by Amy Brent
“We’re glad,” said Mars. He’d taken Calvin’s seat next to her, and his massive hand settled on her knee.
“All right, boys, what do you want?” Alisha asked. “Do you want to fuck me or something?”
Sol turned red. Alisha felt her eyes get big. She’d been joking—the session had been a success, and Calvin was now a much, much better lover. That was the end of it, right? “Seriously?” she asked, standing up. “I don’t fucking believe—”
“Please, hear us out,” said Altaire, now, putting a hand on her shoulder and gently pushing her back into the chair. She glared at him—it’d always been a mystery to her, how a man so slender and reedy could be so strong. “It’s not like that.”
“Then by all means, enlighten me—what’s it like?” she snapped.
Sol ran his fingers over the front of her dress, and she shivered when his touch brushed her nipple. “It’s like this,” Sol said. “We frequently find ourselves aiding single men who want to learn how to please a woman. They need, shall we say, practice. Some of them want to try out bondage, others want to try out being bound. Sometimes we have women, too, who want to command—”
“Wait, what?!”
“We need someone who’s relatively easy to bring to orgasm, a woman who’s open-minded to trying new things, and who isn’t ashamed to get naked in front of strangers—”
She flushed when she remembered that night at Blue Diamond. Hm, maybe they’ll teach me how to go down on the owner, she thought—and then at once she felt a deep and burning shame for having thought that. She was getting propositioned by her brothers—and all she wanted to was a VIP pass to the Blue Diamond? She’d always been a proponent of the idea that sex was fun and should be enjoyed, but the idea of going down on the owner of the Blue Diamond just to get a pass was too close to prostitution. “I never said I was into trying new things,” she protested. Sol looked at her: Really?
“We won’t let anybody else fuck you,” Altaire said, softly. “We’ll make sure that it’s one of us who’s going in-”
“Please, Alisha,” Sol said, brushing her other nipple with his hand. “Was it that bad the last time?”
“No,” she said. “But you’re talking about me having sex with someone else—I’m quite happy with Calvin, okay? You’ve seen to that already.”
“What if we told you that Calvin is okay with it?”
She felt her jaw drop open with surprise. “That doesn’t sound like Calvin at all,” she said. But then again, he had let three strangers touch her, and two of the cocks that had been inside her weren’t his. Sol was looking smugly, infuriatingly, amused again.
“As long as it’s one of us,” Mars said, sliding her dress up her leg. “You’ve got nothing on underneath,” he said, surprised.
“It’s laundry day,” Alisha muttered, turning red. Between that, and everything that Calvin had been doing to make her go wet and wild, she didn’t have anything clean that day. But it didn’t matter, so she’d told herself.
“Alisha,” Sol said, “just try this one thing, okay?”
“One thing,” she repeated.
Sol nodded. Altaire helped her to her feet, and said, “Feet shoulder-width apart, please.”
Sol pulled out a slender stick, with a little piece of stiff leather on the end. “What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s called a riding crop,” Sol said, slapping his own knee with the little patch of stiff leather. “In sex, it’s used to hit certain body parts, to elicit a certain reaction. Some of our clients find this pleasurable to watch—”
“—and some of them find it fun to do,” said Mars.
Sol dragged the crop over her breasts—and then he raised it suddenly and she flinched, bracing herself for the sting. She could imagine it falling on her nipple, the crisp smack as it hit her, the little shot of pain that would go through her. But the blow never fell—and much to her surprise the thought of getting hit made her wet.
So stepped up close to her and reached up her skirt, sliding two fingers into her cunt. “See, if you weren’t into this, you wouldn’t be wet,” he said, softly. “If the thought of you being taught how to take a fist didn’t excite you in the least you would have left at the beginning of this meeting, no matter what I’d asked. If the thought of getting your pussy hit with this stick really left you cold, you’d have closed your legs by now.”
