Tell Me a Story

Tell Me a Story

By Hillary Blush

Petal molded herself against him, pressing as close as she could. She was six feet of lean muscle and soft, smooth skin. Short hair. Perfect smile. She fit perfectly in place.

She had no idea where her sisters, the twins, had gotten to. They were off somewhere with their host, Lynette. They were probably fucking. Most likely. They had been doing that a lot, slipping away with the shy little writer, the one who looked like a grade school librarian, with her hair pulled up and her heavy-rimmed glasses. She was a study in contradictions: quiet, blushing, but a lioness when the lights went out. The twins were insatiable. With the lights out, so was Lynette. She seemed able to match their appetites, kiss for kiss, caress for caress, orgasm for orgasm.

They had probably taken their favorite toy, too, ten inches of pink silicone they had affectionately named Odo. The thing someone had drawn a suave James Bond face on with an ink pen. The one Petal said she didn't want looking at her uterus. That had only made the joke stick. Then one of the twins had drawn the face on with a permanent marker, added a little bow tie. They said if you turned the lights out, you came just as hard. It was true. They were probably using it with Lynette right now. Probably had the lights out.

That was fine with her. Let them enjoy their little diversions. It gave her more time alone with her writer. She was beginning to enjoy their alone time more and more. Looked forward to it. Although she would never admit as much.

They had spent the afternoon at the tearoom in town, a place full of orchids and ivy and sweet smells and bright light, a place where Lynette and John did their work, and where she and the twins thought up ways to distract them. Not that it took much thinking. They were like minds, easily led down rabbit holes, easily led into new stories and fantasies. They both wrote erotic fiction. They all liked to laugh.

And after several hours, the twins had grown bored. That was the cue for the writers to wrap up whatever they had been working on before the twins thought up some real mischief. They had moved across the street to a restaurant, shared a couple bottles of good wine, a steak, and then returned to Lynette's. She had a big house, way too big for just herself and a charcoal tabby named Josie.

Lynette had called it what? Victorian? Victorian sounded right. Petal wouldn't know Victorian if it bit her on the ass. But it sounded good. It was a place with old, framed pictures and lacy curtains, tables and chairs with curved legs and clawed feet, and big iron beds that would hold a half dozen people. She knew. On several occasions, they had piled into one or another. She was certain Lynette and the twins occupied one of these at the moment. She didn't care. She was in her own room, in her own bed with John.

After they had returned to the grand old house, Lynette had served cognac, little glasses no bigger around than her finger. You were supposed to sip it. Petal had not grown up particularly refined, though. She treated the little glasses as shooters. She usually stopped at two. Tonight she had had three. It was good brandy, good company.

The house had an amazing sound system. She was pretty sure that was not what they meant by Victorian. The rooms could be controlled individually, in groups, or by floors. The whole house could be made to sound like a symphony hall, with individual instruments that followed you from room to room. John liked classical. She was growing more fond of it. Every time he paged through his playlist and made a selection. The blankets smelled like cinnamon. Only candles lit the room. Beethoven played at just the right tempo, and John lit her.

She didn't take much coaxing. She'd been looking forward to this since the first shot of brandy, since Lynette and the twins had disappeared to wherever they had disappeared to. She had taken John by the hand, led him to her room, not that he needed much leading, either.

Her arms went around his neck. His arms went around her waist. He kissed her. She kissed him back. Then his hands were on her ass, pulling her close, and his tongue met hers, and then somehow her clothes were pooled on the floor, and she was trying to step out of them and kick her way free of her shoes without appearing awkward and tripping and ruining the moment.

And then his weight was pressing her into the soft down and covers. And he was inside her. And his scent filled her, and the music carried her away. And then time seemed to stop, just as surely as the little hitch of breath caught at the back of her throat.

She dug her nails into his shoulders, pulled him closer, pulled him deeper. A little cry escaped her lips. A little moan as she came. She felt him as well at the same moment. No, she knew that was not true. He was a careful lover, an attentive lover. Whether with her, or the twins, or with all of them together, he always made sure they were first.

She let her fingers trail down his spine to the small of his back. A little pool of sweat had collected there. He rolled beside her, and she curled herself against him. They listened to the symphony. She listened to his heart thudding in his chest.

She listened for a long time, until his heartbeat slowed and his breathing had settled. She pressed her lips to his side.

"Tell me a bedtime story," she whispered.

He thought about it a moment. "Once upon a time--" he began.

"No," she said. "Not that kind of story. Tell me a real story. Tell me about Jane."

She knew about Jane. She knew about the betrayal and the divorce and the reason he had come to Paradaeza.

