Ahead of her latest booking, Alexa was sitting in a bar by herself, having a quiet drink. The venue was not her choice, it was where her client had requested her to be. Luckily, she actually liked it. The bar was modern, well maintained, and staffed by efficient and polite people. It wasn't overly busy right now, probably because it was a bit early for some of the people who had a night out ahead of them.
Looking at her watch, Alexa fought her impatience. The client was fifteen minutes late and counting. As an obsessively punctual person herself, lateness triggered her.
Taking a drink from her cocktail, Alexa told herself not to get worked up. After all, she had already been paid for the job. A Moment of Bliss didn't do refunds unless Alexa had to cancel a booking that had already been approved and scheduled, so if her client no-showed it was going to be his loss.
Looking idly around the room, Alexa caught sight of herself in the mirrored wall behind the bar. She was made up and dressed to look good, but not over the top for her surroundings. The sleeveless purple dress she had on was actually one of her current favourites.
There were a couple of TV's on the wall above the mirrored part. One of them was showing a news channel, and had the volume turned up just loudly enough for Alexa to be able to hear what was being said. She allowed herself a devilish grin, recognising all too well one of the people of the screen.
"In less than a week, America goes to the polls in the 2020 Presidential Election," an anchor was saying over the top of pictures of Stephanie McMahon and her opponent Jeff Jarrett out on the campaign trail. "Opinion polls show a slender advantage for Jeff Jarrett, which many people find quite surprising. I don't think many people expected McMahon to be doing this well this late in the piece."
"I think that's right," a female anchor said as Alexa rolled her eyes at the narrative pushing that was going on. "With the polls as close as this, we could be about to see our first ever female President."
"Hi, I'm Aaron," a man said next to Alexa, startling her. "Can I buy you another drink?"
Alexa turned to look at the young, attractive blonde man who had approached her. He wasn't the client, which meant that she needed to get rid of him quickly. "Thank you, but I'm waiting for someone," she said, being polite and letting him down gently.
"Ah," Aaron winced, taking it in good spirits. "Well, have a good night."
"You too," Alexa smiled, happy that he hadn't been a prick, in the way that some guys did when they got the blow off.
Barely had Aaron walked away when Alexa heard a group of men come through the entrance behind her, talking and laughing. She used the mirror behind the bar to look at them without letting on that she was doing it. Three black men, matching the descriptions her client had given her. The big guy was simply called E, she had been told. The one with the afro was Xavier, and the one with his hair in a ponytail was Kofi, her client.
"If you can make sure you're sitting at the bar when we come in, I'll talk to the guys for a couple of minutes before pretending to notice you," Kofi had said. "I'll tell them I'm going to go over and offer you a drink. They'll laugh at me, like they always do."
"Your friends like to ridicule you?" Alexa had asked.
"It's banter, but yeah, it's got to the point of being annoying. Whenever they're around, I never have any luck, and they always ruin me for it. I want them to see me pick up the most beautiful girl in the bar, right there in front of their faces."
"No problem," Alexa had said comfortably. By the standards of some of her bookings, this was hardly going to be a test of her acting skills. Kofi hadn't gone on to reiterate the second part of his booking, which involved heading back to his apartment for sex.
Sitting at the bar, Alexa finished off her cocktail, having not even acknowledged the presence of the three men standing about ten feet away.
The man known as E ordered a round of beers for the guys as their conversation and banter continued. Alexa didn't bother to listen to it. None of it mattered to her, she knew. It would be when things went hushed over there that she would know Kofi was talking to them about coming over to her.
When she heard the chatter die down, Alexa pushed her empty glass away from her slightly, indicating that she was about to either order another drink or leave. Any moment now, Kofi would be coming...
"Hi," Kofi said, appearing beside her. "I noticed your drink is empty. Can I get you another?"
Alexa heard faint sniggering from the two apparent school kids that Kofi had brought with him. She pretended not to have noticed the immaturity and looked Kofi up and down briefly, her expression showing that she very much liked what she saw. "Sure. Apple Martini," she said.
Kofi signalled to a bartender and ordered her drink. He had an almost full beer in his hand, so had no need to get anything for himself. Alexa noticed that the sniggering had stopped.
"I'm Kofi," he said, starting to sound awkward. Even with a pre-arranged date, his chat up game was weak. On this night, it wasn't going to matter.
"Lexi," she said, giving him a dazzling smile.
"Nice to meet you. I haven't seen you in here before."
"I just moved to the area," Alexa lied smoothly as the bartender set her drink in front of her. She picked up the drink and smiled at him. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," he smiled back.
Alexa realised she was going to have to take the lead. She got off her chair, cocktail in hand. "Shall we go find a booth?" she asked, casting a look past Kofi at his friends, who both averted their gazes a fraction too late. "We seem to have an audience," she added, loud enough for them to hear her.
It was lucky that Kofi had his back to his friends, for he was grinning like an idiot. "How about that corner booth?" he suggested, pointing to a far corner. Sitting there, they would still be visible to Xavier and E, Alexa realised.
Walking over to the booth, Alexa made sure to sit on the side that would have her facing towards Kofi's friends. They would see her smiling and laughing as they talked, having a good time.
"That went perfectly," Kofi said with admiration as he took his seat.
"Of course," Alexa smiled. The bar was starting to fill up a bit, and was therefore noisy enough to prevent Xavier and E from overhearing anything that was said between them. "Now we should talk for half an hour or so, then we can make a point of leaving together. I think that will impress them the way you were hoping to."
Kofi nodded. "It will, for sure. So, uh, how did you come to run A Moment of Bliss? I mean, how did you get into that line of work?"
