Chapter Seven: Hannah
I couldn’t help it. I looked at the clock again. 1:30 AM. Man, it sucked to be me. I had an eight-to-six shift tomorrow, and I had Butch coming to the apartment at seven thirty. Chances are, after what he’d seen on the stairs, he was not going to be happy. Did I care? Not really. But would I pay the consequences for his displeasure? Probably. That I did care about.
Still, I wouldn’t have traded that experience for anything. I could still feel the pressure and heat of those lips on my hand, sense that little tingle that had traveled up my spine, and that clenching of my pussy could not be forgotten so easily either. I hadn’t felt that in a long while. I wasn’t a virgin by any stretch, and I’d certainly slept around enough, but I was cautious about who I slept with because Richie kept his eyes on me, and dating the right man was important. He couldn’t be trash, and yet he couldn’t be too rich, powerful, or influential in the town. He had to be “good enough” without being competition.
I had to date a pure Goldilocks. Someone with a decent, stable job, but no money. Someone who was reasonably smart, but had no degree or ambition. Someone who wasn’t ugly—it wouldn’t do to create ugly children—but couldn’t be better looking than my freaking brother. Basically, I had to date Johnny Middle-of-the-Road when it came to any aspect of his life. You’d think average men were a dime a dozen, but believe me, when it came down to finding a decent “average man,” it was a lot harder than it sounded.
Danny O’Shea. I couldn’t count him as average. He was too good looking. He seemed to have a sense of humor. He might even be smart. I guess we’d find out how fast he learned during training, not that any moron couldn’t be a bouncer because Butch was proof of that. You needed muscle and a set of eyes. Brains optional.
I closed my eyes. I wanted to sleep, but thoughts of Danny kept intruding in the darkness. Those deep eyes had stared into mine with an intensity that made my breath quicken. The promise in those eyes caused me to sigh now and arch my body with a moan. I clenched my pussy muscles because I could practically feel his tongue on my clit, flicking and tapping against the taut bud and dipping down into my leaking cunt. How would he make me come after he’d teased and stroked and licked? Would he suck on my clit, or would he spear my pussy with his tongue? Would he scrape his teeth across my tender flesh, or would he stroke me from ass to cunt to clit?
I wanted to find out. In the meantime, all I had was my own hand.
I slipped my hand into my panties and very gently stroked my finger over the swelling bud. It tightened up beneath my touch, and my body gave a little jerk. After a few soft circles, I dipped below to stick my finger into my pussy. I was wet, the juices hot and dripping already. The mere thought of what Danny might do to me had turned me on so much that I knew I could come within moments.
I jammed my finger deeper, curling my finger and stroking, searching for my G-spot. When I found it, I pressed and began to pump my fingers. But I wanted to come hard. I wished I had someone to roll my nipples, to pull on them and twist, but I needed my other hand for my clit. As I continued to rub my G-spot, I rubbed my clit, gently at first and then harder and faster, over and over, until my breath stuttered in my chest and my back arched. My entire body shuddered as huge swells of pleasure rolled out from my clit and bright spikes of sensation crested through me. My pussy spasmed, once, twice, three times, then pulsed against my fingers. My clit burned and ached and throbbed as I kept rubbing, circling and circling until my body stopped trembling. I gasped as all the tension in my body simply released in a huge wave, like an atomic blast finally running out of energy and leaving a wake of destruction in its path.
In my case, though, the wake of destruction was simply a sense of completion, of having had every ounce of energy torn from my body, leaving me limp, useless, incapable of doing anything but turning over and closing my eyes.
My heartbeat slowed down as my breathing returned to normal.
No one had ever given me a better orgasm than I gave myself. It was both a delight and a curse. A delight for me because I was never unsatisfied, but a curse to any man I dated because I never needed a man to come.
I thought again of Danny O’Shea. He looked like a man who might give me a run for my money. If I could find a man who made me come harder or gave me more pleasure than I could give myself, that man would own my heart forever.
Average my ass. I wanted exceptional.
* * * *
A bit of morning sun filtered through the haze, indicating another blistering Chicago dawn and brutal day. The heat index threatened to be over 100 today, just a shade hotter than the grueling morning we’d had the day before. Despite having the windows open and a fan blowing across my bed, a sheen of sweat covered every inch of my body, and my teddy was plastered to my skin. I could have slept naked, but even with all the locks on my door, I never felt comfortable enough to do that. With the kinds of men who came to the club each night—not to mention Butch—I was reluctant to add to my vulnerability. The baseball bat I kept under my pillows was a deterrent, but some men couldn’t be deterred when they’d already hit rock bottom.
