Sugar & Salt (3 page)

Janice never calls out for Portia; she always gets what she needs herself, or steps out into the main room to ask.

Caitrin says, “Our beloved Mistress, our Madame of the Night, has fallen ill with a longing heart, a pain inside her soul which can only be cured by the kiss of her One True Love.”

“I
will
hit you.”

“Come on, Caitrin.” Portia separates the laughing women before it goes too far.

In this business, knowing how far to push someone’s boundaries is essential. While Caitrin is an expert in knowing how much pain someone can tolerate, she lacks the ability to tell when that line is near with friends.

“Fine, I’ll relent, I’ll retreat. But know this—” Caitrin points a long black fingernail in her boss’s direction. “—I know something happened tonight, something more than just market research.”

Janice rolls her eyes. “You imagine conspiracies where only conversation lies.” She snickers and turns her back on Caitrin, resuming her nightly ritual of preparing the office for clients.

The Lap of Luxury

Morning tends to announce its presence reluctantly at The Sugar House. No one ever wants her to arrive—an unwelcome interloper in the night’s pantheon of pleasure—but the sun cannot be stopped. Like time, like rain, she moves across the sky regardless of the city dwellers’ desire to remain under the cover of night.

The brightness of day brings a brash reality for the clientele. Most prefer to leave during the early dawn hours, if not before the sun begins to outshine the distant stars. By the time the sun peeks over the horizon, most employees of The Sugar House have sanitized and packed away their tools of the trade, set out the night’s laundry for the daytime staff, and are ready for something filling to eat and a good day’s sleep.

For Janice, the persistent distraction is Greenpeace. He’s on her mind when she wakes in the morning. All she can think about in the shower, as the hot water runs down her body, is the mocking twinkle in his green eyes and the way his lips curved around his perspiring glass.

Her thoughts swim with images of those lips wrapped around her nipples, pulling on them, sucking them into hardened pebbles, drawing her pleasure to the surface. Day after day.

This morning, she can’t settle down to sleep. The Sugar House closes down every week on Monday and Tuesday to give her and the staff a much needed break after the weekend. Some still opt to schedule clients, making engagements with Portia in advance, but only with those who have earned the privilege of outside meetings. Plus, her brood can handle themselves, and if something should go awry... well, Janice hired Jackson for a reason. His willingness to make anyone pay who hurt one of their own was a big part of that.

The sun rests high in the morning sky, but Janice tosses restlessly in her Egyptian cotton sheets. She rests one leg under the comforter, and the other over top. Her internal body temperature won’t regulate, and persistent thoughts about her mysterious man push the heat to dangerous levels.

She listens to the hum of the city on the street below. Her third storey SoHo loft doesn’t cancel out much sound, but the small, elegant space designated as a bedroom is warm and intimate. She just needs some sleep, to clear her mind of a man she doesn’t even know.

She rolls over and pulls the sheets up higher, encasing her body in warm luxury. Her satin nightgown pulls gently along her flesh, rubbing against the soft sheets. She shivers, moving one hand up to massage her breast, while gently tracing patterns along the satin curve of her hip with the other.

A vision of a tall man standing in the dark corner of a restaurant appears to her. With eyes closed, she imagines herself approaching him and drags her nails along her thigh. When she reaches her destination, he smiles and takes her hand, leading her into a back room.

The vision of Greenpeace speaks, the sound of his gravelly voice intensified in her fantasy. He calls her name and kisses her. She brings her fingers to her mouth and traces the soft contour of her lips. The dream kiss lingers and she imagines his hands gripping her sides, her hips, her ass. She slips a hand into the top of her nightgown and squeezes her erect nipple until she cries out for more.

“Please...” she whispers into the hazy morning light. “Please, please, please.” She moves her hand away from her mouth and follows the path she imagines his lips taking, down her neck and across her collarbone. She lingers at her nipple before smoothing her way down her abdomen and dipping into the dark below. “Please....”

Greenpeace drops to his knees. His imaginary hands knead her thighs and ass, pushing them apart, as his imaginary voice says,
you are so wet
. He groans in her mind, the vibration of the rumble pulsing across her body, titillating her cunt.

