Category: IST

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“I’ll meet you at the diner,” I said. “Give me ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes,” she said, and squeezed my hand.

I walked there. It was cold and I wanted to clear my head. The diner was a strip-lit little place with red vinyl booths and a cook who looked like he hadn’t slept since 2019. I took a booth by the window, ordered two coffees and waited.

Ten minutes. Twenty. Half an hour.

At ten to three, a car pulled up outside. Not a battered little hatchback. A big black pickup with tinted windows. Scarlett climbed out of the passenger side, in her hoodie, laughing, and a man climbed out of the driver’s side and kissed her against the door.

He was thirty-one, she told me later, and about six foot four. Tattoos up to his jaw. He kept his hand on the back of her neck the whole way into the diner.

Scarlett saw me. Her face went through about four different expressions in a second.

“Owen! Hi! This is Kai. My boyfriend. He picked me up.” She said it too brightly. “I told him about you. The man with the kettle.”

Kai nodded at me. Not unfriendly. Just very, very large.

“Nice to meet you, mate,” he said. “Thanks for looking after her tonight.”

They sat in the booth behind mine and shared a plate of chips.

I finished both coffees, left a tip I couldn’t afford, and walked home in the rain thinking that this was, without doubt, the most on-brand thing that had happened all week.

Ending 12 of 25: The Boyfriend. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

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“The lift,” I said. “If you’re sure.”

Her car was a battered little Fiesta, parked behind the bins. The heater roared and nothing happened. She drove with her hood up and one hand on the wheel and the other, after about a mile, on my knee.

When we pulled up outside my building she didn’t turn the engine off.

“So,” she said.

“So.”

She leaned across the handbrake and kissed me. It started soft, and then it absolutely wasn’t. Her tongue in my mouth, her hand sliding up my thigh, finding my cock and squeezing it through my jeans.

“Five hours,” she murmured. “I’ve been watching you get hard for five hours.”

She popped my button and zip with one hand, very practised, and pulled me out. Her palm was cool. She spat into it and started stroking, slow and firm, twisting over the head, while she kissed my neck.

“I can’t come up,” she whispered. “I’ve got an exam in the morning. But I can do this.”

I came in about ninety seconds, all over her hand and the gearstick, groaning into her hair. She laughed and wiped her hand on a napkin from the glovebox.

“Bryony,” she said. “That’s my real name.”

“Can I see you again?”

“You can see me Friday.” She kissed me once more. “And pay for a dance like everybody else.”

The Fiesta pulled away. I stood on the pavement, zipped up wrong, grinning like an idiot. She had an exam in the morning. I had nothing to do all weekend.

→ I come back on Friday and pay for a dance like everybody else

→ I turn up at the university in the morning with coffee and flowers

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I handed Jade my credit card with a flourish I immediately regretted.

“Back in a sec,” she said, and sashayed off to the bar with it held up between two fingers like a cigarette.

Scarlett settled into my lap while we waited, kissing my neck, playing with the buttons of my shirt. “You won’t regret this,” she murmured. “She does this thing with her tongue…”

Jade came back. She was not smiling.

“Declined,” she said, and handed me the card.

“Try it again?”

“They tried it twice.” She folded her arms. “Babe.”

I stared at the card. Of course. The final salary payment didn’t go in until the twenty-eighth. I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten because I’d spent all week not thinking about anything.

“I’ve got cash,” I said. “Three hundred. Nearly.”

“It’s four hundred,” Jade said. “For both of us.”

“I’ll take one then. Either of you.”

Scarlett slid off my lap. Gently, kindly, but very definitely off. “Sweetheart, it doesn’t work like that once you’ve asked for two. Bad form.”

Jade was already looking over my shoulder at a man in a suit by the bar. She touched my cheek once, almost sympathetically. “Sort your life out and come back on payday.”

Then they were gone. Both of them, arm in arm, laughing, toward the suit.

I sat alone in the chair with a folded hundred quid of tip money gone, a dead credit card and a hard-on that knew it had been robbed.

Ending 9 of 25: Card Declined. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

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I emptied my wallet into Jade’s hand. Three hundred and ten quid. “That’s everything.”

“That’s plenty,” Scarlett said, and took one arm while Jade took the other.

The VIP booth barely fit the three of us. They sat me in the middle of the couch and stood in front of me, and then they started on each other.

Jade unhooked Scarlett’s bra. Scarlett tugged Jade’s sequinned top up over her head. They kissed, slow and open-mouthed, their tits pressing together, pale against olive, hands sliding down each other’s backs. I sat there gripping the velvet so hard I nearly tore it.

