Over the Hill White Knight

Colorado had gotten weird since I’d been there last.

Not bad-weird, just weird. When I’d served along the Front Range close to twenty years earlier, it’d still been a state full of snow-bunnies, ranchers, and mountain men sprinkled around all of the military bases. Don’t get me wrong, the state was the same in a lot of ways: the plains east of the mountains still just felt like western Kansas, and you didn’t have to travel far west into the mountains to feel like you were utterly alone in the universe. But the Front Range had blown up, changed. Gotten weird.

Good weird.

I’d only spent a week there, talking to my old Army buddy’s estate lawyer, driving around town to rouse old memories instead of dwelling on new ones. George — Georgie — had never had any kids and had left a string of broken marriages like burning tank hulks in the desert. I guess the only person for him to leave his property to was old Army buddies like me. Hell, I’d been through a lot of the same shit in my personal life, but I’d managed to leave 22 years in uniform with only two failed marriages, bad knees, sleep problems, endless migraines, and a few fractured vertebrae in my lower back and neck. Poor Georgie had gotten some rare cancer from burning oil drums full of human shit and God knows what else downrange.

The funeral had been small. The local Division sent out an honor detail, with the flag and the bugle. I mostly managed to keep it together when the Captain knelt and offered me the flag on behalf of a grateful nation. Mostly. As many of the old group of us that came up together and could make it were there, all of us looking ten years older than we should’ve. A few were already missing — Georgie hadn’t been the first — and a handful were still wearing the uniform. We’d all grabbed a beer, some steaks, and, like so many times over the years, scattered back into the four corners of the Earth.

Except for me.

Fresh out of uniform, fresh out of another bitter divorce, left with a storage unit full of sentimental knick-knacks from a life working for Uncle Sam, a nice retirement check, and an even nicer disability check from the VA. All that and the old house and bar Georgie had bought when he’d gotten out a decade before me.

But enough about that sad shit. In the week I’d been back on the Front Range, living on a folding chair and an air mattress in Georgie’s empty house while I waited for my meager possessions to arrive, I’d noticed just how weird everything was. The cowboys and the hippy backwoods adventurers, the high-country hunters and the service members, they were all still there. Joining them, though, was a clusterfuck of others that reminded me of the absolute grab-bag of Americans I’d served with. Hipsters that wouldn’t look out of place in Brooklyn. Potheads from everywhere else in the country that had moved to the ‘promised land’ when the state legalized recreational use. Every flavor from Southern California, from nu-hippy to valley girl. The Hispanic population had grown, too, and with the bases getting bigger, the eclectic population of retirees and discharges from the military added even more diversity.

Like I said, good weird.

Georgie’s house and the bar were in a commercial district that had obviously once been on the edge of town. The house was old — like, 1920’s farmhouse old — but Georgie had been good with his hands before the cancer made him too weak. The essential parts had been repaired or replaced, but enough remained to give it the old feel. There was probably some silly HGTV word for the style, but I didn’t care much. It was a house, and it had fallen into my old lap, right as my entire previous life unraveled like the cheap boot socks I’d been issued at basic.

“Thanks, Georgie,” I chuckled and toasted with the cold Coors in my hand.

Joints popping, I struggled out of the folding chair and over to the window. His old bar was maybe a half-mile away, with only a few cars in the huge dirt parking lot. It had probably been built around the same time as the house, which gave it the look of an old Honky-Tonk. However, some of the fading signs and the decades-old lighting made it look like it was trying to be a dance club. Beyond that, big signs for craft beers and hatchet throwing betrayed some weird hipster vibe that meshed even less with the other aesthetics.

Weird. New Colorado weird.

I hadn’t been over there yet, too busy dealing with Georgie’s estate, closing the last few chapters of my life back…well, home wasn’t the right word. Where home was supposed to have been. Hell, I thought to myself, home was the Army, with guys like Georgie, but that was gone now, too.

I banged my first against my chest, feeling that familiar emptiness open up and clamp down on my throat. “Enough of that sad shit, old man,” I grumbled to myself, finishing the beer. My mood had been high when I saw the old crew, but it’d just been a brief light in the gloom of my absolutely bungled transition to civilian life.

“Fuck this feeling sorry for myself,” I made my mind up to finally visit the place. I plodded around the creaking hardwood floors, pulling on old jeans and one of my few T-shirts without Army logos or unit crests all over it. The sun was still up over Pikes Peak, but winter was right around the corner, so I pulled on a nice black wool peacoat I’d bought while stationed in Korea.

Shoving copies of some of the legal documents in my coat pocket, I set out into the bright mountain afternoon. I’d forgotten how much the high-altitude sun hurt my light blue eyes, and I knew I’d be needing to buy some sunscreen for the short buzz-cut that only partially hid a receding hairline and a head more than half silver. A yawn hit me suddenly, and I rubbed my jaw and scratched at my beard. Another bright spot in all of this was the fact that I didn’t have to shave for the first time in two decades. I’d let my beard grow out more than the scraggly Christmas beards of years past. It’d come in half silver and half red, even though my hair had always been brown. The strange combination came from my Danish ancestry, genetics that had also given me 6’8″ of height and the shoulders of a professional strongman.

The ground along the edge of the road crunched loud in the crisp air under my old Tiger sneakers. Like I said, this area used to be out on the edge of town, where strip malls met prairie, but the city had grown past it. A confused mixture of cheap apartments, self-storage places, and small commercial lots surrounded my new house and business in a tangled, unplanned mess of access roads and parking lots. That only made the eclectic bar and its huge dirt lot stand out even more.

“Probably going to get an offer to buy the land right away,” I grumbled to myself as I walked. Would I sell? How important was this place to Georgie? I didn’t know a damn thing about running a bar.

There was a guy at the door lazily sweeping the small covered area for checking IDs. He had that ex-college football player look you see at places where bouncing is serious business. That perked me up a bit; maybe, despite the schizophrenic theme of the place, it had a booming client base?

“We’re closed till six,” the guy said as I approached without looking up. He had a faint Hispanic accent.

“I’m the owner,” I replied, blowing air into my cold hands.

“What?” The bouncer’s head came up. He looked to be half-black, half-Hispanic maybe, “You ain’t George.”

“I’m an old Army buddy of his,” I said. The guy was only a few inches shorter than me and obviously not used to looking up at someone while talking. “George, uh, George died a few weeks ago. He willed the bar to me.”

“Oh shit,” he said, slowly shaking his head. He rubbed his shaved scalp with a calloused hand, “He seemed like a good guy. Only met him a few times. He never really came around much since I’ve worked here. Must’ve been too sick.”

“Yeah,” I said, my head going back to a dark place. “Y’all have a shift manager I can talk to?”

A strange look crossed his face, but he nodded, “Yeah, he should be inside, in the back. Ask for Brett.”

“I’m Ivan, by the way.”

“Paolo.”

“Good to meet you.”

Bars always look strange when they’re well-lit and empty, and this one wasn’t any different. Beyond that, the interior reflected the outside’s confused message. In one corner was a dining area complete with a few booths and high tops. Crammed up against them were a dozen pool tables and dartboards. The opposite corner held a slightly raised dance floor with a railing around it that wouldn’t be out of place in a square-dancing bar. Hipster-influenced ax-throwing lanes butted up against the big double doors I assumed went to the kitchen. Wedged amongst it all were two large bars, replete with dozens of taps and shelf after shelf of liquor bottles. To top off the confusion, dance-club-style neon lights crisscrossed the ceiling but thankfully hadn’t been cut on yet.

More employees milled around, prepping the bar for work hours, and I noticed something else that raised my hopes for keeping this place. Four somethings, someone’s, actually. Two female bartenders and two waitresses swished around the place, prepping tables and glasses, though I thought there’d be more.

The two waitresses were about as wildly different as I could think two attractive women could be. One was short, college-aged, and East Asian, maybe Korean, wearing a short black skirt and a black crop top. She was pale and had dyed her waist-length hair a dark, deep blue. Round, rich brown eyes flicked up to look at me as I pushed through the doors. I’d been stationed in Korea years before, and her warm, round face had the telltale signs of the plastic surgery many Korean women thought was vogue to make them appear more Western; round eyes, fuller lips, and a more pointed chin. She was curvier, though, than most Koreans I remembered, with a perky and plump butt that dangerously stretched her skirt. Maybe C-cup tits were strategically augmented by a push-up bra until they were nearly bursting from the scoop neck of her crop top.

