Page 3 of Wood

The DJ booth’s wedged into an alcove at the back, up on a little riser so the DJ can see over everybody’s heads. The booth has chicken wire mesh across the front of it, spray-painted gold at some point and mostly worn back to black, with string lights woven through so it glows more than it lights anything up. A shelf inside is crammed with a laptop, controller, turntable, a coffee cup nobody ever empties, and a little fan clipped to the side because it gets like a sauna back there under all those bulbs. I’ll drop off a glass of ice in one of my loops.

Tonight it’s Deja, headphones around her neck more than on her ears, one hand always half-up like she’s about to cue something even when she’s not. She’s got a little disco ball clipped above her head, a cheap thing from a party store, throwing dots across her face while the big one over the floor does the real work.

The dance floor drops right down in front of her, sunken half a step so from the riser she’s looking down at everybody like a captain on a bridge. Fog low around ankles by midnight, colored lights sweeping the floor in slow, lazy passes, red then blue then this sick green that makes everyone look a little dead, and nobody cares.

I catch her eye sometimes hauling a tray past the edge of the floor, and she’ll point two fingers at me like a gun, which means you’re doing great or watch that guy in the corner, depending on the night. Tonight it’s the second one.

I go back to the well to reload the tray and my hand’s not even shaking, which I notice because it used to. First few months on this job, my hands used to shake after stuff like that. Now it’s just Tuesday. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or if it’s just what happens to you eventually. The shake goes away because you’ve had enough practice not needing it.

Under the bass, I can hear my brain doing rent math, the same three numbers, over and over, the whole time I’m smiling.

A couple comes in around eleven and I notice them right away because nobody dressed like that wanders into this bar by accident. While the club allows all, women rarely come in. When they do, they either turn right around and march back out or hang back in a corner, mostly ignored. This woman is probably in her forties, and she’s got a sexy black dress on, good haircut, and looks like she does something with spreadsheets for a living. He’s got the specific look of a man who’s been talked into something and is trying real hard to seem casual about it.

They don’t sit at a table. They stand at the end of the bar and just watch the room for a while, the way you’d watch a play you don’t fully understand. I do my loop, come back around, and she flags me down. Not handsy, she doesn’t touch me at all, which already tells me this isn’t the usual ask.

“Can I buy you a drink?” she says. She has a nice voice, low and mature, accompanied by a sexy smile.

“I’m working, but thank you.”

“Right. Sorry.” She glances at her husband, who’s studying his own beer like it owes him money. “This is going to sound like a line. It’s not a line.”

“Tell me.”

She lays it out plainly, no cute build-up, like she rehearsed it in the car. They’re looking for someone. A third. Tonight, if it works out, no pressure if it doesn’t. Her husband doesn’t say much, just nods along, and I get the sense she’s the one who does the talking in most rooms they’re in together.

I’ve had this pitch before, different words, same shape. Normally I have a stock answer, a gentle exit, back to the tray in ten seconds flat. Tonight I don’t say anything right away, which surprises me more than it surprises them.

“You can say no,” she says. “People say no all the time. I’d rather you say no than say yes because you feel bad for us.”

That lands somewhere I don’t expect it to. Most people don’t give you the out that easy. And she is beautiful, nice, soft-looking tits. I love the feel of those against me, love holding them, nuzzling between them.

“I get off at two,” I say, which isn’t a yes, but it isn’t the usual laugh-and-swat-the-hand either. “But my day job starts at seven, so I can’t tonight.” She nods like that’s a fair answer and her husband looks up for the first time, like he wasn’t sure until right then whether this was actually going to happen.

“Another time, perhaps,” she says as she passes me her, or their, number on a napkin, and I slip it into my shorts.

I go back to my tray and Freddie watches the whole thing from the bar without me saying a word, one eyebrow up. I don’t explain it to him either.

Showering off, I groan as the water pours over my aching shoulders, the red patch where the new guy snapped the suspender. I’m lucky they aren’t bruised. Yet. That would not help tips at the bar. If that happens, I’ll have to get help from another server or a drag queen to paint on some body makeup to cover it up.

Naked, I flop onto my stiff mattress. I can hear my roommates settling in around me. I’m grateful they let me stay in the shared apartment after I dropped out last spring. We’d all be graduating if I had stayed in. If I could have gotten my shit together. If Mom and Dad hadn’t … I shut down those thoughts with a hard slam.

Giggles from the next room make me reach for my pillow. Listening to Charles get laid is not conducive to getting to sleep. Guy is a man whore. Every night, a different girl. Sometimes two. His moans fill my ears through the thin walls, and my cock rises in spite of me trying to ignore them. Guy doesn’t know how fucking loud he gets. Then the headboard starts and his girl begins to yell and, dammit, now I’m hard. I should have joined the couple from the bar for a quick fuck. Charles’ girl squeals. Sigh. If you can’t ignore them, join them, right?

Pulling my lube from the bedside table, I stroke in time with the headboard. BANG up, down, twist, BANG up, ah, fuck yeah. Flicking my nipple with my left hand, I’m quickly at the edge, along with Charles and his fuck buddy. Her squealing makes my back arch and I splatter on my chest. Cleaning off with a baby wipe, I roll over and pull a pillow over my head and let sleep suck me down.

3

BEN

Ah, the fourteenth hole and the comfort station. The heavy timber door swings shut behind us, cutting off the distant sound of leaf blowers and the screech of magpies. The cabin is cool, smelling of cedar and espresso. A pristine marble counter holds a row of glass-bottle sodas, a premium espresso machine, and a freezer full of gourmet ice cream bar treats. After three hours, we both need a break.

I walk to the fridge and pull out a green protein drink.

“You want something?” I call over my shoulder. “Looks like they have some turkey sliders. Go grab a couple.”

The young man looks uncomfortable in his white jumpsuit. He really is pretty, in a muscular, buff way. Shaggy, dark brown hair pulled back under his white golf cap. Cheap sunglasses propped on the bill of his cap. Bright blue eyes darting around the room. He’s slightly shorter than my six-feet-one but quite a bit bulkier, with wide shoulders under that fitted jumpsuit tapering to a narrow waist.

“Just an electrolyte water is fine, Mr. Vance,” he replies, wiping sweat from his face with his forearm.