by Mercy Walker
She jerked and writhed and tightened up all over. That vagina of hers was a wonder. I mean, damn…and double damn…
She fell onto me and breathed, “Cum for me baby…”
And then I just blew. One second I was up to my balls in her, feeling a dreamy kind of pleasure in the way she was orgasming all over me, knowing I’d caused all that beauty so much bliss. And then, wham! I came. I came hard, I came long, and I was sure the condom up inside her was going to burst.
Every muscle in my body contracted as I poured myself into her. I felt like I was in heaven, and I was there for what seemed like forever. And then I realized I wasn’t breathing, and my lungs were burning. I gulped down a big breath and my body started to relax. That ecstasy faded, but was replaced by a sense of complete contentment.
I felt happy. Beyond happy. And it was all because of the beautiful goddess I had just gotten to make love to…again.
Life couldn’t get any better…
And then Bev got out of bed, grabbed up my clothes, and brandished her stun gun at me again.
I was thinking we were together, and that she wanted to come back to the club. I suddenly had all these fantasies about her, all these plans. It was sappy and pathetic, and I was literally becoming a woman as I thought them…
But she clicked the damn stun gun on and between its malevolent stream of blue lightening, and that nasty clicking—Christ! I’d be hearing that sound in my nightmares until the day I died!—I jumped right out of her nice warm bed, naked and exposed, and so not wanting to get hit by that thing again.
She shepherded me to her front door, threw my clothes out into the hall, and then forced me out, naked as a jaybird, and in perfect view of her nibby-old-bat of an upstairs neighbor. I heard her gasp, but she was still standing on the landing, staring.
I tried to get Bev to listen to me, tried to get her riled up enough to at least argue with me…but she just told me she wasn’t coming back to the club, and then she closed the door and shot home all those stupid locks.
I pulled on my jeans, gave the old lady up stairs a dirty look as I pulled on my shirt, but didn’t bother buttoning it. I was knocking and ringing the doorbell, and calling for Bev to open up. That I wasn’t going anywhere, damn it!
And then there was the squeal of the outside front door, and I turned to find a uniformed police officer I didn’t know strolling unhurriedly towards me.
Well, shit! Bev had called the cops on me. And I was one!
I didn’t give the guy a hard time; I just grabbed my jacket and boots and headed out the front door. He had me stand by his cruiser as he radioed my info into the switchboard. This was going to get humiliating if anyone found out.
And sure enough, I heard a familiar whoop on the radio, and not ten seconds latter my old partner’s clunky brown unmarked came shambling to a halt by the squad car. Bradley’s round, ruddy face smiled at me and he shook his head.
I had my boots pulled on, but hadn’t gotten to buttoning up my shirt yet. Bradley got out of his car, looking like he’d just fallen out of bed after a scotch soaked stupor—which was just an act. The man was a sharp as snake fangs, and just as swisty.
“My, my, my…has my former partner gotten thrown out of another woman’s apartment?”
I shot him a dirty look. “I’ve never been thrown out of a woman’s apartment…before today.”
The uniform looked to Bradley. “He used to be your partner?”
Bradley chuckled. “Well, he was usually fully dressed…but yeah.”
The uniform smirked and handed my ID to Bradley. “Then I’ll leave him in your hands, sir.” And giving me an eye roll, he angled into his cruiser and slid into traffic.
“Sir?” Bradley said, clearly put out. “What am I, seventy?”
“He was just being respectful,” I said, and then couldn’t resist. “It’s a good thing when the younger generation is respectful to their elders.”
He shot me a dirty look. It’s not too late to have him come back and take you in. You’d look good in a cell in hold up. Might even get yourself a boyfriend if you keep flashing that sexy chest of yours.”
He stopped and leaned closer, his eyes widening. “Nice burn…stun gun?”
I nodded.
He looked past me to the apartment building I’d just been evicted from. “Her handiwork?”
I sighed and nodded again.
“You sure can pick’em,” Bradley chortled and then got back in his car. “Just don’t go back in there unless she invites back in…and then I’d get her to sign something. You might wake up with another burn…this time on your ass!”
I nodded and waved him off.
He suddenly looked very serious. “You don’t look bad at all. You should get back to work. That always makes things better.”
I grimaced. I wanted to get back to work. I missed being on the force, catching the bad guys and serving and protecting. I just knew that until I got my head on straight I would be a liability to the force…especially to Bradley.
Better him being alive and partner-less for a while instead of dead because his partner froze up on him.
“See you later, buttercup!” he taunted.
I shot him the finger—just like the old days. “Later, gum drop.”
*****
That was then. This was now.
I had to get back to the club—I just couldn’t bring myself to call it by its actual name. Frisky Kittens just sounded so stupid. Teddy’s a real good guy…usually, but how in the hell he’d gotten himself mixed up in the strip club business, and came up with that name.
Cripes.
It was nearly one am by the time I pulled into the club’s parking lot, and the lot was already nearly deserted. I’m not an expert, but there had been more cars parked on the street in front of the Southside VFW. And this was a freaking Friday night.
