by KB Winters
“Shit, Higgs. Stay with me!” I remember dropping down to my knees to flip him over, making sure he wasn’t choking on his own blood or vomit, but it wasn’t Higgs.
This time it wasn’t fucking Higgs. It was Hazel, her coal black eyes just as lifeless as Pony Boy and Jank’s.
“What the fuck?” It was that thought, that exclamation that had my eyes snapping open as a scream was ripped from my throat.
“Fuck!” I looked around the bunkhouse, happy to see that everyone else was still asleep.
There was no point in me trying to get back to sleep because after that fucking nightmare, I’d be lucky if I fell asleep tomorrow night. Or the night after that.
Creeping to the small kitchen inside the bunkhouse, I opened the fridge, hoping that a late night snack would help me relax enough to get back to sleep. Unlikely, but I had nothing else.
Warm milk was supposed to work but who the fuck drank warm milk, anymore?
“Fuck that.” I spotted a bottle of Jack on top of the fridge and grabbed it along with a glass and headed outside. There was something about Hardtail Ranch that soothed me at moments like this. I’d been here a little over a year and tonight was the eighth time the nightmare had jolted me awake.
The nightmare itself was unsettling as fuck, but the strange twist of the new bartender had me feeling uneasy. Was that a subconscious warning that Hazel herself was trouble or was it more ominous than that? Was she in trouble or running from trouble? That would explain the pain in her eyes, but I didn’t know the woman, didn’t know shit about her or her pain. Or, if that even was pain I saw.
I couldn’t worry about Hazel, not as anything more than an employee. I had enough of my own shit going on that I didn’t need to go in search of damsels in need of saving. I sure as shit was nobody’s hero.
But the dream had made one thing clear. Gunnar was right. It was time for me to talk to Mitch.
***
“I’m surprised you didn’t cancel this time.” Mitch used his words as an opening to get me to open up, not as a way to get under my skin which I appreciated.
“Me too, honestly.” I’d made an appointment last week and canceled an hour before I was scheduled to meet with him. It was a dick move, but a man had to do what was right for him, when it was right.
Mitch nodded, his kind blue eyes holding mine. “What changed?”
There it was, the reason I didn’t do shrinks. They were like fucking psychics, reading your mind and your thoughts. Forcing you to talk about shit better left dead and buried.
“Changed? Nothing, not really.” That wasn’t a lie. “Same nightmare I’ve been having on and off for a few years.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
Mitch looked just like Wheeler, maybe less pretty because he dressed like an accountant or a suburban dad, but they had the same brown hair and the same blue eyes. Where they differed was demeanor. Mitch was calm and steady as a rock. Patient.
“Not really, but isn’t that why I’m here?” I rubbed my palms up and down my thighs to get rid of the sweat.
“You’re here because you need some kind of help, but there’s no preset path to that help. How about you tell me what about the nightmare last night was different?”
“Who says it was different?”
“You’re here. Something scared you.”
Right again. “It was the same nightmare. Me and Jank and Higgs and Pony Boy. Everything played out the way it always did but then…”
I couldn’t even say it out loud. What the fuck did it mean? Was I losing my mind?
“Joplin, relax.” His words brought me back from the spiral I was headed down. When our gazes connected, he smiled. “Then?”
“I turned Higgs over the way I always do, but when I turned him over last night he was…Hazel.” The fucking bartender. My employee. A stranger.
“Is Hazel a sister or girlfriend?”
“No, she’s the new bartender at The Barn Door.”
“Oh.” Mitch looked as dumbfounded as I felt.
“Exactly, it’s weird as fuck, right? Why was she there? Is my subconscious trying to tell me something?” Did I even believe in subconscious messages?
“Possibly.” He suppressed a chuckle at the glare I shot him. “I know it’s not what you want to hear Joplin, but we won’t know what it’s about until we start talking.”
“What’s with you shrinks and talking?”
