I ask you, is $100 the right price for a lap dance?

You see, I was minding my own business near the foot of Duval Street when I noticed a person hanging from a doorway, a man with dark hair and dressed all in black hung slack in the doorway, from his fingertips lodged in the jam, like he was a figurehead on the prow of a ship.

“Hey you!” he called.

He was olive skinned and youthful and whippet slim. “Come here!” one hand curled toward me. “Come over here!” Any other time, any other place I would have cast my eyes at the paved ground and marched forth. Instead I slowed before him and did not resist when he took my hand and steered me indoors.

The instant we entered the small all white space the man pushed me, his palm on my chest, down into a white leather armchair. The room looked like a hair salon, except besides stacked boxes, it was empty.

“I am Alessandro,” he announced, and he straddled me. “You have lovely skin, but really you should take better care of yourself.”

He had his legs astride mine and he forced my legs shut. “Look up!” he commanded, and he began applying something sticky under my eyes and amiably he chattered on about his Sicilian parents. “They were very generous,” he said, inexplicably, with his small hard rump hovering above my knees, not quite touching, but I could feel the heat of him.

And then he was giving me a lap dance. Perhaps not the full-on professional thing but close enough! Like a stunned doe I allowed him. Next he traced the outline of something like a baby violin swelling inside his black pants, “My parents were good to me,” he said, again, and now I understood. I couldn’t help but laugh. Had he not been so personable I might have remonstrated or shoved him away. But really, I thought, what the hell.

Later I realized that the purpose of the dance is to distract one and delay one long enough for the sticky stuff to dry so that when he next applied a foundation cream it would cling on. Resulting in one side of my face looking decidedly younger than the other. Of course I bought the creams. He charged me $100.

These ‘face cream lap dance’ stores are a new thing on Duval Street, some with wine as a magic ingredient, others with crushed diamonds. The hook, however, is not in the bottle, but rather with the model quality looks of the salespeople, and their friendly ways.

I consulted with a friend who works as a mate on one of the tour boats and he told me the exact same thing happened to him, except it was an exceptionally beautiful woman who lured him in. He too bought the creams, and the promise of romance.