Dani in the City

Dani in the City pt. 2: Networking

The alarm. Fuck.

So tired. That rotten stuff kept me awake most of the night. The sun is streaming through the blinds like a laser and it hurts to open my eyes even a crack. My hand hovers over the snooze button, but it's already ten and the day is getting away from me.

I have to meet Bianca at her place at noon to talk her through this job we are both booked for tonight. Most of the time I handle my own clients, but I also do some regular work with Bianca's madam, Antonia. Antonia's agency services a lot of high-rollers and they specialize in private corporate events all over Silicon Valley. Tonight will be my third one of these parties, but Bianca has never done this type of work before and she's nervous.

Bianca's new to the city, and a few years younger than me. Antonia asked me to take her under my wing and we've kind of gotten close these past few months.

I prop myself up on my elbows and a needle of pain skewers my temples. I've had worse hangovers, but this one means business. Have to just deal with it, I tell myself. But first I need to kick Mike out.

I reach a foot across the bed and prod my client's naked back. "Wake up, mister. When I get out of the bathroom I'd appreciate it if you were up and dressed." Mike grunts and rolls onto his front.

"I need water."

"Plenty in the faucet. Fifteen minutes, I'm not kidding." I roll off the bed, pick up Mike's jeans from the floor, and toss them on the bed beside him. "Your shirt's still in the den."

In the bathroom I drink two glasses of water, brush my teeth, and check myself over in the mirror. My face is a little puffy and I look wasted, but no hickeys or bite-marks to cover up. My hair is fucked, but I'll deal with that later at Bianca's. I apply a little SPF30 moisturizer then take my pill and sit on the toilet.

After peeing I wipe myself and notice I'm a little sore down there. Angling a make-up mirror between my legs, I see the inside of my butt cheeks are chafed from Mike's beard. Cursing, I stand up gingerly and pull on my robe.

When I get out of the bathroom, Mike is dressed and fiddling with the coffee machine in the kitchen.

"How d'you get this to work?"

"There's a switch on the side. I take mine black, but there's milk in the fridge." I take a few bites out of an apple from the fruit bowl and go into the bedroom to get dressed.

"I still need to pay you. Cash, right?" Mike calls through the door.

"It's up to you. I can swipe a credit card with my phone. That's what most people do here." I shout back, dressing myself in a yellow sundress and a white baseball cap. I pack my party clothes into an overnight bag: a little black dress, a small purse, three sets of underwear, and a pair of kitten heels. "Don't worry about your Visa statements, it'll show up as something innocuous."

"Well, that's not exactly a problem anymore." Mike hands me a cup of coffee as I exit the bedroom. "Wife and I separated a few months back."

I take a sip of coffee. This news raises faint alarm bells. I like clients with wives — more predictable and less likely to decide they're in love with me. Why is he getting into his personal shit? It's none of my business. I'm pissed that he even mentioned it, but I feel obliged to say something. "Oh. Is that good news or bad?"

"It's good. It's great. Things weren't working for a long time. It's the right move."

His insistence seems overblown. I don't buy it. And now he's staring at me with a dumb grin on his face. "Hey listen, I know you're busy, but are you sure you don't have time to eat? I passed a cute place a block or two down the street last night. Let me buy you breakfast?"

Uh-oh. It's time to put the brakes on this, and fast. "You know, I'm going to pass." I reach over and pluck the half-full cup of coffee from his hands. "I really have to get going, so how about you settle up." It's a bitchy move, shutting him down like that, but necessary. I had a client turn puppy-dog on me before and it wasn't pretty.

"Oh, of course. Sorry." Mike looks stung. He fumbles in his wallet and counts out the notes. I make a point of recounting the cash, then hold the door open for him. It's kind of sad watching him bundle his stuff into the messenger bag. "Take care."

"You too." I close the door.

I stand at the window and watch Mike get in his car and pull out onto the avenue. Not until his car is completely out of sight do I text Bianca to say that I'm on my way and then call up an Uber.

------

"I can't believe I'm letting you do this to me, Bee." I say.

I'm sitting on the edge of the couch in Bianca's cramped downtown apartment while she kneels between my knees, smearing what looks and feels like honey over my lower legs with a wooden spatula. There's a fragrant smell of lemons in the air and some quiet R&B music plays on a portable speaker balanced on a basket of unfolded laundry.