All week the numbers had been doing a free fall. I just thought it would pick on the weekend. Fuck if I was going to let Teddy and my sister down like this. They were on a freaking vacation; they deserved to come home to find their livelihood still going strong.
I had to get Bev back.
But that look she gave me in front of the VFW; and that from just touching her hidden scar?
I wanted her like nothing else. I had never felt this hungry for any woman before. And it was killing me, fucking killing me.
But damn, I was in therapy—I didn’t think I was qualified to be handing out psychological advice.
She was worth the trouble. She was worth ten times this much trouble. But If I tried to help her and just made more of a mess of her than I already had…
Maybe I should ask my psych doctor, Dr Garvin, what I should do?
I shook my head as I pulled into one of the many, many empty parking spaces and killed the engine. What the fuck am I thinking?
I’m coming at this all wrong. Bev is a grown, tough, sexy as all hell woman. She doesn’t need me trying to give her mental health help. Whatever happened in her past really isn’t any of my goddamn business, and I better get that through my thick skull before I fuck things up even more.
What I could do for her was give her some space…maybe a couple more days worth of it. And then I’d beg and plead for her to come back to her job, and then hopefully I’d get her to come over to my place, to visit my bed for a few nights…
I ran my hands down the sides of my face. This was just pathetic. What a loser.
I got out of my truck and headed toward the club. I needed to cash out the waitresses and the dancers, and make sure everything was clean before anyone got to leave. Shep was cooking tonight, so I didn’t really need to go in there to check things out. He was meticulous about his kitchen…and I was afraid that if I presented myself to him, he’d decide to enforce his threat to separate me from my balls.
I was reaching for the door when I heard a scream from inside the club. I stopped in mid stride and groaned, my head falling forward. That wasn’t a scream of terror. No, that wa
s a freaking cat fight in progress. I could only imagine the scene I was about to walk in on.
But just then a long black limousine slid out of the night and stopped oh so smoothly under the Frisky Kitten’s marquee. I stood there and gawked. Did we have a high roller coming into the club? If so, I had to get the girls off each other and ready to dance.
Immediately the driver and passenger doors up front opened, and two tall, muscular Latin men dressed sleekly in suits worth three times my monthly income moved around to the back of the limo. The driver opened the door facing the front of the club and another tall, muscular, extremely well dressed man emerged.
He looked around, making a quick scan, turned and looked to the man on the other side of the vehicle. That man nodded—he’d already been scanning the parking lot.
These were professionals. Real, honest to god body guards. I tried to see past the man blocking line of sight of the inside of the limo, but couldn’t make out a thing.
The lead body guard finally looked at me, his dark, creased eyes moving over me slowly, and then back up to my eyes. He smirked and then turned and offered his hand to whoever was in the back of the limousine.
If he was holding out his hand to help the occupant out, then it couldn’t be one of the Steelers, the Penguins, or the Pirates—so I kind of felt the little excitement I’d been stoking inside me fizzle out.
That was until the woman slid out of the back of the long black limo. She was stunning. Taller than most, but made small by her body guard’s enormity. Her flesh was mocha, her eyes jet black, as was her long, shiny straight hair. It cascaded down her shoulders, and accentuated the glorious bit of cleavage her expensive and perfectly tailored crème colored silk suit left visible.
And those legs: long and strong, and so very shapely.
This was a woman that in olden days would be worshipped as a goddess.
So what the hell was she doing coming into a strip club in the Burgh?
That alone set my cop-alarms off. Most cops won’t admit it, but if your any good at all at your job, and you’ve survived some close calls in the line of duty, you know that intuition is a real, very palpable thing. It’s what tells you the second before anything else could, that there’s a perp sneaking up on you, and gets you the hell out of the way before you get your brains scrambled, or a pound of led in your chest.
And the second I saw the immaculately dressed woman and her entourage, that old cop intuition went off like crazy.
I was willing, for a few seconds, to believe I was mistaken. After all, I was in a hell of a bad mood, I was under some pressure, and damn if that woman didn’t make more than a few of my hormones groan like they were ready to die.
But then I heard some of the conversation she was having on the razor thin iPhone she had to her ear. She was speaking freely in Spanish, with the telltale “ch” sound substituted for the “C’s.”
So she was originally from Mexico…or at least her family was. Not that there were a ton of Spanish speaking people from Spain running around Pittsburgh. In America, most Spanish speaking folks were from south of the border.
And no, it wasn’t that she was speaking in a foreign language that set my alarms off either. It was that I knew what she was saying, and she’d said, “When is the shipment being delivered?”
Forgive me for thinking the worst, but when someone mentions shipments, and they aren’t standing in a warehouse or on a loading dock, a cop thinks drugs or guns. It’s just the way of the world.
I smiled at the gorgeous woman and pulled open the door for her. I used my friendly smile to cover my interest in her phone call. It was one of those cop mechanisms. Some guys had a great blank face. Some used anger to disguise their real thoughts. But me, I was a friendly sort, a good old boy at heart. And as my grandma used to tell me, you’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
The woman stopped in front of me and tilted her head a fraction of an inch, like a predator watching its next meal drink from the stream…right before it springs from the water and champs down on muscle and sinew and bone.