Mitch did nothing to hide his amusement this time. “It’s called talk therapy for a reason. If you don’t want to talk about the nightmare, tell me about your job at The Barn Door. How do you like it?”
Wasn’t that a loaded question? “I like it just fine.”
“A perfect non-answer.” He smiled again, completely unmoved by my attitude. The bastard.
I shrugged. “It’s a nice distraction from my own thoughts. Memories. Nightmares and shit I would rather not talk about. Keeps me busy.”
Mitch nodded slowly, like he was thinking, and I knew it didn’t bode well for me. “Tell me about a good memory you have with the guys in your unit.”
“I have plenty of good memories,” I insisted.
“Good, tell me one.”
He didn’t dare smile, but with the smugness that radiated off him, he might as well have smiled.
I didn’t answer right away, so he pressed me. “Just one. Should be easy.”
Yeah, it should’ve been but it wasn’t. I’d worked the last year or so to forget everything. The smiles and the laughter at the inappropriate jokes, the Yo Mama jokes that were a big hit with Pony Boy and Jank. I tried to forget it all, but what no one told me about war is just how deep the memories—good and bad—would become ingrained into me. They become a part of the fabric of who I was, once the war was over. I couldn’t erase the memories. I tried. “You’re a real bastard, you know that right?”
Mitch shrugged. “I’ve been called worse. I’m still waiting on that good memory, Saint.”
Shit. Looked like I wouldn’t get out of this session unscathed.
“All right.” If Mitch wanted a memory then I’d give him one. “We were on leave and decided to head up to Iceland. Ever been?”
“Nowhere close to it. Nice?”
I nodded. “It was surprisingly beautiful but cold. We should’ve done our research before we landed because we were not prepared for that kind of cold. We turned it into a game.”
He sat there with a blank expression on his face but I could sense his need to lean in, to learn more. “We all tried to gather enough cold weather supplies. Whoever came in last place had to pay for dinner and drinks the whole trip.”
Mitch whistled. “Sounds expensive.”
“It was only two full days of leave, but yeah it was pricey.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “You lost?”
“Hell, yeah. Jank managed to find Icelandic soldiers who outfitted us with everything. Higgs used his good looks to get scarves, gloves and hats from a group of widows who knit for soldiers all around the world, leaving me and Pony Boy with nothing but some thick socks and a bottle of Absinthe. Horrible shit but effective against the cold.”
A smile touched my lips at the memory, how we all worked together to make sure the trip was a fun one.
“Sounds like a good time.”
“It was. Saw an active volcano and danced with plenty of pretty Icelandic women. Never saw so many blondes in my life.”
We’d taken that trip about seven months before it all went to shit, one of the last good memories I had with my guys away from the fucking warzone. After that day it was all recon and cleanup missions mostly with the occasional rescue tossed in just to keep us on our toes.
“It was a great fucking time.”
“Sounds like it was.” Mitch’s words hung in the air for a long time, and I stared back at him, not really seeing Mitch, just a slideshow of laughing and smiling faces.
“Next time you feel your memories going to that day, try to focus on this memory in
stead. I know it won’t be easy,” he said, beating me to the punch. “But you won’t know if you don’t try.”
“Fine, I’ll try. Anything else?”
“Tell me about Hazel. About work.” His tone was quiet and unassuming, as usual, but there was a hint of something else I couldn’t put my finger on. Yet.
There was nothing to tell about Hazel other than she was good at her job. Knew enough drinks to impress the good ol’ boys and more importantly, to keep them buying drinks. And damn if these southern boys couldn’t handle their liquor.
“Work is good, mostly logistics and planning which happens to be my strong suit. Not much else to tell.”
“Are you seeing anyone?”
“Not at the moment. I haven’t had much time with The Barn Door and all the other shit going on in my life right now.”
The Reckless Bastards thing gave me pause, a big goddamn pause, but I was a man of my word. That didn’t mean I was down for vigilante justice, but the pragmatist in me couldn’t deny that Gunnar’s arguments made sense.
“How are you feeling about the…other stuff?”
My lips quirked into an appreciative smile. “Hesitant. I’m not sure I…never mind.” I couldn’t talk about this, not with Mitch when his brother was the goddamn VP, and definitely not now. “I’m feeling fine, just questioning myself and my…condition.”
I hated saying that shit just like I hated those four fucking letters. They were like a brand, a word people whispered in polite company because it was just too horrible to say at a normal volume. They didn’t know the fucking half of it. “Thanks, Doc. I’ll, uh, see you soon.”
“I hope that’s true. You made progress today. It will only continue if you do.”
“I hear ya.” I did, and I understood what he was saying, I just wasn’t sure if I was ready to make more progress than that. The more I talked about it, the more I thought about it and that was a vicious damn cycle that might land me in an VA hospital. Not gonna happen.
I stood, said my goodbye and made my way back to the bunkhouse to change before heading to The Barn Door for the night.
Chapter Six
Hazel
I didn’t have to be at work until ten, so I showed up a little early and went back to that room. There was something deep and dark and visceral about watching a group of strangers fuck. It was primal, bodies slick with sweat, faces contorted into varying stages of ecstasy as every man and woman sought their own pleasure while helping bring about someone else’s.
At first glance it seemed selfish, just bodies fucking away at each other looking to get off by any means necessary, but a good orgy had a depth to it that most people couldn’t understand. Right now it looked like the women were just being used, just fuck holes for four horny cocks, but that was not what I saw when I took it all in.
What I saw was those women giving the men a great deal of trust. Trust that his cock won’t go so far down her throat that she choked on it before she came, trust that her ass was off limits even though one of the other women was fingering the other’s asshole while one of the guys feasted on her pussy.
There was a certain kind of power to letting go like that. To just closing their eyes and letting the pleasure take over, carrying them away until they were in that dark, hazy place between just out of reach and oh God yes, right there.
It was that push and pull, that trust, that had lured me to rooms like this before. Yeah, I’d been in sex clubs before. None this fancy though..
The men started off with one mission. To get off as fast and as often as possible. It always happened that way. But then somewhere around the girl on girl action or sometimes a two-mouthed blow job, things changed. It became about feminine pleasure. About pleasing the women because they knew that’s where they’d find all the true passion, the true ecstasy.
Right in that moment I couldn’t look away, couldn’t remove my hand from my slick pussy as two men feasted on a curvy redhead’s pussy. Two tongues worked together, not giving a damn if they touched, hell they were practically making out on top of her clit, and the woman arched her back, writhed and gripped two thick heads of hair as she screamed her pleasure. God, it was so fucking hot my fingers were drenched with my own fucking juices.
Another woman was on her knees accepting a long thick cock like a submissive little bitch. It wasn’t totally my thing but watching her close her eyes and keep her hands at her side while a man with eight pack abs and what had to be a nine inch cock slowly fucked her throat like it was a pussy.
“Oh, yes!” My words slipped out but luckily all the other in-room voyeurs were as focused on the action as I was, and I was keenly aware of a hot DILF beside me stroking his cock like it was his favorite toy. In another time and place I might have taken care of that big boner of his, but today I just wanted to watch.
Again.
I needed to be careful, coming here early could get me in a lot of trouble. Especially if I got caught by the boss, which would be bad. Very, very bad. It was bad enough the man had found his way into my shower fantasies, into my late night fantasies, hell even to my getting fucked on top of the bar fantasies. Every last fucking fantasy.
Not this one. I was determined to come without thinking about Joplin, or Saint, whatever his name was. It wouldn’t be on my lips when I came this time. No. I watched the redhead squirt so hard she nearly passed out, and I rubbed three furious fingers over my clit until my own toes began to curl. The blonde getting deepthroated moaned and squeezed a guy’s ass cheeks until he fucked her harder while the other girl ate her pussy as the final guy slid in and out of her pussy in a slow, drunken glide. It was hot as fuck. It was perfect. It was more than enough for me to come all over my fingers, soaking my panties and my thighs.
