Slap and Tickle

Bars were bars were bars. They didn't change and, aside from the décor, were simply places to get drunk, have a few laughs, and maybe dance.

Jim spent time in and out of a lot of bars, both on the job and off. He knew about neighborhood watering holes, he knew about cocktail lounges, he knew about martini bars. He preferred to do his own drinking in cop bars, sitting at a long, polished wooden bar with tall stools.

He didn't really think about bars, much. He just knew that where there was booze there were drunks, so he had to be on his toes.

This, though; this was a whole other kind of bar.

Strip clubs were part of his job, too, and he wasn't blind and he wasn't dead, so he always looked at the dancers. He'd looked the first time he'd been in this particular bar, looked enough that he'd come back, off duty. And here he was again, having lost track of how many times he'd been in to see Candy Pants dance.

There was a three drink minimum which Craig, the owner, enforced vigilantly. Jim had memorized the order of the dancers, and he got there early enough to drink his three beers and get the buzz out of the way before Candy hit the stage. He wasted a lot of time waiting on Candy, but that's the way this thing had grabbed him. Nothing made sense about this -- and he was starting to gain a bit of weight from all the beer, too. That annoyed him.

Jim didn't bother sitting at a table when Candy's number approached. One more dancer, then Jim would see. He preferred to stand, just off to the side, one shoulder pressed up against a support beam. If he sat, he couldn't see it all, and if Jim was going to be a regular, he was going to see, God damn it.

Then the syncopated beat of Tainted Love sounded and a red strobe lit the stage. This was it; Candy Pants was about to come on stage and dance.

Something edgy and hot settled in Jim's gut and he shoved both his hands into his jeans pockets. He couldn't reach out and grab if he did that. He'd found that out the hard way, and it had only been a month or so since the bouncers had stopped staring at him.

The strobe flashed a few times and then suddenly there Candy was, six feet of red-leather covered man, gyrating against the silver pole.

Jim felt his breath catch in his chest. Candy looked good, all shiny with oil, muscles gleaming. The red leather was nice, too, stretched taut. But the hooting and hollering starting up all around him was calling for one thing. Everyone knew what Candy did best, what his best asset was.

And Jim was right there with the rest, staring hard at Candy's ass.