Full frontal

CHIPPENDALES is tight, quiet, fantastic. Something's off, I can feel it the second I roll in. Something bad. Something worse than usual. Wait a second, is that a cop?

Arnolpho whips past in a fast version of his dancer's walk, flying by like some fabulous flaming South American comet. Seeing me, he screeches to a halt, leans in close, touches me on the chest with intimate familiarity, and purrs in a sun-drenched Brazilian whisper: "Oh, hhhoney, have you heard?"

His face is so brown and beautiful and smooth. I forget sometimes how gorgeous he is. Arnolpho is delighted - rapturous, almost. That's because he is in possession of some delicious dishy dirt.

I wait for him to tell me. Of course he won't. He wants to milk me for all I'm worth. He wants me to ask. No, he wants me to beg.

"Okay," I say, "I'll play. Have I heard what?"

"Nick de Noia..." Arnolpho nods his stunning head with wicked insinuation: Something evil this way comes.

I'm hooked. He's got me, and he knows it. Now he's gonna play with me like a fat cat that's batting around a blind church mouse. "What happened to Nick?" I'm uncomfortable with how much need-to-know quivers in my voice.

"Bay-bee, your mind isss gonna get blown into tiny li'l pieces!"

"Arnolpho, for God's sake! What happened to Nick?"

An incredibly average man in an incredibly average suit approaches and addresses me without a trace of an accent: "What do you do here?"

"I'm... uh..." I stutter, "the emcee, the master of ceremonies - why, what-"

"Could you come with me?"

The man walks. I heel. I look over my shoulder at Arnolpho and toss him a holy shit! look. He nods his perfectly coiffed yet casually styled head very slowly, like: Tha's what I'm talkin' 'bout, bay-bee!

I'm hardly ever inside the tiny mirrored dressing-room when it's not full of beautiful, shaved-smooth men either putting on or taking off clothes. Now that it's just me and the incredibly average man, I'm struck by the bad-cologne, musky-funk, semen 'n' sweat smell, all soured from not having had a proper scrub for a very long time.

"So," says the incredibly average man, "what can you tell me about your relationship with Nick de Noia?"

So this is an interrogation. Frankly, I'm a little disappointed. I always thought that when I got grilled, it'd be at the hands of some tough-guy hard man who could make me his bitch in a New York minute. This guy looks like a seventh-grade geography teacher.

Luckily, I have training in How to Be Interrogated. Rule number five: Say as little as possible. Rule number six: When in doubt, say even less. So I say: "Well, you know... he's my boss."

The incredibly average man leans in steely and spits: "Where were you yesterday afternoon?"

Suddenly I've got a bad case of the deep willies, and I feel incredibly guilty, even though I didn't do anything. Suddenly I have no idea where I was yesterday afternoon. Now I see his game. He comes across like he's a wouldn't-hurt-a-fly guy, so you let down your defence, then he springs at you like a fully loaded doberman.

"Uh..." I start the sentence without knowing where I'm going. Always a bad move. Stop. Think. Ah, yes: "I had an audition. Then I went and harangued my agent about getting me more auditions. Then I had some sushi. I gotta receipt."

The incredibly average man goes back to being incredibly average. It's an astonishing transformation. Scary detective to geography teacher in half a heartbeat. He writes down something in a notebook, then, without even looking at me, asks: "Do you know anybody who might want to kill Nick de Noia?"

Air leaves my lungs like a bullet.

Nick de Noia is dead.

Nick de Noia, the man who basically invented the Chippendales, the most famous male strip show in the history of Western civilisation, is dead.

Do I know anybody who might want to kill Nick de Noia?

Hhmmmmm.

I look into the detective's incredibly average eyes and say: "Do you want the short list or the long list?"

CHIPPENDALES, screams the marquee over the door I enter on Sixty-first and First, just up the block from the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, where countless homeless citizens are just saying no. Across the street is a most excellent pizzeria, a mom'n'pop news shop, a homely bodega, and some old-school apartment buildings. Just up First Avenue is Dangerfield's Comedy Club, where nobody gets any respect.

