How I Told My Wife I Paid A Stripper To Pleasure Me In The VIP Room

Neon lights shaped like strangely-contorted topless women flashed from pink to red and back again as they hung above the gold-rimmed entrance. The unrealistic positioning of the neon dancers was somewhat metaphoric to the women that danced inside.

A place like this sells an illusion of sex, attention, adoration, or escape to any poor soul who's got a few dollars to spare and a lonely heart. Given my mental state at the time, there was only one thing to do: Put my wedding ring in my pocket, pay the doorman, and step across the threshold into the alternate dimension known as a gentlemen's club.

I rounded the corner of a dark hallway and saw two very naked women dancing enthusiastically on separate stages. Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar On Me" blared loudly over the speakers. The smell of cheap beer, sweat, and steam residue from the cheap fog machines was a pungent presence but not so much of a distraction to pull my focus from the beautiful, incredibly flexible brunette hanging confidently from a shiny aluminum pole.

Her legs wrapped above her head, forearms straining as she held a position I previously thought possible only by seasoned contortionists in the employ of Cirque du Soleil.

I couldn't have been standing in the entrance more than a moment when a hand slipped under my arm. A rather attractive hostess led me to a seat by the second stage. To my left, a well-dressed, overweight gentleman was being paid attention to by a dancer who had just finished her routine. To my right, a young couple was cheering on the current performer.

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The hostess took my drink order and whispered quietly in my ear. "If there's anything you need, just ask," she said. There was an emphasis on "anything".

What was I doing here in the first place? The answer is was as simple as it was complex. I needed to be somewhere, anywhere other than home. It's important that I'm honest: I wanted attention. More specifically, I wanted female attention.

Was I having trouble in the dating game? No, in fact, I wasn't even a player. I was a married man with a beautiful wife who I had known since childhood. In fact, our relationship was thought of and often spoken about as the very representation of how to do a relationship right.

In most people's eyes, we were a fairytale. Only, fairytales don't exist. In truth, I was starved for affection, desperate for validation.

I used the anonymous, attachment-free world of strip clubs as an attempt to satiate my needs. I even went so far as to use a different name when the dancers would lean in close and say, "What's your name, honey?" I loved being someone else. I craved the freedom of it.

I'm no longer married but don't assume my visits to these establishments are the reason. I'll own up that they played a role. But my wife cheated on me. The final year of my marriage was akin to a kaleidoscope unable to return to focus. Maybe true forgiveness isn't something I'm capable of.

I needed help processing why a woman who had promised to be faithful to me would do this. The result was a mental state in which I believed my wife and I were sexually evolved.

This inevitably moved us into an open relationship. Why? Because it was natural, instinctual, and most importantly, it rationalized her infidelity. It's just the kind of societally advanced people we were, right? Wrong.

I should have ended my marriage then and there but I didn't. Instead, we talked like a married couple was suppose to. So much anger, so much screaming. It was ugly, toxic and a nightmare. Eventually, we did find some sort of peace but by then my mental and emotional numbness was irreversible.

The need for attention, validation, and extramarital stimulation was in full force and getting stronger by the day. Although I was fed up, hurt, and furious, I had years of monogamy behind me and it took some time to cross any significant boundaries.

A gentlemen's club, strip club, jiggle joint, whatever, was my way to bridge the divide between marriage and what I would eventually become. At the time I allowed myself these late-night excursions because they were something I deserved. Something I was owed. In reality, they were just a stepping stone to a different life. I could get the attention I craved and leave everything behind when I left. Looking back, it never actually helped.

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Back to the brunette I first saw when I walked into the strip joint. This was far from my first time at one of these establishments. I was already a seasoned patron of more than my fair share of gentleman's clubs in Los Angeles.

My eyes turned to the glowing sign above a red velvet curtain. It flashed VIP. The performing dancer stole my attention back, putting her head between my legs, rubbing her forehead on my crotch, and using her teeth to grab a rolled-up dollar from between my fingers.

As soon as she had it, she was on to the next. Then, I felt fingers move from one shoulder to the other and around my neck. A hand cupped my chin and pulled my lips as close to someone as you get without making contact. There she was: The Brunette. She just stared at me smiling.

Now in my lap, she laughed threw her long brown hair back, and said, "Let me show you." She looked up at the glowing VIP sign. "I know you were watching me when you walked in."

What happens behind the red curtain? As though she read my mind, she grabbed my hand and led me through it. In an instant, years of what I knew to be right and wrong fell to the wayside and I went numb. Blissfully, uncontrollably, numb.

Her porcelain wrist pulled the curtain back and she hung on me like I was the love of her life. She laughed and smiled at me like I was the end-all-be-all. Obviously, it felt good. Face-to-face and behind the relative anonymity of the curtain my hands found places on a woman I forgot existed.

A moment later a very large man hidden in the shadows grabbed my shoulder and went down a menu of activities I could purchase. Honestly, my alcohol-soaked, emotionally-numbed brain couldn't make out a word. (She must have thought I was easy prey.)

She reached into my pocket, grabbed my cash, and gave it to him, politely placing the change in my back pocket. The bouncer, whose tone was now surprisingly gentlemanly, thanked me before slipping back to the shadows. I was led to a stall. She pushed me down hard onto a chair, turned around, and put her rather shapely buttocks in my face. Looking over her shoulder she closed the curtain.

The next day I told my wife as we got dressed for work. I blurted out that I paid a stripper like I was telling her what I had for lunch that day. I think it came out like that because I was still so numb.

This was the first of many conversations where she and I would decide on the rules for our highly evolved, societally-advanced open relationship.

I haven't been back to a strip club. Instead, I started seeing other women. My wife started seeing other men. We even slept with other people together a few times. It was fun, exciting; it was a crock of s***.

We're divorced now.

(Note: Sexual slavery is a very dark, very real aspect of the adult entertainment industry. I had the opportunity to speak with a few dancers outside of the clubs, who claim to have knowledge of women being forced into selling themselves. I no longer visit or promote gentleman's clubs for this reason. Please check out this list of charitable organizations that combat human trafficking.)

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Howard Hunter is a songwriter, stepdad, and adventurer from Nashville, Tennessee.