One day in Iowa City, in the middle of Midwest America, I saw an advertisement for a “Dancers Nightclub”. Besides the usual stable of fourteen dancers, it featured a new striptease star Candee Apples, billed as “The Best Chest in the West”. Well, if we regard it as our destiny to see the Pyramids or meet the Pope once in a lifetime, then the best chests seemed equally important. So, I went for it with my fellow writers.
In Europe, strip clubs are usually in the center of a town, but this American one was located on the outskirts between what two dilapidated storage buildings. From the outside, and for that matter from the inside too, it didn‘t look very exclusive. Admission was cheap, and the drinks were no more expensive than in a regular bar. You could even play billiard during the breaks between the dances. And that was it. A few dim lights concealed how shabby the place really was. And, of course, there was the mega-decibel music. We may start.
The girls – the reason for everything else – were an interesting mix of ages and body contours. They did five or ten minutes stints on the stage. Each brought her own music to the DJ to emphasize her charm and decoys – if she had any, which wasn‘t always the case. A G-string covered the only thing left to the imagination by the end of each dance.
Candee Apples, the star of the evening, wasn‘t tall, but she was perfectly built. And as the star, she had finer costume to take off. Although her dance routine was short, the stage was ringed with customers to whom Candee offered something extra. Unlike the other girls, she didn‘t provide off-stage services. But she did something special. Instead of having a bill slipped under her G-string, she would take it in her hands, fold it, and place it on the customer‘s nose. Then she would lift it in her cleavage by squeezing her breasts together. Effective, elegant, and speedy. In a few minutes her garter belt was lined with dollar bills.
I must confess that I couldn’t resist the chance to have the most beautiful breasts in the west pry a dollar bill from my bulbous nose. It was really an experience of a lifetime – like being cuddled by a mother, having something big, soft, and aromatic pressed against your eyes. You are poorer by a dollar bill but richer for the experience.
After her show Candy was selling her pictures and was prepared, for a fee, to sit half-naked on your lap, for a photograph. This could be useful for causing envy among your friends or giving your wife evidence in a divorce action. I wasn’t interested in this particular offer, but I did want to know more about her. A writer has to do research.
I introduced myself. Candy was quite friendly, but she looked at my business card for a long time. Then, quite spontaneously, she exclaimed,
“Slovakia! We‘re almost compatriots. My name is Halyna; I‘m originally from Ukraine.”
Yes it‘s true, my friends. The best chest in the West are actually from the East!
From a book (see in E-book form here) by Gustáv Murín: Svet je malý/The World is Small – collection of travel stories in bilingual Slovak–English edition, SPN Publ., 2012.