I've heard of Chippendales Male Strip Club, of course. Everyone has. They're in the gossip column on Page 6 of the New York Post. Johnny Carson jokes about them on the Tonight Show. Sally Jessy Rafal, a leading afternoon talkshow host, has the men on her show all the time, half-nude in their trademark skin-thin black spandex pants, bow tie, collar and cuffs. But I'm not really aware that this is one of the hottest shows in New York City, or that the calendar sells millions of copies every year, or that Chippendales is, in fact, the most successful male strip show in history.

In the lobby, life-size glossy photos of the Men of Chippendales smoulder at me: bulging bulges, mountain-peak pecs, six-pack man-rack abs and cheekbones for miles. Too-too-blue eyes follow me wherever I go, and as I stare at these magnificent specimens I can actually feel my testicles shrink.

Five or six other googly-faced fools mutter underbreath, preparing to audition to be the next Master of Ceremonies at Chippendales. I don't know it at the time, but hundreds of guys will audition for this plum of a job. Four days a week, two hours a day, two thousand bucks a month, six hundred screaming women a night.

This must be clear. Apart from the crooked face, the huge honker, the elephantine ears, I'm a reasonably pleasant-looking fellow. I have brown tousled hair, dimple-filled cheeks, and I'm easy with a laugh. But standing next to an Adonis I'm a frog.

A squashed woman with black plastered lacquered hair and a stylish plus-size blouse ushers me through red velvet curtains into the guts of the ratty, tacky club. Smells like bad booze and soiled cigarettes, with a musty undertow of coke, as she leads me to a man who stands in the shadows.

"This is..." purrs the round compacted woman with a pearly voice that sounds like she's selling perfume or doing phone sex. "This is David... uh, Scary."

I don't correct her. One time a casting director called me David Sterny, and I made the mistake of setting her straight. I never got called back. If this one wants me to be David Scary, I'll be David Scary. 'Cuz the two grand I brought to New York, New York, is now officially gone, and I really need this job.

A man spins out of the shadows with the muscular grace of Gene Kelly, eyes sparkling, salted, peppery, perfectly coiffed hair, lovely little leather jacket, and peach silk shirt open at the neck with a gold chain peeking its cocky head out. Tailored, freshly pressed blue jeans, tassel-happy Italian shoes and a 20-gigawatt mile-wide smile beaming in the middle of it all.

I really want him to like me. That's the kind of guy he is. But I get the feeling he already hates me. That's the kind of guy I am. "I'm looking for a cross between a baggy-pants comic," he says, smooth as the silk in his peach shirt, "and a Joel Grey, Cabaret-type Master of Ceremonies."

He spears me with a svelte index finger. "You are the most important person in this show, because you speak for the Ladies. You say what they wish they could say."

He squints, leans in to me, and points to his palm. "And you have to have them right here! It's your job to tell the Ladies of America that it's okay to grab a handful of hot young ass and give it a good squeeze!"

His face is electric. "I'm looking for someone who can go out there and really sparkle, who can be naughty and nice, who can ride these Ladies hard and put them up wet, as they say!" This guy's like a pimp you want to love you. "Any questions?"

"No, I think I got it." I try a smile, but there's way too much need-to-please in it, and a panicky clammy dread fills me. I'm certain once again that the only possible outcome is failure.

I walk to the centre of the red sunken dance floor. It's unnaturally quiet in this dark cave of a club, lotsa little empty tables and chairs on two sides, a long liquor-filled bar at one end, and a raised stage at the other.

I turn my back to the man and his sex-voiced assistant, and marshal my forces. An adrenaline flash jacks right through me, as I spin around and throw an arm up while booming: "The Men! Of! Chippendales!"

The Muse sinks her spike into my arm and pumps me full of juice as I ride the melody of the words, busting off the ends of the punch lines like I'm cracking a whip.