I knew rock bottom. I saw it on faces every day. The men and women who’d hit it had nothing to lose and always thought they had something to gain. The closer you got to the bottom, the more stupid you became.
I pulled the earplugs out—a necessity living above a strip club—rolled over, and felt the dampness between my thighs. I sighed because, though I was sticky with sweat, this dampness had everything to do with my new fantasy man. I sure hoped he didn’t let me down by being a bastard like most of them around here.
The thought crossed my mind that I could indulge myself in another round of “Fuck me, Danny O’Shea.” I smiled as I fingered my pussy through the moist fabric, even went so far as to slip the tip of my finger inside to touch my clit.
And then it hit me.
Freak show was coming up here in…
A glance at the clock showed I had ten minutes.
I yanked my hand out of my panties and gave it a sniff. Yep. Definitely tangy. The last thing I wanted to do was give Butch a whiff of my cunt after I’d fingered myself. I had ten minutes to get rid of the smell of my juices before he banged on the door.
After hopping in the shower and scouring myself with a loofa, I pulled on a pair of baggy shorts and a loose T-shirt to keep his leering to a minimum. Not that he cared what I wore. Even that ratty old bathrobe didn’t turn him off. Sometimes I wondered if he had x-ray vision.
Hair in a ponytail and coffee in front of me, I sat down at my rickety little table and waited. And waited. The sweat pooled in all the creases of my body and dampened my clothing. Seven fifty-five rolled around, and the big lug was a no-show. Eight ten and I was spitting mad, ready to kill someone.
“Damn him. I can’t go through this another day. I’m going to die in here like a dog.”
I flung the coffee in the sink and let the cup drop on the chipped porcelain. I was into the bedroom, halfway out of my shirt, when a knock sounded.
“Who the fuck is it?” I yelled.
“Carmen,” came the muttered response.
I managed to get my arms back into the shirt, stomped across the room, and yanked open the door to find my brother’s handyman standing there, head hanging.
“What?” I snapped.
“Sorry, Miss Hannah.” He lifted a toolbox. “Richie says I am to fix your a…c.”
I put a hand on my hip. “I thought Butch was going to do that.”
Carmen shrugged. “I have work order.” He held up a slip of paper. I snatched it out of his hand and looked it over. Sure as shit my brother had sent him. So what the fuck had Butch been doing up here last night? I was going to wring his sorry neck and plant a stiletto in his ass. Really deep.
“That fucking fuck,” I muttered.
“Qué?”
“Sorry. It’s hot as a donkey’s ass in here. I’m sweating like a whore in church.”
“Sí, Miss Hannah. Muy caliente.”
I ran a hand over my brow, pushing off stray hairs and a few drops of sweat. A few drops? It felt like a bucketful. I glanced down at my clothing. I didn’t have time for this right now. I still had to put on my tramp outfit for work.
“Give me a minute, Carmen.”
I slammed the door in his face, tore into the bathroom, and ran a washcloth over my sweaty skin. I splashed on some perfume to cover any lingering stink then shimmied into my slut blouse and my boy shorts. Why they called them boy shorts I had no idea because, other than a few twinks down at the gay bar on the corner, I’d never seen a boy with his ass cheeks hanging out in broad daylight.
The shorts looked far better on the twinks than they did on me because you really needed a skinny butt to pull them off. I wasn’t overweight or anything, but I did have an ass and tits. Ass and tits, I preferred to cover around certain types of people.
I pulled them down as best I could, plumped up my breasts because Richie would give me hell if they weren’t displayed to perfection, and smeared some lip-stain on my mouth. Cherry red because cherry red was the standing order at Pussy Whipped. As though it took red lipstick to strip or pour a drink. Men were pigs.
Well, to be fair, Carmen was okay. He was a quiet man, always polite, and had a wife and five kids under eight a couple of neighborhoods over. I knew he only worked here because he was an illegal, and he had a lot to lose because his kids had all been born here. Richie didn’t give a damn about Carmen’s family or his legal status. He liked illegals because it kept some of his workers tied to him for virtually everything. Richie liked it that way. Richie was a pig too.
I calmed down a bit before I opened the door. Eight in the morning and I was already far too riled up for a hot day like this.
