Page 10 of Come As You Are
Standing, I rearranged my clothes and glanced in the mirror to repair any damage to my makeup or hair. Only when I felt all was in place did I go down the stairs to my club, my heart still hammering in my chest in time to the beat of the music.
As usual, I was greeted by several of the club’s regulars and spent time talking to each one I encountered. I cherished the connections Illyria made possible and loved when our customers found each other even if it was just for a night. Illyria had been the site of many bachelor parties as well as quite a few weddings, and it thrilled me that Illyria was what had brought those couples together or helped them celebrate.
Crossing the dance floor, I was reminded how special Illyria was, how it provided a second home for my employees and a haven for my customers. It had also given Antonio a purpose, a mission, and me a place where I could finally be fully myself. We had a community within these walls, and I would do everything within my power to make sure it continued to thrive.
So, although the bar was my destination, I took every opportunity to greet everyone who nodded at me or smiled or said hello. A troubling trend ran through my quick conversations as people told me they’d heard rumors about Illyria closing or asked if it was true that I was tired of running the club and would be selling to Orsino before the end of the year. I did my best to reassure everyone who mentioned it that I was as fully invested in the club as Antonio had been and wasn’t going anywhere. Privately, I gritted my teeth at the idea that I would sell Illyria to Orsino. It would be a cold day in hell before he got his hands on even a single brick of this club.
Illyria wasn’t the first club to be located in this building, nor was it even the first club to be run by a woman. Back in the day, this space had been occupied by Time Warp, one of the originalgay clubs in the Castro. There had been police raids and protests here for gay rights and AIDS funding, grief over Harvey Milk’s assassination and the deaths of vibrant young men had poured into these walls, and outpourings of relief and joy when the Bay Area Reporter’s “No Obits” headline had men crying in the streets and hugging each other because, after seventeen years, there were no new deaths from AIDS to report.
Antonio had honored that history and carried on the tradition of civic engagement and political activism. When Gavin Newsome had thrown open the floodgates for marriage equality and started issuing marriage licenses for same sex couples, Antonio had offered free champagne all that first week for anyone who got married.
By the time I reached the bar, steely resolve had settled over me like armor. I had been grieving Antonio’s loss long enough, it was time to bring Illyria back to life and make him proud.
Sebastian gave me a crooked smile as I slid onto the seat at the end of the bar that was reserved for me, and handed me a tall glass of my preferred drink: tonic water with a twist of lime. I nodded my thanks and took a sip, then raised my chin in the direction of the platform where he and Vee had given the crowd an impromptu show.
“How’d that happen?” I asked, hopeful the low lights would hide the blush that had crept to my cheeks. My belly still tingled from the aftereffects of my orgasm, and I shifted on my seat as a tendril of arousal began to waken my click as Sebastian leaned closer. I caught the scent of his sweat, musky and masculine, and inhaled as deeply as I dared not wanting him to know how much his proximity was affecting me.
“I was heading to the storeroom for some rum, and Vee stumbled into me as he got down from his platform.” Sebastian shrugged. “I bumped him with my hip, and he…well, the crowdaround us loved it and started chanting for us to dance, so we did.”
“It was hot,” I said and watched Sebastian’s eyes go wide, then turn sleepy as the corners grew heavy. His grin turned wolfish, and I suppressed a shiver.
“Glad you liked it,” Sebastian said, then turned away from me to take care of the customers who were piling up to order drinks.
Had I imagined the husky tone of his voice or the puff of air that grazed my cheek when he spoke? I had to have. The club was too noisy for me to have heard anything other than the words he’d said, and any air that flowed over my skin must have come from the air conditioner. Still, I admired the grace with which Sebastian moved, the way he seemed to prowl behind the bar as if stalking the ingredients for each drink he was asked to make. I knew he was a good bartender, perhaps one of the best in the city, which was why Antonio had promoted him to lead bartender over Tobias even though Toby had been at Illyria since the beginning, had been one of Antonio’s dearest friends.
Knowing he was good and watching his skill were two different things, like knowing a lion was powerful when you watched one on TV and coming face-to-face with one as it stalked its prey. One was intellectual, mere information that entered the brain and was filed away. The other was a visceral response embodied in your flesh and nerves even if the animal in question was secure behind a fence. You felt its power in every cell of your being.
