The Pickup Line

by Louisa Trent

  The slam he'd just heard was the slamming of a door. Blue had just left the room. Or at least her feelings had. He wanted her woman's body, but he wanted her feelings too; otherwise, he might just well use his hand to get off.

  He explained. “Blue, listen, if I were wearing frilly panties under my suit and you asked me to chuck ‘em because you hated them, and besides which, you just had to touch me, couldn't stop touching me, and those frilly panties were getting in the way of your touching me, regardless of my political leanings, those panties would be history.”

  After that long-winded explanation, he rewarded himself by kissing her belly again.

  “You have the silkiest skin, Blue.”

  He inhaled her female fragrance.

  “Blue, you smell so damn good.”

  His tongue licked her navel.

  “Blue. Blue. Blue. I don't want to screw up and I'm so afraid I will. You want me to jump in the river and get your boxers back? Just say the word and I will. I just don't want to screw up, Blue. Okay?”

  Her voice softened. “Oh, Lou. I don't want you jumping into any river.”

  “No?”

  “No. You'd probably get pneumonia and I'd never forgive myself.”

  Damn, the view was excellent from where he was squatting. He was mesmerized by the glitter of that gold hoop in Blue's sweet female folds. And he didn't want to waste any more time arguing; he could think of better stuff they could be doing.

  “Blue?” he asked, optimistically. “Are we all square now?”

  “All I want, Lou, is to be allowed to be who I am, whomever that flawed person is that day, that hour, that minute.”

  She sighed a long sigh, and Lou knew they weren't all square by a long shot.

  “I'm a work in progress, Lou, constantly shifting and changing, evolving along life's road, and I don't want the process stymied by an overbearing dick-head.”

  “Got it,” he said, readily accepting the putdown if that's what it took to get her over her mad.

  To hasten the process he added, “I completely understand your position, Blue, and consider me warned. And as to your evolving-I'd never interfere with any of your ... your...”

  Lou thought for a minute, drumming up the right way of putting it.

  He had it! “I'd never interfere with your being all you can be.”

  It sounded like the catch phrase right out of the army recruitment commercial, but it was the best he could do under trying circumstances.

  He picked up Blue's foot and eased the trousers over the work boots and up her amazingly long legs. Thankfully the pants were the wide legged variety and they went on real quick. He wasn't used to helping women into their clothes; he had little enough experience helping women out of their clothes. But the way he figured it, the same principal of dressing a stubborn little boy had to apply to a young woman who was too headstrong to realize when and with whom she could let down her guards. Blue was one defensive lady.

  Lou shimmied the cargo pants over Blue's slender hips. She was tall, but her bones were delicate, her skin was fine. In the heat of the moment, he'd gotten carried away. He hoped he hadn't been too rough—

  “Did I hurt you when I ... you know ... pulled on the hoops?”

  “You mean the piercings on my tit and cunt?”

  Flowery language like that would put greeting card companies right out of business...

  There was Blue's defensive posturing again. It wasn't necessary with him, but she couldn't know that because she didn't know him. And that was the problem with pickups: The two people involved were strangers.

  He wanted to get to know Blue. He didn't want them to be strangers when they got into bed.

  “Yeah, those piercings,” he said sadly, because he knew there wasn't enough time for them to be anything but strangers when they hit the sheets. And that was really too bad because she was testing him, like Pete used to do when he was a tantrum-prone toddler, only this was a full grown woman putting him through some junk because she was unsure of him, maybe unsure of herself too, definitely unsure of them together.

  Well, okay. He was a big boy and he could take whatever stuff she wanted to dish out. He was sure enough for both of them. He'd do whatever he needed to do to prove he was man enough to partner a strong woman like her, without crushing her and without allowing her to ride roughshod over him. It was only the approach that would be tricky.

  “Why do you ask, Lou? Do like hurting a woman during sex? You into the BDSM scene?” Her eyes were glassy with a frenzied excitement. “Is force your thing?”

