Fetish

LuAnn's March Challenge—Dickie and Joyce

"So what did you tell Lenny to get out of the house?" Mary Lou and I had agreed to meet at Cluck in a Bucket and walk the last three blocks to Fetish, the new sex club that had opened right behind Pleasure Treasures. I figured old Caroline Scarzolli, the prune faced owner of the sex toy shop, was raking in money with both bony hands and cackling all the way to the bank. Remembering the goo I'd had to wash out of my hair thanks to the last skip I'd brought in, I wondered if she was hiring.

"I told him you and Joe had a fight," MaryLou gave me a "what?" look at my glare.

"What did you tell him that for? Now it'll get back to Joe and he'll want to know what we were doing!" I wasn't hiding where we were going. Exactly. Of course, neither one of us was willing to park our cars in the shared parking lot between Pleasure Treasures and Fetish. Someone might recognize one of our vehicles, which is why we were parked at Cluck in a Bucket. We clattered along down Trenton's neglected sidewalks in stiletto heels and big coats over our revealing clothes. Since neither one of us had any experience with an actual sex club, we weren't sure what to wear, so we settled on the Jersey girls' all purpose default wardrobe—high heels, low necks, tight skirts, big hair and plenty of mascara. You can't go wrong in Jersey with that set up, sex club or no sex club. Of course, I had no idea what actually went on in a sex club, and neither did MaryLou since she had even less experience than I did. She'd been married to Lenny the mouth-breather for freaking ever, and Joe would have had a fit if he'd known where we were going, but we weren't going to let that stop us. We had reached the ripe old age of thirty-five and if we wanted to go check out a sex club, we would do it. We just didn't want anybody we knew to catch us doing it, that was the thing.

"Guys talk, MaryLou," I explained.

She looked at me like I had grown three heads. "No, they don't!"

"Yeah-huh," I argued.

"Not about fights, they don't." MaryLou had on her "I am the bringer of wisdom face" that she put on sometimes when she was sharing the whole secrets of married people thing with me. I started to argue back; after all, I had been married before. Thinking of Dickie Orr, I quickly shut my mouth and let her continue. "Cars, sex, sports, guns," MaryLou ticked the items off on her manicured fingernails. "Trust me, they don't talk about fights unless there are boxing gloves and money involved."

"You better be right," I warned as we finally got to the parking lot. Jeez, that neon sign was really annoying. I squinted up at the glaring sign in the shape of a single red rose. I figured the owner obviously needed a serious lesson in taste. Even in Jersey, we have standards.

"Okay, act casual," I told MaryLou as we approached the doorman. MaryLou squeaked as we got closer. I sincerely hoped that guy didn't plan on having kids, because his gonads were under some pretty serious pressure with the leather pants he was wearing.

"Ladies," he greeted us, and took our cover charge. I just nodded nonchalantly. I was trying to be cool, but I didn't trust my voice and MaryLou was obviously still in shock. I'm pretty sure those were real safety pins in his nipples, and I didn't even want to think about how he might have decorated those squished up gonads of his.

Inside, the club was dark, with a fog machine that was obviously on steroids. MaryLou and I both giggled as we kicked stray strands of white fog away from our feet, then remembered we were supposed to be serious and casual about all this. Giggling was definitely out. Our eyes adjusted to the gloom, and MaryLou pointed out an empty table far in the back. It was relatively dark in that corner, yet we should have a pretty good view of whatever went on in the club with a minimal chance of being recognized.

I'm afraid we lost it again when we ordered our drinks, but did the waiter really expect us to keep a straight face while he was wearing nothing but a dog collar and a loincloth? If he hadn't had a pasty white beer belly he might have been more appealing, but I guess good help was hard to come by, even in a sex club.

I purposely made sure my eyes stayed far away from the waiter as he walked back over to the bar with our order. If that loincloth slipped, I didn't want to see whatever might be underneath. MaryLou gasped, and I about jumped out of my chair. "What?" I demanded. "Did you see someone we know?" I was still paranoid about Joe catching us here. I knew he wouldn't be mad, but I also knew he would never, ever let me live it down, not in a million years.

"Is that what I think it is?" MaryLou pointed to a black velvet painting hanging above the bar.

I squinted, then wished I hadn't.

"I don't think so," I said uncertainly. "I don't think that's legal."

MaryLou shot me a queasy look. "Yeah, but how would the horse be able to testify?"

I sent her a quelling look. "I dunno. But I'm not asking Joe, so don't even think about it." I had started to feel, well, a little bit squishy. Suddenly the table felt sticky under my hands, so I folded my arms up under my boobs, making sure nothing was touching the table.

