Discount
> > Angela pulled her battered brown Toyota into the first available space, all the way at the top of the parking garage. Before this, she'd only been here after hours, between the exodus of office workers and the arrival of partyers, or after most of those partyers had gone home. She hadn't thought of Easy Parking as one of the perks of her job, but if she'd gotten one of those "normal" jobs she'd interviewed for she'd be fighting it out with the rest of the daytime drones.
As if. She remembered the interviews. Mostly what she remembered was the rejections, and the way they were always accompanied with dirty looks or snide remarks.
They made the drunken lechers she dealt with in the "exotic entertainment" room of the club seem almost pleasant.
The sun beat down; already the interior was getting hot. It took stepping out into the blasting wind of mid-October, channeled through the concrete canyons of downtown, to remind her it wasn't summer anymore. Angela was glad she'd worn a tight skirt this afternoon, or there was no telling how many bored window-office executives would be getting a look at her panties right now.
Dino's nightclub -- *her* club, she thought with a strange mix of satisfaction and distaste -- occupied the bottom floors of an office tower right next to the parking structure. The garage elevator was achingly slow.
Angela studied her hands carefully as she waited to reach the basement. The shaking was gone now. Unfortunately, with the steady hands came the almost-depressed flatness -- the price of Xanax. She really needed to get off the stuff. Maybe with Perfectua, she could. It had certainly worked wonders last night.
"You are not working tonight." Sasha was cheerful as usual.
"I know; I'm just here to pick something up. Is Zora around?"
Sasha just grunted and jerked a thumb back toward the dancers' dressing area.
"Could you go get her for me?" Angela didn't need another run-in with Kat.
"I am not a messenger." But he trundled off down the hallway anyway.
"Thanks!"
"Hey, Angela, what's up? You working tonight?"
"No. I just stopped by to see if you were here."
"Well, I am." Zora smiled, but obviously wondered what was up; the two were friendly, but not really friends yet.
"Um, I was wondering. You know, that stuff you gave me last night really worked great."
"Yeah. Purple Power Pill."
"Yeah. Well, it worked so good on my panic attack, I was thinking I should get some more. Can you tell me who I should talk to maybe?"
"Well, a lot of times you can just scam one off a cute guy, but if you don't want to mess around, I know this guy. You want his number?"
"That'd be great. I just need a few to get me over the hump."
"Uh-huh. They're good for the hump." She winked. "Okay. You got a pen?"
"Here."
Zora grabbed a napkin off the breakroom table, and wrote a name and phone number in cute round bubble-writing. "His name's Skeeter."
"Thanks."
"Oh, I should warn you -- he'll offer you a ten dollar discount if you show him your tits. Don't take it."
Not that she would anyway -- not with a hundred bucks in tip money in her pocket and a fridge with actual food in it at home.
"Hundred bucks."
Ouch! She had no idea it was so expensive. That would wipe her out -- and she wasn't working again until Wednesday. "How about a half-bottle?"
"Sixty-five bucks."
Even Angela's feeble math skills told her that wasn't a good deal. But did she need a whole bottle? Thirty pills? She'd had two last night; if she needed two every night, a half bottle was, um, about a week. Then again, she did have that brief moment when her sapphires seemed to disconnect... if they lasted four hours, she might need four a day, like her Xanax -- and she really wanted to see if these could get her off the Xanax. A half-bottle was, um, four goes into fifteen, um, no, four, and and Monday is eight, Tuesday um twelve, Wednesday sixteen... a half-bottle wasn't enough.
Skeeter was looking at her funny. And she noticed a weird smell in the room. Like bathroom cleanser.
Angela didn't want to come back here any sooner than she had to.
"I'll take a whole bottle."
"How'd you like ten dollars off?"
"Sure," Angela said without really thinking.
"Okay, but you have to show me something."
Ugh. This was what Zora had warned her about. "No thank you." She pulled out the neat bundle of fives and tens from her purse.
"Oh, come on. It's not like you're not showin' 'em off all night. And all day," he said, his eyes falling to her tight babytee.
"I'm a waitress, not a st- dancer."
"How about twenty?"
"No, really, I'd rather just pay."
"Well, maybe I'd rather see what's under that shirt. Or maybe we'd both rather just call it off."
