Boy Story: Go North Young Man - 2. The Lay of the Land

The Lay of the Land

I don’t want to seem like one of those guys who preys on underage boys, because that’s not it. The friends I’d go with to Montreal were into nude dancers who were cute, skinny, and innocent looking…and that normally points to guys who were on the younger end of the spectrum. However, every one of the boys working in the twink bars had to be a legal adult of at least 18 years of age. So everything was kept above boards and legal. Sure, there was the occasional boy who looked suspiciously young, but you have to chalk that up to good genes. It was not out of the realm of possibilities for a high school boy who had reached the age of 18 to be dancing at a gay strip club after school. Though It was more prevalent among high school grads who were having trouble finding gainful employment or boys trying to finance their college education.

And the term “dance” is very loose. Stage time while music was being played was referred to as a dance, whether they could pirouette or do a split was not important. Some boys could move and dance around, but others kind of walked the stage and would stop to frequently pose. I guess there is one difference between a stripper and a nude dancer. Strippers don’t dance. For the purposes of this story, though, I’m going to use those terms interchangeably.

As I said before, if you were 18, gay, had a good body and good looks, and you weren’t averse to showing it off, you had the opportunity to make some good money during hard times. There were a host of boys I remember from the clubs who rated eights or nines: Sebastian, Denis, and Randy. One never knew if they were using their real names or had stage names to protect their privacy. Maybe it was a little of each. Sebastian and Randy, I’m guessing, were stage names, and Denis was probably using his real name.

Although the ages of all the dancers were checked and rechecked prior to employment, there was once a raid by police at one of the gay twink clubs and one dancer was found to be only 17. But he had used falsified identification to gain employment, so the club was found not to be negligent in court. Then the police department was castigated in the press and in court for overstepping their bounds in the gay community and crossing the line into harassment. The man responsible for organizing the raid was quickly reassigned to another jurisdiction. The court ruling basically said if you’re going to raid strip bars, you have to raid both gay and straight strip bars equally.

I should explain about the private dances because that’s where, I was to learn, the dancers earn the bulk of their paycheck. The strip shows (or dances) on stage are used by the club to help entice customers to enter and keep ordering drinks. The private dances are sort of a little private enterprise by the dancers to supplement the meager base pay, if there was a base pay at all. Dancers who kept busy selling dances would do well, and those who were not selling many were in the wrong line of business.

When we started visiting Montreal, private dances were $6 Canadian per song. (That was later increased to $10 in the early 2000s.) The dances would last for one full song. The songs were whatever was playing on stage in the main room. Although I saw it as a bargain, I was never a big customer of the private dances. I figured I was getting enough for free out it the main room. Plus, I was always self-conscious about approaching the dancers. After all, what is the proper etiquette for arranging a nude dance? I generally avoided an uncomfortable situation. But all of that was about to change.

It was May of 1997, a new year, time for another trip north. I made a few calls and when all was said and done, we had six people interested in joining. Six people meant two cars. We were always trying to get the cheapest deals when we stayed over, so we stuck with the B&Bs, which were everywhere in Montreal. They varied from decent to a bit sketchy…but typically most were clean and inexpensive. We would always stay a short walk from the gay village where we would end up spending most of our time.

We decided to go during the Memorial Day long weekend (last weekend in May) and we’d take that Friday off too, so we’d be in Montreal Friday through Monday. We did the drive, crossed the border, and arrived around dinner time. We had a late dinner and then planned our night. I think the time allotted for Club David was foremost in everyone’s mind even though we didn’t say it. After Club David, we’d head over to the dance club named KOX to finish off the night. Closing time was
3 a.m., but I’d only made it to closing time once before. I knew my nights usually ended earlier than 3.

