cam shows that the car is occupied by a woman, the gate slides open. The owners may be mobbed up, and sleazy in general, but they know that their lives are easier if the women are safe. Or safe-ish.

Inside the back door I write my nom de nude on the clipboard. I'm the ninth so far tonight. There'll probably be a couple more, it's pretty early.

It'll be late when I leave.

There are a few chairs available at the big table where somebody DIY-ed mirrors and lights. I chat a little with the other women, as I freshen the makeup.

Nobody chats about real life. We don't even exchange our real names.

I stand up, and set the shoulder bag on the table. Out come the platforms and elastic-top fishnets, in go the sweater and jeans, which covered the lacy black-and-red bra, corset, and panties. I got them when everything at home was fun. He and I picked them out together, along with a sheer black thong for him.

My first time out is an 'atmospheric.' Three women slowly shimmy and spin, one at each pole stand, no music. That way, the women working on guys at the bar can hear, and be heard.

Eight guys cluster around my stand. The wig hair is straight and light brown, just past shoulder length, with bangs. I sway my head to fan the hair out. More guys approach, paper money in hand. They're hair guys, I've seen a few of them before.

The guys follow the rules. I pull out the garter, they slide the bills between it and my thigh. All one-bucks, at first.

Some guys yell for tits. I shake my head while wiggling my ass and sliding my sternum along the pole.

One guy holds up what is clearly a ten-spot.

I smile and pull away the snaps on the corset.

Now more bills are held up, fives and tens.

I do a couple moves on the pole. These also date back to when everything was fun, and before we had to drop the gym membership.

I pull out the garter. The influx of paper includes at least one twenty. Amazing what's available when the cover charge is low.

I straighten up and, in a tease about thirty seconds long, reveal my breasts to men I hope I never encounter anywhere else. No tassels, but plenty of shaking, and over-the-head bra-waving.

Soon, with more bills pressed against my thigh, I pick up my gear, wave, smile, and give way to the next side-hustler.

I escape with panties still on. The club encourages keeping groins covered until later.

All of the drapery gaps, to the dressing room, feed to where Gertie waits at a small table with a cash box. We count the money together. She gets my agreement when she takes her cut.

She's fair. That's why I keep using this place.

Then, bra and corset restored, I stroll the club floor. Most of the guys surround the pole stands, only a few are at the long, curved bar.

A guy on a bar stool waves me over. Not clear in this light, but he seems weatherbeaten. Tall, lean, maybe Navy tats on his arms.

"What're you drinkin'?" he says while I'm still approaching.

"Top shelf scotch," I say with a grin. Worth a try.

He turns and nods at the bartender, and tells him, "The same." Then he looks at me as I slide onto the stool next to his. He doesn't bother to look at what the bartender is actually putting in the glasses. Mine, of course, is basically colored water. His is probably the real thing, but diluted. Clearly he knows the scam, and doesn't care.

The guy looks me up and down while he holds a credit card over the tap-spot reader on the bar. "What can I get for fifty?"

"Paper?" I ask, angling my head at his electronic payment for the 'booze.'

A smile moves the seams in his skin. "I know the drill."

"Three minutes of naked shimmy. No touching. You stay in the chair and don't get close. You can do whatever you have to do for yourself."

He nods. "Better than porn. Where?"

I lead him through the doorway to the private rooms. That's if you consider small spaces bounded by shower curtains to be 'rooms,' and 'private.' With one hand I slide a curtain open, with the other I pull up the garter on the leg nearest him. In goes the fifty.

Attached to the lightbulb suspended from the ceiling is a timer. I sweep off bra, corset, and panties, and start the timer. When I turn to face him, he's already sitting, bareass.

I start my moves. He sits still, leaning back, legs as spread as his ankled pants allow.

He starts stroking, and leans towards me.

I give him basic variety. Hip grinds while facing him, twerks and butt slaps while facing away, high kicks, boob shakes and squeezes.

We can both see the display on the timer, ticking down.

He adds ball-fingering to the stroke, and starts gasping.

I look at a point on the curtain far above his head.

The timer buzz is louder than his grunt.

I grab my clothes and leave.

For my cut, Gertie makes change for the fifty.

I haven't memorized the going rates for all of the 'favors,' but I know a few. I accept that all of us 'horses' are in this together. I don't undercut, and I don't try to hide any of the money. I don't think Gertie would keep using someone who does.

I have no way to confirm what I've been told, that the security cam footage is erased at the end of the night.

There's an arrangement between the owners and the sheriff's office, as long as palms are greased. This deal sets limits. A customer's genitals, in a condom, may touch an employee's hands, breasts, or feet, only. A customer's hands or mouth may contact any part of an employee's body, except her genitals and anus, if there is fully declared consent first. A customer may masturbate into an employee's removed garment or shoe.

Many of the acts on the favors list, I have never done. And won't.

I return to the bar. My next customer wants to chat first. I let him pretend that I enjoy his charm. In the room, I lapdance him, with both our crotches clothed but my breasts available to his hands and mouth.

My third customer is sullen, with an aura of self-hatred. In the room, he strips, lies on his back, and has me clomp around his body in the platforms, now and then nudging his prick with a toe or heel.

Each of these sessions brings me more than fifty.

The more structured dances begin, one at a time on the center pole stand, with music. One 'horse,' who has been at this for a while, does a rehearsed routine to "You Can Leave Your Hat On." In keeping with truth in advertising, the hat is the only thing she leaves on. I smile, watching this routine on the dressing room flatscreen. It's very well done, and fun. I don't know if it's fun for her. The chatting here doesn't go that deep.

