by Alexa Land
We climbed to the third floor, and Nico stopped in front of a set of double doors. The music was louder there, and he raised his voice to be heard above it. “They’re in here. I’m going to make my escape before you go inside. Nana keeps trying to get me involved in this exercise class. She likes to change it up for her girlfriends, and, well, you’ll see.” He smiled and said, “Good luck,” before turning and heading back the way we’d come.
Zachary stared after him, and when Nico was out of earshot he said, “That’s one of the most gorgeous men I’ve ever seen. He looks like a movie star. Is he?”
“No, he’s a law student. All of Nana’s grandsons are really attractive. Good genes.” I smiled at Zachary as I grasped the door handle. “Here goes nothing.”
When I opened the door, we both slipped inside and then just froze and stared. The huge room was absolutely beautiful. It had high ceilings and was bathed in sunlight thanks to a big row of windows, and someone had painted an absolutely perfect trompe l’oeil scene on the walls, a birch forest in winter. It was gorgeous and ethereal and such a weird contrast to the scene before us.
Four silver stripper poles were mounted on the right side of the room, three in a row, and one offset on a little stage. A tall, muscular guy with dark hair was demonstrating a move on that last pole. I recognized Skye’s husband Dare when he stopped spinning. I knew he was a dance instructor with a background in ballet, but judging by his moves, apparently he also moonlighted as a pole dancer, because he clearly knew what he was doing.
“Alright ladies,” Dare called over the music. “Take it slow now. Break it down just like we talked about.”
The other poles were each manned by two tiny women over seventy in colorful leotards. “There’s no way,” Zachary whispered to me. “They can’t possibly—” He stopped talking abruptly as three of the little old ladies stepped forward, grabbed the poles, and swung around in a rough approximation of what Dare had done. “I stand corrected,” he said.
Jessie stood at a little table beside the stage with a laptop that must have been connected to hidden speakers, keeping the beat by swaying his narrow hips to the music. After a minute, he glanced over his shoulder and exclaimed when he spotted us, “Hey there, guys!” He turned down the music a bit, jogged over and startled me by grabbing me in a hug. “Is it ten already? I lost track of time.” He then flashed a huge smile at my companion and stuck his hand out. “You must be Zachary. Chance texted me and told me he’d be bringing a friend. I’m Jessie, it’s great to meet you!”
“You too.” He stuck close to my side as he shook Jessie’s hand, his other palm on my lower back. I was surprised at how shy he seemed all of a sudden, not that I’d ever watched Zachary interact with anyone before.
“I’ll just be a few more minutes, the exercise class got off to a late start,” Jessie said.
“Hot damn,” Nana exclaimed, rushing over to us. She was dressed in a shiny, long-sleeved, hot pink leotard and matching legwarmers with purple tights. “Am I glad to see you boys! Come give us a hand.”
“With what exactly?” I asked as she grabbed Zachary and me by the sleeves and started pulling us over to the poles.
“We need some spotters. Dare said we couldn’t do the fancy stuff without ‘em, and my grandson Nico is too much of a stick-in-the-mud to help. He was going on about us breaking hips and whatnot. As if all old people are made of glass!” She turned to Zachary and gave him a quick head-to-toe assessment, then said, “You’re adorable. I don’t think we’ve met. Are you a gay homosexual like Chance, and if so, are you two boyfriends?”
“Um, yes to being gay, if that’s what you just asked me. And Chance is my best friend, so no to the boyfriend part,” he said, coloring slightly. “My name’s Zachary,” he tacked on as an afterthought.
“Glad to know you, Zachary. Any friend of Chance’s is a friend of mine,” Nana said. We’d reached the pole in the center and Nana put her hands on her hips and turned to Dare. “Okay, Captain Cautious, we got our spotters! Time to bust out that slick upside down move.”
“Wait, what are we supposed to be doing?” Zachary asked nervously.
