Something to wet the whistle

The Castle’s first 3000 words have just seemed to flow from concepts in my mind to the laptop.

I am pleased to present the first 3000 words…

Everything after that you have to wait for.

None of the sci-fi or true I can’t believe it yet, just some small character building. No editing has been done, so don’t bother me about typos. This month is about writing…

Chapter 1 – My Invisible Life

“Are you listening?”

“What? Were you talking to me?”

“You seem to be lost in your own little world.”

“Sorry Brian, what did you need?”

“I need 1st quarter numbers for the projected takeover percentage of market share in London.”

“Um, let me check on that and I’ll get back to you.”

“Keegan, do you want to come with us to the Shadow?”

“Um, I’ve got things to do.”

“What do you have to do? Your laundry? Watch another repeat of a television show that you’ve watch for the tenth time? You’ve got to get out Keeg. If you don’t you are going to end up alone. Do you want that? If it wasn’t for me pushing you no one would ever bother you. You sit here and do your job and hide down here in the basement. Don’t you want to be more than an analyst?”

“I don’t know how to talk to a woman let alone ask her out like you do Brian.”

“But you can’t meet a girl if you just walk home every day.”

“I’m going to find the woman of my dreams.”

“Blow up dolls don’t count Keeg. You have to step out into the world, take some chances.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t Keegan Donnally?”

“How about I join you guys later at the Shadow?”

“Is that a promise? I know Amanda Kay has a crush on you. All you have to do is go up to her without tripping and you’ve got it made.”

“I have to go home and feed Emily.”

“If you don’t get out of this life long rut of yours that cat will be the only pussy you ever know.”

Brian is right. I’m in a rut, nothing I can do about it. I come in, do my financial projections for Jamison, Stevens and Partners and I go home. Very few people know anything about me. I guess that is my fault. I surround myself with outgoing people and I just blend into the background.

Why can’t I open up to people?

Maybe it was foster home after foster home. I couldn’t get close to anyone because every time I ever got close to a foster family I was moved away. I can remember each of their faces and I can remember each of the happy days when a family finally allowed me to be considered one of them.

I don’t want to remember some of the nightmares of Mr. Ian Woon. He was the first foster father I had. I can remember the beatings that he gave me for not writing neatly enough. My t’s were too slanty and I never dotted the I’s the way he wanted. He demanded perfection.

Tahnee Chambers was my birth mother. I wish I could know something about her, but all I know of her was leaving me on the stairs of the firehouse when I was a baby. I don’t blame her though I want to sometimes. I just wish I could get her to understand how much I wish she was in my life. I never knew my father’s name; by the time I found out Tahnee was my mom she had already passed.

I have a very simple life. I go to work, I go out and play poker with Brian and the crew sometimes but mostly I go home and read with Emily. I know that Emily has heard most of my complaints. I wish I could talk to a woman like I talk to my cat. She’s a beautiful orange scruffy kitty that refuses to ever let me give her a bath. I know she’s out with the Tom’s in the neighborhood. That’s just Emily. Sometimes I think she is actually listening to me while I am talking to her. I wonder what she would say to some of the questions I pose to her.

“Keeg, you coming” Brian said with urgency?

“Yeah, I’ll see you there.”

The Shadow is the ultimate in dives. It has the usual suspects as regulars with the preppy college student trying to scam some of the elderly into playing pool while watching the strippers. It’s ironic that you have anything like televisions or a pool table at a strip club but The Shadow seems to pull it off. It sits in the middle of a neighborhood where the city limits used to be 50 years ago. Now it’s in the middle of an aging neighborhood with school right down the block and always up to the ears with protesters angrily reminding all who enter that they are sinning.

Hell, sinning sometimes is necessary in the grand scheme of things.

I walked in looking for the usual suspects. I see Jeni on the pole working it like it was her boyfriend. Funny thing was she was gayer than a three dollar bill. She would take all the johns money and get them to buy her drinks, furs and diamonds but would never sleep with them. That’s what Emmy Jo was for. However Jeni’s blonde hair and 36 DD’s were the hit of The Shadow. She had them lined up for days just throwing fives and tens at her. But in my opinion her best attribute was her eyes. They were greener than grass and seemed hollow. But she could stare right through me and all I could do was blush and walk away dropping the dollar in front of her.

“Keegan! The boys told me you were coming,” said Amanda Kay. Her baby blue eyes caught my embarrassment at her impending jump. She jumped into the air and her taut body was caught almost by instinct by me. I could smell the combination of sweat, oil, perfume and money. Amanda Kay didn’t have to strip anymore. Her jet black hair came down to the middle of her six foot body. She had it made, investing her money and just came to the club to tease the lesbians who tried to get her into bed. For some strange reason she wanted to be with me. But I didn’t know why.

