Author: Akiko

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I put my hands on her waist. Slowly, giving her time to stop me.

She didn’t stop me.

“There you go,” she murmured. “Brave boy.”

Her skin was warm and smooth, the gold chain cool under my fingertips. She kept grinding, and I let my hands move with her, feeling the muscles of her hips roll under my palms. She glanced up at the camera in the corner, then back at me, and shifted just slightly so her back blocked its view.

“Camera can’t see your hands now,” she said. “But Dez checks the tips at the end of the night. Bad tippers get the strict version next time.”

“Is that a hint?”

“It’s a menu.” She took one of my hands and slid it up her ribs until my thumb brushed the underside of her breast. She shivered. “This bit costs extra.”

She rocked against me, harder now, her pussy dragging along my cock through two thin layers of fabric. Her breathing had changed. Her eyelids fluttered. I didn’t think it was all acting.

“Fuck,” she whispered. “You’ve got a nice cock. I can feel it.”

My heart was hammering. Her nipple was hard against the edge of my thumb. Every roll of her hips pushed me closer to the edge.

She leaned in until her lips were on my ear.

“So what’s it going to be, Owen? You going to be a good tipper? Or are you going to try and talk me into something?”

→ I tip big and let her keep riding me

→ I ask her to come home with me instead

← Back

“Champagne it is,” I said.

Jade beamed and pressed a buzzer on the wall. A waitress appeared with a bottle in an ice bucket and two flutes, and put a little leather folder on the side table. I didn’t open it.

Jade poured, handed me a glass and clinked it. Then she drank half of hers, set it down and went back to work.

And she worked. She turned around and bent over in front of me, slowly peeling her sequinned knickers down to her knees and back up again. She rubbed her arse against my crotch. She lay back across my lap and arched, tits in the air, and let champagne dribble down between them.

“Oops,” she said.

I didn’t touch her. She hadn’t told me I could.

She refilled her glass. She danced. She refilled again. She sat on my lap and whispered filthy things about what she’d do to me if the rules were different, and I was so hard it hurt. Every time I thought she was about to let me touch, she’d laugh and slide away.

The bottle emptied. The buzzer went.

“That was fun,” Jade said, pulling her top back on. “You’re sweet.”

“Can I see you again?”

“You can see me every Friday.” She slid the leather folder into my lap. “Settle up at the bar, babe.”

I opened the folder. Then I kept looking at it. And then I looked at her, still pulling her heel straps tight, totally unbothered.

→ I pay the bill without arguing

→ I tell her honestly I can’t afford it

← Back

“I’ll keep you company,” I said. “If you’ll have me.”

“I’ll have you,” Scarlett said, and took the stool next to mine.

She worked, of course. She got called up to the stage and danced two sets, and went off to do a couple of floor dances for a lad on a stag do. But every time she finished she came back to me, sat down, stole a sip of my drink and picked up our conversation exactly where we’d left it.

We talked about everything. Her nursing placements. My useless ex. The fact that she’d never once seen the sea up close. Her knee pressed against mine the whole time, and every so often her hand landed on my thigh and stayed there.

At half one, the DJ called last orders. At ten to two, the lights came up, harsh and white, and the magic of the place vanished. Suddenly it was just a big room with sticky carpet and tired women in robes.

Scarlett had changed into a hoodie and leggings. She looked about five years younger and somehow even better.

“Okay,” she said. “Confession. I don’t usually do this.”

“Do what?”

“I’m parked round the back. I could drop you home.” She bit her lip. “Or there’s a twenty-four-hour diner on Station Road, if you’re hungry.”

Dez was watching us from the door, arms folded.

“Or,” Scarlett added, “you could just get a cab and we pretend this was a nice night and nothing else.”

→ I take the lift home in her car

→ I say I’ll meet her at the diner

← Back

I peeled a hundred off the roll, folded it lengthwise and tucked it slowly under the lace garter on her thigh.

Scarlett looked down at it. Then at me. Her eyebrows went up.

“Well,” she said. “Somebody’s having a better week than he let on.”

“I’m not. That’s sort of the point.”

She laughed, properly, head back. Then she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled across the room. “Jade! Get over here.”

Jade came over, sequins glittering, with a look like she’d been expecting this. Scarlett whispered in her ear. Jade looked me up and down and smiled slowly.

