After an hour or so of drinking, Dartmouth unzipped a pouch attached to his uniform vest. He dug around in it before producing a small plastic baggy. At first, I thought it was filled to the brim with .25 caret diamonds, and thought it was a peculiar item to be carrying around. Dartmouth carefully unsealed the bag, licked his index fingertip, stuck that fingertip inside of the bag to snag one diamond, and then brought his finger before his mouth. As a frog would, his tongue darted out to yank the diamond inside of his mouth. As it dissolved in his mouth, Dartmouth shut his eyes in pleasure.
"How do you still have that many left?" exclaimed Quincy mournfully.
Dartmouth's eyes slowly opened to look at his questioner. Even in the darkness, I could tell that they were gazed over. Whatever he had consumed was rapid-acting. Forrest snorted and answered for Dartmouth. "He won Quarry's allowance, remember?"
Quincy leaned forward on the table, angling her body towards Dartmouth. Her eyes became wide and pitiful as she beseeched, "Would you mind loaning me one, Dart? I've been out for a day, and I don't think I can wait until the allowance distribution. I'll do a two for one deal with you!"
Jay shifted beside me. The way he straightened and tensed on the bench distracted me from the discussion. Jay's hand was digging into his pants' side pocket. To my dismay, he brought out a small tin box. "Quince, you need to pace yourself. Soon, you'll have to give up your entire allowance to repay all your debts, and what are you going to do then? You only have to wait a day. You can hold off, you'll be fine." He flicked open the box's lid, and I saw that the tin box contained three diamond-looking rocks.
"I can't wait until I get my raise," Quincy moaned. She slumped over the table, moody.
"What is that?" I hissed at Jay the moment he put the diamond in his mouth. My dismay expanded as I saw he had a similar reaction to it as Dartmouth. I controlled the urge to dig my fingers into his throat and force him to vomit it out.
"Ambrosia," Jay sighed in pleasure.
"I thought you were done with the drugs!" I scorned.
Jay's eyes slowly opened and lingered on me. "Relax, Bria."
"I thought you were better and had beaten your addiction! I didn't think you had moved on to something else!" I tried to keep my volume quiet as to not attract the attention of his peers.
Jay lifted the tin with the remaining two. I yearned to knock it out of his hand. "This is better than the other crap I was putting in my body a year ago. It still gives me that high, but without all the horrible withdrawal effects and harm. They wouldn't be giving them to the entire army regularly if it was harmful," Jay argued. "Come on, take one." I shook my head and averted my gaze. A sudden battle raged within me, springing up with the offer. I was tempted to take one—just to see if it could get me back to the sanctuary. The logical side of my brain called me a hypocrite.
"I'll take hers if she doesn’t want it!” Quincy piped up, suddenly eager.
Soon after that, Jay's unit split up to patronize other areas of Hellions and Halos. Forrest and Owens disappeared to the tables nearby where someone had established a gambling ring. Pierson, Ulster, and Dartmouth moved to claim better seats that put them closer to the stages. I followed Jay to the bar area, which had become busier since our arrival. In order to serve the surge of patrons, more women were working behind the bar. Tall men in black shirts, jeans, and earpieces stood on the exterior, observing the activity, prepared to intervene if any of it turned rowdy. They looked mean, and certainly hired for their intimidating statures.
Away from the others and the table of Ambrosia, I felt myself relaxing. The dance music was blaring in the middle of the building. My body swayed along to the beat as I followed Jay through the maze of stages and seating. His hand was entangled in mine, and for a moment, I felt like I was walking on clouds. The combination of the warmth of Jay's palm against mine, darting colored lights, upbeat music, and alcohol made me lightheaded. In the crowds of people we passed, I saw girls erupting into laughter over some joke one of their companions made. Other people were dancing to the beat of music. In front of one stage, one dancer had escaped her cage. She was in the middle of giving a lap dance to the only woman sitting in her audience. The woman was leaning back in her chair and laughing. For those moments, I felt like I belonged. It was something I hadn't felt for some time.
That feeling was short-lived.
