Sophia

“You can sit there”, she said pointing towards one of the two metal chairs next to the wall, while she closed the door. I looked around in the room. Lights were dim; a small bed occupied most of the space, leaving only two-three feet in front of the chairs on one side and some walking space in front of the door on the adjacent side. Sophia was putting a cassette (or a CD, I didn’t pay much attention) into a music player by the side of the bed and a song started playing.

“How many songs did she say we will have?” – she seemed unsure about the instructions the manager gave her.

“Three”, I said firmly. My friends had arranged 3 consecutive lap dances (songs) for me, as part of my bachelor party, in spite of all my philosophical and economical arguments to forgo this tradition. None of my pleadings could satisfy their “Aise kaise?” monster, and they obviously had done some preparations by the time I got to know about the whole party. Tricky situation I guess: they had to do it for me, and I had to do it for them, even if both sides realized the futility of it. I am grateful to them (without naming them here for obvious reasons) for organizing an event to celebrate and spending time with me. But in general, I wish the rituals for such parties, birthdays, treats, gifts etc. were more flexible and not doing one of them in the usual way wouldn’t be considered a social blunder or a sign of incompetence. I guess not many people agree with me here, as these rituals seem to be thickening up over time; any birthday party among Indian students now is not considered complete unless you not only cut the cake but also smear it over the faces and give “birthday bumps”. These are all fun things in general and I have been often an enthusiastic participant in these activities, but wouldn’t it be nicer if we could leave room for replacing them by something else or even nothing, without a sense of guilt?

So, anyway, here I was sitting on that cold metal chair, as Sophia came off the bed after fiddling with the music player and stood next to me. She was a wearing a swimsuit sized exotic black dress. In her physique, she wasn’t as heavy as some of the other girls that had been on the stage earlier in the dance hall and looked beautiful, so she was unambiguously chosen by my friends from the lot to do the dance ritual for me. I must confess that I had experienced lap dance earlier in my life, so it wasn’t really going to be a brand new experience for me. I was calm.

“Have you been here before?”, she asked.

“No, first time”.

“You know the rules?”.

“No”, I went with the safer option.

“Well, you can’t do any touching. Just sit and hold your chair here”, she said pointing to thin metal handles on either side of the chair below the seat level. This conversation felt a little awkward. And I was really surprised that they actually had handles in the chair for this!

I looked at the young lady as she began her sensual dance moves. Looking at her wasn’t easy, mind you, as she kept getting within my least distance of distinct vision while smoothly juggling between dancing at a distance and dancing on my lap. She performed for the next couple minutes while I just sat there observing her and the room. I wondered if I was being too boring a customer for her, and if I should at least say something to her. “Nice!” was the only word of encouragement that came out. She continued professionally without seeming to care.

The first song ended in around 5 minutes. She climbed up the bed to start the second song in the music player.

“Are you excited about getting married?”, she asked casually as she came down and started the next dance. It looks like she did pay some attention to the manager and knew that I was there for my bachelor party.

“Yeah!”, I wasn’t expecting this question.

“..so you can have love!”, she added with a smile. I wasn’t sure what exactly she meant by love – I just smiled back.

“Are you married?”, I reciprocated with some curiosity. I now realize it was a stupid question to ask. If I were in her position and were married, and a customer asked me the same question, I would be pretty uncomfortable saying yes. Anyway, she said more than no – “No.. I don’t believe in marriage. I think I can live with a person for a long time without getting married…”. I wasn’t sure if she really meant it.

“Are you dating someone?”, I continued my series of inappropriate questions.

“Yes.. but we are not thinking about marriage. I am still pretty young..”.

“How old are you?”, 3 no balls in a row!

“I’m twenty six”, she didn’t mind answering. I finally shut up.