"What?" asked MaryLou.

"Nothing," I answered. Probably nothing was on the table, but my mother's childhood admonitions about not knowing where things had been kept running around my head.

"Yeah, me too," said MaryLou, and took her hands off the table, too. That's the good thing about a friend like MaryLou. We'd known each other our whole lives, and I didn't have to bother to explain about the phantom stickiness on the table. MaryLou just knew.

I think I had to pop my eyeballs back into my head at least a dozen times before our drinks got there. I'd decided to try a lemon drop martini, but MaryLou stuck with beer. Probably there was enough leather on display here to outfit a whole herd of cows in this place. Most of it was cut into narrow strips, and I didn't see how most of it managed to stay in the right position without adhesive. I was staring so intently at some woman's cantilevered boobs that I didn't notice MaryLou's desperate attempts to get my attention until she kicked me. Her heel snagged my new silk stockings and I scowled over at her.

"Ober bye de door," she tried to talk without opening her mouth. Bad idea. MaryLou doesn't have the knack of being unobtrusive like I do.

"What?" I said, apparently too loudly, because she kicked me again.

"Dickie Orr." That got my attention. If my scum sucking ex was here, I wanted to know about it. My mind started to churn with blackmail possibilities.

"Where?" Damn my mouth. My lemon drop martini seemed to be amplifying my voice, because people were starting to turn and look at us.

I flipped one guy an elaborate Italian hand gesture when he stared too long. Sheesh. The way he was dressed in those leather pants with the laces open up the front, and he was looking at how we were dressed? His Mr. Happy didn't look too happy there, if you know what I mean. Good thing for him Joe wasn't here, but I'd borrowed Joe's favorite gesture, so it was all good.

I signaled the pot-bellied waiter and he brought me another lemon drop martini. Damn, those things tasted just like lemon pie, with just the tiniest little bit of a kick. If Dickie was going to parade around here, I wanted to sit back with a drink and enjoy plotting my revenge. It may have been a dozen years since I'd divorced his sorry ass, but an Italian's need for revenge was insatiable. I could keep on making him pay for eternity and it wouldn't be enough for Dickie and that skank Joyce Barnhardt.

"Joyce Barnhardt," MaryLou choked out. I smiled beatifically. How cool was this? MaryLou could read my mind now, we were such close friends. It was soooo good to have a friend like MaryLou. MaryLou my friend who would go to the sex club with me. Thick and thin, that's me and MaryLou. I sighed in contentment. Damn if I wasn't starting to tear up at what a good friend MaryLou was.

"Stephanie!" MaryLou hissed, breaking into my train of thought and totally derailing it. It occurred to me then that I should advise MaryLou that good friends don't hiss at one another. Probably it was the beer. She hadn't realized she was hissing.

"MaryLou," I leaned forward unsteadily and started to tactfully tell her to stop hissing at me when she interrupted me. I frowned at that. First the hissing, now the interrupting. Sheesh. Maybe MaryLou wasn't such a great friend after all. As soon as the room quit spinning, I was going to give her a piece of my mind!

"Dickie and Joyce! Over there by the stage!" Oh, my. Okay, I could forgive MaryLou for hissing at me. She was still my friend, still looking out for me. God bless MaryLou. But I couldn't see Dickie anywhere.

"I can't shee him," I explained carefully, forming my words very slowly so they would be completely clear. Boy, something in those lemon drop martinis was really playing hell with my tongue. I reached up to feel it and see if it was as swollen as it felt, when I remembered I'd had my hands on the sticky table. Now what was I going to do? I couldn't put my fingers in my mouth to make sure my tongue was okay because my fingers had been on the sticky table. I frowned in concentration, then my face cleared. Of course! Alcohol was an antiseptic, so no germs could live in my mouth if I took another swig of my lemon drop martini. Voila! Problem solved, especially since the waiter had brought me a third one without my even signaling him. How cool was that? He was probably a really great guy. A few situps would take care of that pot belly really quick, and then he wouldn't be so bad…

"Lower," MaryLou was back in full hissing mode again, and I obediently turned my eyes lower to the floor. I would really have to talk to her about her sibilants, I thought. Sibilants. Hah! All those years of college paid off. I really was a very articulate person.

"Holy shit!" I yelled as I finally spotted Dickie.

Every eye in the place seemed to zero in, right on me. "Mind your business!" I yelled to all and sundry. Hell, they had the nerve to stare at me? Them with their leather and spikes and riding crops and spike heeled boots and whatever else they were wearing? Freaking freaks, that's what they were.