“Hi Amanda Kay. Um how are you?”

“Hot, horny and ready for you to take me to dinner. Wine me, dine me, sixty nine me honey” she said as the blood ran to my face.

“One of these days I am going to take you home Keegan Donnally. I will give you the best night of your life. All you have to do is say yes” she said while running her fingers through my tussled brown hair.

“Um, um” I stammered.

“Keegan, dude you are going to have to get a drink or you are going to explode right there” Brian said with a laugh “Look who finally decided to show up, pull up a chair with Paul and Scott and have a smoke.”

“That’s ok, I’m going to get a drink” I muttered as Amanda Kay took me to the bar.

Jeni was finishing up her set grinding the pole and causing the crowd to go wild, her sweat pouring down her taut body. I thought I saw her wink at me when I passed the stage being guided by Amanda Kay. What does she know that I don’t?

I ordered my drink and Amanda Kay’s and sat back down with the guys. It was a night like very few in the past. The crowd was hopping and all the girls were making money. Even the Cerebral Palsy dancer was having the money thrown at her.

“Do you mind Keegan” Amanda Kay asked me from my daydream.

“Do I mind what Mandy?”

“I think I’m going to take a set. I can’t pass up some of this money.”

“I thought you were retired from dancing Amanda Kay?”

“Pretty much I don’t need the money, but I do love the attention. I’m going to dance right now for you. I’m going to put on your favorite costume.”

“How do you know what’s my favorite costume Mandy?”

“I know,” she said as she grabbed my crotch.

All the guys had the usual dancers around the table. I just didn’t fit in. They were all laughing and drinking as I nursed my seven and seven. I came just so the guys wouldn’t harass me anymore and maybe to see Amanda Kay. Brian was right; there was something electric about her. It wasn’t her great body or her personality. It was her kindness. She made me feel like I wasn’t invisible.

“Keegan, when are you going to hit that” Scott asked?

“When he stops hiding and starts living” Brian said.

“Why do you guys pick on him?” Paul asked.

“Because I know he has no one, we have our girlfriends and wives” Brian said as he motioned to Scott. “

“Do you guys realize that he is here right in front of us? Don’t you have better things to do than try and fix up someone and then do it right in front of him” Paul asked.

“It’s ok Paul,” I said, I’m used to it right now”

“It’s a very special time here at The Shadow, one of our original dancers has come back to give you guys a very special performance. One night only, put your hands together and get those dollars ready as Jeni slides over to stage two and you get to feast your eyes on Amanda Kay,” the club DJ announced.

The lights dimmed and the spots started at Amanda Kay’s boots. They were scarlet red and as the lights climbed up her red stockings on her legs to her garter belt. Her white panties with a red cross on them seemed to be shimmering as the smoke started to fill the stage. Her white nurse’s uniform seemed to be painted on. She brought out a stethoscope and paraded around the stage trying to check the heart rate of all the patrons.

She stopped at our stage side table and winked at me.

Something was up.

She started her slow stripping motion moving to the other side of the stage, bending over as if to show just me her white panties. She knew how to work the crowd and get them up with a glimpse here and a glimpse there of the goods that God gave her.

Her bra was straining with her 44 D’s and the crowd was begging for just a glimpse.

She slowly removed all her clothing with the exception of two pasties and her panties. Amanda Kay took each dollar and five from each man, kissing them on the cheek like she really did care about every one of them.

I finally got up and stood by the stage waiting for her to catch my eye. She came over and without a thought grabbed the dollar from my hand and threw it to the ground.

“I’m going to make an example out of you,” she said as she grabbed my face and rubbed it on her ample bosom. I was speechless. This was almost as far as I had ever been with a woman, if you didn’t count Deborah Kuntz who in 11th grade nearly raped me behind the football stands after our homecoming victory. Debbie was drunk and I always looked cute to her after a couple of drinks.

The bouncers ran up to the stage and tsk tsk’ed Amanda Kay as she knew that I wasn’t supposed to be touching her at all. She laughed at them and bent over showing both Brutus and Jack her ass. She didn’t care.

“I’ll take care of you later Keegan, your cute little ass belongs to me tonight”, she laughed as I ran uncomfortably to the bathroom.

As I stood in the bathroom putting cold water on my head I was confused and didn’t understand. I barely knew her. I was quiet and rarely could say anything that would match the intelligence that I actually had. I was tongue tied around women.

“Keegan, Amanda Kay is looking for you,” Brian said with a shit eating grin on his face. “Maybe you’re going to get lucky tonight.”

“What does she see in me Brian? I don’t understand how she could find me attractive, I’m not like Paul who was built like a brick shithouse and I don’t have your ability to talk women’s panties off within five hours of meeting them. WHY ME?”

