Chapter 2

“And here you are,” ma’am,” the counter person smiled, placing the tray in front of the customer.

Alana looked up as the woman turned to look around for a place to sit. The woman held the tray up, just underneath the hem of her half shirt, so Alana could not see the woman’s sleek belly. She did notice the impression of the woman’s areolae and hard nipples through the soft black material of her half shirt. Alana could see that the woman was beautiful, with sweet round face, big brown eyes under light blonde eyebrows, a slim nose and pouting lips.

“Yes ma’am? What’ll it be today?” the counter person asked Alana as Alana swiveled to watch the blonde’s magnificent buttocks stretch and flex as the woman selected a corner booth to sit at.

“I, uh, hi,” Alana stammered when the woman repeated her question.

“Hi. How you doing?” the woman smiled a friendly smile.

“I uh, I’m good. You?” Alana asked, blushing.

“Me? Oh God I’m tired,” the girl admitted, smiling. “Girl, got another five hours to go? Don’t know I’m going make it.”

“I, two cinnamon buns and a large coffee; two cream and four sugars,” Alana said.

“Ma’am, them buns? They pretty big,” the girl hesitated.

“Yeah, I usually take one home,” Alana admitted.

“Oh. All right then,” the girl said, ringing up the order.

“Do it. Do it, just go over and do it,” Alana ordered herself as she carried the tray with the large coffee and two cinnamon buns in Styrofoam containers toward the corner booth where the beautiful blonde woman sat.

“Hi, is this seat, uh, can I sit here?” Cynthia Breaux heard a woman squeak out and looked up from her deconstructed bacon and egg biscuit.

Cindy liked to eat the bacon first, then the scrambled egg patty. The egg patty was smeared with a white cheddar cheese sauce; Cindy suspected that there was very little actual cheese in the sauce. She would then pop the jalapeno peppers into her mouth one at a time. She loved the tangy bite of the peppers. Her last act would be to squeeze the packet of honey onto each half of the flaky, buttery biscuit and would eat the bottom half first, then the top half last. In between bites, she would sip her coffee.

As she sat, chewing the last bite of her bacon, Cindy heard a young woman’s voice squeak, asking if she could sit with her. Looking up, Cindy let an uncertain smile cross her face. The restaurant was nearly empty; there was only two other patrons, two men that spoke in hushed but urgent voices to each other. There were at least twenty other booths and eight tables with four chairs apiece that this woman could have taken.

Cindy looked into the terrified eyes of the woman and let her uncertain smile broaden. She nodded with an enthusiasm she did not feel and even pulled her tray closer to herself to give the stranger room to place her tray onto the table.

“Hi I uh, I’m, I’m Alana,” Alana stammered, sure her heart would hammer out of her chest.

“Hi, Alana,” Cindy smiled warmly. “I’m Cindy.”

Alana tried to think of what to say next but could not. She opened her mouth a few times, then opened the lid on one Styrofoam container and started to eat the large, hot, gooey cinnamon roll with the plastic fork the counter person had provided.

“So, just getting off work?” Cindy asked after a long moment of silence.

“Huh? I uh, no, no, I, I just couldn’t sleep,” Alana admitted, looking up.

“Mm,” Cindy said and used her teeth to tear the packet of honey.

“You?” Alana asked a moment later.

“Mm? OH, hmm mm,” Cindy agreed, carefully squeezing half of the packet onto the lower half of her biscuit.

Placing the packet onto the top half of her biscuit, Cindy pointed with her thumb across Barcelona Way. Alana glanced through the glass window behind Cindy, then looked at Cindy again.

“Sugar Shack,” Cindy explained. We close at one. Well, one on weekdays, but I didn’t get out until one thirty.”

“I, Sugar, isn’t that, that’s a, that’s a titty bar, isn’t it?” Alana asked, again glancing over Cindy’s shoulder at the unlighted silhouette of the Gentlemen’s’ Club.

Cindy’s face tightened. Alana felt her heart drop into her stomach and quickly averted her eyes to her cinnamon roll. Using her fork, she tore off another bite of the pastry and stuffed it into her mouth. Her stupid, blabbering mouth.

