by Mae Wood
Drennan was never shy. Never restrained. And I reveled in it. In her. Relentlessly, I pursued her pleasure. As her chant of my name began, I unfastened my belt, single handedly shoving my jeans and boxers over my ass to my knees. Her hands found my head and her nails scraped my scalp, sending shivers down my spine and making my hard dick twitch.
She was about to be royally fucked.
I pulled back, reaching into my jeans pocket for my wallet and coming up empty. Oh fuck. No condom. Where the fuck did it go? Holy hell, did Grady take it? But before I could derail our romp with my worry, she palmed my junk and squeezed, running her hand up my length and then swirling the tip around in her cupped hand. I looked around the office in desperation. But who would even keep a condom here? And if someone did, it would be hidden. I growled in frustration.
“Bert?”
“No condom. I don’t have a fucking condom.” Her face was flushed and I hated that she was starting to back away from the edge of the precipice.
Oh, that’s not happening. I focused on the task at hand, dipping my mouth back to her lips, exploring her with one hand while I grasped myself in my other. Her stifled moans and gasps spurred me on. And when she quaked and shook, I stood and took my own pleasure, spilling on her naked thighs.
I slumped down in the old chair, and pulled her onto my lap. Her legs draped over the arm, she relaxed into me. And I held her. Like she was fragile. Like she was precious. My fingers twisted through her soft wavy hair, curling and petting and gently pulling. Her breathing evened.
A clatter of plates to the floor snatched us out of Elysium. And she began to giggle. I’d seen Drennan sexy, serious, and mischievous. But I’d never seen her like this. The apples of her cheeks crinkled around her blue eyes, nearly making them disappear. The sound bubbled up from deep within her. Nothing forced. Nothing contrived. Just the sound of pure happiness. Her whole body began to jump with laughter.
“I cannot believe we did that.” Her giggles subsided, but she began to wiggle her ass in my lap, as if begging me to come and play again.
“I mean, here. Now. I was coming to kidnap you. To take you on an adventure.”
“What’s more adventurous than fucking in my fancy office a mere three feet from the dish machine right as happy hour starts?”
She lifted her head off my chest and playfully swatted at my arm. The smack more forceful than I’d anticipated. And it stung. “Ouch, little minx. Aren’t you saucy this evening?”
“You started it.” She pushed up from me, shimmying her skirt down her hips. She pulled her shredded shirt off the floor and stared at it. “And that was new. I got it in New York last month.”
“I’ll buy you a replacement.”
“Hmm,” she chewed on her lip, thinking for a minute. “No. But you’ll buy dinner tonight.” She shrugged the top on, but it was a lost cause and her eyes grew big and slightly watery as the idea of parading through the restaurant looking like she’d been mauled crossed her mind. Though I’d been reckless, I didn’t realize I’d been Wolverine. What had been a funny thought, of her leaving in a Pig and Barley T-shirt, was about to happen.
“Hold up.” I fastened my pants and began to dig for our logo shirts.
In a box behind some go-cups, I found a light blue one. It was going to swallow her whole, but I held it up like the saving grace it was. My relief was brief. Her nipples were on display.
That damn lace again. Fuck me. Double layer? Can I put her in a couple of shirts and then get her out through the back door by instructing the staff to turn around?
“We’re swapping.”
The T-shirt landed on my face and she began to work the buttons on my shirt. “Whoa.” Round two? I thought in confusion.
“This will work. I’ll make this work.” Drennan the firecracker was back in action. And I knew well enough to get out of her way.
Soon my blue and white checked shirt was around her body, tied in a knot at her waist and with the sleeves rolled up. Didn’t look half bad. She fished around in her purse and after running a tiny brush through her sweat damp hair, I wouldn’t have known. Except for her eyes. They danced above her rosy flushed cheeks.
Accepting my fate, the T-shirt went on and though I thought it was a touch too snug across my chest, I couldn’t fight her simple direction to keep it on. Drennan. In my shirt. With remnants of my cum on her thighs. She could have told me to jump off a bridge into the dark Mississippi, and I would have done it. Hook. Line. And sinker.
