name="The Cocktail Waitress" by A. R. Gregory

The Cocktail Waitress

Streaks of early morning sunlight rimmed the drapes hiding Jack’s floor-to-ceiling view of the cityscape. He sat up, then yawned and stretched. When he spotted Saturday, 7:30 a.m. glowing on his digital clock, he grinned. What a go-getter! He never needed any squealing alarm clock, even after a romp like last night.

He swung his legs over the edge of his big round bed, dug his toes into the plush carpet, then glided up, all blond, tanned, six-foot-four of him. When he gazed at his mirrored wall, he noticed Big Jack was up too, full of himself, up and at ‘em even before his master. Altitude and attitude. Look out, ladies!

He swiveled for the side view, tensed his pecs, lats, his bi’s and tri’s. Ripped-fucking-tacular! Make that Jack ”Jacked” Armstrong! Was all the time he cranked at the gym worth it or what? Thirty now, eight years out of college, six since his MBA, and Jack Armstrong — could there be a better alpha-male name? — was still the — fucking — man.

He grinned at himself in the mirror again, then glanced back at Mary, still asleep and tucked in comfy. How little-girl chaste. She looked downright angelic with her honey-brown curls ringing her face like a halo, even her name the epitome of virginal innocence.

And to think, last night the little minx was performing like a pro. But after all, it had been Mary’s first overnighter in his tony downtown pad, first night partying large with Jack Armstrong and all his toys. He eyed the sling, the most notorious of his “play things for the play things,” still dangling over his bed from the mirrored ceiling. Wasn’t every ripe young thing’s first spin in it a world changer?

After Mary’s swinging debut last night, he figured the flexible little overachiever rated an encore and then some. What a competent bod she had, from lithe and taut to soft and round in all the right places. And don’t forget how agile and pliant she was too. Yes, he’d keep her “hanging around,” even take her with him for some of his out-of-towners. He was always having to work things out with the distributors, and how better to liven up a lonely hotel room than with a little hottie like Mary?

He grinned and shook his head as he gazed at Mary’s oh-so-innocent face. The nimble little cocktail waitress and all her accoutrements. Cocktail! He marveled at the word. Two staples of vulgarity, the verbal male and female cornerstones of rutting, humping lust, boinked together into one perfectly respectable word. And served on a silver platter by a lacy-cleavaged, black-stockinged, stiletto heeled hottie like Mary — “your cocktail, sir” — priceless!

Of all the places he might have discovered such an erotic treasure, who would have imagined the bookstore just around the corner from his building? The literate little nymph was always reading something, always stuffing her head with the thoughts of others. Like she couldn’t think for herself? He'd ventured into that bookstore in search of a sports trivia book to beef up his backslapping chats with the distributors. But when he spotted Mary in her baggy jogging sweats, not even made up, pushed up, or gartered, her eyes glued to a paperback... What a find! Did Jack Armstrong have a nose for the hidden talent or what? — not to mention the wherewithal to unleash it. He pegged her in a microsecond, a lonely waif in the big city, escapee from some boring Hicksville, and bursting with pent-up yearnings and urges. She was bound to be wide open to new experiences, certainly the kind a guy like Jack Armstrong could offer.

She couldn’t have been that long out of high school, where a hot little looker like her would surely have graduated summa cum loudly. But right there in the bookstore, during their first conversation — could he get them to open up or what? — she gave him her tragic backstory, how she’d only had one high-school sweetheart, and what a proverbial bastard he turned out to be. All of Mary’s beauty and love, or rather only hers, hadn’t been enough for the guy. Barely a month after he took off for college, the budding stud stopped returning her calls. Sure enough, word drifted back to Hicksville that he was shacking up with some redheaded sophomore education major. Tragic stuff, all right. Boo-blubbering-hoo! Jack had to fight the urge to break into the violin-playing gesture. But no need to ruin his or Big Jack’s excellent prospects. A heartfelt hug and she was hooked.

He hadn’t caught the title of the paperback she was reading among the ferns in the rear of the bookstore, but he noticed its cover art, a sultry looker with her flushed cheek pressed against some beefy stud’s bare pecs. Such torrid escape in the hands of a starry-eyed ingénue? Jack’s eye for a sure thing had done it again.

Mary had obviously spotted the real thing, Jack Armstrong tailored and styled to perfection. Infinitely more irresistible than anything she could imagine actually meeting outside of her literary dreamworld. Sure enough, as they shared cappuccino in the bookstore’s coffee bar, twenty-one-year-old Mary blushed and admitted she had “a thing for older guys, guys even thirty.”

After a swank dinner, a walk on the moonlit shore, then a trip to the nearest motel, Mary seemed hell bent on proving how wild she was about him. And boy, oh boy, was he pleased with the way the little bookworm could wriggle in the sack! She even swallowed his “two-worlds” line in record time. While they were perfect together, even soulmates, he told her, they had to be practical too. Love was one thing, but making a living and getting by in the world was another. Of course Mary was part of his real world, full of love and passion and life, all the things that made his life worth living. But Susan, his socialite fiancée and her family and their circle, were essential to his other world, the world of business. A guy like him on the fast track to greatness could no more renounce that world than he could give up breathing.

To his delight, twenty-one-year-old Mary took the facts of life without a hint of the pouty theatrics most women brought to the game. The homespun little wonder even thanked him for being “so upfront and open” with her. She was thrilled that he’d noticed her, thrilled to be even a tiny part of his life.

Glancing at Mary, still snoozing in his bed, Jack was tempted to slide back under the covers, let up-and-coming Big Jack give her a wakeup call she wouldn’t forget. But then he remembered Susan. “Damn!” he muttered. He shot a glance at the clock again, then snatched up his holofone. On the way out of the bedroom, he paused and snickered, then reached up to flip the toggle switch on the old neon sign over his door. Jack’s Body Shop, in a big, shimmering red neon script, flickered on. What a gag! His buddies loved that sign. When he’d heard the old body shop at Bean Street and Dunlevy was going out of business, everything being auctioned off, how could he have passed it up? He glanced back at Mary again. Soon enough he’d be back in Jack’s Body Shop doing more banging on her chassis.

He crept downstairs, then all the way to the kitchen before flicking his holofone on. After a couple of close calls in the past, he always made sure the squawky little digioptical wonder was turned off when he was home alone “just trying to catch some winks.” A high-performance guy like Jack Armstrong needed his “quality sleep time,” right?

Poor gullible Susan! With all her ritzy prominence, she couldn’t imagine a guy would cheat on her.

Mary slid out of bed naked except for her fishnet stockings and garter belt that Jack got her to leave on in bed last night. She rolled her eyes as she passed under his glowing Jack’s Body Shop sign. What, he even had to see it on in the daytime? Last night she had to get up and turn the stupid, glaring thing off after Jack fell asleep.

She slunk catlike to the top of the stairs, then lightly stepped down a couple of treads. Crouching there she could eavesdrop on everything Jack was up to. So, who would he be calling now on a Saturday morning? Who, indeed....