The Woman At The Speakeasy Ch 01

Four eyes glanced upon her after she went through. Red didn't pick up on those curious gazes that burned her leather. Instead, she kept her hands inside her pockets and looked both nowhere and everywhere around the speakeasy in a failed attempt to make the faces that hid under the neon lights and the darkness. The smell of cigarette smoke poisoned the air along the echoes of synthetic slow kicks from dark techno. It was a den of vice, with an atmosphere as depressing as it was stressful on the streets.

Red never looked up to notice a man on a trench coat looking down from his office slash watchtower high above.

"Who's the tourist, Sweetie?" he asked.

Sweetie kept staring at the red-haired girl downstairs. Her stunning figure wrapped in black clothes: tank top, jeans, knee-high boots, and her signature leather jacket. She noticed that Red didn't look out of place among the other patrons, yet she was the oldest of them all.

"She's pretty, my Angel, I can tell you that much," Sweetie smiled. "Could she be a lost bird looking for refuge?"

"No one is looking for a place to hide after three weeks of siege," Angel pointed out as he tilted his head. He then scratched his chin and kept looking. "Looks like she's searching for something."

"Or someone," Sweetie got on her tip toes and rested her chin upon his shoulder. "Do you want to know?"

Angel remained silent. Sweetie noticed how much he looked like a vampire from the early 2000's with the way he fidgeted with his long nails as he kept staring down. She followed his brown eyes to see Red sitting at the bar.

The bartender cleaned a glass and approached her as she got her phone off her pocket.

"I didn't expect such a beautiful woman to come in here," she smiled. "What can I get you, love?"

Red dragged her phone closer to the bartender. On screen, the photo of a young schoolgirl that looked slightly similar to her. "This is my stepdaughter. Have you seen her?"

With confusion, the bartender laughed. "What are you, a detective or mystery woman from one of those shitty books?"

"Just an anxious mother," said Red.

"Don't get me wrong, ma'am, I just never saw someone pull up a picture of their beautiful kid and asking for them in the way you just did!"

"Like I said: I'm just an anxious mother who needs to find her. Besides, it's much easier to show a picture instead of describing her."

Defeated, the bartender nodded, and served Red the coldest beer she could find. The concerned stepmom raised an eyebrow, but she was quickly informed that it was on the house. After an uninspired thank you, she got through the first sips and started to let go of the tension. The somber music suddenly sounded slightly hopeful. Red then noticed the music could mask any gunshot coming from the outside. She then saw that she entered an entirely different world when she came through the door; a world inhabited by normal people trying to stay alive as the bullet storm tore the city apart.

It was written in their hidden foreheads: no one was a criminal, and no one took a side on the war... They were all people who had abandoned all hope in charlatans and messiahs.

"When the two sides of a conflict go to the extremes, the unaligned is the true rebel," said Red.

"You know about her?"

"It's the same government that people are fighting against the one that imprisoned her last year. Can you believe it? Just for being a cam girl..."

"I heard they are torturing her," the bartender added.

"Joke's on them; they're just making her a bigger dissident. Even if you're a bastard, when you have such a last name..."

Red sighed and stopped talking. There's no reason to speak about

la baronne bâtarde

as the beer warms up. The thought of her brought another reason to seek her daughter, joining in the ranks of doubts such as "what if she was killed," "what if the regime's praetorian guard took her as she walked by the wrong place at the wrong time..." She wanted to call her husband, but instead finished the beer in a single gulp.

"May I ask why?"

Red blinked. "Why what?"

"Why are you looking for your stepdaughter like she's missing? Can't you just call her?"

"For starters, she stopped leaving the house with her phone as soon as the police and the military started to look into people's phones. On the other hand, it is none of your business."

"Actually, it is. I notice that your heart is beating in two places at once."

Red frowned. Her body wanted to shiver, but her will stopped it from it.

"It's fine," the bartender smiled. "I don't usually date girls twenty years older than me, but you're pretty hot. You don't need to look tough to be hot. I mean, look at you! Under all those dark clothes all I'm seeing is a concerned stepmother who got dangerously close to her stepdaughter, who is probably the one woman that broke the egg deep in her heart, as the Internet would say! You admitted to it too!"

Red didn't notice at first, but the bartender said that as she stared down the freckles that covered her cleavage. She was too upset by her monologue to even question it. Instead, she wondered how did she figure it out. Experience might be the obvious answer. Her profession is to serve drinks and listen to her clients' needs. Give her enough time and she can read people almost as neatly as prostitutes do.

"How did your husband find out?"

Red placed her thumb upon the wedding ring. "I... cybered with a girl of my daughter's age," she confessed while the blood rushed to her cheeks. "I've never had sex with someone online, let alone a video chat. My husband... Gosh, that wasn't supposed to mean anything! I still love him, but-"

Angel and Sweetie giggled when they saw the bartender pull the ginger by the jacket and steal a kiss from her. Red's heart accelerated, but she didn't wrestle her. She was too mentally tired to even try. After the siege begun, everyone focused so much on surviving that they forgot something more important than survival: to live. A kiss is all it took for Red to release herself from the shackles of the permanent psychological warfare that even demoralizes the cockroaches that creep all over the trash and open pipes.

There was only war on the outside. In the speakeasy, though, the only violence that could be perpetrated is only through a consensual agreement involving a kiss and a whip.

"Fuck, I want to fuck her," Sweetie growled like a mad dog.

Angel kept watching, fascinated.

Red and the bartender looked into each other's eyes again.

"I feel like having a cigarette," the bartender said, and grabbed Red's hand. She walked her towards the back alley on the outside.