This is it, this is what I live for, centre stage, completely engaged, not having to think about my shitty little life.

It's one of those auditions you dream about, where everything just flows and you go with it, and you somehow manage to tap into the life force that connects all living things, at which point you can do no wrong. When I'm done, bathed in sweaty happy afterglow, all I can think is, why couldn't I have been auditioning for Steven Goddamn Spielberg instead of at Chippendales Male Strip Club? Story of my life. I note that even in triumph I manage to find a way to make myself miserable.

"That. Was. Faaaaaaabulous. Fab. U. Lous. Are you... available?" asks the charismatic man.

Available. The golden word. They can tell you you're faaaaaaabulous till you're blue in the balls, but they don't ask you if you're available unless they're actually interested.

Oh, God, I need this job!

"Well... yeah, I could be available..." I sound like the most available man in the world trying to pretend he's not available.

"And you do..." The suave man pauses dramatically. All that smooth and charm has got me hypnotised. "Rollerskate, of course, don't you?"

Rollerskate? Shit. Forgot about the rollerskating. I have no idea how to rollerskate. But again, I think: How hard could it be? I call on all my actor training to stop the panic from invading my face as I lay out my bald-faced lie: "Sure, I rollerskate."

The debonair man whispers to his velvet-voiced assistant. She whispers back. He does a picture-perfect pirouette and sticks out his hand like we're in a Fred Astaire movie and I'm Ginger Rogers. He cocks his dashingly handsome head to one side, familial yet slightly sexy, and says: "This isn't official, but barring any unforeseen circumstances, welcome to the Chippendales family."

I smile, take his hand, and shake it. His hand is soft but his grip is hard. He's intimate yet impersonal. Relaxed yet professional. Friendly yet chilly. Welcoming yet intimidating. Reassuring yet terrifying. And thus I am introduced to Nick de Noia. I'm ecstatic as he welcomes me into my second family of freaks.

THE dressing-room is steamy, body-heat hot. A nervous queeze freezes me. There's no air in here. Feels like if my head weren't tethered to my neck it would float away. Suddenly I'm acutely aware of being surrounded by some of the most breathtaking nude men in the world. All making mad cuz of how hot they are.

A half-naked, spandex-clad man with a bitchin' hot bod, big blond streaked hair, and '70s pornstar moustache cockwalks into the dressing-room. He is the famous Snowman, the Man among the Men of Chippendales.

"Blond twins, corner of the Pit, they got my name on 'em, so hands off, assmunchers!"

The Snowman grabs a couple of hulking dumbells, pumps them hard for 30 seconds, and spins into the mirror. When he flexes, his knotted muscles pulse, veins twitching like rivers on a moving relief map.

"Cuts like a Ginsu knife!" crows the Snowman. Then he slips a very small white folded envelope to an impossibly gorgeous, absurdly sculpted guy. Hmmm. What's all this, then? I've heard there's lots of cocaine at Chippendales. Hell, coke is to the 1980s what a dry martini was to the 1950s. Me wonders, is that how the Snowman got his moniker?

Tall, thin, faceless lockers stand opposite the wall of mirrors. Crudely written over one of them is 'David Skerry'. I open my locker. Inside reside: one pair black tux pants with shiny pipes; one black tux jacket with protruding tail; one white button-up tux shirt; one red cummerbund; one red bowtie; one black top hat; two black roller-skates with eight red wheels.

Seeing my costume eases me. Suddenly I'm Sir Galahad staring at his armour before going out to slay the exotic dancing man dragon.

I hang up my green Cossack jacket and my black drawstring pants. Put my red high-tops on the locker floor. Now I'm naked but for one red sock and one blue sock.

I turn around. Caught in the mirror with all those beautiful nubile nudes is a puffy white marshmallow man.

I chuckle.

Marshmallow Man chuckles. I'm embarrassed for the guy. If only he could see how grotesque his pallid fatness is next to the love gods of the Chippendales.

I stop smiling and shake my head.

He stops smiling and shakes his head.

