Stripped Bare
A Novella
Lynsey M. Stewart
To all the supporters.
Thank you
About The Book
I couldn’t deny that seeing my ex-boyfriend jiggling his junk in the face of an ecstatic bride-to-be was a complete mind hump.
I didn’t normally get giddy over strippers, but this wasn’t any ordinary stripper. Ethan was my childhood friend, my teenage crush, the boy that featured in all of my firsts.
We had made a childhood pact. If we didn’t find the right person to lose our virginity to by the time we reached eighteen we would be each other’s first.
First kiss, first love…
First heartbreak.
We had been apart for three years.
I had forgotten how glorious he was. I watched him grind his hips to the music, creating a dance with the woman in front of him. But after the rip of Velcro, his thong thrown in my direction, his eyes finally focused…on me.
Who knew being whiplashed by a sequinned thong would lead to a moment of clarity? It was time to start questioning everything that happened between us until I was left feeling bare.
Stripped bare.
Stripped Bare is a 30,000 word novella. If you like them long and meaty, this book may not be for you. Or depending on the context…maybe it is.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other books by the author
Chapter 1
I wasn’t sure how I found myself here. I didn’t even know the bride-to-be. I was sitting next to the maid of honour because of a misunderstanding. It was silly really. Ridiculous. Yet, here I was, drink in hand, a neon-pink badge pinned to my boob, and a shot glass on a beaded necklace nestling between my cleavage. I had only started working at Humphrey and Bracks ten days ago. I’d seen the ad in our local paper and on a whim I applied for the position of receptionist. I’ve always been a talker. I love phones. My mum jokes that my mobile needs to be surgically extracted from my hand. I’m always texting or updating my social media accounts. I like meeting people and I make a cracking cup of tea. The job seemed like a great fit. But it turned out that there was so much more to it than getting the morning coffee orders right and picking up a ringing phone. My flatmate called it a steep learning curve. I didn’t like to admit that the curve was so steep I needed rope and an ice axe just to get through the first week.
‘So how do you know the bride-to-be?’ Oh fuck. Here it was. The questions and digging into our back-stories that had no interconnection at all. AT ALL. Nothing. I turned to find Gail, the office manager, smiling back at me, nodding her head with repetitive dips, encouraging me to answer her question when all my brain seemed to be doing was scrambling through my thoughts for a shred of truth I could hang on in that moment.
‘Oh. Erm…well. I…It’s a funny story actually,’ I replied as Gail released her teeth to me in a fixed this girl’s a nutter smile.
‘I love funny stories!’ she replied. ‘You’re going to end up in the best man’s speech.’ Her singsong tone made me grind my teeth together.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ I did. I knew I wouldn’t be inserted into the speech because this story wasn’t funny or memorable and there was the small fact that I didn’t even know the bloody groom.
‘Sarah, come here.’ Gail wafted a woman over from the other side of the bar. ‘You need to hear this. She has a funny story. This is going to be hilarious.’ Ground, swallow me now. ‘What’s your name again?’
‘Amy.’
‘You’re new, aren’t you? You work with Helen on reception.’ Yeah. Helen was the one who got me into this mess.
Actually. No. It was all me.
‘I’m new,’ I replied, trying to summon up the courage to give her full eye contact. Liars generally found that hard. This wasn’t usual behaviour for me. I didn’t make a habit of making up stories. I didn’t like drawing attention to myself, but I had to admit my life was a train wreck most of the time. I half expected a British television station to email me just to get permission to use my latest fuckup as the next big storyline for their soap opera.
‘Helen said you’re adorable, even though you get the coffee orders wrong every morning and you’re still finding it tricky to redirect a call,’ Sarah said, wrinkling her nose in a way that was supposed to be soothing and kind, but came across as patronising and downright shifty.
‘I liken redirecting a call to changing a car tyre. If you do it often enough it will come to you. Eventually. But how often do you change a tyre in a lifetime? Unless you’re a mechanic, which I’m not, so…yeah. Finding it tricky.’
‘What a sweetie.’ Ah, I’d just worked it out. Sarah was the lady they all said had a heart of gold, but the heart in question hid a plethora of nastiness beneath the surface. ‘You’ll get there. Perhaps write everything down on a notepad and if you get stuck with…telephone numbers and pressing the little star key, it will help you remember.’
‘Thank you for your advice. It’s been really helpful,’ I replied, pulling at my tights. I found distraction was a good way to stop myself from strangling her with my beaded shot-glass necklace.
‘Anyway. You had a funny story,’ Gail said, trying to dissipate the air of tension that Sarah must often find herself choking on.
‘I’m not sure I did, actually. No. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sorry.’
‘Yes, you do! I called Sarah over specifically for your funny story.’
Really? We’re really going there after all that? I already looked like a prize fool who couldn’t handle a telephone, now I’ve got to admit that I’m at a hen party under false pretences.