Alexa smiled, partially for the benefit of Xavier, who was glancing at her. "It all started with my high school prom. I had this rich guy ask me to be his date. I turned him down. The next day he came to me again and asked me to go with him, only this time he offered me money to pretend to be his date if I didn't want to actually date him. That kind of sounded like fun to me, and at the time the money was needed too. So I did it, and I really enjoyed myself. Acting had always been a hobby of mine, and there I was making money doing it."
"That's cool," Kofi grinned. "But it's a long way from there to A Moment of Bliss."
"Yep," Alexa smiled again after sipping from her cocktail. "My next foray was working for an escort agency. My parents hated what I was doing, unsurprisingly. But I enjoyed it. At least, I enjoyed most of it. It took some to get used to sleeping with people for money. Even so, in a relatively short period of time, I became the agency's most sought after escort. They were having to turn people down because I was fully booked. That told me I wasn't being paid enough, so I moved on."
Watching Kofi drink some of his beer, she could tell that he was engrossed in her story. "What was your next job?" he asked.
"Another agency. The only thing was that this one was catered towards clients who wanted kinky sex. A lot of the bookings were all about bondage; something I knew nothing about at the time. What I did know was that the money they paid was a hell of a lot better."
Kofi was clearly enjoying the story. "So you had to get training in bondage?"
"Sure did," Alexa said sweetly. "Going in, I wasn't sure if it would be for me, but the girl who was training me quickly came to the conclusion that I was going to make an excellent dominatrix.
"I'm going to assume she was right. I saw on your website that bondage is a speciality of A Moment of Bliss."
Alexa nodded. "That's right. Once I started getting bookings at the new agency it wasn't long before the story of my first job started repeating itself. I was the most in demand of all the girls, with some clients refusing to book anyone else. It was around that time that I was talking to a friend of mine about it and she floated the idea of starting my own agency."
Kofi finished his beer. "I can see why, with the success you were having."
"Right. But I didn't want to run an agency. I didn't want to be managing a team of girls. I hate that kind of thing. What I wanted was to carry on doing what I enjoyed, what I was good at, and make good money at it. Then it hit me. I could start my own company and make it exclusively about me."
"And so A Moment of Bliss was created," Kofi said admiringly. "Clearly it has been a success."
"More than I ever imagined," Alexa said humbly. "Anyway, enough about me. Go get yourself another beer and tell your friends how well things are going over here."
"Good idea," Kofi said, getting up. He could see that Alexa had plenty of her cocktail left, so he didn't offer to buy her another.
Alexa casually watched Kofi walk yup to his friends, who were still sitting at the bar. She saw them immediately start grilling him about how things were going. Watching their faces, she was pleased to pick up on the fact that they were happy for him, even while the banter continued.
Kofi ordered another beer and quickly returned to the table with it. "They want me to introduce you to them," he reported as he sat back down.
"Good idea. We'll do it as we leave. We'll leave them in no doubt that we're heading back to your place."
Kofi thoughtfully sipped his beer. "I can't help wondering, and don't take this the wrong way because I'm not talking about myself, don't you worry about some of the people you meet? I mean, you're about to go back to my place by yourself. I know your company does a background check, but still, you've only just met me. What if I was a weirdo and I tried something?"
Alexa gave him a relaxed smile. "I've done a lot of self defence training. I do mean a lot. If you tried something, I'd beat your ass and either have you arrested or put you in the hospital."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kofi didn't look convinced about her physical ability to do what she had said. But the assuredness in her voice was telling.
"Have you ever had to do that?" he asked cautiously.
"A couple of times, yes," Alexa said, showing no pride in it. "That's why I introduced the much stricter background checks on bookings."
"Well, remind me not to fuck with you," Kofi said with a laugh that seemed a bit uncomfortable.
Alexa wondered if she might have been better served by avoiding his question. It was too late now, so she was left with the task of getting things back on track. She didn't think it would be hard. Leaning over the table, she kissed him softly on the lips. "But I thought you wanted to fuck me?" she asked seductively.
"Oh, I do. You have no idea," he assured her. "Forget the drinks, let's get out of here."
Alexa giggled. When people were paying for sex, they didn't have to bother being romantic or subtle about it. "I'm ready if you are," she said, taking a long drink from her cocktail before getting up.
Now it was time for one of the moments Kofi was paying for; his chance to make it perfectly clear to Kofi and E that he was off to get lucky. Alexa felt confident that in the future they would be a lot more reluctant to laugh at him about his pulling power. She followed him over to his friends, staying back a bit so as to appear a bit nervous about speaking to them.
"Guys, Lexi and I are going to take off," Kofi said, just about managing to sound like he wasn't bragging, even though he clearly was.
"Well, you kids have a good night," E said, raising his beer glass slightly in acknowledgement of Alexa before drinking.
"Hi," Xavier said to her, adding a little wave.
"Hi," she smiled back, making sure it was one of her best ones.
"Shall we go?" Kofi said to her, turning and starting towards the door.
Saying nothing, Alexa linked her arm with his and they walked out of the bar together. She felt sure there had been two pairs of eyes on them as they left.
"That was awesome," Kofi said once they were outside. "It was hard to keep a straight face. We really showed them."
Welcome to A Moment of Bliss, Alexa thought, glad that she had another satisfied customer in the bag before they even got as far as the sex.
A/N: Special thanks to everyone who left a review on the previous chapter!
I know, no sex in this one. You can boo me. What I wanted to do was give Alexa's back story some depth, and this idea was a good opportunity to do it. I hope you enjoyed it?
It has been a while since I had a new idea come in. I have plenty saved up, but I'm keen to add more to the list. If there is anything or anyone you would like to see, drop me a line with your idea.