His hair was long - past the shoulders long; the kind of hair that you'd have to be pretty confident to grow, if you were a man. Normally, it was tied back in a pony tail (I know – a pony tail) but when he occasionally shook it out, I had the distinct urge to reach out and stroke it or tangle my fingers in it, like it was some kind of animal's mane.
Dan had started work at the bar earlier that summer: he'd moved to London from Hicksville, Somewhere, and was already lording it around the bar and its inhabitants like only a small town attention-seeker can.
He was an incorrigible flirt even though he had a girlfriend, to whom I heard him talking to on the phone from time to time, and he always looked at me with a strange mixture of puppyish excitement and puzzled condescension, as though he couldn't work out whether he wanted to push me up against the store-room wall and fuck me, or pat me on the shoulder and say, "Good girl."
Speaking of confused, I couldn't quite work him out either. Although he could be a macho dickhead and often rubbed people up the wrong way with his outspoken and ill-thought-through comments, you could kind of tell that at he had a heart of gold beating beneath that bronzed skin of his. And, when he stopped trying to entertain the crowd and turned that 100-watt smile on you, you couldn't help falling a little bit in love with the bastard.
I was cooking dinner at home on my day off when my phone beeped.
"Thanks for sorting out the shifts, gorgeous. Oxx."
Such a stupid thing. I read it and smirked to myself. What a flatterer. But at the same time, I felt a twinge of lust. For a tiny moment, a split second, I imagined kissing him, imagined sliding a hand over his solid, muscled body.
----
Later that week I was prepping the bar for another Friday night. I'd sprayed on some new perfume that afternoon, in an attempt to counteract the smell of booze and cigarette smoke that would become the inevitable fragrance of my night. In the stale before-hours air of the bar, I felt as fresh as a daisy. But I knew, come 3am, that daisy would be wilted, slightly stained and possibly trodden beneath the foot of some oafish man.
As I considered, slightly regretfully, my current choice of career, I heard the door from the back rooms swing open behind me. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Dan walking in. I turned back to face the bar, continuing to slice the lemons, and in a second he was behind me, hands on my waist. He sniffed my neck.
"New perfume, hey babe?" he breathed into my ear and the skin along my spine shivered involuntarily.
I carried on chopping, trying to regain my composure, as he carried on past me and started unloading glasses from the washer. I felt like I was hypersensitive to his presence, listening to his movements behind me, and rolled my eyes at my own susceptibility. Babe? FFS.
"Man I'm tired – didn't get home 'til after the cock crowed if you catch my drift. Had to have two espressos to even get my eyelids fully open. It's gonna be Red Bull all the way tonight," he called, and I glanced at him over my shoulder, eyebrow raised. His dark eyes were twinkling despite his supposed tiredness, and he grinned wolfishly at me as though he was fully ready for round two of whatever he'd had last night.
Jackson, one of the other barmen on that night, rolled his eyes.
"Fucken' typical," he muttered, taking care not to let Dan hear. As he said that, the first group of customers walked through the door. I looked up at the clock. 8pm. It was going to be a long night.
----
"It's freezing out there – d'you wanna lift?" Dan asked, leather clad, helmet in hand.
It was 2am, I was knackered and sticky, and I was still clearing up. I looked up from wiping the last table and clocked the solid dark mass of him, from his broad, leather-ridged shoulders down to his heavy metal rimmed boots, standing so insouciantly there.
"Ummm, ok. Thanks," I muttered back, catching his gaze for a second and then glancing away. He stood there humming as I ran to the back room and grabbed my things.
Outside, in the yard, he mounted the bike and reached into the box for a spare helmet, which he passed to me. I gingerly lifted my leg and got onto the bike behind him.
"Hold on," he said, "Wrap your arms round me."
I shifted up so I was pressing into his back and my arms were around him. I was glad that the helmet was now masking my cheeks as I could feel them starting to burn. In spite of myself, I thought of another time and reason why my legs would be parted around him, my breasts pressed up against him.
Jeez. I was grateful that girls don't have any obvious signs of horniness. My hard nipples and dampening knickers were safely hidden and there was no need for Dan to ever know what he was unwittingly doing to my body.
