Steven Valjean 14.
“Rock, papers, scissors, shoot.” Shit, I lost. I crack my neck, square my feet and get ready for the next round.
“YES!” Muff’s hands shoot toward the ceiling in triumph.
“Oh, shut up.” Fanny, usually a very sweet girl, sneers at our fellow Hospitality Specialist.
“I have clit burn! Do you know how unpleasant a raw clit is?” Muff puts her hands on her generous hips and quirks an eyebrow at Fanny.
Beaver stomps her foot, her hands poised for another go of Rock, Paper, Scissors. “I’ve lost my sense of taste! Nothing has any flavor!”
“Do you see this?” Fanny holds up a gnarled hand, fingers bent harshly. “My hand is permanently cramped! 4 days I’ve been like this!”
We garner an audience in the main room of the clubhouse. I glance up briefly and smile when I notice Rowan looking directly at me. His attention is not unwanted, but as much as I’d like to ride him like a pogo stick, he’s a prospect and I don’t think he’s allowed to sample our hospitality until he’s patched. Also…
“I have to use a donut pillow just to sit down. My ass hurts worse than when Brooks took me to pound town. Dru’s hip game is mean and vengeful. Like my anus personally offended her somehow.” Muff, Fanny, Beaver, and Coozie all cover their own asses in sympathy.
Coozie shakes her head, her eyes meet mine in understanding. “Mine too.”
“Excuse me.” Brooks, Mercury’s ol’ partner and our newest prospect approaches us and my ass clenches in response to his voice. With a faint smirk directed at me, he looks between us, “Why are you playing rock, paper, scissors?”
Muff stands on her tip toes and checks around the room looking for the mistress of pain, then leans in conspiratorially toward Brooks, “Dru is wearing all of us out. She’s going through us faster than Priscilla cleans her plate.”
“Is she at least…taking care of you in the process?” Brooks is adorable, his cheeks flaming red as he asks us.
I snort, “It might be easier if Dru wasn’t so thorough.”
Beaver sighs, sad and disappointed, “I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but…I fear my next orgasm.” Poor girl is swaying on her feet. I wrap my arm around her shoulders, bringing her to my side so I can hold her up. “I’m tired, boss.”
“I know, pretty girl.” I kiss the top of her head, then rest my cheek there. “We all are.”
“Hmm.” Brooks rubs his chin for a few seconds then snaps his fingers. “Be right back.” He runs off down the hall. After a few seconds, we stare at each other and deflate.
“It’s not worth it.” I mutter. “I’ll volunteer as her next victim. You girls get some rest, and ice, ice, ice.”
“Hold on!” Brooks comes running back in, Mercury laughing at his boyfriend as he walks behind him. “Tell them!”
“Settle down, tic-tac.” Mercury kisses Brooks’ cheek, then straightens up to address the Hospitality Specialists. His acting skills could use some work. “I’m so glad I ran into the five of you. Something very important has come up at the Queen’s Rook , and Lang requires all the Hospitality Specialists to help him with this very important thing that…has…come up.” He grimaces, so at least he knows he sucks at this.
“Oh, really?” I play along. “All of us? Muff, Beaver, Fanny, Coozie, and myself, Steve?”
Mercury rolls his eyes, but he projects his voice loudly as he speaks again, “Yes! It’s a shame you won’t be around to service the members and or their partners, but your…non-sexual services are required elsewhere.” He snaps his fingers and swings his arm in front of himself, “Shucks.”
“No!” Dru bellows from the doorway leading to the hall. “Someone else can go, I need…hmm…two of them!” The five of us huddle together and I herd them behind me to protect them from the she-beast.
“I’m so sorry, Drusilla, honorable first lady of the Golem Guerillas, but the Hospitality Specialists are unavailable. May I suggest,” Mercury says drolly, “having relations with your husband…ONLY your husband this time?”
Dru narrows her eyes, her body coiled and ready to strike, “I know what you’re doing, Mercury. You will pay for your subterfuge!” Jupiter appears out of nowhere, picks her up, and carries her off. The entire clubroom exhales in relief.
“Go, now! Don’t dawdle.” Brooks urges us to get moving.
“Steve!” I take a detour to the bar when Rowan calls my name. God, it’s delicious in his voice. I could listen to the man talk about anything and nothing, his voice is deep and rough. His shaved head, piercing blue eyes, and sturdy muscular body was more than my little gay heart could take sometimes. I shake off my arousal, and stop in front of him, the bar top between us. He holds up a to-go cup, “Your drink.”
“Rowan, you are a God among men!” I lean over the bar and plant a loud kiss on his cheek, grab the cup and hightail it out of there before Dru escapes Jupiter’s clutches and to hide my red cheeks. A few chaste kisses on his stubbled cheek is the most contact I’ve allowed myself in the almost year I’ve been part of the GGMC as a Hospitality Specialist. Rowan always goes out of his way for me when he's around, and with every moment of his attention, I find it harder and harder to remember why I have to maintain distance between us.