Oopsie. I hadn't meant to say that last one out loud. Boy these people really had no sense of humor for wearing such weird clothes. You'd think they could take a joke with all the stupid things they were wearing.

And speaking of stupid things, what was Dickie Orr, ex-husband from hell, doing crawling around the floor like a dog? Probably if the tables were sticky, the floor was downright nasty. I wrinkled my nose at Dickie. I wondered what his clients would think if they could see him crawling around the floor with a dog collar and leash on? Those shorty shorts really made his butt look unattractive, but I had to admit that his scrawny shanks had never been in Joe's league anyway.

Whoah, Nelly. Those weren't shorts! Dickie the wonder weenie was wearing a diaper! "Bad boy! Dickie is a very bad boy! Momma's going to have to spank Dickie!" I slowly let my eyes wander up Dickie's leash. I had never been particularly fond of Dickie's mother, but somehow I couldn't see Adele Orr parading her son around a sex club wearing a diaper.

Okay, make that thirteen times I'd had to put my eyeballs back in my head. Some things are just wrong. Joyce Barnhardt leading Dickie around by a leash while wearing stiletto heels, fishnets and a rubber corset was just wrong on so many levels my alcohol-fuzzed brain couldn't wrap itself around the concept. I must have made a noise. I don't remember doing it, but suddenly Dickie was trying to hide. He managed to wrap the leash around Joyce's boots twice and that was just too much. Joyce has always been, well, topheavy and when that leash pulled tight, down she went. Things weren't too bad though, until everybody started getting upset. And instead of getting upset at Diaper Dickie and that cow Joyce for falling over and smashing that table, they were getting mad at me! What did I ever do to them? Well, aside from pointing my finger at Joyce and Dickie and laughing so hard I got the hiccups. Petty. They were all just plain petty.

"You stupid skank! We don't use last names in here," Joyce screeched at me.

Oh. I blinked. Then I thought for a minute.

Well, that was just stupid. Everybody had last names. And everybody knew Joyce Barnhardt and Dickie Orr anyway, so what difference did it make if I called them by their names while I was pointing?

"You weren't woman enough to keep him," she hollered. Man, her face was really red and the veins on her neck looked like they were about to explode. Cool.

Wait a minute. Wasn't woman enough to keep him? "I think you mean mother enough, Joyce," I said. "Of course, you give a whole new meaning to the term mother-fu-" MaryLou slapped her hand over my mouth. What? I was just stating the obvious. Sheesh. MaryLou was turning into a real stick in the mud.

"Yeah?" Joyce responded. "Well, I've got a newsflash for you. Dickie and I have been together since before you married. What do you think of that?"

I shrugged. "Something to be said for longevity. I've been doing Morelli since high school." Yes! Direct hit. Dickie was the biggest horse's ass in the state of New Jersey. It had been fine for him to screw anything in a skirt, but he got all kinds of bent out of shape that I wasn't a virgin bride. He may have suspected I'd done the deed with Morelli before we'd hooked up, but I'd always refused to give him a direct answer. Of course, there was that little matter of me calling him "Joe" on our wedding night, but I was pretty sure he was over that.

Woops. Apparently not. A bowl of pretzels came sailing past my head. Dickie always did throw like a girl. Me, on the other hand. Well I don't like to brag, but I'd been on the girls' softball team in high school, and one thing I could do was throw. You'd think Dickie would have remembered that considering I pitched the ugly green Roseville vase his mother had given us for a wedding gift right at his head the day I'd found him screwing Joyce on my dining room table. I'd connected pretty good, too, and Dickie'd had to change the part in his hair to hide the scar on his forehead. Fourteen stitches, according to the doctor bill I'd shredded when it arrived on my doorstep.

Hey! There was just no reason for tossing a pitcher of beer on me. Dammit, Joe hadn't even seen this top yet, and now it was all beer stained. I bet it went through and got my new Victoria's Secret bra, too. That had set me back more than fifty bucks! That skank! Ruining my new bra before Joe had a shot at them. Without giving it another thought, I dove straight at her bleached blonde head, my fingers curled like claws, ready to scratch her lying, cheating eyes out.

We landed in a tumble with Dickie on the bottom. He kinda woofed like a dog, but I couldn't tell if it was from Joyce's stiletto heel buried in his groin or my butt landing square on his chest. Damn, I couldn't get Joyce's eyes, but I managed a handful of hair.

