DAHLIA
A Club Coquette Tale
SmashWords
Edition
Copyright
2011 Cheyenne West
All rights reserved
# # #
The silver bell over the front door chimed.
I glanced up from the paperwork on my desk. Through the tall one-way mirror that took up most of my office door, I could see out into the showroom as a girl stepped into the building at the opposite end of the store. The afternoon sunlight streamed through the door after her for a moment, rifling through her scarlet hair at a million brilliant angles.
I flipped my wrist and checked my watch. It was still ten minutes to one. That was a good sign. I eased back in my desk chair, folded my hands over my waist, and watched. After a moment, I saw Jasmine step out from behind the counter just outside my office door and head toward the girl. Jasmine wore only a strapless bandeau bra and matching panties of deep amethyst that looked stunning against her fair Irish skin.
I couldn't help watching the swing of her hips as she crossed the carpet barefoot. She had lately started wearing a lace garter up her left thigh as well, but she hadn't put it on today. I missed it a little bit. She really knew how to make it work for her. I watched her approach the redhead, hug her, peck her on the right cheek and then the left cheek.
The redhead said something I couldn't hear through the soundproofing. Even from across the store, it looked like her lips formed the words you look incredible. She flashed a dazzling smile, and I could see why Jasmine had recruited her. I felt an electric flutter below my belly as I watched them. I shifted in my chair, and became suddenly aware of the smooth fabric of my own panties brushing delicately against my heated flesh.
I pushed the sensation to the back of my mind. I saw Jasmine gesture around the showroom, and though I couldn't see her face, I knew what she was saying. Take a look around. See what draws you in. I'm here for you when you're ready. She said it to every client that walked in that door, and she meant it. And she always inflected those words to make them sound vaguely flirtatious in an understated way. I'm here for you.
The girl nodded and flashed that dazzling smile again, and Jasmine headed back to the counter. Just before she stepped out of my line of sight, she nodded to me from the other side of the glass. She couldn't see me, but of course she'd know I was watching. It was why I'd had a door with a one-way mirror installed in the first place.
The redhead wandered among the floor displays for a couple of minutes before she made her way to the far wall. The shelves of high heels caught her attention in a way that all the camisoles and corsets and chemises hadn't. She was a shoe girl. I liked that.
I pushed back from my desk and stood out of my chair, smoothing my pencil skirt down over my thighs. That electric flutter below my belly flared again. I ignored it as I stepped out from behind the desk and crossed to the full-length mirror on the wall beside the door. The top two buttons of my blouse were undone, exposing just the top inch of cleavage. My dark hair tumbled down my neck and over my shoulders. I spent a couple of minutes winding it up and pinning it into a chignon at the back of my head.
I looked down, and stepped into the black suede shoes on the floor beneath the mirror, slipping the pair of flats onto my feet over my ecru thigh highs. I glanced at my reflection again, and felt that fluttery buzzing below my belly flared fiercely. This time I didn't try to push it away. I was striking to look at. And I owned my own sexuality.
Pleased with my appearance, I pulled the office door silently open and stepped out into the showroom. The redhead was still looking up at the wall of shoes, mesmerized by the variety. I glanced to Jasmine, who was flipping through a catalogue behind the counter, and spotted the snowy Maid of Orleans blossom in her charcoal hair. Jasmine glanced to the girl, then back to me. She grinned, and turned back to her catalogue.
I left the office door open, and stepped out from around the counter. My footsteps made no sound on the carpet as I crossed the showroom. I stopped a few steps behind the redhead, and watched her as she admired a pair of glittering black Bordello Pleasers with a Mary Jane strap and a bow of red ribbon. I grinned. They were a good choice.
"You know," I said softly, but the redhead jumped anyway, "I really believe that you can tell all there is to know about a woman by the heels she falls in love with."
She spun to me, gasped, and smiled. I looked at the Bordellos for another moment, then turned to the girl. Up close, the curve of her lips was even more dazzling.
"I didn't mean to startle you," I lied.
"No," she said with a small laugh, "I was off in my own little world."
I nodded to the Bordellos. "Must have been a nice place with shoes like those."
The redhead glanced back to the glittering heels and twitched a grin. She shook her head, and told me, "It will be. One of these days."
I watched her for a moment, then offered her my hand. "Caroline Werth."
