The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Georgia sat on the fire escape smoking and listening to the sounds of a city refusing to sleep.

She should have been in bed after another long shift tending bar but she was too keyed up after six interminable hours of slinging cheap beer in a college dive bar with pretensions of mediocrity.

So Georgia sat out on the steel grating, tapping the cigarette and watching the embers drift down into the garbage packed alleyway far below like a shower of tiny shooting stars winking out in the cool night air. Listening to the distant honking of midnight traffic. The unintelligible cries of the drunken homeless. The muted bass music from the strip club down the block and the myriad other inauspicious sounds of downtown after a rational person’s bedtime.

And above it all, the loud sounds of rampant animated fucking coming from the apartment directly above her own.

“You are nailing the sad goth girl look, Georgie.” Her roommate Linh’s head was poking out from the tiny kitchenette window and grinning at her across the short intervening distance. “Let me get my phone and we’ll sell the snaps to lonely emo losers online for beer money.”

“Yeah, right.” Georgia took a short pull on her Chesterfield Slim. “I’ll let that happen just as soon as you dress up in a tiny k-pop outfit for the same photo shoot.”

“Ewww… yuck. How would that even work?” Linh’s pretty face screwed up in mock disgust. “My family is Vietnamese and I can’t pose to save my life.”

Georgia wondered, not for the first time, how her young life had become the premise to a lousy nineties sitcom.

Like, here’s the elevator pitch. Freshly minted college freshman moves out of home in a desperate bid for independence. Said move comes with pesky new responsibilities like food and rent so she gets a part-time job pitching foamy suds and no-name whiskey for minimum wage and whatever tips her equally minimum patrons can afford to bestow upon her.

Tight money equates to tighter living quarters in a rat-hole apartment block on the wrong side of town with her workmate turned roommate (because hey, we girls have got to stick together) and somewhere along the line it was her study that went part-time while her shitty job took pole position to keep up with the mountain of bills that needed paying.

“You and me both…” Georgia muttered then paused as a ecstatic feminine wail cut through the flaky panel ceiling. “Jeezus, are they fucking or trying to kill each other up there?”

“Beats me but they’ve been going at it for ages!” Linh exclaimed, her long raven hair spilling out the little window as she tried to twist her shoulders to glance upwards. She was going to sprain her neck. “It’s like they’re training for the sex olympics or something. Have you met him yet?”

Him.

He of the endlessly thudding headboard. The composer of entire concertos made up of gratified girly moans. Mister Growly Grunts as Linh liked to giggle in the mornings after the lewd racket had finally died down. Georgia hadn’t met the guy but she already wanted to kick him squarely in the scrote. She’d wear her heaviest pair of Doc Martins just to see if his balls were actually made of solid brass as she suspected.

And he’d only moved in a week ago.

“I think so? Maybe by the mailboxes.” She hedged, trying to recall. “But I’ve definitely seen the kind of girl he is bringing home.”

“Really, the Marathon Man has a type?”

He did, most certainly he did. Georgia didn’t want to call anyone a slut. Nor a tramp or skank either. A modern educated woman knew better than to proliferate such terminology meant to internalize sexism with the intention of controlling women.

“They are… you know.” Georgia floundered for an appropriately correct description. “Young, attractive, free spirited…”

“Under-dressed?” Linh snickered, abandoning her voyeuristic attempts to stare holes through the crumbling brick facade above their heads. “Suitably well fucked?”

Georgia looked down at her pitch black fingernails in shame and twirled her smoldering cigarette in thoughtful fashion.

There was the eternal sisterhood of all women everywhere to consider, but the girls she had witnessed stumbling down the stairs—all impressively busty, bowlegged, barely dressed and grinning from ear to ear—had all seemed a bit brainless in Georgia’s opinion.

They were the sort to giggle a lot and flip their long glossy waterfalls of illustrious hair to grab some random hunks attention. Then titter on their way back to his apartment on precariously tall high heels which would soon be dangling up in the air as the young stud pounded their easy pussies.

“Something like that.” Georgia conceded unhappily then sneezed… and sneezed again.

“Oh shit, Georgie. Is that flu bug still kicking your ass?” Linh asked in concern. “Wait there, I’ll get you some tee pee to blow your nose”

“Izz just a bad head cold.” She snuffled, wiping at her nose and flicking the last of the cigarette over the railing.

It bounced off the featureless smog-stained brick wall of the neighboring apartment block only seven feet away. What a great fucking view.

She shouldn’t be smoking anyway. If they were scrimping on tissues to save a few bucks, Georgia couldn’t really justify maintaining a nicotine habit. Easier said than done though and she needed a vice to keep from going totally bonkers…

She ducked back through her bedroom window and had to step across her single sized bed where it was crammed up against the wall to make room for a tiny dresser slash side table combo in her little eight by eight cupboard of a bedroom. Linh met her at the door.

“Here…” She said, giving her a bunched up wad of toilet paper and a worried look. “Maybe you should go see a doctor? Your nose is looking pretty red.”

“Who’s going to pay for that? Not you or me.” Georgia scoffed, gratefully accepting the offering and dabbing at her pale face with it.

She hadn’t been able to taste or smell anything for a week but she was no stranger to a late season cold or flu. She got them nearly every year and blamed it on a growing vitamin D deficiency. If her waking hours grew any more nocturnal, Georgia was going to graduate from sad but pretty goth girl to full blown vampire countess status.

“Still, you should consider one of the free clinics—” Linh was interrupted by a loud elated feminine squeal and a crash above their heads that shook a small line of plaster dust from the already questionable ceiling. “Oh, for fucks sake! I’m going up there with a bucket of cold water and…”

“Leave it.” Georgia said miserably. “Try and get some sleep. We can… I don’t know, slip a sternly worded note under his door tomorrow or whatever.”

Taking her roommates silent glower at the floor above as tacit agreement, Georgia stripped off her torn black jeans and Motorhead skinny tee and slipped into bed.

The throaty grunts and passionate moans continued unabated until she finally fell asleep.

Georgia didn’t get the chance to pen her note before meeting the mystery man upstairs for the first time. He was collecting his post from the large bank of mailboxes in the ground floor entryway the next afternoon just as she was returning from class.

She didn’t recognize him at first but his open olive green brass receptacle was labeled 10a which logically placed him directly above her own apartment 9a several floors up.

