If I’m Honest
by Corrupting Power
Chapter 3 — Alina
When the plane landed, Colleen and I were the last two to leave first class. I’d planned on just heading out, but Colleen made sure I didn’t hurry. Before we headed into the terminal, Colleen gave me one last fierce kiss. Then we disembarked and headed into the terminal, keeping our distance from each others, far enough that we might as well have been strangers.
We were heading to different places—she was catching a connecting flight up to Vancouver, while I was just headed down to baggage claim to find my suitcase that arrived a day earlier. The airline had told me I’d need to visit their office down by baggage claim to get my bag, since it had been waiting for a while. Colleen had also told me we needed to pretend not to know each other in case there were any paparazzi hanging around looking for celebrities.
But even though she’d told me that, she flashed me a thumb/pinkie hand/phone mime and mouthed “Call me” before she headed away from me and towards a different gate. I felt like I was running through the entire “Swingers” scene in my head, trying to figure out how long I should wait before I should call her.
It turned out I needn’t have worried. By the time I’d reclaimed my luggage and called for an Uber to take me back home, my phone beeped in my pocket with a message from Coll. I saw it was from her, but I decided not to check the message until I was in the backseat of the Uber. Thank god for that, because once I did, I had a hell of an image staring me in the face.
She must have slipped into the bathroom on the plane, because she’d sent me a selfie of sorts, with her tits on display. Her face was covered by her shirt, naturally, but it was a glorious picture, and there was an accompanying note. Save this somewhere secure, but absolutely save it. Every collection starts somewhere. Also, you owe me one in return. Within 24 hours, or I’ll be mad.
I shot back a quick response. In an Uber on my way home right now. I don’t think the driver would appreciate it, but I’ll have something sent your way later tonight. The drive back to my house was quiet. The driver was a big burly Egyptian fellow who wasn’t particularly chatty. That suited me fine.
My house was about forty minutes drive from the airport, and during that time, I was getting caught up on everything I’d been missing in transit. The company didn’t mind that I was out of pocket for an additional day, but that didn’t mean that work stopped, and there were an endless amount of reports to read through, details to oversee and personnel to approve.
I wasn’t lying when I told Colleen that my job is frightfully boring, but it is something I’m good at. I work for Alexandria Indexes. Don’t worry, you’ve never heard of us. Nobody’s ever heard of us, until they’re looking to set up a call center for their company.
You’d think all of these big corporations—Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, Sony, Samsung, the lot of them—that they’d know all about setting up their own call centers, but the sad state of affairs is that they don’t. Oh, they think they do. At first. But after their first call center blows up in their faces, and we’re not talking minor problems, we’re talking Class-A fuckups here, they shut down their call center operations and then they call us.
Don’t feel bad for them. None of them made the same mistake on their attempts. No, they all made quite unique mistakes. For example, one of them, I won’t say who out of professional courtesy, assumed that absolutely anybody could work at their call centers, so they just hired the cheapest labor possible. That, obviously, resulted in a bunch of people who couldn’t accurately diagnose customer problems. Another company thought they should hire the best possible people for the job, and spare no expense. They were running in the red before the weekend. Communications delays? Yep. Poorly structured databases? No shocker there. I could go on all night. Believe me, I have.
We don’t just do call centers. We solve the complete customer service problem from soup to nuts, from knowledge bases to interfaces, from UI to good bye. It’s a much bigger problem than companies think, and they hire us to solve it for them.
Me, personally, I set up most of the call centers, which is the most complicated piece of the puzzle, if you ask me. By most, I really mean about 65% of them. I’m head of the call center establishment team, and I’ve got a couple of juniors beneath me who help distribute the work. I don’t have to do sales, I don’t have to do post launch support, I don’t have to worry about getting the escalation procedures put together. It’s all about getting the building, setting up the infrastructure, getting the right key personnel at the top and then establishing the proper framework for them all to succeed.
I had a handful of emails from my two subordinates, mostly asking for policy clarifications and such. The two people I’ve got working for me are both relatively new, and they’re on their own projects right now for the first time. They’re good kids, but they’re going to have a million questions their first time out of the ballpark. They’re working on little projects comparatively to the kind of work I do, but I’m sure it feels like the world’s ending every time they get something wrong. I’m not a mean boss, but I am judging them on every single thing they do, because it all reflects on me.
