by Scott Wylder
Shrugging, Jazmyn nodded at Tavia. “I don’t have much of a choice now.”
“Yeah, you do. You could always forfeit; tell her you didn’t mean it; tell her it was stupid.” Tavia didn’t look at Jazmyn.
“Nope. I made it; I’ll keep it. It was on my word, my honor, as a friend and fellow female.” She turned to Tavia. “Do you really think I’m a prude, Tavia?”
“Huh? No way.” Tavia didn’t hold eye contact and it made Jazmyn suspicious.
“Really? That didn’t sound very convincing. Am I a prude?” She asked more forcefully.
Tavia took out the cleaning rag and began wiping at the railing and the short wall below it, which was clear and showed every scuff mark from every shoe that touched it and every fingerprint from every patron who passed by it. “Not a prude, per se.”
Laughing, Jazmyn asked, “What the hell does that even mean? Either I am a prude or I’m not a prude. Which is it? I’m a big girl; I can handle whatever you tell me.” She nudged Tavia with her elbow.
“All right. You’re a little bit of a prude. But just compared to the rest of us floozies. You know how bent and warped all of our morals are by now. We’re all damaged goods, Jazzy. You’re just the only one of us that’s not damaged beyond repair in some fundamental way.”
Jazmyn searched Tavia’s face for signs of deceit and found none. “So, what you’re really saying is that I’m less fucked up than the rest of you?” She was shocked. How could any of them think she wasn’t just as screwed up as they were? Her life had been one major disaster after another for as long as she could remember. And, sex was at the root of most of those disasters.
“That’s pretty much what I’m saying, Jazzy. We only hold it together so well because we’re a group of screwed up people. We support each other and help put the duct tape back over the cracks in the walls when one of us starts leaking our crazy in public.”
“Well, when I start leaking my crazy, one of you bitches had better break out the arc-welder—forget the duct tape!” Jazmyn belly laughed at her own humorous remark but she had said it only half-jokingly. She was afraid that when she let go and started going to bed with men just for the sake of sexual release and experiences that she wouldn’t stop any time soon and that no man would be off limits. She had always thought she enjoyed sex way too much to be a woman. As a matter of fact, her own mother had told her that more than once when Jazzy was in high school and would come home after some date or other elated and smiling—even if she hadn’t had sex; her mother still threw the derogatory comment at her as if she were only a slut.
Tavia cackled and high-fived Jazmyn. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you’re just as wickedly twisted as the rest of us and you’re just better at hiding it.” She put the rag in her pocket again. “If you do hook up with Gage, god, give me the dirty, dirty details first. He’s had me drooling since I met him. I’d let him hook me up to any of those things in his dungeon. And, did you see his peach package in those jeans he wears? Girl, you have a treat coming for sure, unless that’s a sock stuffed down the front of his pants.”
Jazmyn had indeed noticed. It had been a long while since she’d had sex of any kind. She hadn’t had sex since before the opening of the Hideaway. “I did notice and I do believe it is most definitely not a sock. Hell, it’s been so long since I had sex that I might not remember any details, Tav. I might pass out cold as pond water when I see him naked.” She nudged Tavia with her elbow again and added, “You might have to get the details from him and then give them to me so I’ll know what happened, too.”
They both doubled over with laughter. Pepper, Madison, and Jayda came into the main room below Jazmyn and Tavia. Pepper grinned up at them. “You two all right up there?”
Jazmyn gave her a thumbs-up. “Just planning and scheming how to get a man into my bed, is all.”
Madison said, “As if you’d have to plan or scheme to make that happen. I can name three men off the top of my head who would gladly carry you off to bed.” Pepper, Jayda, and Tavia all gaped at Madison, who looked as if she’d just let something very important slip by accident.
Jazmyn looked at each friend in turn. “What was that all about? What are you all keeping from me?”
With her deer in the headlights look, Madison grinned sheepishly and said, “Nothing, Jazzy. You know them.” She scoffed and flapped her hand dismissively at the others, rolling her eyes dramatically.
