It was the first girls trip we had been on in quite a while, and New Orleans seemed like the perfect city in which to let loose. Jessica, who was not-so-patiently awaiting her divorce to be final, was looking forward to finding one or more random strangers with whom to expend the pent up sexual energy that her soon to be ex husband had neglected to enjoy. I had been helping her shop for sexy clubwear and lingerie, and she was so fixated on finding a man she was about to make me climb the nearest wall. I wanted to find a bar and a man for her as quickly as possible so that she would shut the fuck up. I loved her dearly, but enough was enough. I hadn't really thought much about finding these things for myself, but it was four in the morning and we had just driven 11 hours from North Carolina to get here. I was tired and cranky and crashing from a Red Bull and Twizzler sugar high. Perhaps by noon tomorrow these things would appeal to me but for now I just wanted to sleep.
We were meeting up with our friends Claire and Alyssa, who were already in town for Alyssa's law firm conference. Why anyone thought New Orleans was a good destination in which to expect a bunch of young attorneys to hang around and actually get work done seemed like an obvious set up for failure. I suspect the organizers of the whole thing didn't really have high expectations but likely wanted a way to use company money to pay for some fun and debauchery. Either way, we were getting to stay in their hotel room for free, so it worked out well for us.
When Jessica and I arrived at 4am we realized we had never heard back from them when we texted that we would be arriving in the middle of the night instead of the next afternoon. We knocked on the door and waited. Crickets. We called both of their cell phones and heard them ringing through the door, but no answer. At least we knew they were in there. Because we were camping out in this room that was already paid for by Alyssa's law firm, our names were not on the hotel registration so no one would give us a key. We might be screwed.
"Bree - I told you this would happen. Those bitches are drunk and passed out, they will never hear us. We are going to have to sleep in the hall!"
"Give them a minute," I said. Drunk people move slowly.
"I think we should just get our own room - I'll use Alan's credit card." Jessica was aching to do something to stick it to her ex.
"Don't give that asshole any reason to make you look bad. Can you imagine what his attorney might do with a hotel bill from you and me in New Orleans?"
Jessica shushed me as we heard rustling and fumbling on the other side of the door. The door jerked open and was abruptly halted by the security chain on the inside.
"Fuck," a drunken Claire mumbled through the crack in the door while looking at us with one mascara smeared eye only slightly open. "Hang on." She closed the door and removed the chain while we breathed a sigh of relief that we wouldn't have to sleep in the hallway.
The greetings would have to wait until morning since these two were still sleeping off their night of drinking, and we were exhausted from a 12 hour drive. Claire mumbled something to us about the bathroom as she threw herself back into bed. I'm sure they had a story to tell about whatever shenanigans had occurred earlier that evening, but we would have to wait and hear it over breakfast. Or more likely, lunch.
The sun peeking into a New Orleans hotel room was not quite as rude an awakening for weary travelers as it was for people with hangovers. Jessica and I were up and fully caffeinated long before Alyssa and Claire. When we got back from breakfast the two of them were finally stirring.
"Y'all! We saw two really hot guys coming out of the gym downstairs. For future reference they got off on the 5th floor." Jessica propped her bare feet up on the table and sipped her overpriced Starbucks latte.
"Good lord what time did y'all get here? Did I let you in?" Claire was holding her head with one hand and searching for her cell phone and some ibuprofen with the other.
We proceeded to get the low down on which bars were and were not good places to pick up men. Evidently the karaoke bar was a solid bet. Alyssa had to share the details of the guy she had met there and apparently fucked in the bathroom. She liked those kinds of public encounters. I was on board with sex in a public place, but a bathroom? Closets, elevators, dark corners behind large tropical plants... sure. Bathrooms? No thanks.
"So y'all know I had to sing my favorite karaoke song our first night here in New Orleans." Alyssa liked to sing "I Touch Myself" whenever there was a karaoke opportunity and more than three or four men were in the room. Whether or not she wanted to hook up with any of them, she got off on the power of writhing and twerking on stage for attention. She always gave quite a performance and usually at the very least she succeeded in getting one of the guys to buy us drinks. Sometimes it was a woman. Alyssa preferred men but was perfectly content to flirt with women. If she was so inclined, she would take one home every now and then.