“Rules still apply,” Jade said over her shoulder. “To you.”

Then they both came for me.

Scarlett straddled my left thigh. Jade straddled my right. They ground on me in sync, two warm pussies rubbing my legs through their knickers, two pairs of tits in my face, their mouths taking turns on my neck. Jade palmed my cock through my jeans and squeezed. Scarlett laughed and put her hand on top of Jade’s.

“Twenty-seven and twenty-nine,” Scarlett whispered in my ear. “Fifty-six years of experience between us. You’re done for.”

I was. I came in my jeans with both their hands on me, bucking and groaning, while they kissed each other across my chest.

“Aww,” said Jade. “He lasted four minutes.”

They finished the half hour anyway, dancing for each other while I sat there, wrecked and broke and happier than I’d been all week. When the buzzer went, I realised I still had one question left.

→ I ask what the two of them are doing after close

→ I thank them, button my jacket and head for the door

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She turned around, arse first, and sank down into my lap. And I put my hands on her hips again. Firmer this time. Pulling her down onto me.

For about two seconds it was heaven.

Then she was off my lap and across the booth so fast I didn’t see her move. She snatched her bra off the couch and held it against her chest.

“Dez,” she said. Not loud. She didn’t need to be loud.

The curtain swept back. Dez filled the doorway completely. Up close he was about forty-five, bald as an egg, and built like a vending machine.

“Problem?”

“Touched me twice,” Scarlett said. “After the warning.”

“Mate,” I said. “Honestly, it was…”

“Up.” Dez didn’t raise his voice either. Nobody in this place raised their voice. He put one enormous hand on my shoulder and steered me out of the booth, down the corridor, across the main floor, past every man and every dancer in the building. Jade watched me go with her eyebrows up. Somebody at the bar actually clapped.

The fire door banged open. Cold air. Wet pavement. Bins.

“You’re barred,” Dez said. “Six months. Don’t come back before then, and when you do, keep your hands in your pockets.”

The door slammed. I stood in the alley with two hundred quid gone, a raging hard-on and the lingering smell of vanilla on my hands.

It started to rain. Of course it did. It had been that kind of week.

Ending 6 of 25: Shown the Door. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

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I kept my hands on the couch. “I’m sorry. Genuinely. It won’t happen again.”

“I know it won’t,” Scarlett said, and her smile was perfectly friendly and perfectly empty.

She finished the half hour. She did everything she’d been doing before. Her tits in my face, her arse in my lap, her hair sliding across my chest. She ground on my cock until I was aching and leaking into my boxers, and she let out little breathy sounds in all the right places.

None of it was for me anymore.

I could feel the difference. Before, she’d been laughing, enjoying herself, pressing in close because she wanted to. Now every move was timed to the beat and every look was aimed at a point just past my left ear. It was a performance. A very, very good one.

The buzzer went. She stood up, hooked her bra back on, and checked her lipstick in the little mirror on the wall.

“Thanks, babe. Hope your week gets better.”

“Scarlett, can I…”

“I’m booked for the rest of the night,” she said, already holding the curtain. “Jade’s free, though, if you’re still in the mood.”

I wasn’t. I sat at the bar for twenty minutes, nursing a whisky I couldn’t afford, watching her laugh in another man’s lap. She never looked my way once.

I drove home with a hard-on that wouldn’t quit and the distinct feeling I’d paid two hundred quid to learn something about myself.

Ending 5 of 25: Cold Shoulder. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.

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“One more song,” I said, already fumbling for my wallet. “Right now. Please.”

Scarlett laughed, surprised, and took the twenty. “Greedy. I like it.”

She didn’t take my hand off her waist. She climbed back on, faced me, and this time she didn’t hold anything back. She pushed my head back against the couch and ground down on me in long, hard strokes, the soft heat between her legs dragging up and down the length of my trapped cock.

“Is this what you needed?” she whispered. “After your terrible week?”

“Yes. Fuck, yes.”

She arched back, tits bouncing, and rolled her hips faster. My balls drew up tight. I knew what was happening and I couldn’t stop it. She knew too. She saw it in my face and leaned in close, lips brushing mine without kissing.

“Go on,” she breathed. “I won’t tell.”

I came in my jeans. Right there, thrusting up against her, groaning into her hair, pulsing hot and helpless inside my boxers while she rode me through every twitch.

She slowed. Stopped. Kissed my cheek.