The other waitress had essentially walked off the cover of some Tattoo magazine. She was pale, paler than pale, with more than half her skin covered in tattoos of half a dozen different styles. She’d dyed her hair a rich pink and done it up in a complex series of braids and bumps on top but shaved the sides as short as my buzz-cut. Genetics had made her skinny as a rail, but a skilled surgeon and a few tens of thousands of dollars had put a pair of obscenely large and perky bolt-ons on her chest. Somewhat natural-looking implants and a Brazilian Butt Lift gave her a perky rear. She’d stretched tight black denim short shorts over that fake and plump ass and a tiny black tank top bordering on just being a bra over her chest. Fishnets and fingerless gloves, along with seemingly endless chains, chokers, rings, and nose and ear piercings, finished the look. She glanced at me with eyes adorned with hot-pink circle contacts that matched her hair, and her collagen-injected lips twisted into a bemused smirk.

The bartenders, too, were about as different as could be. The first one I noticed at the bar on the far side of the space had rich tawny skin and long, straight black hair that reached past her waist in two long and tight braids. She was the tallest, maybe 5′ 8.” Her face gave off a South Asian, Indian vibe, with perhaps a little bit of Afro-Caribbean, but her large eyes were a rich amber-tan. Rippling muscles filled her still-feminine frame, a masterpiece of an ass sculpted by endless squats and deadlifts spilling out of a pair of white hot pants. A white tank top strained valiantly to contain another pair of surgically gifted tits, not quite as large and conspicuous as goth-girl’s, but still noticeably big, perky, and spherical. She immediately gave me the vibe of a female fitness competitor.

The last bartender, though…well, let’s just say she’s the type of girl Rick James was singing about in “Brick House.” She couldn’t have been an inch over five feet and was more stacked than any of the women I’d seen in the six continents I’d visited on behalf of Uncle Sam. She’d wedged voluptuous hips and a huge, earth-shattering ass into ripped and acid-washed jeans that looked painted on. A black tanktop was stretched over a pair of tits so massive it made the fabric practically see-through. Looking at her, I was certain of two things: those tits weighed as much as the petite Asian waitress and that she’d been special-ordering bras her entire adult life. Her smooth skin was somehow both a rich, natural bronze and liberally sprinkled with freckles and adorned all over with traditional Hawaiian and Sailor-Jerry style tattoos. Her wary face seemed mostly caucasian but with a hint of native islander features. Her lustrous black hair was done up in a somehow both complex and messy bun. She studied me, and not favorably, with huge, strikingly pale blue eyes that seemed completely at odds with her beachy, island-vibe.

For a moment, all eighty inches and two hundred and ninety pounds of me was intimidated by the four gorgeous women looking up at me.

“I’m looking for Brett?”

***

“Who the hell is this goon walking through the door?” I muttered to myself, seeing the guy who dwarfed all of our bouncers standing uneasily in the entryway. He looked at me, his question still hanging in the air, probably because he thought I looked the oldest. Since I was 37 and the other girls were all 25 or younger, he was right, “Brett? Uh, yeah, you just missed him.”

“Not like he’s ever here anyways, Kay,” Krista mumbled, rolling her bright pink eyes.

“Let me handle this guy,” I hissed back at her, and she rolled her eyes again, strutting off to prep another table.

If he’d heard our exchange, he didn’t let on as he crossed towards where I was organizing bottles. I assumed he was another of Brett’s pervy fucking friends here to do whatever shady shit our manager always did in the back office. “I, uh, I think I’ll stick around until he gets back? I’m Ivan, by the way, the new owner,” he extended a massive hand.

He spared a moment to check me out, head to toe, though to his credit, he was extremely subtle about it. I wasn’t in the mood for any bullshit, though, not with all the other bullshit going on in my life at the time, so I put on my best frigid bitch scowl when I reached out to shake his Neanderthal paw.

“Kala. I wasn’t aware there’d been a change of ownership,” I said cooly.

“Yeah…” He said, a strange look crossing his face, “I wasn’t exactly expecting to be here either. George, the old owner, was an old Army buddy of mine and just bought the farm from cancer. He willed this place to me, apparently, and never told me. Got a call out of the blue from his lawyer.”

Well, suddenly, I felt like a bitch, but I shook the feeling off and buried it deep down. George never came around, never dealt with Brett, never made sure the girls and I were safe or making the money we deserved. “I, uh, I didn’t even know he was sick. He didn’t come around much.”

“Yeah, I heard. I haven’t decided what to do with the place yet.”

My resting bitch face intensified. I had to get a read on this guy, understand who he was. He was probably going to be just as absentee as George had been, or so up in our shit he’d drive the bar the rest of the way into the red. My girls didn’t need another defunct bar on their short resumes, and I don’t think any of us were ready to handle any amount of time unemployed.

It didn’t even occur to me that he could be beneficial for the bar. Too many men like him had come and gone in my life, including my abusive piece of shit ex-husband. I had to get to know this Ivan, figure out where he stood. Better the evil you know, right?

It took me a second to realize he’d asked me something, “I’m sorry, what?”

“Care to, um, show me around a bit? If you’ve got the time,” he asked.

“Sure,” I responded, making sure to add some annoyed sass to my tone. To be honest, it was a Wednesday night, and there wasn’t much prep, but I still wasn’t expecting to have to deal with this today. I walked down the length of the bar, and Ivan turned away to look at the rest of the room.

I took the brief moment to check him out, much less subtly than he’d done to me. Ridiculously tall, maybe 45 or so, and built like a fucking meat mountain. I couldn’t see much skin, but I got the vibe he wasn’t one of those bodybuilding, shredded, no-body-fat types. He had a bit of a paunch, but even his loose-cut jeans couldn’t hide the ridiculously thick thighs and perky ass. I couldn’t see his arms, but the strength of that handshake and the lifter’s calluses on his hands hinted that he was an absolute beef-castle all over. Even his neck was thick, and the first thing I’d noticed about him was the unique beard and those piercing blue eyes.

Shit.

Pull it together, Kala, I thought to myself. It was bad enough I needed to show him around, get a read on him, figure out how I’d exploit him to get my girls taken care of. Why did he have to be so damned hot?

I rounded the bar, and he turned back to look at me, smiling faintly as he waited for me to lead the way. But, dammit, even that crooked smile was adorably at odds with the rest of him. So I led the way, immediately feeling him boring his gaze into my generous backside from the moment I turned around.

***

Jesus, I thought to myself as Kala turned around and headed for the kitchen. Her hips were so big and ass so voluptuous she couldn’t help but look like she was strutting as she walked, and her waist and rib cage were so impossibly narrow that I could see a significant portion of her tits from behind. Even worse, the back of her tanktop was shredded and torn, showing her toned back was completely covered in a massive Polynesian back piece.

I forced myself to focus on the tour. The bar was eclectic, I knew that, but even worse than that, it seemed like very little had been maintained after it’d been bought and installed. There was warped wood, peeling decals, and faded and splintered plastic everywhere I looked. The felt on the pool tables was horribly stained. The wall around the dartboards was wrecked. Every time the kitchen doors opened, they smashed into the nearest ax-throwing booth.

I focused on all of that because I needed something, anything, to avoid looking at Kala for more than a moment or two. My eyes couldn’t even wander that much, though, since the other three girls were bleeding hotness into the room and pretending to work as they stole glances over in our direction. This was going to be a problem, a problem on top of all the genuine issues with the way the bar had been run and put together.

I’d been married to my second wife for 18 years and never once cheated on her, even though the Army seemed to either attract or generate adulterers in droves. Hell, it was practically part of the culture, and that had always made my blood boil. Anyways, 18 years with one woman and our sex life had gotten stale and stilted despite my best efforts. ABC sex, as an old Kiwi buddy had joked with me: anniversary, birthday, Christmas sex. I say all of that to simply say that I was beyond frustrated sexually. My marriage had imploded while going through the single most significant transition in my life, and I hadn’t had the time or inclination to casually date after the papers had been signed.

All that frustration, mixed with four gorgeous new employees? I wasn’t trying to get a sexual harassment suit on my first day as the new owner.

I compartmentalized my thoughts, focusing on the kitchens where a half-dozen cooks were wrapping up their prep work for the shift. Before the Army, I’d worked at a diner for a year as a cook and recognized the usual suspects. Felons for whom this was one of the best jobs they could get. College kids forced to work jobs with shifts outside of school hours. Tired-looking twenty-somethings who’d clearly come here from their other job. I nodded, and a middle-aged black guy who’d been watching as we walked through, effortlessly chopping fresh onions, nodded back slightly on behalf of the whole crew.