I circled my finger around the rim of my glass, gathering the wetness from the condensation and where my lips had touched as I drank. I was more aware of…basically everything as I sat there. The press of my clothing against my skin, the weight of the heavy gold necklace I wore, the faint groan of the leather beneath my ass as I shifted on the barstool, the pulse of the bassthat transmitted through the floor, up the legs of that barstool, and into the fibers of my body.
There was the abundance of sound that filled my ears, not just the music that poured from the speakers and filled Illyria like wine flowing into a glass, but the hum of voices that rose and fell like waves and were punctuated by an occasional shout or the combined timber as all the customers sang a beloved refrain, their voices blending into a single organism that united all of us for a few moments, joined us in a way nothing else did.
I was aware of the odors as well. The sharpness of each type of alcohol as Sebastian and Tobias poured drinks: caramel tones from Scotch and whiskey, the sourness of beer and ale, the burnt sugar as Sebastian tipped a bottle of rum over a glass of Coke. And the human scents of sweat and the musk of aftershave. The darkness and flashing lights created a mosaic of body parts and faces, a shifting kaleidoscope in which it would be easy to lose the distinctions of an individual, and yet, people remained distinct, individual. I felt the press of arms and legs against my own, the bump of hips as people jostled for position at the bar. I was more aware of myself in this moment, and at the same time my edges blurred, my shape and sound combined with the air that surrounded me.
At the center of my awareness, though, Sebastian remained singular, distinct. I could hear his voice as he spoke to customers, smell his scent, remembered the ghost of his breath against my cheek.
Perched on my stool, I straightened as Sebastian grinned at a customer, the flirtatious expression clear as he made contact. I turned my attention to the object of his gaze, watched as Sebastian put his hand on top of the other man’s and winked at him. A flare of heat burned through my body, and I quickly downed the rest of my drink hoping to quench the flames that felt as if they would consume me. I also hoped that Sebastianmight notice my empty glass and come back to refill it, but unfortunately, Tobias recognized my need before Sebastian had the chance to tear his eyes away from the young man who had captured his attention.
“Busy night tonight,” he said as he refilled my glass and handed it back to me.
I nodded and thanked him. “It does seem to be,” I said, and then remembered what Sebastian had said about the alcohol sales not jiving with the amount they went through in an evening. “About normal for the bar?” I asked.
It was Toby’s turn to nod. “Pretty much. We seem to be going through a lot of rum tonight for some reason.” He shrugged. “But that’s the way it goes sometimes.”
Vee appeared next to me, his upper body shiny with sweat and oil, his cutoff shorts bristling with dollar bills in varying denominations. He pulled several from his waistband and handed them to Toby. “Can you hold these behind the bar for me?” he asked. “Getting a bit hard to move.” He reached between his legs and pulled out some more. “I swear, some guy tried to shove this,” he pulled out a twenty, “somewhere the sun don’t shine.” He laughed as Toby put his hands up. “Don’t worry, he didn’t succeed.”
I nearly spit out my drink. What had happened to the shy, country boy who’d appeared at my club a month before? I turned to face him. “That dance with Sebastian probably got you a lot of tips,” I said.
Vee smiled shyly and nodded, and my heart beat a little harder. Whatever reaction I was having to Sebastian tonight, my attraction to Vee hadn’t lessened one bit. And when Sebastian brushed past Tobias to get a liquor from the top shelf at this end of the bar, having the two of them—Sebastian and Vee—standing in front of me made my breath catch in my throat.
They were both beautiful men, incredibly so, and I knew in that moment that I wanted them both.
Sebastian
It was Monday, aday the bar was usually closed to customers. Olivia had called an all-hands meeting for eleven, and Maria had gotten the girls to come in early so they could work on some new routine. Andrew had brought in the go-go boys early as well, so the place was hopping.
I was catching up on inventory, and Toby was doing his best to distract me while I tallied the bar stock. For the most part, it wasn’t working, but that was more because I was completely distracted by my own thoughts than any superpowers of concentration I might possess.
Ever since Vee and I had danced and I’d caught sight of Olivia watching us from her office, I couldn’t get the memory of his body or her expression off my mind. His body had felt amazing against mine, his chest firm and slick under my hands, his ass fitting perfectly against me, my happy cock nesting along theseam of those damn shorts that hid nothing. And then Olivia’s molten expression, her eyes as they’d locked onto mine, had ramped up my arousal and threatened to send me toppling over the edge. I’m made of stronger stuff and knew how to control myself at work, but at home? I’d jerked off at least half a dozen times thinking about everything that had happened that night.