She sized him up with a glance, checking for any of the usual warning signs. It was a skill all young women quickly acquired after working behind a bar for any length of time. He was inspecting a small brown paper package with some eagerness but was otherwise remarkably unremarkable.

No bulging steroid enhanced muscles. No gang or biker tattoos. No squinty wandering eyes or gelled up Chad hairdo. Just a lean average twenty-something guy in worn acid washed jeans, a beige button up and slightly scuffed sneakers who could have been a face in any number of innocuous backgrounds.

This was the pussy-crushing sex god from upstairs? Surely not…

“Ummm, Hi? Can I help you, miss?”

Oh, shit. He had caught her staring and was looking back at her with a mildly helpful expression.

His hair was mud brown but neatly trimmed in a five dollar haircut, probably from one of the hole-in-the-wall budget barbershops down on Third Avenue. His eyes were a flat greenish hazel and his cheeks held the hints of some hold-out teenage acne under a faint shadow of wispy stubble.

“What? No… just waiting to get to my mailbox.” Georgia said with a sniff. She had taken a decongestant earlier in the day but it wore off hours ago and her head felt stuffed full of cotton wool again. “Do you mind?”

“Sorry, go ahead.” He said, locking his own box before stepping back and sorting through his mail distractedly.

Georgia didn’t have any mail. She knew this because Linh brought it in every morning along with the cheap coffee from the donut shop on the corner. However, as she fished out her keys—making a pretense of opening and checking for letters (more overdue bills most likely)—she managed to spot his name inked onto a strip of masking tape stuck below his mail slot.

V. Powell.

What the hell did the V. stand for?

“Vince! Hey there, Hot Stuff. I’m, like, sooo~ glad I ran into you!”

The high pitched bubbly tone of voice grated on Georgia’s modern feminist sensibilities and she turned to see a mildly awkward V. Powell being greeted by the only-just eighteen Lily Pierre from apartment 9c. Georgia had to admit she only knew the girl’s name from the biweekly screaming matches the teenager regularly engaged in with her overworked single mother.

Usually over the topic of Lily’s standards of dress or the company of certain boys she chose to keep.

“Hi Lily, good to see you.” The forenamed Vince replied. He sounded a bit sheepish and was rubbing the back of his neck in a guilty tell. Had something happened between the two of them? Surely not… “Are you keeping well?”

Lily’s mother Nadia was a dark statuesque—if somewhat severe—Haitian woman, who worked long hours as a nurse at St Andrews Hospital across town. Georgia had never felt it polite or pertinent to inquire after her wayward husband but judging by her daughter’s sharply featured bone structure, shiny caramel skin and long flowing curls, Lily had got the best of two very different worlds. Even if the young lady had dyed her glossy tresses bright pink in some poorly planned act of youthful rebellion.

Her dark roots were showing.

“All the better for seeing you, Handsome.” The pastel-haired troublemaker purred, sauntering towards him in a tight violet crop top that showed off an expanse of flat cappuccino belly and frayed denim cutoffs that left every silky inch of her smooth slender legs out for the world to ogle. “When are you coming around for dinner? Mama said she would cook up her special Poule en Sauce just for you.”

“I don’t know. I’m fairly busy with work at the moment and…” Vince faltered back half a step as the barely legal teen beauty ghosted her small hands over his slim shoulders and melted her supple young body against his front with a breathy little moan.

The swell of her burgeoning breasts pushed out against his narrow chest as she buried her beautiful face into the crook of his neck and inhaled deeply.

“You should make the time. Mama promised she would make it… extra spicy. Just for you.” Lily crooned as she rubbed her cute button nose along the young man’s fuzzy jawline as though she intended to inhale him wholesale.

Georgia let out the sneeze to end all sneezes.

She had been fighting to hold it back and it showed. The sneeze was explosive and soggy and full of mucus. A total mood killer by the filthy look Lily shot her way but not unwelcome by the relieved expression on Vince’s bland face.

“I’ll certainly keep that in mind.” Vince said, taking advantage of the distraction to gently disengage himself from the pouting teenage beauty and head towards the stairs. The elevator had been out of order since the day Georgia and Linh had moved it and nobody was holding their breath waiting on repairs. “Catch you later, Lily. It was nice to meet you…”

“Georgia.” She immediately wanted to kick herself for falling for a simple conversational ploy as filling a verbal blank but Vince didn’t even blink.

“Nice to meet you Georgia.” He returned distractedly before stuffing his mail under one arm and beginning the long ten flight climb up the grimy cement stairwell. “You might want to see someone about that nasty cold.”

“Byyeeee~ Vince!” Lily called after him with a starry-eyed look on her beautiful young face.

Georgia didn’t miss the way the buxom teen clasped her hands together under her full chest and twisted from side to side. It pushed her shiny tits up and nearly out of her loose fitting top as she leaned forward a fraction as though to better display them to Vince’s retreating back.

Abruptly it was just the two of them standing alone in the dimly lit entryway. Georgia closely watched the Caribbean coed as she stared dreamily after the distinctly average guy from upstairs.

“So that’s him, huh?” Georgia prodded, not feeling the need to elucidate further. Lily and her mother only lived three doors down the corridor and they had to hear the loud nightly acrobatics almost as clearly as she and Linh did.

Half the damn neighborhood was probably being kept awake by that garden-variety guy next door. Perhaps he had a hunky roommate who was actually responsible for all the carnal clamor?

“I know, right? What a total beefcake smoke show…” Lily said with a longing sigh before coming back to herself and giving Georgia some serious side-eye. “Maybe next time you can keep your snotty nose out of the way when a girl is trying to make her move.”

Georgia felt like there were some major dots she wasn’t connecting here. Lily was young, vivacious and—yes, Georgia could admit it—objectively hotter than Texas tarmac. Her mother Nadia was working a second full-time job in keeping the local boys from sniffing around her preening daughter like a pack of horny mongrels.

But seriously, Vince?

“Or are you trying to steal him for yourself?” The stunning teen huffed, turning a thousand watts of scornful glare on Georgia. “Don’t bother, Sister. This whole ‘I’m a lonely little emo, please send me a pity fuck’ look you have going isn’t what Vince is into.”

Georgia felt like she had been slapped.

Where was all the animosity coming from? She had hardly said two words to the guy and suddenly the beautiful Lily Pierre was acting like Georgia was stepping on all ten of her pretty painted toes.