“Don’t worry, I’ll team up with you, since you’re little like me,” Jessie told him. “Dare can take one pole and Chance can take the other. The ladies won’t be satisfied until they get to try out one of the more advanced moves, and once they do, we can get to the fun of tearing Chance’s car apart. You don’t have to be too concerned about them either, they’re actually pretty good at this stuff and probably won’t fall, but we need to be there just in case. It’s kind of like in cheerleading when they make a pyramid and some of the girls stay on the ground to catch the others, you know?” Zachary looked a bit panicked, but Jessie smiled at him and squeezed his shoulder. “It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
“Alright boys, let’s do this thing!” Nana exclaimed, rubbing her bony hands together. She then grabbed a pole and tried to shimmy up it, but only got about a foot off the floor.
“Go get ‘em, Stana!” The chubby little old lady standing beside us exclaimed. She was dressed in a turquoise leotard with lots of matching eye shadow, and pumped her fist in the air. “And be quick about it, I want my turn!”
“Keep your girdle on, Gladys,” Nana huffed. She managed to gain maybe one more foot in elevation, and then she said, “Shit, I’m not getting anywhere,” and hopped off the pole. “Show us again, Dare.”
He grabbed the pole beside him with both hands and twisted around effortlessly, so his legs were over his head. He then wrapped a calf around the pole and extended his arms over his head as he said, “Keep your hands down like this to catch yourself if you fall, and don’t go too high up.” The ladies weren’t listening at all. He was wearing a black cotton tank top and shorts, and the shirt fell around his shoulders, exposing his washboard abs. Immediately, Nana and her friends clustered around the stage, three of them putting on glasses to get a better look.
“The secret to this move is right here,” Nana said, coming up on stage and grabbing Dare’s ass with both hands. “That’s how he can hold on to the pole with just one leg. See how his buns are clenched up nice and tight?” Nana gave them a squeeze and said, “I forget what we were talking about, but this is the best exercise class I ever dreamt up. I think we should start working out seven days a week with Dare as our instructor. Maybe we can even do some water aerobics after the pole dancing. Do you own a Speedo, Dare? I don’t have a pool but I don’t think that part’s important.”
Dare chuckled as he jumped off the pole, landing on his feet like a cat. “Come on ladies, your turn. Let’s see what you can do.”
“Yeah, okay,” Nana said. “I’m gonna work that pole. Get ready, boys.” She climbed off the stage, took a run at the metal apparatus, and grabbed it with both hands. Somehow, she managed to fling herself upside down, wrapping her skinny legs around the pole. Her wig fell off, revealing a beige hair net, and she exclaimed, “Shit, my hair! Somebody give me a hand.” Gladys bustled over and grabbed the wig, jamming it onto Nana’s head sideways, up to her eyebrows. “Thanks, you’re a peach,” Nana told her. “Now everyone stand back, I’m gonna bust a move! There’s two more poles, girls, let’s show ‘em we still got it!” While she flung her legs out to the sides, Gladys ran at the pole to Nana’s right, and another tiny lady with a bright yellow leotard jumped on the pole to the left. Both ladies flipped upside down at the same time, and both their wigs fell off.
“I feel like I’m on a super weird acid trip,” Zachary whispered to me. When I glanced at him, he was smiling.
Nana wrapped her legs tightly around the pole and said, “Here comes my sexy move. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She stuck her arms out to the sides and began vigorously shaking her chest and shoulders. Her wig fell off again, but she didn’t seem to notice as she said, “It feels like my boobs are gonna flop out of the top of my leotard. If that happens, somebody stuff ‘em back in.” She then slid down until her back was on the ground, possi
bly accidentally, and jumped to her feet. “Big finish, girls, just like we practiced!”
Dare came over to us once all three ladies were on the ground and said, “For the record, I didn’t teach them this next part. It’s pretty well choreographed, though.”
All three of them grabbed their wigs and jammed them onto their heads, then rushed to get into position. They grabbed the poles with one hand, straddled them, and started twerking wildly while making spanking motions with their other hand. A bubble of delighted laughter burst from Zachary, and when they stopped and took a bow, he started applauding, along with the rest of us.