The place was clean, but the appliances were all old and looked like they were barely holding together. It was big, though, and I got the vibe that the place also fancied itself a gastro-pub: yet another half-formed identity. Kala and her goddess-like body led me past the dishwashing stations to the manager’s office.

It was small and cramped, half of one wall taken up by wavering CCTV monitors, the other wall filled by a desk obscured by papers and receipts. “Brett is very, um, organized. You’ll see when you meet him,” she sighed and waved a slender but toned arm around the space. “If you meet him,” she muttered and probably assumed I couldn’t hear her.

I cocked an eyebrow; that was the second time I’d heard her say something like that. Who the hell was this Brett guy, and where the hell was he? All his employees had been at work for at least an hour, and he was MIA.

“Well, thanks Kala, I think I’ll stick around until Brett gets here.”

“Sure thing. You can wait back here if you want?” She responded, her face still a carefully crafted mask of casual dismissal.

I glanced again at the mess, which I’d also noticed smelled like…something. “Nah, I think I’ll chill at one of the tables if that’s all right?”

She laughed, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes, “It’s your place now, boss. You can do whatever you want!”

I smirked and supposed she was right, following her back out front and studiously keeping my gaze anywhere but her fever-dream fantasy of a body.

***

I fumed at first when he said he wanted to wait up front; I didn’t need this new unknown watching my every move when I wasn’t ready for him. I made the best of it quickly, though. I’d be able to watch him in between pouring beers, mixing shots, and waving my tits in desperate men’s faces for a few extra dollars tip. I couldn’t prove it, but half of that would disappear to Brett somehow, so the girls and I had been having to work twice as hard and act twice as slutty to even make ends meet. Part of me wanted to try some of those wiles on Ivan just to get an even better read on him.

He found a table, and I got back to the bar just as Paolo unlocked the doors and started letting people in. A slowly growing crowd of customers filtered in, but most were there for the dinner special and not time-consuming mixed drinks. Krista and Ji-soo avoided Ivan purposefully without making it noticeable; I think they were relying totally on me to get a good read on him. Great.

After making sure the old regulars at my bar were taken care of, I strutted over to his table, putting just the right amount of sway into my already sashaying step. “Everything alright?”

He glanced at the door, still searching for the elusive Brett, but looked back up at me with a smile, “Can I get a beer?” He shifted his huge bulk, and the chair creaked. Ugh, I thought, why couldn’t he have been short and old and fat?

“Sure, boss, what’s your poison?” I smiled slightly, putting extra feminine emphasis on boss.

“Whatever you recommend, dar…Kala,” he smiled a little wider. I internally rolled my eyes; he’d almost called me ‘darling.’

“Hmmm,” I tapped a tattooed finger against my plump lips and cocked a wide hip out to the side. He shifted slightly again, and I was sure he’d be readjusting himself as I walked away. “How about a nice rich milk stout?” He nodded, and I took off, smiling to myself. It all came so naturally these days. A lifetime of bad choices had stranded me with almost nothing else but my looks and a vicious sense of self-preservation, but those were enough.

Ji-soo stopped me as I rounded the bar, “who’s the new guy? Why’d you let him in before opening?” A flash of panic crossed her face, “He’s not one of Brett’s, um, friends, is he?”

“He’s the new owner,” I replied, keeping my perfectly saccharine bartender smile on my face. “George died. Who knew he was even sick? Not like he ever did anything for us anyways,” I growled.

“He’s, uh, he’s pretty cute, right? For an old guy?” Ji-soo said with a tiny smile, her voice soft but melodic.

“I guess,” I lied, forcing down the impulse to look up across the bar and smile at him. “I’m just excited to see what he does when he sees Brett.”

She giggled and took off with her tray, and I finished pouring Ivan’s stout. He smiled at me but said nothing else, sipping away at the beer as he kept watching the door. The crowd grew, and I had to head back to my bar. Both Ji-soo and I were right: he was cute, and something was going to happen when Brett showed up.

***

I tried, valiantly, to generally people-watch instead of being that creep that just stares at the help in a place like this. Wednesday night seemed to be the blue-collar, burgers and fries, pool and darts crowd. A few little groups seemed like college students, but I figured they came through every day of the week based on their course schedules. The Army was, before anything, a people-driven business, so I like to think I was very good at picking up details about someone just by watching them. I purposefully avoided looking at the four girls, though; I needed to get to know them without prejudging anymore than I already had.

It was that talent that let me identify Brett the moment he passed Paolo and walked into the room. Paolo seemed to stiffen as the short man walked by, and Brett paused just inside the door and scanned the room. Maybe the lawyer’s office had tipped him off that I’d be coming around soon? Or perhaps he was just that awkward.

He was an inch or two shorter than the Caribbean bodybuilder bartender and paunchy. His thin blonde hair was valiantly deployed into the beginnings of a combover, and he had a combination of sun-beaten skin and freckles that made me think of the kid from the front of Mad Magazine. I got the vibe from him that he had played football in high school and never let go of it. He was twitchy, constantly wiggling and drumming his fingers, his lips curling back and forth into a creepy, toothy smile.

I waited to see what he would do and was pleasantly surprised when he was able to pick me out as the ‘other.’

“Mr. Ivan Madison?” He asked, his voice perfectly matching his looks.

“That’s me,” I stood slowly and took his outstretched hand. He paused for a moment as he took in my bulk. “Brett, I assume.”

“Just so,” he flashed that over-toothy grin again, “I assume you’ve come to check out the operation?”

“Yes,” I held up a hand before he could spring into action, “May I ask where you were at opening?”

His smile faltered for just a tiny moment. “Our Kala didn’t tell you?” He looked over at the bar and waved enthusiastically. She seemed surprised and half-waved back, sending interesting tremors through her massive cleavage. “She’s my assistant manager. She handles most of the work on slow nights.”

I frowned, wishing Kala had told me that instead of ragging on her boss. “Doesn’t seem all that slow of a night,” I countered.

He laughed, the sound grating inside my skull, “You should come back tomorrow night then! And Saturdays? Whew.”

My first concern settled, he took me around the same tour of the bar that Kala had. Of course, the scenery was much less of a draw this time around, and l zoned out slightly until we reached the office. He had another reasonably legitimate excuse for why his office was so messy and smelled like funk: according to him, everyone used it as a break room since the bar didn’t have one. It was plausible, but I didn’t really buy it, and I figured I’d discover the truth soon.

We returned to the main bar area, and I rounded on him, “Well, that’s all I think I need to see for now. I came by on a whim today, but I’d like to have a more formal sit down outside of business hours.”

“Of course, of course,” he grinned and rubbed those fidgety hands together again.

I shook his clammy hand, “Good to meet you, Brett. I think I’ll stick around for a few more hours, just to get a feel of the place.”

He took off, hustling off to his office for a few minutes before reappearing on the main floor. Like a man possessed, he was back and forth all over the place, doing everything. One moment he’d be running orders from the kitchen out to the two gorgeous waitresses. The next, he’d be chatting with customers as he poured beers before helping the teenage busboys clear the high tops in the corner. Before I knew it, he was scrubbing the table next to me with a rag, trying to make small talk. How’d I know Georgie? How long had I been in the Army? Where was I from?

Only two things hollowed the positive impression he was working so hard to cultivate: he couldn’t stop rubbing his nose, and he was doing everything he could to keep the four girls away from me.

I blinked, and I realized my beer had been empty for a while, unfilled by Brett, and the goth-girl waitress seemed slammed, with the Korean girl nowhere to be found.

I heaved myself to my feet and made my way over to Kala’s bar, both to get a refill and to ask her if something was wrong.

***

I must’ve spent two hours fuming, barely able to keep that fake-ass smile on my face. Brett had apparently decided to be fucking super-Brett today. It had to all be a show for the new owner, a clever game of smoke and mirrors to distract Ivan from the fact that the twitchy little shit was hardly ever at work when we needed him. And when it was slow, and we didn’t need him? I shuddered; things had happened in that smelly back office. He’d tricked or conned each of my girls into something or another back there at least once, from something as innocuous as sitting on his lap to…more. I remembered my own singular experience trapped back there with him and barely managed to swallow the bile that came up.