‘It’s not that great, actually. In fact it’s not funny at all. I guess you had to be there and Helen was but now she’s not. She’s nowhere to be seen. Tonight. At the hen party. She hasn’t shown up. I shouldn’t have shown up. I should have taken a leaf out of Helen’s book.’ I laughed to myself and blew out a breath when I watched Gail and Sarah look at me like I was having some kind of out-of-body experience. I wanted to be truthful and tell them I was at a hen party for a woman I’d never met. I wanted to get the first utterance of a word out of my mouth, but they were looking at me with such hope in their eyes that my funny story of how I knew the bride was going to blow apart their cheeks with laughter.
The truth was somewhat different.
Bianca, the bride-to-be worked on the second floor of Humphrey and Bracks in sales. She was a whiz at telecommunications apparently. Good for her. Helen had been chattering on about a hen night she really didn’t want to go to and she had nothing to wear and no one to talk to and BINGO. That’s when it all started to fall apart.
Helen showed me a blurry photo of last year’s Christmas party. Bianca was singing her heart out at karaoke and there was an inflatable saxophone partially covering her face, but for some reason she looked familiar and the more I squinted and tipped my head to the left the more I thought I recognised her. Only I didn’t. I hadn’t realised it yet, but I had mistaken her for an old school friend who I hadn’t seen in years. After telling Helen countless stories reminiscing about my school years and how I would love to catch up with her, Helen invited me to her hen night. We agreed to meet at the bar; the first one of us to arrive would buy the first round of drinks. Helen didn’t show up and after meeting Bianca I realised I’d n
ever met the woman before. So, here I was. At a hen party for someone I didn’t know. Yay me. I continued to win at life.
Why the hell I didn’t leave when I realised my mistake, I’ll never know. I guess I saw it as a chance to get to know my new colleagues better. I’d forwarded calls and done some photocopying for them, but that was where our social interactions had ended.
‘Amy? Sweetie?’ I turned to Sarah who was looking at me with a quizzical expression. ‘Ah, there you are. Back in the room! Thought I’d lost you for a second. I’m not being funny, but you said you had some kind of story. Can we wrap it up? I’ve heard there’s a stripper on his way at any minute,’ she said behind her hand and through pursed lips. I failed to see how anyone could hear her give away a hen night not-so-secret over the thud of ‘Chapel of Love.’
There was nothing else for it. I had to be honest. I smiled falsely and took a deep breath. ‘Basically, the truth is,’ they nodded like two Jack Russells waiting for a treat, ‘I thought Bianca was an old friend of mine, but she isn’t. I agreed to meet Helen here, but she hasn’t shown up so now I’m at a hen do for someone I’ve never met before with people I don’t know. That’s essentially it…really. Yep. That’s…the story.’ Gail and Sarah stared at me like I had just spoken to them in Portuguese. Backwards. ‘Not funny.’ I shrugged. ‘Just a bit tragic.’ I folded my arms across my chest and crushed the plastic shot glass nestling there. The beads of the necklace pulled on the hair at the back of my neck making me wince before I rubbed the sore spot. My elbow connected with the person beside me who promptly drowned me with a large glass of red wine. At the shock of cold soaking through my top I jumped and bizarrely lost my footing on my awesome wedge sandals, resulting in the strap still attached to my ankle but the sandal facing the opposite direction to my foot. I was about to ask the humiliation gods if this night could get any worse when the first bars of Tom Jones’s ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’ started and I was deafened by piercing screams.
Gail and Sarah were off. I’d never seen two people move so fast at the same time, pulling their phones out of their bags. I scanned the room for a seat and set off dragging my wedge behind me in a comical bounce and thud from one leg being higher than the other. What a night. I was coming to the conclusion that it was time to plan my escape route before I did any more damage to my reputation, which was a feat in itself as my reputation was already pretty crap. I found a spare stool and plonked down on it in an attempt to gather myself. The shot glass around my neck dipped and spilled the remnants of the red wine that had collected there down my front, which created a red stripe filtering down to my lady bits. Great. I dropped my bag to the side of me, watching as the contents shot across the floor and a woman with heels that could enter The Guinness Book of Records for highest in the history of hen nights stood back onto it, shattering the phone screen in one step.
Yep. Definitely time to go home.
I was about to mouth fuck my life and make a sharp exit when suddenly I was plunged into darkness and wondering how the heck I had gotten a bad case of whiplash when I was sitting perfectly still. I pulled the dark fabric off my head, stroking my hand over the hair it had encouraged to fluff up on its descent, and held up the offending item to get a better look. It was a police jacket. A navy police jacket. There were silver numbers on the lapels, handcuffs hanging out the top pocket and a little blue police badge pinned to the chest. I turned it around, holding it by the shoulders and read aloud the glittery lettering on the back: ‘Do I need to use my love truncheon? What the–’
I was wiped out by another offending item but this time it landed on my lap. I picked the smaller object up and dangled it off my finger. It took me a few seconds to become familiar with it. It wasn’t something I’d seen before. A tiny scrap of navy that looked like something you would use as a slingshot. Holy fuck! I threw it across the floor and quickly wiped my hands down my dress to make myself feel better. A damp thong was not something I was used to handling. I rubbed my thumbs against my fingers and wondered what the oily residue was. Was that…baby oil?
