A Sight To Remember

1975, Soho. I can lay claim to having watched a striptease show. Just once. A real, professional striptease show, in a real, legal striptease joint. I came, I saw, I almost retched (hang on, you'll know why in due course) and I have not seen one since.

[No dear, it's alright. You go ahead and take those Malaysian guests and colleagues of yours. I know all of you are itching to see those Caucasian mounds of Venus. If you don't mind, I'll stay home and mind the baby, and perhaps have a chat with good old Mrs Wilkner].

We had been in London all of three months and were staying in Golders Green, in a bedsit owned by an extremely stingy Pakistani couple, who would switch off the central heating at 8.00 every evening, causing us to shiver by the coin-fed, two-bar heater before sleep hit us. (It didn't take us long to find alternative accommodation).

With the benefit of hindsight, I think that visit to a striptease joint was also meant to be an initiation of some kind for me, then 20 years old and still pretty naive. Needless to say, the other half, at 27, was worldly enough (not sure about wise, but definitely worldly), having spent a good many years of his schooling life abroad.

['You are all grown and in good old London, girl! But you haven't 'arrived' until you have seen and learned the time-honoured way of undressing yourself. Treat this as one of life's lessons. You'll enjoy it'. Yeah, right!].

We were in the company of some guests from home, hot-blooded young men who had just arrived in the UK and raring to have a good time. The only female in the group, I wasn't feeling too comfortable - the hick in me was rearing its bucolic head - but as the wife of the host I had to oblige.

We trooped, self-consciously, into a decent-sized hall with a T-shaped catwalk smack in the middle. Tables and chairs were arranged alongside the elongated stage. We were booked at a premier spot, right at the head of the stage, "to capture the full essence of the show" said the host convincingly.

The lights dimmed, the music played and the show began. Out they came one by one - women with incredibly voluptuous bodies and even more incredible humongous breasts - sashaying down the catwalk in various states of undress.

The guys looked shell-shocked; eyes popping out of their sockets, mouths agape, tongues licking their lips, salivating, and these hotties had not even yanked off their panties yet!

I remember feeling thoughtful, cupping my chin, Rodin-like. Actually I was thinking of those boobs. God help me, they were enormous! They needed to be properly anchored so as not to topple their owners. And they could easily suffocate a man. Then again, any guy who perished due to breast suffocation would probably die happy.

As I sat there, mind racing, the girls came and went in quick succession. All seemed to be overdressed at the top but remained in teeny weeny patch masquerading as panties at the bottom. And of course they flung bits and pieces of clothing as they whirled and swayed to the music.

In due time, down the catwalk sashayed a dancer in "Arabian Night" outfit (you know the belly-dancing kind, with billowing pants and fitting top and that harem-like face cover). Discarding each piece of clothing as she swayed down the catwalk, she slipped off her panties as soon as she reached our group. Suddenly, she put her leg up on my shoulder and there it rested for a good one minute!

I had a good lesson in anatomy that day. That spring day in London I learned two things; one - an anatomical part so coveted by the male specie could look hideous and unsightly (from any angle!) and two - some things are better left hidden from public view to increase their mystique. It was terribly hard to live down the experience. What else can you say when you have looked at 'it' in the 'eye'? The mind boggles. No word is ever adequate enough to describe both the sight and the experience.....