I shoot back some quick responses, giving them some clarity they need on their work thusfar. I’ll be in the office again tomorrow, and Jen can talk to me then, but Zack won’t be back to Seattle until next week. He’s setting up a call center in Omaha right now, but we’ll at least be able to talk real time.
About two minutes from my house, I call my friend TJ and let him know I’m about to get home so he can bring my dog over. He tells me he’ll meet me at the house with Astro, and not to worry. True to his word, when the Uber is pulling into my driveway, TJ’s parking on the street in front of the house.
My house is nice. It’s nothing epic, but it’s certainly well earned and impressive to look at. When I started at Alexandria Indexes eight years ago, it was a tiny startup, with only ten employees. I was employee number eleven. We’re over two hundred now, and the early investments I put into the company have paid off with excellent dividends, and bought me this house a couple of years ago.
“Heya Deke,” TJ said to me while Astro’s charging at me full force. “This monster of yours is a pain in the ass, you know?”
I laughed as the Uber was pulling out of my driveway as I crouched down to meet my Huskie as he tossed his front paws onto my shoulders. I knew TJ was kidding—he and Astro loved to hang out, and my dog, for all his insane enthusiasm, was incredibly well trained. The only pain he’d given TJ while I was gone was tiring him out with his endless enthusiasm. Astro’s only a couple of years old, so he’s basically still just a giant puppy, and even by Huskie standards, Astro’s basically inexhaustible. It takes forever to wear him out, and he loves to go out jogging with me in the morning before I head to work, and still wants to go out again in the evening. “You weren’t a problem for him, were you, Astro?”
My dog barked happily at me, his tail wagging back and forth furiously, nuzzling his snout, jumping up and down over and over again.
“Yeah, I thought not,” I told him. “Thanks for taking care of him, TJ. You gotta bounce, or you got time to hang out and have a beer?”
“Wish I could stay, brother, but I gotta get back before David has my hide beaten senseless.” His husband, David, was no small guy. They were the nicest pair of guys I knew, but they did live a good ten minutes away, and David was a heart doctor, so they were always a bit stressed out. TJ was a teacher at the nearby high school, but marrying David had allowed him to endure the financial hardship that so many teachers endured on a daily basis. I’d met them when I’d been out golfing solo one day half a decade or so ago, and they asked if we could share a tee time. We’d been great friends since.
“Damn, I have a hell of a story that I gotta tell somebody, but I guess I’ll catch you up next time.”
As he was getting back into his car, he nodded. “Next time, I definitely want to hear it. You ought to give Ken a call. I’m sure he’s not doing anything tonight, and you know he loves a good story.” Ken had been the fourth member of our randomly assembled foursome, and we as a group had gelled so well that we’d made it a monthly thing for the four of us to go out golfing, weather permitting. And on the months when we couldn’t go golfing, we played poker.
“Yeah, okay,” I said, opening the front door to let Astro bolt into the house. “I’ll give him a call. Thanks for watching Astro, Teeg.”
“We love to have him!” he yelled at me through his open car window. “See you next Saturday for poker!” Then he took his Mazda and sped off into the cool evening air.
Once I turned off the home alarm system, I closed the door and carried my suitcase and my carryon upstairs. Astro was running around the house again but eventually settled down next to the bed as I was putting clothes away. After I’d put the stuff from my carry on away, I shot Ken a text, asking him to come over for a drink and a tale. He texted back that he’d be over in a few when I was finishing off getting the suitcase into the wash.
Ten minutes later, there at my door was Ken Harewood. Ken looks more like a linebacker than a golfer, 6′2″, wide shoulders, muscular as all hell. He might be one of the most intimidating black men I’ve ever met, but he’s a true gentleman, despite the fact that he’s a professional shark. Lawyer, that is. But he’s a defense attorney for the ACLU, so we tend to let it slide. And the fact that he’s got a fantastic London accent means he can get us in pretty much anywhere in town for dinner. He can pick up pretty much any woman in town any time he wants. He’ll be the perfect person to talk through this with me. “So what’s this all about then?”