"Dahlia Zarenkiewicz," the redhead answered, wrapping her fingers around my hand. I held onto her hand for an extra second, and she laughed. "I'm your one o'clock."
I flipped my wrist and checked my watch again, even though I knew what time it was. I looked back into Dahlia's startling green eyes. "Then you're right on time."
She smiled at me, and that fluttering below my belly surged hotly. I glanced past her, giving myself a moment to reassert control over my body, and my eyes fell on the Bordellos on their small shelf against the wall. "What size do you wear?" I asked.
Dahlia turned to the shoes, then looked back to me. "Seven."
I nodded. "Jasmine, could you grab a pair of these in size seven out of the back?"
"Absolutely," Jasmine said, and that vaguely flirtatious inflection was there again. I'm here for you. She had been there for me since the beginning. I smiled to her.
Jasmine disappeared through a door behind the counter. Dahlia leaned toward me, dropping her voice. "She told me her name was Judith."
"It is. Each girl that works here adopts the name of her favorite flower as a sort of alter ego," I told her with a smile. "It's kind of a joke. Like stripper names."
Dahlia laughed. Jasmine stepped out of the backroom with a black shoebox and crossed the showroom to us, handing the box to me. I took it and thanked her. Jasmine quirked a little half-grin before heading back to her catalogue at the front counter.
"Let's step into my office," I said to Dahlia. The redhead nodded, and I led the way around the counter, carrying the shoebox. I stepped through the door, let Dahlia pass me, and closed the door behind us. She glanced over her shoulder at me as the door clicked gently shut, and a daring look flashed in her startling green eyes. Just for a second.
I gestured to the plush chair set in front of my desk. "Have a seat."
She thanked me, and sat. I passed the chair and set the shoebox down on my desk, then turned to face her, sitting back against the wooden ledge. I propped my hands on the lip of the desk on either side of my hips, and watched Dahlia settle into the chair.
She crossed her legs. I saw that she wore stone-washed skinny jeans with a pair of low-top Chuck Taylors, and a black knit top with cap sleeves and corset lacing down the front. Her collarbones were exposed from shoulder to shoulder. The fluttery buzz below was starting to migrate south of my belly, igniting a fiery aching deep in my center.
She was looking up at me, and that daring look flickered in her eyes again. A small smile twitched across my lips. I folded my arms and leaned back on the desk, and felt a breath of cool air slip up my skirt and brush against the flesh above my thigh highs.
I trembled, and said, "Jasmine tells me you're a fan of poetry."
Dahlia nodded. "Only the good stuff. Allen Ginsberg; Walt Whitman; Langston Hughes." Then she flashed her dazzling smile again. "We actually met at a reading by Maya Angelou down at Temple University. She recited 'Phenomenal Woman'."
I smiled at that. "'It's in the arch of my back, the sun of my smile'—"
"—'The ride of my breasts'," she finished the line. "'The grace of my style." She drew a shivering breath, and her eyelids fluttered. "I could listen to her all day long."
"I know what you mean," I told her, and cleared my throat. That sultry heat throbbed between my thighs. "Did Jasmine tell you anything about the store's philosophy?"
Dahlia pursed her lips and shook her head. "She mentioned it, but she only said that it was a topic better discussed with you." And then that daring look flared in her startling green eyes again. "I have to admit that she left me tantalized on the subject."
A soft laugh rolled out of my throat at that. I knew that Jasmine hadn't discussed our philosophy with this girl during their dinner at Ruth's Chris. When they had first met at a poetry reading, Jasmine had felt a certain sensuality about the redhead. So her task had been to tantalize the girl. And when Jasmine told me that her recruit was eager to meet with me for a second interview, I had known that her intuition had been accurate.
"It's really rather simple," I told Dahlia now. "There's only one thing that you can ever really own during this lifetime, and that's the body you're born with."
The redhead nodded, and the tip of her tongue slipped across her bottom lip. I blew out a hot breath and shifted against the desk. The silky fabric of my panties clung to the dampness of my soft lips, kicking off a surge of raging sparks deeper in my center.
"The mind is who we are," I continued. I could hear my own voice quivering, just the slightest bit, and I was sure that Dahlia could hear it too. And that was just fine. "But the mind emerges from the brain. Who we are is a product of the body we inhabit."
Dahlia nodded again. She exhaled, and I heard a shaky quality in her breathing too. So it wasn't just me, and that was good to know. "And a mind can't be at harmony," I told her, "until it embraces the body that houses it. So that's what we do here."