All six little ladies got together then and did a round of high-fives, and Nana exclaimed, “We make eighty look good!”
“I’m only seventy-five,” Gladys chimed in.
“Liar,” the tiny lady in yellow said, fluffing her wig (which was on backwards). “I got a look at your driver’s license when you got pulled over for speeding last week. It says you’re—”
“Shut it, Miriam,” Gladys interrupted. “You’re not the only one with tales to tell. Two words: Tampa and margaritas!”
“What happens in Tampa stays in Tampa!” Miriam shrieked.
While Nana’s cohorts bickered, we joined Jessie beside the stage, where he was packing up his laptop. “Sorry for the delay,” he said. “It’s really easy to get sidetracked around here. Is your car in the driveway?”
“No, there was a big, pink Lincoln Continental in the driveway beside Nana’s limo, so we parked down the street,” I told him.
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot that Gladys fired her driver and drove herself here. No worries though, we can just hang out while the ladies have their Bloody Marys, unless you guys are in a hurry.”
“I’m not. What about you, Zachary?” I asked, and he shook his head.
A phone on the tabletop started ringing, and Jessie glanced at the screen before shouting across the room, “Dare, it’s your husband. Want me to get it?”
“Sure.” He had a little old lady hanging off each arm, fondling his biceps.
Jessie poked at the screen and said, “Hey Skye, you’re on speaker. Dare is currently in a Nanette sandwich.”
“Hey, Jessie. So, um, this is my one phone call,” Skye said, and everyone in the room stopped talking and turned toward the phone. “I got arrested for trespassing. I’m at the same police station where Nana and I got taken that one time. Dare, do you think you could come and bail me out?”
“Of course! I thought you were just going to the junkyard to buy some scrap metal, though. What happened?”
“I got distracted by the most awesome piece of metal ever. It was sticking out of a dumpster, so I figured it was fair game. Problem was, that dumpster was behind a great, big chain link fence, and going after it in broad daylight on a weekday? Not the best call ever.”
“Skye’s a sculptor,” I explained to Zachary, then called, “Hi, Skye. It’s Chance. Sorry you got arrested.”
“My own fault,” he said. “I rang the buzzer and no one answered, so I figured I’d just conduct some routine trash removal services for their company. Turned out the place wasn’t deserted after all. I’m not sure what that company does exactly, but apparently it involves guzzling steroids and having your sense of humor surgically removed.”
“I’ll come with Dare to bail you out, Skye,” Nana yelled from across the room. “Are you okay? Are you the victim of police brutality? Have they violated your rights as a Gay Homosexual American?”
“No Nana, I’m fine. The cop who processed me was kind of a douchebag, but it’s no big deal.”
Nana yelled, “I knew it, they’re violating his rights! Jessie, fire up the limo. Dare, Chance, and cute friend of Chance’s whose name I forgot, you’re with me. Girls, half of you come with us, the other half go with Gladys in the Lincoln. We need to get down there pronto, all of us, and show The Man that we got our eyes on him. Sit tight, Skye, we’re on the way! I just need to grab Nico, he’s the closest thing we got to an in-house lawyer.”
She ran from the room with all of her girlfriends right behind her, and Jessie picked up the phone and headed for the door as he said, “Looks like we’re all coming. We’ll be there in twenty.”
“That’s not necessary,” Skye said. “I just needed Dare to bail me out.”
“I’m on my way,” his husband said as he fell into step with us. “You really okay, Skye?”
“I’m perfectly fine. Can you try to talk Nana out of storming the police station?”
“That’s not gonna happen,” Jessie chimed in. “You know how she is. It’d be like trying to force a cork back into an erupting champagne bottle. She won’t stop until she sees you’re okay with her own eyes.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I gotta go, they’re telling me my time’s up. See you soon,” Skye said. A moment later, the line went dead.
As we all jogged down the stairs, Jessie asked, “You guys are coming along, right? We should all back Nana up.”
