American Honey

by Caitlin Ricci

  “I’m sorry. For what I did. And since we’re trying to be friends, I wanted to try to make an effort here.”

  He was starting to get defensive. I got that. I’d been on eggshells around him, too. I was hurt, and angry, and trying to be understanding. But then there was still that nagging thing at the back of my mind that reminded me that he’d had sex with another guy while saying that he loved me. At least they’d only ever gone to hotel rooms or the other guy’s house. At least that’s what Travis had said. I’d still had our old mattress taken to the dump that same afternoon and I’d tossed the sheets. Now Travis slept in the guest room and I had a brand-new mattress. He’d paid for the mattress, which was the least he could do in my opinion. No, actually... The least he could do was to move out already.

  “So that’s what this is? You’re asking me about work tonight as a friend and not a hurt, jealous ex?” I took a deep breath as he nodded. Fine. I could attempt that, too. “There’s this twink that’s been coming in regularly for a little while now. Tonight I found out he’s a beekeeper.”

  “Is he cute?” Travis asked. The question was strained. He didn’t really want to know.

  Dillon was half his age and actually quite cute. I was thirty-eight, but Travis was a little younger than me. Dillon was easily the kind of guy I would have loved to have on his knees in front of me. But saying any of that would have been just to hurt Travis and I didn’t actually want to hurt him. I wasn’t trying to be cruel.

  “He’s okay,” I said, sparing Travis from the truth.

  Travis gave me a little smile, like he knew that I’d lied to protect him. Like I’d done every other time that he’d asked me if some guy at the club was better looking than him. Or if I wanted them more than him. There had been guys that sure, I would have loved to have screwed like a lot of the dancers did there. But I only danced, although I’d recently allowed more touching than I had when I was dating Travis. I wasn’t sure what I would have allowed with Dillon, but I was almost disappointed that he hadn’t wanted more than a dance. Maybe if I’d been more honest with Travis, maybe if I’d told him the truth once or twice about the guys at the club, then he wouldn’t have thought I was giving every guy who ordered a private dance a private blowjob as well.

  “Did you need anything else?” This whole friends thing was new and uncomfortable territory for us. I didn’t know if I was able to do it. But I was definitely willing to try. I loved him too much to cut him out of my life completely. I just really wanted him to move out so that we could start being friends and work from there.

  Travis shook his head, but then he faltered as if he wanted to say more. “Can we share a bed? Just tonight? Look, I’m not asking you for sex here. I miss sleeping next to you. I suck at sleeping alone. It’s depressing. Please?”

  I wanted to tell him no. I wanted to tell him that sleeping in the guest room was what he deserved for letting some other guy into his ass. But I’d never been good at telling him no when he tacked on a ‘please.’ I pursed my lips, hating my answer even before I’d given it to him. “Sure. We’re wearing clothes though. I’m not spooning you naked. We’re friends, that’s it.”

  I hoped he started to understand that soon enough because reminding him all the time was exhausting for me. I hated that I’d missed having him in my bed, too. I also hated having him there though, too. I just wanted an easy answer, just one simple solution to this complicated mess, but there wasn’t any and, as we fell asleep together that night, I couldn’t even bring myself to tell Travis not to put his arm around my stomach as he curled up behind me.

  * * * *

  I didn’t see Dillon at work on Saturday night. I didn’t really expect to either. He was a regular, but even regulars took a night or two off sometimes. It wasn’t a big deal. I danced my set, took a break, and got ready for my next round. Me and a couple of the other guys danced for fifteen minutes on and then fifteen off where we could give private dances if we wanted to, or we could take a break if we weren’t feeling up to it. Most of the time though, guys walked around between the tables and flirted.

  That’s what I was doing when Dillon came in at close to midnight. It was later than usual for him and he looked tired. I was in a pair of mesh shorts. They didn’t hide much, but strangely I still felt more dressed than when I walked around with my ass hanging out in a thong.

