The Lodge

Chapter Two-2

The night was livelier than the week before, and now knowing the long humiliating crawl awaiting him, Paul felt too nervous to look for her. He rubbed his clammy hands on his pants and stared at the empty stage. The dancers had all stepped down and had been milling about the room for a while. They had the length of a song to find a customer wanting a dance, and the song sounded half over when Paul finally willed himself to look up, expecting to find Destiny approaching, but she was nowhere near him. He scanned the room and found her crossing toward the steps. Behind her, a figure lumbered on all fours.

“Would you like a dance?”

A hand touched his shoulder and Paul turned to find Selena in white lingerie smiling at him. Selena was, while not exactly his type, still one of his many favorites. She was a petite blonde with lily-white, but unimaginably soft-looking, skin and an angelic face. She surprised him by clearly recognizing him as one of Destiny’s regulars. “I could do a regular one, while you’re waiting for Destiny. Here or in the back.”

“I better not. Thank you, though.”

She smiled and patted his shoulder. “You have fun, tonight.”

The song came to an end. As the next one began Paul started to imagine the form he’d seen crawling after Destiny on his knees in front of her as she began her show, but he put a stop to his reverie. It was poor taste to impinge on the illusion of privacy the dancers created for their customers. Paul scooted back up to the stage. The dancer who had just spoken to him came out; she must not have gotten any takers. It seemed it would be an embarrassing thing to be the one called to do a stage show after failing to land a customer for the special, but the dancers never seemed fazed. Selena came straight toward him as most of the men had been plucked from their stools for a pair of dances. She knelt and scraped the straps of her top off her shoulders and, with her breasts spilling from the loosed cups, squeezed them together with her arms and leaned forward, giving Paul a treasured, private glimpse at her boobs that, during the next song, would be completely revealed. She grinned. Her smile nearly touched to the curves of her cleavage in Paul’s sight line. Rising back up, she pulled the straps of her top back over her shoulders and stretched her right leg out, lifting the garter off her thigh.

As she danced away, Paul regretted not accepting a dance from her. He could have gotten a topless-only one in the main room for half the price—for only five times more what he’d just given her for ten seconds—without breaking his promise to Destiny.

His routine, though, was to remain at the stage and let the evening build up to a private dance with an entertainer who had especially captured his fancy. If Destiny offered to clip him, he would of course be on his knees, but until then he could enjoy the stage shows of some of the other beautiful entertainers. He kept this up even after Selena finished her two songs and the other dancers came down the steps of the private dance area, though he knew Destiny was among them and expected any moment for her to appear at his side with her leash stretched toward him. She didn’t. The dancers rotated every two songs and Paul felt pretty sure he had given money to every entertainer working that night. Some of them even came onto the stage for a second pair of songs, which wasn’t unusual; the rotation often changed depending on the availability of the dancers, but he hadn’t caught a glimpse of Destiny in well over an hour.

He wasn’t looking. He was too scared to look. He didn’t want to discover her leisurely flirting with a party of men while he obediently pined for her, refusing beautiful women offering to dance naked or half naked for him for a mere twenty or ten dollars. He felt stiff from sitting so long without any back support, but he was scared to walk around and run into her.

Selena came out for a third time, and she seemed amused finding him still there. Maybe Destiny had left. The dancers did sometimes work short shifts. Paul gave Selena two singles and thanked her for another stage show. As she danced away, he decided he would accept a dance from the next dancer he liked who offered and call it a night.

A soft hand trailed over his arm and across his back. A shoulder leaned into him. “Oh good. You’re still here.” Destiny stood slightly shorter with Paul sitting on the high stool.

“I’ve been here the whole time.”

She c****d her head and smiled. “Are you following me over for a private dance?”

Paul started to scoot off the stool to kneel, but he paused; her leash was wrapped around her forearm. “Not now.” She giggled. “I’m up next on stage. Have you been waiting for me this whole time?”

Paul nodded.

“Why didn’t you come find me?”

“I thought you knew where I was.” He felt a twinge of hurt in his voice, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“It’s been crazy in here. I’ve been doing one dance after another. All collar boys. I think that kiss got me a lot of attention.”

This stung him. “I didn’t realize I was doing it so other men could get dances.”

She frowned. “Paul, none of that. I’m at work, remember? Doesn’t it make sense for me to get some other dances during peak hours when I know I already have you waiting for me? Besides, you could have come and found me instead of sitting over here and pouting.” She hooked her finger into the ring of his collar and pointed his face toward hers. “Now apologize to me.”

“I’m sorry, Mistress Destiny.”

“Good boy.” She let go of his collar and pinched his cheek. “I’ll still have to spank you for it. I think I’ll put you across my lap, this time.” She let go of his cheek and turned and hurried off.

