Thinly Veiled

I guess this is my karmic payback for trying to be the “cool girl” a la Gone Girl monologue. Really, I am probably the least “cool girl” girl that exists, but it has been frighteningly easy to keep up the mask until this very moment. The act started so innocently; a few IPAs, missing The Bachelor to watch football. Now, sitting next to my boyfriend in a dingy strip club in downtown Phoenix, it was all about to go to hell.
The red lights making slow, lazy circles above us made the stripper on my boyfriend’s
lap’s lingerie look purple, even though I know it was blue. I tried to look anywhere else, and my sight was entirely eclipsed by the largest pair of boobs I have ever seen in my life. I handed the woman attached to them the entire stack of one-hundred ones that I had been death-gripping and struggled to rip my sweaty thighs off of the black pleather couch to make my exit. She shot me a look of knowing over her bare shoulder, as if this was a nightly occurrence. I didn’t quite like the tinge of pity in her eyes, but I pushed on in a haze of alcohol and anger toward the door.
Right as my hand was about to make contact with the rusty metal door handle, I felt a
familiar warmth on my shoulder. Like a sad dance, I was slowly spun around to face my
boyfriend. His face scrunched up with confusion as he processed all the visual information he was receiving from my slouched posture and glossy eyes. “Where are you going?” he asked. “Did something happen?”

“No, nothing happened. I just really want to go home. Can we just go home?” The delivery of
that last question cracked and went up an octave, and I knew I was exposed. He spun me back around and we stepped out into the only truly cold night the state of Arizona had seen in months.
“Stop lying,” he insisted, “you’re obviously upset. But about what?”
“I didn’t think I’d feel weird about being at the strip club with you, but I was wrong. It’s
REALLY weird. It’s freaking me out, Josh. I want to go home.”
“But it’s only 11! Babe, we paid a cover.”
I thought, wow, a ten-dollar cover! How will we ever reconcile with the financial loss? But
instead, I said, “Okay, fine. Fine. Just, can you not get any more lap dances?”
I could tell he was genuinely considering it for a moment. Then he opened his mouth to say,
“You know what? You take the car home. I’m just going to Uber later.” A brief hug and a toss of the keys later, I stood alone on the cobblestone street. The bass of the music that had been playing inside got softer and softer on the soles of my feet as I speed-walked to the parking garage alone with stinging, wet cheeks.