by Lexie Ray
Despite that, I’d wowed Mama behind the bar, putting on a show with tossing glasses and bottles up and down. I juggled three shot glasses before slamming them down on the bar and filling them up immediately with a bottle of whiskey before twirling it on the palm of my hand and putting it back down.
“I can see that you can more than bartend,” Mama said, clapping her hands in obvious delight. “They’re gonna love you, Blue!”
With that, I exchanged Sandra for Blue, the freedom of New York City for the security of a place to live and work. We threw back the shots to celebrate, the burn of whiskey signing the contract.
What really sealed the deal for me was that I could live on premises in Mama’s boarding house. She explained to me how the work I did paid for my room and board while the tips I made were mine. I also liked the idea of having friends right on hand for me to meet and hang out with in the form of the rest of Mama’s girls.
I roomed with Cocoa first, as did every girl who just started working there. I loved her from the start—her quiet confidence and the way she seemed to know what to do in every single situation. She was clearly Mama’s second in command as well as a leader for the rest of us. Besides my art teacher, Cocoa was one of the strongest mother figures I’d ever had.
I guess I was surprised on my first night of work, mixing drinks like crazy, to find out what the nightclub really was. Surprised, but not affronted. One of my fellow bartenders told me when I asked why girls kept leading customers up a stairwell on the opposite side of the nightclub as the stairwell that led up to the boarding house.
“What’s up there, anyways?” I asked, tossing two handfuls of empty beer bottles into the trash bin with a crash that couldn’t be heard over the loud dance music blaring over the sound system.
“That’s where the real money’s made,” she said, winking. “The bedroom money.”
It didn’t take me ten seconds to piece together what that meant. Girls were up there selling their bodies to men who’d pay to be with them. I was politely interested and asked Cocoa about it that night, after we’d closed up the nightclub.
“I sell myself,” she said, nodding, her beautiful face placid at the admission. “We all do. We get good tips waiting tables. Don’t get me wrong. But the money we make upstairs is the real money.”
For the first time, I felt almost jealous of this “real money” the girls kept talking about. I was behind the bar and rarely had any contact with customers.
But then, about after three weeks of living and working at Mama’s nightclub, Mama herself approached me.
“Some man’s taken a shine to you, Blue,” she said, winking at me. “You know what’s what around her, don’t you, sweet girl?”
“I got it, Mama,” I said, nodding confidently.
“Well, honey, he wants you to take him upstairs, if you get my drift,” Mama said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. “I’m sending Cocoa over here to help you out with what you need to know.”
Cocoa was laughing and chatting vivaciously, hanging onto a man’s arm. Was this him? Was this who was going to pop my prostitution cherry, so to speak? He wasn’t bad looking. He was fit and had his long, blond hair pulled neatly back into a bun at the nape of his neck. He seemed cheerful, if a little drunk, and as beautiful as Cocoa was, only had eyes for me. I blushed, feeling secretly pleased to be singled out by him, even if it was for a paid sex act.
“You all have fun, now,” Mama said, waving us away. My fellow bartenders immediately began working faster to pick up my slack.
As soon as I came out from behind the bar, Cocoa gave the man a tiny push toward me.
“You’re the most beautiful creature in this entire room,” the man said, grinning. “I’m Emil.”
“Blue,” I said, holding my hand out. When he seized it, he brought it to his lips, kissing my knuckles delicately.
“What a gentleman,” Cocoa said, gaping. “Blue, you lucky thing. They don’t make them like this anymore.”
“I’m pretty old-fashioned,” Emil said. “But I have to have something as beautiful as you the moment I see it.”
My heart pounded harder and harder with every step we climbed, Cocoa chatting about this and that as we went upstairs. The place I’d only imagined before was very real in front of me as we all walked down the hallway together. It was a mirror image of the boarding house, just without all of the pretty decorations and names of the girls on the doors. Behind some of the closed doors in this hallway, I could hear moans and cries. I wondered who’d be hearing my moans and cries.
