Get some dinner

Alex is intrigued by the “other menu,” but with only ten silver pieces to spend, he decides the prudent thing to do is to get some dinner. He thanks Kelly and makes his way to the bar, grabs a stool, and looks at the sign on the wall for his dinner options.

The bartender, a large, gruff-looking fellow, laughs when Alex orders his meal with a glass of milk. “I’m afraid we’re fresh out of milk, boy,” he says. “If that’s what you’re wanting, your best bet is to suck it from the tits of one of the gals!” He sets a glass of some amber-colored liquid in front of him, which Alex takes while waiting for his meal.

He takes a sip and scowls. It is not as fierce as his first drink of fire water, but it is not particularly pleasant. Nevertheless, it does quickly rekindle the warm, pleasant feeling within him.

As he waits for his meal to arrive, he spins around on his stool and takes in the activity of the establishment. The piano player changes the tempo of his song, and in response, the dancing woman begins to sway her body and thrust her hips in a particularly hypnotic manner. Alex feels a warmth rising within him as he watches her, and he doesn’t think the feeling is necessarily related to the drink he has consumed.

At one of the tables, a woman raises her hand and gets the attention of another young lady, who joins her at the table with a male customer. Alex watches them as they talk back and forth. The man holds up 3 fingers, and one of the women shakes her head and holds up 10. He counters with five, and that triggers some whispered discussion between the two ladies.

From the stairway, he sees a man descending. His shirt is untucked, and his hair is disheveled, but he is grinning from ear to ear. Behind him, a woman follows, focusing her attention into a small, compact mirror, as she makes adjustments to her hair. The man grabs a stool next to Alex, and says, “My usual, Mac.” The bartender responds by placing a large glass in front of him, from which the man takes a long drink, wipes his mouth with his sleeve, and then turns around and watches the dancer.

“I see they have a new gal,” he says to Alex. “I hope she’s as good as the last one.”

“She’s quite a dancer,” Alex agrees.

The man laughs. “I suppose so, if dancing is what you’re looking for! The last gal more than earned her keep with her other talents!”

Alex isn’t sure what the “other talents” referred to, but he didn’t say anything, because at that moment, the dancer responded to a change in the music’s tempo by slipping her dress’s shoulder straps down and holding the front of her dress with her hand pressed between her breasts. Alex grew wide-eyed as the sides of the dress slipped down, and he realized that she was wearing nothing under the dress — at least, nothing to cover her breasts, which looked dangerously close to being exposed to the view of all the patrons.

With his eyes transfixed on the girl, he only half heard the conversation between the man next to him and the bartender.

“Hey, Mac... Whatever became of the last dancer?”

“No idea,” replied the bartender. “She left one night with some guy — a strange fellow I’ve never seen in here before. She didn’t show up for work the next day.”

“She probably found herself a sugar daddy,” said the man. “Some lonely old fellow with lots of money, and an emptiness in his heart that could only be filled with her gazongas!”

He laughed at his own words, but the bartender did not join in.

“I don’t think so. Kelly went to check on her, and she never came back to her room, and all of her things are still there. If she left, she left without telling anyone or making areangements for her possessions to be sent to her. Personally, I think something sinister happened. The guy she left with just didn’t seem right, if you know what I mean.”

This caught Alex’s attention, and he **** his eyes away from the dancer to ask a question when a waitress appeared at his side with a plate full of food. She set it down in front of Alex, and placed a hand on his knee. “I hope everything is to your liking,” she said, moving her hand up his thigh as he spoke. “Please let me know if I can get you anything else.”

Alex opened his mouth to thank her, but the words got stuck in his throat as her hand came up and rested on his crotch. She gave him a wink and a gentle squeeze before turning and tending to another guest.

Alex’s head was spinning from all of this. He set his empty glass down and turned to examine his plate. Without being asked, the bartender took the empty glass and replaced it with a full one.

The customer who had been negotiating with the two women apparently reached a mutually-acceptable deal while Alex was distracted. He rose from the table and climbed the stairs, followed by the two women. Alex wondered what price they had settled on and what, exactly, it was that they were negotiating for.

Alex’s food called to him through his growling stomach, but he also kept his ears attuned to the piano player, eager to turn and see how the dancer might respond to the next change in the music. He was also quite intrigued by the discussion taking place about what might have happened to her predecessor.

At that moment, he heard a loud disturbance, and he turned and saw a man being roughly carried from one of the couches by two large, forbidding-looking men. After a few shouts of profanity-laced warnings about not setting foot in the establishment again, they roughly threw the man out the front door.

Alex reached for his glass and took a long drink. The contents seemed to have a remarkable calming effect on him.