"No girl, what I can't believe is how you let yourself get like this. You got hairs down here like two inches long." I feel a sting as she plucks one out between her French-polished nails. "Oh my gosh, look at this one Miss Dani. Shame on you. You think you can get away with this because you're half-Asian, but I am telling you that you cannot. When did you last shave?"

"The last time I did one of these jobs. Maybe two months ago?" I shrug.

Bianca gasps. "If I didn't shave my legs for two months I'd look like a monkey. Portuguese blood, you know — we're so hairy, my sisters and me. You would think I was wearing furry pants."

I snort with laughter at the image. "That would be so adorable, you should totally do it."

But Bianca is already adorable: she's maybe five-two, at least six inches shorter than me, and classically cute with plump, pouty lips and huge eyes. Her body is petite, small-breasted, and slim in the waist, but with the most gorgeous little bubble butt that pokes out just right. She's twenty-three but passes for a teen and leverages her youthful looks into a pretty impressive regular client base for a girl who's been working the city less than six months.

Bianca pulls a latex glove from a box, stretches it and lets it go with a thwack, then eases a hand inside. "OK I'm gonna pull this stuff off now. But relax, sugaring don't hurt as bad as wax. You're gonna be smooth and nice and none of that shaving rash that makes you look like you got some kind of disease or something."

I take a breath and steel myself. Bianca rolls a thumb under the edge of one tacky strip of goop and peels it off my leg with three firm, downward tugs.

"Jesus. Jesus. Ouch."

"You supposed to be a tough girl. Those muscles and stuff."

"Hey, go easy on me. I told you I feel like shit." My headache has subsided but I've been parched, exhausted, and kind of irritable all day.

"Good. I'm mad at you for taking those drugs. You're the one always telling me to be careful. Some example you are." She tut-tuts and plucks at another strip with her nimble, gloved fingers. "This won't take long. And watch me close because you have to do me next. Make sure you pull the way the hair grows, like this, see?"

"Jesus."

Bianca hums along to the music as she goes through the process of smearing and peeling all the way up both my legs. After a while the pain isn't too bad, more like a prickling sensation. I lie back and zone out on the couch as she works, fatigue ushering me into a trance. After she finishes my inner thighs, she slathers both legs with a cooling lotion.

"Feels so nice, right? OK it's my turn now." Bianca passes me the jar of syrupy sugaring goop and we switch positions. "I did my own legs already, I just need you to do around my bits. The front bits and the back bits too." She pats her vulva and then her butt through her shorts, then hooks her thumbs under the elastic and wriggles out of them, standing naked but for a faded blue halter-top.

Bianca scoots back on the couch and opens her legs. The dark pubic hair is trimmed to a tiny heart-shaped patch immediately above her vulva. Her pussy lips are small and neat, barely visible between her outer labia. As I shuffle closer with the sticky spatula, Bianca pulls her mound over to the left, stretching all the skin taut on one side of her slit. I dab the stuff over a patch of light stubble in her groin, careful to keep it away from the sensitive skin of her labia.

"While you do that, tell me about tonight."

"Well. The car will pick us up and take us to the ranch. It's a real nice place right on the coast. Belongs to this guy who's a big-shot in a tech company. They make network stuff, something fascinating like that." I put on a glove and whip the small strip of stuff off in one motion. "Is that OK?"

Bianca inhales sharply then cranes her neck to see. "Yeah, you did it good. Is this guy the CEO?"

"No, but something high-up like that. His name's Charles. You'll know him straight away — gray hair, tan, friendly, a real schmoozer."

"Did you ever—"

"Not with Charles, no. I don't know if he does that. He has a wife, Audrey, and she'll probably be there too. She's the redhead with the accent. Anyway his place is huge and there's a pool and tons of rooms and it will be just like a party with lots of guests." I tap her on the thigh. "I need to get to the other side now."

Bianca tugs the other way, exposing the left side of her groin. As her fingers shift, her small cunt winks open a touch and I catch a glimpse of her bright pink interior. "So how many guests?"

"Fifty or so. Mainly men but some women too. Some of them work for the company but others are business associates, I guess. We just blend in and be nice to the guests — laugh at their jokes, have a drink with them, that kind of shit — but that's all we do. If anyone tries to come on to you directly, you find a nice way to say no." I pull at another strip, but it doesn't come all the way off, and the soft skin around Bianca's outer labia stretches and snaps back in a painful-looking way. "Oh god I'm sorry did that one sting? I'm not very good at this."

