Bartender with Benefits

by Mickey Miller

  “You’re beautiful too and that definitely works for you.”

  I slowly slip out of her.

  “So, what happens now?” she breathes.

  I have no idea how to answer that.

  “Well?” I asked. “How about…”

  I tell her the thing that makes the only sense to me being a bartender.

  “How about one more night cap,” I wiggle my eyebrows.

  “Mason, it’s almost morning.”

  “Yeah, well. One more Negroni can hurt. We only open up a bar once in our life.”

  “Okay,” she whispers. “One more.”

  Naked, I jump behind the bar and make us one more round of drinks.

  This has been one hell of an opening night.

  25

  Mason

  Italian Wedding Soup

  Opening weekend for the bar goes amazingly.

  Saturday night is even more packed than Friday night was and we have a decent Sunday afternoon crowd too for the games. By the time Monday rolls around, my head is so far in the clouds doing inventory that I realize that Clarissa and I haven’t even taken the time to process exactly what just happened on Friday night.

  Or Saturday morning.

  She had to go visit her friend in Chicago for the weekend for a bachelorette party. It was odd not having her around for Saturday and Sunday of opening weekend.

  Not only did we miss having her on the floor to manage things, but I also wished she could see how in awe people were all weekend of the design of the inside of the bar.

  Our simple, open concept with a ton of booths and lots of pictures of attractive, sweaty firefighters really got people in the mood to flirt and drink.

  The dance floor she designed with the two butt funnels was popping on Saturday.

  I thought of her every time I looked at the island shape or giggled to myself thinking about how she had called it a butt funnel. I saw numerous couples mingling and who knows, maybe some new loves were even created. At the very least, I could tell that sparks were flying in Firehouse.

  I texted Clarissa every day to check in and see how her nights were going. We kept our conversation light and general. Apparently, both of us were going to have an interesting time processing the line we had finally crossed on Saturday morning at dawn.

  My phone buzzes. I glance down and see a text from her.

  Clarissa: Hey, just got back in to town. I only work Wednesday at Green Hill Mountain. How was everything at the bar this weekend?

  Mason: It was good. The dust is finally settled, and I’ve got Roger running the show since it’s Monday and the volume shouldn’t be too much, but I can really use a break for a few hours right now.

  Clarissa: Oh yeah. Well, my mom is gone away to visit a friend in Oak Town right now. I have the place to myself if you would like to stop over for a little bit

  I freeze, staring at the words on the screen. Are my eyes deceiving me? Is Clarissa really inviting me over for a booty call?

  Okay, sure, that sounds weird, my fake fiancée inviting me over for a ‘booty call.’

  Except now, I feel it, and I think she does too. We’re in this nebulous phase where we very much might be striking the word ‘fake’ from that phrase with two ‘F’s.’

  But on the other hand, we can’t very well just jump from fake fiancées to real fiancées. Should we maybe, take a step back?

  As I tap the eraser of my pencil against my inventory sheet, I can feel that it doesn’t quite matter what we are, though.

  Regardless of labels, I want her to be mine. And that’s that. We can figure out labels later.

  The phase of my heart quickens and blood rushes to all different parts of my body, much of that red liquid heading to my cock. I hear another ding and looked down to my phone and see a follow up text from Clarissa.

  Clarissa: And I think it would be good if we talk about what happened on Saturday.

  Get your mind out of the gutter Worthington. Clarissa doesn’t want a booty call, she just wants to talk. That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.

  Mason: That’s perfect. I just need to finish filling out some inventory requests and I can be done in about half an hour.

  Clarissa: Perfect. See you soon.

  I show up at Clarissa’s house forty minutes later and I ring the doorbell. For some odd reason, I feel like it’s some kind of first date, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But considering how complicated our situation has become lately, I still don’t know exactly what to think about this. We technically haven’t gone out on any dates except as a fake couple, although the benefits have been quite real.

  She opens the door and my jaw nearly hits the concrete. She’s in a towel wrapped tightly around her boobs. Her hair is also wrapped in a towel.

  “Hey,” she says sweetly, and I pull my hands from behind my back to show her the flowers I got for her on the way over here.

  “I figured I would get you some roses,” I say. “Nothing better for a cherry popping flower than red roses.”

  She laughs. “Ha ha. Popping my cherry? What are you talking about?”

  “Oh. I mean you never had sex in a bar. Neither have I. Or did you have sex in a bar?”

  “Okay,” she laughs, taking the roses from my hand.

  She sniffs. “Mmm mm. Smells good.”

  I step inside of the house and place my hand on the small of her lower back.

  “You smell good. Is that lemons?” I say.

  “It’s oranges. Citrus , so you were close. That’s my conditioner.”

  “Oh.”

  She closes the door behind me and suddenly I realize we are inside and alone again. Just the very thought of the possibility of sex in the air causes my shaft to press up against my jeans.

  She shoots me a smile then turns around, walking through the hallway of her old colonial house.

  “Are you hungry? My mom made this Italian wedding soup the other day and I was thinking about heating some up.”