Jay found us seats squeezed in between what appeared to be a bachelor party and more off-duty soldiers. The bar contained its own frenzy of activity, mostly generated by the bartenders, who were pulling double duty as both bartenders and entertainment.
As Jay quickly got us another round of drinks, some bartenders hopped onto the bar top. The one wearing a schoolgirl skirt and white button-up shirt had pushed a shot of liquor in her cleavage. She laid down on the bar as another girl mounted her. The second girl had colored her hair with bright blue dye. She shoved a lime in the schoolgirl's mouth. To the cheers of the bachelor party she was performing in front of, the girl slid down the supine girl to position herself directly in front of the schoolgirl's cleavage and the liquor shot. She brought her mouth down to the shot glass. Her lips had enough grip around the glass to bring it up to balance against her mouth so that its contents slid right into her throat. Her hand was there to catch the shot glass when she lowered her head. She immediately grabbed for the schoolgirl's head and sucked the lime out of the girl's mouth. There was a loud, approving roar coming from the spectators, especially from those at the bachelor party.
Further down the bar, another girl, this one wearing a black shirt with the establishment's name written boldly across it, possessed a vodka bottle. She had paired the shirt with black cutoff jean shorts and heavy eyeliner against her sun-kissed skin. She was pouring shots into people's glasses as they waved coins at her. Her hips bounced back and forth in tune with the music. The bachelor party caught the girl's attention, and she skipped several patrons as she strutted over to them. When she arrived in front of the males, she placed her hand on her hip and stared down at the males. I was close enough to hear her ask, "Who's the lucky man here tonight?"
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Two other bartenders were also close enough to her, and intrigued, they migrated closer. One of them hopped onto the bar top. The bachelor's friends pointed him out, while the bachelor eagerly raised his hand. He sat in the middle of two of his friends, with the rest lined up behind him. From the quality of his clothing, it appeared as if he was well-off. His fuzzy afro hair hung in his eyes—indicative of the wild night they had had thus far.
The girl smirked. She reached down for him. Together with her partner, they were able to get the bachelor on the bar, one ungraceful, drunken movement at a time. A bartender behind the bar already had prepared a shot with golden liquor and a sliver of lime. The girl grabbed these and shoved them towards the bachelor's mouth. The bachelor was sucking in the lime juice as the girl slid behind him. To my shock, her hand slipped inside of his jeans, only to reappear quickly with the hem of his boxers. With one forceful tear, she ripped the entire waistband off his underwear. The bachelor's friends cheered her on, looking on from the sideline. Smirking all the while, she tied the tattered strip of material loosely around her neck, creating a makeshift tie.
The other girl participating in this debauchery was removing the bachelor's button-up shirt. She tossed this out into the darkness of the crowd. He was wearing an undershirt. The girl ridded him of that as well so that he was bare chested. His friends started laughing over his gut being out in the open. There was a tattoo of three laterally overlapping circles against the bulge of his bicep.
The lead girl wasn't done, however. She pulled a black permanent marker out of her pocket. His back was to be the canvas for her spontaneous masterpiece. While she decorated the bachelor's back, the other girl teasingly danced over his lap. Periodically, she gifted the bachelor with shots of golden tequila. The dancing stopped when the lead girl was finished. She turned him around so we could see her human graffiti. I was shocked that she had written Reagan was here within a heart's frame and naughty boy within the frame of a penis. With that same sassiness she had shown during her performance, she shoved the man off the bar. His friends were there to brace his fall and resulting stumble. Reagan resumed her duties on the other side.
Enraptured by her sassiness, my eyes followed her as she disappeared to the far side of the bar. Her attention was focused on the two people who occupied the two seats there. One was a girl with untamed brunette waves. Unlike the others who had dressed up for the evening or the soldiers in their uniforms, her look was more simple, realistic for ordinary life. The girl’s tennis shoe clad feet were settled on the barstool footrest. Her hair had been secured in a loose ponytail, and it reached to touch her mid-back. Her low-maintenance look continued with her plain face, chipped fingernails, and simple shirt and shorts. If Reagan hadn't paid her any attention, I wouldn't have noticed her. The simple girl's companion was a male. He had a round, clean-shaven face, capped by vanilla-blonde hair. He seemed content with playing with the straw in his glass.
