Lucrezia Magazine | Erotica, Art and Sexuality

“Hey, Nikki.”

Jayce, the bartender, looked up from cutting his lemon twists.

“Hey, Jayce,” I said back. I took my seat at the wooden counter across from the bar and prepared for the daily grind.

Jayce had the face of a Caravaggio cherub, if a cherub could manage a five o’clock shadow. His thin, graceful body was half rock star and the other half cross-country runner. When he wasn’t watching, I watched him work. I liked to watch his long, thin hands grab for bottles, pour, and mix. There was poetry in the way he chilled a shot, and art in the way he uncorked champagne. And on slow nights (like this snowy one was surely going to be), when he flirted with me, I felt sparks in the air.

I was just about to ask Jayce if he did anything fun last night when Robert walked in. Robert was my protector, my “big brother” at Belle’s Midtown Inn. He was tall, black-haired, and brown eyed. Next to Robert’s meaty features, Jayce washed out like a watercolor painting.

“Give me your hand,” Robert said, parking his big body next to me. Jayce stopped cutting twists, briefly. Then he shook his head and went back to work.

I put down my napkin and stuck my hand out, palm up. Robert pulled my hand closer. Studying it carefully, he then began to massage the center of my palm with his thumb.

He looked into my eyes. “Didn’t it work?” Robert’s thick-lipped smile caught me off guard, made me smile too.

“Didn’t what work?” I asked. I took my hand back, and studied it to see what I was missing. I gave it a few rubs with my own thumb, just for good measure.

“I was trying to make you come,” Robert said. “I guess it didn’t work.”

I thrust my palm back under his nose. “Well, keep trying!” I said.

Robert laughed, a loud donkey’s bray that echoed down the bar and into the smoking section. Jayce laughed and set the last of his lemon peels aside.

“See?” Robert said to Jayce, slapping his hand down on the bar. “At least I get a reaction out of her!”

I stared at the two of them. “What, did you try that on Jayce?”

“No,” Robert said with indignation. “It only works on girls. I tried it on Ellen, and she didn’t say anything. Nothing! I felt like a complete idiot, so then I just had to walk away.”

“Maybe you just embarrassed her,” I offered.

Robert shook his head. “Everybody thinks Ellen is so naive, but it’s not true. Ellen looks like she’d shag like a minx. She’s just stuck up.”

“She is not,” I said. “Ellen is very warm and funny, once you get to know her a little. She’s just shy.”

“I’m surprised she even let you touch her,” Jayce said to Robert.

Robert was about to say something, but Belle called to him from the swinging door to the kitchen. “What did it feel like?” Jayce asked me when Robert left.

I looked at my palm. “It was the most sensuous thing I’ve ever experienced. When Robert touched my hand, I started to get wet. And then he started to rub in slow circles. It was just my palm, I know, but it felt just like he was rubbing my clit. He had me right on the verge, Jayce. Every muscle in my body tightened up. And just as I was about to feel the sweet release, he stopped.”

I laughed so hard I almost slipped off my high-backed bar stool. Jayce looked a little less than amused. “Smart ass,” he said. He chuckled a little, then restrained himself. He came back with, “When you’re done with that, Nik, can you get me some ice?”

“Sure,” I said. Then Jayce handed me his freshly-cleaned ice bucket. I took it through the bar and up the stairs, passing the hostess stand on my way into the kitchen.

Ellen was on the phone, taking a reservation, so I waved my hello to her. She acknowledged me with a nod of her head. Ellen’s white-blonde hair was swept up. She wore a black sweater over a charcoal-gray skirt, with near-black winter tights and fur-trimmed black boots. I’d come in through the snowy parking lot an hour before, and the bottoms of my black pants were still damp. She seemed untouched by the near-blizzard. Not that I was jealous.