"Most women don't want to know about other women," he said evenly.

Petal nuzzled against him in response. "I'm not most women," she said. "Your cum is draining out of me and not her. So, I figure that's her loss. But I also figure that you loved her once, and that's just as important as the bad things. So, tell me something funny. Tell me something happy. There must be some good memories."

"There are," he said.

"Then tell me one of the happy memories. Something to end on a good note."

He kissed her on top of the head. Her hair was short, spiky, and it tickled. Maybe there were some good stories. He was quiet for a moment, and then he spoke.

"Let's see," he said. "Something happy..."

"We had been married for about a year. I don't know whose idea it was. Well, not true. It was probably mine. But there was this strip club just off the main highway. The Beaver's Den."

He felt Petal laugh against him, just a little.

"It was kind of a dive. But it was on our route. We had to go in occasionally, you know, check IDs, that kind of stuff, make sure none of the dancers were underage. Somehow, it came up in conversation. Who knows how? Probably over dinner. Isn't that where polite conversations turn to things such as this? Anyway, Jane decided she wanted to go. To see what it was like. There was some back and forth, maybe, I think. I don't know. I probably put up some resistance, probably some false resistance. I'm sure I wanted to go. I'm sure I wanted to see her reaction. So, we went.

"It was kind of a classy place--"

"I thought you said it was a dive."

"It was a classy dive. Are you gonna let me tell this story?"

He felt her chuckle.

"So anyway, it was one of these places with lasers and neon and a bunch of lights spinning around. There were about a dozen girls, maybe two dozen customers. But we walked in, and one of the girls was hanging from the rafters by her feet. I don't think Jane was expecting that. I think she had seen too many vids, girls just walking around and around a pole on a stage until somebody flashes a few credits, and then they fall into their laps. I don't think she really knew what she expected, but it certainly wasn't this.

"The girl's name was Sage. We got drinks, and we sat at a table, almost right underneath her, and watched as she stripped while upside down and dropped all of her clothes onto the floor. Not what Jane expected. This naked girl was spinning around from the rafters like a disco ball, all these lights playing off of her, and Jane's eyes were about this big around."

Petal couldn't see his hands in the dark, but she imagined they were making circles the size of oranges.

"When she finished her set, she dropped down, gathered up her clothes, and then sat at the table, but not between us, or next to me. She sat next to Jane. Usually, at a strip club, the girls just sit down next to you, put their hand on your leg or on your shoulder, get real friendly and start trying to hustle dances. I was impressed. Sage reached out, but then stopped and said, 'May I?'

"Shit. Jane was hooked. She just kind of nodded, and Sage rested her hand on her knee, and then on her thigh, and then they started talking, just like they had known each other forever. I have no idea what they were talking about. I was watching the show, watching the shows on the other stage, watching the customers. It was a bad habit, a cop thing. Keep an eye on everybody.

"There were a couple of lesbian chicks. I mean, the kind you could spot from across the room. But they were having a grand old time. They were throwing money at all the girls. Lots of flirting and wolf whistles from that corner of the room. That was as much fun as any other part of the show. Almost. The show going on beside me was really getting interesting.

"Jane told me one time, maybe right before we got married. Yeah, I guess while we were still dating, that she had had a fling with her roommate back in college. It had been the--what do you call it?--the en vogue thing to do, to show that you were open-minded. Anyway, she told me about it. I didn't care. It's not hard to think about your wife being with another woman, but she thought it was important, something she needed to tell. So, I listened.

"And now I could tell that whatever Sage was doing, she liked. They were both laughing, sipping beers. Sage's hand was drawing little circles up and down Jane's shoulder, and Jane had her hand on Sage's thigh. I mean, I couldn't help but think, this is pretty fucking hot.

"Sage was one of these bouncy, vivacious types. Kind of thin, athletic, lots of brown hair and smiles. A pretty girl. And then she was telling Jane how the system worked. Two hundred credits for a private dance, fifteen minutes. You know the routine.

"'You want to watch?' she asked me. 'Another hundred.' I love to be watched."

Fuck yeah, I wanted to watch. I'd have paid ten times that. So, I pulled out my money. I didn't want to appear overly anxious. I think I ended up dropping most of it on the floor.

"And then she stood, took Jane by the hand, and led us back to the VIP rooms. 'The camera's broken in this one,' Sage said. That was something I hadn't known. Something I filed away in cop memory. But tonight I was just glad.

