Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - The Favour

After we sit and watch tv for an hour, Joe finally musters the courage to ask a question. To summarise what he said and removing the excess rambling and stuttering, basically his friend is getting married and the bachelor party is next week. They have a stripper but the venue cancelled on them so they need a place with a pole... like their living room...

I feel the weight of your words settle in the air between us. The TV murmurs in the background, some show neither of us is really watching. I sit up slowly, pulling my knees to my chest, my arms wrapping around them.

"Your friend's bachelor party," I repeat, the words coming out softer than I meant them to. "And they need a pole." I glance at the brass pole standing tall in the corner of our living room, the lamplight catching its polished surface.

My stomach does a slow, complicated flip. I think about strangers in our space, in our home, touching the pole that's become such an intimate part of my practice. And then I think about a stripper, someone whose job is to do exactly what I do when you watch me, but for an audience of your friends.