“That’s a first for this booth,” she said. “Well. Not really. But it’s a first for tonight.”

The buzzer went. She hooked her bra back on, patted my chest and was gone, off to her next customer, before I could even think of asking her name.

I sat there in a cooling wet patch for five minutes, then walked very carefully out to the car park, holding my jacket in front of me. At the car I stopped, keys in hand, and looked back at the neon lips over the door. I still didn’t know her name.

→ I wait by my car until closing time

→ I give up, drive home and put my jeans in the wash

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I counted out another hundred and pressed it into her hand. “That’s for being lovely. And if you want, I’ll stay until close.”

She looked at the money, then at me. “And then what?”

“Then whatever you want. Or nothing.”

I stayed. Two more hours of watching her on the stage, her eyes finding mine every time. At two the lights came up, Dez herded everyone out, and Scarlett caught my sleeve at the door.

“Dez,” she called. “He’s with me. Ten minutes.”

Dez sighed and locked the front door behind us.

She led me back through the curtain to the same booth, the club empty and silent now. She was still in her lace, her makeup a little smudged, and she pulled my shirt over my head before I could say anything.

“Now you can touch,” she said.

I touched everything. I kissed her mouth, her freckled throat, her small hard nipples. She shoved my jeans down and wrapped her hand round my cock, stroking it, gasping at how hard it was. I peeled her knickers down and found her soaking.

She pushed me back on the velvet, took a condom from her garter, rolled it on me and sank down slow, every inch, moaning.

She rode me hard, hands on my chest. I grabbed her hips at last and fucked up into her, her tits bouncing, the couch thumping the wall. She came grinding on me, shaking, and I came seconds later, buried deep.

“Bryony,” she whispered against my neck. “My real name. Come for breakfast.”

→ I say yes to breakfast

→ I play it cool and tell her I’ll text her

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I pushed up on my elbows. “Honestly, I’ll get dressed. I’ll rebook with someone else. No harm done.”

Something flickered across her face. Disappointment, maybe. Then she folded her arms.

“Don’t be silly. You’ve paid, you’re here, and Jenna’s fully booked. I’m a professional, Mark. I do this eight times a day.”

“Right. Of course.”

“So lie down.” She clicked the oil bottle open. “Ground rules. This is a massage. You keep the towel on, I keep my hands where they belong, and we never, ever mention it at Sunday lunch.”

“Deal.”

I lay back down. She started at my shoulders, and the first long stroke was so good I groaned into the face cradle. She went quiet for a second, then kept working.

Professional. Absolutely professional. Except her breathing was a little too careful, and every time she leaned over me I could smell her shampoo, the same one she’d used since she was twenty-two.

She worked down my back, slow and thorough. Her thumbs found the knot I’d been complaining about for a month and dug in until I hissed.

“Sorry,” she murmured.

“Don’t be. That’s the spot.”

“I know where your spots are.” She stopped. “That came out wrong.”

“Did it?”

Silence. Her hands didn’t move for a long beat. I could feel the heat of her palms through the oil, resting low on my back, right at the edge of the towel.

She was nervous. Claire, who is never nervous about anything.

→ I promise her I’ll behave and let her work

→ I ask her quietly why she’s so nervous

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“We’re adults,” I said. “It’s a massage. Do your worst.”

“Careful what you ask for.” She warmed the oil between her palms, and the first stroke down my spine made me exhale like I’d been holding my breath for eleven years.

She was good. Really good. Strong thumbs along the muscles either side of my spine, heels of her hands sinking into the knots. Every so often she leaned her weight in and I felt her hip brush the edge of the table, right by my arm.

“You’re carrying a lot of tension,” she said.

“Long month.”

“Long decade?” A pause. “Sorry. Professional voice. Ignore me.”

We talked about nothing. Her flat, Helen’s new job, their mum’s knee. Normal family chatter, except her hands kept sliding lower, working the dip of my back, fingertips grazing the edge of the towel where it sat across my arse.

Then she folded the towel down an inch. Then another. Her palms pressed into the top of my glutes, slow, firm circles, oil running warm into places that were definitely not my lower back.

“Is this pressure okay?”

“It’s… yeah. It’s fine.”

It was not fine. My cock was crushed hard against the table and I was very glad to be face down.

She laughed softly, like she knew exactly what was happening. The air in that little room had gone thick and sweet with oil and something else.

I could feel the wedding hanging between us, unspoken, the way it always was.

→ I bring up the wedding and what she whispered to me that night

→ I tell her she has incredible hands and let her lead