“And how dare that big lumbering idiot fall for the song and dance?!” I hissed under the roar of the bar crowd. It was so easy to tell Brett’d railed a line of coke in the back and was prancing around the place like he was the best manager in the universe. With that much booger sugar on board and that creepy fucking look and wave he’d sent my way, I had an uneasy feeling that Brett was going to do something. He probably thought I’d tried to undermine him somehow, so he’d take it out on my girls or me. Well, he wasn’t wrong, but he fucking deserved it.

The night turned out to be busier than usual, and I lost track of time, flirting with one man after another and pouring endless beers. So it was a sudden shock when a shadow fell over me, and Ivan thunked his empty glass down onto the bar. “Can I get a refill, Kala?” He asked.

“Brett not taking care of you?” I snarked back before I could stop myself.

“I don’t know where he’s off to.” He glanced around before narrowing his eyes ever so slightly, “And I don’t know where y’all’s second waitress is, either.”

Shit. Shit shit shit. No. Not Ji-soo.

“I’m sure she’s taking a break or something. And Brett is probably catching up on paperwork,” I lied, hoping to buy myself some time to find Ji-soo. It was already midnight. Where the hell was she? How the hell had the time gotten away from me?

I sent Ivan on his way with a fresh brew and, as soon as his back was turned, flagged down Krista. “Where the hell is Ji-soo?” I hissed.

“How the hell should I know?” She snapped back at me, “Do you see how fucking busy we are? And I have to take care of her tables too!”

“Fuck, ok,” I muttered, my heart pounding. Horrible scenarios flushed through my mind, and I had to fight to keep the panic inside me from taking over. Grabbing one of the better barbacks to mind the bar, I rushed around, trying to find her. Paolo hadn’t seen her leave through the front. None of the barbacks had noticed her either. I poked my head into the kitchens and asked Ramel, the head cook, and he said he thought maybe she’d gone through the kitchens to use the bathroom half an hour before, but he wasn’t sure.

No one knew where she was. I couldn’t find her anywhere people snuck off to catch a cigarette or answer a text. So I was forced to consider what I’d known from the start: Brett had tricked or forced her into the back office. Right in fucking front of me! And the new boss! I was so furious with myself, but I didn’t know what I could do. Brett would fire me, all four of us probably, and the bar scene still wasn’t exactly hiring at peak levels with the pandemic still a rollercoaster of fuckery and all those other bars shuttered for good. I’d been here for years, too, and any new employer would check in with Brett. I’m sure the little shit would provide the worst possible reference, lie about how I stole from the till or fucked customers.

Worse than that, I couldn’t let the new owner see just how fucked the four of us were, how fucking awful our whole situation was. He couldn’t know those things about my girls, know how Brett had hurt them. My girls were strong, and I’d force him to see them that way. I wouldn’t, couldn’t let anyone else find out about what’d happened. He had to fire Brett for something else because if the little shit found out it was because of something I did, he’d…well, he had cameras all over the bar, and he’d tricked all of us at least once.

But I couldn’t let Ji-soo be alone with him back there any longer! Brett hadn’t gone after any of us lately; he’d kept his perversions limited to leering at our tits and goosing our asses, and I thought we were at some sort of stalemate. I guess the eight-ball he’d taken to the face and the stress from meeting the new owner had sent him over the edge.

I was thinking of all of that, chewing on my lip and wringing my hands, when I came back out of the kitchen and ran right into the solid mass of Ivan.

***

Like I said, I can read people, and I watched as Kala scrambled around the bar more and more frantically. She’d talked to every front-end employee before ducking into the kitchen, and the waitress and Brett still hadn’t shown up anywhere. Something didn’t feel right. Ten years earlier, my gut had told me my marriage wasn’t going to end up where I wanted it, and I didn’t listen. I wasn’t going to ignore it this time. So, as the gorgeous but nervous bartender headed into the kitchens, I got up to follow her.

By the time I’d pushed through the crowd and caught up with her, she was blowing back out of the swinging double doors and straight into me. I caught her easily, steadying her enough to look down at her gorgeous, bronze face. My gut twisted; she was terrified about something, stressed out of her mind, and she couldn’t hide it despite how hard she was trying.

“Hey, are you ok?” I held her shoulders, feeling how soft her skin was, the toned muscle underneath. But that didn’t matter; she was in trouble, and all I could think about was helping her. “Hey, Kala, is everything alright?”

“I’m, um, I’m fine,” she mumbled, “but, shit.” She sighed, looked back up at me, and I could tell angry and fearful tears were welling in her eyes.

Goddamn, but I’ve always been a sucker for a crying woman in need, “But what, darling?”

She took a breath, “Sometimes Brett, uh, disappears, with one of the girls. Hasn’t happened for a while, though?”

She was terrified of me, or Brett, for the waitress, maybe all of the above. All I knew was a switch flipped in my mind. My voice dropped an octave, my eyes narrowed, and my brow furrowed.

“Where?” I growled.

“I-I-I’m not sure,” she stuttered out, lip quivering. “Probably his office. I’ve looked all over, but not there.” She seemed more scared of me than anything else at that moment, but I couldn’t worry about her until I found that slimy bastard.

I stormed off through the kitchens, ignoring the surprised shouts from the cooks, stomping past steaming friers and tired-looking dishwashers. My huge legs took me through the rooms in what felt like a flash. Blood boiling, ears burning, the strongest wave of emotion I’d felt since my wife had asked for the divorce flooded through me. My hand found the knob. Locked.

My sneaker smashed into the door just above the doorknob, shattering cheap wood and splintering the thin frame as the door blew inwards. And there was Brett, awkwardly hunched over, his pants around his ankles. The waitress was fearfully crouched in front of him, trying to pull away but held in place by his twitchy hands holding her navy blue hair into two pigtails. He was grimacing, trying to force his tiny mushroom dick into her tightly closed mouth.

All I saw was red.

The moment, the very moment those beady little eyes turned to look at me, my meaty fist crashed right into them. His hands flew up, trying to clutch his bleeding and broken nose, but my next punch smashed into his gut. Before he could even double over, my right hand had pulled back and delivered a blow into the other side of his ribs.

It’d been a long time since I’d been just another grunt. I’d driven a desk for a long, long time, and it was oddly refreshing to know that I could still do grunt shit. I smashed one slow, ponderous blow after another into his ribs, the sheer force of it keeping him standing. I didn’t stop, the red fog not leaving my eyes, until I felt a rib snap under my fist. Then, and only then, I let him slump to the floor, barely conscious and whimpering with half-conscious pain.

I blinked, the red fading, and heard a whimper beside me. The waitress was horrified, huddled tight under the desk and clutching her knees to her chest. “Go see Kala,” I said, my tone perfectly level and low but still stern and commanding.

She nodded, eyes wide with fright and horror and tears streaming down those round, pale cheeks, and scrabbled past me to Kala. I wasn’t surprised that she was in the ruined doorway behind me, ready to wrap the girl up in her tattooed arms. “It’s ok, Ji-soo,” she paused, “Y-your face,” Kala muttered.

I wiped the finely spattered blood off of my face with the hem of my T-shirt. “Go make sure she’s alright. Now. Then call the cops, and tell them to go around back.” I’d noticed the door leading to the wraparound lot behind the bar earlier. “What’s the head cook’s name?”

“Uh, Ramel,” Leilani whispered, already leading Ji-soo away from the office. After only a few steps, the poor girl started quietly sobbing, her body heaving with each wracking cry.

“Ramel!” I shouted, voice cutting through the bustle. The man’s head popped around the corner with a confused expression until he saw Brett puddled on the floor behind me. He hustled over, wiping hands on the rag at his waist, “Go tell Paolo that when the cops get here, he needs to send them around back. I don’t want y’all’s paychecks to suffer tonight ’cause of this clown.” He nodded and hustled off through the doors. Kala had already sat Ji-soo down in the corner of the kitchen, dabbing where her tears streaked her eyeliner.

Brett groaned and stirred slightly, and I prodded him with my toes just to remind him I hadn’t left. He didn’t try to move after that. Ramel came back a few minutes later with a wet rag for my face and knuckles. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he responded, looking down at the puddled little man and the small pool of blood leaking from his nose and mouth, “Fucker had it coming if you ask me.”

A million questions filled my mind in the swirling wake of adrenaline and red rage. Kala knew something was happening. Ramel too, it seemed. Who else knew, and how much did they know? And, more importantly, why the fuck didn’t they do anything about it?

