I glanced about me curiously. The stage was directly in front of us, large, but raised only about a foot and a half above the main floor. A chorus of tired-looking girls was doing a bump-and-grind routine. They wore only G-strings and pasties. From the lack of attention the audience gave them, I figured them to be the warm-up number. The customers were waiting for the main attraction, Frieda Fieler.
The place was large and drafty. It was also smoky and very dark. The patrons were mostly men, a tough-looking bunch of yeggs with a respectable working man here and there plus one or two tourists made obvious by their better clothing. The waiters made sure that nobody’s glass stayed empty for long, and a few B-girls circulated around trying to con the more likely-looking men into buying a bottle of champagne. All in all, the Naughty Nude wasn’t much different from the clip joints in Greenwich Village or Frisco. Except, as I was soon to see for myself, that things were more uninhibited.
It didn’t particularly look that way when Frieda Fieler came out to do her act. The stage went dark for a moment, and then a spotlight picked her up as she made a sweeping entrance. She was dressed in a high-necked black gown of sequins which covered her completely all the way down to her toes. She also wore long black gloves, a black feathered headdress, and high-heeled black shoes. I half expected the audience to protest this completely covered vision. After all, they had come to see flesh. But they must have known what was coming, for they took the concealment of her charms in their stride.
As for myself, I was looking for anything that might point to her being the Françoise Laval I was seeking. There was nothing obvious on which to pin my hopes. The headdress covered her hair completely, and I couldn’t tell whether she was a blonde or a brunette or a redhead. She was a small girl, but in the shimmering gown it was difficult to tell about her figure. It seemed to fit too loosely — for a reason, as I would appreciate when her act really got off the ground. Her bosom and hips looked adequate, but whether they were something special as to size and shape was impossible to determine just yet. And I couldn’t tell anything at all about her legs.
Only her face matched up with the description Gina had given me of Françoise Laval. High cheekbones and a pouting mouth—very Bardot-ish -- plus the fact that she had a lovely ivory complexion. Even on stage she didn’t need much make-up, and she wasn’t wearing much.
Frieda Fieler did an undulating dance that brought her directly in front of a ringside table across from ours. She dangled her hand in the face of a bald-headed chap seated there and wriggled the fingers. It was an obvious invitation for him to remove one of her gloves. I don’t know whether the guy was a shill or not, but the way he did it got a big rise out of the audience. He grabbed her pinky with one hand and her thumb with the other and pulled on them in turn. It looked just as if he was milking a cow, and the way she dangled her hand from the wrist rounded out the illusion.
Finally he had it off, and she danced away. Straight over to another customer who removed the second glove. Now she was out on the floor itself, among the tables, the spot following her as she wriggled into a backbend. The way she did it, her headdress was soon making small, circular, insinuating motions in the lap of another customer. He took the hint and removed it. I gathered that it was his to keep as a souvenir.
I could see her hair now. It was blonde, all right. Long and tawny. A golden mantle flowing over the sparkling ebony bodice. It rippled enticingly with every movement of her body.
That body was swinging into a real ballet style now. A few entrechats and then a graceful leap which landed her atop one of the tables. She stuck her foot under the nose of the fellow seated there and wiggled it. When he got the idea and removed her shoe, she tickled his nose with her toes. Then she swept down in a graceful motion and poured champagne into the high-heeled slipper. Only after he’d sipped it did she dart to the next table and repeat the routine.
Now she was back on stage. She stood still for a moment. Then she reached down with one hand and made a slicing motion just below where her legs joined. This was followed by a plucking motion. The audience got the idea and clapped its approval.
The music became Spanish, slow and sinuous. And that’s the way she moved, too. She passed among the tables in a series of undulating Latin movements. As she moved, hands reached out to grab the sequins covering her legs. Two of the hands were slapped away. The first when it greedily reached out for a second helping. The second when it reached for a sequin just above the imaginary line she had drawn.
Once again she was back on the stage. Her legs were completely bare now. They were terrific. I checked off the fact that they more than matched up to Gina’s reluctant praise of Françoise Laval’s gams. She made the slicing motion with her hand again. This time the imaginary line was drawn just above her bosom.
Back in the audience, she did a backbend over one of the tables. When each of the four men there had removed a sequin, she moved along. At the next stop she sprawled face down across the table so that her breasts dangled down enticingly as the sequins on her shoulders were removed. I noted that they looked quite large indeed in this position.
Bare-shouldered, she grew impish. She mounted the stage and turned her back to the audience. Peering over her shoulder, she wriggled her derriere provocatively and then ran her hands over it to indicate the area of sequins up for grabs this time around. In the section she chose for this honor, some of the men were sweating with eagerness as she descended to them.
The party got a little rougher then. The music was a raucous jazz, and she was moving much more quickly than she had been. I guess she had to just to keep from ending up completely black and blue. Each hand that grabbed stole a pinch as well as a sequin, and a few jabbed most indecently.
But she was obviously used to it. She stayed right in stride as she remounted the stage to give the audience a spotlighted view of the results of her latest expedition into the hands of her fans. Her derriere was completely bare, It was high and firm, milk-white and chicken-plump. And it moved as if with a life of its own—a life that was decidedly not above reproach. Yet, it moved as if testifying to its intimate acquaintance with many a mattress.
Finally she turned around. The band struck up a foxtrot, and she held up her hands as if dancing with a man. Then she motioned to a man from the audience to join her on stage and dance with her. He stumbled up there, went through a few steps, and then stumbled away. His reward was a collection of the sequins which had been covering her waist and lower back.
She was completely naked in back now. In front, only her breasts belly and crotch were covered. She patted her belly and danced off the stage into the eager throng again. She was accompanied by a slow, raunchy blues now. She clapped her hands to the beat and made gestures which ended with a half-dozen or so patrons kneeling on the floor in a circle around her. She wriggled her belly in front of each in turn. Each in turn snapped dog-like at the fast-moving tummy and came away with a mouthful of sequin. Now only her breasts and a triangle of her womanhood were covered. I was particularly anxious to see these areas, of course. Not out of lust—although I won’t deny that I was feeling my share—but as a more positive means of identifying Françoise Laval.
She started with her left breast, from the stage. I gathered this was the special reward reserved for those lucky enough to be at ringside. She bent from the waist, over the edge of the stage, dangling the sequin covered breast over the upstretched hands. She moved in quick sidewise shimmy. A fellow really had to be on his toes to grab one of the breast sequins. And that’s just where most of them were — standing up on their tippy-tippy toes.