I couldn't hear Reagan and the girl's conversation because of the music. There was a friendliness in Reagan's expression, however, and all the sass she had demonstrated before had disappeared. There was a hint of protectiveness in her eyes as she seized the girl's empty glass and leaned forward on the bar to hear the girl better. Their conversation was quick and ended when Reagan took two steps to the left. She quickly discarded the empty glass underneath the bar before grabbing a clean one. Watching her fill it up, I knew she didn't include alcohol in the lemon soda and grenadine mixture. Reagan threw a straw into the glass before sliding it to the girl. The girl had the grace to look grateful. Reagan then moved her focus onto the soldiers sitting beside us.
I turned to look at Jay, only to see that Avery had appeared out of nowhere. Despite there being a million of other patrons surrounding the bar, Avery had settled her attention on Jay. She was sitting on the bar in front of Jay, her legs spread wide enough for Jay to stand in between them. Her hands settled on his shoulders as she thrusted her breasts in front of his face. Her heavily mascaraed eyes blinked at him as she pouted her lips. "You are way too tense to be telling me no," I heard her tell Jay. "You need to let me help you relax. You know I can."
A shiver erupted through Jay's body as he considered her offer. "All right," he agreed.
A huge grin alit on Avery's expression. She leaned backwards on the bar, straightened one of her bare legs, and swung it to the other side, where it met the other one. In seconds, she was off the bar and Jay's hand was entangled in hers. She yanked him from his stool.
Jay had enough thought to advise me, "I'll be back soon." I couldn't reply before Avery had pulled him too far away. She pulled him towards the hallway near where the brunette and her companion were sitting. I willed Jay to look over his shoulder to check on me, perhaps seeing the pain I knew I could not hide. He never did. He disappeared down the hallway with Avery. From what I could tell, there were rooms on either side of the hallway. Sheets of sheer black fabric acted as inferior doors. One bouncer was posted at the hallway's entrance.
Sensing eyes on me, I followed its thread back to the brunette girl. Her eyes were dark. There was enough light to see the curiosity and pity mixed into her expression. As soon as our gazes met, she dropped her eyes back to the bar top and turned her body to face her companion.
I swallowed. Before I hopped from my stool, I consumed the last bits of my drink, sucking it through the straw in one gulp. The water from the melted ice had melded poorly with the last bits of the alcohol to make the gulp unsatisfactory. I stumbled from the barstool and then plowed forward to the hallway. The bouncer at the hallway, who was twice my size, peered down at me with a disbelieving shift to his eyebrows. "What do you think you are doing?" he inquired.
Behind him, I could see that the simmering silk hanging in the doorways was semi-transparent—enough to see movement through. The cloth was not wide enough to cover the entire doorway and allowed me to see into the rooms through the cracks. In the doorway to the left, I saw a man leaning back against a couch. His belt buckle unlatched, and pants unzipped to reveal his erect manhood, his legs were wide open for a woman. The woman was on her knees on the couch beside him. While her mouth was working at his ear, her hand was encircled around his manhood. In the doorway to the right, the woman was already sitting on the man, backwards, her own legs spread. Another woman was on her knees in front of the twosome on the couch.
Vomit infiltrated my throat over the sights, and the way my brutal imagination reacted from it. The bouncer waved his hand in front of my face. "Hey!" He snapped his fingers to bring my attention back to him. I gave him a blank stare before spinning around and darting away. Somehow, I blindly pushed my way through the bar and outside. I was able to dart around the corner and away from the front entrance to prevent making a spectacle as I vomited all over the ground. When I looked up, the fresh air mingled with the tears forming in my eyes.
I had two options: I could return inside and wait for Jay to finish with the prostitution—perhaps finding Quincy—or I could simply walk away. My feelings of betrayal and pride made the decision for me. I pushed away from the wall I was leaning against and started walking.