"I remember exactly what was playing. The opening riffs of AC/DC's 'Thunderstruck.' And I remember that she just sort of pushed Jane down onto this sofa. There were mirrors everywhere. The lights were on. She pulled this curtain. And then she tugged Jane's shirt lose from where she had it tucked in and unbuttoned it down the front. Jane had on this lacy red bra. And Sage looked at it for a moment. 'Nice,' she said. And then she took hers off.

"And I was thinking that I was the luckiest guy in the world and this was the hottest thing I had ever seen. But that was not the half of it--

"Are you sure you want to hear all this?"

Petal just nodded against his chest. "Keep going," she said, her voice already sounding a little dreamy.

So, he continued.

"I don't remember what the second song was. I just knew I was fumbling around for another three hundred credits to keep this show going. I remember thinking, damn, she has to know who I am, as many times as the deputies had been in this place. But it didn't seem to matter. It certainly didn't matter to me. I put more money up on this little shelf where she kept her cigarettes and they had set their beers.

"And by then, I think I was a little delirious and had lost track of time. She was grinding away in Jane's lap and had taken her hands and guided them to her tits. She was just sort of massaging herself but using Jane's hands to do so; using Jane's fingers to pinch at her nipples. But she was looking right at me and just smiled. And then I knew that she knew exactly who I was, and that at that minute neither one of us gave a fuck.

"She took Jane's hand and guided it down her belly and between her legs. And she used her fingers to guide Jane's fingers inside her. And I was thinking that if I was a really good boy, when I died, I would come to this titty bar.

"I don't know how long this went on. A long time. Like I said, I had lost track of time by then. And I think I'd put about a thousand credits on that little shelf. They kept playing song after song. And I saw that Sage was not watching me, but she was looking past me into the mirror behind me and back into Jane's eyes. Jane's eyes were just glazed over, and Sage kept working her fingers in and out, using Jane's hand. And I was still thinking that it doesn't get any better than this.

"I remember the last song well. Cliff Richard's 'Devil Woman.' Right near the end, there's a riff, a little beep. Sounds like an EKG. But when they mixed the song, the sound moves; it shifts from your right ear to the left. And when they got to that part, Sage was again staring directly at me, and she moved Jane's hand from her pussy and stuck her fingers in her mouth. And our song ended at the same time as Jane. It's like she just melted.

"And I thought: this is the best fucking money I have ever spent in my life.

"Now I was broke. Jane was spent, but I was keyed up as hell. And we still had the drive back home. Maybe twenty minutes, maybe thirty if I took my time--are you sure you want to hear this?"

"Don't candy out on me now," Petal mumbled.

"Okay." John ran a hand along her shoulder. He loved the way she felt beside him.

"I was on a bit of a hair trigger," he said. "I loved roadhead, but Jane was always worried that she would get caught. I wasn't worried about the cops so much. I was one of them. They would have laughed. But she was an attorney, and that wouldn't have looked so great for her. So, my job was to keep lookout and to drive and to not crash and kill us both.

"You could always tell the drunks. They're either weaving from curb to curb, or they're driving really slow and deliberate and staying exactly between the lines. And I was trying not to do either of these myself. But Jane had this thing she used to do. She sort of had me in her mouth, just the end, and then she would just kind of twist her wrist a little bit or something. Just drove me wild.

"I was trying not to drive too fast. I was trying not to drive too slow. I was trying to stay in my lane. And I had my eyes on the road ahead. And I had my eyes in the rearview mirror. And I was watching everything except the feeder lane.

"I was trying my damnedest to make it last. Trying to keep an eye on the rearview mirror, and I slipped my hand down the back of her jeans and along her ass, and I was trying really hard to remember all of the songs on the playlist: AC/DC and Poison and Kiss and the Eagles. And I got to the last song, when Sage, the devil woman, put my wife's fingers in her mouth--

"and I blew Jane's tonsils out.

"I might have run off the road just a little bit. But I was glued to the rearview mirror. And I was not about to get caught now. And Jane sat up and swallowed and was trying to get her hair back in place.

"And then we saw the guy. A truck driver had fallen in beside us on the feeder road. Probably enjoying the show for twenty miles. This black guy with all these gold teeth and a grin as wide as a railroad track. And he just gave us a thumbs-up and drove on. Jane was mortified. I was ecstatic.

"Best night of my life."

He felt Petal stir against him, but only slightly. She had stayed awake to hear the end of the story. To hear something good.

"See?" she mumbled. "A story with a happy ending."

And then she was asleep. Just like that. John thought about it for a while, his fingers still trailing along the girl's shoulder, and then he began to doze as well.

"Yeah," he said. "It was a happy ending."