A few minutes before my time in the spotlight, I throw on jeans and sweater and go out to the car. Inside it, I dig into the pockets I sewed into the corset. I pull out the money I've accumulated so far, and stuff it under the driver's side floor mat.

Back in the dressing room, I stow the outerwear, do some stretching, and again check makeup.

When I strut to the stand, there are forty or fifty guys around it, and at tables beyond. There are cheers and applause, with an admixture of howls from overserved asshats.

I can dance, and I've done high-energy workouts, and I've learned a few decent pole moves.

Also, I'm hot.

That allows me to stop short of what other women in my situation have to do. I don't do cam shows, which can compromise home life. I don't 'create content,' never knowing if the money will actually show up.

I don't turn tricks. Real ones. Dangerous ones.

Instead, I strip nude a few feet away from screaming men, and hope the bouncers are paying attention. And, 'hidden' by shower curtains, I allow men to do things within the boundaries I've set for this place.

The music played behind me is generic porno/strip stuff. It's what the club has available.

Money from tables in the back, mostly singles, arrives at the stand as paper airplanes. The rest, much of it in larger denominations, is hand-delivered to the garter gap, this time with my vulva on full display. Some guys' hands pick up airborne droplets of pubic sweat. No extra charge.

After the dance I take a break in the dressing room: Hydrating, then peeing in the bathroom that's clean enough, then hydrating some more.

Back to the bar. First a private strip with no jerking off, legal pretty much anywhere.

Next is a guy with thinning gray hair, and a physique on the far side of Dad-bod. While we go through the watered-drink routine, he shows me a page in a pocket-sized spiral notebook.

My eyes widen. It's a handwritten list of the private room 'favors,' with prices.

"Are you comfortable with these?" he asks with a pleasant smile.

"A few of them," I say neutrally. It's been a good night, but even if not...

"I'll probably like the ones you're willing to do," he says. He opens his sportcoat and shows that the inside pocket is stuffed with what appear to be twenties. "You can take whatever you allow."

In the private room he says, "Nude please. You don't have to dance."

Off go the bra, corset, and panties. I turn on the timer.

"No," he says, pointing at my legs. "All of that too."

Aaahhh. He doesn't want me to look like a whore. Away with the platforms and fishnets.

He strips, not at all shy. Standing, he sets the stack of bills on the chair, along with the list.

He says, "I'd like to hug and kiss."

I tell him, "Only if you turn sideways."

I make the first of many trips to the chair, moving bills onto my corset on the floor.

Our crotches safely spaced, I arrange our bodies.

He fondles my reachable breast slowly. My kiss is closed-mouth.

He breaks lip content and looks at me closely. I fight down the panic that he might recognize me, or at least see that I'm in a wig.

"I have a neighbor down the block who looks like you." His breathing is labored. "God, I want to bang her! Swan neck, high tits, great legs. Husband's this hunky guy, ten years younger than me. If he knew, he'd probably just laugh."

I smile, but don't say anything. I don't waste time pretending to be a therapist.

"Will you, um, lick my butthole? My wife refuses."

"With a dental dam."

He nods, but maybe doesn't know what that is. He bends over and puts his hands on the chair. He can probably feel that what I put over his anus isn't just my hands and mouth.

He seems to like the sensation that reaches him.

There are a few more activities, maybe wife-refused, maybe shame-producing.

I pinch his nipples while he squeezes his balls.

With my back well clear of his front, he fondles my butt and hidden breasts.

There is more standup hugging, with him likely in a fantasy of banging his neighbor. He is now erect.

It's not just that I look like her. I may have the same life. Home, family, whatever. Which this guy understands. Maybe that comforts him. This is why Hobby Horse Night has a unique appeal, to men who are here for reasons other than the low cover charge and the amateurs' dances.

Maybe his neighbor's doing okay. Or maybe she's also helping make ends meet.

Finally, my customer has me jerk him into a condom while he fondles my tits more firmly. When he cums, I feel his fingers tremble.

There are only a few bills still on the chair when I leave.

When Gertie and I go through this haul, she says, "I could get you on a couple more days a week. Saturdays, there's real money."

"No thanks." The working dancers probably need all of that real money. Maybe more than I do. What I need are the other six days of not being here.

There are two more atmospherics, one more solo dance, two more private rooms. A third prospect rejects me, because I reject what he wants. He persuades a different horse.

By eleven o'clock, the place is almost empty.

In the dressing room, I put on the real-life clothes over my naughties, and gulp bad coffee from a paper cup.

I'm alert enough to use my state line turnoff, and remove the wig. For the rest of the drive, I shake out, and finger through, my short black Mom-style ringlets.

In the garage, I dig out the money and put the license plates on the driver's seat. A job for whoever drives next.

"Hi Hon," he calls as I enter. "Everything okay?"

"Pepper spray still unused," I say. "Kids?"

"I acted out a story for them. They laughed. Helped them get to sleep."

Then, though he doesn't ask, I say, "Six hundred nineteen after expenses."

I make myself smile. It's the smile from when everything was fun.

That helps dispel his hurt look. He's getting better at hiding it.

He says, "I have a video interview Wednesday morning. Local, full-time, benefits."

"Great!" I say, and now my smile is real. Even though the other interviews got him nothing.

Hope still exists.

As we walk together, I lean in at the kids' room door, and am reassured by their sleep breathing.

As we get into our bed, we say things to reassure each other of our love.

We don't touch.

I know, I know damnit, that we will touch, and kiss, and embrace, and so much more, on Mondays again.

Someday.

But not yet.