  “Hey,” I said, leaning against his table.

  He gave me a sleepy smile. “Hi. I’m beat.”

  “Beekeeping hard on Saturdays?” I joked with him. Really I had no idea. I assumed there were people who worked with bees. After all, honey had to come from somewhere and it didn’t make sense that people would go around with vacuums in the woods trying to suck up honey from any old hive they found hanging from a tree. But I’d never actually met anyone who worked with bees before.

  He laughed a little. “Not really. I don’t actually do much each day until I do extractions, and that’s only twice a year. I’m tired tonight because it was game night with my family and big families can be exhausting.”

  If he said so. I really wouldn’t have known. My fifteen minutes was almost over though. “I need to get back on stage. Any song requests? We’ve got all the usual ones. Pour Some Sugar on Me is of course a well-known classic stripper song.”

  “I don’t listen to a lot of dance music, actually. Most of the stuff I listen to is strictly in the rock category. Like Give in To Me and that’s probably not much fun to dance to. But that’s what I was listening to when I pulled in.”

  He was right, that wasn’t a good song to strip to. But then again, I wasn’t really stripping anymore. This late in the night I was more dancing than anything else. “I know something you might like then actually. It’s slower though.”

  Dillon looked interested as I moved away from him. I hadn’t danced to this song for anyone but Travis, but since he wasn’t my boyfriend anymore, I figured he didn’t get to care even if he later found out. Addicted by Saving Abel was a decent song to dance to, but going slow used my muscles differently, and allowed me to tease more than just bounce around the stage.

  The song was about a girl going down on a guy, but the idea of a blowjob was enough to go on for most of the guys in the crowd I was sure. So, I got it put on and I was smiling as the music started and I got to actually dance to it and use the slower, more seductive beat and suggestive lyrics to really tease the guys in the audience.

  And, there was Dillon. I kept looking to him, seeing how he was doing. Maybe even seeing what he thought of my song choice. He nodded along with the beat and smiled back at me. Part of me got a little thrill knowing that he liked some of the same music as me. Part of me reminded myself not to care what a patron thought. I was just there for fun and cash. There was no reason to think that a sweet guy I’d had a pretty quick connection with would lead anywhere, especially since I was still dealing with my ex-boyfriend living with me. I needed to do something about Travis before I even thought about going on a date with anyone.

  Not that I thought Dillon would date me. Or that I especially wanted to date him. He was a little young for my tastes. And probably a bit naive too. But he was nice to look at as he sat there alone at the table drinking something dark like whiskey as he smiled over at me.

  I was in a pop music kind of mood after that song, so the rest of my fifteen minutes were spent shaking my ass to Demi Lovato and Meghan Trainor. I didn’t pick the rest of my music, but I wasn’t exactly complaining either. All I needed was a good beat to really get into the groove. I didn’t spend a lot of time on the pole like most of the guys did. Most of what I did was just dancing around and teasing the guys at the front of the stage. I had fun and I liked knowing that the guys watching me did, too.

  I finished out my set to a remake of Dirty Diana by Shaman’s Harvest. It was a song about a man who cheated on his wife or girlfriend so I didn’t exactly love it, but it was still something I could dance to. And by the smug smiles of the guys watchin
g me I was pretty sure that the song resonated with them on some level. I wondered how many of them would cheat on whoever cared about them if I walked up to them and offered to be theirs for the night, like the woman in the song did.

  I didn’t want to think about it.

  That’s why, when I got off the stage, instead of making my usual rounds, I went right to Dillon. He didn’t have a boyfriend at home waiting for him, at least he’d said that he didn’t, and unlike all the guys around us, I actually believed him when he said it.

  He was on his second whiskey looking drink when I came up to him. “What’s in the glass?”

  “Whiskey and honey,” he answered me immediately.

  I smirked and wondered how much of his life, his tastes, and his interests revolved around bees. “How long have you had a bee farm?”