Chapter Twenty
Drennan
Good-bye, vintage find. Hello, Brooks Brothers, but at least it smelled like him. Sage and lemon from the soap he used. I wasn’t typically a fashion whore and Yountville definitely didn’t warrant runway looks, but anytime I was in New York I couldn’t help but stroll around Boerum Hill with my card at the ready. Oh well. It’s just a thing. A ruined pretty thing now in a trash can, and it died an honorable death in the service of the good.
Without pausing to see who might have been on to our office shenanigans, I dragged him through the restaurant and out the front door.
“Text whoever is working the bar with you tonight. We’re going out.” A quick glance at my phone confirmed we were tight on time.
“It’s Friday.”
“And I know. So pull some of your owner strings and let’s get ahead of the crowd.”
“You made plans?”
“I made plans.”
“And?”
“It’s a surprise. Do your texting thing and let’s get moving.”
While he tapped, I ordered us an Uber. Despite the head shakes and eye rolls and grumbles, we made our way past the Peabody towards Beale.
“Please say we aren’t going out on Beale. It’s all tourists. You want music? We can do better.”
“We’re not going out on Beale. Listen, I may not be a native, but I’m not a tourist either.”
The car slowed in front of our stop. “The Arcade? It’s a cool diner, but I didn’t even know they took reservations.”
“It’s not The Arcade. And I’ll be honest. I’m kinda proud of myself for surprising you in your hometown.”
“And you should be. The Broom Closet? Is this a speakeasy?”
“It’s a witchcraft shop.”
“No shit.”
“Yes shit, and we’re meeting some folks for a ghost tour.”
“Oh, no no no. That’s a hard pass from me.”
“Hard pass. And you accuse me of the dirty mouth. Am I going to have to resort to calling you names and making fun of your rugged masculinity?”
“Rugged, you say?”
“Oh yes, especially with this scruff you’ve got going on.” I pushed up to my toes and whispered in his ear. “Every step I take, I feel how raw you rubbed me. And it makes me wet.”
Bert exhaled and looked skyward. “It’s ghosts you want, it’s ghost you’ll get. Let’s go.”
We joined a group of hard core ghost hunters, some kitted out with fanny packs filled with homemade and custom ghost detection equipment and cameras slung around their necks. “Film,” replied a woman dressed in all black, except for her brightly patterned socks peeking through her black Birkenstocks. “Sprits don’t like digital media. Perhaps they can manipulate it. I don’t know, but for my money, film is where it is at if you want to capture some good orbs.”
I nodded. California plus New York, I could listen to almost anything with a straight face.
“Good orbs?” asked Bert. And I knew that smile. That smile that was all openness and warmth, but was in reality up to something.
He evaded my elbow only by pulling me too close to him for me to get in a good swing.
“Yes,” the woman prattled on, clearly relishing having an audience to educate about her specialty.
I escaped his grasp and wandered off to explore among the candles and incense, running my fingers across the paper labels on the bottles and boxes of herbs, the displays of tarot cards and casting sticks, until I came to the d
isplay of gems and crystals. A lilac-gray crystal formation caught my eye. “Lepidolite—For the increase in intuition, for opening the mind to change.”
I grabbed a purple stone and felt the cool weight and uneven edges in my hand. What? Twenty bucks at most? I made my way to the register, and soon it was wrapped at the bottom of my purse as we started the evening.
Bert’s snickers were under control. He didn’t seem terrified. Just bored as he periodically texted on his phone. Even as the ten-person group settled into the basement and tried to contact the spirits, taking out assorted meters and positioning them around the dark concrete room, he remained cool. I couldn’t figure out his ghost resistance. It certainly wasn’t fear like I had expected.
No orbs appeared that I could see. There was a slight high-pitched humming sound and the woman in black swore it sounded like a Victrola. At one point I thought I smelled fresh cut limes and she volunteered that the limes were surely for a Rickey made in the Prohibition era speakeasy that occupied the shop’s basement.
