Big Baby Jesus (as ODB was also known) would've loved messin' with Jett now that she's gone bi, and he especially would have enjoyed this week's Inferno outing to Shepherd's Nite Club (www.clubshep.com) on Cactus Road, a quarter-mile west of the 51. Club Shep's renowned for its Super Soak-Her Sundays, a wet tee-shirt contest where two of a kind always beats a flush. Winner of the contest can cop anywhere from a C-note to $150, and I had visions of pimpin' out the J-grrl to put some paper in my pocket. But, unfortunately, the Anne Heche of P-town was nursing a migraine the size of Minnesota, so I had to ride on Club Shep solo.
Good thing Super Soak-Her is el cheapo, nephew. Free for the honeys, and a mere $3 to $4 cover for the fellas. The "soaking" usually starts around 10:30 to 11 p.m., and it pays to get there early to snag a dope spot from which to survey the proceedings. Normally, Club Shep is just a cool neighborhood hang with a long bar, a DJ, a kitchen serving burgers and wings, and a game room in the back with a pool table, darts and a video game. But on the Lord's Night, girls 21 and up from all over the Valley come in to compete for the big cash prize, as well as for runner-up prizes like bar tabs, gift certificates and whatnot. Five judges are chosen from the crowd to rate some five to seven girls gone wild as they're doused with ice-cold water, standing in a big metal tub, wearing promotional wife-beaters and panties supplied by the establishment. The end result is a perv's paradise, as you can practically peep the goodies beneath.
"We don't hire some professional company to bring in girls and have them perform, like other places," co-owner Allen Rebenstorf explains when I arrive. "Our contestants are typically regular people. That's kind of the attraction. Anyone you see in here on another night of the week, you may also see Sunday evenings. So if you have a fantasy of hooking up with someone . . ."
I chuckle. "I see, you might get to examine the goods before you take 'em home, if you're lucky. What are you guys usually doing during the show?"
Says Brian Bostwick, Allen's partner, "See, by law, the girls can't show their nipples. So they put on the wife-beaters, but they always cut them to get them looking really sexy. Our job is to make sure they don't go too far."
"Tough work you two have," I say, eyeing some of the lovelies already filtering in for the evening, as well as the sizzling hot waitresses and bartenders at Shepherd's. Seems Rebenstorf and Bostwick have only owned the place since earlier this year, though both Shep's and the wet-tee thing have been around for a while. Rebenstorf is blond and looks straight as an arrow, while Bostwick has short brown hair and a goatee, reminiscent of an ASU grad student.
"Now I've gotta ask about the pictures you have on your other Web site, http://soak-her.com," I say. "It looks like the judges are getting lap dances."
"Funny you should ask, Kreme. We've had to tone things down a little bit," Rebenstorf says. "It got a little extreme, and ended up being only the strip-club chicks participating, because the local gals didn't want to wrap their legs around some stranger's face. The lap-dance thing doesn't happen anymore, but the girls can still do all the dancing they want, and the judges are right up close."
Rebenstorf and Bostwick have to prepare for the night's festivities, so I let them do their thing as I grab a vodka-Red Bull and chat up the lovely seated next to me. Her name's Danyella, she's 21 and has a smokin' bod, with legs men'd kill for. She's showing them off in a short-short dress, some wicked red F-me pumps, and white, thigh-high stockings. Seems she's competed in the contest four times before, but she's not gonna be up there tonight.
"I just did it for fun," says Dynamite D. "It was really cold! I didn't win."
"You didn't win?!" I yelp in amazement. "Who were you competing against, supermodels?"
"Thanks," she replies, taking a swig of Bud Light. "But a lot of the girls who compete, sometimes they're, uh, bigger than you in certain areas. And then, all the guys rate differently, so what can you do?"
"Was your boyfriend jealous of you doing that?"
"I don't have a boyfriend," she says, laughing. "Men are losers, so I just try to stick to myself. I come here all the time, because it's a friendly place and because I live just up the street."
Mmm. Now that's a babe who deserves some male attention. I'd step to that myself, but as Jett's home nursin' her aching head, I've got to work the crowd more than usual. I mosey on over to a table near the entrance where Vince Lalor and his lady Mary Harrer are chillin'. Harrer's a gorgeous blonde who definitely doesn't look like she's just had a kid, but in fact gave birth to her and Lalor's son Gavin a month ago.
"This is my first night out of the house in any kind of club or bar," relates Harrer, 25. "Gavin's great, but I've got to get out every now and then for a little bit."
"Why did you guys choose here?"
"We met here, actually," explains Harrer. "We both used to work here. Vince worked the doors for four years, and I waitressed and bartended for about a year."
"Are you a bouncer somewhere else now?" I ask the muscular but easygoing Lalor.
"Nope. In fact, we just had the grand opening of the Arizona Center for Mixed Martial Arts on 19th Avenue, between Thunderbird and Cactus," explains the dojo master. "My partner's name is Mark Zee, and we teach professional cage fighters all over the planet. We start with Olympic judo and Thai kickboxing. And when they're ready, we start teaching them Brazilian jujitsu tactics, and then start competing them in amateur competitions -- Rage in the Cage stuff. I've been doing this work for 12 years. I have a black belt in Olympic judo, and in traditional Kodokan jujitsu."
"Wow, intense," I say. "So how do all these different disciplines stack up against each other?"
"In open tournaments, I'd say the Brazilian jujitsu and the Greco-Roman wrestling are dominant," says Lalor, 30. "The winners are the ones that strike and have good hand and feet combinations. But once they get ahold of each other, and end up on the ground, the person who has the better wrestling or jujitsu skills becomes dominant in that circumstance."
I find out Harrer, too, competes in martial arts, and has won a number of state championships. Lalor seems like such a cool guy that I may consider signing up to train with him, as long as he can show me some sumo moves.
After a while, Lalor and Harrer take off to relieve the baby sitter. I make my way back to the front, where the crowd's gettin' thick in anticipation of the soaking spectacular about to ensue. While I'm grabbing another drink, I strike up a confab with James Brickhouse, a buff black gent who's wearing a tee shirt that reads "If size doesn't matter, then why am I so popular?"
Brickhouse, 33, tells me he's a club promoter. His Club Menage caters to the swinging lifestyle, but for a younger set, instead of all the old fogies in town who're into the whole wife-swapping thing.
"I market to couples and bi-girls, mostly," says Brickhouse. "We just try to bring like-minded individuals together in a comfortable setting. Everybody always meets somebody. Of course, you can only get so crazy at the club, but most of the time, we'll have an after-party at a hotel or somewhere."
Jett'll be happy to hear that, according to Brickhouse, there's a "strong base" of bisexual girls in the Valley, and hundreds turn out to his events. Depending on where they have it, the cover might be anywhere from $15 to $20. But the venue changes, so Brickhouse says to read Playtime, one of the local skin rags, and look for the Club Menage ad (it's posted only before he's about to host this sexually charged soiree).
I look to the front of the bar, and the contest is under way. A girl wrapped in a towel is traipsing toward a tin tub. She gets in, and two other chicklets (clothed) pour pitchers of water over her again and again, until there's just a bare minimum of wet cloth separating us all from her butt cheeks. After the process is repeated several times with various girls, the judges rate the ladies from one to 10, like Olympic judges. You can see from the pics here and online that the audience gets dangerously close to the action. A foxy brunette named Charlie (judge her attributes for yourself) is the ultimate winner, though the real winners are horndogs present.
At the end of it, all the gals dive into the tub and rub against each other. Dear God, what a beautiful sight! See what you missed, Jett?