“What? No, I honestly don’t see what all the fuss is about.” Georgia said defensively and hated how it sounded. She didn’t have to explain herself to an irrational teenager suffering from an ill-advised crush. There was nothing to explain in any case.

“You wouldn’t. You’re just a small fish swimming in a small pond without a hope of hooking a whale like Vince.” Lily smirked with a haughty flick of her long pastel locks. “Just remember to stay in your own lane, Sister and nobody’s feelings need to get hurt.”

“Whatever. I don’t have time for this shit.” Georgia scowled and pushed past the sneering girl to head back to her apartment. She needed to get ready for her upcoming shift. “Maybe he likes girls that can afford pants that don’t show off last night’s dinner.”

It was a petty throwaway insult and probably below Georgia but she still enjoyed the indignant gasp it got in return as she jogged up the stairs.

“Lily Pierre said that?” Linh asked incredulously, placing a tray of empties on the polished bartop. “And you’re saying Mister Growly Grunts is nothing special in the looks department…”

“Not even slightly!” Georgia confirmed, grabbing the beer glasses and dunking them into the soapy rinse bucket. “Vince looks as plain and exciting as vanilla ice cream but Lily was all over him like white on rice.”

“But Lily is super hot…” Linh’s almond eyes narrowed like she was trying to solve a complex riddle. “Maybe she has a thing for older guys? Her father left while she was pretty young, I think.”

“He’s not that old.” Georgia snorted back a laugh and about half a head full of snot, “I’d be shocked if there was more than a five year age gap between the two of them.”

“Truly?”

“Ladies, I need one of you pouring drinks and the other taking orders.” Their manager Sammy called from down the bar where she was working the ancient cash register. “There are customers waiting.”

That was a bit of a stretch. It was a Thursday night and that meant student night for the Latest Edition; a sketchy little pub at best trying to pull in the younger set by virtue of being on the same subway line as the local community college.

The curling wallpaper had faded long ago and the wainscoting still bore the patina of smoke stains from countless cigars back when it had been named the Cuban Club. That was over a decade earlier. The bar and timber tabletops were all polished bright but the upholstered stools and booth seats were threadbare and fraying from years of neglect.

Some wise-ass had scribbled “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” in permanent marker above the mens bathroom door and nobody had seen fit to scrub the damning words away. Maybe because whichever employee landed the unenviable job of hosing down the urinals and mucking out the stalls after closing time invariably agreed with the sentiment.

A random hodgepodge of memorabilia cluttered the walls in no particular theme or fashion. Framed rockabilly vinyl records were hung beside colorful Mexican sombreros. Dusty New York street signs pointed the way to tanning reprints of signed hockey team photographs over twenty years old.

“Sure thing, Sammy.” They said in practiced unison and Linh shot Georgia a cheeky grin as she grabbed a clean serving tray and wandered back out into the mostly empty bar.

They both liked Sammy. The battle worn ex-waitress had bought up the bar from the previous owner for a song, or so she thought at the time. But the recent economic crisis had resulted in a sharp downturn in local employment figures and an up rise in national interest rates that hit the struggling business and its blonde mid-thirties owner hard.

They both liked Sammy enough to keep showing up on nights like tonight when the only barflies in attendance were the few hard-bitten regulars sinking glass after cheap glass of draught beer as though trying to drown themselves. Not to forget the young German backpacking couple who must have been lost and the weekly meeting of a group of hipster college juniors who seemed to lap up the depressing ambience that oozed from kitschy decor like a nearly physical miasma.

Linh had named them the soon-to-be dead poets society.

They fit the bill with their lank hair, obligatory skinny jeans and a gross excess of droopy tribal print scarves. Three girls and a tall rail-thin guy. Each carrying yellow legal notepads filled with their incomprehensible chicken scratchings and who all looked one bad break up away from cutting on themselves.

“Three glasses of red for the Emily Brontes and another draught for Hemingway.” Linh said, popping back into view with a playful smirk. “He’s been staring at your tits all night. You wanna deliver the drinks and schmooze up a decent tip?”

Linh’s idea of work attire was a light one-size fits small v-neck shirt that flashed a hint of her soft cleavage and a plain denim midi skirt. Nothing too daring but enough to attract the eye without inviting grabby hands. Her long dark hair was pulled back into a simple pony-tail and what little makeup she wore was sparing but accented her pretty Asian features well enough.

“You know I don’t do that. It’s not dignified and he smells like too much cheap cologne.” Georgia grumped then sniffled again. The bin under the bartop was fast filling with cocktail napkins that were pulling double duty as nose rags.

“Then make those clogged up sinuses work for you, girl.” Linh insisted. “You can’t eat dignity and you’re looking hot tonight.”

Georgia didn’t feel that hot. She felt like a pale snuffling mess with her barely there tits stuffed into a black Metallica baby tee and a studded leather biker skirt hanging off her bony hips. She only wore the damn skirt because Sammy had asked the girls to show a little more leg after watching Coyote Ugly (urgh) one too many times and they both felt like their overworked manager deserved any small edge they could offer.

That and they really needed this job. No matter how shitty the pay and conditions were. At least it was within walking distance of their apartment building.

“I could go over there and sneeze all over him. How hot do you think that would be?”

“Honestly, I’d take fifty-fifty odds that he’d be into it.” Linh snickered then turned serious when she noticed Georgia frozen and staring at the door. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s him.” Georgia hissed under her breath nodding towards the entry. “He’s here and not alone…”

Vince had just wandered off the darkened street in a pair of bulk-standard blue jeans and gray flannel button-up that had a splotchy orange stain on the front where he had spilled food on himself. His radiant aura of utter forgettability was still firmly in play but Georgia must have been missing something judging by the adoring looks the woman practically dangling off the young man arm was giving him.

She was tall, slender and very beautiful.

Dressed like a cheap floozy. Heavy on the black mascara and bubblegum lipstick. Clad in a shiny white scanty bustier stretched over her big bolt-on boobs and equally reflective crimson booty shorts clinging for dear life to her taut swaying ass.

Trashy but beautiful.

She was giggling at something he had said and her long peroxide locks were spilling across his narrow chest as she snuggled her stunning face up under his chin. Stuck fast together—she of the four inch sparkly knife heels and Vince in his customary scuffed sneakers—they wandered up to Sammy’s end of the bar.

“Really, that’s Mister All-Night-Long?” Linh gasped, radiating confusion back at Georgia. “Are you certain?”