I wish I could say differently, but I’d seen something like this more than once in the Army. The bastard must’ve had something on the people in this place, especially the girls. I stepped over his limp form, picking through the shitsty he called an office. In the one clear spot, I saw a splash of white powder and a rolled-up bill. That explained the twitchiness.

A dozen layers of post-it notes in a riot of colors ringed the monitor. Not even a little bit surprised, one of them had what I assumed were his passwords for the computer and a handful of online accounts. The idiot was probably so coked out of his mind all the time that he couldn’t remember shit. One of them had six digits, so I fished through his pockets for his phone. Ramel made a noise — Brett’s pants were still around his ankles — but I’d long stopped being squeamish around dude-ass.

Bingo. The phone opened right up with the code. And, of course, his background was a topless woman, the apps imperfectly hiding her naked tits.

I turned the phone off and pocketed it before glancing at Ramel, “Hey man, like I said, he had it coming.” He held his hands up, “The guy’s been awful to them girls, y’know? I don’t know what the hell it was, but he’s got them wrapped up tight. It’s your place now; you do what you gotta do.”

I desperately wanted more answers, an explanation about why anyone would let this happen, but I heard the first telltale sound of sirens approaching. “Wait here, I’ll meet them,” I said to him, but he grabbed my arm.

“Hey man, what was he doing? More people tell the cops what happened, the less trouble there’ll be, right?” So I told him and stepped out into the night.

The cold was a sudden slap in the face compared to the oily heat in the kitchen, but I didn’t let it bother me. Two cruisers came whipping around the building, and I kept my hands slightly up, non-threatening. Even still, I was a burly ass man with bloody knuckles standing outside of a 911 call, and the cops stepped out warily.

The rest of the night passed quickly. After some initial standoffishness, I showed them Brett’s wrecked form. They made him presentable and hauled him into the access road. I think they were a few seconds from putting me in cuffs, but Kala and Ramel interjected with their statements, and Ji-soo told one of the cops the whole story, and they backed off. The EMT that came by a few minutes later to load up Brett checked on Ji-soo and said she was physically alright other than some bruises but obviously shaken up.

Still, I was reasonably confident the cops were going to load me up to at least take my statement at the station. That is until Kala pulled the sergeant aside and showed him one of Brett’s monitors, the one pointing inside the office. She rewound the rolling footage it kept on the hard drive, revealing exactly what the bastard had been doing. It went into an evidence bag, along with the coke, and Brett disappeared into the night in the back of an ambulance.

“Who the hell are you anyway, security?” The police sergeant asked, pulling me aside. He looked like he was in his late thirties with a high and tight, possibly a retread Military Policeman who stuck around town.

I chuckled. “New owner. First day visiting the place.”

He scoffed, shook his head, “That uh, that cute bartender said you were Army, so I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. We’d usually take you to the station too, you know?” I nodded, “We’ve got all your info. If that little turd goes ten toes up, or he fingers you for anything, you’re right into the shit, ok?” Another nod and he disappeared into the darkness following Brett.

I somehow made it back into the bar before closing, and all of the clients were thankfully oblivious. Kala was back at work and had the girls on a rotation to go in and check on Ji-soo. Part of me wanted to do it myself, but I didn’t know her at all, and she’d looked terrified of me in those awful few moments in the back office.

So I returned to my seat, the last few regulars and college kids drifting around me in a drunken haze, and I downed another beer.

It would’ve been so easy to just go home. I was undoubtedly exhausted enough, but the dregs of adrenaline in me kept me strangely alert. Paolo and the other bouncer cleared out the last few drunks. The barbacks swept and mopped and cleared tables. The three remaining girls cleared out their many tabs, wiped down the bars, rearranged bottles. The cooks scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, hauled garbage, scrubbed some more.

I just finished another beer, my knuckles throbbing; I don’t think I’d hit anyone like that since a back alley in Itaewon twenty years earlier.

Kala clocked everyone out — maybe Brett, despite everything, had been telling the truth that she was assistant manager? The bodybuilding bartender, Nikki, drove Ji-soo home. Either way, by three-thirty in the morning, it was just her and me in the empty bar, still lit as if it were happy hour. She wiped and wiped at the same spot of the bar, already clean, waiting for something to happen. For me to do something, maybe?

“Can I get one last beer for the road?” I asked from the gloom around my table, “And some ice for my knuckles?”

“Of course,” she said, voice wavering slightly. The beer came in a huge frosted mug, the ice in a tightly wrapped bar rag.

“I’m…I’m sorry you had to see that,” I said, my voice hard but sad. I still needed to know just what role Kala had played in all of this, but it was hard to miss how fiercely protective of the other girls she was and how shaken up she was by the night’s events.

“I’ve seen worse,” Kala said, though her voice still wavered. She endlessly scrubbed the same part of the bar, not raising her eyes to meet mine. “Though, seeing him get his ass handed to him was the best thing I’ve seen for a long time. A long time.”

I chuckled drily, “Well, I’m still sorry.” I sighed, shifted the ice from one hand to the other. “All this makes my decision a whole lot more difficult. First thing I’ve gotta do now is find a new manager and hold it down myself until I do,” I took a long sip and clinked the mug back onto the table, “and I don’t know a damn thing about running a bar.”

She finally stopped wiping the bar and looked up at me, “Well…I could help with that, you know. I’ve been in this business for a while.”

I looked over at her, and our eyes met in the half-lit gloom. There was something there, a charge, an unsaid expectation, but I didn’t know what. The rush of rage and adrenaline had long since passed, leaving a kind of blissful exhaustion in its wake. But it had woken something else too, a feeling of need that I’d thought had long since disappeared during my marriage and never reappeared after it had ended. Maybe that’s what was filling the space between us.

I had no illusions that there was only a tiny chance that I was right. Kala was the kind of woman people wrote Penthouse letters about and, even though I could tell she wasn’t as young as the other girls, she was still a fair sight younger than me. Worst, though, was the uncertain anger that still smoldered inside of me about how much she’d known.

Fuck it. I wasn’t getting any younger, the night was growing longer, and fatigue and half a dozen tall-boy beers had loosened my tongue and softened my inhibition.

I stood up out of my chair, the wood creaking, “Kala, come here, please.”

***

Shit. Fucking shitting shit-fuck. I didn’t know what he wanted, but I could guess. I should’ve left hours earlier, but instead, I was alone with him in that bar, in his bar, walking around to the swinging half-door to sway my way over to him.

I hated myself for being attracted to him, for the way my insides boiled when he’d beaten the hell out of Brett. He was just like my ex, all masculine power and violence, but goddammit, I guess I had a type. And I was helpless to control myself when confronted with a man like Ivan. I hated myself, but I’d also been finding myself grinding my thighs together in an attempt to scratch the itch he’d given me.

I stood in front of him, dwarfed by his massive bulk. A lump lodged in my throat at being so close to him again. The faint odor of his deodorant and cologne tickled my nose, mixed in my nostrils with the manly tang of his sweat.

“Yes?” I said, my voice barely a whisper even though I’d wanted to sound sassy and confident.

“You knew, didn’t you?” He asked softly, simply, but his blue eyes were like ice.

“Listen, Brett was a scumbag, ok? He–”

“Did you know?” He stopped me, his words cutting right through my excuse.

“Y-yes,” I stuttered meekly, like a stupid fucking teenager caught by their mother out past curfew. My self-loathing only grew.

“Why didn’t you come right to me? Why didn’t you storm back there? Why didn’t you do something?” He never got loud, never balled his fist or sneered at me like my ex-husband would, but I felt like the smallest person in the world all the same.

No, fuck that. He didn’t know. Didn’t know everything that the bastard had done, everything he had on us! I wasn’t just going to fucking roll over.

“This is one of the only bars that made it through COVID in town, and we need the job. If we left, he’d make sure we had no job history or, worse, call every other place in the state and tell all kinds of lies about us. And. And…he has…he has pictures. Videos. Of all four of us,” I swallowed a sob. “Yeah. Even me. He always told us he’d put them up on one of the tube sites if we turned him in, and he told me he’d post all four of us if I turned on him. More than the four of us; other girls were here before. They all just quit. Left the industry altogether because of him.”

“You knew he was back there with her.”

“The last couple of months, he’s been pretty tame! He knew he had us where he wanted us, knew he couldn’t push us much more. But tonight…he was coked out of his mind because you were here. And…”

Ivan sighed, shut his eyes, and tilted his head back. He took in a huge breath, held it, slowly breathed it out between pursed lips. “Ok. Ok. I believe you. I’m fairly certain you and your girls aren’t going to have to worry about that anymore.” He looked back down at me, vast and manly and intimidating and just…ugh. “So what do you think, Kala? Want to be my new manager? Think you can help me out? Take care of things for me?”

