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Marblehead to Route 1, so I could stop at the Lynx Club strip joint.
    When I walked in, Sade's ‘Smooth Operator’ was blaring through four-foot speakers.  The air smelled like a mixture of beer, sweat and smoke.  I took a seat at the runway — perverts row, they call it — folded up a dollar bill in half and stood it up like a tent on the countertop in front of me.  The dancer, a pretty redhead with the kind of lithe body I get lost in, sauntered over and squatted in front of me.  She smiled and brushed the dollar onto the floor with her toe.  Then she turned around and bent over so I could look between her legs.  I nodded, for no particular reason, and smiled involuntarily — a boyish reflex which has sickened me when I've seen it in men at bachelor parties.  I folded a five and propped it up.  "Spank yourself," I told the upside-down face between the legs.  She stood up and slapped herself hard three times, then winked at me and brushed my five off the countertop with her foot.  I watched as she danced to each man in turn, performing for a dollar or two.  When I saw her smile and wink at a three-hundred pound drunk in precisely the same way she had smiled and winked at me, I went to the men's room, did a little blast, then went to the bar and ordered a scotch.
    Before I had finished my drink, she was at my side in a skimpy satin robe.  I figured the five-dollar bill had bought me a little special attention after all.
    "I'm thirsty," she smiled.
    "Be my guest."  I gestured toward the stool next to mine.  Without the benefit of the runway's red lights, her skin was pale, and her freckles showed.  But her lips were full, and her eyes a true golden brown.  She looked about twenty-five.  "What's your name?"
    "Tiffany."
    "That your real name?"
    She laughed and tossed her auburn hair.  "I don't use my real name here.  It's safer."
    "For you, or the customers."
    Before she could answer, the bartender, a bulldog of a man, came by.  "How about a nice bottle of champagne for the lady?" he coaxed.
    "Ginger ale is fine," Tiffany said.
    "Tiffany, you love the bubbly.  How about a little Freixenet?" he nodded.
    "Thanks anyhow, Max," she said.
    "The gentleman here wants to treat you like a lady.  So order like a lady."
    "Max, you're way off," I interrupted.  "Not ten minutes ago I paid her to bend over and spank herself.  Ginger ale sounds fine to me."
    He glared at me.  "You some kind of big shot?  Maybe I should have your ass—"
    "Look," Tiffany broke in.  "I earned out at the bar an hour ago.  So pour me a fucking ginger ale."
    "Fuck you, too."  He grabbed the soft drink nozzle.  "Nice ass and you think you own the world.  Maybe I could use a couple extra bucks in my pocket.  Ever think of that?"  He slid the ginger ale in front of her and waddled away.
    "He gets five percent," she said.
    "Seems like he earns it."
    She shrugged her shoulders, took out a pack of Marlboros and lighted one.  Her fingers were long and graceful.  "How about you?  What do you do?"
    "I'm a psychiatrist."
    "You don't look like a psychiatrist — or act like one."
    "I'll take that as a compliment."  I put my hand on her knee.
    She swept my hand off of her.  "You can't touch me," she said.  "The manager watches from upstairs."  She pointed across the way at a line of mirrored glass panels high on the wall.  "He'll have you thrown out."
    "Your guardian angel?"
    "Something like that."
    "I guess better late than never."
    "What's that supposed to mean?"
    "Maybe you could have used one sooner."
    "Want to do me a favor?  Don't get shrinky on me.  OK?"
    "No problem."  I downed the last of my scotch.  "Sometimes I lose myself and start to give a shit about people."  I got up and took my seat back at the runway.
    A blonde who couldn't have been eighteen yet was lying on her back with her legs spread, moving her hips like she was having sex to the rhythm of ‘Addicted to Love.’  I rolled up a dollar bill and threw it