Company Ink

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Some of our patrons prefer to let their,” she paused, giving me a brilliant smile before making air quotes, “‘companions’ shop while they explore other activities.” She leaned forward on the bar, revealing a ridiculous amount of cleavage, and pursed her ruby red lips. “Are there other activities you wish to explore?” She licked her lips. “Because everything is on the table.”

  My heart started racing as I stared at her. As much as I hated to admit it, I let a couple possibilities play through my mind.

  “Is that so?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her as I took another sip of my drink. It was just this side of perfect.

  “Yes,” she purred, looking me over. “You are in a bar inside a store that obviously caters to a very exclusive and discerning clientele … and we like to keep our clients happy.”

  “Great.” I nodded to her. “Get me another drink?” I popped the brandied cherry into my mouth, and as I chewed, I realized it was one of the best cherries I’d ever had. Then again, it was the only brandied cherry I’d ever had. Well, that was definitely going to change.

  “Sure,” she said, giving me a devilish smile before turning to make my drink. Watching her do it was just this side of amazing. Hell, seeing her shake her ass while slowly muddling a bitters-soaked sugar cube nearly gave me a hard-on.

  “Wanna trade?” she asked as I finished my drink and pushed it across the bar. Audrey held out my fresh one, making me think she’d timed it to when she thought I’d finish.

  “That would be almost as lovely as you,” I said, taking the drink from her.

  “Do you like it?” Her cheeks flushed as I took a sip. Hot damn. It was even better than the first one.

  “Sure do.” I smiled as the whiskey melted across my tongue. “I may need to steal you away from here.”

  “Well, part of it was the whiskey,” she said, gesturing at the whiskeys displayed behind her, and it must have been apparent I didn’t know anything about them because she elaborated after a moment of silence. “The one you’re drinking now costs a hundred bucks a shot.” She flashed her dentists’ wet dream of a smile at me. “And it’s not even the best thing in here.”

  “Oh?” I raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s the best thing back there?”

  “Oh, that’s easy.” She leaned forward across the bar, her eyes meeting mine as she casually unbuttoned the top button on her blouse. “Me, of course.”

  “And do you like giving blowjobs?” I replied as she removed another button.

  “I do,” she said, licking her lips in one slow, sensual movement. “It’s one of my most favorite things.”

  “And do you want to give me a blowjob?”

  “Yes.” She looked me up and down. “Most definitely.”

  “Well, ring me up then,” I said, finishing my drink.

  “Oh, you misunderstand,” she said, coming around the bar.

  “I do?” I asked, suddenly a bit confused.

  “Yes.” She put her hand on my leg and slowly slid it up my pants. “You don’t have to pay for me.” She dropped to her knees in front of me. “I value you as a customer and want you to be happy.”

  12

  “I think your friend might be ready for you,” Audrey said after hanging up the phone. “Do you want to go see what she wants, or should I have someone bring her here?” She handed me a new drink.

  “Let me finish my drink, and I’ll go,” I said, taking a sip, and like the one she’d made for me after finishing up with our other activities, it was ten kinds of perfect. “Say, is there a way to leave you a tip?”

  “No.” She smiled brightly at me. “A tip isn’t necessary. I’m well taken care of, but it’s sweet that you’d ask. Is there anything else I can get for you?”

  “I think I’m good. Do you know where Ronnie is, by the way?” I took another sip of my drink, letting the whiskey roll over my tongue and savoring it. Damn, she was good. This was art. Better than art. This was a fucking masterpiece, and before I knew it, I’d downed a third of it.

  “She’s in the leather room. That’s one of the best rooms here.” Audrey gave me a sly smile as she began mixing a new one, though I wasn’t sure who it was for.

  “Is that so?” I asked, no clue what they sold in the leather room. Admittedly, I was feeling a bit put off because there were a ton of rooms for women, and only a couple for men and they all just contained suits. That said, my new suit was fucking amazing. I’d have to take Marty and the girls here. They’d love it.

