The ONS that almost was

OBSERVATIONS
-Hand Test rules all. Use it all the time.
-Strippers are people, too.
-Don't forget to check phone numbers on the spot. I forgot to do this on this occasion, but it turns out it was fine.
-Logistics can be a bitch sometimes. Once you've got Rapport and you're trying to lock down logistics be somewhat flexible if you want to make things happen. The World does NOT revolve around just you, in case you didn't notice. ;-)

THE STORY
This was sooo close to being an ONS. :-\

I was in Las Vegas this weekend with some friends for the UFC match at Mandalay Bay. Afterwards some of us went to Olympic Gardens, a strip club at the north end of The Strip (near Stratosphere).

ASIDE: Now for those of you that have never been to a strip club, please understand that this is a place of business where the standard Rules of Engagement have to be modified. Remember that the girls are basically at Work and their time is money (literally). Any kino that they do off the bat or SOI's they give you without provocation are not what they seem, so don't jump straight to Rapport. Run Attraction, then do the Hand Test. If they pass, go to Rapport, else run more Attraction.

Also remember to treat their time with respect-- it's the same situation as you hitting on a bartender or a waitress or any other girl who's at work.

Minutes upon entering the club my brother and I get propositioned by a cute Korean looking chick-- well, cute at least until she shook my penis to say hello. I don't know about you guys but that shit ain't as sexy or hot as it sounds, especially since it's more like a rough grab of the junk than a smooth caress of any kind. I banter her off of us and we post up at a table.

After about 10 minutes of watching the stage dancers I get BORED. I never would have thought this would be possible but I was actually disinterested in looking at boobies. :-\ I decide my time would be better spent walking around the room and approaching the strippers as if this were a normal club filled with cute women.

I work the room for a bit and make general chit-chat with several strippers, and at one point I get hungry so I go for a slice of sub-par strip club pizza. While chowin' down on my pizza, a stripper, HBBoots, comes up and orders a slice for herself. She props up a leg on the counter to get the money from her zip-up boots:

ME: So, THAT'S where you guys keep your money!
HER: [Smiles]
ME: Cuz you know, you've basically got here [point to chest], here [point to crotch], and after that you kind of run out of options.
HER: [Laughs]

She's kinda cute and I'm not initially attracted off the bat, so we just stand there and chit-chat about life, clubs, and strippers while eating slices of pepperoni pizza.

After about 5 minutes I ask to bum one of her cigarettes and we go off to sit in the club somewhere and basically vibe. We find a pair of seats kind of far from the main stage, and we face our chairs pointing away from the stage, side-by-side. All the way up to here I've kept the kino very sparse (on purpose) and only as an incidental touch-- like if I hit a high point in a conversational thread, for example. The more we talk and the more points of compatibility we hit, though, the more she's turning me on, so I escalate kino as such.

At one point I SOI her a certain way:

ME: You know, I'm finding you really attractive, but I don't want to ruin what we have by asking for a lap dance from you.

HER: Well, we can go to the VIP room and we can do the "3 dances for $100" deal but I'll stay and chat with you for half an hour because I really like talking to you, too.

I take her up on her offer and I lead her to the VIP Room (I scoped the entire place prior so I knew where shit was). Once inside we basically get into Deeper Rapport and kino escalation. The whole time I'm ALWAYS checking in with her hands (while talking does she play back with my fingers? If I squeeze does she squeeze back? Etc.) When she gives me some lap dances I push/pull the kino a LOT, and when we're just sitting side by side I keep the kino warm but playful at times.

ASIDE #2: I've noticed a strange trend specifically with strippers where they say "you're so sweet". THOSE EXACT WORDS. Multiple times from separate strippers on different occasions. Not sure what to make of it; I normally just say "thank you" and roll with it.

After about 20 minutes I'm pretty sure I've got her worked up to the point of wanting to hook up, so I try to lock down the logistics of the evening. She has a house up in Summerlin (about 30 minutes from the Vegas Strip) where she has her own horses, dogs, and cats, and she works two jobs (the stripper job and something else). She had also asked how long I was in Vegas and where I was staying at this point, so I knew we were on the same wavelength. She's still trying to earn enough $$$ for the evening (by this time it's about 3:00am) so pulling her back to the hotel right then and there was a difficult proposition. I let that conversation fall in and out between other things we talked about (and more kino escalation) to see whether we could make it work that evening. Since it was looking like a no-go for that night we instead set up something for that coming morning around 9:00am, after she took care of her animals at home. She programmed her full, real name into my cell phone and agreed on a time to get together.

We left the VIP room shortly after, and we rejoined my brother out on the main floor. I introduced them to each other, small chit chat, then I let her get back to work.

Fast forward to the next day. I'm zonked out of my mind from sleep deprivation but I try to contact her anyways. 8:30am I give her a ring, but her phone goes straight to voicemail (and she says her first name in the greeting so I know it's the right one). This makes some sense to me since I'm sure she was there until probably 5:00 or 6:00am. I try contacting her again at 10:00am but no dice, then finally get ahold of her at 1:00pm. She sounds like she's barely awake and her recant of her morning confirms why (lots of chores regarding her horses). That afternoon was a no-go, so I reluctantly tell her we'll have to get in touch again the next time I'm in Vegas. Whether this happens or not is difficult to say-- since we didn't fuck it'll be difficult to maintain any level of connection with her. Only time will tell, I suppose.