“Well,” Cindy said tightly. “It’s called a ‘gentlemen’s’ club’ but honestly? I don’t think I’ve met a whole hell of a lot of gentlemen there.”

“I’m sorry,” Alana whispered, close to tears. “It’s just…”

“Don’t be. You’re right; it’s a titty bar,” Cindy said, picking up the bottom half of her biscuit.

Cynthia Marie Breaux had not planned on being an exotic dancer. She had not planned on working in a Gentlemen’s Club. But having earned three-quarters of the credits needed for a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering did not qualify her to work at Pilot Petroleum Exploration & Development, Incorporated as she had envisioned. Cindy had gone to a Job Fair at the St. Elizabeth Public Library and had listened with rapt attention as William Kennedy, a giant of a man had talked about PPEDI and their many strides in searching for new sources of oil and natural gas. Tri-Carter had also intrigued Cindy; she decided they’d be her fall back plan.

But three fourths of a degree did not qualify her for employment at either company. It did not qualify Cindy to do much of anything.

On reflection, Cindy should have gone to the Vo-Tech with her best friend, her former best friend Chrissy Theriot. That friendship had ended when Cindy voiced her dislike of Steven Guillory, Chrissy’s boyfriend and now husband. Even telling Chrissy that Steve had made a play for her did not dissuade Chrissy from marrying the man.

“Was going ask you be my maid of honor but you can just forget that now,” Chrissy had yelled, hot tears in her eyes.

Had she gone to the St. Elizabeth VO-Tech, instead of to the University of Louisiana at DeGarde, and studied to become a welder, Cindy would be working for Fontenot’s Welding, or at Kendricks’s Engineering, or Whitehead Generators. She could have even studied Administrative Assistance like Chrissy and would be working in an office, working with other people, instead of viciously competing with five to nine other dancers nightly, competing to get every sweaty, wrinkled dollar bill she could out of the fists of sweaty, wrinkled old men.

“And would be making half of what I’m making now,” Cindy thought.

She’d had to drop out of college; her step-father was happy to pay part of her tuition. Her father paid the other part, even though Cindy lived with Brent Tait and Maureen, Cindy’s mother and Charlie Breaux’s ex-wife. Then Brent caught Maureen doing the same thing that had caused Charlie to divorce Maureen nine years earlier; Brent caught Maureen with an eighteen year old boy’s cock in her mouth.

“Sorry, Pumpkin, between Paulette and the two rug rats, I’m just ’bout tapped out,” Charlie told his oldest child.

He also told Cindy there was no room in his apartment for her. As it was, when the twins got a little older, they’d need to find someplace with three bedrooms.

“Do you, do you like it?” Alana asked, breaking into Cindy’s reverie.

Cindy looked up from her biscuit and took a bite. Cindy smiled; Alana sat, cheeks blazing brightly as she tried to make eye contact with Cindy.

“Honestly? Not really,” Cindy shrugged.

“Then, then why…” Alana asked, looking up from Cindy’s chest at Cindy’s warm brown eyes.

“Make anywhere from four to nine hundred a night,” Cindy admitted.

The truth was, Cindy, Pixie as she was known to the patrons of Sugar Shack rarely made less than six hundred dollars a night. She was rapidly building up a stable of regulars that were willing to pay the one hundred and fifty dollars for a half hour with her in one of the ‘Sweets Suites.’ Sugar Shack took fifty dollars off the top and Cindy would make a hundred dollars for a half hour of a full nudity lap dance. Her lap dances usually had men spurting their hot loads into their underwear.

For a hundred dollar tip, Cindy would give them a hand job guaranteed to have them blowing a load into a pair of her nylon panties. For a two hundred dollar tip, Cindy would give her ‘favorites’ a went, noisy blow job. Cindy did not wear the nylon panties but it was more erotic, more pleasurable for her customers to blow their wad into panties than into a latex sheath. Blow jobs, however were performed with their cocks securely covered with a condom.

“I uh, oh,” Alana said.

The smaller male patron stood and ambled toward the male bathroom. Cindy watched the man’s progress with her eyes as she ate the top half of her biscuit.

“I uh, I bought two of these? You want share this one?” Alana asked.