  I don’t fully hear what she’s saying though because I’m too busy staring at her in a towel. I see all of her creamy thighs and it causes quite the stir between my legs.

  “Did you say something about how you want a hot Italian wedding?” I ask.

  She laughs.

  “No. I said my mom made a little bit of Italian wedding soup.” She pauses, and looks closer at me. “Are you okay?”

  I shake my head.

  “Honestly, I’m still trying to process what happened the other day and now, I can’t get you out of my mind. You’re flaunting yourself right in front of me like this.”

  She cocks her head a little. “That’s a good point. We still need to talk about the other day but yes or no to the Italian wedding soup? I need to know what I need to heat up.” she says, un-toweling her hair.

  I can’t resist. I take a step toward her, plant my hands on her hips and back her into the wall.

  “I tell you what you’re heating up right now. I can tell you exactly what I wanna have for a late afternoon snack.”

  Her eyes bulge out of her head.

  “Oh my God,” she whimpers.

  I pin her body up against the wall with my hips. Her palms facing me. I sniff her hair, taking in her scent.

  “Mmm hmm. God you smell fucking amazing.”

  “Oh, you’re getting hard,” she whispers, dragging her hand across my jeans as she presses her face close to mine.

  Her towel somehow unfurls and she lets it fall to the ground.

  “We still need to talk,” I utter the words slowly slipping from my lips because I still feel like there’s something unsaid between us. Some lingering intention after our first time that we should address before we do this again. But right now, it’s all I can do to stop myself for plunging inside of her right now.

  “God damn do I want you. I want you so bad,” I say.

  “I want you too,” she breathes, and I can feel how this is a different type of desire than before. There’s something feral about
our need this time. Yes, it’s more need than want, now.

  “All right, we’ll do this now. Talk after,” I say, and I scoop her up into my arms. She’s as light as a feather. I carry her up the stairs and to her room.

  “It’s the second on the left,” she says.

  “I know. I’ve been in this house before. It’s still the same one, right?”

  She smiles as she digs her lips in to my neck. “You’re good.”

  When we reach her room, I set her on the bed and she falls back naked. For me.

  “God, you’re gorgeous in the daylight. I mean, I guess it was technically getting light out on Saturday morning but right now, right here, my God Clarissa, my God.”

  “You really think I’m pretty? You’re not just saying that?”

  “I think you’re amazing. I think I might come right now just by doing this,” I say as I place light kisses on her leg before letting my mouth linger right between her legs on her clit.

  I caress her gently. Her moans are so soft, so cute, so inviting. She’s got me so damn hard.

  I’ll remember everything about this moment. Her fresh citrus scent. The sound of her light, soft breath as it escalates its way to pleasure.

  “I’m coming,” she mutters as she loses her grasp, raking her hand through my hair.

  She comes hard, gyrating as I grip the flesh of her hips. Even I’m surprised how fast that happened.

  When it’s over, she lays there sweating, her head on my chest. I wrap my arm around her, still fully clothed.

  “Oh my gosh. That was incredible. I don’t know what you were doing with your tongue but-”

  “Little move I like to call tongue tornado,” I say with a wink.

  “Stop it,” she says as she slips into the covers.

  “Why are you hiding your beautiful body from me?”

  “Um, I just feel a little bit vulnerable. You still have your clothes on. And I’m butt naked.”

  I glance down. I’ve got on a henley, jeans. The only thing I managed to slip off in the heat of the moment was my shoes.

  “Sorry. It just happened so quickly and I was so hungry,” I wiggle my eyebrows.

  She bites her lower lip and grins. “So, you’re saying you don’t need that Italian wedding soup?”

  I laugh.

  “Yea, I guess I can use some dessert.” I say, smacking my lips.

  “Oh my gosh, you’re gross.”

  I gave her a serious look.

  “Going down on you is not gross. Going down on you is hot and sexy.”

  “Really? You think so? That’s what my college boyfriend said. I couldn’t get him to…”

  “Did you just say college boyfriend? I didn’t know you dated anyone seriously in college.”

  “Oh, sorry. I shouldn’t bring up other guys.”

  An awkward silence hangs in the air for a beat.

  “It’s okay,” I say, and I realize I am masking the fact that I’m gritting my teeth. But I can’t help the fact that picturing Clarissa with some unnamed guy makes me woozy. “I want you to feel comfortable discussing sex with me even if it means these uncomfortable images that are entering into my brain right now. Why exactly did he say he didn’t like going down on you?”

  She sighs and pulls the cover up to her chin. “Honestly, he made a weird face one time when he was going down on me, and I felt weird after that, so I didn’t ask.”

  “But you like what I just did, right?”

  “Oh God, yes,” she says with enthusiasm.

  “Okay. Good. Because I really liked it, too.”

  “You like going down on me? Isn’t that an anomaly?”

  “Why would that be an anomaly?”

  “Like it’s manly for a guy to want to have a girl go down on him and not reciprocate.”

  I scrunch with my face.

  “What kind of asshole doesn’t reciprocate? A guy or a girl? That’s just plain mean. Plus, I love the way you wiggle and moan while I’m doing it. It’s so damn sexy.”