She continued with her dance, and I kept sitting in my chair, still keeping my hands on the handle bars by the side, although not really holding them, to make sure I don’t appear trying anything against the “rules”. Another couple of minutes passed by as she performed various moves. These were probably similar to the ones in the first dance, but I was not paying much attention anyway, so couldn’t tell. I wasn’t exactly bored as she danced well, but I was not excited either, and was just doing what I was supposed to do by sitting there. I felt a couple of times that it would be better to talk more to her instead of continuing with the dances, but I wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate to disturb her performance and if she would consider me silly if I did that, and if she would be interested in talking anyway.

“How long have you been working here?”, I finally broke the ice again.

“Around a year and a half”, she continued to dance but slowed down and looked at me.

“You don’t have to do this.. you can sit”, I suggested, encouraged by her reply.

“Really?”, she exclaimed.

“Yea.. My friends wanted me to do this for the bachelor party.. But I don’t really care”, I tried to show I was open to stopping the dance without saying that I didn’t enjoy it. She seemed to like my proposal, and sat down by the side of the bed. “I know.. many bachelors come in the same way!”, she indicated I was not the only one in this situation.

“This is actually my second last week here. My school is finishing. And my name isn’t really Sophia..”, she continued the conversation.

“What school do you go to?”, I was wondering if it would be SDSU.

“It’s a beauty school.. in the downtown”. I had never heard of that school before, or any “beauty school” for that matter. “What kinds of things do you do?”. She answered that with a whole bunch of things of which only manicure, pedicure and facial sounded as familiar names.

“What do you do?”, she then asked me. I should have expected this question, but was still taken by surprise. “I work in neuroscience”, I said in an unclear voice. “Euroscience??”, she didn’t get it. “Neuroscience”, I repeated twice, “about the brain”. “Oh cool!”. She then asked me about my school, and when I told UCSD, she mentioned that a friend of her came from Sweden to study “journalism” at UCSD.. ” to follow the American dream!”.

“How much money can you make here?”, I kept on asking.

“Hmm… at a minimum, I can make around 100 to 200 dollars but it’s more like 400 in general. On a good day, I can even make up to a thousand dollars”.

“Per day?”, I was amazed by her numbers.

“Yeah, in one night.”

“And you work here every night?”

“No.. I have classes on the weekdays.. Monday to Thursday in the morning. And then I have to go in the night. So I can basically work on a couple of nights only”, she replied patiently.

“You work whole night?”

“No… only eight to two”, she said as if it was easy.

“Do you like working here?”, I kept bombarding her with the questions.

“Hmm.. when I have down to earth people like you (!!), it’s fine. Sometimes there are people who try to break rules and touch.. the management is strict about the rules, but we sometimes get that kind of people”.

“Do people do nasty things sometime?”, I was really curious about how she felt about doing this job.

“Naah..  sometimes people try to..”, she wasn’t very cohesive in her answer. “They forget that we are also normal people….”. She paused for a second. “The other club next door.. there people can do more things and not get caught.. here the rules are followed more strictly”. She held her nerves and didn’t appear upset.

We talked for 7-8 minutes to fill the 15 minutes allotted for 3 songs. She told me about her family – she grew up in LA and has some family in San Diego and some in Mexico, but she is not Mexican as such. I asked her if her parents know about her job, to which she said only her twin-brother knows about it. ” I grew up in a poor family.. when I came here, this was the easiest way to support my education since there are no job openings”.

“Well, it was also not easy in the beginning”, she corrected herself.

I now don’t recall all the things she told me about herself. One thing she mentioned, I can’t remember in what context, was that she is a vegan!

The third song in the music player ended signaling that the time was up. She stood up, gave me friendly hug, wished good luck for my marriage and I did the same for her school and future life, and we left the room. She was given a new assignment and I went into the dance hall to join my friends there. Another dancer was performing on the stage at that time. Some time later, an announcement was made to introduce the next dancer coming up on the stage, something to the effect of: “Please welcome… Sophia… all the way from France”, as her fans cheered for her. I couldn’t keep myself from smiling at the ease with which the announcer lied.

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