The girls danced on a raised platform set up in the middle of the pub with seats and tables set up around it. The lighting was dim, colorful and mysterious, and constantly changing. The music wasn't shrill, but powerful. One could feel the table vibrating with the rhythms projected by powerful sub-woofers. The music had the secondary effect of bringing the audience and the dancers together, creating a unifying atmosphere where one aspect blended into the other, the dancing, the generosity, the smiles, generating a nice feeling, a feeling of unity.

      Most of the front-row seats were soon filled, which added to the feeling of unity. At one point Tony remarked to Jason that he was glad he had selected one of the front row tables.



      Long after we finished munching on our ham sandwiches and potato salad, Lora's show started. "Watch out for Lora!" Jason had told us.

      "Is this the one?" Tony asked when a girl walked up the stage, proud and erect, moving swiftly up the stairs, being welcomed with the clapping of hands that everyone seemed to join in.

      Jason grinned. He didn't need to answer. Before she was even on the stage one knew that something different was about to happen. The sparkling lights, the red velvet decor of the pub, the color of the stage, all seemed to have been put in place just for her. Her costume was of the 1880's, loaded with lace and ribbons as if she had just stepped out of a painting by Claude Monet. Her hair was bound up high, her dress in flowing lines. Her music too, was unusual. It had a classical flavor that echoed the power of her dance, but soon it gave way to a beautiful and sweet melody that echoed the "Mediation" from Tahis. With her encumbering garments quickly shed she performed feats to this gentle music that I had seen performed only once, by a Chinese group of acrobatic dancers. At one point she danced on her hands with her feet stretched backwards over her shoulder, moving on her hands with the movement of the music. The final part of her performance was danced like a spoof to the old traditional stripper-tune that promised something special and exciting. And this, too, wasn't an empty promise. She was beautiful to look at in whatever manner she appeared, and she interacted well with the people she had come to entertain.

      As soon as she had stepped on the stage, one knew that this was going to be a show that would stand above the rest. She had a beautiful presence and reflected a kind of intelligence that was more than evident in the choreography of her dance. The dance was constantly changing and developing right through to the end, into the fun filled spoof of the very business she herself was engaged in, so that everyone to the last person there was smiling from ear to ear. There was zest and sparkle in her routines, a refreshing contrast to the dreamy erotic enticement that had gone on before in other dancer's acts, and yet it was all satisfying, out of the generosity of a beautiful soul.

      At the end, long after her clothes were shed, when the music had trailed off towards its final bars, she sat on a raised platform in the middle of the stage and took one of her shoes off. She pretended it was a telephone. "What is my mission?" she asked. "To take my clothes off? Mission accomplished!" With this said, the music stopped.

      "And this is eroticism?" Tony asked.

      Jason nodded.

      "I was hardly aware that it was," I replied.

      "You won't see the likes of it in Pittsburgh," said Tony to Jason. "She's doing the impossible."

      "She is an artist," said Jason. "Why must art be restricted to what fits into the stereotyped mold that the world has created for it?"

      I agreed. Her act had brought a lighthearted feeling to the place. The effect was appreciated. It contrasted with everything I had seen before in such places where the dancing slowly grinds along, dead, serious, and unfulfilling. This time the customers weren't disappointed. They weren't even disappointed that sex wasn't the number one issue of her routine, even though she had generously included everything they had come for. She had given them more; a sense beauty that was all human; an arousal of their passion for life that came to light not only in her beautiful person, but also in the music, the dance, the rhythms, in her smiles, and in her communication with the audience as human beings. And it wasn't merely satisfying! It opened the door to a sense of joy that inspired a longing in the heart for more of what is intrinsically human; a fire that one didn't dare to let dim, or even go out. Her show was more than just a cleverly stage-managed and technically good performance. It was a human performance.

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Stories about  Sex from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche