by M. O'Keefe
“A piña colada?” I wish I could say that that was the first thing I could think of, but the truth was, if my reaction to Bucket-o-Colada was any indication, I loved piña coladas.
“Sure thing.”
She walked away, stopping at tables as she went. I expected guys to grab her ass or something, yank on her. But no one did. They looked. And they leered. But it seemed pretty hands-off.
There were giant guys without necks standing in the shadows, keeping an eye on all things.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Suddenly Joan was in front of me in a red push-up bra and black ruffled panties. She was more covered up than any other woman working in the bar, but somehow the sexiest.
And she was furious.
“Hey, Joan,” I said lamely.
“I repeat, what the fuck are you doing here?”
She pulled me out of the spot I’d claimed and past a few groups of men who watched us as we went.
“Who’s your friend, Joan?” one of the guys asked. His calculating eyes followed us and his joking had a heavy dose of mean to it. “You gonna give her a lap dance?”
“Fuck off, Steve,” she said.
“Can we watch?”
She ignored him, still pulling me into the shadows past the chairs around the stage.
Once we were in a corner dark and quiet enough, Joan stopped and turned on me, her hands on her hips. Behind her there was a girl on a man’s lap. His hands grabbing her ass, grinding her into him.
My entire body went hot and then cold. Between my legs, I got so wet. I swallowed a groan, watching that man’s fingers bite into her ass, the skin turning white and pink beneath his touch.
What does that feel like? I wondered, breathless and riveted.
The stripper had her hand up, braced against the wall behind the man’s head, her dark hair thrown back. The guy reached up and grabbed a handful of it and pulled.
I could hear the woman groan from five feet away.
And here’s the thing—I’d been on the bad end of all of that. I’d been hurt—but I could see the difference here. I could feel it in my body. In the air that we were all breathing in and out.
“Hey!” Joan snapped in front of my face, tearing my attention away from the couple in the corner. “Why are you here?”
“I…I’m…” playing this weird game with a man I’ve never met, and he told me if I want to have phone sex with him again, I have to go to a strip club.
No way could I say that.
“Is this some kind of weird stalker thing?” she asked. “Because the last thing I need right now is to have a weird stalker living beside me and following me to work!”
“What? No!” I cried. “No. I’m not…I’m not stalking you.”
“Are you gay? Because I’ve seen the way you look at me.”
I shook my head, so embarrassed I was pretty sure my cheeks were glowing. That day at the swimming hole. She’d noticed. Of course she’d noticed; I was about as subtle as a sledgehammer. “No. I’m not gay—”
“Bi?”
“Bi-what?”
“Sexual, you idiot! Do you like men and women?”
“I don’t…” I hadn’t really processed that. This weird attraction I had to Joan’s body. It was beautiful as a thing. Sexy as a concept. But I didn’t want to touch her.
I wanted to touch Dylan.
I wanted Dylan to touch me.
It was strange that I’d never really thought that before. Or looked past the parameters of this thing we were doing. Yes, the phone sex was…amazing and exciting, and his voice alone was enough to make me crazy. But what I really wanted was to be the couple in the corner.
I wanted him to grab me like that, to pull me and push me. I wanted him to make me groan.
I didn’t have the slightest clue what Dylan really looked like. He could be fat and hairy and all kinds of ugly—but it didn’t matter.
Because that was who I wanted. That man on the phone who’d never been a normal sixteen-year-old. Who called me back because he was worried that I was scared. Who texted me pictures of himself in a tux, like he knew he looked good.
“No,” I said. “I’m not bisexual or gay or stalking you. I’ve got this thing with a guy…”
“Same guy who gave you the bruises?”
“No.” Oh, God no. “Different guy. We do this thing on the phone—”
“Say no more,” Joan said, lifting up her hand, her face changing from confused and angry to begrudgingly respectful. “I don’t need details. And I have to say, I wouldn’t have pegged you for the type.”
“Here you are!” The waitress who took my order came up the small steps with a big, fancy glass with fruit sticking out of it on her tray. “I couldn’t find you.”
“Thank you,” I said, digging into my pocket for one of the twenties Dylan gave me.
“I got it,” Joan said. “Thanks, Denise.”
“No problem,” Denise said and she walked away.
“So?” Joan asked. “What are you going to do here?”
“Watch women dance, I guess.”
She gave me a long look. “How daring do you want to be?”
“It was pretty damn daring just walking in the door, trust me.”
“Yeah, but you’re here now. What are you going to do?”
“I’m supposed to call him…” I trailed off and glanced over her shoulder, back at that dark corner. The girl was now facing me, still on the guy’s lap, plastered really all along his chest and legs, like she’d been poured on him. Her eyes were closed and her face…well, if she was acting, if she was pretending to be turned on—she was totally convincing.
As I watched, the man’s hand slipped down across her tummy to cover her entire pussy, which was bare except for a small heart-shaped patch of hair. She twitched against him, her hand covering his, and as I watched, I wondered if she was going to lift that hand away. If that was against the rules or something.
But instead she held it there, grinding it against her, while she was grinding against him.
This. This moment. This was the hottest thing I’d ever seen.
“That’s Destiny,” Joan said. “Her real name is Renee, and when the song switches over she’s going to stand up, take that guy by the hand, and lead him over there.” She pointed to a dark alcove covered in one of those cheesy beaded curtains. “There’s a door there that leads back to the VIP room.”
“What’s she going to do there?” I whispered.
“Fuck him, maybe. Blow him for sure.”
Blow him. My entire body clenched tight.
“You want to call your guy and share something with him tonight, go in there now. Sit way back in the corner and watch them.”
“What?”
“Happens all the time. Husbands sit back there and watch their wives fuck another woman.”
“But…won’t they care?”
I was considering it. I was. Even before I consciously realized it I was halfway in that room.
“No. I’ll let her know you’re there. I’ll tell her about the phone. As long as you don’t take pictures it’s cool. She digs that shit. Probably put on a really good show for you.”
I was breathing hard. And my hand around the drink was numb from the cold.
“Music’s gonna change. Yes or no.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“What is it with you and the whys?” Joan asked, rolling her eyes.
I didn’t know. I really didn’t.
“Your guy is going to dig it,” she said, prodding me on.
Yes. He was.
“Okay,” I said. “But, Renee, is she…?” God, I didn’t know how to say it. “Does she have kids? Or like some kind of terrible drug habit? Or a dad who used to sneak into her room at night—”
“Is she a victim?”
“Yeah.”
“Does it matter?”
I gave Joan a long look. “Yeah.”
“Oh good God, Annie. I don’t ask her about her l
ife. She’s tough. She’s smart and she doesn’t take shit from anyone.”
“Really?”
“Really. And she’s freaky as shit.”
I took one giant long draw of my drink and then set it down on the table, nearly running toward the curtained doorway. I slipped between the beads and there was a small hallway with two doorways, and at the end, a red illuminated exit sign.
Shit. Which door?
I opened the first. Inside it was thick with cigarette smoke, and there was a table with five men sitting around it. All of them turned to stare at me when I walked in.
“Wrong door, sister,” one of them said. A thin man with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. Kind eyes. I have no idea why I got that impression in the three seconds I was face-to-face with him, but I did. And he was wearing a linen suit. At a strip club. That’s all I could see through the haze of smoke.
“Sorry,” I said, getting out of there as fast as I could. I spun around and opened the second door.
Inside was a small room with two big leather couches. In the shadows in the far corner there was the gleam of another leather chair, and I made a beeline for it before all my courage deserted me.
I tucked my legs up under me and tried to be as small as I possibly could and called Dylan.
“Are you still in the parking lot?” he asked, his voice teasing.
“No,” I whispered. “I’m in a VIP room. I’m going to watch…”
The door opened again and in walked Renee, who was like seven feet tall in her outrageous sequined heels. The guy she was with came in behind her, his hand wide across her belly, keeping them together.
God, my breathing sounded so loud. And I shifted in the chair and the leather creaked. I closed my eyes, my hands across my mouth.
It hadn’t even started and I was ruining this.
“Hit the button, baby,” Renee said. And the man, who’d clearly been here before, reached over and tapped a button on a black box on the wall and music filled the room.
I turned my phone so no one could see the glow. Or at least I hoped they couldn’t.
Renee turned them a little better so they were almost facing me head on, though there was twenty feet between us. The lighting was super dim but I saw her face.
She winked at me.
“Layla,” Dylan murmured. “Are there people in there with you?”
“Yes,” I breathed as quietly as I could, watching Renee and the guy to see if they heard me. They were locked on each other, the music blocking out any sound of my voice for them.
“What do you want?” Renee asked and for a second I thought she was asking me, but the man spoke up.
“Your mouth on my cock,” he said, and Renee laughed and then gasped when the man’s hands came up and cupped her breasts. Palmed them.
“Can you hear that?” I whispered to Dylan.
“Yeah, baby, I heard. You’re watching a blow job.” His voice, oh, God, his voice was so thick. So heavy. I could feel how turned on he was.
“What do you want?” the guy on the couch asked Renee.
“My mouth on your cock,” Renee said.
His dark laughter rumbled through the room. “This is why we work.”
This is why we work. I could say the same thing to Dylan right now.
Renee stepped away from the guy and gave him a shove over to the couch. He fell back willingly, and she grabbed a pillow from beside him and tossed it on the floor at his feet.
“Tell me,” Dylan ground out in my ear.
“She’s kneeling in front of him.”
Quickly, Renee undid the guy’s pants, her eyes flicking occasionally up to his. He was biting his lips, his hands up on his head, like he was trying hard not to touch her. Like he didn’t want to ruin the show.
And then she reached into the shadows of his open pants and pulled out his dick.
“Fuck, baby, go,” he breathed.
Renee closed her fist around him and pumped him slowly, from bottom to top.
Like Dylan.
“She’s touching him the way you like it,” I whispered. “Hard.”
Dylan groaned. The guy on the couch groaned.
“You want more?” Renee asked. And she could have been asking all of us; she had us all in the palm of her hand right now.
“Yeah,” the guy said.
“Yes,” I breathed.
Oh God. Forget about being quiet. Forget about not being noticed—I was going to go up in flames in this corner. Literally spontaneously combust.
“Touch yourself,” the guy said, and again, my mouth fell open. Was he talking to me?
But he was talking to Renee, who slipped a hand down between her legs.
“Show me how wet you are,” the guy said.
“Yeah?” In the shadows it was too dark to really see what she was doing, but I got the idea when she lifted her hand and held it up to the man’s face.
“Taste how wet I am.”
The man opened his mouth and Renee slipped her fingers in. The guy groaned. Renee groaned. I nearly died in my chair.
“She touched herself and put her fingers in his mouth,” I told Dylan.
“How do you think she tastes?” Dylan asked.
“Good,” I breathed.
“Do it. Touch yourself and taste your fingers for me. Right now.”
I wanted to put my fingers in Dylan’s mouth. I wanted him to taste me. I wanted him to look at me the way this guy was looking at Renee. The way I was looking at Renee.
But he was on the phone and not here, so I did what he said. Traced the edges of my lips with my fingers, gathered up the slickness there, and then put the fingers in my mouth. I moaned.
“Sweet?” he asked.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Renee bent and licked the guy’s dick, top to bottom, doing some kind of swirl thing over the head that seemed to make the guy go nuts.
“Suck, just suck, baby,” he groaned. “I want to come in your mouth.”
“She put his dick in her mouth,” I whispered.
“Where are his hands?” Dylan asked.
“On his head. He’s…watching.”
“Does it look good?”
“Yes.”
“You want to come?” Dylan asked.
“So bad.”
Soon, the guy dropped his hands, tangling his fingers into her hair, and he was holding her head, lifting his hips to ease in and out of her mouth.
“Do it, baby,” Dylan whispered. “Make yourself come.”
His permission made my heart pound, my fingers clumsy, and my nails scratched my skin as I slipped my hand down between my legs and through my shorts, I pressed up hard against my clit. I flinched I was so turned on.
“Oh, yeah,” the guy groaned, and Renee’s hand was a blur and I bit my lips against the sounds climbing up my throat. I stuck my hand down my shorts until it was buried in the liquid fire between my legs. It took nothing. One touch, another against the pulsing knot of my clit, and I was coming.
Coming so hard I saw stars.
“Oh fuck, yeah. Fuck—”
It was the guy. Not me. I was biting my tongue until it bled, trying not to make any sound.
And then he groaned and Renee slowly pumped her fist against him, holding the head of his dick in her mouth while he jerked. I tried to get my breath back slowly. Quietly. But I thought I might hyperventilate.
“So good, baby,” the guy breathed, reaching for Renee. “Let’s do you.”
“I need to get back. Zo is going to get pissed.”
“Fuck Zo.”
She shot him a wry look. “Say that to his face.”
The guy stood and zipped up his pants while Renee fluffed her hair and dug a piece of gum out of the guy’s pocket. He gave her a big, wet smacking kiss on the cheek and then opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
Renee stood in the open doorway and glanced back in the shadows toward me with a smile.
“Hope you enjoyed that,” she said, and then
she was gone.
And I…sweaty and wet and shocked and still a little turned on…couldn’t be sure what exactly I was. But it was different than I was before I walked into this place, that was for sure.
“Layla?” Dylan asked.
“They’re gone,” I breathed. Replete and keyed up at the same time.
“You liked that?”
“Yes. Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you come?” I asked. I’d been so enthralled by what I’d been watching and what was happening in my own body that I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him or not.
“No.”
“Do it now. Do it for me.” Words tumbled out of my mouth, describing what I’d seen, but putting the two of us in the scene. “Imagine I’m on my knees in front of you and I’ve got your cock in my hand. I’m licking you slow. All the way around, and I put the head in my mouth.”
“I’ve got my hands in your hair,” he said. “I’m pushing you down, seeing how much you can take. I want my whole cock buried inside of you.”
My hand slipped down my pants again, my fingers squeezing my clit.
“I want that too,” I whisper. “I want all of you inside of me.”
“I’m gonna come,” he breathed.
“Please,” I whispered. “Come inside me. Let me taste you.”
He groaned and cried out and I did the same.
The only sound in the room was the two of us breathing hard and the forgotten radio playing some dance music.
“You okay?” he asked as I lay there, boneless and sweating. Between my legs I ached.
This isn’t enough anymore. The thought came out of nowhere. And for a second I wanted to deny it. This was the hottest, most exciting thing I’d ever done in my life. There was no way it couldn’t be enough.
But somehow it wasn’t. I felt empty. I ached for more than my fingers and the sound of his voice in my ear.
I wanted Dylan. The reality of him.
“Layla?” he asked when I was silent.
“I’m good,” I said. “You?”
“So good.”
“I’m going to go home,” I said.
“Call me when you get there.”
—
I left the room and headed out the small exit door to the right instead of going out through the bar, trying to push aside my vague disappointment as some kind of weird reaction to the increasingly bold and daring stuff I was doing.