A pair of men wearing wristbands, ball caps on their heads, turned and stared at Destiny’s ass as she quick-walked—her tiny skirt flipping up with every step—into the back room. They turned to Paul after she vanished. One of them said, “She’s hot, if that’s the kind of thing you’re into.”

“She’s beautiful.” Paul kept his eyes pointed at them.

“Okay.” He laughed with his friend. They turned back to the stage.

The songs changed and Selena had to wait, her top in hand, until Destiny hustled out from behind the curtain, reached Selena, and took her hand for the step down. Raising her arms, Destiny shook her wavy hair out as she strutted to the pole and did a quick loop around before leaping and swinging in a wide circle, her bottom leg fully extended, the other posed in a bend. She flipped upside down and hooked the bent leg around the pole and did two more complete circles before sliding onto the stage with her head propped on her hand, her elbow on the stage and her legs crossed. She held this relaxed pose for a beat, to a round of cheers and applause.

She rose and began dancing for dollars.

The two young men to Paul’s left, though still widely grinning and cheering playfully, were staring after Destiny and waving their money for her to come to them with a vigor that neared desperation. Paul’s noble gesture of standing up for her honor felt somehow magnified and validated by the quality of her stage dance. She got to them during her topless, second song and took the ball cap off the one Paul hadn’t talked to and pulled it on, gently resting it over her full-bodied hair. The young man, grinning and hatless, stared up at her as she set her hand on his shoulder and leaned in to place her chest near his face. She scooted back and removed his hat and put it back on his head, before raising her garter. The guy, the bill of his hat jutted from his forehead at an askew angle, stretched up and put in his dollar. She did a side-somersault, placing her gorgeous behind in the sight line of the guy next to Paul. Her heels were over the rail, straddling him. Paul had a good view of the show, as well, as Destiny put her chest to the stage floor and pumped her lifted ass in the air. She looked over her shoulder to find the guy’s grin had been eradicated by the worshipful gaze Destiny had the power to induce in the most raucous club customers. She drew her hand back and landed one of her trademark hard spanks—unfortunately—to the cheek opposite Paul. The sound made the guy, coiled tight with sudden s****l tension, jump in his seat.

Paul grinned, and he caught her eye as she started to dance back to the other side of the stage. She stopped in the middle and halted her dance, looking slightly odd there, unmoving, as the beat of the song went on. She turned to Paul and put her hands in fists at her hips. Paul felt blood rush to his face. She approached and put her right foot on the rim of the stage just in front of him. She towered over him and scowled down. Pointing her finger into the air, she wielded it at him in a scolding gesture. Laughter carried through the room. Half the men around the stage knew he was about to get spanked; the other half guessed.

When she finished wagging her finger at him, she grinned and leaned slightly toward him, bending her knee. Paul still had to scramble up to reach when she raised her garter from her thigh. He slipped the five in and sat back down, and she had danced away before it occurred to him that he ought to feel cheated to get, for five dollars instead of one, a scolding instead of a dance. He didn’t, though. Bowing his head contritely as he accepted the chastisement, he could still see her powerful form above him. Her shirt and top stripped off, managing to play, so expertly, the strict mistress role with the attention of the entire club focused on her. He was overcome with esteem for her. He couldn’t imagine where she got the courage; he could barely stand the heat in his own skin, playing his submissive role. The moment seemed certain to be one he fantasized about the instant he got home, but then he remembered that he would soon be going over the woman’s lap and getting spanked. Good chance that would take its place.

The second song finished and, after helping the next dancer onto the stage, Destiny slipped backstage. Moments later, she returned to the club floor, and Paul caught her moving toward him with the clip of her leash held out. He swiveled his stool her way as she approached. “Would you like a dance?” she asked, certain of his answer.

“Yes, please, Mistress.”

She clipped the leash to his collar, and Paul slid off the stool and stood in front of her. She had him in a triangle between the stool and the stage and her commanding presence and she didn’t intend to give him any more room, it seemed. Paul dropped, in the tight space, to one knee and then the other, kneeling up with his body straight and his head tilted up to look at her. Destiny grinned and turned halfway to the two men Paul had been sitting next to. “See all the fun you’re missing, boys, with your wristbands?”

They laughed awkwardly, appearing flustered by her beauty and display of power. They were probably anxious that their own desires might have them in Paul’s place, eventually, perhaps in ten or twenty years. Destiny pivoted, and Paul felt a slight tug on the leash. “Come along,” she said and began walking. Paul crawled after her.

She wound him through the floor of the club. Unlike last time he made the humiliating journey, for the special, there were less entertainers escorting customers to the private dance area, so he attracted more looks from the men and entertainers seated at tables as he crawled by them. Paul kept his head up and let the gyrating cheeks under Destiny’s skirt occupy his full attention. She led him up the steps. The only people up there were an entertainer in the middle of performing for a patron wearing a wristband and a bouncer who spent his shift keeping watch that no club rules of contact were violated and who collected a portion of the dancers’ tip money for the club.