Wherein I get stranded, take a chance and meet some amazing guys...
Author's note
: this is part 1 of a 12-part story arc which I've put under Group Sex because it involves the adventures of a thirty-something woman and a posse of young men, self-styled The Five Brothers, along with a number of their friends. Like all my stories, it begins with character development and in this case, over several chapters. The chapters can have the elements of a number of different categories and I will try to give advance warning. This one is primarily Mature, Group and a lot of introductory background...
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This wasn't like me.
I was the one to sit home weekends, pigging out on dried fruit, frozen yogurt and Diet Dr. Pepper while watching black-and-white reruns from the 60's or engrossed in the Syfy Channel. And occasionally wearing out the batteries on my California Exotics Waterproof Rabbit.
It was definitely not like me to be sitting at the bar in the slightly sleazy lounge near my hotel, on a Friday night, watching the testosterone-based eye candy walking by. Of course, it wasn't like me to be on the road over a weekend, either. I was usually careful to be back in my own bed by Friday night.
Tonight was different, insofar as the ding-dong that was running our roll-out project had bolloxed things up but good. So instead of a mid-week implementation and a late flight Friday night, I was staying over while the software hotshots figured out what went wrong. I wasn't going to be teaching our clients' people about their new system until it was up and running, and I couldn't go home until they'd been blessed with all the knowledge I could impart.
I have no idea what wild hair got up my ass, but I was feeling so disgusted at being trapped in L.A., that I decided to take a pass on room service and go find something in the way of a real, brick and mortar restaurant. I found one - a nice Italian place with heavenly scents wafting on the breeze - sandwiched between a strip club and the aforementioned sleazy bar.
Deciding there were other thirty-something people walking around in the neighborhood and in particular, frequenting Antonio's (the restaurant), I decided to put on my Big Girl and brave trying it. It turned out to be well above average. A wide variety of Italian cuisine and a decent wine list determined my treat to myself...
Pollo alla Cacciatore
with a carafe of the house Chianti. I let myself get lost in fantasies of dining with a mysterious stranger in a Florentine café along the banks of the Arno, watching the Medici's coach roll by while people scattered out of their way as they toured their Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
Or so my mediocre romantic fantasies went. Most of my real world relationships were dead before they started. Married early, divorced, no kids... a career took the place of a family. It also took the place of a good portion of my social life, which is why I went through batteries so quickly. My libido wasn't a problem. Satisfying it was. I had become very good friends with my Rabbit.
That wild hair was still tickling my ass when I left the restaurant, delightfully sated - for food, at least - and slightly buzzed from the wine. I was about to head back to the hotel when I realized there was some decent rock/blues/jazz coming from the bar next door. Listening closely, to make sure it wasn't coming from the strip joint, I decided to investigate. I love jazz and blues music, and these days it is almost impossible to find a place with live music that isn't some kind of hip-hop/rap crap.
When I entered, there was a small vestibule with an old, unused coat check room to the side. Straight ahead there was a long bar hugging the right wall and the rest of the room opened to the left. There was a stripe of tables down the middle, then a dance floor and then a stage, where the band was playing. Beyond the main room, there was an anteroom with additional tables. And the whole place had "atmosphere"... dim lighting, the smell of beer, cigarettes and dope, and the sound of conversation drowned out by the band.
The band caught my attention. Three guys, two girls, had to be in their late twenties, maybe early thirties, and at the moment they were playing some of the smoothest electric blues I'd heard in forever. One of the girls was on bass guitar and the other was playing rhythm. The three guys had lead guitar, drums and keyboard. The bass drumhead said "Fuzion", which I presumed was their name. It would make sense, since the music they were playing was an eclectic mix - a fusion - of a lot of different styles.
So I walked on up to the bar and spotting a seat about halfway down, eased over to it. There wasn't a drink, or anything marking the spot, so I slid out of my coat, hung it on the back of the barstool and sat down. As the bartender came over, I glanced to either side. To my left was an attractive couple, backs to the bar, definitely interested in the band. To my right were a couple of apparently single guys - they didn't seem like a couple - also paying attention to the band but surreptitiously giving me the eye.
Again, totally atypical me, I decided if they wanted to look, so did I. So as I settled in, I gave both of them a very solid once-over. It seemed only fair, since they were doing the same thing. Actually, so was all the eye candy walking around. Definitely scoping each other out.
"What can I get you?" the bartender asked, and I turned my attention to him. I could go back to the guys later.
"Something red and reasonably good," I told him. "What have you got?"
"A Cabernet or a Zinfandel, mostly," he told me. "Inglenook if you want Napa Valley or Yellow Tail if you want Australian. That's about it for the 'good stuff'."
"A glass of the Yellow Tail Zinfandel, if you please, sir," I smiled to him. He just nodded, returning my smile, and headed off to get my drink. I went back to perusing the guys. They must have finished their inspection of me because they were back to looking at the band... mostly. I caught one of them pointing out a pretty young girl, over by the guy playing lead guitar. As in, pretty, young, and pretty young.
These two gentlemen, for want of a better term, next to me weren't all that bad looking. Had to be mid-20's, both well groomed, trim... couldn't see their asses, but their shoulders, waists and hair looked nice. Once of them had dark, medium length hair combed back into what my grandmother's generation would have called a D-A... a "duck's ass". The other had short, sandy blond hair, almost a military look. I guess I wasn't too careful about my sizing them up.
As my drink arrived, the blond turned to me and said, "Hi. I'm Dave. I hope you like what you see. Would you like to dance?"
That caught me completely flat-footed.
"Um... uh, I don't know," I stammered. "I don't dance much." He kept looking at me rather expectantly. "Oh, sorry...", I recovered. "Hi. I'm Elizabeth - Beth, for short. And yes, I liked what I saw."
He held his hand out. "Dance, Beth-for-short?" he asked again.
The band was just wrapping up the bluesy jam they'd been doing and I had a moment of panic. If they played another slow song, it meant slow dancing with a complete stranger. If it was a quicker jazz or rock piece, I could probably do okay. But he'd still be a stranger. "Hi, I'm Dave" didn't count. Then "Fuzion" surprised the hell out of me. They started an electrified rock version of Glen Miller's "In the Mood."
This was swing. This I could do. Jitterbug. Perfect!
"Sure," I smiled, slowly standing up... then fumbling around, trying to figure out what to do with my purse.
"I'll watch it for you," the dark haired fellow told me.
"That's Paul," Dave informed. "A buddy of mine. He's cool. He'll save your seat and watch your purse, no problem."
"Thank you, Paul," I nodded to him, leaving my purse on my seat, knowing it might be a mistake, and turning to follow Dave. And to pause for a moment as my breathing stopped and my uterus clenched. Hard. And my pussy.
Dave, now standing before me with his hand out to escort me, was a hunk. A major hunk. I'd noticed the cotton dress shirt he'd been wearing, sleeves rolled up, when he was sitting next to me. It looked nice on him. Now I could see that it was unbuttoned in front and he had on some kind of stretchy Lycra-spandex-cotton-whatever "Dago-T" on under it, and the man had abs to die for! And pecs! And buff shoulders, and chiseled forearms, and a tight waist and oh-my-God I was going to be in trouble. Addle-pated schoolgirl came to mind. And that's not good in your thirties.