Red worried. It's dangerous to go out. Then again, she came to the speakeasy aware of the risks. Even the neon loses its charm when tanks and green men sporting riot shields and shotguns march from west to east.

The alley was empty though.

A quiet thunder roared high above before the first drops from a far away storm sprayed upon their faces. The bartender fished a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and extended it to Red. She politely let her know that she's not a smoker. The bartender nodded, and pulled a cigarette with her lips.

"They can't come here," she said after lighting it up. "Only a truck can go through that fence, and they aren't thin enough to fit through the alley anyway."

The lit cigarette didn't do anything to mask the smell of piss and vomit from the alley, yet Red didn't flinch as she looked at the only thing to look at in the darkness. She touched her wedding ring with the opposite hand felt torn between the choice of her husband and an unknown bartender that got her curious on what she would look like under the suit, the tie, and the vest. The bartender leaned against the wall, puffing her chest up as she smoked. The dim light made a shadow around her figure that made her clothes fit much better than they did.

The bartender took a deep drag of her cigarette and kissed Red. She let all the smoke inside her mouth.

Red closed her eyes and enjoyed the intoxicating taste of menthol and carbon monoxide. Inhaling second hand smoke while she kissed the plump lips of a woman in her late twenties or early thirties. Had it not been for her jacket, such a deep kiss would make her nipples cut through the tank top.

The bartender caught her left hand and guided it to her crotch. Red's heart skipped one beat as soon as she left a thin piece of fabric caught between the lips of a vertical mouth that always grinned. To her own surprise, she moaned into her partner's mouth and split apart from the kiss. Saliva dripped from both.

"Don't fight it," said the bartender.

Red closed her eyes and kissed her again. Her instincts took over. First it was her lips, then her neck, and then...

The bartender pushed her off before she could remove her tie. "Don't!" she said. "I need to go back to work soon."

Red sighed and looked at the door. The bartender used her fingers to move her head back so that their eyes would connect. She explored the ginger's lips with her thumb.

"Why don't you try to make me cum before the cigarette burns all the way?"

"How?" asked Red.

"You are so innocent for being in your fifties!"

They kissed one last time. Orders came into Red's ear like whispers. First, she got on her knees and remained between the bartender's legs. She saw a black thong trapped between two lips, keeping the pussy gagged with a silk rope. She blushed again when she realized the second step was to put it on the side. As soon as she kissed the cunt, she got her tongue out.

Years of repressed lust and feelings, combined with fantasies deeply buried into her psyche came back as soon as she got a delicious taste from it. Something as simple and sweet like passing the tongue up and down opened the floodgates of Pandora; a first step from which she could not turn back, just as it happened to the city when the siege begun. All that tension that built up within her vanished. Red closed her eyes and caressed the bartender's legs while she kept smoking, containing her moans.

All they could hear was nothing more than loud bass and drums. Not even the moans of pleasure could mask the gunshots in the distance. They should be taking refuge, especially if someone sees them, yet fear and arousal are way too interconnected. Once Red started, she couldn't stop. Even when the embers approached the filter, the bartender didn't want her to stop. Instead, she dug her nails into her partner's scalp, and made sure she wouldn't go away.

Red lifted her tank top and played with her breasts. She kept her eyes closed and licked the bartender off until there was nothing else she could get out of her pussy; a futile attempt to say the least. The bartender looked down and admitted that she turned out to be as good of a slut as she is of a kisser. Was it natural talent or experience? Not even Red knew the answer to the question she pondered.

"Fuck!" the bartender moaned and dropped the unfinished cigarette to the floor right after Red got her tongue inside her pussy. She giggled and kept one eye open to stare upwards and admire her reaction. She wanted to smile, but kissed her pussy again, and then sucked her clit.

At this point Red's body begged to have the same treatment. If her breasts didn't demand it, it was her cunt, raging for something while its trapped under her jeans. She could feel it aching after running one finger over her crotch. I left in such a hurry that I didn't even consider to put on panties either! she thought.

The bartender took control of her again, and started to move her hips. Though surprised, Red got the signal. Disappointment settled quicker than the cigarette that stil burned on the floor, for she won't get action in the mere seconds that are left. No matter how much she tried to prolong it, the bartender had her under her grasp.

In a manner of seconds she screamed in pleasure, with moans as recognizable as the sound of a grenade exploding in the far distance. Who would've thought an orgasm would be as exciting as cowering and hiding from the two wrong sides of a civil war? Would an anecdote as this be grounds for arrest under the current circumstances?

They didn't know, and they didn't care. They were so focused in the ecstasy that the explosion didn't register to them, until the bartender stopped shivering. She helped Red to get up, and shared a final kiss.

"I have to go back to work," she said, and went back inside.

Red looked around and took a deep breath before she made herself presentable. She stomped on the bud and gazed upon the sky above. The outcome of the war matters not, for it'll still be too dangerous to stay after it, she thought. Instead of fucking random women, maybe she should focus on finding her daughter. Then again, it isn't her fault that all people react to stress like this, and they are all entitled to be stressed and paranoid.

After coming back through the door, Red froze in place when she saw a strange couple in the middle of her way. A man in a trench coat stood next to a silver-haired lady dressed in a little black dress and stripper heels. She looked at the redhead with more lust than the bartender ever did.

"I know everyone who comes here, yet I've never seen you before," said Angel, as he approached the woman. "Why are you making my wife curious?" he asked.

"I'm just looking for someone," said Red.

"We can help you with that."

Sweetie tilted her head in a way of saying to follow her. Red felt like she was on her way to a mobster's office, but tried to keep her cool down as she went up the stairs, into that same office where the pair watched her.