  No force was not his thing! He didn't like throwing his muscle around, especially not against someone smaller and weaker. He had never once given Pete so much as a spank on the backside and he'd never hit, slapped, or bullied a woman. Yeah, he'd been a cop. Yeah, part of his job function at The Flamingo was to throw rowdies out the door. And yeah, he did his job to the best of his abilities, but force was never his first choice; it was always his last resort.

  As to the pain and humiliation that was part of BDSM-he'd just seen too much physical and emotional hurting over the years to ever want to make a game of it. He'd seen too many women on the Southside—wives, girlfriends—-in abusive relationships to think it constituted love. He did not intend to make a travesty out of sex and he wanted no part of the BDSM scene.

  But he did want Blue.

  So what was he supposed to do? The woman already told him she was adventurous.

  He never walked away from what he wanted, nor was he afraid to accept a challenge ... as long as he knew what that challenge was. Which is why he asked, “What exactly do you want from me Blue?”

  “I'm not a shrinking violet, and I don't like taking orders from anyone, and that includes inside the bedroom. What do we do about that, Lou? Who's going to give in? Who'll be the bottom if we're both suited for the top?”

  They were dancing around each other, skirting the real issue, and he knew he had to bring it to a head or she'd lose respect for him.

  “I don't give in, Blue. And I don't expect you to, either.”

  Lou felt his stomach churn, as he said what needed to be said. “Let's not put a label on what we do together, okay? As to who's the top, that depends on what's comfortable for you. I just had my finger up inside you, and so I know you're tight and narrow. Even wet, you'll have a hard time accepting me.”

  There, the limit was set.

  Regaining his feet, he thumbed her bottom lip. “Understand?”

  “I understand about labels, Lou. I've never liked labels either. And about positions—there's room for compromise. But what about leather? You into leather? Leather's good. How about leather?” Her blue eyes shone bright, like a kid waiting for Christmas morning.

  Leather. Almost forty years old, a poster boy for sexual discretion, a man who'd never strayed far afield from the conventional in sex during those few, very few times when he even got to unzip at all, and now he was supposed to jump in and do leather?

  Not if he could help it. “What's a vegan doing with leather? Didn't a cow have to go to moo heaven for the making of leather bondage toys?”

  She gave him a look that had ‘you're a dimwit’ written all over it. “The cuffs I have are faux leather, Lou, not real leather. I'd never ask an animal to pay the ultimate price so I could indulge my deviant tastes.”

  He should've known. Her mustard work boots were probably synthetic too. “Yeah, okay. Faux leather is fine,” he said, but wishing Blue was taking this a little more seriously. They'd only just met, for crying out loud. Why not take the time to get to know one another generally in bed first before moving into specialty areas? What was the damn rush?

  Three days. That's how long Blue was in town. That was the damn rush.

  He had three days to make her happy, to give her what she wanted, what she needed. He was on probation. And things, according to Blue, weren't looking too cool.

  “I packed some neat toys in my suitcase. They fit together and everything,�
� she offered, her eyes bouncing.

  He nodded, thinking little red and yellow plastic bricks, the kind he and Pete used to play with on the kitchen floor. “Good, I like toys that fit together. Maybe we could build something. Erect a skyscraper.”

  She grinned impishly. “I think you've already got one of those erected, Lou.”

  Her tone was all tease, but Blue's fingers weren't moving any too flirtatiously on the buttons on her shirt. Fact is, her fingers were moving like lead. She wasn't letting on, but she was scared of what had almost happened on the pier. He could easily kill those two bastards for frightening Blue.

  “Don't be scared, honey. You're safe with me.”

  “I'm not scared.”

  Yeah, right. Her mouth was pinched, and now that the climax was wearing off, she was looking a little pale.

  Blue didn't say anything when he straightened his legs and finished getting her dressed. He buttoned the shirt, leaving an extra button undone at the top so he could see her pierced nipple whenever he wanted-hey, he was no saint. Then, he wrapped his suit jacket more securely around her shoulders to keep her warm while he looked.