“He tips like that on the floor?” Jade said.

“On the floor,” Scarlett said.

“Then he deserves both of us.” Jade sat on the arm of my chair and ran a long nail down my chest. “Here’s the deal, big spender. VIP room. The pair of us. Half an hour. Four hundred.”

Scarlett perched on the other arm. “We put on a very good show together,” she said, and leaned across me and kissed Jade on the mouth, slow, with tongue, right in front of my face.

My brain short-circuited. My cock was trying to climb out of my jeans.

I had about three hundred in cash left. And a credit card that I had a feeling was very close to its limit.

“Cash or card, babe?” Jade asked sweetly.

→ I hand over every bit of cash I have left

→ I hand over my credit card

← Back

I put my hands on her hips.

Just resting there. Lightly. Her skin was hot under my palms, and she felt incredible, and for one second it was worth it.

Then she went completely still.

“Owen.” Her voice was flat. “Hands.”

“Sorry. You just…”

“I just nothing. I told you the rules a minute ago.” She lifted my hands off her, one at a time, and placed them back on the velvet like she was putting toys back on a shelf. “There’s a camera right there. If Dez sees that, I get a warning and you get a pavement.”

“I’m sorry. Really.”

She looked at me for a long moment. She was still sitting in my lap, topless, her nipples still hard, and I could feel her warmth through my jeans. Some of the sparkle had gone out of her face, though. She’d become professional again in about two seconds.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s try that again.”

She started dancing again. Slower this time, more careful, a little more distance between us. She was still gorgeous. Still grinding, still letting her tits brush my chest. But it felt like she was dancing at me now instead of with me.

My hands were trembling on the couch. Part of me knew I’d blown something. Another part of me, the stupid part, was still staring at her hips and thinking about how good they’d felt.

She turned around and lowered herself onto me, arse first, and that stupid part got louder.

→ I apologise properly and keep my hands to myself

→ I reach for her hips again

← Back

I kept my hands on the couch. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I’ve done my own tax return.

Scarlett noticed. Of course she did. She straddled me, her knees sinking into the velvet either side of my hips, and looked down at my hands gripping the cushions.

“You’re actually doing it,” she said.

“You said those were the rules.”

“Everybody says yes to the rules. Then everybody tries it on in the first ninety seconds.” She sounded surprised and, for the first time, a little bit shy. “You’re sweet, Owen.”

Then she leaned down and put her mouth right against my ear. “That means I get to break them for you.”

She took my right hand off the couch herself and laid it on her bare waist. Just that. Her skin was hot and damp. She moved against me slow and deep, my cock pressed hard along the soft crotch of her knickers, and she let out a tiny, real gasp when she rolled over the head of it.

“Fuck,” she breathed. “You’re really hard.”

“Thirty minutes of you will do that.”

The red light hummed. Somewhere down the corridor another song started. She kept riding me through my jeans, slower and slower, her forehead resting against mine, breath mixing. I could feel how warm she was through the lace.

Then a soft buzz. Time.

She sat back, flushed to the collarbones, and looked at me like she was making up her mind about something.

→ I tip big and tell her I’ll stay until close if she wants me to

→ I pay for one more song right now

← Back

“Goodnight, Scarlett,” I said.

She shrugged, a little smile, like it made no difference to her either way. “Night, puppy.”

I walked to the car. I didn’t look back. I was quite proud of myself for about a hundred yards.

Then I sat behind the wheel with the engine running and the heater roaring, and I thought about her open coat. The black lace. The goosebumps on her freckles. Twenty minutes, and I’m bored and cold.

I nearly went back. I actually had my hand on the door handle. But when I looked down the alley she was already stubbing out her cigarette and heading inside, and the fire door swung shut behind her with a bang that sounded very final.

I drove home.

The flat was exactly as empty as I’d left it. The gap on the kitchen counter where the good kettle used to be. Her side of the wardrobe, bare hangers. The silence.

I boiled water in a saucepan and made tea I didn’t want. Then I lay on the bed in my one decent shirt and, inevitably, unzipped my jeans.

I thought about Jade’s hand on my chest. About Scarlett’s cold nipples and her green eyes. I thought about what might have happened in that alley if I’d just said yes. It didn’t take long.