Alisha didn’t know what to say. She didn’t quite know if what Sol was saying was really true, but it felt that way. “And yes,” Sol continued, “there’s the fact that you’re beautiful and we’d like to keep fucking you if we can.”
“We’re prepared to offer you forty percent,” said Mars.
“Forty percent?” she repeated. She was aware she sounded like an idiot.
“Of our profits, from the sessions that include you,” said Altaire. “You are, after all, the one who’s going to be putting up with men who couldn’t find a clit if you tattooed a little sign to it, saying, “I’m the clit!’”
“That doesn’t sound reassuring,” she said.
“But just think,” Altaire said. “You remember how unhappy you were with Calvin just two weeks ago? Just imagine being able to help other women like you—and help them feel what you do and love their men the way you love Calvin.”
Altaire always knew how to appeal to the best in her—but he did have a point: between the three of them they’d saved her relationship with Calvin. She could feel herself wavering. “Doesn’t every woman deserve a shot at happiness?” asked Sol.
“All right,” she agreed. “But first, do me a favor.”
“What’s that?
“Smack my pussy with that,” she said. “I want to know how it feels.”
YOUR EXCLUSIVE BONUS: A VERY HOT CHRISTMAS MENAGE (includes 3 HOT Bad Boys and 1 sexy as hell Good Girl)
CHRISTMAS WITH 3 COWBOYS
CHAPTER 1
Christmas had always been a bittersweet time for Shandy Price. Her parents, divorced since her birth, had always managed to turn the holidays into a parade of who was the bigger martyr and which one she should have loved more. It had not been an overly acrimonious divorce, as far as these things went, but Christmas always seemed to bring out the worst in them, rather than the best, and all she’d ever wanted was a merry Christmas. It had only gotten worse and worse the older she got, and by the time she left home she was of the opinion that Christmas was the worst season ever.
Her father eventually re-married, and slowly and quietly faded into the background of her life. By the time she was ten she’d largely forgotten him altogether, seeing the reprieve from weekend visitations as a boon rather than something to be mourned. Their visits together had gotten steadily more awkward over the years—it was bad enough that she loved American Dolls and the Disney princesses, but when her chest started to swell and she needed a bra her father could scarcely stand to look at her. At first she’d thought it was because she was hideous—her body misbehaving the way it did, all these lumps and bumps—but now, at eighteen, she realized that it was because he was afraid of his own sex drive when he was around her.
She had never realized that she could be attractive—being one of the few black kids in her mostly-white school made her more an object of fascination rather than true attraction. The few boys she’d dated had only ever wanted to know what she looked like naked—were her nipples really as dark as those they’d seen on porn sites? Was her pussy really pink? She shut down those inquiries as soon as they were made. Boys.
Now, though, men in the diner were constantly telling her that she was gorgeous—there were so many times she’d gotten an arm around her waist that she almost didn’t notice them anymore. At first she’d thought that this was normal—weren’t all men kinda boorish, and didn’t they all try to hit on her? But then Darlene said something about what a relief it was that she was there to take all their eyes off of her—Darlene told Shandy it was because her skin had a touch of honey in its color, making her seem luminous even in t
he waitressing uniform (red-and-white striped dress). “You’re prettier than me,” Darlene said, winking. “Them gropers and ass-grabbers are your problem from now on.” Shandy thought it was insane: Darlene was a beautiful woman, statuesque, with long, straight, blue-black hair and a haunted, sad beauty to her eyes. Shandy, on the other hand, was short. She was curvy, her hips and bosom narrowing into a nearly-impossibly slim waist. Her hair was unruly, falling into a mess of loose curls that never could be contained for more than fifteen minutes. And she looked happy all the time—she had wide eyes that made her look as if she were seeing everything for the first time, turned-up lips that gave her an agreeable expression, as if she couldn’t possibly be annoyed that men were always trying to grope her. “Honey, you’re pretty,” said Darlene. “Get over it.”
