“Hey, everyone,” Joe grins, and Q looks around, looking for all the world as if he wants to go home and hide under the bed for the next forty-eight hours. The fact he’s wearing a blindfold adds to this.
“Where are we?”
“We’re at your punishment, buddy,” Sal grins, and Q looks at where he’s speaking from; Murr is already giggling uncontrollably, and to be honest, you cannot blame him. “We’re at…”
Murr pulls off Q’s blindfold, and Q blinks in the sunlight, before his jaw drops.
“…your favourite place on earth! That is, before you got with your girlfriend, we hope.” Joe snorts, and Q’s jaw drops.
“Is this…?”
“It’s a burlesque club, Q, and guess who’s headlining tonight?” Joe cackles, and Q spins around, mouth falling open in panic. “It’s okay, man. We had a professional choreographer here, to teach you a routine called the ‘martini glass’, made famous by Dita Von Teese.”
“Had. They’re not here, so you gotta figure that out by yourself, buddy!” Murr giggles, and Q stares.
“We can’t show this on TV! This isn’t decent!”
“You’ll be keeping clothes on. They just won’t be yours,” Joe says, deadpan, and as a crew member leads your stricken boyfriend inside, you grin to yourself from where you’re hidden; Joe waits until the doors shut and the camera cuts, and then laughs hysterically.
“Oh man, he’s gonna die. Q hates this kinda stuff.”
You step out, and Joe grins at you, hugging you – Murr claps you on the back, and Sal sweeps you up in a big hug as well.
“Now, you know what you have to do?”
“Absolutely.” You grin at them, and Murr looks around.
“Uh, we literally have a wad of fake dollar bills, although you’re not meant to actually do that at burlesque clubs…” He shrugs. “Seemed like it’d make it even worse, y’know?”
“He might actually kill you all,” you remind him, and he grins.
“But it’s so funny…!”
The curtains part, and the – chosen, of course, from fans – crowd begin to holler. You’re already laughing at the giant glass in the middle of the stage, and you can only imagine what Q is saying right now to the others. You wish you had a headset so badly.
The lights go down, the music starts, and you bite your lip, trying not to laugh so loudly you can be heard on camera, even though the focus will be on you for a lot of the crowd shots. There is a moment as presumably Q refuses to come out, and then- he appears.
He stumbles on stage, and you immediately start cackling – he’s wearing what appears to be a mint-green boob-tube and a pair of matching mint-green boxer shorts. For privacy’s sake, you hope he’s wearing something underneath too. He is also scowling like the devil himself, and you wonder for a moment if you’re going to choke on your own laughter, until finally he gives the audience the most sarcastic smile you’ve ever seen, and then winks.
He pulls the boob-tube off, and underneath – you put your head between your legs to stop yourself from vomiting with laughter. He’s wearing sparkly nipple tassels. They go with the shorts and the boob-tube. You’re going to cry.
He doesn’t go for the full strip-tease, presumably because Tru TV wants to keep its broadcasting license, and instead goes to the grand finale of the piece – climbing into the glass. It has a few boxes behind it, tastefully draped in black velvet – the synchronisation to the music piece has apparently completely gone, and he climbs up the boxes, one hand on the glass as if he’s an old man ascending the stairs.
You know what’s coming next – you lift your handful of singles, and as he gets one knee over the edge of the glass – a spotlight lands on you.
Q looks up, squinting into the audience, and when he sees you there hollering and waving dollar bills, he slips and falls nearly face-first into the liquid. Everyone around you is creased – you are actually crying with laughter right now at the image of your boyfriend in the martini glass in nipple tassels.
To be fair to the man, he recovers magnificently and grabs the sugar cube, lifting it a little too high above his head as he has clearly underestimated its lightness – he slips back into the glass as if he’s sinking into a bubble bath, which, due to the froth he’s churned up, he can be forgiven for thinking, and lifts the sugar cube above his head victoriously – however, at this point, he gets a mouthful of what you can only assume is cold, soapy water, and starts spluttering. The brief fear that he is drowning is allayed when he sits up and shakes his hair, showering the front row, including you, and then drops the sugar cube out of the glass before clearly giving up entirely and beginning to splash as much of the audience as he can. He’s so much like a kid in a paddling pool that you can’t help but laugh, and as the music comes to an end, he tries to get out – and slides back in. The glass isn’t even deep, but that does it – tears start pouring down your cheeks, and you double over. A tap comes on your shoulder and you look up into brown eyes, and he extends his hand for the money – and you are struck by inspiration.
Laughing, you shake your head, and shove the fake money in your pocket; as he turns away, shaking his head, you swear you hear Sal laughing from backstage.
“Okay. We couldn’t’a made that shit up.”
Joe is eating wings, much to everyone’s surprise – not – as Q towels his hair off.
“Shoving dollars into his little crop-top? Funny. Refusing to give him a one-dollarbill? Priceless. You are gold. Q, you’ve been replaced, man.”
“When the lights went on and you were there, I honestly wanted to die. Like… I debated drowning myself in the goddamn water for a second,” Q confesses, and you lean your head against him.
“You don’t even smell of martini,” you sigh, and he sighs.
“You coulda done one thing for me, guys. One thing. And made that real martini.”