Hands on hips, Jazmyn turned to Tavia. “Give.”
“Hey, I know nothing, senorita.” Tavia took the cleaning rag from her pocket and started wiping the railing past Jazzy with more fervor than before, avoiding eye contact completely.
Jayda spoke up. “Okay, girls! It’s three hours ‘til open. Let’s get this place jumpin’!” She clapped her hands over her head and gave a war-whoop.
The others answered in kind and Jayda flipped on the music, turning up the German techno-industrial-dance music for which they all had a great fondness. Jazmyn let the comment and ensuing guilty faces go and started downstairs.
Table settings in a basket, Jazzy bopped her way back up the stairs. By the time she reached the tables up there, Tavia had them sparkling under the moving beams of colored lights.
Each of the tables up there was supported by a single rod that ran down through the middle of an upright wheel adorned with a neon-colored spinner hubcap. Purple light tubes ringed each tabletop. Bucket seats from different types of cars had been fashioned into seats and the headrests were still intact and moveable. A scissor jack sat in the center of each table holding the drink menus.
In the back, where the ever-moving thin beams of colored lights didn’t reach, hanging lights burned dimly above each table, setting a more romantic ambiance. Each dim bulb had a hubcap with tassels for a shade.
Jayda placed the drink menus on top of the scissor jacks and left a short stack of beverage napkins in front of it. She also placed a single car trivia card on top of the napkins. The trivia cards had been Madison’s idea and Jazmyn liked them. There were probably a thousand of them stored in the stock room. The cards, once used, went into a separate plastic tote, not to be used again until all the others had been used. Jazmyn thought it would be novel to also include some trivia cards about music and some about liquor.
Finishing the placements upstairs, Jazmyn moved downstairs and decorated the tables there. The booths downstairs received a placement that was a bit of a variation on the ones for the tables and she always placed them last as there were fewer booths to decorate.
The private rooms in back were Jayda’s territory. She always did the pre-open setup back there, switching things up and making special arrangements for any requests made by customers who called ahead and made reservations. Jazmyn thought the private area had been a good idea, but she wondered sometimes what all went on back there. She had helped clean a few suspicious messes already.
Though she didn’t consider herself a prude, Jazmyn couldn’t see a time when she would be okay with going to a public place and doing anything sexual with only a curtain separating her and her lover from the world. She didn’t judge people who could do those things; she didn’t think she could ever do it, though.
An hour after they had started pre-open procedures, the women opened a bottle of vodka for their ritual drink. Madison cleaned the shot glasses afterward and Jazmyn started doing the booth placements. The music raised the mood and the vodka elevated it even more.
Between songs, Jazmyn heard the unmistakable sound of a Harley outside. Peering out a window to the front parking area, she saw Gage climbing off his Fat Boy. Her heart skipped a few beats. The sight of his long, strong body, stretched out as he climbed off the Harley was amazingly sexy.
Gage unstrapped a saddle bag and tossed it over his shoulder as he walked to the front door. Jazmyn was waiting for him there and her friends catcalled and whooped at her. Trying to shush them, she opened the door before Gage raised his hand to the handle.
Removing his shades, he smile
d broadly at Jazmyn. “Hey there. Now that’s what I call service.” He stepped into the club.
Jazmyn shut and locked the door behind him. “Well, we try. Come on in and have a drink, Gage. It’s gotten hot out there this evening, huh?”
“You better believe it. The humidity is murderous up here in the mountains.” He followed Jazmyn to the bar.
Chapter 3
The other women greeted Gage but none came over to where he and Jazzy stood at the bar. She was glad—relieved even—that they stayed away. It was impossible to know what they might say or do if they did come over. It would surely be something to embarrass her and she didn’t need that.
What she needed was another shot of vodka. She took it when she offered Gage a double shot of whiskey. The slow burn faded from her mouth and throat, but warmed her insides and left a tingle down toward her crotch. It was a pleasant tingle that heightened as she eyed Gage and his tattoos when he downed his own drink.