Was he really dropping those obvious double entendres, or was he that oblivious?

“Sure…if the price is right.” I responded carefully. I let my gaze smolder up at him.

He chuckled. “I’d agree to whatever you asked for, honestly, but I haven’t even seen the books yet,” he did another one of those subtle once-overs of my figure, “Though I’m sure you’re not hurting for tips.”

I hated to let a sneer ruin the sultry face I was using to draw him in, but I couldn’t help it. “When we saw our tips at all, you mean? Brett either snatched them out of the jar or messed with the Point of Sale system.”

His face darkened, but he smiled it away with a sigh. “Well, that’s handled now, and you and the girls won’t have to worry about it after today. Deal?”

“Sure, boss,” I said, making my voice higher than it needed to be. Why hadn’t he made a move on me yet? It was so much easier to hold it over men when they clumsily threw themselves at me.

He chuckled again, “That’s nice, Kala. I like that. ‘Boss.’ It’s cute.”

“I’m glad I can please you,” I said with a flutter of my lashes, laying it on thick.

Something changed on his face, though what it was, I couldn’t tell. Dammit, he was hard to read. “Interesting choice of words,” he said. “Are there any other talents of yours I should know about before I promote you the same day I met you?”

“You’ll have to wait and see, I suppose,” I breathed, barely managing to control a tremor of nervous excitement from running through me.

“It’s been a long day…What if I wanted to know right now?” He said, voice low and deep, and took a step even closer to me. I gasped slightly when his massive torso grazed my straining chest, brushing nipples that I didn’t even know were hard, “Would you want to tell me? Show me, maybe? Or leave this a strictly…professional conversation?” When I didn’t, couldn’t answer, he pressed on, “I’m not like that shitstain that I just poured into the back of an ambulance. When I want something, I ask for it. I don’t force it.”

I gulped before answering, my mouth suddenly dry. Ugh, what the hell? Was I a teenager all over again? “And what…what would that be?”

He edged forward again, my tits entirely pressed up against what felt like a brick wall of muscle, “I saw you looking at me all night, Kala, especially after I handled Brett. So I’ll ask again before I head out and walk home: are there any other talents you want to tell me about? Show me?”

The bastard still wouldn’t make his move. All the pieces were there, but he just wouldn’t pull the trigger. I hated it, but I was still fighting the urge to rub my thighs together, “Oh yeah? I caught you looking at me too.” I almost groaned at how feeble my response was.

“How could I not?” He said so softly, his ice-blue eyes staring into my husky-pale ones.

He leaned down slowly, the distance far enough to almost be comical. Yesss, I thought to myself, he was finally going for it, and I had him where I wanted him. There’d been a lot of false starts, but the plan was coming together. I closed my eyes, parted my lips ever so slightly, craned my neck to meet him.

Instead, I felt his hot breath on my ear, tickling my skin. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

I shuddered, and I know he noticed it. What the hell was I doing? I’d met this man a few hours before, and he’d turned my plan and the whole bar on its head. I had no idea if he was going to be good for my girls or me. At least he was so, so much better looking than Brett. As I leaned in closer to him and put a small hand on that rock-hard torso, I told myself that I was using my sexuality and body to influence Ivan. To mold him and control him so that my girls and I finally had a safe and functional place to make the cash we deserved. I told myself that it wasn’t just the molten heat in my womb taking over, that this was cold and calculated, a transaction to take care of my girls. That’s what I told myself, anyway.

If he was going to make this so difficult, I figured I’d get something extra out of it. “If you want to see my talents, I’d better see yours too.”

***

Well, holy shit, I guess this really was a Letter to Penthouse kind of day. Kala was practically trembling with excitement or desire or nervous energy. Maybe all three. Deciding to be as careful as possible, with the bonus effect of prolonging the anticipation I’d already subjected Kala to, I moved around her. I brushed her soft and feminine body with my hard and masculine one before crossing the open space and ensuring the front doors were locked.

I crossed back, seeing that the slightly confused but faintly panting bartender had half-turned to see what I was doing. I strode purposefully up behind her, overwhelming her body with my size. She tried to turn fully around to meet me, make another attempt at a passionate kiss, but I pushed my hips against her voluptuous ass and lower back, pinning her against the table. My huge hands slipped under her arms, following the swell of her massive tits.

Like I’d been subconsciously imagining all night, I roughly grabbed her chest, squeezing through her bra and the thin, abused tanktop. A tiny gasp escaped her plump lips before she groaned, and she arched her back to push her tits further into my hands and her ass tighter against my groin. My lips found the soft, sweat-salty skin of her neck, and she tipped her head back with another quiet moan.

I was so much taller than her that when she tilted her head all the way back, I could easily lean my head down to kiss her plump lips. For a moment, only a moment, just our lips brushed together, feeling each other out. But neither of us could wait, and our lips both parted so our tongues could eagerly massage each.other. I couldn’t help but groan into our kiss, a deep and rumbling sound, and she whimpered back into me. She was hungry for more, desperate for it, trying to stretch her body up towards me to press her lips harder against mine, moaning with every exhaled breath. Her scent filled my nose, surrounded me, spicy and sweet with arousal and femininity.

It wasn’t exceedingly suave or elegant, romantic or mature, but I couldn’t have been the first man in that bar that had dreamt of doing what I was doing at that moment. I squeezed and massaged those huge, amazing tits, feeling her hard nipples press against my palms. Through the miles of pillowy, warm, perfect flesh, I felt a pair of implants. They were soft in their own way, yielding when I pressed my strong fingers even harder against her breasts, and I supposed I couldn’t be that surprised. Kala’s chest defied gravity and the laws of God and nature, and I was just fine with that.

A thought that had been curling its way through my mind a few minutes before came swirling back to the surface. I reluctantly pulled my lips from hers, and I swore she whimpered at the loss, “I’ll show you one of my talents first then, I suppose?” I asked with a smile.

“Yes, please,” she moaned, eyes half-closed, “show me what else you can do.”

I’d decided, the moment I had the faintest glimmer of the possibility of success, to perform one of my old favorites. Of course, my second wife hated it and never let me do it except at the beginning of our relationship. Still, my first wife and the string of debauched relationships between marriages had all gone wild for it. So I couldn’t help but give her a grin that exuded confidence and not the excited anxiousness rushing through me.

I pulled back just a bit, and my hands fell from her perfect tits to that impossibly tiny waist. My thumbs hooked into the waistband of her painted-on jeans, and I yanked them down with all my strength. For a moment, I earnestly thought they’d be stuck at the broadest part of her hips and plump ass, but they just barely cleared them and quickly slid down her toned thighs to her trembling knees. I left them bunched there, noticing with a smirk that she hadn’t been wearing panties.

She gasped, frozen save for the uncontrollable trembling in her legs. With my hand, huge-looking on the small of her back, I bent her further over the table she was pinned against, and she didn’t or couldn’t resist. Then, so quickly and forcefully that she gasped again, I squatted just behind her and grabbed each massive asscheek with one hand, and pulled them apart. The tiny little rosebud of her ass came into view, but it was the glistening lips of her pussy, nestled tightly at the tops of her quivering thighs, that I was after.

Smiling, I leaned forward and gave her a single long, slow lick.

***

I rolled my eyes at first; of course, his ‘talent’ was to just bend me over and fuck me on a bar table. As if he was the first to try that, I thought to myself. Even then, there was something about the way his actions were so deliberate, the way he’d practically forced me to admit the way he made me ache for him. He might have oversold himself more than a bit, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t looking forward to a good hard fucking.

My pussy practically gushed when he yanked my jeans down and forced me over onto the table. Ok. Ok girl, maybe this was a talent of his. I tried to hold still for him, waiting for the inevitable jingle of his belt and the pressure of his cock getting ready to hammer into me. But one long second stretched by after another.

What was he doing back th…oh god. Oh fucckkk.

He gave me only a single long warning lick with his perfect tongue before he started slurping and suckling on my pussy lips like a man dying of thirst. I couldn’t help the strangled moan that burst from my lips, just like I couldn’t help the way my fingers clawed at the table from his sudden burst of enthusiasm. For a moment, I was worried I’d slip and collapse off of the table from the way my legs quivered, but Ivan’s burly arms were easily keeping me upright.