  “Apiary. A bee farm is an apiary.”

  He’d corrected me, which normally I found kind of obnoxious, but he’d said it so quietly, like he was trying to be helpful, and not like he was trying to show off, that I didn’t actually mind. “Apiary. Okay. So how long?”

  “I got my first hives as a birthday present when I was twelve, so about nine years now.”

  If I’d been drinking anything right then, I would have choked on it. “So you’re twenty-one?” I needed to hear him say it.

  “Yeah. Twenty-one and three months.” He sipped his drink like he enjoyed whiskey often. Like he probably knew how it was made and just how much honey to put in to make it just sweet enough without overpowering the bite of alcohol in it. When I’d been twenty-one, I’d been stupid. I couldn’t help but think that he probably was, too.

  It wasn’t so much the age difference between us that bothered me. After all, I’d danced for him, I wasn’t dating him. Far from it by any stretch of the imagination. But I did wonder at how similar he was to the heavy drinking reckless young man I’d been at his age.

  “Be careful with these,” I said as I touched the side of his cold glass.

  He looked like he didn’t know what I was talking about for a moment, but then he nodded. “I am. But thank you.”

  When I’d been his age, I’d downed any cheap drink offered to me. Not a nine-dollar cocktail. Maybe he really did know what he was doing. But then I remembered, I’d usually seen him drinking beer. “Why the change tonight?”

  “Change?”

  “Normally you drink beer.”

  He looked at his drink like he was trying to figure out what I’d said, and it would fill in the secrets for him. Then he shrugged before looking back up at me. “I hadn’t realized that you noticed.”

  “I notice everything.” It wasn’t really a lie. I noticed what he did. That was about it.

  Someone sat down near us at the next table over. It had only been empty for maybe a few minutes, but now someone had taken it over. And I knew who it was without having to look at him fully.

  I’d loved Travis for so many years that just watching him sit down was enough for me to know it was him.

  “Enjoy the show,” I told Dillon, already shifting away, despite myself. I wanted to keep talking to him. I wanted to find out more about apiaries and bees. I was suddenly curious. I’d met doctors and lawyers and a lot of people who lied about their jobs. I was used to guys making up things to seem more interesting or important than they really were.

  But Dillon had a quietness about him. It made me believe him more than I had anyone else who had ever talked to me at the club before.

  I wasn’t sure how to react to Travis suddenly being at the club. In the five years I’d known him, he’d never once come to see me work. We’d come to the club together a few times to support my friends or when the club did a charity night. But he’d never come while I’d been working. I didn’t like that he was here now, but he hadn’t done anything to be kicked out and I wasn’t going to cause a scene and try to get him thrown out just because I was uncomfortable with my ex coming to watch me dance and flirt with other guys.

  Maybe he thought that this would prove what he’d believed all along. That I was screwing other guys right underneath his nose. Just like he’d done to me.

  I was going to just go to the stage and ignore him. But I couldn’t make myself do that. I had to know what point he thought he was going to make by being here.

  “Hi. What are you doing here?” I quietly asked him. No one needed to know who he was to me or what we were talking about right then.

  “I wanted to see you work.” He looked to Dillon. Then back to me. He already looked so hurt and all he’d seen was me talking to another guy. “Is that the beekeeper?”

  “You don’t actually want to be here. You don’t want to see me up there on stage. Go home, Travis. Please. Don’t hurt yourself this way and don’t make things difficult for me here at work. You know how much this job means to me.”

  “Yeah. More than us. I know.”

  I walked away at his words. They were meant to hurt me. Why he was so upset right now, even more than usual, I had no idea. I didn’t need to know what was going on with him.

  I got back on stage to the sounds of the crowd cheering me on. I flirted, I danced. I barely heard the music and I was sure that it wasn’t my best performance of the night. I couldn’t concentrate with Travis there. I kept looking to him and saw how miserable he was as the guys playfully swooned over me and begged me for a kiss. That was how they were every night.

