Siren's Garter: Issue One August 2016

by Miriam F. Martin

  “But can you recover?” she said, false mockery in her voice.

  “You have doubts?”

  Karen responded with a half grin, and tilted her head to one side.

  He placed his hands on her knees and parted the robe just slightly. She wore nothing underneath, naked. Her privates were prickly with hair. She had shaved down there as an experiment, and now it was growing back. Kyle didn’t let her shave him.

  Karen had been disappointed, but didn’t take it as a rejection. They had worked on their relationship in small steps, earning trust little by little.

  Wow, had it payed off.

  Kyle kissed her ankle. Another, lower. Still lower. Over the tan lines on her feet, where her strappy sandals covered. He knew what was coming.

  She bucked and kicked her foot away.

  “Hey!” she said, squirming. “That’s not part of the price.”

  “Give me some direction.”

  Karen nodded. The wicked grin played across her face again. “Go north, young man.”

  He kissed her ankle again, and avoided touching her foot. Little, soft kisses up. One hand on the back of her calf, the other stroking around the kneecap. He did the same with the other leg, going only to the knees.

  Karen played with his hair the whole time. Stroking, pulling, grabbing a fistful of hair. She yanked his head, to focus his kisses where she wanted.

  He massaged her leg muscles. Her waxed skin was smooth to the touch, luxurious. Easy on the fingers and lips. She still tasted like the wild sex party from last night.

  Tasted like a mixture of her and him.

  Then he pressed further north. Head between her legs now, alternating his kisses on her thighs. Until he focused on one leg, closer to the sweet spot. She quivered beneath him, fingers pulling apart the robe more. One of her fingers brushed her clit, just once, but not very long.

  Kyle pulled away.

  “No, no, no,” Karen said. “You’re not done yet.”

  “I know what the price is,” he said, voice husky. Needy. “And we’re both going to pay it.”

  He picked up the whipped cream can.

  “Oh God,” she said.

  AFTER HOURS ON THE FULL MOON

  1

  He sat at the far end of the bar, near the front doors and far away from the stage, facing away from Cheryl. A handsome man, but not like the regulars at all. Clean shaved, dark, roguish good looks but not Hollywood stunning. He wore jeans and a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

  She watched him in the mirror behind the bar. Seemed like the nice type of man, with a nice smelling musky cologne that she thankfully couldn’t smell from this far away and easy dimples in his cheeks. Not the type to be chasing a girl with tattoos on both arms.

  Waiting for a date? Probably… He sat tall, back straight, shoulders relaxed.

  Tonight the bar was hot. Uncomfortably so. Cheryl’s panties felt wadded up in her ass crack, but maybe only because she was working so hard. She had bitched to Robert to fix the air or she’d leave for good this time. Bound to happen one day, anyway. Problem was, she enjoyed her night job, and the rent on the upstairs apartment was just right for a student.

  Cheryl went up to the man, and wiped away peanuts and spilled beer from the previous customer. Squatter’s Dive smelled constantly of spilled beer, peanuts, and fried cheese. Even on Saturday mornings when Cheryl came in to mop the floor, the smell was ever present.

  The music was usually good, though tonight the guitarist and singer were out of key with each other. The cheese was always great.

  “What’s your poison?” She leaned forward, elbows on the bar, letting her low-cut tank top fall open a tad. Cheryl wasn’t well endowed, but the men tipped well when she flashed a little skin.

  He turned around in the barstool and flashed her a smile. His teeth were pearly white, and damned if he didn’t have a twinkle in his eyes. Perhaps it was the funky blue and green lighting in the bar.

  “Bacardi and Coke,” he said. He glanced down at her breasts, and then looked her in the face. “No ice, please.”

  For once, Cheryl was disappointed a man stared into her eyes instead of lower.

  “Sure thing, sweetie.” She tossed a paper coaster in front of him.

  He turned away, gazing again at the front doors. Like many of the guys who drank here, he’d probably leave with a girl on his arm.

  Cheryl would have her law books, and she’d sleep naked with a battery operated toy.