Outside the clubhouse, I start laughing at the girls already piled into my SUV. I guess I’m driving. I shake my head as I get in, start it, and begin the 20-minute drive to the Queen’s Rook. I know Lang doesn’t really need our help, that boy is well-suited to handle the charity event the drag club is hosting for Maimonides Mitzvot at Aventine Manor. You would never know that he has endured such depression and self-doubt, the way he has taken charge and organized every minute detail of the event. His lists have lists. Spreadsheets galore. He’s adorkable.
The girls and I talk about the changes in the club since we’ve come on board a year ago.
“You think they’ll bring in any new Hospitality Specialists?” Muff asks during a lull in the conversation. She’s sitting next to me in the passenger seat, so I glance at her briefly before focusing on the road again.
“Why? Any of you retiring and hanging up your crotchless panties?”
Beaver smacks my shoulder from the backseat. “No, but we’ve all been here for about a year, I guess it would make sense they’d grow tired of us after a while.” Hmm. I never thought of that. But I can’t see it.
“Nah, they love us, and even if our sexual services were no longer in demand, Mercury and the others have made it abundantly clear that we are family and will always have a place with the GGMC.”
“I don’t know,” Coozie sighs, I watch her in the rearview mirror lean against the headrest and stare out the window at the passing scenery, “doesn’t seem dignified to age out of servicing the members and be kept around like a wayward spinster aunt.”
“Dignified!” I screech, forcing myself to keep my eyes open as I laugh my pert ass off. Coozie punches my upper arm.
“You know what I mean!”
“I do, it just struck me funny, that’s all.” I wipe under my eyes as I catch my breath. Our eyes meet in the mirror, and I see the sadness she tries to hide. “Cooz, gurl, we might not be ol’ partner material, but the club loves us, not just for our talented tongues, but for who we are as people. Dru and Jupiter would have never let us in the doors if we were assbags. Remember Carter?” They all groan and Muff rolls her eyes.
“That guy’s a douche.”
“Not even Summer’s Eve, he’s like the TEMU version of it…Winter’s Late Afternoon.”
Fanny, who’s been quiet most of the ride, leans forward to wrap her arms around Muff in an awkward hug. “If you’re worried, talk to them. Not Dru, ‘cuz she’ll probably insist on including the strap-on of truth and trust , but Ceres or Etta.”
Muff pats Fanny’s arms, and shakes off her melancholy, “I’m ok, just a bit maudlin, I guess. I don’t want to be an ol’ partner, that’s not why I started hanging around the club. I like the sexual freedom, and they all fuck like champs, but everyone feels like family and that’s why I stay. I just don’t want to lose that…it seems like everyone is pairing up and I think I’m afraid to be left behind.”
“Dammit, gurl, I’m driving, I can’t hug you!” I smack my hand off the steering wheel in frustration. Muff giggles, leaning over the console to rest her head on my shoulder.
“I love you, all of you.”
“Alright, we’re here.” I pull into the parking lot for Queen’s Rook and jump out to circle the vehicle. I throw open Muff’s door and haul her ass out and into a bear hug. When her lithe body shakes in my arms, I realize this is more serious than she’s let on. “Oh, honey.” She wraps around me like a spider monkey, clinging as she cries. The others circle us, and then it’s a big group ugly cry.
“I don’t know what’s happening, and normally I would be all up in there because I love emotional pow-wows, but we are t-minus 4 days, people, and Mama Lang is wound a little tight!” Lang stomps his foot next to us, his voice rising hysterically as he speaks. We break apart, then as if communicating telepathically, the five of us surround Lang and smother him with love.
A few minutes later, inside the drag club, Lang leads the others over to where he’s got piles of decorations. Like a drill sergeant, he instructs them on what to do and where to do it.
“Steve!” I’m trying to figure out how to break away from them without anyone noticing, when Lang picks his head up from miles of tulle and calls out to me. “Mr. Davidson needs your help in the office. It’s on the second floor, past the VIP balcony.”
I give him a questioning look and a thumbs up, then make my way up the stairs, past the balcony, and down a hallway. I knock on the set of double doors at the end and open the door without waiting.
“Mr. Davidson, I was told you need my help?” I barely get the words out before I start laughing.
“Very funny, Mr. Valjean.” Chase Davidson is a beautiful wisp of a twink with purple artfully styled hair, a dazzling smile with a diamond embedded in his right canine, perfectly tailored turquoise suit, and warm brown eyes. He stands from behind the big black desk, tablet in hand, grabs a steaming cup of hot chocolate and hands it to me as he takes a seat in front of the desk. I take a long sip of the delicious confection, sighing in pleasure when I settle into the thickly cushioned chair behind the desk. “Welcome back sir, we have much to discuss.”
I eye him over the rim of the mug, “I’m sure we do.” I finish the hot chocolate, sit the mug down on the corner of the desk and then press the spacebar on the keyboard to wake up the computer. “What’s first?”