"Just a little. Wait, we say no? I'm confused."

"Not all of the guests know that we're working. Only a few are in on it, but it's pretty easy to figure out who. If one of them takes a liking to you — which they will, Bee, trust me — they have to let Charles know. Then he will come get you and take you to a bedroom. He's pretty subtle about it. And a little while after that there'll be a knock at the door and that's your date. It sounds strange but you'll figure it out." I finish the other side, pick up a hand mirror and show Bianca the results.

"You did a nice job. Just one more bit to go." Bianca flips over and kneels on the couch, resting her perfectly round butt on her heels. She reaches behind and gently parts her buttocks, spreading the skin around her pinhole-like anus. I lean in close and see the hairs are of a different quality here, lighter in color and slightly curly, adhering to the delicate skin in the slight moisture of her butt crack. I can't help my curiosity and deliberately breathe in her smell, registering the mildest dank aroma of ass.

"So you don't know who it is until they come to the room. What if you don't want to go with the guy?" says Bianca.

"Why wouldn't you?"

"I don't know, I just mean if he's really awful. Can you say no?"

"I think that would be a bad idea."

I frown, unhappy with my own answer. I remember the shit Bianca went through back in New Mexico before she moved here. Her ex-boyfriend was in a gang. He got into money trouble over some drugs and ended up pimping her out. I know things got rough, but Bianca said it's best if I don't know exactly what happened. One of her sisters went to the cops and soon after that Bianca had to leave town and still can't go back.

I decide to rephrase my words with more care. "I mean, of course you can always refuse. And you should, if you feel like something's not right. And you don't have to do anything off-menu."

"Good, because I don't do tushie stuff." Bianca wiggles her rear at me as she says this.

"Such a waste. You have the perfect ass." I slap a butt cheek affectionately. "But you do girls though, right?"

"Oh my god I so do girls, but Antonia never gets me any. I guess they don't like me."

"Poor little lesbian."

Bianca cackles and swats at me with a hand. "Oh no, you know I like men. But everyone's a little gay, Dani. Just maybe I'm a bit more gay than you."

"Hey," I say, in a mock-offended tone. "I can be pretty gay." I draw a finger lightly along the slit of Bianca's pussy, causing her to twitch and giggle. "But seriously, Bee. If you turn someone down tonight you should know that you probably won't get asked back."

"Ah, I know you're right. Antonia will be mad at me too. This job pays so good. I really need the money."

"The guys were real nice the last two times I went. It'll be fine. We'll have some fun. Now hold still."

I use smaller blobs around her butt. The finer hairs there seem to come out more easily than those at the front, and soon I am finished, leaving the creased button of her asshole nestled in flawlessly smooth, light brown skin. I admire my work.

"Make sure you don't leave any of that stuff on my butt, or my buns are gonna stick together."

"It's good. I'm going to lube you up now, sorry if it's cold."

I rub my hands together to warm them, then I scoop up some lotion from a pot on the floor and gently slide my greased fingers over Bianca's skin, drawing a figure-eight around her small butt-hole and pussy. Her skin feels supple and good and the sight of her shiny, exposed parts causes a stirring in my own. When I'm done I give her a pat on the backside and hand her the mirror.

"Oh that looks so nice now. Thank you Miss Dani."

"My pleasure, Bee." I stand up and stretch, a yawn escaping me. "The car will be here in a couple of hours. If you don't mind, I'm going to borrow your bed for a quick nap. Can you get me up at eight so I've got time to fix my hair?"

------

I smile at Bianca's wide eyes as the car cruises up the vast tree-lined driveway of the ranch and pulls up in front of Charles' huge home. Audrey greets us at the door, red hair aflame in the backlight. She looks to be fifty or so, but still has glowing skin and a beautiful bone-structure. Maybe it's the French accent, or the way she holds herself, or her smoky green eyes, but there is an elegance about her I have always found sexy.

"So glad you could come, Danielle." She kisses my cheeks. then smiles at Bianca, expectantly.

"Bianca," says Bianca, giving an awkward curtsy in her tight, black-lace dress.

