His Brother's Wife

by Mia Ford

  I knew rock bottom. I saw it on faces every day. The men and women who’d hit it had nothing to lose and always thought they had something to gain. The closer you got to the bottom, the more stupid you became.

  I pulled the earplugs out—a necessity living above a strip club—rolled over, and felt the dampness between my thighs. I sighed because, though I was sticky with sweat, this dampness had everything to do with my new fantasy man. I sure hoped he didn’t let me down by being a bastard like most of them around here.

  The thought crossed my mind that I could indulge myself in another round of “Fuck me, Danny O’Shea.” I smiled as I fingered my pussy through the moist fabric, even went so far as to slip the tip of my finger inside to touch my clit.

  And then it hit me.

  Freak show was coming up here in…

  A glance at the clock showed I had ten minutes.

  I yanked my hand out of my panties and gave it a sniff. Yep. Definitely tangy. The last thing I wanted to do was give Butch a whiff of my cunt after I’d fingered myself. I had ten minutes to get rid of the smell of my juices before he banged on the door.

  After hopping in the shower and scouring myself with a loofa, I pulled on a pair of baggy shorts and a loose T-shirt to keep his leering to a minimum. Not that he cared what I wore. Even that ratty old bathrobe didn’t turn him off. Sometimes I wondered if he had x-ray vision.

  Hair in a ponytail and coffee in front of me, I sat down at my rickety little table and waited. And waited. The sweat pooled in all the creases of my body and dampened my clothing. Seven fifty-five rolled around, and the big lug was a no-show. Eight ten and I was spitting mad, ready to kill someone.

  “Damn him. I can’t go through this another day. I’m going to die in here like a dog.”

  I flung the coffee in the sink and let the cup drop on the chipped porcelain. I was into the bedroom, halfway out of my shirt, when a knock sounded.

  “Who the fuck is it?” I yelled.

  “Carmen,” came the muttered response.

  I managed to get my arms back into the shirt, stomped across the room, and yanked open the door to find my brother’s handyman standing there, head hanging.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Sorry, Miss Hannah.” He lifted a toolbox. “Richie says I am to fix your a…c.”

  I put a hand on my hip. “I thought Butch was going to do that.”

  Carmen shrugged. “I have work order.” He held up a slip of paper. I snatched it out of his hand and looked it over. Sure as shit my brother had sent him. So what the fuck had Butch been doing up here last night? I was going to wring his sorry neck and plant a stiletto in his ass. Really deep.

  “That fucking fuck,” I muttered.

  “Qué?”

  “Sorry. It’s hot as a donkey’s ass in here. I’m sweating like a whore in church.”

  “Sí, Miss Hannah. Muy caliente.”

  I ran a hand over my brow, pushing off stray hairs and a few drops of sweat. A few drops? It felt like a bucketful. I glanced down at my clothing. I didn’t have time for this right now. I still had to put on my tramp outfit for work.

  “Give me a minute, Carmen.”

  I slammed the door in his face, tore into the bathroom, and ran a washcloth over my sweaty skin. I splashed on some perfume to cover any lingering stink then shimmied into my slut blouse and my boy shorts. Why they called them boy shorts I had no idea because, other than a few twinks down at the gay bar on the corner, I’d never seen a boy with his ass cheeks hanging out in broad daylight.

  The shorts looked far better on the twinks than they did on me because you really needed a skinny butt to pull them off. I wasn’t overweight or anything, but I did have an ass and tits. Ass and tits, I preferred to cover around certain types of people.

  I pulled them down as best I could, plumped up my breasts because Richie would give me hell if they weren’t displayed to perfection, and smeared some lip-stain on my mouth. Cherry red because cherry red was the standing order at Pussy Whipped. As though it took red lipstick to strip or pour a drink. Men were pigs.

  Well, to be fair, Carmen was okay. He was a quiet man, always polite, and had a wife and five kids under eight a couple of neighborhoods over. I knew he only worked here because he was an illegal, and he had a lot to lose because his kids had all been born here. Richie didn’t give a damn about Carmen’s family or his legal status. He liked illegals because it kept some of his workers tied to him for virtually everything. Richie liked it that way. Richie was a pig too.