  “Oh yes. If she’s there, you should hurry. I bet she looks great.” Audrey winked at me and made a shooing gesture before knocking back a sip of the drink she’d made. Then she met my eyes and put a finger to her lips. “You won’t tell, right?”

  “Nope. Drink all you want.” I looked at my drink. It was still half full. “Say, can I take this outside?”

  “Outside, outside? No.” She frowned. “But into the rest of the store? Sure.” She glanced from my face to the glass. “Actually …” She tapped her chin in thought. “Maybe I could put it in one of those to-go coffee cups?”

  “I just meant out into the store.” I smiled at her and clinked the air in front of myself with it. “There is no way this will last long enough to even get outside. You’re truly a master of … many talents.”

  “Thanks.” She looked me up and down. “It’s always nice when someone appreciates my skills.”

  I laughed as I made my way to the speakeasy’s exit. I definitely appreciated Audrey’s skills, and before I could stop myself, I glanced over my shoulder. “Hey, if you ever find yourself needing a job. I would love to have you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, and as she waved at me, I got the impression she meant it. That was good because when this whole pen bearer business was over, and that asshole was locked firmly in a dungeon somewhere, I was definitely going to talk to Skye about onboarding her. After all, every evil lair needed a solid bartender.

  “My life is crazy,” I said, shaking my head as I moved into the lace room. It was huge, easily the size of my old apartment, and even though it had twenty-foot ceilings, it somehow managed to fill two of the walls from floor to ceiling with ball gowns. The third wall was all lingerie, and I found myself taking mental snapshots of each outfit as I passed by more lace than I knew existed in the entire world.

  “Yeah, I definitely need to take the girls here,” I said to myself, pausing to look at a black lace number that I just knew would really look great against Maggie’s pale skin. “Definitely.”

  Making a mental note to buy the piece when I checked out, I made my way toward the leather room. Only, I didn’t see Ronnie anywhere. Like the lace room, it was floor to ceiling with leather dresses, pants, and tops, with one wall reserved for some very kinky seeming lingerie. Stuff I just knew Miss Montgomery would love.

  That said, there was no Ronnie to be found. Frowning, I gave the room one last once-over before calling out. “Ronnie, are you here?”

  “Roger, is that you?” I heard her muffled response from my right, and as I turned, I found myself staring at the row of changing rooms along the wall, each one cordoned off with red curtains.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” I said, heading toward them. “They said you needed me?”

  “I, um, wanted to show you something.” The curtain to the room in the center ruffled and then she stuck her head out, and let me just say, she hadn’t skimped on the hair and makeup.

  I swallowed hard. I’d known she was a former Miss Tennessee, but hot damn did she clean up nice under the care of professionals.

  “Can you tell me if I look okay in this outfit?” Her cheeks flushed. “I’ve not worn anything like this in a long time.”

  “Sure. Although, I’m sure you look amazing because it’s, well, you.” I smiled at her, and she blushed again. “Come out here, and I’ll give you my honest opinion.”

  “I’m a little embarrassed.” Her gaze swept around the room. “I know there’s no one out there, but maybe you could m
aybe come in here?”

  “Right, um, sure.” I drained my drink and set it down on a table filled with hand mirrors. They seemed a touch excessive since the walls had more than a few mirrors, but then again, I wasn’t a girl. Maybe they needed to see the outfits from other angles?

  “Good.” She ducked back behind the curtain, pulling it open just enough for me to enter as I approached.

  Only, as I slipped past the curtain, I found Ronnie standing there wearing only her birthday suit. Her hard nipples jutted through the air as my eyes roamed over the voluptuous curves of her body.

  “Well, I have to say, I really like this outfit—”

  The rest of my words were cut off as she put my hands on her breasts and pressed her mouth to mine.

  13

  “Perfect,” I said, making a little twirling motion with my fingers as Ronnie emerged wearing a red tank top under a thin black jacket that was little more than a pair of long sleeves. A red skirt with painted hearts was cinched around her waist with a large black ribbon almost making her look like a hip K-pop star only, well, not Korean.