“Stop thinking Keegan, go buy her a drink and get lucky. Tell me about it in the morning, we’re going to head over to dance the rest of the night away.”

Chapter 2 – Accident

I spent the night with Amanda Kay in the VIP room and all we did was sit and talk. It was amazing. I found out so much about this beautiful woman, things that I thought I would never have in common.

We both had cats, though hers was a loner and not a lover. We both were avid readers, we talked about our favorite authors and the best books in the world and how one day we would take a month off from life and would write a book like all the people we read about on the internet. We both like sleeping in and reading the newspaper on a Sunday morning while being in bed.

She hadn’t had a boyfriend ever since the last winter, and even if it was hard enough to believe she still believed in remaining chaste until she was married. I was shocked and amazed. If it wasn’t for Deborah I would still be a virgin. But Amanda Kay seemed so brazen, so daring. She had men wrapped around her finger.

“But that’s the act I put out for everyone Keegan. I am really a shy woman. I got into stripping when I was in school at State Tech. My roommate Anna was the true wild child and one day after a disastrous final we came here to The Shadow to tease some men and get drunk since it was ‘Women drink free night’ why not? I’d try anything. So we came and some guy came up to me and asked me if I was a dancer. I was a soccer player in high school and still liked to keep my self in shape. But I thought I would never be a dancer. The only dance I knew was ballet and I really didn’t think that ballet and stripping would mix.”

“What happened next,” I was curious.

“Well, I told them that the only way that they would see me on stage was after shots and shots of Tequilla, and not the well shit, the good stuff. Six shots later, Anna was on stage I couldn’t believe that she could do it. She seemed to enjoy the attention and went home that night with over $300 dollars. All the guys wanted to see me but I couldn’t do it. The more I drank, the more they encouraged me. I went home that night with dollars in my bra even though I didn’t do a damn thing”

“What was the final straw that made you get on stage,” I encouraged her to continue.

“It was my boyfriend that I was dating at the time. He seemed to be such a nice guy. We had gone out for over a year and I thought he was going to ask me to marry him. He was a son to a state senator and I could see us together forever. I could never say no to his blue green eyes. Well I was leaving my dorm with Anna one night when in the parking lot I saw him kissing and pawing some freshman cheerleader. I hated the blonde peroxide bitch for years but something clicked inside of me. I felt rage, anger beyond belief. I felt used, like I was his toy, to be called only when he needed to take care of some sexual frustration. ‘Anna, we’re going to The Shadow’ I told her and dragged her back to the dorm room. I called up the soon to be ex, who had never seen me totally naked and told him to meet us at The Shadow at Midnight for a surprise.

I went and Anna did my nails and hair for that night. She seemed really into it. I found out much later that she was bisexual and she was working up the courage to ask to join me and my boyfriend in a sexual romp. I was speechless and I just didn’t know what to say.”

My mouth was dry; this was better than I had ever imagined. But why was she interested in me? Why did this simple girl turn into this sexual dynamo?

“We went up to The Shadow and asked to see the manager. Anna walked over and gave him a hug. I was confused.

‘Anna, what’s going on,’ I asked?

‘This is Jayson, he’s the manager and I have to tell you something. I’ve been stripping ever since finals last semester.’

‘WHAT? You gotta be kidding me.’

‘Yes, I’m making better money than working at the clothing store and I just love the looks the men give me’ she said turning to Jayson ‘You need to let her on tonight. I can get her all the forms and you know the guys love the blondes with blue eyes.’

‘You know Synthia is not going to be happy Jeni,’ Jayson said with a stern look

‘Jeni, who in the Fuck is Jeni?’

‘You can’t use your real name; all the guys want a stage name. And Synthia can go fuck herself. Ever since she took the Senator when I was studying for finals I could give a rats ass about her.’

‘But I like my name; Samantha is fine,’ Amanda Kay said

‘What’s your middle name sweety?’ Jayson asked.

‘Amanda Kay, why?’

“Amanda Kay it is. Get her to fill out the usual forms Jeni and get her ready. Tell her the rules and maybe she won’t suck it up as all the usual newbies do. Remember she’s your responsibility Jeni. She would look better with a boob job, not everyone has perfect boobs like you’ said Jayson.

‘Boob job, what rules? I was coming up to make him jealous’ Amanda Kay rambled on.

‘And you will,’ Anna/Jeni said as she guided me to the dressing room.”

“Wait a minute. You’re telling me that Jeni is really named Anna, your real name is Samantha and you were college roommates,” I stammered?

“Yes, we were, Keegan, and tonight Samantha and I are going to give you the night of your life,” said Anna/Jeni as she walked in.

“Uh, um what” I stammered?

“You don’t have to go home, you just can’t stay here,” said the bouncer as the lights came up. “Get OUT!”

And now you must get out cause that’s all you get, you don’t get anymore.