  The band hit the final chords of the song they were on and let the reverb hang too long. The drummer crashed the cymbals as if he wanted to purposely annoy every dog in a five block radius.

  Usually the music was good. Tonight, Robert had hired a doozy of a band. They were retro-grunge with out of season flannel shirts and acid-eaten jeans. Cheryl couldn’t even remember their name.

  She made the drink and brought it to him. When the “music” died down enough for normal sound, she leaned forward again.

  “Cheers, mate,” she said.

  He glanced back over his shoulder and grabbed the glass, hand just a hair away from her left boob. His mouth moved in what appeared to be a “thank you”, but the band had already started up again. Sounded like “Kick Start My Heart”, but without any discernible bass or recognizable lyrics.

  Cheryl served, chatted, and flirted with her other customers. Old guys with receding hairlines and beer-bellies, handsome punks with pretty dates, ladies on girl’s night out.

  The man with the twinkle in his eye sat alone, but gave up his vigil on the front door, drink still not downed. He stared at Cheryl, and when she stared back with a wink and a smile, he found his rum and soda more interesting.

  A drunk at table five threw a beer bottle at the stage, and hit the lead singer below the belt. The bottle left a liquid trail from his crotch down the torn up jeans to his fire-engine red Chuck Taylors, and shattered on stage.

  The singer yelped and jumped back. The guitarist kept smashing the fretboard, face hidden by massive dreadlocks.

  Bob the bouncer (not to be confused with Robert the manager) picked up the guy at table five by the scruff of the neck. The drunkard flailed his arms all the way to the door, smacking other patrons in the head on the way past.

  Meanwhile, the singer knocked over his microphone, kicked the bass drum hard, and stormed off stage to the back room.

  The dreadlock guitar boy caught a clue, stopped played mid-measure, and looked confusedly to his band-mates. They all walked off stage.

  The entire bar applauded and cheered.

  Cheryl used the humorous situation as a mask to keep smiling and nodding. She made her way back to the other end of the bar.

  “Does this happen often?” said the roguish man in the black shirt.

  “Only on Saturdays,” said Cheryl. “Must be the full moon.”

  “I should come here more often.”

  “Waiting for a lady friend?” Cheryl couldn’t help herself. She half hoped the lady was a tramp. Or didn’t show up at all.

  There really was a twinkle. His eyes were dark, Mediterranean. Italian descent?

  “Yeah.” Another good look at his pearly whites. “She recommends this place. Said she comes here all the time.”

  “Oh?” said Cheryl. “I work here all the time, seems. Maybe I know her.”

  “Perky. Blond. About my height.”

  “You described half the women here.”

  “At least I didn’t describe you.” He lifted his glass in salute, then, when thinking about his phrasing, meekly retreated the toast with slumped shoulders.

  Cheryl smacked his wrist like a school teacher disciplining a youngster, leaning forward on the bar again, this time on only one elbow. She had dyed black hair, originally mousy brown, and sure in hell wasn’t perky in the way he meant. About the right height though, or so she guessed. Hard to tell from the wrong side of a bar.

  “What are you gawking at anyway?” she said.

  “Oh. Nothing.” He
sipped his rum and Coke.

  She poked his elbow. “Come on. I won’t tell your girlfriend.”

  “Just admiring your tattoos.”

  Cheryl had a pair of twin dragons, one on each arm. Their tails wrapped around each other at her shoulder blades. The lithe bodies slithered in spirals down her arms.

  “Check it out.” She pressed her forearms together. The dragons’ tongues kissed at top of her wrists.

  “Wow,” he said. “I… I’ve never seen that before.”

  “Hope you never do again,” said Cheryl, winking. “Makes a great conversation starter here. Means I have to wear long sleeves at court.”

  “You at court often?”

  “Only when I’m bad.”

  “What? I took you to be the warm cuddly type. My mistake.”

  “Fine, mister,” Cheryl laughed. “But you only get one!”

  A woman came in the door right then. Tall, blond, perky. With a Gucci bag and a cell phone pressed to her ear.

  “Date’s here,” Cheryl pointed.