A heartbeat later the big man in charge was by her side, and one of the other suits was right in my face, staring down on me with open aggression.
I just smiled, sparing him only a glance, keeping my eyes locked with that of the woman’s.
“I’ll call you back,” she purred in Spanish, and then cut the call off. And then in perfect English with only the slightest trace of an accent, she said, “Would you be Quinn Thomas?”
Okay, that floored me. Miss hot and possibly illegal knew my name. I shook that off and shot her with my very best smile. “That would be me. Who may I ask are you, and how do you know me?”
She extended he hand to me, her nails manicured but only with a clear polish. I took her hand and it was warm and satin soft.
“My name is Concetta Rivera. Please, call me Cetti.”
Her handshake was firm, but I let her hand go fast. I didn’t like the vibe she was giving off. If she knew my name, she probably knew what I used to do for a living. I hated losing the element of surprise.
“That tells me what to call you, not who you are and what you’re doing here.”
The body guard beside me growled…fucking growled at me.
Her black eyes flashed to him and he fell silent.
“I’m afraid your brother-in-law, Teddy, forgot to inform you of my arrival. I’m the Obsidian Butterfly.”
I just stared at her. This conversation was getting weirder by the second.
“I’m a dancer. I’ll be doing a three week engagement exclusively here at Teddy’s club. It should be…” she stopped and looked around at the empty parking lot. “It should be quite the boom for all of us.”
So Teddy had known she was coming, and he hadn’t said a word. The man had left notes about everything, enough sticky notes to wallpaper his office, and he’d just talked and talked and talked about what was coming up for the month.
Not a freaking word about Miss Rivera or the Obsidian Butterfly.
I pulled the door open even further and made a gallant gesture for her to enter. There was another screech and the sound of breaking glass.
She just stared into my eyes, an unfathomable expression on her face. And then a light of controlled humor sparked in her black eyes.
“I think I’ll come back tomorrow…when things are…” She smiled, and damn if she didn’t light up that dang little parking lot with it. “Settled.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling relieved. Possible criminal or not, I didn’t want to have her see the club for the first time this way.
Her lips quirked and she turned around and headed back to the limo. The driver had the door open and she slid in with grace and elegance. The other guard followed, but the head guard glared at me, eyes dark and flat with dislike.
I just smiled back. I didn’t know what skills the man had, and since I wasn’t a hundred percent sure he and his boss weren’t on the up and up, I would try to make nice. So I smiled at the bastard and started back in away from him. I thought it would sooth his ego if I left first, and didn’t turn my back on him.
He grinned and turned back toward the idling limousine. I’d amused him.
I pulled open the front door again and forced myself to walk in. Immediately I saw there were only a handful of customers scattered amongst the outer tables, and a couple at the bar. A stressed looking dishwasher named Gill was standing behind the bar, the bartender’s bible laid out on the bar in front of him, his eyes scanning the pages desperately.
Music was cued up—some mangled cover of an old Brian Adams classic—but the stage was empty.
But the table directly in front of the stage had two dancers clawing at each other on it. One was practically spread eagle; the other was astride the one on the bottom, her hands wrapped around her victim’s throat.
There were toppled chairs everywhere, and some broken glasses and overturned beer bottles. And there was some simpleton in a red flannel shirt
and a bass fishing cap turned backwards on his head. And he was clapping and calling out to the girls with encouragement. He then picked up a half empty bottle of Bud, put his thumb over the mouth of it, and gave it a hearty shaking.
The two dancers hissed like alley cats as the dim wit sprayed them with the rank shit.
The dancers were strangers to me. I hadn’t seen them at all that week, but that wasn’t surprising. The club was open fifteen hours a day, six days a week. There had to be at least thirty dancers on the pay roll.
I walked up to the idiot with the beer bottle and snatched it out of his hands. When he turned and started to mewl in retaliation, I raised my fist and took aim. He was smarter than he looked. He held up his hands and backed away…all the way out the front door.
Him gone, I turned my attention back to the two wrestling pole dancers. One was lean yet obviously flexible—the one contorted in a spread eagle still. The other had some meat on her bones, and had her skinnier opponent pinned to the table. She might have actually killed the other dancer, but her tremendous chest was getting in the way of her getting a solid hold on her opponent’s throat.
So I reached in and took hold of the dancer on top around her waist, keeping her facing away from me if she decided to start clawing at me, and I dragged her off the table and into the back of the club. The other dancer started to cough and then to curse belligerently. Her voice was getting louder instead of softer, so I guessed she was in pursuit. Once behind the door to the kitchen, I plopped the thrashing dancer in my grip on to the stainless steel counter of the dishwasher, turned to grab the industrial length hose, and turned the water on to cold.
I waited just long enough for the following dancer to attack the other, which got them both comfortably in range of the hose in my hand. I shot both of them mercilessly with the cold, drenching spray, and they slid in their spike high heels to the floor, holding their hands over their faces for protection.
Quite an audience of kitchen workers, cocktail waitresses and strippers in all levels of undress crowded into the kitchen, watching me hose down the two dancers in question with morbid fascination.