  Not that he'd ever had much of an opportunity to put the information to good use, but hypothetically speaking, the fastest way to get warm is a bout of lower primate sex.

  As soon as they got to the club, he'd get Blue over her fear, even if it meant he had to swing from the ceiling, a banana in his mouth.

  “You can zip up,” he told her, “but leave the trousers undone at the top.” His explanation was as real as it got. “I can't seem to stop touching you.”

  Lou didn't think he was different from most men when it came to sex; sex was on his mind a lot during the course of any one given day. He had a whole menu of favorite imaginings, all unfulfilled, that he enacted in his head whenever need overtook reason.

  No matter how wild and raunchy those sexual imaginings were, the reality of Blue was better.

  Just walking with her along the river, touching her, the silk of her skin caressing his fingertips-even arguing with her about the damn boxers-replaced all his former erotic creations. Real was always better than invention.

  Lou picked up the bag of food he had dropped in his hurry to keep up with Blue. Maybe a faux burger would get some real roses back in her cheeks

  “Let's go eat,” he said.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was late and foggy. And with fall rushing in on a windblown scatter of crisp brown leaves, the dark city streets in the bad part of town were deserted.

  Lou Franco had grown up on Southside of Fenton. The area was tough then, but things were slowly improving. Not enough so that a woman could walk the sidewalks alone at night, but with new jobs came high hopes and the crime rate was down in the area.

  He still worked on the Southside, but not wanting to expose Pete to what he'd been exposed to as a kid, he'd moved his address out of the old neighborhood eighteen years earlier. Sometimes he felt bad about that, like he should've stayed and fought back against the encroachment of drug dealers and the related crimes that went along with their business, but his kid had to come first. So he deserted the old ‘hood, and brought his son up amongst trees, not broken hypodermic needles.

  Lou held Blue's slender body against his side, his free hand now roaming her tapered back under his wool suit jacket but over her cotton work shirt. Then, because he couldn't help himself, his hand tunneled under the men's tailored shirt. Making sure his suit jacket kept her from getting cold, he reached around to her front to cup a firm little breast.

  Her breasts bobbed a little as she walked her long-legged stride and her pierced nipple jutted and hardened, elongating as he stroked.

  “I'll unbutton the whole shirt, if you'd like,” she said, agreeably, her hands rising to the buttons to do just that.

  “No.” He stilled her fingers. “That won't be necessary.”

  She'd just suffered a scare and he walked a fine line between getting her warm with arousal and having the night air chill her all over again.

  Besides, what he was doing was already risqué enough. Some behavior for a staid, almost forty year old fella, cupping a woman's breast as they walked along.

  Blue said she was adventurous, and he was not opposed to a little public hanky panky. As long as the fooling around didn't compromise Blue, he could do adventure. And leather. And those erector set toys. And anything else she wanted. But wouldn't it be nice if they also found out what their favorite movie or book or color was, or hey, even their dates of births?

  After some fondling, he knew Blue wanted him to cut to the chase. She kept trying to divert his PG-rated foreplay to the X-rated region of her trousers.

  “Quit now, honey,” he chastised her.

  “Please, Lou? There's a nice dark doorway straight ahead.”

  What was with her? In his opinion, the lady was trying just a little too hard. And, considering what had just happened, she seemed just a little too anxious to get him in her pants. There was a kind of desperation in the way she was coming on to him that made him uneasy.

  Not, however, uneasy enough to turn her down.

  She needed sex. He needed sex. And where was the harm?

  His own desperation for release escalating, he told her, “I'll give you what you need when we get to where we're going. I can't do right by you here.”

  And he wanted to do right by Blue. He was having none of that short shrift, careless loving. He could easily use his dick to sky-write, but even if it killed him, he was drawing this foreplay out.