Apparently the song was especially well received at this particular bar, and several men surrounded her and Claire as they left the stage after the performance. Alyssa had been center stage while Claire sang back up and they danced together. The sight of two blonde, large breasted women rubbing body parts against one another while singing "I Touch Myself" was pretty much a guarantee for some post-performance attention. The gamble was that dangling this particular hook in the water could catch something that they would really want to throw back. In this case, it had paid off.
Alyssa described the guy as bi-racial, tall and muscular. She said he spoke with an accent and she thinks he said he was from Ghana. She wasn't sure where that was, but she didn't care. He bought her a drink and they danced, and it wasn't long before they were making out on the dance floor.
"Oh my God he had his hand in your pants before you even finished dancing!" Claire said with a twinge of jealousy. Evidently she had her eye on this guy first, but settled for his friend when it became obvious that he was into Alyssa. The two men had walked them back to the hotel room where they had drinks and eventually two of them had sex in a bed and the other two on the balcony.
"I know - it was hot!" Alyssa was in her element. "He was huge! You should have seen his cock! I may have a little trouble walking today" she threw her head back and laughed with satisfaction.
"So did he make you cum?" Jessica asked, knowing that Alyssa was usually pretty persistent about getting a guy to make that happen in any situation.
"Twice." She winked at us and we all knew we would probably be having a similar conversation again tomorrow morning. I could see the gleam in Jessica's eyes as she prepared to take notes and let Alyssa mentor her on the dos and don'ts of man hunting on Bourbon Street.
"Jessica, we're going to find a man to make you orgasm and we are gonna do it before sundown." We all laughed and started to plan our attack on Bourbon Street that would begin in about an hour. Alyssa and Claire likely still had a measurable blood alcohol level from the night before, so things should get interesting quickly.
Alyssa was dressed in all black as usual, and everything was tight and curve-hugging. She was well proportioned and very fit, and enjoyed showing off her 36 DD's. She loaned Jessica her blouse and complimented the way it accentuated her cleavage. I wasn't paying attention to their conversation but at some point Alyssa felt the need to feel Jessica's breasts and they both giggled. I had chosen a flowy skirt for comfort, and they insisted on pointing out that would be easy access. Claire and I just rolled our eyes, laughed and hurried them out the door.
We were all feeling pretty good about ourselves, and we each did a shot of tequila before leaving the hotel room. When the elevator doors opened we were face to face with some older women who were dressed in typical tourist attire. They looked at us as if they knew exactly what our intentions were. I felt like we were oozing pheromones and may as well be wearing signs that said "we want to get laid". But we didn't care. New Orleans wasn't exactly famous for church picnics and choir practice.
Several hours into drinking and bar hopping, we found ourselves on the balcony at a karaoke bar. This was a different one from the night before, and they took a lap around the place like a couple of wild animals spreading their scent. I caught the eye of the bartender and we both seemed to hold eye contact a little longer than normal. I was immediately attracted to him, but tried not to let it show. There were times when this find-a-man routine turned into sort of a competition, and I wasn't interested in playing that game. I wanted to observe and quietly sip my drink. When the bartender handed me the glass there was something about the way he looked at me that made me blush. I nodded at him and put a dollar in the tip jar before turning around to watch my friends scoping out the scene. They literally looked like lions stalking wildebeest on the savanna.
We endured several really bad karaoke performances, but none of us felt quite like being on stage for the time being. We sipped our hurricanes and talked to the group of men who had bought them for us, and I could tell Alyssa had honed in on her target. This time it was a tall blonde who clearly thought he was god's gift to women. Alyssa always went for the arrogant ones. Meanwhile a perfectly nice man was flirting with me, but his advances weren't really lighting my fire. I listened to his stories about growing up in a small town in Texas, and accepted his compliments when he told me I was beautiful. Having just gotten out of a relationship that nearly demolished my self esteem, I needed to hear it. It fell a little flat for some reason, even though he was attractive and ticked all the boxes. I could tell that Claire was clearly interested in this guy, so I knew if I extricated myself from the situation that she would take over. As luck would have it the conversation revealed that they shared a love for football, and soon they were knee deep in the subject. I was relieved to be free from his attention, especially on the subject of football. I would rather watch paint dry. I felt a warm hand on my arm and I turned to see the sexy bartender standing beside me.
"Hi, I'm Justin." He said, his ice blue eyes nearly rendering me unable to speak.
"Bree, nice to meet you," I nodded at him and he gently touched the back of my hand with his.