“Why don’t you go ask her.” Georgia murmured in reply, staring meaningfully at the scantily clad woman trying to nibble on their upstairs neighbor’s ear. She was so much taller than Vince that she had to stoop to do so. “She seems to know something that we don’t.”

“Perhaps he’s a secret millionaire slumming it for kicks?” Linh suggested but looked skeptical. “Should we say something to him? About the nightly noise level, I mean.”

Sammy had grown unusually still as the scruffy young man spoke to her in tones too quiet for anyone else to hear. Their boss usually had a very stern no-nonsense attitude when it came to the dubious sorts that occasionally graced her beloved establishment. It was born of years of spirit-crushing wait staff experience.

But as Vince spoke to her—incidentally batting his mewling companions wandering hands away from his belt line—Sammy just stood there silent and nodding along with wide eyes and a slack-jawed look on her face.

“I’m going to talk to him.” Linh decided, squaring up her shoulders with resolve. “He has to learn that a girl needs her beauty sleep.”

“No, don’t go.” Georgia hissed but her roommate was already gone, marching down the length of the bar with her fists balled up at her sides. “Linh, come back here!”

Something was happening. She couldn’t put her finger on it but Georgia would have guessed that if the First Edition still had a working jukebox—which it absolutely didn’t—the record would have scratched the moment this unlikely pair stepped over its threshold.

It seemed to wash out from the two of them like a slow ripple in a pond of cold molasses.

First Sammy, then the regular trio of bitter muttering ex-municipal workers drinking away their benefit checks fell silent as they gave Vince and the bottle blonde furtive worried glances.

The youthful German couple was next. The smiling well-built man with his sandy beard suddenly staring hang-dog into the only lager they had on tap while his buxom chestnut-haired partner transmitted longing glances at Vince. Squirming prettily on her stool and gnawing at her plump lower lip.

Whatever it was must have washed straight past Georgia because the soon-to-be dead poets society had hushed their usual inane natter too. Two of the smoky eyed Emily Brontes looking away with blushing cheeks and the third scribbling furiously away on her legal pad with an intense stare locked directly onto Vince.

Hemingway looked like he wanted to slide under the table and evaporate.

Even Linh had a stutter in her step as she closed in on the fawning duo. Her body language broadcasted uncertainty, where only moments before she had been on a legitimate warpath.

Georgia watched her roommate slow to a languid hip-swaying sashay until she was only standing a few feet from the sex pervert from upstairs, fidgeting with her fingers held in close to her waist.

“Hi…” Linh peeped out, she sounded nervous and Georgia toweled off her wet hands ready to intervene. “I’m Linh… I—ummm…”

Georgia cocked her head to one side and frowned. Linh was usually little Miss Social with a quip for every comment and a mouth that could reach speeds upwards of a mile a minute. Sammy, Vince and Tits Galore all turned to look at her expectantly but that seemed to be all they were getting.

“Hi Linh, my name is Vince and this is Peppermint.” He said with a small nod to her. “I was just complimenting…”

He trailed off and looked at their boss expectantly.

“Sammy.” Sammy eagerly interjected, then blushed.

“...Sammy here on her lovely hair.” He continued smoothly and Sammy turned a few shades darker as she toyed with the hem of her apron. “It’s such a fetching golden color.”

“Viiiince~... you like my hair too, right?” The unlikely named Peppermint whined as she plastered herself to his side and pulled at his flannel like an attention hungry toddler. “You told me I was pretty back at the club.”

“You are pretty, Sweetheart.” Vince mollified her by resting his hand on one toned ass cheek and giving it a little pat. “I love how long and soft your hair is.”

The bar had grown deathly silent. The men looked squeamish and the women hung on his every word as though he were preaching the holy gospel. Georgia couldn’t make sense of any of it, so she waited. Giving Linh her chance to dress the quite literally noisy fucker down.

“What about me?” Her roommate suddenly asked, shyly toying with her own long dark hair.

“You sound awfully thirsty for a barmaid.” Peppermint snapped, staring daggers at Linh and dragging Vince’s skinny arm deep into her barely concealed cleavage. Her breasts barely shifted despite the furious motion, both as solid and spherical as silicon packed cannonballs.

“Well, your hair is nice, I guess.” Vince conceded, craning his head a little to give the petite Asian a slow appraising up and down. “You have lovely dark eyes but your ass is better. It looks so tight and pert.”

Georgia fumed. This was blatant objectification. Harassment even. Sammy was right there and saying nothing as this nobody wandered in off the street with a goddamn stripper on his arm and started throwing about his chauvinist opinions like it was his god-given right.

He was clearly making everybody uncomfortable.

Well… the male population, at least. Linh had started bouncing excitedly on her tiptoes and fussing at her midnight hair for some reason.

“Hey, you leave them alone.” Georgia challenged, throwing her dish cloth on the bar and stalking towards them. “Nobody came here tonight looking for your validation, scumbag.”

The women gasped and the men all flinched as she stormed over to face him across the width of the bar. Backing up Sammy who was staring down at her own feet.

“Scumbag? Who—Do I know you?” Vince looked puzzled then glanced about defensively. “I mean, they did ask…”

“Georgie, it’s okay.” Linh piped up unexpectedly, “He was just being friendly.”

Friendly.

Yeah, guys were always just being friendly when bothering a girl who was just minding her own business. The creep’s hand was still on the fake blonde’s skinny butt, squeezing it now. For fucks sake. Well, Mr Apartment 10a could go and be friendly somewhere else. Preferably somewhere with thick walls and good soundproofing.

“Nobody seems to mind—”

“I mind. So you can either buy a drink and sit down or get out.” She snapped, looking to her boss for support.

Sammy had shuffled a few steps away from her as though trying to distance herself from the conflict. It was as though the manager’s usual bad ass bitch attitude had drained out through the soles of her sensible shoes. So much for solidarity amongst the laboring masses.

Then Georgia sneezed and covered her face with a hand as she felt her nose burst like a snotty hoover dam.

“I do know you.” Vince exclaimed, pointing at her with the hand not currently mauling the exotic dancers tooshie. Georgia grabbed up a handful of napkins and turned away to mop at her face. “Hey, let me apologize. I didn’t come in here to cause trouble. Honestly, I was just looking for a bathroom.”