Afterwards I lay there staring at the ceiling.

Monday, job. Wednesday, girlfriend. Friday, the two most beautiful women I’d ever seen, and I’d gone home to a saucepan.

Next week, I promised myself. Next week I’d say yes.

Ending 25 of 25: Home Alone. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning

← Back

“I’ll keep you warm,” I said.

“Good answer.” She grabbed my lapels and pulled me against the wall with her.

Her coat swung open and I wrapped my arms around her inside it. She was freezing, all goosebumps, and she pressed herself against me with a little hiss. Then she tipped her face up and kissed me.

It was not a polite kiss. Her tongue was in my mouth before I’d caught up, tasting of smoke and mint, her cold hands sliding inside my shirt. I groaned and she laughed into my mouth.

“No cameras out here,” she whispered. “No rules.”

My hands found her arse under the coat, bare except for a strip of lace, and squeezed. She ground against me. Then her hand slid down between us, unzipped my jeans and slipped inside, wrapping round my cock.

“Oh, hello,” she said.

She stroked me against the wall, slow at first, then faster, her mouth on my neck. I slid my fingers between her thighs, under the lace, and found her hot and wet. She gasped and rode my hand while she worked me.

She came first, quietly, shuddering into my shoulder. I came a minute later, into her fist, my forehead against the brick.

A door banged somewhere. She pulled away, laughing, wiped her hand on my shirt and buttoned her coat.

“Break’s over,” she said. “Next time, pick me first.”

She went back inside. I stood in the alley, shirt ruined, completely in love.

→ Next Friday, I walk in and pick her first

→ I go back inside and ask Jade for a dance

← Back

I opened my mouth to say yes. What came out was, “I should get home.”

Priya blinked. Then nodded quickly, like she’d expected it.

“Course. Yeah. No, that’s sensible.” She let go of my wrist. “Sorry. That was weird. Forget it.”

“It wasn’t weird. I just…”

“Owen, honestly, it’s fine.” She smiled, a little too brightly, and pulled her cardigan tighter. “Get home safe, talker.”

Dez held the door. The cold hit me like a slap. I had thirty-eight quid in my wallet, which wasn’t enough for a cab across town, so I walked to the night bus stop and stood under the shelter with a drunk man eating a kebab.

The bus took forty minutes to come.

I sat on the top deck and replayed it. Her hand on my wrist. Ten minutes away. A bottle of wine and a sofa. A lot of practice at lap dances that I never get to finish properly.

I had said no. To that. Why had I said no?

Because of the job, I told myself. Because of Tuesday. Because I was sad and broke and didn’t want to be a sad, broke man in a stripper’s flat.

None of those reasons sounded any good at three in the morning on the top deck of the N29.

When I got home, I lay on my bed in the dark with my jeans open and my hand round my cock, thinking about her sofa, and hated myself just a little.

Ending 22 of 25: The Night Bus. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

Start again from the beginning

← Back

Priya’s flat was above a launderette, warm and cluttered, fairy lights round the window and a grumpy grey cat on the sofa. She shooed the cat off, poured two big glasses of red and pushed me down onto the cushions.

“Stay there,” she said.

She put on music. She dimmed the lamp. Then she took off her cardigan and jeans and danced for me in her plain black underwear, barefoot on the rug, and it was a hundred times sexier than anything she’d done at the club.

“No camera,” she said, climbing into my lap. “No Dez. No rules.”

I put my hands on her. Everywhere. Her waist, her arse, her full soft tits as she unhooked her bra and pressed them into my face. I sucked her nipple into my mouth and she moaned and ground down harder.

Then she slid off my lap onto her knees between my legs.

“Always wanted to finish one of these properly,” she said, and unbuckled my belt.

She sucked me slowly, deep and wet, her dark eyes on mine the whole time, one hand stroking the base. When I warned her I was close, she just hummed and took me deeper, and I came in her mouth with my hands in her hair.

She swallowed, wiped her lips and grinned.

“That’s all you get tonight,” she said, curling up against me. “I’m wrecked. But you can stay on the sofa.”

I fell asleep with the cat on my feet and her head on my chest. Sometime before dawn she slipped off to her own bed and left the door open.

→ In the morning, I make her coffee and take it to her in bed

→ I sneak out at dawn before she wakes up