The Lodge

Chapter Two-1

Chapter Two

One of Destiny’s Boys

On Paul’s next visit the following weekend, his request to pay the extra fee for a collar felt more embarrassing, not less. Partly because he’d assumed, like most things, it would be successively easier, and so he hadn’t prepared, but more because he realized just as he entered the tiny room—where the same guy from the week before stood behind the counter—that anyone might have been curious enough to try wearing a collar. It took an undeniable amount of courage, for which he deserved esteem, to crawl through a crowded public place at the end of a beautiful woman’s leash, but now he was back for more. He had been subjugated by the beautiful Destiny and clearly loved it, and that thought converged intensely with his purchasing, for twenty dollars instead of ten, entrance into the club to repeat the humiliating, yet exhilarating, experience.

The evening was just gaining momentum with patrons and dancers both still arriving, as Paul shakily entered the club and was met by the dim lighting, his eyes slowly adjusting. He was pretty sure he glimpsed Destiny among the dancers slipping out from the back in their bikinis, easing into the mix by greeting the slightly less scantily-clad female bartenders and cocktail waitresses, saying hello to some of the regulars lining the bar top, sometimes slipping an arm over their shoulders and giving out half-hugs. Paul felt too shy to look for her. He was easing into the mix, as well, and letting the buzz of self-consciousness he was feeling dissipate. The stools around the stage, where he could be immediately absorbed by the dancers’ movements, were his refuge. He pushed up till his wedged apart knees touched.

April faced the large movie screen, which played a loop of advertisements and video clips, between the curtains to the back of the stage. She reached to her chest and tugged the knot of her scarlet top loose, which fluttered down her back landing in a pool behind her heels. She bent over and placed her palms flat against the moving images of the screen and made slow, deliberate circles in the air with her cute butt. April was a petite dancer with short straight frosted-blonde hair. She wore awkwardly large black boots that accentuated the cuteness of her small frame. She also had surprisingly large and exquisite t**s.

Spinning around, she fell back against the screen and, lifting an arm over her head, danced with her eyes closed for several beats. Her breasts lifted as her back arched. She danced over to the pole and did a pair of fully extended spins, impressively supporting her small frame with her tiny wrists c****d as her grip circled the shiny metal. She slid down the pole, still spinning, until her boots hit and circled the pole like skates. Dropping all the way down, she finished in a full split with her waist pressed to the floor, holding there to a smattering of applause and a long whoop from a fellow dancer somewhere in the shadows. She rose to her hands and knees and crawled toward Paul.

He held a pair of dollars above the stage, keeping them slightly fanned apart so she would see there were two, avoiding beckoning her over with them but wanting to show her they were hers if she wanted them. She greeted him when she got close and asked how he was doing, simultaneously beginning her show, leaning over and twisting her torso, producing a tight shimmy in her breasts. Paul told her he was doing fine and asked how she was. She answered with a smile, rolling onto her back and extending her legs into the air. She spread them open keeping them straight and, looking down her body at Paul, ran a finger between her legs along her bikini bottoms. She sat up and opened her garter. As Paul slipped the two dollars in, she reached over and hooked a finger into the loop of his collar. “Are you wearing that for me?”

Paul’s c**k lurched at the thought of being clipped by the effusive and kind young woman. He’d only gotten one private dance with April, but he had, of course, loved it and she always captured his full attention when she held the stage. During their chat before her private dance began, she had been so cheerful and disclosing about herself, Paul could hardly believe the transformation when the next song began and she stood between his knees and slipped off her top and grazed her thighs against his as she swayed sexily to the music.

“I’m just wearing it, not for any one person,” Paul said.

She looked past him, and Paul guessed she might have found Destiny somewhere behind him. “Okay,” she said. “Well, you have fun, tonight.” She danced off, glancing back coyly.

Paul felt only a fleeting embarrassment. The dancers talked and were extremely perceptive about which entertainers the regular patrons favored. They seemed more cooperative than competitive. He’d seen men get caught staring at a dancer from behind by another dancer, and after the two dancers briefly talked, the one who’d been surreptitiously ogled would approach the man and ask if he’d like a dance. Paul had seen that happen on more than one occasion. It was so routine for a dancer to acquire a fawning regular that Paul didn’t mind being known as Destiny’s. He even felt proud.

Another of Paul’s favorites came next: a statuesque brunette who rivaled Destiny for being a common club favorite and knew it. She seemed to go from one private dance to the next for the duration of her shifts. Camille was a dark complexioned beauty with a confidence Paul had always found alluring but intimidating, until he finally summoned the courage to request a private dance. She had an edgy friendliness but she was easy to chat with. The stage hadn’t yet filled, so he gave Camille two five-dollar bills, one for each song.

Camille was across the stage dancing for another man, but Paul was still zoned in on her form—the pair of ten second shows he’d bought only whetting his desire—until the DJ called the name of the upcoming dancer. Paul felt his stomach plummet and even his c**k, made fully hard by Camille’s stage show, softened from nervousness.

A week suddenly felt like an unbearably long time to go without seeing someone whose foot he’d kissed last meeting.