“Oh, it’s just over there.” Sammy said, finding her voice at last as Georgia swabbed at her lips and chin with her back turned to the crowd. “Sorry about her, Georgia is feeling a bit under the weather. Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Thanks, Hon but maybe next time.” His reply came and it at least sounded a bit sheepish.

Good.

Then he was gone and Sammy placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I think you should call it quits early tonight, Georgia. You look tired and you’re clearly not feeling well.”

“You’re taking his side?” Georgia couldn’t believe what she was hearing, Sammy was usually a staunch defender of her staff. All two of them.

“I’m not taking anyone’s side. I’m telling you to care about your health.” Her boss said in an infuriatingly calm tone of voice. Sounding like Georgia’s mother. “I can see you are getting worked up but all he did was pay me a compliment.”

Behind them, the men of the bar were performing a mass exodus. Hemingway led the charge and the young German pulled his girlfriend with him. The brunette looked undecided if she wanted to leave or not.

“He called you Hon!”

“I’ve been called a lot worse names in my time.” Sammy told her with a gentle smile. “Now go home and get some rest. I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

Georgia looked to Linh, who in turn was staring at the door to the mens bathroom and licking her lips. The cute bartender gave a start when she noticed Sammy and Georgia staring at her.

“What? I thought he was nice.”

“Fine.” Georgia sagged in defeat and untied her apron. “I’ll go but I still think there is something weird about that guy.”

“I’m sure everything will appear a lot clearer after a good night’s sleep.” Sammy reassured her.

“That’s half the problem.” Georgia muttered heading for the door and stepping out into the warm downtown humidity. “How am I supposed to sleep with…”

Looking about the empty street she slowed. Where was Spearmint or whatever her name was? She hadn’t been in the bar just now…

With a growing sense of unease Georgia peered back through the grimy window with the name the First Edition stenciled across the double glazing in peeling gold leaf.

Inside was a ghost town with only Sammy, Linh and the three Emily Brontes staring silently at the door to the mens bathroom with an unreadable mixture of expressions on their blushing faces.

Above it the scrawled graffiti read like an ill omen.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

“Georgie. Georgie, wake up.”

Georgia groaned. It had taken her ages to fall asleep at the early hour of nine o’clock at night and she could feel a damp puddle of saliva on her pillow thanks to her obligate mouth breathing.

“Linh, what time is it?” She rasped, her throat felt as dry and rough as sandpaper.

“It’s that Vince guy again.” Her roommate whispered conspiratorially, her face a shadow in the darkness. “You were worried about him right?”

They were in Georgia’s cramped shoe box of a bedroom and yes, the unfortunately familiar cacophony of creaking furniture, elated feminine squeals and brutish male grunts was back in full swing upstairs.

“Fuck me.” She whined and tried to pull her pillow over her ears.

“Right. Exactly.” Linh agreed, nodding her head emphatically. “I heard what you said in the bar so I did a little scouting. I think you need to see this.”

“Scouting? Woah… Linh, wait.” Georgia squawked as the athletic little Asian all but dragged her out of bed.

She habitually slept in an old band t-shirt and a pair of comfy cotton boy shorts so a lot of Georgia’s ghostly pale skin was revealed when she slid from under the threadbare sheets.

“Don’t worry about that.” Linh said, waving a dismissive hand. “It’s well after midnight. Noone will see us. Just follow me but keep quiet.”

Curious, Georgia followed Linh out onto the fire escape. Her friend was still wearing the same open-necked shirt from work but had traded the modest jean skirt for a tiny pair of stretchy gray yoga shorts that molded to her trim bottom like a second skin.

Moving with catlike grace, Linh crept to the ladder leading upwards and turned to give Georgia the universal gesture for silence—one raised finger pressed to her puckered lips—before climbing carefully upwards on bare feet.

There was only one place she could be going.

Georgia was a mess of warring emotions. On one hand, she knew what was going on up there and didn’t want to see it. Mr Grunty Growls was grunting and growling and fucking that mint-flavoured stripper until her brains dripped out of her ears like melted candle wax.

On the other hand, if Vince was up to nefarious no-good (as Georgia suspected) then perhaps Linh had seen some evidence of said foul deeds. No matter how questionable her methods of investigation might be. So she quietly followed Linh up the ladder, wishing she had brought her phone and trying to ignore the exaggerated wiggling of her roommate’s hips.

They crawled together onto the steel grate landing and crouched on either side of the window. The blinds were only partially drawn and light flooded out from the living space within. If it were possible, the lewd sound of slapping flesh and mingled cries of pleasure were even louder from their new vantage point.

“Yes, Baby! Yes, pound my horny slut pussy!”

“That’s right. Fuuuuck yeah—Take it. Take all my fucking cock—you stupid whore!”

Georgia was shocked. Scandalized. It sounded like an act of domestic violence was playing out a few feet away if not for the wanton female moans accompanying the crash of something breakable hitting the hardwood floor inside.

Linh’s expression was gleeful as she peeked inside then curled a finger at Georgia to do the same.

She wasn’t so sure. Her roommate’s cheeks were burning and her fit thighs churning as she watched through the gap in the window shades. Georgia frowned as she leaned cautiously forward to join her friend in fogging up the glass.

Within was the scene of a riot.

Vince was bare but for his unbuttoned flannel hanging loosely from one hunched shoulder. Vanilla Mint was entirely naked and folded nearly in two on the sofa with her long long legs pushed up in the air by Vince’s grip upon her slender ankles and her big hard-packed titties squished up under her drooling chin.

Her bleached blonde head was jammed awkwardly into the corner of the armrest. Her spray-tanned ass lifted high above her heaving shoulders as she bucked her juicy hips and sodden pussy up to meet the rutting degenerate’s every frantic down thrust.

“More. Give me more you amazing goddamn stud!” The gyrating dancer shrieked, her lean body seizing and quaking as Vince’s pale flexing butt pumped like a pneumatic piston between her splayed silken thighs. “Break me on that bitch-splitter until I can’t walk for a week!”

A table lamp laid shattered on the ground beside the sofa. Knocked clean off a teetering side table by the wailing woman’s flailing arms.

That wasn’t the half of it. Scattered cushions, crumpled beer cans, crushed plates and more than a few glass aftershave bottles littered the ancient timber flooring across the breadth of the small dank apartment.

Jeezus if this was the state of the living room then Vince’s bedroom must have been reduced to flinders.

