"Promises In the Dark"
I'd never have met Desirée if not for the rain. It was crazy rain, the kind of storm you get maybe once every couple of years, where it just pours buckets out of the sky and the wind whips so hard the rain practically comes at you sideways and the lightning makes the night seem like day for whole minutes at a time. Spring rain, warm rain, crazy rain. Desirée's kind of weather.
She walked into the bar soaking wet. She got a cat-call or two, probably would have gotten a lot more if the rain hadn't kept most people home. She was the kind of girl who loved to have an audience, though. I swear, she probably wished more people were there to look as she stood there dripping, her T-shirt practically transparent and her tan shorts soaked through to the skin. I could actually read the tattoo on her stomach straight through her shirt, the one that said 'Bad Girls Have More Fun'. Her raven-black hair was plastered to her head, her whole body was slick and damp with rain, but she grinned like the devil himself was inside her when she walked in. Something about that grin made me shiver inside.
The second I saw her, I knew I was in trouble. She had a body that was...lush. Voluptuous. She carried a little extra weight on her, but she was tall enough to pull it off, and she carried it in all the right places, making her hips swell into a wide delta that just made you want to run your hands along them and her breasts strain against the straps of her bra. She looked like an Amazon, a giantess, like she just swallowed skinny little dyke girls like me up in the valley between her thighs and wrung them out, then kept looking for more. She looked at me with those hooded, heavy-lidded eyes of hers like she was a cat and I was a mouse. It scared the hell out of me, but at the same time, I just had to have her.
What can I say? I have a thing for bad girls. If Desirée did break my heart, she wouldn't be the first.
I walked over to her and asked, "What can I do for you, ma'am?"
She smiled hungrily at me and looked straight at my tits. God, it felt like she was touching them with her stare. "Call me Desirée," she said. "'Ma'am' is for old ladies. As for what I want..." She smiled at me just long enough to make me imagine what she was going to say. "Just a place to sit and an Iron City, hon," she said. "I racked up my car about a quarter-mile back, skidded clean into the ditch and busted an axle. Tow truck's on its way, and I need to call for a ride home."
"Sure thing," I said. I led her back into a booth. No need to worry about who'd serve her--what with this storm, I was the only girl on tonight. Zack, the bartender, saw me heading across the dance floor with her and just laughed to himself. He knew me too well not to know what I was thinking. He also knew me too well to warn me about girls like Desirée. "My name's Priscilla. If you want anything more, just holler for me."
Desirée grinned and settled into her booth. "Oh, I surely will, hon."
She knew what I wanted, and I knew what she wanted. When I came back with her beer, she made sure to touch my fingers as I handed it to her, and I made sure to let her. It wasn't twenty minutes before she said to me, when I came back to collect the dead soldier, "Dang the luck. Can't seem to get a hold of my roommate. Can I have another Iron City while I wait?"
"Sure," I said. "And I tell you what. If you still haven't heard back from your friend by closing time, I'll give you a lift home. I can't leave a pretty girl like you to walk home on a night like this." I hadn't meant to flirt quite that openly--sure, I could tell she was gay or at least bi, but I was on the clock, and making passes at the female customers could get me in a little hot water if she decided to say anything about it. But that lazy, sexy stare she kept giving me as I crossed the floor was getting to me.
"Well, that's sweet of you, Priscilla," she said. "I hope it won't come to that, but I'll take you up on that offer." I hoped like hell her roommate wasn't home.
Closing time came a little earlier than we thought it would, that night. Somewhere around Desirée's fourth Iron City, the lights flickered, went out, came back, and finally died for good. Zack kept us going for a while, serving up drinks by flashlight and taking cash, but we got a call from Sam, the owner, about twenty minutes after the electricity died. "Power's out all over Austin," he said. "There can't be more than three people in the bar, and nobody's going out on a night like tonight. You kids drive slow, get home safe, and I'll go ahead and pay y'all like you were there 'til close."
I told Zack. He said, "I'll stay and clean up. You go ahead and get that little lady home safe." His face was the picture of innocence, but I knew what he was thinking. "Just make sure to bring in some pictures tomorrow." He ducked as I threw a towel at him, but he didn't have to tell me twice.
I went over to Desirée and said, "Looks like you got a little luck after all. I can take you home right now."
Desirée stood up. "Isn't that always the way of it?" she said, nothing but a voice in the dark but I could hear that wicked little smile of hers. "You go through a big run of bad luck and then all of a sudden, bam! You get lucky."
We laughed like banshees all the way out to my car, and the rain soaked my outfit clean through just from running across the parking lot. I hopped in, let Desirée into the passenger's side, and we got going.
I turned my windshield wipers on all the way, but even going as fast as they could, the rain battered down onto the glass in sheets and the headlights looked like they were just lighting up a wall of water. I couldn't drive more than ten miles an hour at best. Desirée told me where she lived, a little apartment complex up on San Jacinto, and then she didn't say anything for a little bit. She and I just listened to the rain beat down on the car roof like a drumbeat and felt the water drip down our bodies. The streetlights were out because of the power outage, and it felt like we were all alone together in the dark.
Then Desirée put her hand on my knee.
"Jesus," I said, "I'm driving here! You want us to crash?"
"So go ahead and drive a little slower," she said, her voice coming out almost like a growl. "Nobody's driving fast in this weather, you won't be rear-ended. And I don't want to wait to touch you one second longer." She slid her hand up a little, the rain making my skin slick to the touch so that her fingers were just gliding up my leg.