Wait a minute -

Ohhh noooo!

I am the Marshmallow Man!

Mortified, I grab my tux and hightail my fat ass into the costume room, disappearing like a chubby cottontail into the bush.

JOHNNY has a needle and thread in one hand, the Barbarian's fur loincloth in the other, and a strip of Velcro in her mouth. She looks about 20, Latina with a swirly sea of curly brown hair, stylishly ripped jeans and white sailor-suit shirt with sweet coffee flesh floating underneath, two pouts for lips, and hips that make my knees weak. She seems to barely notice that a puffy white Marshmallow Man has just sprinted into her costume-strewn lair in a state of naked panic. This is part of her charm.

"Uh, do you mind if I... uh, you know, change... uh, back... here?" I stammer, plummeting: How in God's name am I gonna go out there in front of all those people and say all those words when I can barely ask the Costume Mistress if I can change in her room?

"Whatever." Johnny lobs back half a smile, like we're both in on the same joke, me naked and clutching my tux, her fastening Velcro to the Barbarian's fur loincloth.

Immediately I like her. Immediately I want her. Immediately I know she will never want me. I vow then and there that I'm gonna bust my ass till I, too, am cut, buff and muscular.

"Goddamn it, Johnny -"

A blast of mean ugliness blows in from the dressing-room like the frigid wind of a nor'easter. That voice can only belong to one man: Nick de Noia.

Our boss arrives a skosh later in a tailored charcoal suit that perfectly complements the salt and pepper of his hair.

"Why do the monkeys look like they have goddamn mange?! Helloooooooo -?"

Nick notices me and does a double take. An old-fashioned, theatrical, look-away, look-back-at-me double take.

I watch him process the information.

The new Master of Ceremonies is in the costume room.

The new Master of Ceremonies has just caught him tongue-lashing Johnny.

Nick de Noia breathes with the ease of a trained dancer, pivots ever so slightly towards me, and says: "Oh, hello, David, I was looking for you. Did you see the roses? They're on the counter." Nick pours charm all over me like it's hot fudge and I'm his banana split.

Ladies and gentleman, step right up and watch Nick the Magnificent pull a Rico Suave gentleman out of his own belligerent ass.

"Thanks, that's... nice," I say, smiling back like a goofy inmate in a loony bin. How did I miss the roses? That was so sweet of Nick.

"David, you're going to be faaaaaabulous tonight. Do you know how I know? Because I picked you, and I have incredible taste!" Nick de Noia's big easy laugh is contagious, and I catch it. But the laugh barks out of me too loud, like I'm in pain.

Johnny lets out a barely audible mini chortle that drips cynicism. Makes me like and want her even more. Nick's too busy being Nick to notice.

"The most important thing tonight is to go out there and have fun. This is your party, David. Go out there and sparkle for me!"

A flow of calm confidence oxygenates my blood, and suddenly my life makes sense. Yes, it's all been leading me here, so I can be Nick de Noia's Master of Ceremonies. So he can fix me.

Nick de Noia doesn't think of Chippendales as some cheap stupid male stripper show. And that's why it's not. Nick wants to change the world, give women the opportunity to ogle, fondle and sexualise hot men, with upscale, old-fashioned, postmodern Folies Bergre style: classy not crude, fun not lewd, artistic not rude. And, of course, he wants to get rich doing it. Nick sees himself as equal parts Julius Caesar, P T Barnum, the Marquis de Sade and Bob Fosse. And this show is his legacy to the world.

When Nick de Noia, the king of Chippendales, pirouettes on his heel and glides gracefully from the room, a cold snap and a heatwave swoosh out with him.

"Can you feel the love?" Johnny eye-rolls like an old soul trapped in a 20-year-old hotty body. Then she viciously bites off a thread coming out of the Barbarian's fur loincloth, where in an hour his barbaric balls will be.

Extract from:

Unzipped: A True Story of Sex, Drugs, Rollerskates and Murder by David Sterry (Canongate, 10.99) is published on August 30