  I calmed down a bit before I opened the door. Eight in the morning and I was already far too riled up for a hot day like this.

  “Sorry about that, Carmen. Bad morning.”

  He nodded and gave me a tiny smile.

  “I gotta get downstairs. You’ll be okay here?”

  He glanced around as though expecting danger—or maybe the INS—and bobbed his head. “Sí, Miss Hannah.”

  I handed him my house keys and tossed the club set in my purse. “Lock up when you’re done and bring me the keys, okay? Just me. No one else.”

  “Sure, sure, I bring them.”

  “Okay then.” I crossed my fingers. “Cool digs when I get off tonight, right?”

  “Sí, I do good job.”

  I left Carmen standing on the landing and bounced down the stairs. Late, late, late. The word drummed through my mind.

  The club closed at four a.m. so the cleaning crew could wipe down the seats, tables, and floors of beer, liquor, and food debris, as well as piss, cum, and whatever other liquids the dregs of humanity had decided to share the previous evening. We re-opened at eight, and there were usually a few die-hards waiting there with their tongues hanging out, jonesing for their morning Budweiser or Jack with a side of tit. Sometimes they came after their shifts, and sometimes they came before, but they always came.

  I was fifteen minutes late opening the doors, and though the bouncers had keys, they knew better than to open the door without me there. It was one of Richie’s rules, and anyone who violated one of Richie’s rules found himself out in the gutter with a Gucci print in his ass—and those were the lucky ones.

  As I burst through the door into the club, I ran into a solid mass of muscle as two giant hands wrapped around my arms. This man could go toe-to-toe with LeBron James and probably come out ahead.

  “What the fuck, Hannah?” Jonell growled. He gestured to the door, and through the dark shades, I saw the outline of the people waiting outside. Based on the shadow of the overdone hairstyle, one of them was a woman, but that didn’t really surprise me because, when you needed a drink, you needed a drink. We were the closest open bar for some people.

  As far as bouncers went, Jonell was okay. He kept his eyes and hands to himself, and in my book, that elevated him to one of the “okay” guys.

  He released me, and I scurried toward the front doors. He followed behind me to take his place at door.

  “Sorry, I’m late. Where the fuck is Butch? I was sitting up there with my thumb up my ass waiting for him to fix my a/c.”

  Jonell nearly busted a gut laughing, bending over and slapping his legs, trying to get his breath. Key in the door, I waited until he could answer, and then he flashed me a big smile full of sharp white teeth. “How in the hell would Butch fix your AC? He’s a fucking moron. You know that. He can barely fix a fucking drink?”

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  Jonell took his seat on the high stool, which creaked under his weight. Most of the people who came in here were legal, but inevitably some high school kid tried sneaking in for a shot before school. It happened all the time. Richie was a snake, and he was probably involved in more shit than I even knew about, but the place was off-limits to kids. No drinking, no peeking, no loitering.

  I twisted open all the locks and nearly got stampeded as my morning regulars swept into the room like a mini tidal wave. The dancers didn’t start until nine, but that didn’t hinder the drinking. These guys were hardcore. They
could pull an eight-hour shift in a junkyard or gas station after drinking a six-pack, which they usually did in under an hour.

  Once the customers were inside, I shut the door again and leaned back against it for a moment. I wanted to savor every drop of cold air. Richie kept it like an ice factory in here. Tits perked up in the cold. Dancers didn’t pass out. Men drank more because they weren’t falling asleep at their table after drinking themselves into a stupor. Richie was willing to pay the high utility bill because he made five times the money with the a/c cranked.

  “He still trying to get in your pants?” Jonell asked.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Need me to put some hurt on him?” He smirked. It was a nice idea, but we both knew he couldn’t jeopardize his future like that. He worked the day shift to avoid drama to keep a clean record. He was taking courses at Chicago State, hoping someday to get out of this rat hole. I admired anyone with a real goal. I wished him the best.

