Two weekends ago, at President’s Day, we went to Vegas to celebrate a friend’s bachelor party. I’m never invited to bachelor parties, which is unfair since all my friends are men. I miss out on the most fun celebration of someone getting married. The worst was when all guys went to Amsterdam for a friend’s bachelor party who was supposed to get married in December, but never did. I’ve never really been to Europe except England where I lived when I was a kid and really wanted to go. Anyhow, I made a lot of fuss about going to this one because it was a close friend’s party and I wanted to celebrate with him like the guys. We made a deal that I will hang out with the guys except for Saturday evening when they go to the strip club.

I convinced one of the guys’ wives, Preeti, to go along. Surprisingly, when I made plans with her to watch a comedy show on Saturday, she instead suggested that we go to a strip club. I asked a friend in San Francisco to look up strip clubs for women. He came up with two – Olympic Garden and Paloleum. Olympic Garden wasn’t full nude and had alcohol so we decided to go there. I had been to a strip club once before in San Francisco, but remembered not liking it much. I had gone with a guy friend a couple of years ago. It was a bit uncomfortable for both of us; probably a place to go to with a boyfriend or a woman friend. Besides I kept feeling sorry for the strippers and couldn’t imagine any worse objectification of women.

In comparison this experience wasn’t bad at all. I have probably “matured” since. The only hitch in the plan was that our guy friends ended up at the same strip club. The moment we entered we saw one of our friends. We all a bit embarrassed, but Preeti and I quickly went up to the “ladies” floor. We were totally scandalized the first half hour and decided we had to get drunk soon to be able to enjoy any of it. After a couple of drinks we went downstairs to check out what men did in these places. We couldn’t help staring at a man sitting at a booth next to our getting a lap dance. Unfortunately we had taken a seat near the men’s bathroom so our friend’s kept passing us by. One even sat with us and started chatting with us. Sensing our discomfort he left, but an Indian guy came and started hitting on Preeti. I couldn’t believe his audacity, it wasn’t like we were in a singles bar; it was a strip club for crying out loud.

We decided it wasn’t such a good idea to sit at the men’s floor and went upstairs again. By this time we were both tipsy and had gotten used to the place. We decided to rid ourselves of our hang ups and have fun. We got our dollar bills ready and took seats near the stage. Men were dressed as cowboys, firemen etc and were dancing on the stage while stripping. It was more playful than sexual. We stuck many dollar bills down the thongs of the men. I didn’t have the courage to invite any guy to touch me, not till Preeti decided to buy me a lap dance. I didn’t know what to do exactly so tentatively ran my hands over his thighs. He had the smoothest skin I have ever felt. I was mortified when he started touching me; my skin was so rough in comparison to his.

After the novelty wore off, we called our friends to see if they were still there. Oddly we had outlasted them. On our way out we decided to have some fun with the women downstairs. Armed with our one dollar bills we sat at one stage (there were many stages for men as opposed to just one for women). The woman smiled at us and came towards us. I reached out to tuck the money in her G-string, but she placed the money at her feet, took my hand and rubbed it all over her body. I still haven’t decided how I felt about that except her skin was very smooth too.

We finally met our friends at the casino in Paris where we played blackjack for a while. Around 5am we went back to Harrah’s where we were staying. The policy was supposed to be “don’t ask, don’t tell” but that was all we talked about the next day. The guys were really curious about our experience, especially Preeti’s husband. At the end of it all I was happy to be back. Vegas is fun for a day or two, but I can’t handle more than that. It is so artificial: the lights, hotels, casinos. And money loses all it’s worth there.

So I guess I’ve broken the rule: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.