  “Right, I knew it!” she says, snapping her fingers. “Okay, I’m not gonna go in to details here.”

  I clamp up a little bit, sensing she just had an epiphany with something to do with her college boyfriend.

  “Yeah, that’s fine. Spare me the details but just know that I will always reciprocate with you but that doesn’t mean that, I also only do things like this. I don’t even care if you reciprocate. Your orgasm is my reward.” I wink. “Baby.”

  She looks at me with dazed eyes.

  “Your orgasm is my reward.”

  “Well, I’m glad I can reward you.”

  “I’m being serious.” I say, my expression unchanging. “I love the way you sound when you come. It makes me feel alive. I’ll remember that forever.”

  “Yeah, you’re gonna remember that when you’re like, really married.” she says making quotations. “And you’re looking back at this silly time we had.”

  I swallow, and I feel part of my stomach churning.

  She’s already looking back on this, like it’s a foregone conclusion that we have no chance. It’s like we didn’t even have that conversation the other night. Or at least, things didn’t register with Clarissa like they did with me.

  “Yeah sure,” I say, playing along. “I’m gonna see you twenty years from now in some random high school gathering or something. I’m gonna replay your moans in my mind. I’ll think about how sexy they sound.”

  “Ugh,” she lets out a big sigh. “Mason, what are we gonna do?”

  “What are we gonna do? What do you mean?”

  “What are we gonna do about me and you?”

  “I think we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing.”

  “This is gonna get more complicated now you know,” she says cuddling in to my chest, laying her head in my chest. “Now that we’ve had ‘the sex.’” she makes quotations with one lazy hand.

  “I know what you mean,” I say. “It’s complicated now. At least we’re on the same page with that.”

  Even though, I have no fucking clue what page we’re on now. I thought we were about to cross the line into something serious. And now she’s telling me the only thing our steamy encounters will be good for is remembering them, years from now, when we’re both married to someone else?

  “I wish complicated was good,” she continues. “But in my experience complicated usually means not good.”

  “All right. Well let’s just keep things simple then,” I suggest.

  “How so? How do we keep things simple?”

  “How about this. We divide our lives in two separate buckets. We have our public bucket, which is how we act, and what we do and what we say with everyone in public. Then we have our private self, that’s how you and me can act alone with each other.”

  “Hmmmm, I’m intrigued,” she says. “Tell me more.”

  “What if, for example, you and me just focus on being a public couple when we are at the bar at work, but once we’re alone we have each other’s permission to jump each other’s bones.”

  “Aren’t you just describing a normal relationship?” she says.

  I think back on what I just said. Private, jump each other’s bones. Public, support each other.

  “Yep, I think I did just described a regular relationship,” I laugh.

  “How about…” she says, giggling. “We just do what comes naturally and that’s it, so no rules. We’re already not seeing other people, right? We already established that so now we just enjoy it while it lasts.”

  I take a deep breath and run my hands through her hair. Enjoy this while it lasts. The words actually sting as the meaning of them hits me and I think about it.

  This is the second signal that she’s not in this for the long haul, just the benefits. The only reason that we even came together was to be a fake couple so we can start a bar together.

  And I can’t come across like some guy who’s desperately in love with a girl who only wants him for the short term.


  Hiring season for the school is coming up soon in March or April. When those jobs become available then she’ll leave the bar and I’ll be back running the place on my own.

  I don’t express these thoughts and these words though, because right now, right here, I feel so damn happy with Clarissa leaning on my stomach, running her hands over my abs under my shirt.

  “You like doing that, don’t you?” I say looking to her hand.

  “I do” she admits.

  “Let me make it easier for you,” I say.

  I take off my shirt and she runs her hand across me freely.

  “Oh God, I don’t know how this happened, but I’m so happy it did,” she says. She looks me in the eye. “Hey, no matter what happens, promise me we’ll stay friends, okay?”

  I return her gaze. “I promise we will stay friends no matter what, Clarissa. I never want to be not friends with you. I can’t even imagine that.”

  She smiles. “Okay.”

  Her hand drifts slowly down to my cock which is bursting in my jeans. She runs her hand slowly along the outside of it.

  “Oh God, it’s nice” she says. “Can I just—never mind. It’s a little silly.”

  “Can you just what?” I ask, a little hazily.

  “Can I just take it out and look at it?” she says, glancing at my crotch.

  I have to chuckle on that one.

  “You just want to look? Not touch.”

  “Maybe both.”

  Clarissa unzips my jeans, then slips her hand onto my dick.

  She lets out a throaty moan.

  “Oh my,” she gasps. “No briefs or anything today? You’re free-balling?”

  I grin, watching as my cock expands in her hand. “Sometimes it’s more comfortable to let it all hang out.”

  She takes another hand and places it with the other, but closer to the top of my cock, and then glances up at me.

  “God, you have a great cock. But you knew that, right?”

  I squint a little bit.

  “Oh yeah. I tell myself every day when I wake up.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Dick. I was trying to give you a compliment. It’s two and a half of my hands that I need to put on it to measure the whole thing.”