“Here it comes, you insatiable bitch!” Vince growled as his back arched and his toes curled against the floorboards. His hands had taken a new grip of her hard unmoving knockers, gripping her fat nipples like handles as he dragged her back into his pussy-plumbing prick. “Here comes load number four…”

“Yaaassss~! Yes, fill me, baby. Just keep pouring that hot cummy spunk into my tight puss puss… You’re sooo~ much bigger than my stupid boyfriend. Yes yesyesyesyeys~!”

Georgia tried to catch Linh’s eyes with an incredulous look but her roommate was affixed to the window, all but licking the glass in erotic excitement. A wet spot was visibly darkening the taut gray fabric between Linh’s shifting thighs as her hands clenched in trembling fists under her modest perky bosom.

“We need to go.” Georgia hissed into the writhing girl’s ear. “This is all fucked up.”

“Nooooo~... don’t you see?” Linh whinnied, gnawing on a whitened knuckle. “It all makes total sense now. Because he’s such a hunk. He’s, like, a god of crushing the puss.”

Georgia spared a glance back through the window as she seized her moaning friend by the arm.

Vince’s mop of mud brown hair was buried between the shuddering skank’s stiff fake tits. His spotty ass plunging away and his hairy knuckles hammering at her shiny hips. His soft love handles jiggled with each ferocious thrust into her dewy depths.

He was certainly energetic, Georgia would give Vince that. But a sex god?

No. Hell no.

Something was very wrong here, Georgia decided as she dragged a whimpering Linh away. Back to the relative safety of their shitty apartment one story below.

Two days later Georgia was returning from the local clinic with a long overdue antibiotic prescription when she spotted him by the mail boxes again.

Vince was standing there, sorting through a heaping armload of identical cardboard packages. Each was about the size of a tissue box and rattled as he stacked them. There had to be over a dozen.

“Oh hey, ummm… Georgie. Right? He said with a keen smile on his pasty face.

”Georgia.” She corrected him coolly, as she swept past the sex freak with her little nose upturned and her posture closed. Body language was everything.

“I wanted to apologize for the other night.” He said earnestly, juggling his burden of parcels. “Listen, I’m not a creep. I really mean that. Things are just changing really quickly for me and it’s hard to keep up…”

“And what does that mean exactly?” Georgia turned on him, her small fists firmly planted on her narrow hips.

“No-Nothing really.” Vince stammered, taking a step back. “I just think you’re pretty cool and don’t want to upset my neighbors.”

Georgia snorted back an indignant truckload of phlegm and nearly choked on the lungful, Gawd but she needed to start the regimen of medication as soon as possible.

“Cool? You think you know me?” She spat angrily. “You moved in a week ago and already you want to add me as another notch on your belt. Is that it?.”

“A week ago?” Vince looked surprised then upset but quickly schooled his expression. “Fine, fine. Say whatever you like. I guess all bets are off now, huh?”

“Is that some kind of threat?” Georgia shot back, her back stiffening. “Going to drug me and drag me back to your den of iniquity like those other poor women…”

“Drugs?! I never—”

“I’m onto you, Slimeball.” She said and only just stopped herself from poking him in the chest. She really didn’t want to get any of him on her skin. “I don’t know how you are doing it but I can smell something fishy about you.”

“I’m surprised you can smell anything at all. Your nose is redder than Santa’s reindeer.” Vince grumbled and turned away. “I was just trying to apologize, dammit.”

Georgia stood her ground and listened to him plod his way up the stairs. She needed to go that direction too but decided to give her suspicious neighbor a head-start.

Walking up nine flights together after their brief heated exchange would have been decidedly awkward.

Georgia hustled down the poorly lit street cursing the Amoxicillin. She was late for work.

Their shared apartment had been blessedly quiet for once and the antibiotics had made her drowsy enough to consider taking a short nap to recharge before her shift. Linh should have woken her, they usually walked the three blocks downtown together for safety.

That just called to mind their shared peeping session and the subsequent argument two nights earlier. Her roommate had been adamantly convinced that all the action upstairs was due to word getting around concerning the secret stud in apartment 10a.

Georgia had asked if Linh had drunk any kool-aid recently.

That hadn’t gone down well and the petite Asian had spent the last forty-eight hours locked in her room. Georgia thought her friend might be avoiding her except each time she approached Linh’s bedroom door—totally ready to make up—she heard… sounds.

Wet sounds. Buzzing and humming sounds. Soft moans and Schlicking sounds. All in perfect time with the constant percussive thudding of protesting plasterboard coming from the floor above.

Georgia hadn’t found the courage to knock. It seemed rude to interrupt.

Sammy was going to be pissed. Friday night was one of their busy nights. At least by the First Edition’s low standards.

Municipal zoning regulations meant that the Candy Lounge—the uninspired name of a sleazy strip joint one street over—couldn’t serve alcohol and Georgia’s boss had the desperate idea of supplying them with drink coupons to drum up some much needed extra business.

That usually meant at least an extra half dozen oily patrons who stared dismally at Georgia’s small chest as they got their pre-game buzz on and nursed their flaccid dicks through the lining of their trouser pockets.

Except that wasn’t the case tonight as Georgia hurried through the door into the First Edition.

“Georgie! Oh thank god. I need you back here mixing cocktails as fast as you can.” Sammy cried over the thrumming mass of customers milling around the bar.

Cocktails? Since when did they serve fancy shit like cocktails? Georgia pushed through a mob of women to slip behind the bartop and boggled at the crowd.

Did Sammy add ‘Ladies Night’ to her increasingly uninspired calendar of themed events? Because this last-ditch attempt to drum up business might actually be working.

The small dank bar was busy with people. Loud with people. Standing room only with chatting, laughing and sighing people. All exceptionally feminine people dressed up and kitted out for a night prowling the nicer side of town for a hot date.

Or at least that was how it looked to Georgia seeing so much T&A on display. Low cut tops and high hemlines were a common theme. Ridiculous high heels and bare midriffs too. There was an entire platoon of feminine forms wrapped up tight in clingy insubstantial outfits that hugged womanly figures of every variety.

“We’d like two Moscow Mules and a Bend Over Shirley, please.” The bar was lined two deep with jostling female bodies. The three waiting patiently in front of Georgia were a redhead and two nearly identical chestnut brunettes all dressed in slinky shiny clubwear mini-dresses that showed off a fantastic wealth of smooth flawless skin.

“Uh, right. That’s vodka, ginger beer and lime…” Georgia grabbed a dusty bottle of Smirnoff but flailed about for a shaker. Where did they even keep those? “Can you run the second half of the order past me again?”