The noise of the crowd had become louder and they all had a slightly wanton look in their eyes. Women were standing on chairs, working in packs and wolf whistling. Sarah was dancing on a table with a police helmet fastened under her chin. Oh…The not-so-secret stripper had arrived. I quickly gathered up my lipstick, some change and a couple of credit cards that had fallen out of my bag, dragged the stool over and stood on it, trying to forget that it was an ideal opportunity for another wedge sandal/broken ankle incident. I stuck my head up, holding my arms out to try and steady myself to try and get a better look. Bianca was sitting on a chair, her veil sitting precariously lopsided and a huge smile plastered on her face. I was guessing the smile was caused by the naked man straddling her, grinding his body to hers as he encouraged her to rub in the baby oil he’d just dripped down his chest.
I didn’t normally get giddy over strippers. If someone arranged a stripper on my hen night I would probably smile and politely die. I didn’t see the appeal of a tanned muscle man in a police officer’s outfit. It all seemed a bit greasy and grubby if I was being totally honest. I could navigate my way around the cheesy side of strippers and laugh along with girlfriends, but these women were screaming like their life depended on it. Maybe it was the fact he was as naked and not afraid to swing his appendage in the face of an ecstatic bride-to-be. He had a nice bum though. Wow. A pretty amazing bum. I’m talking globes of perfection. Not a hair in sight. I could blow a balloon to exactly the size I wanted and it still wouldn’t emulate the perfection that was the curve of his arse cheeks. Did I mention his back? He had more dips and curves than a hill in the English countryside. I was pretty sure you could balance a stack of pound coins in the hollows at either side of the bottom of his spine.
Delectable.
Had I used that word before? I didn’t think I had. Maybe once. With…him. Ethan. My first love. But that relationship had ended horribly and I didn’t like to dwell on it. It only caused immense heartache and a need to eat every cookie in the biscuit tin. He’d let me go and I’d allowed it. Heartbroken and wiser but still bloody hurt.
‘You’ve been a very naughty girl. I’m going to have to…take you down.’
Oh Jesus, give me a break. He may have a bum moulded from the clay of heaven, but his lines were awful.
‘Maybe even handcuff you.’ I watched as he patted himself down, which was ridiculous because he was as naked as the day he was born and probably just as slippery. I held up his jacket with the handcuffs hanging out the pocket and tried to gain my balance again. I held it up above the crowd hoping he would forget the handcuff idea, but at the same time was thinking, They’re here if he needs them.
‘Amy? Is that you? What the fuck?’ the stripper with the great bum said as our eyes met and my lungs took a nosedive to my feet. I was still holding the jacket in the air, my wedge sandals bobbing around on the stool and before I knew it I was on the floor in a heap, his police jacket over my face, my red-wine-stained dress around my waist and my stripping-police-officer-first-love, Ethan, kneeling at the side of me. ‘Amy? Are you alright?’
No. I wasn’t. This day was officially on the ‘done’ pile.
Chapter 2
I pulled the jacket off my face, looked across at where the voice was coming from and was greeted with the cock I’d feasted on like a starving nympho in my late teens. Three years had passed since we separated, but I still missed his cock more than I missed my dog Bobo who died in 1998. And that was saying something because I cried for four days straight, only taking a break to nap. ‘What the hell is going on?’ I said, still not sure I was conscious. That could be the only explanation for this hallucination. ‘Have I entered a parallel universe that exists purely to cause humiliation and trauma to Amy Chadwick, former best young poetry writer of the year 2002?’
‘Bloody hell, you’re still random,’ he said, laughing as I fought the urge to flick his cock. ‘Beautiful but rand
om.’
I rolled my eyes and tried to ignore the little flutterings in my stomach that the word beautiful had caused.
‘Kindly get your equipment out of my face or I’ll be forced to snack on it like a cheese string.’
He snorted. ‘If my memory serves me right you were a great snacker.’
‘You’re so disgusting,’ I replied, sitting up and throwing his jacket across his groin. The flutterings in my stomach were now heavy like stones. ‘Cover yourself up. Don’t you know the meaning of the word decency?’ I pointed to his cock. ‘It’s hanging around like it’s got its own wallet and any minute now it’s going to walk up to the bar and order a drink.’
‘He’s not thirsty at the moment,’ he said, patting it down. ‘And if we’re talking about decency you might want to take a look at yourself.’
My dress was still hanging around my waist and my lilac Brazilian briefs that didn’t really do a great job of hiding my Brazilian wax were on full display to the world. I was imagining my lilac crotch appearing on Google street maps and quickly rearranged myself to stop the burn of embarrassment travelling from my neck and high-fiving my cheeks. ‘What are you doing here? A stripper? Really? The last time we saw each other you were working in a call centre in Telford.’
‘Yeah, can’t say that fulfilled my dreams of earning a decent wage so I could, you know, buy my own house and pay my bills. Eating would have been good too.’
‘Oh, and stripping is such a noble profession,’ I muttered as he helped me to stand.
Stripped Bare: A Novella Page 1