Angela wondered if maybe there was someone else she could buy the pills from. But she didn't know who else to ask. Did Zora know anyone else? Maybe she could call Dino. No, not after last night. Maybe she could "scam" one off a guy at the club -- but she might run into Dino there. Or [shudder] Jacob. Besides, she could only get a couple of pills that way, unless the guy just happened to sell them... Angela remembered that these were illegal drugs, or at least they were probably illegal; she didn't know the first thing about who to ask, or how to tell a real dealer from an undercover cop...
...and as much as she didn't like the idea of showing this perv her breasts, it wasn't as distasteful as the idea of spending another day living under the Xanax curtain.
Especially not alone.
The image of Ricky running down her apartment stairs flashed through her mind. It caught her off guard; she sighed deeply and blinked back a tear.
I need this.
"All right. But just a quick peek. And *no* touching!"
"I don't wanna touch 'em. But for twenty bucks I get a lot more than a quick peek."
"I thought it was ten dollars?"
"It's twenty, and it's for as long as I want."
"Why?"
"And you have to wear a blindfold."
"You're not taping this..."
"No. But what if I was?"
Angela said nothing. A cruel smile spread through Skeeter's stubble.
The blindfold spooked her. She wished she'd brought her sapphires. Even just the shoes would be enough to make her feel safer. Of course, they didn't really make her any safer, not the way her thoughts turned under the Xanax screw. She was more likely to ask for a bigger discount...
Angela felt awful. She had to get out from under this rock before it crushed her.
And if that meant letting some greasy dude stare at her naked breasts for a while, so be it.
"All right."
"Here. Put this on." Skeeter handed her an ivory-colored cotton scarf, folded up into a strip. "Cover your eyes, then tie it around back nice and tight."
Angela did as she was told, all the while keeping her ears pricked for the slightest sound that might indicate Skeeter was close to her. To her relief, she heard a sqeaking sound several feet away -- he was sitting back down in his office chair.
The blindfold tied off easily -- it had been used before. She found that she couldn't see anything through it, not even a little bit of light. She tilted her head this way and that, trying to see if she could detect any change in light or maybe see through the corners. She couldn't. The scarf felt a little rough, kind of stiff, like new clothes before they're washed for the first time. It covered her nose, but she was able to breathe out the bottom. She smelled something faintly sweet, like perfume. And that bathroom cleanser smell she'd detected in the room, but stronger, like it was right in the blindfold.
Skeeter seemed to anticipate her fear. "Relax, it's not drugged." Angela scolded herself for not thinking of that before putting it on.
"Okay, now take your top off."
Angela grabbed the hem and started lifting slowly, first one side, then the other.
"Go on, quit messin' around. This ain't a strip-tease." Well then, what was it?
Angela pulled the babytee over her head. The blindfold didn't move.
"You sure you can't see anything?"
"I'm sure." She turned her head a little, listening for his voice to tell if he'd moved.
"Good." He hadn't.
The room fell silent. Neither of them spoke.
Angela became very aware of the sounds in the room.
Tick. Tick. Tick. The second hand of the Dukes of Hazzard wall clock.
Mmmwhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Mmmwhhhhhhhhh. The oscillating fan in the corner. (Angela felt the air on her chest as it passed by; she hoped the chill didn't...)
Rngngngngngngngngngng. The electronic whine of a computer's hard drive.
What she didn't hear was Skeeter. No movement. No breathing. Wait...
No, she did hear him breathing. It sounded strange. Like he was fogging a glass with his breath, only quieter and longer. He was breathing with his mouth open. The situation just got weirder by the minute.
"How long will this take?"
"Not long." His voice sounded different. Clipped. Stressed.
A minute went by. Maybe more. Angela thought maybe she should count the ticks of the clock. But it was more important to try to hear what Skeeter was doing.
"Sit down. On the floor." He spoke fast.
"Why?"
"Now! Or no pills." He was breathing more deeply. Was this some weird meditation?
"No."
"Do it. [pause] I won't... touch you."
"I don't like this..." she started to reach for the blindfold...
"SIT!" he barked. He sounded angry...
Angela quickly kneeled down on the floor. She sat back on her haunches. She was acutely aware of the sound of her skirt sliding and bunching over her thighs and shifting over her backside as she sat. The floor beneath her knees creaked.