As we spilled out into the night, Bert wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Well, that was fun. But I thought you wanted to see some ghosts.”
“You mean the green orb that floated above your head wasn’t enough?”
“Let’s go,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me across the street to a bar. “Earnestine and Hazel’s. Burgers. Best damn burger in town. Be cool.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. Me not be cool? What is he up to? That smile again. Slightly naughty. Slightly knowing. All rake.
We pushed through the well-worn green metal door and made our way to the bar. Bert asked for a woman named Susie, ordered us two Ghost Rivers and two burgers, letting me know in no uncertain terms there was nothing else on the menu worth eating. “It’s the only craft beer they carry. Made here in town. And as for the burger. Well, that’s all they cook.”
Soon two golden pints of ale and two burger baskets were set in front of us. Bert pointed upstairs and got a nod from Susie.
“Be careful on the stairs,” he said gesturing that I should walk up ahead of him. Warned and now wary of not the stairs, but the man behind me, I cautiously proceeded.
At the top, I was greeted by a man sitting at a rough and tired piano. “Welcome, welcome. I hear you might want to visit a friend of mine this evening. As a friend of a friend, you are certainly welcome here.”
I looked around the space curiously. It was set up for crowds, but on a weeknight, it was still pretty empty. “I’m Theo. And I understand that you’re friends with Bert.”
“Hey, man.” Bert set his dinner on an empty table next to the piano, shook Theo’s hand and sat down to eat.
A wide grin spread across Theo’s face as he launched into a story about the spirits that occupied the brothel turned bar. “So Earnestine and Hazel, my dear, are real people. Real women who worked right here and are still with us.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Bert
I tucked into my soul burger, only half-listening to Theo’s story. I’d heard it before. This was the real deal here. Or at least as close to the real deal as I’d ever found and that I hoped to ever find again. She wanted ghosts. No basement could give her what the second floor of this bar dishes out on the regular.
That night I was up here late with Theo, the night Amy and I decided that we needed to divorce. It was late. And for a juke joint, that’s saying something. This place doesn’t get hopping until around midnight. And it was quiet. The band was long gone. The ubiquitous jukebox downstairs was turned off. It was me, whiskey, and my misery.
Then Otis Redding’s voice spilled up the stairs. “Sitting in the mornin’ sun.” Damn, I thought. Just damn. I’m just sitting and wasting time and nothing’s going to change. And good God! Yes! Ten people are trying to tell me what to do, but I can’t do it. I can’t do anything, but sit right here and drink and be sad and watch my life tick away. I dropped my head to the bar top. My breath repeatedly fogging the shiny surface until it condensed into droplets. Surely not from my eyes. I wasn’t a man drunk and crying in a bar after closing time.
“That’s your problem, child,” said the woman. “Don’t listen to what others are telling you to do. Now, eat something and call your sister.”
I picked my head up to find a packet of peanut butter cracker sandwiches by my elbow. And, as the woman said, I ate them and called Rosemary to come get me. I stumbled down the stairs and shuffled to the door before remembering my manners. “Hey, Theo!” I bellowed.
“Yeah, man,” he called from the back of the bar. “What you need?”
“Nothing. Thanks, man. And thank the nice lady for the crackers. She even had my favorite kind. The square ones. Not the round ones.”
“Ain’t no lady here. Just us. Just me cleaning up and your lousy ass who was too drunk to move thirty minutes ago.”
Friendly spirit, drunken man, or Theo pulling my leg. Don’t know. Don’t care to know. We’d talked and I left knowing that I’d never understand and that was fine. I’d gone out drinking in search of comfort but I needed sustenance that night and I got it. In the form of some kind words and a vending machine snack.