“Right in here, you lovers,” Cocoa said, flinging a door open. The room was decorated in deep gold and mustard yellow, exuding a sort of luxury that I’d never witnessed before. There were tassels on the heavy velvet curtains covering the window, and the lights were on such a setting as to make everything look like it was gilded.
“Emil, why don’t you make yourself comfortable while Blue and I step inside the bathroom for a moment,” Cocoa said, blowing the man a kiss before pulling me inside of the bathroom.
Once the door was closed, Cocoa dropped her nightclub personality. Some of the girls we lived with were genuinely flirtatious, liking to lavish attention on any remotely attractive member of the male gender. Cocoa was different. She more or less put on an act when she was working. When the nightclub wasn’t open, she was serious and compassionate. It was that Cocoa who was looking at me now.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” she asked, unbuttoning my work blouse swiftly.
“Of course I am,” I said, indignant. “All of the rest of you are always talking about the real money. Now I’m going to get some, too.”
“All right,” she said with a sigh, brushing my hair back, out of my face. “Keep in mind that I’ll be right outside the door in case you need anything.”
“Like what, a tag team?” I asked, laughing and picking a stray eyelash off of my cheekbone as I checked my appearance in the mirror. “You think this guy is a weirdo, or what?”
Cocoa didn’t give a sign that she noticed my inward wince. I couldn’t believe I was being so quick to judge. When I was still flitting from couch to couch, before I’d come to the nightclub, I was open to each and every person. Why was I discounting Emil as a weirdo before I even spent time with him?
“Every guy’s different,” Cocoa was saying. “The drunker they get, the more wary I am. Usually, drunk guys just mean whiskey dick. More often than not, they’ll get off sooner than they want to—unless they’re regulars. This guy isn’t. He’s new. We try to vet them as best as we can, but the occasional weirdo does slip in. Just call for me.”
“I’m sure I can handle it,” I said, adjusting my bra so that even more of my cleavage spilled out. I had to appreciate my mother for this one detail. I had a pretty great rack.
“Blue …”
I looked up as Cocoa’s voice trailed off. She looked pensive—almost sad.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” she said, laying her hand on my bare shoulder. “I can cover for you with Emil—with Mama, too. You can walk away from this.”
I laughed her off. “You’re acting like this is the worst thing in the world,” I said. “I’ve been giving it away for free since I got to New York City. It’s about time I started making people pay up.”
That made Cocoa smile, but it was a ghost of a thing. I found myself wondering how many men she had been with during her tenure at Mama’s nightclub. I wondered if each of them had taken a piece of her, and the Cocoa standing in front of me was just being held together with stubbornness and desperation.
“Are you on birth control?” she asked.
I nodded. “I had terrible periods,” I explained. “Got them for free from the local health department in Tennessee. The nurse praised me for being responsible, but I hadn’t had sex at the point. Just wanted more manageable cramps.”
Cocoa smiled. She opened a drawer and handed me a
bottle of lube.
“Put this on,” she said. “You’ll thank me later.”
“I can get the juices flowing, don’t you worry,” I said, trying to give her back the bottle, but she shook her head.
“It’ll make it better for both you and him,” she said. “He doesn’t have to do foreplay or anything. There are no rules. You might get a considerate lover, or you might get someone who thinks you’re disposable. You never know, and you always want to be prepared.”
“Fine, fine,” I grumbled, squeezing the cold stuff onto my fingers and stuffing my hand beneath my panties. The lingerie set was new, something that Mama had bought for me right when I started working. She’d said that the clothes I’d brought from Tennessee were too raggedy for the caliber of business she was running, and I was more than willing to go on a shopping spree with her.
I had seven sets of lingerie—one for every day of the week. It was Thursday, so I was wearing my blue set, which matched my eyes perfectly.
I capped the bottle of lube and tried to give it back to Cocoa only to have her shake her head again.