"Such a pretty little thing. Come." Audrey takes Bianca's hand and leads us through the marble-floored entrance hall, under the double staircases that weave upwards to the bedrooms, and past the noisy kitchen, out of which strides a waiter bearing a silver tray of hors d'oeuvres. We follow the waiter through a huge set of double doors into a chandelier-lit ballroom the size of a basketball court where a few older couples dance in front of a live three-piece jazz band on a raised stage.

Audrey pauses to say a few words into the ear of one of the dancers, a short, bald man whose blonde dancing partner towers over him. He laughs and replies, "The hell I can't. Violet keeps making them play the slow ones!"

Glass doors at the end of the ballroom open out onto a veranda and then a torch-lit patio bordered by tall hedges into which are set several wrought-iron archways. A poker game is underway at a smoke-shrouded table on the veranda. Two middle-aged men with undone bowties hanging from their collars pass a joint between them as they lean against one of the arches, beyond which lies a landscaped rock garden and a set of stairs leading down to the private beach. The men nod at us and smile as Audrey takes us through a different archway to the pool.

The coastal evening air is chilly, but the pool deck is studded with outdoor heaters. Small groups of guests mingle by the water sipping cocktails and champagne, some smoking cigars. It's a younger, livelier crowd out here. A hubbub of chatter and raucous laughter compete with the thump of dance music emanating from some hidden speakers. At the far end of the pool is a bar, lit up with a vintage-looking neon sign in the shape of a martini glass whose luminous light dances across the surface of the water.

"Charles is elsewhere at the moment. Have a drink, make yourselves at home, and if you need anything, ask Leonard." Audrey flicks a hand at the barman, then turns on her stiletto heels with the ease of a catwalk model and glides over to large group of guests standing by a small acacia tree with white fairy lights entwined in its branches.

"Good evening, Dani. The usual?"

"You bet, Lenny. This is Bianca."

Bianca smiles, but with darting eyes that betray her nerves. I remember feeling overwhelmed my first time too; there's a lot to take in, and it's busy tonight. I guess I've seen maybe a hundred or so guests, and there are probably dozens more throughout the mansion.

"Hi Bianca, I'm Lenny. You want a mojito too?"

"She does," I interrupt. "And make them large, Bianca needs to loosen up." I tilt my head in the direction of some nearby guests. "What's the party all about?"

"The company made a big acquisition today. Swallowed up some Oakland startup and I guess this is the welcome party. There's a few honchos around, but mostly underlings — programmers, whizz-kids, that kind of deal." Lenny sets down two frosted highballs. I hand a mojito to Bianca and take a good sip of mine. The fresh scent of mint cuts through the briny breeze blowing in from the nearby ocean.

"A bunch of nerds then," I say.

A clamour erupts from the other side of the deck and I turn just in time to see a stocky younger guy in a tuxedo pinwheeling then falling into the pool. A collective inhalation of shock among the guests gives way to laughter as the guy surfaces, splashing and roaring with glee.

"Some jocks, too," says Bianca.

A beaming, gray-haired figure in a tan sports jacket appears holding a towel. "That's Charles," I nudge Bianca's shoulder. Charles hands the towel to wet boy, who has hauled himself out of the water and stands cheerfully dripping, a fresh drink somehow already in his hand.

"Marty's been a live wire all night," says Lenny, opening a bottle of champagne.

I notice two men break off from a nearby group, empty glasses in hand, heading our way. "OK Bee, get your game face on. Remember, you're a friend of mine — you don't know anyone here. Just go along with whatever I say and smile."

Bianca takes another gulp of mojito and gives me a wink that tells me she feels at ease and I relax in turn. Before we came out she crimped her long mane of dusty-blonde, dyed hair, and it seems to shimmer as she runs a hand through the tight waves. "Let's do this," she says.

We strike up a conversation with the guys and join their group. Everybody's pretty wasted but buzzed about the deal and there's a pleasant, relaxed vibe. We feign interest in tech talk, which dominates the conversation, explaining away our ignorance by vague references to our jobs in sales. When the subject changes to complaints about the price of apartments in the city, Bianca and I don't even have to fake it.

After a while, still-wet Marty and an equally drunk guy called Amir join us. Marty wants everybody to check out the YouTube channel he's started up, only he can't find his cell phone and is too intoxicated to explain what the channel is even about. People start to wander away and soon enough it's just the four of us.

Marty is leaning over Bianca and talking right in her face. "I open up tech products and that's it, that's what I do but I talk about them."

"Like, an unboxing channel?" Asks Bianca, politely.