“Fuck!” She removes her hand from her breast and pulls the nightgown up to her hips. She teases the soft hair of her sex, running soft fingers across the sensitive lips, but not dipping lower.

When the vision lover lowers his head and presses his tongue against her, she slides her finger along her slit, pushing her swollen lips apart to make room for him. She strokes herself with one hand, and moves the other back to grip her breast, squeezing and massaging. Her pace is uncontrolled, not the practiced stroke of a woman seeking release, but the mad ministration of lust.

“Yes.” She rolls on her side, easing two fingers into her cunt. It opens easily, desperate to be filled. Her fingers explore her depths, and soon she inserts another, spreading her legs wide, imagining something thicker and deeper inside her. She rides the heel of her hand, pushing her fingers deep, but unable to reach the depths she desires.

She flings the covers off and reaches for the bedside table, where a well-used Laya vibrator waits in the drawer. Her dream lover sits behind her, in her room, in this bed. She imagines his arms wrapped around her, pushing her down on her back and easing his weight onto her body. The familiar buzz of the vibrator sends shivers through her, and she feels the familiar anticipation of pleasure before even touching it to her cunt.

The handheld toy slips easily against her folds. She arches up and closes her eyes, imagining Greenpeace within her. He would fill her up, stretch her limits, and boil her blood. Drawing the vibrator along her lips, she seeks her clit. The toy teases her senses and exploits her need as it sends out flashes of pleasure. Every time it makes contact with her swollen clit, her body jumps—so close to oblivion already.

She flips onto her stomach, holding it in place so she can grind against it. She imagines straddling the mystery man who doesn’t recycle. She wants to slap him for ensnaring her, to swallow him whole. In her mind, she rides him, twisting her hips as she slides along his shaft. She grabs her breast again with her free hand and squeezes, abusing her tits as she calls out. It’s him massaging her clit with this thumb as she loses control and frantically seeks an orgasm. It’s his flesh she bites into as the apex arrives and blackness blots out her fantasy, pure pleasure grabbing hold of her body as he delivers another, final thrust.

Exhausted and spent, she drops her toy back into the drawer and drifts into a deep sleep.

Speed-Dating Part Deux

Janice’s mood sinks, pulling the corners of her mouth down. She hadn’t intended on getting her hopes up—just another night at the lonely hearts club—but about halfway through the night, when she finally admits to herself Greenpeace isn’t going to show, her heart plummets.

Half an hour after the usual meet and greet ends, she frowns at herself in the ladies room mirror.
Waiting on a man. What are you, twenty? A love-sick co-ed?
Men come and go and this one is no more special than any of the others.

She grimaces at her lie, unable to achieve even a momentary reprieve. What is she still doing here, waiting around, sipping a drink, and chatting with the other hangers-on hoping for one more chance to make an impression? “Pathetic. Time to go to work.”

She straightens her dress and tugs the hem down over the thigh-highs she donned in hope Greenpeace would be watching her cross her legs again tonight. She runs her fingers through her soft curls, reapplies the deep crimson lipstick she adores, and prepares to re-enter the bar.

Now to extradite herself from Simon, who’s still hopeful, even after last week’s miserable showing. With her shoulders back and head held high, she strides from the ladies room out into the blooming chaos of happy hour. The lights were dimmed and candles lit while she was in the washroom. A mood of romance, inebriation, and hope fills the room. Only the lack of wispy tendrils of cigarette smoke separates this scene from the back drop of a Tom Waits song.

At the bar, Simon faces away from her approach, having left her drink unguarded.

She frowns—any chance he had with her gone. A man who doesn’t protect his date’s drink isn’t likely to show more consideration for her person.

She slides in next to him and hails the bartender. “My drink sat here unattended. I’d like another. Who knows what someone might have slipped in it.”

The bartender nods his bald head and a laugh breaks out from her right.

She turns, eyes sharp, prepared to sharpen her teeth on Simon’s bones, but finds Greenpeace standing on the other side of Simon’s embarrassed form.

“So you came back?” he teases. “Are you here for speed-dating, or just to make a PSA about ruffies?”

“A lady can never be too careful. There’s no telling what some of these guys may be up to.”