Ten minutes later, Ken’s heard the whole tale and he’s mostly been laughing at me, clearly not believing a word crossing my lips. “No, I’m not kidding, Ken.”
“Well, there’s only one thing to do then,” he said, leading me out towards his car. “Let’s go pit you against the diamond.”
“The diamond?”
“The diamond!”
Twenty minutes later, we were across town, and Ken was pulling his Escalade into the parking lot of Deja Vu Showgirls. “Ken, it’s a Thursday night, and I’ve got work tomorrow, and you’re bringing me to a strip club.”
“Deke, take a day off work,” he laughed. “Hell, I’ll even pay for the day. Just email them, so I can test you against the diamond.”
I was typing a message into my phone, telling the office I’d be out tomorrow, when Ken finally found a parking spot. “Fine, I’ll hold you to that. Now are you going to tell me what we’re doing here?”
“Let’s just say, for a moment, that I believe your story,” he said as we both got out of the car. “If that’s true, then you can theoretically sleep with any woman you find attractive, right? Even ones that have no interest in you?”
I closed the door behind me as he did the same. “I haven’t the slightest goddamn idea how it works, Ken. That’s why I wanted to talk it out with you.”
“Nah,” Ken said. “That’s not going to do you any good, and it’s not going to convince me of a goddamn thing. What you need is to test it, to put it to a challenge of sorts, something that’ll convince me it is what you say it is. That’s what we’re here for.”
“At a strip club.”
“Not just any strip club.” When we got to the door, Ken reached in and pulled out his wallet. I was going to do the same, but he gestured for me not to bother, as he paid for both of us. “I’ve been coming here once a month for, oh, probably four years now.”
We moved past the bouncer and inside of the club, where the music was blaring Mötley Crüe’s “Girls Girls Girls” over the stereo. I’ve never been in here, but Ken’s been trying to drag me here for as long as we’ve known each other. He thinks that throwing a few hundred dollars at a lapdance would get me over Stacy, but no matter how many times I told him otherwise, he kept on trying to pitch the idea to me.
“While we’re here tonight, I’m going to buy you a proper lapdance and we’ll see if you can crack the diamond.”
“What the hell is this diamond you keep talking about?”
“Not what,” he said, gesturing to the main stage. “Who.”
On the stage was a lithe Latina who was twirling around on a pole at least ten feet up in the air, wearing only a bikini bottom, with some scattered pieces of costume strewn across the stage. She slid down to the stage and rested on her back and brought her heels together with a loud CLACK that rang through the air. There was a large crowd around the stage, and the surface of it was covered in ones and fives.
I understood the appeal. She was muscular but in the most feminine way possible, and the way she was dancing across that stage proved she’d be insanely athletic. Her breasts were large, but had clearly never seen a surgeon’s knife. And her face had a wide smile that beamed from ear to ear.
“That’s it, gentlemen, give it up for Diamond. Be sure to shower her with love and money,” the announcer’s deep bass voice boomed over the room, “she’s not working for free out here. She’s going to take a little bit, but she’ll be out in the room for more intimate appointments in just a little bit.”
“There’s your challenge,” Ken said to me, as we walked towards a small open table in the back, each of us taking a seat. “I’ve been coming here for years, and I’ve probably banged half the girls who work here, but I’ve never been able to crack Diamond. So tonight, we’ll see if you’re full of shit or not.”
“Heya Ken,” a bubbly blonde said to him, “you want your usual?”
“Yeah, and an orange soda for my friend here.”
“You got it, hon.” She wandered over towards the bar.
“So you’ve got no idea how this thing of yours works?”
“None at all. But two women I’ve only just met in forty-eight hours has never happened to me before, so I don’t think it’s coincidence.”
“Give it time. We’ll see.”
For the next ten minutes, Ken turned away every stripper who came over to try and talk with us. If you’ve never been into a strip club, they’re all trying to get your attention, so they can get your money, and while Ken was never rude, he made it clear that tonight, he was waiting for Diamond.
A little bit later, Diamond made her way across the club and sat down on Ken’s lap, a wide smile on her lips. She was dressed in tiny booty shorts and an oversized blazer, her hair up in chopsticks, thick horn-rimmed glasses over her face, a sort of slutty librarian look to her. “Hey there, big spender. Long time no see,” she purred with a laugh, picking up his drink to take a swig from it. “So I hear you’re looking for me?”