“Sorry about that, Carmen. Bad morning.”
He nodded and gave me a tiny smile.
“I gotta get downstairs. You’ll be okay here?”
He glanced around as though expecting danger—or maybe the INS—and bobbed his head. “Sí, Miss Hannah.”
I handed him my house keys and tossed the club set in my purse. “Lock up when you’re done and bring me the keys, okay? Just me. No one else.”
“Sure, sure, I bring them.”
“Okay then.” I crossed my fingers. “Cool digs when I get off tonight, right?”
“Sí, I do good job.”
I left Carmen standing on the landing and bounced down the stairs. Late, late, late. The word drummed through my mind.
The club closed at four a.m. so the cleaning crew could wipe down the seats, tables, and floors of beer, liquor, and food debris, as well as piss, cum, and whatever other liquids the dregs of humanity had decided to share the previous evening. We re-opened at eight, and there were usually a few die-hards waiting there with their tongues hanging out, jonesing for their morning Budweiser or Jack with a side of tit. Sometimes they came after their shifts, and sometimes they came before, but they always came.
I was fifteen minutes late opening the doors, and though the bouncers had keys, they knew better than to open the door without me there. It was one of Richie’s rules, and anyone who violated one of Richie’s rules found himself out in the gutter with a Gucci print in his ass—and those were the lucky ones.
As I burst through the door into the club, I ran into a solid mass of muscle as two giant hands wrapped around my arms. This man could go toe-to-toe with LeBron James and probably come out ahead.
“What the fuck, Hannah?” Jonell growled. He gestured to the door, and through the dark shades, I saw the outline of the people waiting outside. Based on the shadow of the overdone hairstyle, one of them was a woman, but that didn’t really surprise me because, when you needed a drink, you needed a drink. We were the closest open bar for some people.
As far as bouncers went, Jonell was okay. He kept his eyes and hands to himself, and in my book, that elevated him to one of the “okay” guys.
He released me, and I scurried toward the front doors. He followed behind me to take his place at door.
“Sorry, I’m late. Where the fuck is Butch? I was sitting up there with my thumb up my ass waiting for him to fix my a/c.”
Jonell nearly busted a gut laughing, bending over and slapping his legs, trying to get his breath. Key in the door, I waited until he could answer, and then he flashed me a big smile full of sharp white teeth. “How in the hell would Butch fix your AC? He’s a fucking moron. You know that. He can barely fix a fucking drink?”
“Yeah, I know that.”
Jonell took his seat on the high stool, which creaked under his weight. Most of the people who came in here were legal, but inevitably some high school kid tried sneaking in for a shot before school. It happened all the time. Richie was a snake, and he was probably involved in more shit than I even knew about, but the place was off-limits to kids. No drinking, no peeking, no loitering.
I twisted open all the locks and nearly got stampeded as my morning regulars swept into the room like a mini tidal wave. The dancers didn’t start until nine, but that didn’t hinder the drinking. These guys were hardcore. They could pull an eight-hour shift in a junkyard or gas station after drinking a six-pack, which they usually did in under an hour.
Once the customers were inside, I shut the door again and leaned back against it for a moment. I wanted to savor every drop of cold air. Richie kept it like an ice factory in here. Tits perked up in the cold. Dancers didn’t pass out. Men drank more because they weren’t falling asleep at their table after drinking themselves into a stupor. Richie was willing to pay the high utility bill because he made five times the money with the a/c cranked.
“He still trying to get in your pants?” Jonell asked.
I rolled my eyes.
“Need me to put some hurt on him?” He smirked. It was a nice idea, but we both knew he couldn’t jeopardize his future like that. He worked the day shift to avoid drama to keep a clean record. He was taking courses at Chicago State, hoping someday to get out of this rat hole. I admired anyone with a real goal. I wished him the best.
“Hey, Hannah!” one of the regulars called from the bar. “What gives? I’m thirsty.” He glanced at his battered watch. “I’m down to thirty-five minutes before I have my shift.”
“Sorry, Hank. Coming.” I turned back to Jonell. “You don’t need to worry. I can handle myself.”
“Oh, I ain’t got no doubt about that, girlie. But sometimes…” He glanced around. “Sometimes things just get…worse. You know what I mean?”
“I do, Jonell. I really do.”
I headed across the room to make sure Hank had his bucket before work. These guys might not be angels, but sometimes they were the only friends I had. Plus these were the guys who left good tips.