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I nod.
"Do you ever show interest in their emotional lives?"
"What do you mean?"
"Say you have one of those interview things—"
"A deposition," I offer.
She nodsexactly. "And they're nervous. What would you say?"
"I would tell them we've practiced and they're prepared. If that wasn't enough, I'd ask questions, keep them distracted."
"You care," she says. "Or at least, you seem like you do."
"I do." Usually.
"Is that fake, because they pay you?"
"That's a good question."
She smiles. "Sorry… I'm going past sex research, into sociology. Cass and I talk about it a lot. We started a non-fiction book club, you know."
"Cassie reads now?" I try to latch on to the subject of my sister. A strange distraction in a room of half-naked women and horny men, but it's what I've got.
Daphne does the same. Or it's easy for her. I can't tell. "She's a writer!" she exclaims.
"A songwriter," I tease, the way I tease Cass when she's here.
"I'm going to tell her you said that." She smiles. "And, yeah, she reads more than she did. But not as much as you'd expect for a writer…" Her eyes go to the stage. She watches as the woman in black leather rolls her body suit to her waist.
Daphne's eyes go wide.
Her breath hitches.
She tries to look somewhere else, but everything in the room points to women's bodies.
"So, uh, you don't like it, because it feels fake," she says. "Is that all? I mean, you must enjoy looking at naked women, right?"
Of course. Women are beautiful. I understand that appeal. I just don't enjoy it in this context. Not in particular. "I prefer when I can look and touch."
She bites her lip. She tries to hold on to intelligent conversation. "Is it a hard line? It's only fun if you can touch? Or is the tease fun too. And can't you touch a little? I thought most lap dances were pretty handsy these days."
How in the world does she know that?
"I've read a few books. Memories by sex workers," she says. "Usually, the guys are touching the dancers everywhere except between the legs. And the opposite too."
Is that what she wants here? For a dancer to touch her?
To watch a dancer touch me.
Or watch me touch a dancer.
She came along for a reason. I thought I knew what it was. At the moment, it's hard to concentrate on anything.
"Is that it?" Her voice drops to a low tone. All curiosity, only different. Deeper. A physical, emotional curiosity, not an intellectual one. "Is that it? It's no fun unless someone comes?"
"No. It's fun to draw it out sometimes."