“Not for me, Diamond. For my friend here,” he said, nodding my direction.
“Any special occasion?”
“He just got home after spending a week abroad, and I figured you’d be the best person to give him a warm welcome home.”
“You want us to move to a VIP lounge?”
“I think we probably should. I want you to give my man the works.”
“The works?” She arched an eyebrow at him, then looked back at me. “For him? Not you?”
“Yep, I just want to make sure he’s getting what I pay for.”
She laughed a little, husky and smoky. “Let’s go then.”
Diamond hopped off his lap and made her way over to me, extending a hand to me. I reached up and took her hand as I stood up, and she pulled me along like I was some puppy she’d just picked out in a pet store, with Ken a few steps behind me. “What’s your name?”
“Derrick.”
“Okay, ’Rick. Let’s blow your mind.”
We moved past security and up some stairs, turning a couple of corners before she opened a door and led us into a small private VIP lounge. She pulled me into the room and then pushed me to sit down on a couch. Ken was moving to try and sit next to me, but she pushed him onto a couch on the other side, holding out a hand.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wad of bills, peeling off four hundred dollar bills, holding them out to her. She took them and tucked them into the pocket of her blazer, buttoning the pocket closed before turning her attention back to me, a wild, almost feral smile on her face.
On the stereo, Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” started to play, and she strutted towards me before she slid into my lap. “You must be a very good friend for Ken to be paying me to dance for you instead of him,” she said, as she ground her hips against my lap, rubbing her crotch down against mine.
“He thinks he’s trying to make a point.”
“Oh yeah?” she said, as she unbuttoned the blazer, letting it expose the silken bra she had on underneath. The bouncer had pointed very clearly to the “no touching” sign as we’d walked up the stairs, so I kept my hands practically beneath my ass. “I think I wanna make a point to him.” She spun around so that she could wipe her butt across my lap, grinding into me, as she waved over to Ken, who couldn’t take his eyes off of her.
“What kind of point are you trying to make?” I asked her, as her long black curly hair hung in front of my face.
“That I make my own rules, and I decide what kind of things are and aren’t allowed.” Her hand reached behind her and unfastened her bra before sliding the blazer off, setting it aside. Then she pulled the bra from off her frame and tossed it over at Ken, blowing him a kiss. “Like you know the no touching rule?”
I nodded.
“I don’t give a fuck about it right now.” She reached down and grabbed one of my hands, pulling it up to cup one of her tits as she pressed her bare back against my chest through the t-shirt. “And when I say I don’t give a fuck about it...” My hand could feel her stiff nipple against my fingers, but I felt her slim digits grasp on my wrist and pull my hand down along her toned stomach. “I really don’t give a fuck about it...”
Without any warning at all, she pushed my hand down the front of those booty shorts, and made sure my fingertips slipped beneath the g-string to rub against her bare pussy, as she groaned, bucking her hips up towards my touch.
“Push in,” she said, nuzzling her lips against my ear while she continued to writhe on my lap.
I was nervous, but felt her grinding into my hand so I slipped a single fingertip inside of her cunt, feeling exactly how wet she was. I thought I’d gone too far when she started to tug on my wrist to pull my hand out, but she brought my hand upward and then wrapped her lips around my wet fingertip as Ken could only watch.
Then she suddenly brought my legs together firmly before she turned and moved to rest her back against the tops of my thighs, her ass on my chest, as she thrust her bootyshort covered twat up towards my face, pelvic thrusts that stopped mere inches from my mouth, and I could smell body spray and sex just oozing from her. Her heels clapped together over my head in a loud crack before she spun again and turned to straddle my waist, pressing her plump tits right up against my face, her hands on the back of my head to keep me smothered there.
This continued for the entire length of the song, and they didn’t just play the short version, it was the extended remix that runs nearly ten minutes. At the end of it, she leaned in and gave me a firm kiss before whispering into my ear. “We close at 2. Met me here at 2:30.”
Then she gathered up her clothes and headed out the door.
