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was an idiot for opening this place, but she stopped saying that after I bought her a new Mercedes last week.” Matt came to a wooden door to his right with an A sloppily painted on it. “Ed, who is out on stage right now, shares this with Colin. They’re assholes, so steer clear of them.
         Grady smirked. “Yeah, I just met Colin.”
         “Just keep your distance. He’s got a short fuse and a mean right hook.”
         “I’ll keep that in mind.” 
         Matt moved ahead to the other door, further down the hall. “I’m going to put you in the smaller dressing room with Lewis. He’s my other traveling dancer.”        
         Grady followed him down the hall. “Burt told me six days a week, two shows a night.”
         “That’s right,” Matt affirmed. “Tips off the stage are yours. Whether you want to share that with the waitstaff, I leave up to the dancers … though most guys do.” He paused before the last door in the austere hallway. “I pay for your drinks, as long as it ain’t call brands or champagne.” Matt rolled his eyes. “I had a French guy here, a few weeks back, who insisted on champagne every night before a show. Needless to say, he didn’t last long. Damn champagne cost me more than his show brought in.” He pushed the door open.
         After stepping inside, he hit a light switch to the left, bathing the room in a dull, yellow glow.
         Grady took in the four bare red-bricked walls, two wooden chairs, and a dressing table complete with one slightly cracked mirror. Above, a ceiling fan with three light bulbs behind an amber bowl illuminated the room.
         “It ain’t much, but what else do you guys need?” Matt Harrison told him with a raspy chuckle. “I ran women’s strip clubs for years. The demands they had for dressing room décor and furniture almost drove me as batty as their backstage catfights. You guys have been an absolute dream compared to the women.”
         Grady entered the room and caught sight of the bare hooks on the wall and the dust-covered dressing table. “I know some owners that wouldn’t agree with you.”
         Matt put his hands in the pockets of his black trousers. “The women out front are a big pain in the ass. The screaming and carrying on gets to me. With women strippers all the drama is backstage, but with the men the drama is in the pit.”
         “Wherever the women are, there goes the drama,” Grady professed.
         Matt shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Yeah, but such is the art of sin.”
         “The art of sin?”
         “Years ago, in a club I ran on Bourbon, a stripper named Mary Hightower called stripping the art of sin. She said, ‘Anybody can take off their clothes, but only a stripper could turn such a sin into an art.’” He shook his head. “So many guys I see going out on the stage just bump and grind, flash their washboard abs, and think it’s enough. In the old days, those women could have taught you boys a thing or two about the art.”
         “‘Illusion is the first of all pleasures,’” Grady mused.
         Matt furrowed his brow at him. “I don’t get it.”
         “It’s a quote from Oscar Wilde.” Grady contemplated Matt’s uneven skin, the deep lines on his forehead, and the dark circles beneath his eyes. “How long have you been in this business, Matt?”
         “Thirty-four years. Got into it when I was nineteen, working as a bartender for a joint a few blocks down from here. Worked my way up through management, and opened my first club twenty-six years ago.  Even met my wife in my club. She was a dancer, but quit when we got married.”
         Grady appreciated the warmth in Matt’s eyes when he spoke of his wife. “How long have you been married?”
         “Twelve years. I got a four-year-old son and a ten-year-old daughter. She’s just like her mother when it comes to wanting the best of