Page 1 of Time Out

Chapter One

Hudson

The sting of cheap whiskey burns as I swallow it like a lump of acidic coal. The last place I want to be right now is in this strip club, so I’m hoping the liquor will soften the edges of my prickly mood for the next hour until I can politely leave.

For now, I’m solidly planted at a high top in the back corner, with my phone to my ear, listening to my best friend and client Jackson go over the details of the upcoming house project I’m overseeing for him.

The burning in my esophagus is nothing compared to the testosterone-fueled heat coming from the men surrounding the stage. At ten PM on a Thursday, the dark space is sparsely filled. Breathing the musty air, with the scent of overly-applied perfume that mixes with the thumping bass, my senses are on overload.

The ten or so guys surrounding the stage are intently focused on the brightly lit chrome pole at my friend Wilson’s new strip club.

I should say, the club is new tohim,not newly built or opened. It came to him through an inheritance with pre-stickied floors and a lightning rod of trouble-fueled girls bouncing their tits in any man’s face that holds up a few dollar bills.

The only tits on my mind are the ones I saw jiggling last night when I watched a girl hop a fence into the yard of an abandoned, boarded-up house down near the airport after I dropped off Jackson and his wife for their trip to Aruba.

The girl at the boarded-up house didn’t look old enough to be alone in that part of town, and my immediate sense of protectiveness surrounding her still has a solid grip on me somehow.

My thoughts have been a mixture of unabated lust and concern ever since. I couldn’t sleep. I got dressed and drove down there at two am and circled the house a few times before convincing myself I’d lost my damn mind. How could one little glance at a random girl on the street turn me inside out?

She was barely noticeable really, wearing this dingy pink beanie with her hair tucked underneath, sporting a backpack and mud-colored clothes two sizes too big, but that didn’t stop me from noting just what a curvy, succulent body she was hiding under there.

I don’t know what the fuck has come over me. She’s invaded me like some glorious virus and I never want to be well again.

“Crew’s going to be back in the morning to finish the demo.” Jackson’s voice comes through, breaking through my fantasies of the voluptuous beauty. I shake my head and try to focus. “Is your place coming along too? Glad this worked out. We had this vacation planned for a month and I couldn’t have Chastity there with workers all over the damn place. I’d be firing the crew every fucking day or getting arrested for assault. Or murder. I mean, I’m sorry about the fire at your place, but I’m glad you werestaying in the guest wing already. You can supervise the reno for me. You’ll be well compensated.”

“Yeah, I’m not worried about the money. But, you gotta watch that temper. Or keep your wife in a cardboard box 24/7. But, yeah man, I’ll keep an eye on everything,” I tell him, raising my voice over the music and the excited hoots and whistles around me. “My place should be back to livable in the next few weeks. Using the same construction company worked out great. They already know I’m an asshole, but I’m fair. I’ve got a rapport with the crew, things should go smooth.”

“No more fucking Jiffy Pop for you,” he says as I blow out a long breath, avoiding eye contact with the topless girls that keep walking by. “I can’t believe you fell asleep with Jiffy Pop on the stove. Who the fuck even uses Jiffy Pop anymore?”

“It’s the only way to cook popcorn. Microwave popcorn is shit.” I sniff, squeezing my jaw, the anxiety building in my gut like barbed wire knots as I wonder where the little fence-hopping cherub is tonight. Is she cold? Hungry? Why was she there in the first place?

I nearly burned my own house to the ground when my nightly Jiffy Pop craving kicked in after I hadn’t slept for over twenty-four hours on a round-trip drive with Jackson to Detroit and back, as well as trying to keep up on the other twenty drivers that work for me that seem to need constant babysitting.

Being in business for myself is never something I thought I’d accomplish. But my limo/chauffeur business has done well, and it’s a dream and a nightmare all wrapped up together.

“Oh, Clancy, one more thing—” Jackson starts, but I cut him off.

“It’sHudson. We’ve worked together sevenyears,I’ve told you thousands of fucking times Ihate that fucking name. Why you gotta bust my balls, man?”

“Clancy is a stand-up guy. People hire limo drivers namedClancy. You have twenty drivers in your stable now… Your fuckingbusinessis called Clancy Carriages….Hudsonis that dumb ass guy in that Aliens movie.”

Clancy is on my birth certificate, and I’ve always hated it for a variety of reasons. I got nicknamed Hudson after my first stint at Hudson Correctional when I was nineteen. I took a second trip back to that hellhole a few years later, and after that the name just stuck.

“Go have fun. I’ll meet the crew in the morning. A person could get lost in that fucking house already and you’re renovating the kitchen and adding an addition? Anyway, doesn’t matter. I gotta go and you gotta get back to your wife.” I’m ready to apologize to Wilson and tell him I need to get out of here because this place is depressing as fuck.

Jackson laughs, and my mood starts to lift as I decide it’s time to go. “She says hi. From her knees…”

“Oh, fuckoff,” I bark, as I see Wilson heading my way from the back hallway.

“Tell Wilson I said good luck on the new titty adventure. Strip clubs gotta be a pain in the ass to run, and really, who needs more than two tits? Two hands, two tits, it’s a perfect balance.” I hear Chastity’s voice in the background saying something about him not even thinking about any other tits, and to keep his eyes where they belong, which makes my dick twitch thinking about the only fucking tits I’d like to have my eyes on right now.

But I’m an asshole, and I let her get away…

“Goodbye,” I say and click off ready to head to the door.

“Did you see that?” Wilson steps between me and the condom machine that hangs on the back wall by the men’s room. It’s made to look like an old-school slot machine. You put in yourmoney, you pull the handle, it blinks and makes an obnoxious dinging sound, and out drops your ten-dollar condom.

I spin my glass of ice water on the tabletop, taking a sip and washing away the last of the whiskey flavor before telling Wilson I’m on my way out the door.

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