“It’s vodka, a dash of raspberry squash and grenadine topped up with sprite.” Sammy appeared beside Georgia, helpfully pressing a cocktail shaker into her hand. “A classic Bend Over Shirley.”

“That’s right!” One of the twin brunettes beamed. Her little pink dress had a long dripping neckline that almost reached down to her navel and only held her impressively full perky chest in by some act of black magic. “You should come work at the Candy Lounge with us. Love your hair by the way.”

“Aaaaw~ thanks, I’m glad he likes it.”

Georgia was staring at her manager’s hair too. The usually flat flaxen locks were poofed out big and bouffant with enough hairspray to constitute a genuine fire hazard. Gone was the business like bun or the sometimes practical braid in favor of high voluminous hairstyle that went out of fashion in the sixties.

“I need you to mix drinks, dear.” Sammy reminded her, as she free-poured spirits with one hand and bounced her golden hair with the other. “I know you are unwell so I can forgive the tardiness but I cannot abide laziness.”

Dear? She was speaking like Georgia’s mother again and that was as unwelcome as it was unsettling. Georgia started looking for the ginger beer in a purely Pavlovian response to her manager’s tone.

The fiery haired knockout hopped up to lean over the bar. Her verdant spray-on dress warping around a supremely lush bosom as it pancaked against the polished timber as she whispered out an urgent question.

“So… Is he here tonight?”

Who? Oh no…

“Maybe, maybe not. You’ll have to stick around to find out.” Sammy replied flippantly but a shifty gleam had entered her mercurial eyes. “It’s a three drink minimum on Fridays. Sorry girls but you’re all familiar with how this works.”

Georgia had no sooner slid the drinks across the bar when the three strippers slapped down their money with frustrated faces and Sammy quickly counted out the cash into the chiming till. They had mostly paid in singles.

“Sammy, have you got a second to chat?” Georgia began to ask, feeling an unexpected stab of uncertainty. Then Linh forced her way through the throng to deposit a serving tray full of variously shaped glassware onto the bartop.

“Phew… Busiest. Night. Ever.” Her roommate gasped, mopping at her brow. Then she grinned happily. “Good to see you, Georgie. Feeling any better?”

Georgia felt lost at sea. She wanted to apologize to Linh for her snide remarks from the other night. Question Sammy about her new hair-do and the sudden boom in exclusively female patronage. To grill Linh about the outlandish powder blue and lilac butterfly make-up around her large dark eyes and the silver micro-mini hot pants digging deep into her fellow bartenders’ trim ass crack.

“Fine, I was just going to have a quiet word with Sammy about…”

About what exactly?

Georgia didn’t know where to start. Maybe the fresh ocean of estrogen flooding the bar in tiny hip-hugging skirts and teensy tube tops would be a good place to start. Or the warm acres of soft female flesh out on parade and sipping on atrociously over-price drinks with embarrassing names like “Sex in the Driveway” and “Pop my Cherry”?

Georgia thought she recognized some of the faces in the crowd. Nameless girls and women from her apartment building who never made eye-contact in the lobby were suddenly dolled up like tarts and whispering animatedly to each other in enough make-up and slingback heels to outfit a small army of streetwalkers.

“We’re very busy tonight, Georgie. It will have to wait.” Sammy said. She was pouring a line of milky shots called “Buttery Nipples” for a gaggle of young women dressed up as naughty schoolgirls as though it were Halloween. “I need your help serving the customers. I’ll be happy to chat all you like after quitting time.”

Georgia stared at her for a long second before Sammy jerked her head towards the crowd of patrons. They sure looked thirsty alright but Georgia had a sneaking suspicion she couldn’t mix the long tall drink they were all so earnestly seeking.

“Cum in My Panties!” A tall blonde in a skintight backless halter dress shouted at her above the increasingly noisy crowd. It was covered in sparkly sequins and cute tassels with a Worlds Best Bridesmaid sash pulled across her ample chest.

“Excuse you?!”

“Three more Cum in My Panties, please.” The presumed bridesmaid said as two more with similar sashes and equally skimpy clubbing attire giggled behind her. “That’s vodka, peach schnapps, whipped cream…”

Georgia’s hands moved on autopilot. She wasn’t even measuring out the liquor as her narrowed eyes roamed the crowd. There wasn’t a single male present. Which was both suspicious and a relief. It meant that he wasn’t here. Mister 10a.

Vince.

“Hen’s night?” She shouted the question over the hubbub of the excited flocks of women. “Aren’t you missing someone?”

Someone destined for a big white dress and an institution deeply rooted in patriarchy and gender inequality, Georgia refrained from saying as she pushed the drinks over to the rosy cheeked party-goers.

“No, she’s around.” The blonde said with a saucy wink that raised a five fire alarm in Georgia’s hind-brain. “I think she went to the bathroom.”

All three of the glammed up girls giggled then sighed and shook their heads. They looked… Rueful? Envious? Definitely a bit dreamy eyed.

Something about the bathroom?

“Enough bullshit! Is he here tonight or not?” A dainty mocha fist hammered the countertop and several pairs of eyes turned to see the gorgeous young Lily Pierre fuming back at them.

Her voluptuous barely-legal body was wrapped in a teensy strapless black satin number that clung to her flourishing curves like warpaint. Her candyfloss hair was styled high and big hoop earrings hung nearly to her bare shoulders. “You can’t keep stringing us along like this!”

The First Edition was swamped in silence as every feminine gaze locked onto Sammy who raised her hands in a sign of calming supplication.

”Vince was here, only an hour ago….” She began to say before an outraged maternal shriek drowned her out.

“Lily Pierre! What do you think you are doing?!” Heads turned like spectators at a tennis match to see an elegant coffee-skinned woman wearing green hospital scrubs looming in the doorway. “You are meant to be studying at home, young lady. Not dressing like a hooker and going out to bars!”

“Mama, I thought…” The teen drama-queen began to protest but was overruled by her furious mother.

“You didn’t think anything worth a damn. You are not so old that I cannot still thrash your disobedient backside.” The Haitian nurse snapped in her lyrical accent as she stalked towards her mortified daughter. “The lord knows I have suffered enough of this quarrelsome behavior. You will come home this instant.”

The murmuring crowd parted before the disapproving parent like the waters before Moses. She seized her daughter’s arm in a tight grip before rounding on Sammy with molten iron in her glare.