Cindy looked as Alana opened the top of the second cinnamon roll. She glanced from the sticky, gooey treat at Alana’s blushing face and smiled.

“Be right back,” Cindy said.

Cindy approached the counter and asked the girl for a fork and knife and a cup of water. Cindy smirked as the muscled man left the table and approached the Male bathroom. The man’s intent was obvious, almost as obvious as the erection tenting his far too snug jeans.

Alana watched Cindy walk to the counter. Then she watched Cindy approaching again.

“Now…” Cindy said, sliding Alana’s tray a little closer.

Alana watched as Cindy deftly sawed through the warm pastry diagonally, from corner to corner. Cindy then stabbed one corner and tore a piece from the roll.

“That’s your half,” Cindy said and Alana laughed happily.

The two women ate the second warm cinnamon bun quickly. It almost seemed as if it was a race to see who would finish their half first.

Cindy felt a heavy sinking in her heart as they ate. She and Chrissy often did things like this. They’d get one large butterscotch sundae and share it. Or a large slab of cheesecake at Benito’s Fine Italian restaurant. Or the banana pudding at Sweet Pea’s.

“What’s the water for?” Alana asked as she put the last forkful of roll to her lips.

Cindy reached over and grabbed some napkins from the dispenser. Then she dipped a corner of the paper into the cup and grabbed Alana’s hand.

“Oh!” Alana gasped from the contact as Cindy cleaned Alana’s sticky hand.

“That’s pretty smart!” Alana praised as Cindy cleaned her left hand.

“Yeah, Chrissy was a mess,” Cindy said, leaning forward and gently cleaning Alana’s sticky mouth. “If there was a way to get all messy, she’d figure it out. And of course, she never remembers to get a napkin.”

“Who’s Chrissy?” Alana asked.

“Used be a friend of mine,” Cindy said, now cleaning her own hands.

Cindy watched as the muscled man left the bathroom. The wet spot on the front of his jeans was quite noticeable as he swayed toward a side exit. A moment later, the smaller man also left the bathroom. His step was stilted, as if he was in some discomfort.

“I, uh, you, you want anything else?” Alana asked as the young man passed their table and opened the front door.

“No. It’s ’bout time I just got on home,” Cindy said.

“I uh, oh, okay,” Alana said as Cindy picked up her tray.

“I, you need a ride home?” Cindy asked, pausing in her movements.

“Hmm? Oh, oh no, I I’m fine,” Alana said, gulping the last of her coffee. “I’m just right over there.”

“I, I should be here tomorrow night,” Cindy said. “‘Bout the same time, hear?”

“I uh, okay,” Alana smiled widely as she picked up her own tray.

“See you,” Cindy said as she dropped everything into the wastebasket near the front door.

“Okay!” Alana said happily, scurrying toward the wastebasket near the side door.

Driving to her apartment, Cindy felt the weariness descend on her. Her weariness had nothing to do with her work, but rather with her current roommate. She’d gone to school with Jim Hebert, John Hebert’s older brother. When Crystal moved out, after yet another fight between Cindy and Crystal, Jim had asked if John could move in with her. All he would say was John had suffered a nasty break-up with his girlfriend and she’d kicked him out of the house.

“Know how that is,” Cindy agreed; her break-up with Chrissy and now Crystal had been very acrimonious.

She and Chrissy had been each other’s first. They’d shared their first kiss together. They’d been each other’s first lovers. To Cindy, the kisses she and Chrissy had shared had been the sweetest, the most fulfilling of kisses. The touches had gone through the skin straight to the bloodstream, straight to the heart.

The taste of Chrissy’s musky inner labia, the texture of Chrissy’s dark blonde, light brown pubic hair, and the smell of Chrissy’s arousal had overwhelmed and filled Cindy’s senses to overflowing. And after, after they’d licked and stroked one another to climax, just lying in each other’s arms, Cindy had felt a contentment she’d never imagined.

“And then Steve…” Cindy thought as she pulled into the parking lot of their apartment building.

She was grateful B. Thompson Holdings had put security lighting in the rear of the building. The strong lights illuminated the parking lot and the lights along the side of the building lighted the drive. Still, Cindy checked all around before killing the engine and opening her car door.