Following the rejection of the spherical manager...

The second place was impossible. I drove up through the Valley, up, up and away. Past the boutique shops, then the dollar stores, and finally, the warehouses. The barbed wire fences. The utter desolation and depression.

I love how they push us as far out of the way as possible, shoving us out by the railroad tracks and the piles of dug up dirt. Like maybe if we're so removed from civilized society, away from the nice, normal housewives shopping for their 2.5 children, the seedy desires of suburban husbands will somehow evaporate. Out of sight, out of mind.

Sadly, I don't know of any man whose desires can be pushed far enough away from residential neighborhoods that they are simply forgotten. In fact, I wonder if our distance makes them want us more. Do our locations in the nastiest, most dangerous parts of town add to our appeal? If we were in the building next to little Johnny's elementary school, would we be too accessible? Maybe those angry citizen groups are doing us a favor!

But I didn't go in, anyway. It was too much. The parking lot was fenced in, with three rows of barbed wire on top of it. Across the street was an abandoned warehouse. And supposedly, this was one of the nicer places. I parked my car and sat there for a minute, my hand resting on the door handle. I should just go in, fuck it...

But for the first time in a while, I heeded the little tiny voice that sometimes tells me what to do, and that I almost always ignore. I'd never come back here at night. Something (something...) about this place is not good.

And I shut the door and drove away.

Addendum: I'd just like to add this. The more I thought about this place as I drove home, the more I wanted to give a big fat FUCK YOU to the people who have a hand in passing laws that prohibit strip clubs from being anywhere even remotely decent, or safe. You haven’t outlawed stripping, you haven’t made your husband’s desire (or your own desire, you repressed fuck) to see naked chicks go away, and you haven't - nor will you ever - rid the world of what your uptight, rigid morality deems unacceptable. All you've done is make my life much more dangerous than it needs to be. I hope you're happy about that.