Easier said than done: she was finding that this was mantra of adult life. Laundry—who knew that cottons couldn’t be bleached or that polyesters needed to be ironed on low heat? Money—how did people remember to get the eggs and milk and still have money left over to pay their bills? Food—how long could someone survive on peanut-butter sandwiches and ramen noodles? Her mother had never taught her these things before she left home, telling her that all she needed to do was get good grades and do enough extra-curriculars to be accepted into college and everything would be all right. And maybe it might have been the case, but then there was a car accident and all of a sudden she was alone in the world—alone and eighteen, with nothing to her name, nobody to guide her into the complicated world of adulthood. One semester into her freshman year in college, she just couldn’t anymore—so she got behind the wheel of her car and just drove. She didn’t know where she was going, or what she was going to do, and by the time she came to her right mind about the pointlessness of it all it was two weeks later and she’d tapped out all of her savings. There was just enough to pay for one last tank of gas, which got her to Vernon, Oklahoma. There was a diner there looking for help—the owner, a sturdy, stocky guy named Marvin, looked her up and down, asked her to lift her shirt (she refused) and said, “You’ll do.”
CHAPTER 2
Vernon was a place where things passed through, not stuck around. Even the litter that got sprinkled in the parking lot’s diner blew away before it could annoy anybody. The few people that lived here catered to the drivers who passed through: the gas station had more diesel pumps than gasoline pumps, and special hoses to pour as much as diesel into a tank as fast as they could. The stores here sold things that were small, easy to bring along or leave behind. There was no artisanal craftsmanship here—a spoon was just a spoon, it was up to the user to imbue it with meaning.
The transient nature of everything in Vernon suited her. It was a place that felt much the same as she did—unsure of her future, forced to keep her options open, waiting for something or someone to come along that would give them meaning. In Vernon’s case this came in the form of a bi-annual county fair, which brought in people from the seven surrounding counties to ride the rickety ferris wheels and throw balls at weighted milk bottles. For those two weeks the people were united, more or less, in the sentimentality for small-town life. In her case, eight months after she settled here, she was still trying to figure out what that was.
“Busy day,” called Jack Tremain, the short-order cook, as she came in through the back door. The stainless-steel kitchen and the linoleum floors gave off the scent of cooking grease. Out front, the diner had been decorated with plastic poinsettias and strings of colored lights that flickered intermittently, but the menu was still the same: eggs available three ways, iceberg lettuce, ketchup or mustard, lemon meringue or banana. It kept things simple.
“So I see,” she said, peeking out at the diners. It was crowded today—everybody was going to family, and out in Oklahoma, that meant at least a 4-hour drive to anywhere. She tied on her apron and pulled the scrunchie tight around her hair, checked her makeup in the reflection of the walk-in freezer, and stepped out.
There were lots of families, which was something that she didn’t usually see here. There were some truckers, which were more usual. All of them got a big smile and quick service from her and Darlene, the other waitress. Most of them tipped well, too. But the talk in the diner wasn’t about long-distance friends or family. There was a huge snowstorm rolling in off the Rockies, and Shandy heard phrases like “polar vortex” and “haboob” being bandied about. “Bad weather’s coming in,” everybody agreed. “Best get on our way.”
By three in the afternoon the skies were dark—if it’d been tornado season the tornado alarms would be going off like crazy—and the first flakes, hard and brittle from the dry air, were swirling around the cars in the lot. As if on cue, people began paying and leaving—on the TV, the weatherman was pointing out a massive cloud of red superimposed on a map of Oklahoma and Texas: storm was approaching, quickly.
“You oughta get home,” Shandy said to Jack and Darlene, as they watched the ring of yellow approaching their corner of Oklahoma.
“You sure?” asked Jack.
Shandy shrugged. “I ain’t got no family,” she said. “And my apartment’s just a mile down the road. Not like I have to drive twenty minutes.”