“She is not yet twenty-one…”

“I know. She’s only been served soda tonight.” Sammy soothed with that mothering voice that sounded so odd coming from her. “I do not serve underage…”

“Is there a problem here?”

If the appearance of Mrs Pierre had quieted the room, the deep masculine voice silenced it so thoroughly that Georgia would have sworn she could hear the panties drop.

Vince stood in the bathroom doorway supporting a knock-kneed Latina bombshell in a frilly white cocktail dress with a violet Future Mrs Ramos sash stretched askew across her buxom olive cleavage. She was leaning heavily into him as she wiped at her puffy lips with the back of one hand and tried to straighten the glittering novelty tiara in her seriously mussed raven hair.

Scuffed sneakers, blue jeans and a wrinkled off-white linen shirt. Vince looked, as always, like a poorly dressed grocery bag packer with his buzz cut hair and sweaty complexion.

The women around Georgia moaned in unison as though a rock star heart-throb had just strolled onto center stage.

“Vince, Help! Mama is trying to get in the way of our love.” Lily squealed, reaching out to him with longing arms. “Tell her we are together and she will have to let me go.”

“L-Love?” Mrs Pierre’s expression had lost its sharp edge and she was looking at the mangy dirtbag with no small measure of confusion.

Georgia was actually relieved to see it. Vince’s mysterious mojo wasn’t as universal as she had initially feared.

“Your daughter just has a silly teenage crush. We’ve only ever chatted, my word on it. Nothing more.” He assured her, handing the sagging bride-to-be off to her friends who cooed and fussed over her proudly like a bunch of giggling fan girls. “How about I walk you both home? We can straighten out this mess and let everyone get back to enjoying their Friday night.”

Georgia gawped at the brazen way the filthy degenerate so casually palmed off his latest bathroom conquest to act like the voice of innocence and reason. There was no way anybody was going to fall for that shit.

“Yes… yes, I think that would probably be for the best.” The statuesque nurse replied, the reluctance draining from her voice with each slow word passing her full cinnamon lips. She was tugging at her hospital scrubs as though trying to position them better to show off the lean lines of her mature figure. “Lily, was this the young man you wanted to bring around for dinner?”

“Yes, Mama.” The Caribbean firecracker wasn’t in her mother’s grip so much as they were walking arm in arm towards the door with Vince guiding them with an overfamiliar hand on the small of each of their backs. “He’s just the best, you’ll see.”

Georgia had never heard an entire bar full of women sigh in such regret to watch them leave together.

The localized change in air pressure would have raised the mercury in a barometer.

“What was that?!” Georgia demanded after the last of the downcast patrons left and Linh had flipped on the glowing neon closed sign.

It was only ten o’clock but Sammy had decided to call last drinks early. As though there wasn’t any point keeping the register open after Vince had departed with the mother/daughter duo.

“What was what, dear?” Sammy asked, sorting and counting out the stack of bills haphazardly stuffed into the till. A happy symptom of the night’s brisk trade.

“Stop doing that.” Georgia challenged her. “Stop calling me dear. You’re not my mother and you never called me that before he started sniffing around the bar.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Sammy said with infuriating calmness, straightening a tall stack of singles. “Tonight was our busiest night in months.”

“More like our busiest night ever!” Linh gushed excitedly. “The cocktails were a brilliant idea. They really appealed to the younger female market and that will only attract more male customers.”

“What male customers? There wasn’t a swinging dick in the house except… no. No, that isn’t what we need to talk about.” Georgia pinched the bridge of her nose and sniffled. The antibiotics were beginning to work their medicinal magic but her head was still as clogged as the shower drains at the YMCA. “It’s Vince. He’s doing… something to all of you and I’m the only one who can see it.”

She didn’t miss the way her co-workers’ eyes misted over at the mention of the ridiculous guy’s name. Even if they did snap back to reality a moment later.

“Vince? He seemed like a nice sensible young man to me.” Sammy said, gnawing thoughtfully on her bottom lip as she played with her puffed out hairdo.

“Totally nice!” Linh exclaimed eagerly, batting her long fake lashes and wiggling her slender hips in wholehearted agreement. “He complimented my eyes and said he liked my butt. No guy has ever complimented my butt before.”

“That’s what I mean.” Georgia threw up her hands in exasperation. “Sammy, I’ve seen you roll grown men into the gutter for a fraction less than he has been getting away with under your nose. And Linh, since when do you wear big eye makeup and booty shorts? Seriously, think about it.”

“I’m just trying a few new things.” Linh said self-consciously, tugging at the bottoms of her shiny silver hot pants. They barely covered the lower hemispheres of her tight little rump. “You could be a little more supportive…”

“So, he’s good for business. That’s what I am hearing here.” Sammy said definitively. “Even if half of what you are saying is true—which I don’t believe for a second—we still need the extra revenue stream to stay afloat.”

“He fucked that poor bride in the mens bathroom!” Georgia shrieked, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Are you both deaf and blind?”

“You don’t know that.” Linh accused but she was blushing up a storm and looking away as she said it. “That girl was pretty drunk. He was probably acting like a gentleman and holding her hair back.”

“Exactly.” Sammy agreed, nodding her head emphatically and bobbing her full golden locks to and fro. “Vincent mentioned he was looking for extra work and we’ll need a man to work security if we are going to keep bringing in the numbers like we did tonight. I was considering offering him a part-time job working the door.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Deadly serious. This bar is a business, Georgie.” Her manager said with a hungry glint to her eye. “I’ve got needs like any other business woman. Invoices to honor. Wages to pay. Positions to fill.”

They all turned at the sound of tapping at the locked door. It was double glazed and one of the older regulars, a perpetual lush named Jerry was knocking and peering inside as though checking for signs of danger.

“What about him, don’t you still want his business?” Georgia asked, waving expansively at the graying old barfly.

“Who, Jerry? No, we don’t need his type coming here anymore.” Sammy snorted, casually blowing off the lifelong customer. “From now on, we only serve real men here at the First Edition.”

“Mmmhmm~ that’s right.” Linh agreed, squirming her toned little rear-end up onto a bar stool where it kept wiggling as though the cute barmaid couldn’t sit still. “Ancient creepo’s like him are only going to ruin the bar’s awesome new energy.”

Georgia felt a chilly spectral finger run down her spine at the unspoken implication.