Okay, something was seriously wrong, here. I hadn't pulled that hard. Really. But the next thing I knew, her hair came away in my hand, and I was holding this obnoxious blonde hair in my hand that looked like some kind of demented dust mop. Joyce started screaming and clutching her head. I won't say she was bald, exactly, but she didn't have a lot of hair, and what was there was a kind of mousy brown color. It stuck up in clumps with bobby pins sticking out every which way, and honestly she looked like she had alien antennas stuck all over her head. I couldn't help it. The idea of Joyce being probed by aliens just struck me as very funny. I started laughing uncontrollably while bowls of pretzels and nuts flew by over my head. MaryLou was pulling on my arm, trying to get me up and out of there when another pitcher of beer got knocked over, making us slide on the floor. Dickie was in full blown hysterical mode yelling "What about my privacy? What about my reputation?" at nobody. Nobody was listening to him.

"Dickie," I said helpfully, "Maybe you should have thought of that before you put on the diaper."

"You bitch!" He yelled and then he lunged for me. Darn good thing his leash was still wrapped around Joyce, who was writhing around like a fish on a hot rock, still bitching about her wig. I dodged Dickie with the ease of long practice, and grabbed MaryLou's arm. She started dragging me toward the front door, but before we got there I stumbled into a leather covered wall.

Well, I thought it was a leather covered wall at first, but when I backed up I found out it was only a leather covered Ranger. Wow. How did he manage all those straps? I'd have gotten them tangled up for sure.

He shot me a dark look. "Let's get you out of here," he said.

Fine by me. These people took themselves far too seriously for me, and besides I had just the teeniest niggle of a headache starting. Probably I should head for home. If I hurried, I would have time to wash the beer out of my blouse before Joe got off shift, and he would never know about me and MaryLou sneaking off to Fetish. Ranger always had the best plans.

Ranger started using his elbows and cleared a path through the enraged perverts. Oopsie. Probably shouldn't have said that out loud either, but well, I call them as I see them. The same guy I gave the Italian hand gesture to loomed up in front of me and let me know he really didn't like being called a pervert. I gave him a look. "Your thinger's hanging out and it's got a bolt through the end," I patiently explained. He still didn't get it. Maybe he was slow or something. I tried to imagine Joe or Carl or Big Dog let somebody put a bolt through their thingers. Nope. Not happening. The guy was definitely a few tacos short of a combo to let someone do that. "Look, it's like this," I tried to explain, but Ranger gave the guy a shove in one direction, then shoved me and MaryLou the other direction, and I never did get to finish my explanation for the guy. It's too bad, really, because the poor guy obviously needed help. I mean, you have to be seriously stupid to let somebody put a bolt through your thinger, and somebody needs to tell that guy to wise up.

We finally made it through the front door, and out into the parking lot. Wow. There must have been like three hundred police cars there, and all their lights were flashing at once. It really gave the flashing red neon rose on the Fetish sign a run for its money.

"You better get them out of here," I overheard Ranger saying to somebody. I stumbled a bit, because I had been craning my neck to get a closer look at that neon rose, and when I looked back down I got a little dizzy. I finally focused in on Ranger.

Talking to Joe. Oh, crap. I am so totally screwed. I giggled a bit at my own double entendre. Well, I would be later, that's for sure.

"Hey, Joe!" I called. "What are you doing here?"

Joe looked me up and down, then did the same to MaryLou, who was holding me up by one arm. Then he looked away, and I could tell he was trying not to laugh. "Got a call in about a riot at Fetish," he answered.

"A riot? Really?" Of all the rotten luck! There'd been a riot at a sex club, and MaryLou and I had missed the whole darn thing. I peeked back over my shoulder and debated going back in to see the riot. You don't get to see a riot every day, and I knew Grandma Mazur would ask me about it tomorrow. I really should go back, just to give her the details.

Joe grabbed my arm and steered me toward his car. "I think it's probably better if I take you home," he said quietly. He gestured toward MaryLou, but she was already climbing in the back seat. Spoilsport. MaryLou has really lost her sense of adventure since she got married. It's a good thing she's got me to keep her life interesting.

Joe turned toward Ranger. "Everything all right in there?"

"No major damage," Ranger answered. Joe nodded in response and buckled me into my seatbelt. He's so sweet that way.

Just as Joe was climbing in the car, though, this leather trussed woman came marching out the front door of the club, angrily tapping a riding crop against her thigh. "You've displeased mistress," she intoned.

I looked around. Was she talking to me?

"You left without permission. You will have to be punished. Do you understand?"

Eyes downcast, Ranger quickly knelt and kissed her boot. "Yes, mistress."