Jack's Place is my favorite bar. It could be because of the friends I have there or the girls I have met there or the fact that my favorite brand of dark ale is always available in the cooler, but it is none of that. It is Jack – actually Jacqui, pronounced Jackie.
Jacqui is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. I could go there every night just to watch her behind the bar. And it isn't that she dresses sexy. Her outfit is almost always a pair of loose fitting blue jeans and an equally loose black tee shirt with the Jack's Place logo on the front in white. But when she smiles she is absolutely beautiful. And when she talks to you it is as if you had known each other all your lives.
I first started going to Jack's Place because of the Friday night after-hours pool tournament. Every Friday night, just before the 2:00 am closing time, Jacqui would announce that everyone who wanted to play in the tournament needed to go to the tournament room. She would call last round on drinks - I usually ordered a six-pack of bottles to go - and then she opened a doorway into a back room that held a full-sized, regulation, pool table. The entry fee was ten dollars. Side bets were optional.
Jacqui would collect the money, usher everyone into the room, deliver the drinks, place one-half of the money in a large winner's trophy on one of the tables, and then close the doorway between the bar and the tournament room so that everything was legal under the liquor laws. Liquor could not be served in her establishment or adjacent to her establishment with her present after the legal closing hours.
It was all legal because the door to the bar was locked. We were no longer in the bar, but Jackie couldn't be present while we were drinking what we had purchased at last call. So, after drawing the blinds on the windows, she would go to a small stairway that led up to her apartment and announce, "Make sure you turn out the lights, and make sure that the alley door closes behind you when you leave." Then pointing to the cameras mounted around the room she would add, "And remember, Jacqui is watching you."
Recently another reason to love Jack's Place arrived. Her name was - well, she never gave her name. She always said, "Just call me Honey, cause I'm the sweetest thing you'll ever meet, but I've got a stinger if you get to close." She came into the bar only on Friday's and always arrived about 1:45, just in time for the pool tournament.
The tournament was actually an 8-ball game where the winner kept playing as long as there was a challenger. It was purely a last man standing tournament, so whoever won the last game won the money in the trophy, and yes, there were side bets.
The official wager was standard, you had to throw a ten into the cup to challenge, and it was one dollar for the game and one dollar for every ball you left on the table when your opponent sank the 8 ball. If you scratched the 8, it was ten for the scratch plus two dollars for every ball on the table. The game often went on until almost dawn.
From her first night there, Honey always went home with the cup money. She was good - damned good, but she also had an unfair advantage. She wore fairly short skirts and every time she leaned over the table to shoot, you could see her tight, tan, little ass peeking at you from behind a pair of white lace panties. It sure broke your concentration.
After several weeks, it was obvious that she was the best player there. We knew it, and she knew it. Then one Friday night the little leather paddle appeared on the table. On the shiny, black leather - embossed and rubbed in gold - were the words, "Honey's Stinger." After that, whenever the balls were being racked, she would wave her little paddle and taunt us with, "OK, who's next to get their ass whipped?"
Then came "that Friday night."
Anyone who knows the story just refers to it as "that Friday night."
That Friday night, everything started out as usual and went as usual. Honey played like a pro, flashed her panties like a tease, and was ready to leave with all the money somewhere past 4:00 am. She stood next to the money cup and looked around the room at each of us and asked, "Isn't anyone else going to get their ass whipped tonight?"
"Just you, Honey," came a sultry answer from behind me.
I turned around and almost bit the neck off the bottle I had been emptying. There in the doorway to her apartment stood Jacqui.
I knew it was Jacqui. It had to be Jacqui. But not even in my wildest dreams had I ever imagined her like that.
She was wearing skin-tight black pants that ended just below her knees. On top was a white satin blouse, open slightly to show off what she had been hiding under those black tee shirts for so long. Her hair framed her face and her makeup was perfect. She literally steamed with sexuality and the lust in her eyes shone out like lasers into the room. No wonder none of the men at Jack's Place had never gotten anywhere with Jacqui. The Queen Bee didn't like men!... but whoa, did she like Honey.
She looked like a lioness stalking her prey as she sauntered over to the table and asked, "How about a special game to end the evening, Honey? I ante in with one hundred and if you win, it's a hundred for the game and a hundred for every ball on the table. If I win, I get to whip your naked ass right there on that table. Once for the game and once for each ball on the table. What do you think, Honey, you ready to get your ass whipped?"
Honey stood and looked at Jacqui for a while and then said, "Two hundred and you're on."
Jacqui laughed. "OK, we double the bet - two hundred against two swats. Rack 'em."
I doubt that any game of billiards in any tournament, anywhere in the world, for any amount of money, had ever held the attention of the audience like that game. Honey broke and sank three solids. Jacqui sank two stripes, but left Honey a really bad shot. She managed to get one, but couldn't set for another. Jacqui then sank four in a row, but blew the fifth for no apparent reason. Honey easily sank her fifth and sixth balls and tried to line up on her last ball when it became apparent that Jacqui's mistake had actually saved her the game. Honey couldn't get a decent shot because she was blocked by Jacqui's ball. She made a great attempt with a three bank, come from behind shot, but the ball just didn't fall. Jacqui popped both remaining stripes and lined up on the 8 ball.
"You ready to get your ass whipped, Honey?" she asked as she dropped the 8 in a side pocket.
Honey was totally wide-eyed and gasping for breath. Evidently it hadn't occurred to her that she might lose. She never had before.
"You're not going to go south on your bet are you, Honey?"
"Another game," stammered Honey. "We shoot another game. House rules are that all bets ride to the next game as long as you keep playing."
"Hmm, what do you think guys?" She paused and watched Honey gasping for breath, "Those are the house rules... But this was a special game, so I could claim the house rues don't apply."
Honey groaned. Jacqui continued, "But I'll agree to abide by the house rules for the game if she will. If Honey antes up in the cup, I will accept her challenge. But we double the bet again - four hundred per ball against four swats. And, Honey, in case you didn't notice, the ante is one hundred."
"I don't have that kind of money on me," whined Honey.
Jacqui smiled, or was it a leer, and replied, "That's OK. I'll give you one hundred dollars credit for those lace panties. Just drop them in the cup and we're ready to rack."
Honey hesitated and looked around like a trapped bunny rabbit in a den of wolves. "It's either that," continued Jacqui, "or drop you drawers and lean over the table for four swats with that fancy leather paddle of yours."
Almost crying, Honey reached down and removed her panties and put them in the trophy.
To say that we were even more glued to this game would be the greatest understatement of all time. Even showing her ass to the whole room every time she shot, Honey was still a much better player than Jacqui. Honey never seemed to make a mistake while Jacqui made error after error. Somehow, however, Jacqui's blown shots always seemed to end up just in the wrong place for Honey to make the most of her next shot.