He revved the engine and we roared off through the streets, slick and shiny with recent rain. What a ride. I wrapped my arms around him and leaned in closer, my chin nudging his shoulder, my thighs tight against his hips. If he'd looked at me in the rear-view he'd have seen my exhilarated smile, but he kept his eyes trained on the road ahead of him.
He dropped me off outside my flat, and I ran inside, heart pounding. I walked straight to my bedroom and leaned against the wall. Sliding my hand down inside my silky knickers and jeans I could feel how wet I was already.
I slid my forefinger and middle finger through the juices and started to circle my clit, still listening to the engine thrumming outside my bedroom window as I pictured him stripping out of those heavy leathers, leaning over me.
I was on a strange high – my breath coming in gasps, my groin throbbing, fingers moving faster and faster until I came, imagining his cock driving into me, glistening with moisture. Laughing to myself, fingers still splayed over my spasming pussy, I swore under my breath. God I wanted to fuck him. And God I knew I was a stupid gullible idiot for it.
----
The next few weeks were full of the ridiculous dance that two people who have the hots for each other do, if one or both of them are kind of in denial. Dan would tease me, thwack me on the bum with a towel, sniff me in an oddly animalistic way under the guise of admiring my hair products, moisturiser or perfume, and smirk at me whilst he flirted with the other barmaids and/or members of the general public. And I would roll my eyes at him, frown at his corny lines, and find too many pretexts to hit him, push him or grab him as he went by.
After work I'd go home, humming with pent-up sexual energy and too wired to sleep. I felt like I was constantly switched on – my body alert to his, my pussy starting to pulse and slide against itself as I moved. I'd start to think about Dan: the curve of his biceps; the vein pulsing at this side of his tanned neck; the dark swirls of hair on his forearms; the musky-sweaty smell of him at the end of the night; the way his back curved out to his round bum.
And then I'd start to touch myself. My nipples would already be standing to attention; I'd pull down my bra cups to tease them, feeling the softness against the rough lacy texture of the bra. Sometimes I wouldn't even need to reach under my bed for my silver vibrator; I'd be so jacked up I'd come after a minute or two stroking myself, and then I could sleep.
It was coming up to Jackson's leaving do and I was carefully not thinking about the possibility of spending some off-duty time with Dan. Up 'til then all my fantasies would be purely that - locked up safely in my brain. But after-hours, I knew from experience that things could change in a second.
----
The night of Jackson's party, we all made copious use of the free bar facilities, and of course people started to cast aside their inhibitions (and that was only if they had them in the first place). Dan was always trying to initiate debauchery; lead us down the dark path like a lecherous, drunken Pied Piper. And, goddamn-it, there was definitely a part of me that wanted to be led astray.
Sitting on a leather banquette in a corner of the bar, he had let out his hair for once and the mane was free. I bumped up closer to him along the seat, reached out and pushed my fingers into the soft curls, smiling up at him, playing with the strands.
"You know, you've got the softest hair."
His arm snaked around my waist, pulling me closer. He leaned in and spoke into my ear.
"And you've got a great little figure..."
As his hand met the bare skin at my waist it was as if I could feel every nerve ending firing up under his fingers. A jolt of lust flashed its way down into my groin. Damn Dan and damn his stupid lines. Why was I so attracted to him despite it all?
----
"THREE...TWO...ONE...DOWN IT!" Dan roared, the rhythm of glasses thumping against wood filling my ears as I tipped the fiery liquid into my mouth. It burned against my tongue and ran a trail of warmth down my throat and into my belly.
I scrunched up my eyes against the strength of it and when I opened them Dan was laughing at me, slapping his hand against his denim-clad thigh in mirth, his white, white teeth gleaming. I stopped smiling and glared at him.
"What?" he asked mock-sincerely.
I glared again.
"Come on Sash, you know that looked hilarious. Like Mary Poppins with her first taste of moonshine." He gazed at me, pouting his bottom lip, and I couldn't help laughing too.
"Ok, ok," I relented, "I can't believe you got me to drink that rancid stuff!"
"There's a lot more I could get you to do if I put my mind to it," Dan replied, his voice soft and low. I looked across at him and his eyes locked onto mine. I felt his look of determination and lust physically, like a lightning strike running all the way down through me. Like a punch in the stomach. Like a challenge being laid down.