“That hit the spot, Jazmyn. How about one more before I start working?” His grin was beautiful, bright, and full of the most perfect teeth she had ever seen.
She nodded and filled his glass again. “I hear you’re going to repair our section of faulty lights up there.” She bit her bottom lip and pointed overhead in the direction of the flickering lights.
“That’s what they tell me.” He set his empty glass on the bar.
Jazmyn leaned over the bar to retrieve it. Gage’s strong hands stood out starkly against the backlit bar top, his tan accentuating each and every crease and bulge and blood vein there. She had the sudden image of those dark tanned hands stretched out across her pale, milky stomach. She could feel the heat of his touch as if he had really touched her. Catching her breath before she moaned, Jazmyn took the glass and met his gaze guiltily.
“Look like you just saw a ghost. Everything okay?”
His gaze drifted down to her tits and her nipples hardened. I need to get laid before I have an orgasm without being touched.
“Yep. Everything is perfect.” And that was the truth. Everything about Gage, so far, was perfect. She glanced at his hands again, unsure where to let her gaze light. The rest of him, darkly tanned, taut, muscled, would look as good as his hands did against that backlit bar. Her mind gave a quick rundown of all the backlit flat surfaces available in the Hideaway. Unfortunately, she came up with none that would be large and sturdy enough for Gage to lie on.
Standing straight, Gage took his bag and motioned toward the stairs. “I’ll just go ahead and get started so I’m sure to be done by the time you open.”
Jazmyn nodded. “Sure thing. Um, if you need anything, anything at all, just give me a yell.” She wanted to hear him yell her name. Perhaps yell her name in the throes of passion. She didn’t think she would be able to be the aggressor and pick him up for sex. He would have to do the asking, she was almost sure of it.
Dropping her a wink, he went to the stairs. Jazmyn watched him climb to the next level. His legs flexing, jeans hugging his thighs and his ass as he went up, and his back muscles bulging against the thin material of his tank top quadrupled the tingling feeling in her lower abdomen and between her thighs.
Jazmyn shouldn’t have taken that last shot of vodka. A fine sweat popped out over her upper lip and forehead. She tried to occupy her mind by cleaning her glass and then Gage’s but it didn’t work; it only gave her more time to think about how hot he looked.
Jayda leaned on the bar and spoke. “Jazzy.”
Jazmyn jumped. “Jesus! You scared the shit out of me. What?”
Jayda’s eyes grew large. “Excuse me, Miss Snippy. I was just going to ask if you would like to take the evening off after Gage gets the lights working again. Maybe take him out for a ride.” Jayda grinned and winked. “You know what I mean? Take him out for a ride.” She mimed cranking the gas on a handlebar and moved her hips back and forth.
“I know what you meant, woman; you don’t have to act it out for me.” Jazmyn was wound up tight as an eight-day clock. She wanted badly to take Jayda’s offer, but thought it would only add to her angst. She’d never have the nerve to outright ask Gage if he wanted to have sex with her tonight and she told Jayda that.
“Oh, my god. No. Don’t do it that way, Jazzy. You go out with him; ride on the back of his motorcycle and hold him tight with your arms and even tighter with your thighs. Press your tits into his back and your cat against his ass. Move around a little bit every now and then, you know, sexy like. Let him know he’s exciting you and that you want him.” She stood and took a step away from the bar. “Trust me, he’ll do the rest of the work and you’ll get to lie back and enjoy it.” She headed for the private rooms without looking back.
Jazmyn kind of hated Jayda for that little tutorial. It’s not like she’d not thought of almost that exact thing all on her own. But she still didn’t think she could be so forward with Gage. After all, they’d only talked a couple of times—and very briefly at that.
“Jazmyn, could you come up here and maybe help me for a few?”
Looking up, she saw Gage leaned far out over the railing upstairs. Even from that distance, she could see the emerald green of his startling eyes. “Sure. I’ll be right there. Do I need to bring anything up as I come?”
Laughing licentiously, he said, “Only if there’s something down there that helps you come.”
