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"Hmm...An interesting proposition, but I'll have to decline."

"What? Why not, bud?" the brown bear sitting across from me in his office stared incredulously. "I got the most beautiful ladies in this building all lined up for ya! No judging here; if it's because you're into dudes, then--"

"No, no. Thank you, but no. I'm...not the type to come here anyway," I waved my paw at the baffled ursine, then thought up of a compromise for the offer. "Well, can you at least keep that offer for my roommate? He will definitely be interested in getting a lap dance."

"It's a deal, Mr. Leander!" he grinned as we shook paws, his larger grip nearly pulling me over the desk, "But first, you better get to business. I want the fucker caught before putting some money into a new security system they can exploit too."

Gavin Fleischman. A forty-one-year-old brown bear who never abandoned the neon sleaziness of the 1980s nor the punk aesthetic of the 2000s. Not too bright of a fellow, but he did excel as the owner and manager of 'The Desert Spice Saloon'. Most horny residents of Crossroads City preferred to call it the Desert Spice. What made it more popular than the other strip joints beyond the city limits included a) reasonable prices b) an interior that reminded citizens so much of the nostalgic years from during the Reagan administration, and c) it had a few prominent male strippers who catered to the (slowly) growing number of gay residents. At least, the ones who decided against moving to more liberal states.

What did the Desert Spice's owner/manager want me for? He suspected one of his employees had been skimming cash from the business. He couldn't find lost money in the registers at the bar or in front, but the bear knew something was up. He had been getting a steady stream of customers the previous year, but he had less money. According to Fleishman's accountant (vehemently screened as an honest, trustworthy worker, so he was ruled out as a suspect), the Desert Spice had approximately $18,000 missing in their retained earnings across two whole business quarters. How the suspect did it under the bear's nose was a complete mystery.

Normally, I'd have recommended he go to a business analyst, but kept quiet. After all, what was the point of throwing away payment for my half of the electric bill?

It had been a busy Saturday night, packed to the brim with men and women eager to see the dancer, so I decided to simply be a gadfly on the wall. The bouncers had been informed about my presence, so they wouldn't interfere with my observations unless somebody went rowdy.

By a straight fur's standards, the ladies were beautiful, but it wasn't until 10:00 PM arrived that the male strippers took over. The male customers had already trickled out, only to be replaced by females. A pawful of drooling, unapologetically flaming dudes, some bashful businessmen asking for a private booth in the back, and one sexually charged pack of vixens and she-wolves making up a loud bachelorette party. They all drooled over the dancing strippers amidst an atmosphere of bouncing neon, musk and electric energy.

By a gay fur's standards, the men were spectacular to stare at. Dressed in almost nothing and sometimes nothing at all, presenting their bodies that ranged between Greek sculptures and cowboy models, they were aesthetically pleasing to look at. To ogle and gape with wide, opened maws while ignoring the painful erection in your jeans. Plenty of them wiggled their hips and made love to the silvery poles atop the main stage, which had plexiglass mirrors on the ceiling to provide the clientele with another view from above. Also, to give the lights another place to bounce off of to the tune of deep, catchy dubstep.

To the cheers of their fans, they pole danced, shook their scantily clad asses, toyed with the clothes barely covering their torsos and gladly leaned their tails and assess out, encouraging the coy furs to provide whatever amount of bills were in their wallets. A few were even bold enough to try and grope the dancers (one overweight rottweiler was frothing as he tried to snatch a lithe jaguar's thong off his slender figure), only to be dragged out of the establishment by a bouncer. For some reason, I held a large amount of respect for them, defending the dignity of their co-workers without any hesitancy.

Too bad I need to literally ask them out to dinner first before I find any of 'em attractive, I mused to myself. Well, at least they're doing a good job.

I mean, as far as somebody like me could tell. Demisexuality became a huge bitch when others expected you to be turned on by what turned them on. The sights of the strippers' shining fur, bright smiles, bouncing cocks and succulent tails would have distracted any gay fur, but not me. I had a job to do, after all. Even if the sight of them did arouse me, nothing would stop me from easily finding out who was ripping off the Desert Spice.

Fleishman initially suspected one of the strippers, or perhaps his cashier who operated the register in the main lobby. However plausible the latter happened to be though, I did not hold much suspicion on any of the girls or guys. Once I did some quick research on the grumpy, bored boar--named Jim--standing behind the dividing glass, I did find that Fleishman did ignore a few previous misdemeanor charges he had done while hiring him. A bit of social media scouring led me to discovering that Jim, while shady in appearance, did not have any primary reason to commit fraud. No family, no wife, no husband, elderly parents to take care of or young cubs to raise on a decent salary like his.

In all fairness though, I learned in accounting classes in college that three factors helped contribute to fraud: Pressure. Opportunity. Rationalization. Pressure needed to be apparent or encouraged for an individual. Opportunities, even the tiniest ones, needed to arise in front of the individual. Rationalization allowed the individual to convince themselves to commit fraud, like their employer deserved the crime or they themselves were owed some form of compensation. In the case of Desert Spice's employees, there were plenty of tiny opportunities to strike, but proof needed to be found for the case to be officially closed.

Against better judgement, I discreetly walked over to the nearby neon, saloon-styled bar and sat myself down at the far corner, waving a paw for the bartender.

"Hey! Over here!" I hollered over the music, "Got any daquiris?"

The bartender, a tired badger in a vest that matched the colors of his fur, waltzed over and shook his snout, "No daquiris, but we got cider."

I sighed but nodded, "Then gimme a Coke."

"Yessir!" he dispensed the fizzling beverage into a glass and swiped my card, right as a flustered fox requested some mixed drinks for him and his buddies. "I'm on it!"

Clasping the cold glass for a moment, watching the ice cubes float as I contemplated the case, I took a gentle sip and turned my head back to the stage. However, my eyes ended up being distracted by the bartender. He had just finished creating the mixed drinks and handed them to a server as the half-distracted fox handed him four ten-dollar bills. The smiling badger--Jim, I noted for later--thanked the customer before secretly slipping the ten-dollar bills into one of his jeans' back pockets, then handed him what I assumed to be correct change from under the bar. Without opening the register.

A bartender that made drinks for clients and pocketed the proceeds without ringing them up. That was how the Desert Spice had been losing money. Clever badger.

I continued doing my job right until closing time. Over the howling, horny noise, and bad music, I observed. Pretending to be interested in the performances onstage with my left yellow eye, I actually kept close watch on 'Jim' in the corner of my right blue eye. The badger had been sneakily fulfilling one clear factor of committing fraud: opportunity. With all eyes on the dancers in the middle of the room, the bouncers remained distracted enough for him to make the drinks and keep the proceeds (cash only, not credit cards). Without ringing up the drinks on the register's point of sale system, Jim could have easily done it for months or even years.

Fleishman called the police before the badger left the building, then personally apologized when one of his customers--mistakenly believing the officer as an employee, slipped several twenties into his pocket while encouraging the shepherd to strip. Aside from telling my roommate about the free offer for him, the best reaction of that night was the look on the bachelorette's muzzle when she realized the officer really was an officer. Made me wish I broke the rules and sneaked my smartphone in for a photograph.