Ben snapped a series of photos, the analog shutter clicking with each shot. Still, the sound wasn't enough to keep him from forgetting again that he was using a traditional camera, and he shook his head in disbelief when he tried to check the non-existent digital display.

"Dumbass," he muttered to himself, the lighthearted admonition drowned out by the techno beats piped into the joint.

Relying only on his skills and expertise, Ben adjusted some of the speed and light settings on his old-school Canon and aimed the camera toward the nearest girl.

One of his favorites to photograph today, she had some mad skills on the pole. Grabbing the thin, metal pipe with just her thigh muscles, she spun around to the music in an itty-bitty g-string like it was nobody's business.

Of course, it was pretty much everybody's business since she was doing it for the bills tucked into her waistband and the credit card swipes at the private tables. None of the girls at the Toot Your Horn Gentleman's Club came cheap either. And judging by some of the animalistic noises Ben had heard coming from some of the back rooms, that wasn't just a really obvious pun.

"Want something else to drink, honey?" asked a waitress as she took his used glass, the ice having nearly all melted into the leftover Diet Coke at the bottom.

"No, thank you, Shirl," he replied with a smile before nodding at the girl on stage. "But can you remind me of her name, please?"

It seemed like the decent thing to ask, even if he was going to officially leave his nearly naked subject anonymous for the sake of any of his future exhibits.

"Oh yeah, that's Kandy with a k," she said between smacks of her chewing gum. "Want me to introduce you?"

Ben shook his head. "That's okay, but thanks for the offer."

"Sure thing, doll. Let me know if you need anything," Shirl said before moving on to a paying customer at the next table.

The photographer looked around, remembering that the environment was just as important for the narrative he was trying to tell with his pictures as were the subjects in his frame.

For a random Thursday afternoon, the place snuggled between a bookstore and an up-scale steakhouse on one of DC's most prestigious commercial streets was surprisingly busy. Junior accountants and federal lobbyists in Brooks Brothers suits made up the majority of the clientele, but there were a few construction workers in their steel toed boots and hi-vis vests at the bar sipping their drinks to give much needed variety.

Realizing that Kandy's set was almost over, Ben was just about to go back to snapping a few last shots when the door to the club opened. Daylight streamed into the dark space, making the two men who entered seem like shadow figures. The metaphor was fitting, especially as the door swung shut and their faces became visible.

"Holy shit," Ben said out loud, unable to contain his surprise at seeing Chad Wight, aka his old Tinder hookup Ready2Mingle come in.

Pulling his ballcap further down his forehead, Ben casually got up and moved further away from the stage, finally settling on a secluded spot near a back hallway that gave a great view of the rest of the premises.

What were the odds?! Then again, the Congressman wouldn't have been the first politician in this place. Those bastards had no shame, publicly decrying such "obscenities" and then visiting under the cover of "gathering info" or some such bullshit.

Completely forgetting about photographing the performers, Ben's attention stayed on Wight and–just as importantly–the man who had entered with him.

Taller by the Congressman by at least six inches and younger by a few decades, the guy seemed ripped under his button-down shirt. A little rough around the edges, he gave off a Scandinavian vibe, reminding Ben of one of his favorite F1 drivers from Finland.

He wondered if this encounter was more business or pleasure, but after the two sat at a table and ordered drinks, their body language gave no signs of any romantic intentions.

Too bad, Ben thought, recalling how his hidden footage of the politician had brought him down a peg and also saved the upcoming KINK exhibit. Another such opportunity was probably too much to ask for, but it would have been quite poetic to catch the hypocrite in another MxM tryst.

Then again, seeing how he was having a professional interaction with someone in a place like this, Congressman Wight probably considered himself untouchable in the long run. And the worst part was, that he was likely right.

Fucking conservatives. Do as I say, not as I do should have been tattooed on their foreheads. But whatever. Ben wasn't going to worry himself about that now. Turning his camera back to the stage, he was just in time to see another girl start her show.

"Uh-huh, okay then." Taylor's husband repeated the same phrase for the umpteenth time before moving away from another part of the exhibit. And while she'd been biting her tongue from pressing for his detailed opinion about the X-rated cartoons, the vintage lingerie or the weird sex chair, she couldn't contain herself any longer.

"Really? That's it?" she asked, wrapping her hands around his arm as they now stood in front of a life-sized photograph. In the black-and-white picture, two people dressed in furry animal costumes were wrestling. "You have no other thoughts on any of this other than 'okay then'?"

Mike chuckled. "Of course I do, but I don't think I can say most of it in public. I mean, come on Tay, some of this stuff is making even me blush."

She also smiled and leaned in, gently biting him on the shoulder. "Is it, now? That's kind of hot, you know," she whispered before catching sight of a familiar face across the gallery floor. "There's the woman responsible for most of this. Want me to introduce you?"

Her husband looked at Venus Coleman standing in a group of other sharply dressed museum goers and shook his head. "Nah. I'm sure she's got more important people to talk with on opening night. Tell her congratulations from me, but we can skip the formalities, if you don't mind," he said, turning back to the photo before pulling her away. "This was going to be our night, remember?"

Taylor squeezed his hand as they stopped again, this time in front of an Assyrian sculpture with a massive hard-on.

"And it still is," she said, remembering how she'd promised him a date night weeks earlier, which they were finally just able to schedule. Whether work or something else, obstacles just kept popping up. Just like the penis of the totem in front of them . . .. "I'm sorry, but this probably shouldn't have been where we ended up tonight."

"What do you mean?" Mike asked, holding back a laugh. "It's like a live version of pornhub and it's free."

She gently smacked his arm. "Stop! This is a serious ethnographic exhibit."

He leaned down and kissed her. "For sure. And it's making me pretty horny," Mike whispered.

"Do you want to get out of here?" Taylor asked, relieved to know that she wasn't the only one and mentally calculating how long it would take for them to either Metro it home or if it would be better to call an Uber.

But he shook his head. "No, but I'd love to see your office."

"My off-," she began before catching on. "Oh, my office. Yeah, sure. We can do that. Come."

Leading him by the hand, Taylor took the long way out of the temporary exhibit space, dodging the hundreds of specially invited guests to avoid being seen by any of her colleagues. Slipping her ID out of her purse, she used the staff elevator to descend to the basement where there hadn't been anyone for hours.

"Ta-da," she said, flipping on the lightswitch to her tiny, windowless domain. "It's not much, but there's a door. And it locks."

Mike was already on it, shutting the door behind him and turning the deadbolt. "That it does," he said before stepping to her. Grabbing Taylor by the waist, he gently pushed her against her desk. "I've never had sex in a museum before."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. "There's a first time for everything then," Taylor said, wondering if she had one of those fuzzy handcuffs still in one of the drawers.

Final approximate ONC word count: 21,800