Darlene nodded gratefully and hung up her apron. The storm had been worrying her, and as she grabbed her keys she said, “You’re a doll, Shandy—I’ll pay you back for this.”
Shandy nodded and waved them good-bye but she didn’t say anything. Truth was, she didn’t want to be in her apartment, with its cheap thrift-store furniture and no Christmas tree, watching It’s a Wonderful Life and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation over and over again, reminding her of what she’d never had. She could borrow Marvin’s boots—he hadn’t come in today but he was usually the one shoveling the lot when it snowed—if she had to walk back. He wouldn’t mind.
She filled a bucket and got a few rags, and began wiping down the empty tables, washing up the pots and pans. The power hadn’t gone out yet, so she fired up the jukebox and set it to cycle through every album in its collection. Keep busy, don’t think about Christmas—
CHAPTER 3
She was wiping down the griddle when she heard banging on the front door. Who’s out now, in this God-forsaken weather?
She realized, when she came out front, that the diner’s lights were still on. “That explains a lot,” she muttered to herself, as she unlocked the door. There were three men standing there, one of them slumped between the other two. It wasn’t until they were inside that she realized that she was alone—that this could be a ruse—that they could—
“Thanks, miss,” said the first one. He was tall, square-jawed with the kind of brooding good looks that reminded her of nothing so much as the Marlboro Man. His eyes were even blue, and his hair—what she could see of it under his hat—was a dirty straw-blond. She felt her guard go up right away—she and Darlene called these kinds of guys the “ass-handers”, because they were always grabbing their asses. But they tipped well, so if their hands occasionally went up her skirt she kept her mouth shut. “We’ve been trying to get Truman—”
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong wi’ me,” said the one who was slumped between the other two. Truman looked younger than she was, even, though it might have been that his face had gone slack from being drunk. He had long hair—he reminded her of the hero on the covers of all those Harlequin novels, patrician nose, the intense stare (well, it would have been intense had he been sober enough to stare), the shirt opened to the waist, revealing a chiseled body. To be sure, they’d probably opened his shirt so that he wouldn’t throw up on it—but that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate the view.
“Everythin’s wrong with you,” said the third one, slapping the slumped one on the back of his head. He had dark hair and his brows were drawn together. He didn’t seem to be the smiling kind of guy—Shandy was under the impression that, while Number One might be the one dictating what the three of them did, this guy was the one who was really in charge. “We didn’t notice he
was drinkin’, ma’am. We just need someplace to sit while this lummox sober up, is all.”
“How long do you think that’s gonna take?” she asked. “Storm’s comin’, you know.”
“Shit,” said Number One to Number Three. “Should we keep on drivin’, then?”
“I ain’t takin’ this shitsack if he’s gonna throw up every two minutes,” said Number Three.
As if in response the clouds behind them turned bright white for a split second, and the thunder that followed sent a jolt of fright through all four of them. “Ain’t drivin’ in this weather, either,” said Number Three, as the snow, which had been falling steadily for the past hour, sudden turned into a wall of white.
Shandy sighed. “Looks like we’re stuck,” she said, sighing. “You guys will be popsicles within five minutes in this weather.”
“Thanks ma’am,” said Number One. “We won’t be any trouble. Promise.”
There was one thing that Shandy had learned by now, though: no matter what a man said, if he promised not to make any trouble, trouble was probably coming no matter what.
CHAPTER 4
Tucker and Kellan set Truman in a booth and took seats at the counter. The place was eerily empty. The three of them had eaten at their fair share of diners over the past five years or so, since they’d started at the Glenco Ranch together, and they’d come to expect the foul-mouthed short-order cook at the griddle, covered in grease and smudges; the over-made-up waitress who could out-swear them as soon as fuck them; the quiet tight-lipped regular who, if prodded the right way, would take out his guitar and play them a song. A diner that was empty except for the one waitress—who was neither overly made-up nor seemed to be the cussing type—took some getting used to.