  He turned around. Whatever slouch was in his shoulders disappeared. Color flushed in his cheek and ear. Cheryl found that cute.

  The blond bitch couldn’t be good enough for him.

  “Not her,” he said.

  She was glad. For him, of course.

  “She’ll show up,” Cheryl said. “Flag me down when you want a another, okay?”

  She didn’t intend a double meaning there.

  He nodded anyway, the dimples returning.

  She attended her other customers. Canned music now played from the speakers. Cheryl refilled his rum and soda. Then got him a Killian’s. And a Rolling Rock.

  More people flooded the bar, then left. Until after midnight the bar was near empty, odd for a Friday but no bother. The music was a quiet background beat. Bob mopped the floor. The line cooks punched out. Cheryl did her share of cleaning, and put on a fresh pot of coffee.

  The full body bean aroma clashed and mixed with the smell of bleach and cleaning suds.

  The man in the black shirt remained, alone on the same damn stool at the end of the bar, slouching over his beer bottle as if it were his only friend in the world. No perky blond hung on his arm.

  The twinkle most certainly wasn’t there.

  2

  Cheryl set two ceramic mugs in front of the mystery man who got stood-up, and poured coffee. Steam rose, perking her up after a long afternoon and night of work. Her feet were sore as hell inside her tennis shoes, the ache throbbing it’s way up her calves and thighs.

  Only the stragglers stayed behind, and they weren’t hard to take care of.

  “Coffee’s on me,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Looks like I need it?”

  The reek of rum and beer overshadowed the nice cologne he’d come in with. His speech was slurred and slow. One of a bartender’s superpowers is translating drunk talk. Sometimes that meant smiling and nodding at the right moments.

  She didn’t want to just smile and nod for him. No, this man deserved so much more, and maybe she could at least keep him company.

  “Looks like you lost a fist fight to a kitten,” said Cheryl, extending her red polished nails into a claw. “I could add some scratch marks to make it more convincing.”

  He laughed. Might’ve been the booze doing the work for him, but it sounded genuine from the pit of his stomach.

  “Pete,” he said.

  Cheryl introduced herself. Pete grabbed her hand and shook it, squeezing her knuckle bones ever so slightly. He held on a long moment too much, eyes tracing the dragon’s curved body up her wrist and forearm, to her bare shoulder.

  “I’m sorry she didn’t show,” said Cheryl. She meant it too. Nobody deserved to go home lonely. Especially a man like Pete.

  Pete sipped his coffee. “Wow, that’s hot!”

  “The better to sober you,” she said.

  “Isn’t your job to get people drunk?”

  “It’s a complicated affair.” She brought the coffee to her nose, sniffed it. Smelled bitter enough to slay any bad mood, strong enough to resurrect the dead. “Need cream or sugar?”

  “Both, please,” said Pete. He sipped, and his face scrunched. He raised an eyebrow in mock astonishment. “Wondering if you were killing me with whatever this is.”

  Cheryl turned around to grab the creamer and sugar bowls. In the mirror behind the bar, she could see Pete. Watching her. Her jeans hugged her hips like a second skin, exactly why she wore them when working. She was used to men staring, occasionally touching and being too forward. Part of the job, and she had ways to discourage without being off-putting. The attention was sometimes annoying, infuriating when from the wrong men, and—amazingly—at the same time empowering.

  She stalled, letting Pete stare. Allowing him to imprint the image in his head.

  “So,” she said, spoiling his view by turning around. She set the cream and sugar by his cup. “Tell me about her.”

  “What? Oh,” he said. “Nothing you want to hear.”

  “Pete,” said Cheryl, and handed him the stir straws. “I’m a bartender. What else do you think I do? Besides get you drunk and then sober you with radioactive coffee?”

  He chuckled, shaking his head, picking an orange colored straw and stabbed it into his coffee. Pete dumped two creams and three sugars, and stirred.

  “I cleaned the entire house,” he said at last. “Vacuumed the floors. Cleaned the bathtub and toilet. Washed a load of towels. Had fresh food on hand for breakfast.”

  “That’s a lot of work for a no-show,” said Cheryl.

