Before I get to that, I wanted to explain a bit more about the friction rooms. First, they aren't really rooms as such, more like cubicles, with a little couch and a TV. I'm not sure why the TV is there, I vaguely remember that there were naked women on it, but why watch them when I had one 'in the flesh' right in front of me?

A friction dance is a lap dance, but a lap dance is not necessarily a friction dance. The laws regarding contact between dancer and customer vary a lot from one area to another. In some places they can't touch - at all - the girl has to maintain and specific distance between them, which to me seems rather pointless. At Scarlett's they also offer nude table-side dances, where contact is limited.

Another thing I forgot to mention last time. In between our first private dance and the Champagne Room, Fallon was called to do a stage set. These sets last for two songs, and as I stated previously, up to this point the girls I had seen had basically danced around the pole, but hadn't really done anything with the pole. Fallon was in another class entirely - she used the pole to perform several tricks, including one rather frightening maneuver where she climbed nearly to the top of the ten foot high pole, arched her back over and spun around and then slid, very rapidly, down the pole, stopping herself just a couple of inches before her head hit the stage. I also noted that she sought me out with her eyes several times during the routine and flashed me a big smile.

Now, on to the Champagne Room. This really is a small, private room, and the sessions are in half-hour blocks. It's quieter, so talking is easier, though the music is still loud enough for dancing. I didn't order champagne - I'd been drinking rum and coke and was not about to ruin my night by mixing that with bubbly and getting sick. The private rooms are much more intimate, and in my admittedly limited experience, much more intense. You get basically the same thing as in a friction room, but it lasts for several songs. I'm not sure exactly how long the first dance Fallon did for me lasted, my attention was focused on other things than counting songs, but by the time she took a break so we could sip our drinks and chat, we were both breathing heavily. I asked her if guys ever got too excited and had 'accidents' and she said yes, it happens fairly often. FYI - I did not.

My first question was about sex -- all right, get your mind out of the gutter, I didn't proposition her! One of the accusations often made about the clubs is that they're little more than a front for prostitution. Fallon said that there are girls who will do it, but that's generally at the less reputable establishments. She had worked at such places in the past, and she admitted that while she never engaged in actual sex, she knew which girls would, and if a customer expressed a desire for such, she would steer him towards the right girl.

At Scarlett's she said, getting caught meant losing your privilege to dance there. It was pretty easy to get caught too; every room had a security camera in it for the safety of the girls. I'll add here that security at the club was plentiful and very, very ... um, large. During the early evening they were all dressed casually, but as it got later they switched to black suits and dark glasses. They looked like Secret Service agents on steroids - they even had ear pieces. When I asked if there were ever problems with rowdy customers, Fallon said occasionally, but that the bouncers would move in quickly to escort the offender from the premises. That was why the girls tipped the security men almost as much as the DJs. (I believe she told me DJs got $7, bouncers $5 and the makeup artists $3. By the time I left late that night, there were about 40 girls working, so you can see that this is a lucrative job for the support staff. On weekend nights there can be as many as a hundred girls at Scarlett's.)

It was in the intimate setting of the Champagne Room that I told Fallon my secret, that when I was a little boy and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I told them I wanted to be a mommy. Not surprisingly, her reaction was very sympathetic. She told me that she knew a few transexuals and cross dressers, and that in fact the house mother at Scarlett's was TS. The house mother is pretty much what the name implies, a person who looks after the needs of the girls and oversees the dressing room area. She also maintains a wardrobe of appropriate attire that the girls can purchase. Fallon also told me that most of their makeup artists were gay. I have to say they did a beautiful job with the ladies - given the setting their makeup was necessarily on the heavy side, but none of them looked gaudy or cheap.

It was around this time that Fallon said something that really surprised me. She told me she had a CD friend, and every so often they went out with some other girls and had lunch and did some shopping. I mean, as I pictured that it was like a scene from a story here come to life. Then she told me if I was ever down that way again I should get in touch with her and, if I was willing, she could set up a similar outing. It was such a sweet offer; I almost started crying like a baby.

There is a darker side to dancing; not everyone that comes into a club is a nice guy like me. Fallon showed me a scar on her throat about three inches long. It was the result of an incident at another club, between another dancer and a customer. They got into an argument, and the guy lunged at the dancer, who tried to defend herself by throwing a glass at him. It hit the table instead, shattered, and a large piece hit Fallon and sliced open her throat. She spent a couple of days in the hospital because of it, and though it missed her vocal chords, she said her voice was now much huskier than it had been. Personally I thought she had a very sexy voice, but it saddens me that she had to get it that way.

Our time in the Champagne Room was over much too soon - I did check my watch though and I actually got a little more than the hour I paid for. We went back to our table and proceeded to enjoy the rest of the evening. I think I'll finish up the tale in my next entry…