  “Really? You think so,” she said, biting her lip. “You don’t think I’m ten years too old to pull this off?”

  “Not at all,” I said, moving next to her and putting one hand on her waist, intertwining the other into her fingers. “I think you look perfect.”

  “If you say so—” I cut off her words by shifting my weight. Sending her into a spin that caused her skirt to flutter around her legs, I reeled her in so my chest was pressed to her back.

  “Trust me,” I said, leaning in to kiss her neck. “You look amazing.”

  “I believe you.” Her breath was warm against my cheek as she gazed back at me and wiggled her butt. I could feel the heat of her perfect body pressed against me, and as my hand on her waist started to move up her stomach, I heard a cough to my left.

  Color rose on Ronnie’s cheeks as I looked to my left and found the blue-haired girl from the entrance watching us with a bemused expression on her face. “Will you be needing anything else, sir?”

  “A few more minutes,” I said, glancing at Ronnie who stood there, cheeks flushed, though that didn’t stop her from wiggling her butt against me. She just tried to be subtle about it. “Oh, and there’s some other stuff I want you to have wrapped up for me.”

  “Excellent, sir. I’ll be at the front if you need me.” With that, she spun on her heel and disappeared back into the hallway.

  “Well, where were we?” Ronnie said, spinning on my arms and pressing her lips to mine again.

  The tear gas canister rolled into the room so suddenly that by the time I realized what was happening, it was already filling the room. Moving as quickly as I could, I pulled us behind one of the solid marble cubes holding up the mannequins throughout the room. As my eyes began to burn from the gas, gunfire ripped into the wall behind where we’d been, shredding the dresses and sending bits of leather and debris raining down on top of us. Bullets pinged off the surface of the stone while Ronnie cried out in shock and panic, but that was okay. I could take care of this.

  Only, I could barely see as the tear gas assaulted my senses while Ronnie cried out next to me. Worse, my throat burned, and as I tried to take a deep breath to speak a voice command, I realized I was an idiot.

  Tear gas burned down my throat like molten lead as I tried to control my anger. I could hear people starting to move into the room. If I stayed here, they would get to me, and then I’d be forced to fight them blind as a bat and unable to use my voice commands.

  Still, I could handle it. Hell, I’d handled worse. Flicking my wrist, the pen slid from the bodysuit beneath my clothing and into my hand, and I wrote a quick line to get us out of here.

  A trap door opens beneath us.

  As I watched the line solidify into truth through blurry eyes and the floor started to give way, I wrote another line.

  The mannequins are robots that attack our pursuers.

  Then we were falling.

  We slammed into a pile of boxes in the storage room beneath the leather room, breaking our fall, but just barely. I lay there for a moment, body hurt but not broken as I tried to remember what it was like to breathe without the air tasting like fire.

  Forcing myself to think, I gripped my pen and wrote a new line.

  I’m healed from the effects of the tear gas.

  As the effects immediately dissipated, I followed it up with a new line.

  The trap door vanishes.

  Overhead, the path down here sealed off, but I knew it was only temporary. They’d be coming down here already, and I had no way of knowing how many of them it would be. Worse, Ronnie was still hurt, but at least I was fighting strong again.

  “The fire sprinklers open up, dousing Ronnie with enough water to wash away the tear gas,” I said as I crept toward the door.

  Overhead, the fire sprinklers let loose, raining down on Ronnie, but I ignored it because I was too busy grabbing hold of the barrel of the M16 that poked through the doorway on the far side of the room. I jerked it hard, sending the user stumbling into the room before slamming my elbow into the side of his ballistic helmet.

  Pain ran down my arm as the person stumbled sideways under the force of the blow, leaving the M16 in my hands. Flipping it around, I pointed it at the person.

  “Who do you work for?” I cried as my attacker shook his head, trying to reorient himself after the blow. “Tell me, or I’ll blow you the fuck away.”

