The Legend of Daisy

The tall tan blonde squatted on the narrow beer-splattered shelf, her knees flanking my ears, her smooth shaved sheleighly winking at me in time with the heavily-ho-laden lyrics of some hip-hop hit blasting behind me at 11 decibels...

I was bored. I'd seen that vagina before. Several times in fact.

I looked to my right, past the nicotine smoke-stack protruding from my ex-girlfriend's face to Tom, who looked equally bored. We gave each other the nod. Dylan stubbed out her Camel. We made for the door.

I'm not sure which club it was. Many are the same. Portland has, as you have heard before, more strip clubs per capita than any other city in the United states, perhaps even the world. It has something to do with Oregon liquor laws. We can have full nude dancers with a full alcohol bar. There are only two catches: A) No touching; B) The club has to serve food. And that means one thing, CHEAP STEAK...

Tom and I had made it our mission to hit every club in Portland, a challenging goal as the clubs kept closing and re-opening under new names. It was like painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Once we got near the end, we needed to start over at the beginning again. We got close.

We also made it our regular practice to bring guests along with us on our quest. This particular night, we brought my ex, Dylan. We were still pals, and she knew Tom from our time together in church back in California, praise god. We were up for adventure. We were up for anything. Unfortunately, we were also jaded and a bit dissolutioned.

"What next?" Dylan mumbled as she slumped into the back seat.

"Something... Something..." Tom was looking for words, but he was drunk, and not always good with words.

"I want to see something wrong." He seemed to be getting closer.

"You know, like some one with hideous scars. Or... Or.. An Amputee, somebody tragically disfigured in a farming accident." Wow, Tom had some specific needs.

I had nothing. My massive memory map of every club in the city didn't cue to any club that featured freaks. All I knew was that we were on Sandy Boulevard, and had explored all of the local lounges, except one. We were mere blocks from glory. There was one nudy bar that Tom and I had never hit. A land mark of legend in the Pacific Northwest. It was The Sandy Jug.

"Why was it called the jug?" you may ask. Well, it was a small building, shaped on the exterior like a whisky jug. (It's now called Pirates Cove, but that's just wrong and not important for this story.)

We walked in. It was cramped, smoky and dirty. A man slept in his barstool. It was perfect. The single ramshackle stage didn't fit in the triangular wedged corner. The Bartender was an enormous Jabba-like woman with tits the size of Tom's ego. Dylan breathed deeply. (Free nicotine!) I salivated over the expansive wall of beer taps.

We sat at the rack. We always did. The girl on stage was wearing a gray zip-up hoodie, an odd choice for stripperware. She was small and thin. The heroine hollowness of her eyes haunted me, but there was something else... Something I couldn't...

"Oh dude," Dylan exhaled cigarette smoke into my ear, "do you know who she looks like??"

I had no idea.

"She looks like your wife as a teenager.."

Fuck, she was right. I tipped extra. The Jug had only a two-girl rotation that night, Hoodie quickly shuffled off the stage.

The music shifted to something jazzy, sultry, sophisticated. The lights dimmed. The drunken buzz from the bar behind me died. Tom eagerly eyed the curtain at the stage door. I had no Idea what was about to happen.

Long thin fingers with nails painted "fuck-me-red" pulled back the velvet barrier. With grace and presence, far more than could be expected in a dive like the Jug, the second dancer strode to the front of the stage. Large milky natural breasts swung barely-contained by an open snug-fitting dressing gown. Her long legs were smooth and punctuated by barely-sensible high heel shoes. Her lips were ruby. Her eyes were emerald. Her hair was that of a 1940s move starlet.

She smiled a broad knowing smile. She shook hands with each of us, introducing herself as Daisy. Now, when I say she shook hands, I mean to say that she shook our right hands. Not so much out of polite custom. Rather, she simply had no left hand. In fact, she had no left arm, to be more precise. Nothing, but a small Thalidomide beak protruding from her left shoulder, which she was able to wiggle in time with the music.

Oh, and she was missing one of her front teeth.

But otherwise, HOT! I kid you not. The girl was all about entertainment. Dancing. Jokes. Stories. She waived her robe like a matador, and stomped the stage to focus our attention. I was astounded. I was flumoxed. I was put under. I have sampled most of the prurient performances Portland has to offer. Daisy was heads and shoulders above the rest. Tom, I believe, had an orgasm.

We returned to the Jug more often than was prudent with hopes of dueling with Daisy, but she was gone, never to be seen again. Tales are told, though. Stories surface now and then of the infamous one-armed dancer of Portland. Rumor has it that she appears here and there, never staying for long, riding the wind into Stripper mythology.