Camille met Destiny at the step down and offered her hand. The two women smiled and chatted. The thought of a pair of beautiful dancers enjoying a friendship titillated Paul. He knew female friendships didn’t entail pillow fighting in lingerie that led to make out sessions—though his fantasizing otherwise might have been part of it—he simply was glad for their companionship. When a room of horny men were made to wait while a pair of dancers partook in mundane female camaraderie, the collective boredom that ensued included a latent erotic element, in most of the men, Paul suspected, but for certain in him.

After a while, Destiny stepped down and released Camille’s hand. The bright smile curled into a sultry look as she slipped into her routine and strode seductively toward the pole, but she spotted Paul and halted mid-stride, half turning toward him and flashing a smile, before continuing on. She executed a quick pole routine and then strutted back toward Paul. She knelt with her knees at the rim of the stage.

Unlike the thrill he felt when the dancers paused their routines to chat with each other, Paul sensed an awkwardly intense boredom in men around the stage when dancers interrupted their shows to talk to certain men. An impotent jealousy as they were helpless to complain, not wanting to annoy the dancer and risk forfeiting ten possible seconds of attention, and too enamored to look anywhere else. So it had always been to Paul, especially with a dancer like Destiny, but now she was granting that attention to him and any awkwardness the other men—some of whom had approached the stage, not coincidentally, when Destiny emerged from behind the curtain—might have been feeling as they waited only made him feel more graced. She sat all the way back on her heels, hunched down and leaned toward him. She looped her finger into the ring of the collar and pulled him closer. “You’re back with a collar on.”

Paul nodded.

“And you’re going to be mine tonight?” She made an adorable pouting face, sternly placing her other hand on her knee. “I’m not going to look over and find you crawling after another entertainer, am I?”

“I’ll be yours,” Paul said, conscious of the men on either side of him listening.

She grinned and released him. Leaning back onto her elbows, she extended her legs into the air and clapped her heels together. Her legs stayed straight as she spread them slowly, following the movement of her tone legs with her gaze until she noticed Paul staring into her eyes. She looked at him and smiled.

Paul never knew where to look with a dancer so close. He preferred usually to gaze into their faces and was content to simply absorb their bodies in his periphery, but it felt almost impolite to ignore what they were working hard to show him, so he glanced but always returned to looking into their eyes. The dancers’ reactions to this varied considerably, from being discomforted to finding it downright creepy, but some, like Destiny, seemed to find it sweet.

Twisting slightly to center her weight onto her left elbow, she reached to her right knee with her right hand and slid her fingertips across her smooth inner thigh. This Paul did watch closely. He loved to look at the dancers’ hands, Destiny’s especially, and when he could watch her caress the pristine counterpart to her outer thigh, her unimaginably smooth inner thigh, watch and wish helplessly his own hands—clenched into half fists and pressed together, the five unfurled between—could even hope to feel that. She moved her hand to her garter, but paused, staring at Paul. He remained in a trance. Destiny sat on the rim of the stage and told Paul to scoot back a bit. He obeyed. She crossed her left leg over her right and pointed her foot toward the floor. “Could I have a kiss?”

Paul’s mouth dropped open. He looked down at her foot. The men next to him turned and stared with mixtures of shock and amusement. Awareness of what was happening seemed to spread quickly all around the stage as men leaned up and peered over. Paul looked up and blinked. Destiny smiled and wiggled her foot. “Please?”

Paul stationed his palm under her heel. He bent forward and pressed his lips to the top part of her foot and kissed. She patted his head, and when he looked up, she held her garter off her thigh with a finger. Paul slipped his five in.

She danced away, leaving him alone to endure the reaction of the crowd. The whole room seemed to be slowly catching wind of what had transpired and getting a look at him, the collar-wearing sycophant. The soft hand of a dancer landed on Paul’s shoulder and gave him a few pats before her giggle trailed off behind him, but he felt too embarrassed to even turn around to discover who it was. He simply held still, trying to breathe and let the evidence of his humiliation, the deep blush he felt, fade.

Destiny didn’t come to him again. With the stage full, she managed—crossing back and forth expertly to have the men in a frenzy worried they might miss her—to collect every dollar being waved, but the second five Paul had gone to humiliating lengths to retrieve from his pocket, like a flag displaying to the room his enjoyment of being Destiny’s foot-kissing collar boy, was left waving, impotently.

After Destiny’s two songs finished, the dancers gathered backstage. The DJ raced through the dinner specials—who could eat at a time like this?—and reminded everyone the bartenders and cocktail waitresses, all were working for tips, “Including, of course,” he broke into a bassoon rumble, “the lovely ladies of The Lodge!”

The lead dancer spread the curtains open and stepped out. They crossed the stage in a line with the room full of men cheering and hooting, politely clapping. Some of the dancers strode with confidence, some of the newer dancers appeared flustered by the attention, and some were nonchalantly crossing the stage and adjusting their outfits. Paul looked up as the rows of heels clicked past him, their feet a blur in the bottom of his periphery. Destiny smiled as she passed, and Paul gave a faint smile back. He scooted his stool to open an angle to drop off and to the floor after he’d been clipped.