Heat flooded Jazmyn’s face. Her ears burned. Someone had stuffed a red hot radiator up her shirt and the heat was cooking her neck and face. She didn’t even answer him, just walked up the stairs.
When she reached his side, he was still at the railing looking down.
“I’m here now. What did you need me to help with?” Trying to calm down and reverse her embarrassment, Jazmyn leaned to look over the railing too.
Pepper was looking up from the main room, almost directly underneath them, grinning like a Cheshire cat. She was holding something behind her back.
“What is it, Pepper?” Jazmyn didn’t trust that she had asked the right question, but she didn’t want to stand there all evening looking down on Pepper, wondering what the hell was going on.
“Here.” She flung something upward and instinctively Jazmyn reached out to catch it. “That should help you come.” Pepper’s expression was one of complete innocence.
Jazmyn grasped the small tube of anal lube and gawked down at Pepper, not believing what the other woman had just done. “Pepper! You asshole. What the hell.” She turned and Gage was watching her closely with a teasing look in his eyes.
“Well, now. What’s that all about? What do you girls get up to in here before opening and after closing?” He stepped close and put a finger on the lube top. “How close did you say you all were?” He plucked the tube from Jazmyn’s hand.
“I don’t know where that even came from. Pepper’s been an asshole to me all day. Give it here. I’m taking it back to her and I might make her eat it while I’m at it.” Jazmyn reached for the tube but Gage moved it slightly to his side and out of her reach.
“This isn’t yours?” He wiggled it back and forth between his forefinger and thumb playfully.
The heat rushed to her face again. “No. It isn’t mine. Why would I have my lube here at the club?”
“So you do have a lube tube. Where do you keep it?” Gage leaned against the wall near the faulty set of lights.
“Why so interested in my sexual accessories? You can keep that if you feel that you need it.” She turned and sat at the nearest table, not knowing whether to be aroused or angry.
He spun the lid off the lube. “Hey, it’s a brand new tube. I bet this is fresh stock for the private rooms.” He chuckled and set it on the table in front of Jazmyn.
“No, we don’t condone the activities that would require anal lube.” As soon as the words were out in the air, Jazmyn doubted the truth of them. What was Pepper doing with an unopened, travel size tube of anal lube? Surely she didn’t just carry it around with her like a guy would carry a condom—just in
case. No, that would be crazy.
“Really? Are you quite sure about that? Have you ever been back there when there are customers present?” He bent to work on the lights.
“No, of course not. We lock the doors and stand out front. We have no reason to go in while there are customers in there unless someone screams for help or one of the emergency buzzers is activated. That’s not happened yet, though.” Jazmyn gave in to that little niggling at the back of her brain—that tube had been stock for the private areas—Gage was right. She had again been naïve about what really goes on between consenting adults.
“Exactly. If only you could be a fly on the wall for a few minutes during one of those private sessions…” He raised his eyebrows and whistled through his teeth at her. “Can you imagine the dirty stories you could tell after that?”
“I wouldn’t want to witness it. That’s sick.”
“You didn’t sound so convincing to me; you didn’t sound so convinced either.” He didn’t look at her but kept working.
After a few moments, the silence grew uncomfortably large between them and she noticed that the music had been turned down to almost zero volume for some reason. “What did you need help with, Gage? That’s why I came up here, isn’t it?”
“Is that the only reason you came up here? If it is, I’m rather disappointed.”
Jazmyn hated reading between the lines. She hated trying to figure out what men wanted, what they thought, if they were flirting or not, whether they were serious or not. Exasperated, she huffed. “Okay, why did you call me up here, Gage?”
Gage eyed her levelly and laid the wiring on the floor at his feet, the movement making his arm and shoulder muscles ripple and bulge perfectly.
“Maybe I really only wanted your company. It didn’t seem as though you were going to come up here of your own free will, so I asked you to join me.” He walked toward her table. “I didn’t know we were going to get lube tossed at us when I cracked the joke about you coming, though. I thought they were all oblivious to what we were saying and doing, to be honest.”