Realizing that fact sent another shockwave of arousal through me, and Ivan grumbled happily into my soaking wet pussy.

Goddamn but he was good. It’d been so long since one of these snared men of mine had focused so singularly on me, and I just basked in it. Exhaustion and adrenaline and fear swirled and changed into a molten, building flood of lust deep inside me, and I found myself biting my lip to try and hold back the whimpers he brought forth from me.

His tongue seemed just as strong and broad as the rest of him, and it explored every sodden inch of me. I tried to hold my own, to keep the desperate moans in my chest and make it seem like I liked it without loving it. Years of built-up anger and frustration had suddenly been wiped out in a single night, and all by this stoic giant of a man who was so singularly focused on my pleasure. But he was just another man, another over-muscled brute breezing through my life for me to seduce and use as best I could to protect myself and my girls, right? I couldn’t let him realize just how quickly he’d stirred something so deep and molten inside of me. I couldn’t…

Fuck it.

I gasped, tried to hold a breath to stave off what was building in my lungs, but that only made what was coming even louder. A sudden scream of pleasure ripped out of me, loud enough that anyone left in the parking lot would’ve been able to hear it. Ivan’s impossibly strong fingers tightened on my thick ass, and I could feel him almost chuckle into me. I tried to move, to lift myself up and catch my breath, but his grip and my tight jeans bunched around my knees had all but trapped me. All I could do was shove myself back into his eagerly lapping mouth, so dammit, that’s precisely what I did.

For a perfect moment, I wasn’t thinking about Brett’s office, lost tips, my girls’ struggles, or the endlessly empty dance of seducing men to get what I needed. In that perfect moment, I was getting exactly what I needed. The only thing in my world was his mouth against me; I wasn’t even thinking about my half of this little exchange.

And that was the exact moment his tongue found my clit.

I squealed in unexpected pleasure, pushing back as hard as I could against him. Lightning shot through me, and I thrashed in his grip, though I might as well have been struggling in a bear trap. Moaning, I tried to catch my breath, but his tongue flicked across my clit again, and I mewled like a well-paid pornstar. A career path I’d considered once upon a time, but that’s beside the point that Ivan was pushing every one of my buttons, and I was helpless to stop him.

He suckled against my clit, his lips and tongue creating an oh-so-perfect rhythm of suction and pleasure that sent fiery stabs of ecstasy into my core, and I gasped in time with his eager attentions. Gasps that, in an instant, turned back into whorish moans when I felt one of his thick fingers wriggle inside of me. Sweat beaded on my temples, trickled down my legs and between my tits where they were smashed against the table, and he eased me further and further open with his finger. That calloused digit found my textured g-spot, and those whorish moans of mine somehow grew even sluttier.

My knuckles turned white where I held on for dear life on the edge of the table, and my lungs burned almost as hot as my aching womb. I gritted my teeth between sobbing moans, surprised by every new change to his amazing routine. He licked and kissed my pussy lips for a few moments before his lips and flickering tongue found my clit again, and then the rhythm would start over and change again. But, wait, was that another finger curled inside of me? Desperately strumming my g-spot? I didn’t know when he’d done that, and I couldn’t be bothered to care either.

Pleasure was creating like a tidal wave of pure heat inside of me, sloshing into my mind with every passing moment. Finally, my perception tunneled down into the single point where Ivan’s oh-so-skilled mouth gave me the kind of pleasure I’d all but forgotten. With every frantic, pounding beat of my heart, I felt the best orgasm of my life barreling towards me.

One of his massive fingertips gently massaged the tiny little rosebud of my ass, and the world exploded.

I don’t know how long I screamed, but I had to frantically gulp air over and over to wail my pleasure into the tabletop. My muscles seized, my back arched, and I’m sure I all but suffocated Ivan when I shoved back against his face and clenched my thighs together. That wave of molten pleasure crashed over every inch of me until it finally ebbed and left me in a faintly mewling puddle, still folded over the table.

When I came swirling back to reality, I was vaguely aware of Ivan standing up behind me and gently massaging my lower back. I stood up as well as I could with my jeans still tangled around my knees and turned around to stare up at him. His beard was soaking wet, and his mouth and ice blue eyes smiled at me together. I was exhausted from a long day, from the wild night, from the best orgasm I could remember, but a surge of excitement and expectation rushed through me.

I let a wantonly lustful look creep across my face as I stared up at him, eyes hooded and lips slightly parted, and he cupped my chin in his massive hand, “So I’ve shown you one of my talents. Time to see one of yours.”

***

I was panting from the effort of the last few minutes, but it’d all been more than worth it. If Kala had backed out of our impromptu deal at that moment, I honestly wouldn’t have been that upset. With a wry smile, as she unsteadily stood up and turned, I thought to myself, “I’ve still got it.”

Her impossibly pale blue eyes brimmed with desire, and she parted those fakely plumped lips, “I have many talents. What would you like to see?”

I tilted her head back a bit further with my calloused hand, “I’m sure there’s a skill you’re…particularly proud of?”

“Hmmm,” she purred softly, “I’ve been told my mouth can get me into trouble.”

I chuckled at her brazenness. Though I did suppose it was time to be brazen, what with her cum trickling down my chin. “Or me out of trouble, with those cops. I’m interested to see what else it can do.”

“Yeah?” She cooed, “I could show you, I suppose.”

She ran her tiny hands under my shirt, fingers curling through the thick chest hair both of my wives had hated. Then, still constricted by her clothes-prison, Kala lowered herself between me and the table with agonizing slowness. Those out-of-place but gorgeous eyes never left mine, and the lusty, panting smirk stayed on her lips.

She scratched her nails back down my stomach before she popped the button on my jeans free and eased the zipper open. I knew this was far from the first time she’d slunk down like this in front of a man, she knew I knew, and neither of us gave a single fuck. Taking a chance and supposing I’d already shown her my quality, I firmly rested my hand on and in her messy top-bun.

“Well, it’s already pretty late, so you’d better get on with that demonstration,” I smirked at her again, pushing things in a more exciting direction.

With a smirk and a wry chuckle, Kala settled all the way onto her knees, massive ass on her heels, and yanked the front of my jeans open. Freed — partially — the long bulge of my cock strained insistently against my briefs. She let her fingers tease along its silhouette for only a few moments. Still, those seconds betrayed the subtlest mixture of surprise and animalistic lust on her carefully crafted mask of seduction.

I’d always been firmly above average in both length and girth — or so my partners had told me and plenty of time spent in locker rooms and field showers had shown me — and Kala couldn’t hide the way she faintly swallowed in anticipation. Or trepidation. I didn’t know at the time, and didn’t care.

She eased my briefs down over my still-growing cock — age and near a dozen beers do have their effects — and had to lean back to keep from being slapped in the cheek. With another slight bite to her bottom lip and an expectant whimper, Kala hefted my throbbing length in both hands and gently tugged back and forth. With one more smoldering moment of eye contact, she parted those expensive, bee-stung lips and wrapped them around my thick helmet.

I won’t lie: it’d been a decade since I’d gotten a blowjob and almost twice that since I’d gotten a good one. But, in that first moment, I realized that this was going to be the best one I’d ever had. Her eyes remained locked on mine, wide enough to show off their unique color and shape while staying lidded enough to stay seductive. That is, they stayed locked on mine except for when she let out throaty moans to show me just how much she was enjoying stretching her lips around me.

She started slow but rapidly picked up speed and took a bit more of my length with every few moments of building pleasure. Maybe she was doing it on purpose, or perhaps it was just a side effect of her desperately trying to wrap her tiny mouth around my still-growing length, but Kala was already drooling all over herself and the tool wedged between her lips. Every bob of her head was accompanied by lewd slurps and muffled groans that belonged in the porn I’d been watching to get through the last ten years of married life, not in my suddenly unrealistic reality.

I growled and tangled my fingers in her messy top-bun, feeling myself finally finish swelling to my full size and absolutely clogging her tiny mouth. That familiar tingle of my own explosion was already starting to build down at the base of my spine, but there was no way I wanted this to end so quickly.

“Damn darlin’, take your time. It’s been years since I’ve been treated this good.”

Kala smiled, or tried to with her lips stretched so obscenely, and stopped her relentless bobbing to pull off of me for a moment. “Whatever you say, boss,” she purred before sensuously licking up the bottom of my cock, from base to tip. Her lips worked sloppy kisses back down one side and up the other, tongue lavishing attention over every inch of my cock. Finally, she pulled back for a breath, a long strand of spit connecting my swollen helmet and her plump lips, only to launch even more messy saliva onto my throbbing shaft.