I was going to decline, since a police station was hardly my favorite place to be. But then I glanced at Zachary and he said, “Can we? I want to see what Nana does next.” There was a sparkle in his dark eyes that I hadn’t seen before. I nodded and we all picked up the pace to catch up to the eighty-year-old.
*****
The limo and the big, pink Lincoln both parked illegally right in front of the police station, which was an interesting choice. Nana was the first one out of the vehicle, throwing the door open before Jessie brought the car to a complete stop. “Wow,” Zachary said as we stepped out onto the sidewalk, “Nana’s really concerned about this Skye person. Is he one of her relatives?”
“No, they’re not related, but she sort of adopts stray gay guys, maybe because they remind her of her grandsons,” I said.
“She has a really big heart,” Jessie said. He came around the car from the driver’s side just as Nico, frazzled and barefoot, stepped out of the back of the limo. Apparently Nana had plucked her grandson from his room with no time to get himself together. Jessie added, “She also has a really big .44 in the handbag she grabbed on her way out the door. I really hope she doesn’t get the idea to brandish it in the police station. That would be bad.” Nico’s eyes went wide at that, and he took off at a sprint after his grandmother.
“Oh my God,” Zachary said with a little, lopsided smile as we went after them. “Best granny ever.”
All hell had broken loose inside the station, just in the forty seconds or so that it took us to get inside. Nana was standing on the front desk, and she and Nico were engaged in a tug-of-war with her purse while all of her girlfriends yelled at once. The big African American cop behind the desk was trying to talk her down, as if that would work, and Dare muttered, “Wow, that’s….”
“Pretty typical,” Jessie finished for him. He smiled and added, “It’s so awesome when she goes full-on Norma Rae.”
The lobby of the police station was filling with cops, many of whom were trying to herd the leotarded little old ladies to the seating area. While that was going on, Nico finally won the tug-of-war, staggering backwards when Nana let go of her purse abruptly and turned her attention to yelling at the cop behind the counter. Nico bumped into me, knocking me off my feet before awkwardly righting himself.
A big hand reached down to help me up. I ran my gaze up and over the police uniform until I met a pair of vividly blue eyes. Finn looked grave, a little frown line between his eyebrows.
I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet, and then we just stared at each other for a long moment. My gaze dropped to his full lips, and I remembered the way he’d looked while sucking me just a few hours before. My cock stirred at the memory, and I licked my lips without thinking about what I was doing. That, or maybe something else, made the frown line vanish, and he drew a deep breath.
I had no idea how much time passed as we stood there staring at each other. “What are you doing here?” he finally managed.
“We were at
Nana’s house and kind of got swept up in a field trip.”
All of a sudden he realized he was still holding my hand, and let go as he stepped back from me. “I need to get back to work,” he mumbled, then turned, cut straight through the mayhem in the reception area and disappeared into the back of the building.
“What the hell was that about?” Zachary asked. I turned to look at him, and he raised an eyebrow at me.
“Oh, um, I know him. That’s Christian’s brother-in-law. You saw his photo in the wedding pictures I took.”
“The guy with the sad eyes, I remember,” Zachary said. “Still doesn’t explain that weird little moment.”
“Just, you know, I wasn’t expecting to see someone I knew, especially in uniform.” I really couldn’t offer more explanation right then.
Zachary nodded at that. “The uniform always makes me uncomfortable, too. I’m glad I came along, though. It would have been a shame to miss that.” He grinned and tilted his head in Nana’s direction. She was still up on the front counter, and was using her wig to swat at a cop who was trying to get her down. Meanwhile, I noticed Dare over to the left, calmly arranging his husband’s bail with another officer.
“I’m surprised they haven’t arrested her yet,” I said.
“They have to catch her first,” my friend pointed out.
Nana shimmied off the counter and took off at a run into the back of the police station, yelling, “I’m coming for you, Skye! Ain’t nobody gonna violate your rights as a Gay Homosexual American on my watch!” She disappeared from view behind a sea of dark blue uniforms. We could still track her progress though, because she kept grabbing papers off the desks she passed and throwing them in the air, possibly to distract her pursuers.