  The strategy was working. Blue was getting nice and warm by the time they entered the adult section of Fenton-a block of run-down peep shows, dirty bookstores, super X-rated movies ... and a bright pink building with a burlesque marquee out front.

  “The Pink Flamingo,” she read. “Exotic dancers inside.”

  She looked over at him, disapproval stamped on her features. “Humph! I'm a fairly liberal person and I have no problem with nudity, but establishments like this degrade women. Making money off of female dehumanization is contemptuous.”

  “Men would look silly up there on stage in pink feathers,” he sidestepped, thinking to avoid another argument.

  “Pink feathers,” Blue Heron repeated, shaking her head. “Is that what those poor unfortunate women are forced to wear?”

  poor ... unfortunate ... forced...

  His back went up. “Those ladies are some of the best paid entertainers in the business. And they aren't forced to wear anything-”

  “Oh, I'm sure management would prefer they wear nothing. Nudity merely objectifies women more.”

  “That's not what I meant.”

  Lou frowned. Tough position, defending his job. He hated having to do it. And he didn't understand why he had to. He'd been a plain-clothes detective for almost fifteen years before plunking his Medal of Valor in the drawer and retiring from the force, so he knew the difference between reputable and disreputable. The Flamingo was an honest, straight-up establishment. Even Pete, a card-carrying member of the PC police, had given The Flamingo his approval.

  Every Friday night he and the kid did dinner together at The Flamingo. Fake meat, veggie-burger for Pete; he'd get the no faux about it, red-blooded cow. Before the club opened for business, they'd go to his office at the strip club and shoot the breeze. Or argue. Or laugh their ten-inch-like father like son-very un-vegan meat off. Lately, they talked a lot about women. Generational issues aside, they both agreed they didn't understand women worth squat.

  This was borne out with Blue. Lou knew he needed to set her straight about the nature of his work at The Flamingo, but he had not a clue as to how to keep his foot out of his mouth during the process.

  He wanted to let her know that he never mixed business with pleasure, which meant he kept the strippers more than ten inches away from him at all times. He had a working relationship with the exotic dancers he employed, and that was that.

  He
ran a tight bar at The Pink Flamingo. The exotic dancers kept all their feathers on, and no funny stuff went on during his watch. Some of his ladies-and they were, every last one of ‘em, ladies—were wives and moms, others were students working their way through college. But whatever they did during the day, they relied on him to keep them safe at night. He took that responsibility seriously.

  “The Pink Flamingo has an employment waiting list that's as long as the line outside Sprouts tonight,” he said, keeping it all low-key. “And the feathers the ladies wear cover more skin than you'd see on sunbathers at a public beach.”

  “Sounds like you've managed to squeeze in a strip club trip while single parenting, huh?”

  “Yeah, matter of fact, I've been there once or twice.”

  “Glad to hear you have your priorities straight, Lou. Tell me, what would you say if your son wanted to see feather clad ladies pretend to fuck a pole up on stage?”

  “Pete has seen the entertainment. And for your information, the dance routines are tastefully choreographed. There's none of that pole stuff going on. As to my priorities, they've been pretty damn straight for the last eighteen years. My son comes first, last, and always. I'd never do anything to put him in jeopardy. You're crossing the line here, Blue.”

  His low-key tone?

  Gone. Shot. He'd blown his temper twice tonight. And blowing his temper was something that just never happened.

  “Oh,” she said, softly, her chin dipping. “I'm so sorry. I can tell you're an excellent parent. All I meant is, I can't condone a business where males pay to watch women take off their clothes. The adult entertainment industry is founded on female exploitation. Strippers are little better than prostitutes and the owners of such establishments are little better than ... than ... pimps!”

  “I can't speak for all burlesque houses, but at The Flamingo the dancers are not prostitutes, and since the owner of the club doesn't procure sex, there's no way you can classify him as a pimp. You're way off base here, Blue.”

  “What about lap dancing?”

  “What about it?”