Simon grunts, looking from Greenpeace to Janice.

Greenpeace smiles. “Some of whom might argue against the idea that women are the only gender who should be careful. I’ve known some who aren’t above such antics.”

“I’m sure you do. Where do you meet them, at the trash heap?”

“Ah, so you remember me.”

“Indeed, I do.”

The bartender sets Janice’s replacement Cosmo on the bar.

“You can put it on his tab.” She gestures to Simon.

“What?” he protests.

“Now, let’s not make a scene. Let me pay for the drink, and bring me a whiskey sour.” Greenpeace hands over a black credit card with a wink.

“How was I supposed to know you wanted me to keep an eye on your drink?” Simon eyes up Janice’s cleavage.

She takes a sip and licks her crimson lips, glaring at him.

“Were you here tonight?” Greenpeace leans into Simon’s space, his green eyes sparkling with mischief and a private joke.

“Yes, although the inventory wasn’t of the same quality as last week.”

“It wasn’t, huh?”

“No, there was a distinct something missing.” She drinks in his visage. Even with Simon sitting between them, the connection crackles and sparks, threatening to set their drinks on fire. Vodka Falmbée.

The bartender returns with Greenpeace’s drink. “That wouldn’t have been because of me, would it?” He takes a sip.

“You? No, I can’t imagine that.”

Their eyes lock, the banter as exhilarating as the first time they’d met.

“Hey, do you, um, want to grab something to eat?” Simon interrupts, his unwavering hope endearing, if a touch annoying.

“I think I’ll wait, but you go ahead. I’ll see you around.” Her eyes don’t waver from Greenpeace’s as she speaks.

“Yeah, great.” Simon gestures to the bartender to close out his tab and sits between them, fidgety and forgotten.

“So did you ever figure it out?” Greenpeace picks up the conversation as if Simon had never spoken, keeping his posture relaxed and confident.

Janice can’t determine just what breed of man he is. “What’s that?” She returns from her musing, caught off guard by the question.

“Why I don’t recycle.”

“Oh, I just figured it was one of your many charms. Perhaps you’re part of Al-Qaeda, too?”

“You found me out, but I can’t get into a cell. This beard just won’t grow in.” He ran a hand across his rugged features.

“I hear Rogaine works wonders.” She sips her drink.

“Oh? You tried it?”

“Definitely. You should see my legs.”

Greenpeace tilts his head back and laughs with abandon. Nothing but joy shines from his face, and his eyes narrow from the expanse of his smile. “I was right.”

“About?”

“About you.”

“Mmm, what about me, exactly?”

“You’re interesting.”

“So you remember me, too.”

“How could I forget?” He leans in closer and scoots into the now vacant seat between them, Simon having disappeared without notice.

The scent of a long day and cardamom surround her as he approaches. His lips part slightly and drop to hers.

She smirks and takes a sip of her drink.

“I have a confession,” he whispers.

“Oh?”

“Yes, something I’ve been dying to tell you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want your death on my conscience.” She leans in, tempted.

“No, that would be tragic. Mourners would fill the streets. Black coats would billow out from Central Park and the tears... oh, the misery.”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s just how it would be.” She rolls her eyes at his dramatics.

“Women keening over my grave.”

“Personally, I’d throw myself in the East River.”

“That seems reasonable.”

“Glad we agree. Now your confession.”

The air between them pulsates. Heat and music rise in proportion to one another, but she barely notices, her thoughts consumed with nothing but him.

“Yes, I have one. Were I Catholic, I’d call on a priest, but I’m afraid I’d give the poor man a heart attack.”

“Must be a good one.”

“It’s about you, a bit of a fantasy, actually.” He slugs back his whiskey, drinking half the glass.

“Really?” A thunderbolt shoots though her body at the thought.

“Every night when I come home from work, there’s this fleeting moment when I think you might be there, sitting on my couch, drinking a glass of wine, dressed only in one of my shirts: something conservative. In my mind you’re wearing thigh highs.” He slips a hand up Janice’s leg to the top of her stockings. “Yes, something just like this.”

She’s distracted by the tight grip of his hand on her thigh. “That’s not much of a confession.” She shrugs, having hoped for something a touch more titillating.