I had never been publicly humiliated by a girl until I met Rachel. And that night changed my life forever.
When I was fresh out of college, I waited tables for a couple of years at a swanky central London club called Enricos. The place attracted some high-rollers, a few gangsters and a lot of very beautiful girls.
It was a regular club with dancing, live DJs and on some nights a band. But once a month they ran an XXX night, hired a few strippers, promoted a costume theme and ran various contests and games to get the clientele involved in the fun.
One of these games was a sexed-up version of the classic con trick known as three shells. They got a couple up on stage with two extra men - usually, they were plucked from the crowd but sometimes, club staff or one of the strippers had to fill in. The three guys, stripped down to their underwear, stood in a line. They blindfolded the girl, mixed up the guys, and just by touch, she would have to work out which one was her partner. To make the game a bit harder, she wasn’t allowed to touch their faces, and they picked guys who were about the same height and build. If she got it right, the couple got a bottle of champagne. If she got it wrong, she had to do a forfeit.
Our floor manager, Ella, MC’d the game and guided the blindfolded girl from one guy to the next. It was her personality and commentary that carried the game and kept things on track. Without her, some of the girls would have done a quick pat-down and then moved on. But if a girl was going too fast or was reluctant, Ella coaxed her to linger a couple of minutes and do a thorough job. Most importantly, she got the ‘money shot’ - she made sure the girl touched the guy’s dick - a moment that always drew noisy whoops and whistles from the spectators.
Ella had asked me to take part once or twice and offered me an extra hundred quid. It was just part of working at the club, she said, no big deal. Besides, a good-looking young guy like me had nothing to be embarrassed about. It was this appeal to my vanity, as well as the cash, that did the trick in the end. I was working out and lifting weights pretty regularly in those days. Getting undressed in front of a girl was not something I felt shy about.
Despite this cockiness, my first appearance was nerve-wracking. There I was, standing on stage in a pair of blue and white striped boxers, almost blinded by the bright lights. I remember the thumping bass of the sound system as we mounted the stage, then Ella’s raucous voice announcing the show through the PA, the cheers and whistles of the crowd. There was a sea of faces all turned towards us, dozens of girls in shiny silk dresses. I could feel their eyes on my face and body - and many smiles trying to catch my attention.
That first time, I was so immersed in the sense of being there among the crowd that I only have a dim memory of the actual woman in the game. She was just one figure plucked out of the crowd: a bright scarlet dress, matching lipstick, masses of blond hair, a thick wooden bangle on her wrist, the black silk blindfold. I guessed from the mottled skin of her arms and the sagginess of her neck that she was at least forty years old.
That night, I was first in line. Ella led her in front of me and the woman’s hands went first to my shoulders, then to my arms, then my chest. She had quite large hands and the skin was a little rough. She kept pinching and prodding me, as if she was teasing a baby, or giving me a medical exam. But she seemed to like my arms muscles and my shaved chest and the rippling muscles of my belly. Lingering on these areas, a smile went across her brightly painted lips.
“I think she likes this one,” Ella blurted out through the P.A. “You can’t take him home, Claire, not unless he’s yours…”
At the end of her inspection, the rough hand twisted on my belly and she slid it firmly over my groin until she was grasping my dick through my boxers. She just left her hand there, gripping me lightly as if she was expecting some reaction. But my manhood just hung there limply and the feeling of her firm hand gripping my soft penis through the cotton of my boxers reminded me again of a medical exam. The smile disappeared from the woman’s face and Ella moved her on to the next guy. In the front row of the crowd, I saw a curvy young brunette blowing me a kiss.
In the end, Claire guessed her boyfriend and won a bottle of champagne. Passing me on her way off stage, she shot me a cold glance. And as I went backstage to put on my waiter’s uniform, I felt both degraded and humiliated. I put on my clothes and went back out to the club to start serving again. It was a while before I could look anyone in the eye.
And yet, on that shift after my first appearance, something inside me changed. First of all, nobody really cared that much. The comments I got as I went from table to table were casual, friendly - even complementary: “Hey sexy.” “Hi handsome.” Girls were coming onto me because they had seen me on stage.
The only exception was Maya, one of the bar staff. She hated the whole business and told me in no uncertain terms I was too good for ‘that sort of thing’. But I didn’t listen to her.
The following week, when I volunteered my services freely, Ella looked a little surprised, but rapidly accepted.
“I didn't realise you had enjoyed it so much,” she commented, with an arch little smile. “Thanks.” And she gave my arm a squeeze.
As she was leaving, she said. “By the way, there’s something for you to wear this time. I’ll leave them out. No pressure if you don’t want to.”
That evening, in the changing room before the show, I found a plastic bag with my name attached. Inside, there was a brand new pair of skimpy briefs, pale blue, with a broad designer waistband.
As I was inspecting the garment, Maya passed through the changing room on the way for a smoke. There was an alley out the back that we used for that purpose.
“Are you going to wear those?” she asked incredulously.
I shrugged and started getting undressed. “In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose.”
“Idiot!” She shook her head and went out. Not for the first time, I wondered why she was always so angry.
The atmosphere of the club that night was more intense than I can ever remember. The smoke machine was churning out great billowing clouds, the dancefloor was rammed, the music hit you like a wall of air.
We filed onto the little stage almost unnoticed by the revellers. But then the music faded out, the smoke began to clear, and the heat of the stage lights was turned upon us.
Ella strode onto the stage, greeting the crowd in her usual upbeat style. Eyes started turning towards us, and over the room there was a murmur of expectation.
“Let’s meet tonight’s contestant,” Ella exclaimed. “All the way from Chelsea, the lovely Rachel!”
A raunchy fragment of music started up abruptly. The front row of the crowd parted, and up onto the stage, confident and smiling, strutted a woman of about twenty-four or twenty-five years old in a black silk dress.
Wolf-whistles accompanied her onto the stage.
When I saw the girl, all my confidence evaporated in an instant, and the briefs that Ella had given me to wear suddenly felt very small, very tight, very ridiculous. Wearing my loose boxers at the last show, I had felt no more exposed than at a day at the beach. But the thin cotton of the briefs clung tightly to my loins. I was as good as naked, in a room full of people. But it was not the crowd that brought the rush of blood to my cheeks. It was the girl in the black dress.
Let me try and describe Rachel. She was above average height, and with the heels she was wearing that night, she could look me levelly in the eye. Her face, a perfect oval, was framed by a tumble of wavy blond-brown hair that fell abundantly over her shoulders. Her eyes were a beautiful clear grey, but there was a coolness in her gaze that warned you not to mess with her, and her sensual pink glossed lips were pressed into an ironic smile.