Ken and I were both silent for a good minute. We probably should’ve left the lounge immediately, but I suspect after that, the club wanted to give us a cooldown period. Ken finally spoke first. “She’s never give ME a dance like that.”
“I, uh... I’m supposed to meet her after the club’s closed.”
Ken’s face narrowed. “Bullshit.”
I shrugged. “We can both wait outside if you want.”
It was around 1 a.m. when Ken and I decided to go get some late night tacos, and then we doubled back to the club at 2:15. The lot was mostly empty, except for a handful of cars that clearly belonged to either dancers, bouncers or the DJ. “Fine, you don’t believe me, so you wait here. If she walks past me, or doesn’t show by 2:45, you can drive me home and say I’m full of shit... but if not...”
Ken raised a hand in surrender. “Go. Prove me wrong.”
I stepped out of the Escalade and headed over towards the door. There were a couple of greaseball looking guys hanging around, as well as a couple of young women. Ten minutes later, the dancers began to trickle out one or two at a time, always escorted by a bouncer, until they got to their car or met with their ride.
At 2:35, I was starting to get a little nervous, but sure enough, Diamond walked out, dressed in Gucci sweatpants and a zip up hoodie, a giant satchel bag under her arm. She glanced around and spotted me immediately, walking straight at me before she slid her arm around my waist. “Did you drive, Rick or do we need an Uber?”
“Uh, Uber,” I said, pulling out my phone. “I can call us one.”
She swatted my wrist. “I got it.”
The Uber arrived five minutes later. Diamond and I hadn’t talked almost at all while we waited, and we didn’t talk much during the drive, which didn’t take us to a house or an apartment building, but a little no-tell motel just a short jaunt away. “Wait here,” she told me as she went in and got us a room before she returned, leading me over to room 118. She used the key to unlock the door and pushed me into the room, stepping in, closing the door behind us.
As soon as the door was closed, she shoved me back onto the bed hard. “Is your name really Derrick?” she said as she started yanking my t-shirt up and over my head.
“It is. What’s your real name?”
She unzipped her track top, and tossed it off before yanking a sports bra up and over her head, casting it aside. “Alina. Now shut the fuck up.”
I tried to play an active part, but Diamond... Alina... was in control the whole time. She unbuttoned my jeans and yanked them down to my knees, along with my boxers, before she kicked off her flip flops and pulled off her sweatpants. She didn’t have anything on underneath them.
Before I knew it, she was straddling me on the bed, knees on either side of my hips as she thrust her snatch down onto my dick like she was trying to fuck me through the bed. It wasn’t gentle or tender. Hell, I felt like I was mostly just being used as a sex toy, something to get her aggression out on, as she snapped those lithe hips into mine again and again.
Each thrust was hard, brutal. I wasn’t fucking her. This woman was clearly fucking me. I placed one hand on her hip and brought the other to her belly so I could bring my thumb down to rub on her clit, which made her groan even harder. She would, from time to time, shove her mouth down against mine, but I felt like the kisses were almost just to try and keep us both quiet more than showing any real affection.
About ten minutes later, our lips still clamped together, I could feel her pussy starting to spasm and clamp down, and while I was trying to resist, I couldn’t, and ended up blasting a hot load of spunk inside of her, right as she slumped down atop of me.
Five minutes later, she had moved into the bathroom to have a quick shower, and I’d fished my phone out of my pocket and set it on the nightstand, letting it record sound.
When Alina emerged from the bathroom, she was cleaned up and dressed again. “The room’s paid for until noon, so you can just drop the key off any time between now and then.” She moved to sit on the edge of the bed and looked at me. “You know, I’ve never fucked a client of the club’s before. I somehow thought I’d feel different if I ever did, but I don’t. If I’m honest, I’m never going to have a long term relationship with anyone who knows I did this. I’m going to graduate from med school next year, and once I do, I’m going to leave this town and do my residency somewhere I can forget I ever stripped for money. You seem nice enough, but you’ve seen me strip, so... thanks but no thanks. If I’m honest.”
She leaned down and kissed my cheek, then stood up, gathered her bag and headed out of the hotel room.
As soon as the door closed behind her, I stopped the recording and sent it on to Ken.
He must’ve been too dumbstruck to respond, because my phone didn’t ring again until morning.