Burlesque, boots and booze

I took my girl on a date to a burlesque show last night at a supper club. It's something we do every month or so, and with the recent renaissance of the art form, the options and venues are growing, which means there are ample selections to choose from.

I love the idea of dressing to the nines, taking in a show, going to a supper club, drinking cocktails instead of just liquor. It feels old-fashioned and sophisticated without being elite or pretentious. And what continues to thrill me are the little customs surrounding this entire outing. I usually don a suit with my sharp, brown felt fedora, which always receives mention for its too-rare of a common stance. Last night, my girl wore her tuxedo corset with pink accents, a nice long black skirt with built-in petticoats and her tall black leather boots. I watch her get ready from start to finish, relishing the methodical manner she employs to transform from frumpy weekender to roving pin-up. The whipped-cream-AND-cherry-on-top is when she pulls her boots on.

To say that i'm a sucker for a gal in tall black leather boots would be doing a disservice to all the other well-mannered suckers out there. I anxiously await this time of year for the annual blossoming of the knee high heels, erecting tribute to the person who first invented this fashion by giving their creation my full uninterrupted attention. No matter what i'm doing at the time, my eyes get ripped away from the conversation or activity i'm engaged in and follow the ebony gams swinging gorgeously beneath the passing female pedestrian. I gush when a gal wears attractively comported heels, but my reaction to boots is entirely more aggressive. I see them as such overt sexual objects which can be viewed in their common use in Halloween costumes, and by prostitutes and dominatrices. I imagine a girl wearing boots as attempting to affect a specific erotic aura when sliding a pair up her legs, which makes the item even more potent. I adore watching my girl put them on, slowly dragging the zipper up as if to say "These are the lines you will not be able to take your eyes off the rest of the evening", all the while giving me a slight, playful peek of her lingerie because her dress is hiked a little to accommodate the tallness of the footwear. I enjoy taking her to a shoe shine kiosk in the train station and stand off in the distance, watching her boots get a shiny gleam. This activity gives the boots the appearance as being part of her body, and the person handling them with his precise strokes strengthens this illusion.

Once we arrived at the lounge, i was delighted to see that our pre-paid tickets had us sitting right near the stage, which always makes the evening more enjoyable as invariably the MC when interacting with the crowd will, at some point, comment on my girl and her elegant appearance. The evening's host was one of my favorites, a drag-king who pulls off a great rendition of a 50's showbiz ham á la Don Rickles, who ridicules and heckles the audience (or "folks" and "kids" as he refers to us) with a faux-inebriated glee. And because the host is a lesbian dressed as a man, he can interact with the females on stage and in the assemblage in a lewd and objectifying way without coming off as creepy. I was thoroughly impressed with the girls and their routines: playful, provocative, feminine and very sexy.

I enjoy sharing this activity with my girl because we have such a shared appreciation for the art form and the culture that had originally birthed it. We can indulge ourselves in the pretty, costumed and made-up girls prancing to campy music or jazz standards without a need to hide this activity from the other as seems to be the case with visits my vanilla friends covertly make to strip clubs. These evenings usually involve a considerable amount of booze due to the atmosphere and the type of crowds that attend, and by the end of the evening i end up guiding my adorably tipsy girl into a cab, making sure i've collected all of her numerous accessories.

Oh, and i was right about the host commenting on my girl. He pulled her up on stage and made her participate in a contest to "out-dance" the other dilettantes. I smiled widely as i watched her wiggle around under the spotlights, taking great delight in the enchanted gasps from those in the crowd around me as they saw, upon her turning around, the knotted laces of her corset going from the small of her neck to her lower back.