She turned her head, craning her neck to try to hear anything from where Skeeter was sitting. She couldn't hear his breathing anymore.
But she heard something else. It almost wasn't a sound as much as a feeling, like the silent thrumming of basement machinery coming up through the walls. Rhythmic like that, too.
Then she heard the floor creak in front of her.
And before she could react, she felt something slight hit the blindfold. And her chin. And her chest.
"Ohh!" she squealed in surprise.
More on the other side of her face. Her shoulder. Her lap.
Her nipple.
It was warm. And... wet.
Angela's arms flailed blindly in front of her. She hit him. He was standing in front of her. His hands low in front of him. One hand grabbed at her wrist, twisting it cruelly. She screamed.
More fluid roped off her nose. Down her lips. Across her breasts. Between them. On her other nipple.
Still screaming, Angela pulled away, her free hand yanking the blindfold up...
...just in time to be blinded by a splash of white fluid. With her other eye she saw the horror she'd already pictured.
Skeeter's fist balled up around his fat penis, tugging and aiming its last spasms.
His face was contorted by a wicked smile that slackened with his grip on her wrist.
Angela fell over on her side, her hands frantically wiping the vile substance from her face and her chest, only coming to realize she was just spreading the stuff around and slickening herself with his seed. She looked around for her top to use it as a towel.
Skeeter just stepped back, gasping as he sat down on the bed. Through his gasps he began to laugh.
Angela scrambled to her feet, half-crawling, half-running out of the room, her small thin shirt clutched in one hand. "Ohgodohgodohgod..."
His laughs chased her to the front door.
She grabbed the door handle, but it wouldn't turn... her hand was too slick. She tried her tee shirt, but it had no grip either. She tried just squeezing harder; the knob started to turn, only it was locked.
God, why couldn't she get out of here?
She fumbled with the knob's button lock, getting it turned. The door opened, and lurched against a chain.
Skeeter's hand pushed the door shut. He stood next to her, grinning cruelly, his shriveling member still hanging out of his pants. In his other hand he had an old bath towel. "Here," he said as she scrambled back away from him, "clean yourself up."
Angela backed herself into a corner. Skeeter just stood there, towel in his outstretched hand, making no move toward her.
"You sick... *asshole*!" she screamed. "How could you *do* that?"
"It's not difficult," he snickered. "If you like I can show you again-"
"No! Get away from me! Let me out! Get away from the door!"
Skeeter was disturbingly calm. "You might want to put your shirt on first." He tossed the towel at her; she flinched, but picked it up. Skeeter's body blocked the door. "If it's so awful, go ahead and wipe it off." He crossed his arms; through her disgust and horror she could tell he was done with her, but he wasn't going to let her out in this condition.
Trembling hands took the towel and wiped the remainder of the gelling sticky filth from her skin as best they could. She threw the soiled towel back at him; he brought it to his nose, sniffing appreciatively. "Now put your shirt on."
Angela pulled the babytee over her head, cringing at the thought of any more of his wretch getting in her hair. The top was blotted with a few dark patches that clung to her skin. Angela just whimpered.
"All right. Now that's better." He reached to a drawer in a small table by the door, pulling out a prescription pill bottle. "Here," he said, tossing it to her. She missed it and had to pick it up off the floor. "On the house."
Skeeter unlatched and opened the door, standing back to let her pass.
Angela stomped toward the door, stopping directly in front of him. She was still breathing fast. She fixed him with a look of hot death. "I should *kick* your ass!" she seethed.
Skeeter just smiled again. As Angela contemplated whether to haul off and hit him right here and now, he leaned back down to the little table and picked something up. "Here."
Angela looked at his hand. A glass of water. She looked back up at him.
"Figured you'd want to take one now," he said.
She took the glass from him. She noticed between two fingers he had a little purple capsule. He held it out to her. Angela snatched it from him and popped it in her mouth.
She fixed him with the nastiest look she could muster as she raised the glass...
...and threw the water in his face.
Skeeter backed up, sputtering in surprise.
Angela threw the glass into the apartment, noting with satisfaction as it broke against something. Hopefully something expensive.
"What the fuck?" Skeeter said, his cool finally broken.
"Pray you never see me again," she spat.
The furious girl forced a dry swallow as she stormed out.