  Travis had never seen me like this. I tried to understand his pain. I was practically naked and surrounded by guys wanting me. But I’d been a stripper when he’d met me at the bookstore down the street from my old apartment. Maybe he’d thought it was just a phase or something I was doing to make ends meet until something better came along. But it wasn’t.

  Once that set was over, I went into the back. I didn’t want to see Travis again right then and I couldn’t exactly have fun and flirt with other guys in front of him. I wished he’d never come. Or that I could just go home now and not finish out the rest of the shift. But then he would be there at the house with me. I hated that he’d invaded my space just by coming to see me work. I wondered why he’d done it.

  Five minutes before I was set to go back on stage, I came out of the back-dressing-rooms to confront him. It wasn’t the smartest choice I’d ever made, and I shouldn’t have wanted to get to the bottom of this while I was at work. But I couldn’t focus while Travis was there, and I needed to be able to focus when I danced. Otherwise I was just going to be a sloppy mess on stage, and I couldn’t allow that. My boss deserved better from me and so did the guys watching me dance.

  “Why are you here?” I demanded. I tried to keep my voice as quiet as possible.

  Travis looked no less hurt, but he also looked angry too. “How many of them have you screwed since you dumped me?”

  Was that really what this was about? Of course it was. Because Travis hadn’t trusted me when we were dating and now he apparently thought I was just getting it on left and right now that I was single.

  “Not a single one.” I spat out the words. I hope he understood them perfectly despite the loud music and the cheers from the guys closest to the stage. “For the past five years, you were the only guy I loved. The only one I cared about. The only one I had sex with. The only one I went down on. The only one that I shared my bed, my heart and my life with and you threw that all away just so that you could get back at me for something I never even did. Get out of here, Travis. Don’t speak to me when I get back to my house tonight. Better yet, get a hotel room for the night. But don’t stay here and don’t you dare come back here again.”

  He looked like I’d hit him. Good. I was glad that I’d hurt him. He’d already broken my heart. He didn’t get to take away the one thing left that I truly enjoyed in this world, too.

  I walked away from him and, when I got back on stage, he was gone.

  Chapter Three

  Dillon

  After what I’d seen from Cal and the
other guy, I took some time away from the club. I’d heard too much and seen too much. My fantasy was broken. Cal was no longer some sexy dancer I liked to stare at and dreamed of touching. He was human and he was hurting. I knew pain when I heard it. I had a big family. I’d seen plenty of break ups. I’d been the shoulder to cry on at least a dozen times. Seeing heartache wasn’t new to me. But seeing Cal like that made him far too real and human for me to continue to fantasize about him.

  I hadn’t seen him in almost three weeks when I spotted him at a coffee shop. My brother’s Jeep was at the dealership getting an oil change and I wasn’t really a fan of the coffee they had there, or the daytime talk shows they played. I wanted tea and some softer music. It was supposed to rain later that afternoon and the wind was picking up. The coffee shop was right on the corner. I didn’t have to walk for more than five minutes to get there.

  And suddenly there was Cal, dressed simply in a pair of jeans and a light jacket. He hadn’t seen me when I came in. I didn’t think he had anyway. And when I got my peppermint tea, he was still looking at the window as if he was lost in what he was seeing.

  I stood there against the counter not sure what I should do. I knew him, but not really. Not enough to go up to him and say hi anyway. I didn’t think I did at least. But not saying anything to him felt weird, too.

  I pursed my lips and went over to him. There was a comfortable chair beside him, and I put my hand on it. “Hi. Can I join you?”

  He turned and looked up at me. Cal seemed uncertain at first, and I regretted my decision to bother him, instantly. “If you’re waiting for someone, I can go sit somewhere else,” I quickly offered.

  Cal shook his head. “It’s not that. I’m sorry, I was a little lost in my own thoughts there for a moment. I didn’t even hear you come up. But yes, please, sit with me. I haven’t seen you lately.”