  Pete waved his hand, nodding sagely. He blew the steam off his coffee and took a another tentative sip. No scrunch or evil eye glare.

  She leaned forward, on her elbows, not directly in front of him this time. She wasn’t working for a tip anymore. The money was good tonight, near five hundred in cash. And he was nearly the last customer. A sacred bond existed between bartender and the final straggler to leave. It was the one-on-one attention with a stranger, the desire to notice and be noticed, and be the only two people in the universe for a moment.

  He still glanced over at her breasts.

  This time, the attention was empowering.

  “We met at a birthday party,” said Pete. “Mutual friend. Buddy of mine, in fact.”

  “Not a bad place to meet.”

  “Except when that band is playing,” he pointed to the stage. “Last time the lead singer dumped a kegger on his head and fell on top of the crowd. The mosh pit let him fall on his ass.”

  “Too funny.”

  “Can’t think of the band’s name,” he said.

  “Me neither.”

  Damn the two word responses! What was wrong with her tonight?

  They sipped coffee, the silence hung in the air between them like an Arabian java bean cloud. Cheryl stretched her legs out, one by one, the hamstrings and calves burning. Even though she couldn’t wait to feel the cool touch of lube on her clit, Cheryl didn’t want to go upstairs to her electric vibrator just yet. The night was too early, and Pete was too sexy. She’d never study tonight, even if she had to take the bar tomorrow at eight sharp.

  How did she talk to complete strangers all night, but couldn’t carry on a conversation with a handsome fellow?

  “What was her name?” Cheryl asked. Stupid question! Why did she even care? Well, she was a bartender…

  “Who cares?” said Pete. “I won’t see her again.”

  “Why not? Maybe she had a good reason?”

  “Cheryl,” Pete leaned forward, lowering his voice as if to share a secret. Without thinking, she leaned forward too, ear near his lips. “We were meeting for one reason.”

  “Oh?” she said, whispering in his ear. “Can I guess the reason?”

  “I’ll give you three. Bet you only need one.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “I think you were going to watch movies with her.”

  Her voice came across sultry, as if she were hav
ing phone sex with Pete instead of chatting with him across from a bar. Cheryl shifted her hips. A small collection of porno movies were hidden inside her DVD cabinet. She’d had a long enough day, perhaps she was just telling him what she wanted to do.

  “Kind of right,” said Pete. Now his voice was husky and raw. His lips were so close to her skin, the fine hairs on her neck tingled. “Good thing I didn’t really bet.”

  “Maybe you were going to play a game with her,” said Cheryl. Sure, why not tell him what she wanted? No one ever got hurt with a little harmless flirting. Especially when it wasn’t direct.

  “You could say that,” he said.

  This close, Pete’s cologne smelled so musky and warm, only slightly overshadowed by alcohol and joe. Cheryl stuck her ass out further, imagining what it’d be like if he were behind the bar with her, fucking her doggy style.

  She touched his arm with the tips of her fingers. His skin was hot, the coarse hair smooth to the touch. Closer, near enough to bite his ear. The tip of one breast so close, all he had to do was reach up and grab if he wanted.

  Her lips moved, but her brain had little control now. “And then strip her down like a naughty whore and…”

  “Whoa! Which of us is drunk? I forgot.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cheryl said, bolting upright. Blood rushed to her head, flushing her cheeks hot. Her fingers wrapped around her mug’s handle, and she brought the coffee to her lips to hide. “It’s late. I’ve worked all day. Didn’t have to go there…”

  Pete held up hand and limp-wrist waved. “No worries. Unless you treat all customers like this.”

  “No.”

  “Too bad. I was thinking of recommending all my buddies come here.”

  “I can only make one man come a night. One of my rules.”

  Pete reached into his back pocket and got out a brown, stained and beaten up wallet. “I’d like to know some of your other rules.”

  “What for?” said Cheryl.

  “So I can play your game,” said Pete. “What do I owe?”

  “On me. Phrasing… The drinks are on me, cowboy.”

  He laughed, color spreading across his cheeks and down his neck. His smile was infectious and disarming. Cheryl couldn’t help but share in the humor.