“Behind, too,” she said. “You never know what they’re going to want.”
I could understand the wisdom of being prepared, but this seemed a little much.
“He said he was old fashioned,” I protested.
“People have been having anal sex since the beginning of time,” Cocoa said wryly. “You never know what you’re going to get.”
Cringing, I squeezed more lube out onto my fingers and worked it between my cheeks. I’d had anal during my foray into New York City, and didn’t mind it terribly. Vaginal sex, however, was my cup of tea. Mutual pleasure was so much better than one-sided pleasure.
“Any other pearls of wisdom to impart, baby?” I asked, sticking my hip out and putting my hand on it. I hoped I looked as confident as I felt.
Cocoa simply laughed at me. “Try to have a good time,” she said. “Get off, if you can. And if you can’t, pretend you did, anyway. He’s already paid for the pleasure of being with you, but he could always tip a little extra if you make it worth it.”
“Let the games begin,” I said, throwing open the bathroom door. Emil was sitting on the raised bed, smiling.
“You look even more beautiful than before, if that’s possible,” he said. “Your eyes are so blue.”
“That’s why they call me Blue,” I said, winking.
“You all are too cute,” Cocoa said, blowing us a kiss from the door, her nightclub personality firmly in place. It stunned me how easily she could switch it on or off. Always pretending to be something I wasn’t would exhaust me.
“You gonna stay and watch, Cocoa?” Emil asked. “I wouldn’t mind one bit.”
Cocoa laughed coquettishly, her eyes flickering. “Maybe next time, sweetheart,” she said. “I’ll be close by, though.”
The threat was implicit, but I heard it for what it was. I wasn’t sure that Emil did, though. Cocoa left the room, pulling the door closed, and I was alone with the man. For the first time, my confidence faltered a bit. When I’d first come to New York, I felt like the city was my oyster and I was finding one pearl after another. I was open to each experience and made an adventure out of everything.
This adventure was very real and grittier than anything else I’d done. This was illegal, I knew. And yet here I was, breaking the law in Mama’s name, selling my body to Emil.
I had to admit to myselfit was kind of exciting. This was just going to be my next adventure. If that was how I had to view it in order to be comfortable with it, then that was what I was going to do.
I smiled and cocked my head in what I hoped was a sexy pose before slowly stalking over to the bed.
“Emil,” I said, letting his name roll off my tongue. “I want you to tell me exactly what your expectations are.”
“I never have expectations,” he said. “I go into every situation open to anything.”
I was a little taken aback, but continued my slow walk to the bed. His philosophy sounded a little like someone I knew—mine.
“Well, I’m gonna tell you what I expect to happen,” I said, biting my finger before trailing it down my torso, over my breasts, and then down to the top of my panties, running it just inside the flimsy material before stopping just short of the bed and putting my hands on my hips.
With some satisfaction, I noted that Emil had followed my finger’s path very, very intently. I was happy that I’d painted my fingernails blue to match everything else. Putting on this new persona was exciting. Sandra felt more and more like someone I left in Tennessee, and Blue could be whomever she wanted.
“I desperately want to hear what you expect,” Emil said, focusing on me and nothing else. The bulge in his pants told me he was just as interested as he said he was.
“I expect us to have a beautiful night together,” I said. “That’s all that has to happen.”
“I think I can manage that,” he said, opening his arms to me. “Now, come here.”
I jumped lightly up and onto the bed, giggling as it squeaked mightily.
“I’m going to have to tell maintenance or someone to oil the springs,” I laughed. “Good lord.”
Emil laughed, too, and held me to him, me nearly naked against him, fully clothed. His silk shirt felt good against my bare skin. I put my nose against his neck and inhaled deeply. I could tell just from the smell of it that his cologne was expensive—probably more expensive than his shirt, even. I knew that Mama’s nightclub catered to those who could afford it. The drinks weren’t cheap, and neither were the girls. But it was still a shock to me that I was about to sleep with a very wealthy man. My previous New York trysts had all been successful in their own bohemian ways, but none of them were financially secure.