I’d been back in the bar since, but this was my first return upstairs. If Drennan wanted to screw around with ghosts, that was fine. I wasn’t a believer or a skeptic, but it wasn’t some game to me. The fools in the basement with the Ghostbusters gadgets and talk of glowing orbs. They don’t know what I know. Sometimes it’s no more than a song, a few kind words, and some Lance crackers.
Soon Theo went downstairs and people drifted up. “Enough ghosts for you?”
“Yeah,” she replied quietly.
“All right, then. Let’s go.”
I clapped Theo on the shoulder as we passed, slipping him all of the cash I had on hand. Not everyone would empty the top of their bar on a Friday night for a half hour to give a girl a story of a lifetime. We might not be brothers in arms, but we were both well cared for sons of Ms. Earnestine.
I corralled her onto the trolley to head back up to Pig and Barley. Buttoning up my Barbour jacket against the evening chill, I tucked her under me. When she wore heels, the top of her head was the perfect chin rest, and I savored the quietness between us.
She hadn’t asked about why I’d taken her upstairs at Earnestine and Hazel’s. She hadn’t recounted the stories that Theo had told her. I guessed it was stories of the legendary haunted jukebox, of his own sightings of Ms. Earnestine, of her kindnesses toward people who loved her bar and of her aggressiveness towards those who didn’t.
Helping her step down from the trolley not far from the restaurant, I asked if she wanted to go for drinks. She shook her head and wrapped her arms around her body. “Nah, I’m good.”
“Sorry if that weirded you out. I didn’t mean to put a damper on your surprise, but those jokers in the basement don’t have anything on Theo.”
“That’s for damn sure.”
“I also hope that you didn’t have other plans for us.”
“I did, but this night has gone sideways,” she said.
“Tell me what I’ve just ruined and I’ll right it.”
“You don’t have to be Dudley Do-Right, a Boy Scout or, as my father would say, a Great American in capital letters. You know that, right?’
“That’s kind of my specialty.”
“Hmm. No. Trust me. That is not your claim to fame. Though I’m not sure I want to broadcast your specialty. Might have to fight for you and I got a manicure this week for the first time in ages.”
“Wouldn’t want you to break a nail.”
“For you. For you, it might be worth it.”
“And . . . Our next stop is Mississippi, then?”
“Ha. Well, yes. We’re going to Mississippi, but we’re going on an adventure. I heard about this Cajun guy who has a totally unlicensed food truck operation. But it’s not a food truck. It’s a truck that has food in the bed,” she said, the chill from the ghosts fading.
&nbs
p; “I know the guy.”
“You do! Think you can find him and his truck?”
I lifted my fingers in a Boy Scout salute. “I’m always prepared, miss.”
I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the numbers until I found him. “Achille, whatcha got for me? Gator. I’ll talk with my chef, but that sounds promising. Where are you tonight? Doing your caisse thing? Yeah. Sure that’s okay? Yeah. I know that. Gonna stop by. Keep some boudin back for me. I’m a sucker for it.”
While I talked I watched her nearly dance with glee. Yes, I was a sucker for it, but not for Achille’s pork and rice sausage. I ended the call and we set off in search of my favorite Cajun.
Chapter Twenty-two
Drennan
“Sheel? That’s his name? I like that. Sounds French and Cajun,” I mused.
“Well, Achille is a Greek name. The same Achilles as the one whose name was given to the tendon in your heel. It’s just pronounced differently in French or Cajun—the ch sound becomes a s.”
“Oh yeah, Achilles, he’s the guy who ran a marathon to deliver a letter and then dropped dead, right?”
“No, that’s Pheidippides. Achilles killed Hector.”
I looked at him like he’d sprouted a second head. Hector who? Ph-what? “I thought you were a chef.”
“Yes, by the long way around. I was a classics major in college. I got into cooking when I was staying home with baby Grady and the other stay at home parents, who were all moms, wouldn’t invite me to playdates.”
“Wait up. Who wouldn’t invite you to playdates? And why not?”
“Um, because their husbands, who were mainly doing the medical or dental school thing like Amy—that’s my ex-wife—was, weren’t too thrilled about me.”