This is a bit of a different story than I usually write, so I'm stretching a bit here. I hope it's worth it. It's far more character-based and told from multiple perspectives. I tried to give each character a unique voice. It didn't always work, but it's a start. Character perspectives changes (chapters) are noted with the Character's name
underlined
.
The end of the story contains text from DMs between two characters. The character's perspective telling that story has unformatted DM message text. The DMs from the character responding are in italics to help differentiate between the two. I hope this gets preserved.
This story is much more "vanilla" and real (vs. fantastic). Genre-wise, this has far less of the fetish aspect of my first stories, and is more of a slow build and tease, so don't complain that there's no bodies slapping in the first few pages. But it does get going. I promise.
Parts of this are taken from a real story I heard, but obvious liberties have been taken in this retelling.
Obviously.
This is a standalone story but clearly calls for more chapters. I'll see what I can do to put something together.
*****
Dan
A guy walks into a bar... I'm sure there's a joke in there, but it's most likely on me.
I should give some background. Cindy and I have been together for a bit over two years, and living together for the last nine months. We met while I was in grad school. I was bartending at night to help pay for the school, and was on a more ... relaxed graduation schedule. So I'm 27, and two years older than Cindy, but she's been working longer than I have. She's got a good job in a PR firm and has been on some good local projects. I'm really happy for her.
I just took a job downtown and was finally getting my feet under me, financially. I owed Cindy in many ways for putting up with me. I know women take pride in men who are achievers, and I felt like a burden while I was still unemployed.
Anyways, it was Friday, the weather was great and Cin asked me to meet her at a bar midway between her office and mine. If you've been working in food service, once you get out, you tend to try and stay away. Not that I didn't enjoy my time behind the bar; I really liked it for a bunch of reasons, which I'll get to. I was trying to put that life behind me though, so after many offers to meet her office colleagues, I ran out of excuses and we set plans.
I dragged three guys from my team and we left. Traffic was tough, but we got lucky and made it there before six. Cin and her crew weren't there, so we grabbed some beers, and saw they had a pool table.
Well, all right.
Cindy
I finally got Danny to agree to meet the girls from my project team for drinks. He's such a sweetie, but I was gonna seriously start withholding sex if he didn't man up for this. It's not like meeting after work should be a punishment. I totally told him he could bring some of his friends. The more the merrier, right? Some of the girls in my team are young and single, and a couple are pretty hot.
I really just wanted to show off Danny. He's mine and he just makes me so happy. He was so down when he couldn't get work, and this new job just changed everything for him. It's not like he was unemployed - he had the bartending gig whenever he wanted, and it was good money, but he never regarded that as honest work. His friend Mark had called him and said that his department was hiring and that he'd put in a good word. Sure enough, my Danny got it. It was like it was meant to be.
He was always confident, but he's such a man, he needs to provide. I love that about him. He wants a family. I think he'd be a great dad when it happens.
When he was bartending, he still made enough money to pay for school, his apartment and everything. He acted like I was bailing him out. I mean I paid for one or two dates a month, that was about it. But that was enough to make him sulk sometimes that he wasn't doing enough for me. As if.
We went to separate schools in the same area. I was outside the city, he was at a downtown campus. I met him at the bar he worked at and flirted shamelessly with him. I was, like, one of dozens throwing themselves at him during a weekend. It was bad enough that my friends threatened to ban me from the place for my own good. Whenever I it was my turn to pick where we were going, my friends just defaulted that we would go to his bar and I would stare at him the whole time. My friends all got endless dates, I got to look at him and ignored everyone else. I dated, sure. But it was a few weeks here and there. These were college guys. They're the definition of short shelf life. I just knew Danny was different.
Danny is not a pretty boy, but he's handsome, manly. Broad shoulders and square jaw. He's a great talker when he wants to be and he's got the cutest smile; if he shows it, the room lights up. He even smells great!
But when he was working, he was all business. Nothing fancy. I love that he could separate the two. He lights up for me and for his friends, but is serious around people he doesn't know. He just does it for me. And about a thousand other girls before me, if the rumors were true.
I pined for him through my senior year and after graduation, I stayed in town and got my job. I would still go to his bar, but not so often. I was trying to shake the college thing and, you know, be an adult. But I still went back to see him. I dunno what it was, but I finally got to talk to him a few times. My stars must've aligned, cuz when I asked him out, he said yes. That was the best thing anyone ever did for me.
Danny didn't owe me, I owed him.
Dan
One of the nice things about bartending is you get to meet a ton of girls, if that's your thing. I worked in a popular club, which did great business with the college crowd. Which meant I had access to a constantly refreshed pool of beautiful college girls. It honestly gets to be a bit much after a while; you need to disregard the pretty faces who are there for a one-nighter and a hook up for free drinks. It just wears thin.
Most nights I kept to myself. Working in a high-volume place, you're busting ass all night anyways. It's not like I have time to hit on every hardbody that's buying a round. Sure, I smile. But there's a line. Girls don't tip that much. Smile nice and they may throw you the coins. Guys, on the other hand, tip. But if they see you smiling too much at the women, they know the deal and they won't tip. So, you gotta walk a line - do you want to chase girls? Or pay rent?
I'm good with faces. It helped in that job. I remembered Cin. Always wide-eyed. Always staring. I can tell. It's an awareness thing. Scan the crowd to find customers waiting. When you keep seeing the same face, it registers. See someone constantly looking at you? It sticks after a while.
She hung around for years, through her school and then after once she got a job in town. She went to that nice suburban college, which cost her folks a pretty penny. But it's not like they noticed. She was loaded, but never showed it. It wasn't until we were dating that I found that out. But money's not why I dated her.
Before her, I had been dating the same girl for three years before I even met Cin. She went to my school, and she was ... She was my 'one who got away'. Stevie was fire to my gasoline. Impulsive. Breathtaking. A body like a statue. Always moving forward, looking for her next fix. We couldn't keep our hands off each other, and we got along even better when we weren't fucking each other's brains out. She was whip smart and just had that spark.