He exuded money, from the rings on his fingers as he caressed my milky skin, to the cut and color of his hair.
“Tell me,” I said softly but commandingly. “Have you ever done this kind of thing before, Emil?”
He shook his head, smiling. Each tooth was perfectly shaped and almost blindingly white. This was a man who took care of himself.
“I only recently found out about Mama’s nightclub,” he said. “Through a friend of mine. I must say, you’re the first woman I’ve paid to have the pleasure of knowing carnally.”
Even the way he spoke was wonderful. The way the words tumbled from between his lips, the rich timbre of his voice gave me chills.
“Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret,” I said. “You’re my very first.”
Emil raised his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me a little honey pot like you is a virgin.”
I laughed outright at that. “Of course not,” I said. “You’ll be glad I’m not, too. I’ll be able to give you lots of pleasure. You’re my first as Blue. Blue’s first.”
“I hope Blue finds this night to be memorable, then,” Emil said, smiling and stroking my hair.
He undressed, throwing his clothes on the floor like they were nothing. I would’ve hung them up for him, if he’d wanted me to, but when I made a move to do so, he crushed me to him instead.
“They’re just clothes,” he said. “I want you to focus on me, and on yourself. On enjoying this experience.”
I melted into his arms, tangling my fingers in his blond chest hair. He wasn’t overtly muscular, but this was a man who could handle himself. He was fit, and I wondered what he did to keep himself in such good condition. I traced the shape of his defined pectorals, running my fingers down his abdomen and to his well-shaped cock.
I’d been living in the boarding house for long enough to hear the horror stories from the rest of the girls about the condition of the cocks they’d been paid to put inside their bodies. One of them, Daisy, told a hysterical story about how she’d had to make over the tiniest penis she’d ever seen, praising and praising its owner while she gave head. She said it was like licking a lollypop, and used the tip of her thumb to help illustrate. Another girl whose name I’d forgotten
told an equally funny story about a customer’s banana cock—curved so profoundly she thought she’d been hallucinating. Other stories were gross—cocks with lint on them, a long, black hair from whoever had been down there last, pubes that hadn’t been cut since the previous millennium.
After this experience, I was going to have my own dick story to tell—the customer with the perfect dick. It was long and thick, the dark blond pubic hair trimmed nicely. I wanted to worship that cock. I slipped my hand up and down the veined shaft, pressing my thumb into the slit at the tip.
“Like what you see?” Emil asked, raising his perfectly shaped eyebrows. I wondered if he had them waxed.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “In fact, I’m going to show you how much I like it.”
Bending forward, I licked it from base to tip and back down again, coating it completely with my spit. When I reached the base again, I kept going down, taking one of his velvety testicles into my mouth, rolling it around, then giving the other the same treatment. I was pleased to hear Emil groaning in appreciation. I started licking the shaft again, cupping his sac with my hand, rolling his balls around in my palm, pushing my thumb against that delicate skin. Without warning, I swallowed him whole, taking his entire length in my mouth. The art of the blow job could be so expressive, so meaningful, and I didn’t think most women realized that.
You could tell a man exactly how you felt about him through a blow job—or make him believe you were telling him exactly how you felt, if you were good enough.
Emil put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me back. I blinked at him, confused.
“You are very talented,” he told me. “But I want to worship your body, too. You’re so beautiful, Blue.”
The more he talked, the more aware I was that English wasn’t his first language. He was impeccable at it, but he had an odd, almost stilted manner of speaking. It only added to his mystique.
He unfastened my bra and buried his face in between my breasts.
“Perfect,” I heard him murmur, his voice muffled.
He skillfully took one of my tits in his hand, weighing it, before he lightly pinched the nipple. I gasped at the electric shock of it, then gasped again as he tightened his hold on the rosy nub. He didn’t release my nipple until I moaned thickly, thrashing beneath him.