A tiny gasp escaped me as the last convulsion rocketed through me, and I leaned against the wall, sliding a glance to the man and woman jacking each other off beside me.
“I’d kill for a taste of that,” a deep, raspy voice said to my left and I smiled at the DILF with the big cock, holding my fingers just out of his reach.
“Of this?”
He nodded, and I slicked one finger across his bottom lip.
“Yeah, that,” he growled and I swear my clit vibrated against my soaked panties, sending another round of aftershocks through my body as I added another finger to his top lip this time.
“Fuck. Yeah.” My hand fell away and his head fell back as long streams of jizz darted across his legs.
So. Fucking. Hot.
“Thanks for the show.”
“Thanks for the taste, sweetheart.” He winked and turned back to the action in the room, and I slipped out the discreet door behind a black screen on shaky legs. And I ran right into the man I was trying hard not to think about.
“Joplin,” I stammered out.
“Saint,” he growled. “Call me Saint.”
“Saint. Hey.”
“Hey yourself. Shift starts in thirty-three minutes.”
“I’ll be there in ten,” I told him confidently. The panties were destined for the trash bin, which meant all I needed was a quick rinse of my hands and a new coat of lipstick.
“See you soon, Boss.” I walked away before I said or did anything else, but the sound of his frustrated growl behind me had me wet all over again.
Maybe I’d take fifteen…just to take the edge off.
A little.
Chapter Seven
Saint
What the fuck did I just see? That was the problem with not sleeping. After a while I’d get delirious and sometimes couldn’t tell fantasy from reality. Like now, I couldn’t be sure that the woman I just witnessed boinking herself while watching a seven person orgy was Hazel. My fucking employee. I had to blink six, seven times just to clear all other thoughts and images from my mind. Considering her appearance in my dreams, this fucking vision could be a sign that it had finally happened.
I finally lost my fucking mind.
She’d been all alone even surrounde
d by other voyeurs; those dark eyes never left the action on the elevated platform as she brought herself to orgasm. Eyes squeezed tight and head tossed back with a little gasp of pleasure on her slightly parted lips, she was a magnificent sight. And it was that magnificence I couldn’t get out of my head right now, while I was walking Hazel through the ins and outs of her job.
I couldn’t focus because all I could see was Hazel. Only this time she was totally naked, dusty pink nipples hard and aching, as she begged me to fuck her. Begged me to take her pussy and her mouth at the same time, which seemed impossible until I looked up and saw a man with my face teasing her lips with his already hard, already leaking cock.
“Fill me up,” she purred and I felt pre-come gather at the tip of my cock, making things wet behind my zipper.
“Do I leave to restock the bar myself or find someone else to do it?” Hazel looked up at me expectantly with an expression in her eyes that said it wasn’t the first time she asked the question.
I had to blink to clear away the images of her naked and arching into my cock. Another round of blinking and finally the creamy swell of flesh I was seeing was Hazel’s cleavage. Her mostly covered but still mouthwatering cleavage.
“Uh, we have barbacks. They will restock anything you need and keep the place clean. Some nights you’ll bartend, and some nights you’ll be a barback. We like to rotate the bartenders so they learn all aspects of the job. We always want to have someone at the bar. Always.”
Was that tiny leather fabric even a skirt? It was so small if she sneezed I’d get a clear view of her pussy and that thought only made me wonder if she was totally bare or did she have one of those landing strips? Maybe she went old school with slick lips and a bush. “Everything you’ll need, except beer, is in here.” I opened the door to the stock room and motioned her inside.
If she had any hesitation about being in a small, enclosed space with me after what I’d seen her doing earlier, it didn’t show on her face or her body language.
“Good to see you didn’t want the stock room too close to the bar,” she joked. “At least I’ll get some killer guns from this job.”