  “Hey, Hannah!” one of the regulars called from the bar. “What gives? I’m thirsty.” He glanced at his battered watch. “I’m down to thirty-five minutes before I have my shift.”

  “Sorry, Hank. Coming.” I turned back to Jonell. “You don’t need to worry. I can handle myself.”

  “Oh, I ain’t got no doubt about that, girlie. But sometimes…” He glanced around. “Sometimes things just get…worse. You know what I mean?”

  “I do, Jonell. I really do.”

  I headed across the room to make sure Hank had his bucket before work. These guys might not be angels, but sometimes they were the only friends I had. Plus these were the guys who left good tips.

  Chapter Eight: Danny

  I felt like a wet sack of dog turds after I’d driven the few miles to Pussy Whipped. The shower that morning had been a complete waste of time. My shit-mobile didn’t have AC, which would have ruined my street cred in this neighborhood. Oh sure, you saw the big Town Cars and Lincolns driving around, but those were the gang bosses and the pimps, cruising to make sure business was booming, but not booming. No one really wanted the law to come down unless they were idiots. Businessmen—and as bad as these guys were, they were still businessmen—played it as safe as they could. They also didn’t park their cars here at night. They parked them in their three-car garages out in the ’burbs, where their wives went to bake sales and their kids went to private school.

  It was close to noon, and never one to be tardy—I’d had that beaten out of me in Catholic school—I entered the club, wearing the requisite uniform of the bouncer. Black pants. Black T-shirt. Black shit-stompers. I’m not sure the knife in my boot or the brass knuckles in my back pocket were standard bouncer accessories, but I had a motto. Don’t leave home without them.

  The minute I opened the door the smell of old beer and cigarettes wafted out and hit me. Yeah, there were no-smoking policies in place everywhere, but you learned real fast who gave a rat’s ass and who didn’t. If you wanted to get lung cancer faster, you hung out in strip clubs. I’d never known a stripper who didn’t have some sort of asthma problem.

  Along with the smell came the pounding music.

  I blinked for a minute to adjust from the blaring sunlight to the virtual darkness inside. The glow of the bar signs cast pools of color, and a few dim lights hung over the bar, but other than those and the pulsing strobes flashing on the dancer, everything else was pretty damn dark. It was easier to get drunk and forget in the dark.

  When the door hit my blind ass, I almost ploughed into my exact twin—only he was African American—as he began to stand up. I glanced up, and up again, and realized he was a lot bigger than I was. That didn’t happen all that often. This guy was six-eight if he was an inch and probably had about fifty pounds on me. My smile said, “Let’s be friends.” I didn’t need this dude on my bad side.

  I held out my hand, and the big guy took it and squeezed. I held in the wince.

  “Danny O’Shea. Just starting today.”

  “Jonell Carter. Nice to meet you.” He had a glow-in-the-dark smile.

  I glanced around. Now that my eyes had adjusted a bit, it was easy to see the pretty Asian woman dancing to “American Woman.” Seemed a bit strange, but who was I to judge?

  “So, I’m supposed to meet Butch here. Noon. Know where he is?”

  Jonell shrugged one massive shoulder. “Home probably. Sleeping. Don’t usually see him ’til after two or so.”

  “Huh. Well, that kind of presents a problem. Got any suggestions?”

  He jerked his chin toward the other side of the room. “Talk to Hannah. She runs the shift.”

  Hannah. That breath of fresh air in a skanky cesspool. Oh yeah, I’d talk to Hannah all right. I swung around and snagged her with my glance as she came through the doorway from the hall. She was carrying a huge box, struggling under the weight.

  “Thanks, man.”

  Jonell forgotten, I skirted around the tables like my old days on the football field, dodging a few drunks on their way to the head and pushing chairs out of my way. I reached her just as the box slipped from her grasp, and I swept it into my arms. I peeked around the edge.

  “Hey, beautiful.”

  She blinked those blue-sky eyes for a moment, and then a pretty smile crossed her face. “Danny O’Shea.”

  “Hannah Silvestri. What’s a gorgeous creature like you doing in a dump like this?”

  Hannah reached back and adjusted her ponytail. “Running it. Same as any other day.”