With a moan and sultry bat of her eyelids, Kala resumed her assault on my cock. My hand remained in her tangled hair, but I let her set her own pace, merely holding her head instead of guiding it. She pushed further and further down my length, twice as messy and two times as sloppy. The only pause in her relentless pace was the first time my tip bumped against the tight opening of her throat, making her gag with a muffled cough and groan.

In the moment she paused to catch her breath, I caught a glimpse of the absolute mess I’d made of her chin and the endless expanse of her cleavage. That sudden break and discomfort only served to motivate her more, and I suddenly felt the need to grab something to hold onto as she began ramming her mouth and throat down more and more of my cock. Loose strands of hair I hadn’t bunched into my hand swayed back and forth, her massive tits jiggled and swayed from her efforts, and the room echoed with the gluck-gluck-gluck of her throat being punished over and over.

She still hadn’t taken all of me yet and was squeezing her eyes shut every time she struggled to swallow another inch of me. During her brief pauses, she would look up at me with those eyes, brimming so much with tears that her makeup was starting to run. It was strange to think about anything other than the one-of-a-kind talent she was showing me, but I couldn’t place the warring emotions on that gorgeous and messy face of hers. The lust was there, determination and not-misplaced pride in her work, as well as something else. Exhaustion. Relief?

I massaged her hair and scalp with my strong hand, “Just like that, darlin’, show me just how much you want to take care of me.”

She spared another wide, messy smile for me and returned to the slow kissing and licking she’d subjected me to before. “Keep taking care of me…and I’ll keep taking care of you.” She lavished my aching cock with another minute of sloppy but tender attentions before, without warning, she went back to slamming her own face onto me like a woman starving. All while keeping her eyes coyly looking into mine.

Back and forth she went, just like that between messy and slow, and even messier and fast and rough, expertly reading my reactions and keeping me just on the edge. “Mmmmfuck darlin’,” I groaned, tossing my head back, “You’re damn good at that. Show me your favorite way to use this talent of yours.” I tried to maintain the casually dominant aura I was pretty confident was the first thing that had attracted her, but my cock was throbbing more insistently and my balls tightening more and more with each passing second.

She must’ve taken that as some kind of challenge, or she was just even more motivated than I thought because she winked at me before screwing her eyes shut and ramming her face down my cock. All the way down, something not even the women in my debauched relationships between marriages had been able to do. She coughed and gagged and choked, but that didn’t keep her from snaking her tongue out to lick around the base of my shaft or reaching up to cup my swollen sack in soft hands.

“Fuck, darlin’, no one’s ever been able to take all of me.”

I couldn’t help but look down at her with a feeling that approached adoration. This woman was fucking incredible! My mind raced ahead of me, thinking of working with Kala, ‘taking care’ of each other after every shift, maybe heading back to my newly acquired house to explore other…talents.

Anything but my rapidly approaching explosion disappeared from my mind as Kala pulled her face back to my tip before slamming it all the way back down. She didn’t let up, fucking her face up and down my throbbing cock, gagging and coughing and drooling every time I smashed my way into her throat but moaning in wanton pleasure.

“Just like that, fuck, just like that,” I grunted, straining to hold on against her incredible onslaught.

Sweat poured off both of us: mine from the rapidly losing control and her from the sheer enthusiastic effort. Her tank top and heaving tits were soaked in sloppy spit, and her makeup was absolutely ruined and streaked around her eyes and down her cheeks. My cock was covered in her spit and lipstick, and her fake lips were pale where they’d been stretched to her undoubtedly painful limit.

She was a thing of pure, wantonly sexual beauty, “Mmm, shit darlin’, I’m right there.” My hand tightened in her black hair as my legs began to tremble. There was no turning back now.

***

“Fuck, but my mouth is going to hurt tomorrow,” I remember thinking to myself. I could barely believe I’d let it get to this point and that I was putting on possibly the best performance in my long history of using my body to get what I wanted. Even though I had no idea if Ivan was going to be suitable for the girls and me, every time I looked up at him through the tears and my ruined makeup, I just felt that deep urge to show him exactly how well I could take care of him. I was treating him to my number one talent, reserved only for the handful of sugar daddies that had used me up and tossed me aside before I’d managed to get out of Hawaii.

I could tell he was close, and that helped me ignore the way my jaw and throat ached, the way my eyes stung, and my knees were tight and raw. So when he growled and clenched his fingers in my hair and told me he was close, I decided to send him barreling over the edge instead of tipping into his release.

“Mmmm,” I paused my relentless throat-fucking and cooed up at him, “Give it to me, boss. Cum for me, cum all over me. Please, boss, I need it.” I laid it on thick, and I knew it worked every single time. He’d be eating out of my hand until I figured out how to exploit him even better.

A look approaching surprise flashed across his face but disappeared just as quickly under the glazy veneer of uncontrolled lust. Something changed in him, and he went from passively stoic and dominant to aggressive and unbridled in an instant. His hand tightened in my hair — it would’ve been painful if I wasn’t already so aroused and exhausted — and he growled as he started fucking deep into my throat.

I tried to yelp in surprise and fresh pain, but my mouth was filled to bursting with his perfectly hard and searing hot cockmeat, and it turned into a lustful groan on its own anyway. Our eyes met one more time before he threw his head back and kept pounding into my throat as hard and fast as he could. I let out a continuous growling, choking gag that echoed in the empty bar.

“Fuck darlin’, fuck, fuck cummminngggg,” He growled, inadvertently pushing deeper than I’d been able to force him into my throat. My eyes flew wide open, not from the abuse to my aching throat, but from the way I felt his amazing cock grow and throb, his swollen sack tighten upwards, and the first massive rope of his cum shoot straight down my throat.

I choked and coughed, my mouth finally pushed past its limit even as it filled with his hot, salty seed. Desperately, eyes bulging, I tried to swallow the first rope even as his helmet popped from my throat and into my mouth and filled it to bursting with another molten blast. I say tried because my swollen throat was already full, and his huge load immediately started spilling from the corners of my abused mouth. Instinctual panic flared through me despite my intense lust, and my hands flew up to the massive cock doing its best to choke and drown me all at once.

Acting on pure instinct, I wrapped manicured fingers around his shaft — my fingers not even close to meeting around the pulsating flesh — and yanked his cock from between his lips, all while stroking furiously. He wasn’t even close to finished, spewing long ropes of surprisingly hot seed onto my forehead, my cheeks, across both eyes and my nose. I panted desperately, and more cum lashed across my lips and joined Ivan’s jizz that I was already drooling onto my heaving tits. It’d been years since I’d let one of these men cum all over my face, and I’d always inwardly wrinkled my nose at it. Perhaps it was the sudden intensity of it, the surprise, but I loved the feel of Ivan’s hot cum dribbling down my face and pooling all across my exposed cleavage.

Knowing I still had a show to put on and a man to helplessly snare, I cooed as soon as I could catch my breath, licking my lips and swallowing everything I could catch in that first swipe. Eyes glued shut, I somewhat reluctantly released his still pulsing cock and ran my fingers through the jizz that covered me, whorishly licking the globs from my fingers. As soon as I cleared my eyes of the worst of it — fuck, I was going to have to throw those expensive false lashes away — I looked up at him and saw a face as exhausted and surprised as my own.

He staggered backward, holding himself up on another table and catching his breath. I cooed and moaned at him wordlessly until I was sure I’d gotten most of it and then began considering how exactly to bring the night to its conclusion. That’s when he surprised me by quickly fetching a dry rag, wetting it with the sweat from his beer mug, and bending over to help me wipe what was left off of my sweaty skin.

A strange sensation fluttered its way through me, momentarily displacing the practiced disconnection I’d already cultivated. Of course, there was no regret– Ivan was my kind of man, and he was the man who needed to be seduced that night — but he still felt different somehow. But, girl, stop, I told myself: he’s the boss, the new nexus of power that I had to influence with my finely honed skill set.

Pep talk delivered to myself, I rocked on my knees and got ready to stand up and end the night’s festivities.

***

I saw Kala moving and quickly reached down to easily haul her up. Another flicker of surprise crossed her gorgeous but makeup-streaked face at being so easily moved around, but that sultry exhaustion returned in an instant. “Thanks for the help…cleaning up,” she purred.