  “It doesn’t much matter what he tells you,” a voice to my left growled. As I turned my head, I saw a huge black man with a Mohawk on his head, a cigar between his teeth, and a gold chain around his neck eye me like I was a Christmas ham.

  Then, before I could say anything, he pointed his .50 Desert Eagle at my chest and pulled the trigger.

  14

  The bullet slammed into my chest with the force of a wrecking ball, sending me sprawling backward. I hit the ground hard on my shoulders, my chest aching like never before. My vision went a bit blurry, and as I lay there trying to remember what it felt like to breathe, my hands went instinctively to where the wound should have been, but instead of finding my blood spurting into the air, I found something quite different.

  The bullet was lodged in the jumpsuit I was wearing beneath my clothes, and as my fingers brushed against it, the hunk of flattened metal dislodged from my chest and hit the ground beside me with a clink.

  The bodysuit had saved me.

  Hot damn.

  “Neat trick,” the Mr. T reject snarled, pointing his gun at me again as more soldiers joined him in the stairwell. “What happens if I shoot you in the head?”

  “It’ll be hard to find out since your gun is empty,” I grunted, but instead of hearing the ping that let me know the pen had done its job, I heard only his laughter.

  “Yeah, I dunno what you’re trying to do, but your pen won’t work on me.” He fired, and I somehow managed to get my arms up in time. The bullet slammed into my forearm hard enough to make me smack myself in the face, but it did little more. The bullet simply plopped uselessly to the ground even though the kinetic force behind a large round was more than enough to shatter bone and dislocate limbs even with the best body armor on the market. Cami had truly outdone herself, and I made a mental note to thank her as I scrambled to my feet.

  Still, it was time to focus. If my pen wasn’t going to work on him directly, well, that meant two things. One, this asshole worked for a pen bearer, and two, I’d just have to improvise.

  The gorilla fired again, and the bullet caught me in the shoulder. Only, instead of resisting, I let the momentum spin me around. I hit the ground hard behind a pile of boxes as I mouthed a voice command.

  “The entire stairwell is filled to the brim with angry fire ants.”

  A scream of pain filled my ears, followed by gunshots that were aimed at everywhere but at me. As bullets slammed into the walls of the stairwell, I leaped to my feet in time to see several men
writhing under the onslaught of so many fire ants, I couldn’t even make out their details beneath the mass of insects.

  Unfortunately, Mr. T had somehow escaped the stairwell, and while he had a few ants clinging to him, he’d leaped under the fire sprinklers I’d used to wash off Ronnie. Worse, he had his gun pointed at the former Miss Tennessee.

  “So, here’s how it’s gonna be, Pen Bearer,” he snapped as he shoved the barrel of the weapon into her side while clamping his other hand over her mouth and pulling her flush against him like a human shield. “You’re going to do exactly what I say, and if you try that again, I’ll wax your girl.” He gave me a huge grin that flashed white teeth the size of quarters.

  “Right.” I glared at him, letting him think he’d won. “I won’t write anything else. Just let her go.”

  “No, can do.” He nodded to me. “Lay on your stomach and put your hands flat on the back of your head. You make even one move toward your pen, and I’ll kill her. Understand?”

  “Yeah,” I said, doing as he asked. I dropped to the floor and lay on my belly before putting my hands against my head.

  And, like I’d expected, the moment I’d complied, he marched Ronnie toward me, one hand holding a gleaming pair of handcuffs.

  “I’m gonna handcuff you now.” He put his knee on my back while keeping the gun pointed at Ronnie, then proceeded to handcuff me. “Not so tough now, are you?” he asked, pulling me to my feet, and turning me toward the ant-covered stairwell. He paused a moment. “Guess we’ll wait for that to die down.”

  Instead of responding, I stomped hard on his foot. As my heel came down on his toes, he cried out in pain and buckled forward, which was unfortunate because I was swinging my head backward. My nose connected sharply with the bridge of his nose, causing him to stumble backward.

  Blood streamed down his face as Ronnie tore free of his grip. Perfect.