  “Seriously?” I glanced around. “You run this place?”

  Surprisingly enough, the crowd seemed reasonably under control. There were the usual catcalls and whistles, and several determined men were vying for a place closer to the stage and the cute dancer, but a couple of strategically placed bouncers were fending them off with no problem. Beer stains dotted the floor, and crumbs littered every inch of space, but the women carrying drinks and food to the patrons looked cheerful and pleasant, not unhappy to be slaving away for a bunch of drunks.

  “I do,” she said, stepping behind the bar. “You can put that here.” She patted the counter.

  I put the case of liquor on the bar, and she started pulling out bottles of Popov. Now that was some prime rotgut vodka. Only the best for Pussy Whipped patrons. I’d had my share of Popov in college, and you couldn’t have force-fed it to me now. I’m pretty sure Homeland had it in their arsenal of interrogation tactics.

  “This looks like a kindergarten class compared to what I saw last night.”

  She laughed. “Totally different crowd. They can get rowdy, and a bit grabby at times, but most often they’re pretty well behaved. I don’t put up with their shit. They give me a hard time, they’re banned for a week.”

  “And Richie’s okay with that? I mean it’s business.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Not sure he’s okay with it, but he backs me. He wants me here, and believe it or not, he wants me safe. He trusts me to know what’s best for this shift. We have no 911 calls here during the day because I weed out the bad ones to make it better for the good ones. I run a tight business for him. My girls sell plenty of food, with a good profit margin, and tons of liquor, which is a bigger profit margin.”

  Her girls were doing okay for themselves. I saw one woman stuff a twenty into her rather generous cleavage when she delivered a bucket of beers to a group of construction workers. One slapped her ass, but she gave a giggle and turned to another table. I’d take a slap on the ass for a twenty. Hell, I’d pay twenty for a slap on the ass.

  “So, Hannah…”

  She held up her hand. “Stop right there.”

  I drew back and gave her a disappointed look, the one I reserve for women who say they don’t fuck on the first date. I mean everyone fucks on the first date. What was the point of a first date if not that?

  “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

  “Yes, I do. You’re going to ask what I’m doing later. I’ll get all gushy and say, ‘Hopefully going out with yo
u, big boy,’ and then you’ll say you’ll pick me up at blah, blah, blah.”

  “I give great blah, blah,” I said.

  “I’m sure you do,” she said, blushing just a bit beneath that beautiful olive skin, “but that’s beside the point.”

  “It’s exactly the point.” I let my gaze drop to those delectable tits. More than a mouthful. They looked luscious peeking over that tight top.

  She shook her head, as though shaking thoughts away. I hoped they were kinky thoughts and all involved me, my cock, and I.

  She huffed and said, “Have you been hired for my shift?”

  I gestured to my clothing. “Either that or I’m completely overdressed.”

  She pressed her lips together, hiding a laugh.

  “Come on, you know that was funny.”

  “I am in serious trouble here,” she said, shaking her head again.

  “That’s the best kind of trouble.” I lifted a brow and gave her one of those George Clooney looks the women seem to love. What a douche that no-talent hack was, but it worked every time. “Yes, I’m working your shift. Lucky me. Lucky you. We could make more luck together.”

  “You are a piece of work, Danny O’Shea.”

  “But charming. Admit it.”

  She shook her head again with a cute little smile.

  One of the servers came up and ordered another bucket of beer and a Crown on the rocks. As Hannah filled the bucket, I glanced around wondering which of these lushes had great taste and was willing to pay for it. I could go for a Crown myself, but happy hour had gone out the window for me with this assignment. Then I saw my dad’s buddy Stan lounging in a booth, sipping at a lowball glass. He blended in great, just a large fifty-something man out for his afternoon cocktail. His eyes were riveted on the stage, taking in the Asian girl—the announcer had called her Jade—now twisting her body around a pole to the sweet sound of Every Rose Has Its Thorns.

  Stan’s gaze shifted for one moment to me, and I gave him a brief nod before I turned my attention back to Hannah and he turned back to Jade.

  “So, where were we?” I asked, leaning against the bar.