After checking out a couple of other bars first, we arrived at Club David at around 11:30 pm on the Friday night. We had all six of us in attendance and were fortunate enough to find an open table with six chairs midway between the stage and bar. We seemed to have arrived during the second set for the dancers as we walked in during a thin, smooth, good-looking Asian boy parading around the stage in a pair of bikini briefs. He was probably Thai or Vietnamese and his hairless body made him look younger than his actual years. As he wrapped up his dance, the announcer came on the PA speaking only French, and we were pretty sure he said that dancer’s name was Daniel as we clapped. My guess is there aren’t many Thai guys named Daniel at birth, but whatever, it was easy to remember.

Then the announcer spoke in French again to give an intro for the next dancer: Shawn. Shawn? An Irish name in French-speaking Canada? However, I was not prepared for what my eyes were about to witness. Clearly the hottest boy I’d ever seen on any stage in Montreal…or anywhere in general. I knew I was seeing my first 10. He was skinny and average height, maybe 5’ 8” (almost 173 cm), cute, medium length dirty blond hair with lighter blond highlighted streaks, big brown eyes that sparkled, and smooth skin from what I could see. I could hear the other guys in my group whispering their approval.

He came out fully clothed with an open hoodie and no shirt, but after teasing with his pants for most of the song, he removed them and danced around for maybe 30 seconds in his boxers. He looked so young and innocent and cute that I almost felt bad for him. To me, he looked too hot to be on stage in a strip club. He probably could have gotten a job modeling or acting because he had the looks in spades. He was the complete package. He was a 10.

All too soon the song, and therefore the dance, was over. I was still stunned as the announcer came on in French, and again the only word I recognized was “Shawn.” I was certainly not moving until we got to see his nude dance. We had to sit through five other dancers first for about 40 minutes, but the good thing is that the nude sets had started and the other boys weren’t shabby…however, they were not Shawn.

Most dancers would come out and strip while they were doing their nude number. Shawn bucked the trend and appeared completely nude for his right from the start. There were gasps all around. I could literally feel my stomach jump up into my throat. He was simply perfect. Maybe that’s why he came out nude from the start. You can’t improve on perfect. And he looked perfectly comfortable without a stitch on in front of a large audience.

The first thing I noticed is that he was circumcised. That was very odd for a Canadian, but very common for those of us from the U.S. All of the dancers we saw at the club that night were uncut, except for two…one being Shawn. Also, his pubic hair was well trimmed but visible, giving us a nice little putting green on his abdomen right above his manhood. It matched the dirty blond color on his head. I had grown used to seeing black pubic hair on almost all of the strippers. Seeing dirty blond pubic hair was kind of a turn on. This was definitive evidence that Shawn was a true blond.

The second thing I noticed was his uniform skin tone. Most often when boys are stripping, you see the white band around their midsection from always wearing pants, underwear, swim trunks, etc. I’ve heard this called the cottontail look by people in warmer climates when they see people from colder climates out of their clothes. Shawn must be a proponent of tanning salons to get one uniform color. It was also kind of hot because, at first, I had this fantasy in my head that Shawn was tanned all over because he spent most of his life out of clothes. And why not? If I looked like him, I’d wear fewer clothes most of the time too.

What was amazing was his skin. He wasn’t noticeably tanned. Like with clothes on, no one would think anything was different. Once the clothes were off, his tight little butt was not blindingly pale like some of the other dancers. His butt coloring matched the rest of his body. Upon further examination, I could see no blemishes, moles, birthmarks, beauty marks, freckles. It’s like we were seeing everything that was meant to be seen, nothing more and nothing less. He was flawless.

The song ended, the applause started with a few whistles, the boy smiled and gave a quick wave, and he disappeared through the stage door. I was smitten. Though I wanted to see his nude set again, that would be a long wait that none of us was prepared to endure. We regretfully left Club David and made our way over to the gay dance club named KOX.

KOX had changed since the last time we had visited. The inner dance zone adorned with the lights and dance floor was transformed to look as if we were dancing just inside (or outside) the walls of a castle, complete with castle walls, banners, and periodic go-go boys wearing loincloths in cages. Though we were in a dance club with really good 80s music and scenery the like I had never seen before in a dance club, my mind was still back at Club David. The feeling of excitement from seeing the beauty that was Shawn would not be going away any time soon.

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