It's upscale for a burlesque house -- and no, "burlesque" is not a coy term for "strip club." The lights are low enough for the well dressed patrons to remain anonymous; the little wells of two to six seats, arranged around intimate tables adorned with warm paper lanterns, provide an illusion of privacy; the liquor at the bar is all top shelf. But call it a burlesque house, a strip club, or even something as grandiose as a theatre, things happen here that aren't strictly allowed in the local zoning ordinances. It certainly explains the cover charge.

I shift in my suit, adjusting the knot in my tie -- my wife insisted on a Windsor knot because she says it looks more distinguished -- and dab perspiration off my forehead with a table napkin as I sip my Glenmorangie. It's not especially hot in here ... but there's a hot surge of anticipation, even anxiety, as I wait for the next act to commence.

The lights on the T-shaped stage flicker into a red-and-orange haze of illusionary fire, pierced by a gentle white nimbus, a glowing halo running from the center curtain down to the edge of the stage, where the pole rises back from the footlights and where the top-paying patrons are mere feet from the performers.

And she appears.

The announcer's voice, low and mellifluous and insinuating, speaks in its alluring tones: "From the jungles of Ranthambhore, please welcome our lovely man-eater ... Namarah!"

It's difficult to tell if she's really Hindi -- the enveloping sari conceals most of her skin -- but the lights gleaming through the diaphanous material reveal a mouth-watering figure, arching and swaying and prowling toward the glittering chromed pole inch by inch, seeming to savor the audience's fascinated eye. She surveys us from behind a beautifully fashioned tiger half mask, concealing all but her mouth and the elbow-length locks of midnight hair that ripple and writhe in time with the pulsing bass music.

But her eyes -- visible through great oval-shaped apertures in the mask -- are truly inscrutable. She has concealed their true color with greenish-gold contact lenses made to resemble cat's eyes. Not the cheap black slit pupilled variety you might see on Halloween, but a much more convincing sort made to give the illusion of the round-pupilled eyes of great jungle and savannah cats. In those eyes there is no warmth, no human feeling, no way to read what the woman on stage is experiencing within. Only the cold and somehow magnetic gaze of the predator. Our eyes meet, mine wide and gray and almost hypnotized, hers cool and feline, limned with some exquisitely dark shading almost the color of kohl. A spark seems to pass between us. My imagination, certainly.

As she slinks down to the very end of the stage, she begins shedding pieces of the sari-like dress, more a collection of loosely secured scarves. Delicate movements, one by one, she exposes more and more of her body, adorned with painted black-and-orange stripes, not a perfectly painted tigress but deliciously suggestive of such a creature. I feel my breath catch in my throat when she heedlessly tosses aside her top, exposing breasts that are completely bare but for paint, her nipples swathed in black stripes but otherwise naked, hardened in the kiss of the air, or perhaps from her own arousal at her situation.

When she wraps her arms around the pole, nuzzling against it with her mask, those eerie eyes roaming the audience, she wears nothing at all but her paint and a thin silver chain around her waist, from which dangles a sleek striped tail. She isn't wearing claws on her fingers or toes, but her nails have been painted a lacquered white -- rasping her fingers against the pole, arching one leg so her striped muscles are modeled for the crowd's hungry gaze. The tail sways in time with her undulating dance, exposing the cleft of her ass -- the stripes have been applied there as assiduously as anywhere else on her body, and I feel a stab of jealousy at whoever had the privilege of serving as her artist. As she dangles off the pole with one hand, displaying the front of her body with a sly smirk wreathing her chin, I feel a sharper stab at the smoothness of her mons -- not a wisp of hair to conceal the trim slit of her sex. I try to remember if my wife had ever groomed herself in such a way and draw a blank.

I'm not in the priciest seats in the house, so I can only watch her from a distance as she sinks to all fours and moves along the stage, swaying, perking her striped ass up to the appreciative rumbles of the audience, that insouciant smirk adding a gleam to her unreadable eyes -- pulsing jungle rhythms vibrating across the stage. I see her dip her masked face to a well dressed gentleman in the front row -- whispering something to him -- then turning, spreading her thighs, clawing her lacquered nails across her striped ass, flipping the plush tail out of the way to show this stranger all her secrets. Even from my third row seat I can see the glisten of juices on her cunt.

She teases every man and the one or two women in the front row in such a way, her displays and caresses growing bolder and more wanton as the music builds to a crescendo. No one touches her but there is no rule against touching herself -- and she does so, hissing words through her lush red lips, obscene provocations I can only half-understand. They're not for my ears, but for the pleasure of the first row -- arching up, knees spread, painted fingers spreading the lips of her sex to expose a dripping pink center --

Our eyes meet again and the erection I've been nursing since she stepped onto the stage throbs painfully. My imagination, I chide myself.

There's enthusiastic applause but no particular surprise when she braces herself against the pole, her thighs languidly open, and begins brazenly thrusting her fingers into her sex, her thumb playing across her clit like a musician strumming a lute. Sweat gleams on her body, making the stripes smear and run. Almost perfectly in time with the climactic rush of the primitive music coursing through her body, her orgasm rockets through her -- her head arched back, her tongue lathing her lips, soft cries rising from her throat as her cunt visibly pulses right in front of the whole audience. Slowly recovering, she stands, sketches a bare curtsey, and prances back behind the curtain, the striped tail bouncing jauntily against her ass.

Somehow I manage to get to my feet, lightheaded, my cock painfully hard under my suit. Like a half-blind sailor I roll past the sunken audience area to the artfully concealed stage door. A bouncer sees me, nods once, and opens it for me.

The backstage smells not of cheap stripper perfume and body oil but of theatrical makeup and cold cream. I have to brace one hand against the wall of the narrow hallway, my shoulder brushing the frames of a few dressing rooms before I arrive at the one I want.

She steps into the hall before I get there. Namarah, the tigress. She wears a thigh-length bathrobe, and the mask is off, as well as the long lustrous black wig, but she still has those concealing contacts in. A smear of cream is on her throat -- I've interrupted her in the process of removing the stripes.

She favors me with a toothy smile. "Well, hi there."

"Hi yourself," I manage.

Her white-nailed fingers reach up and caress the knot in my tie. Clucking her tongue, she murmurs, "When are you going to learn to tie this knot properly?"

The only answer I can manage is to slide my hands over her ass and pull her to me, kissing her hungrily. She's surprised but far from displeased, arching into the kiss, her tongue lashing mine. I can't remember the last time we shared a kiss this intense.

When it breaks she looks into my eyes. Something about those lenses -- the unfathomable animal color of her eyes -- sends a quake of arousal and fear through me. "What did you think?"

I wet my lips. "You want to do this again next month's amateur night?"

Her fingers curl around the Windsor knot in my tie, adjusting it, trying to fix it so it meets her specifications. Those tigress eyes meet mine.

"Why not even sooner?"