"Teach women to love their bodies," the redhead said.
"Exactly," I said with a nod. "Let me show you."
I stood, and gestured for Dahlia to do the same. She watched my eyes for a long moment, and then her lips curved into an intoxicating grin that made me briefly light-headed. And she must have seen my reaction, because that grin brightened as she pushed herself out of the plush chair in front of my desk. "Turn around," I told her.
She did, and I moved to her right to slide the chair out of the way, and give her an unimpeded view of herself in the full-length mirror beside the door. She looked at her reflection for a long moment, then glanced up to catch my eyes in the mirror. I smiled at her, and turned to lift the lid off the shoebox off my desk. The pair of glittering Bordello Pleasers in size seven that lay inside scattered the light at a million brilliant angles.
I picked the shoes out of the box and stepped around Dahlia's left side. She looked at me curiously as I stepped in front of her, then glanced down at the heels in my hands. I was close enough to watch the rise and fall of her breasts with each breath, and that set off another surge of electrified sparks in the smooth delicacy of my aching center.
"I want you to go back into your own little world," I told her, and lowered myself onto my heels in front of her. I set the heels on the carpet beside her feet, then reached for the laces of her sneakers. I glanced up at her, and found her staring down at me with that daring look now blazing brightly in her eyes. Jasmine's intuitions had been right.
I slowly unknotted the laces of Dahlia's left shoe, lifted her foot, slid the sneaker off. She settled her foot back onto the carpet, and I untied and removed her right shoe as well. I stopped myself from looking up at her again. Instead, I picked up the left shoe of the pair of heels. I lifted Dahlia's left foot in my fingers again, slipping the shoe over her foot like the Grand Duke might have placed the glass slipper onto Cinderella.
Dahlia set her foot back on the floor to get the shoe the rest of the way on. When I lifted her right foot to slip on the second heel, I felt her rest her hand on my shoulder for support. She tightened her grip on my shoulder just slightly as she kept her balance, and slid her foot into the second heel. I stood again, and looked up into Dahlia's face. The additional six inches of height from the heels gave her a full two inches over me.
She flashed that dazzling smile again as she looked down at her feet. I stepped back around her again, giving her a full view of herself in the mirror. She stood gracefully in the heels, lifting first one foot and then the other, bending at the knee to get the best angle on those glorious shoes. I smiled, and saw a flash of black peeking out from the back of her neck beneath her hair. I eased in behind her, stepping right into her personal space.
I reached over her left shoulder, gently dragging her hair away from her neck. She gasped, and I glanced to her face in the mirror. Her eyes fluttered again, but she didn't recoil from my touch. She just flashed that intoxicating grin again, and tilted her head.
I brushed her hair back to reveal a tattoo that looked a little bit like a stylized tree. A kanji symbol that meant beauty. I held in a smile, and asked, "What does it mean?"
"It's the symbol for beauty," she sighed.
I slid a fingertip over the black ink. Dahlia trembled under my touch, and she lifted her left hand to the side of her neck. She looked into my eyes in the mirror, and laid her own fingers softly over mine. I bent forward just barely and brushed my lips against the back of her hand. She sighed again, and a breathy moan slid off her lips on the breath.
Then her fingers slipped off mine and slid down her neck, over her collarbone, down to the supple flesh above her breast. I leaned in and softly pressed my lips to the delicate tattooed skin, watching the mirror over her shoulder to see her biting her bottom lip.
"Tell me about the gorgeous girl you see," I told her.
She looked into my eyes in the mirror, then looked up at her own face. She studied her reflection for a long moment, then flashed that intoxicating grin at herself. "She's a redhead," she said, and I pressed another kiss to the back of her neck. She gasped, and the daring sparkle in her eyes smoldered. "She's slim and very agile." I flickered the tip of my tongue against the flesh between her shoulder blades. A small, light note escaped her throat, and that grin brightened. "And she is extraordinarily turned on right now."
"Good," I said, and reached my left hand around her left arm. I gently wrapped my fingers around hers and guided her hand away from her chest and southward, toward the waistline of her jeans. "Tell me what you do when you have that girl all to yourself."
She moaned quietly as our fingers reached the button that held her jeans together. I pressed her fingertips to the fastener, and as I saw those startling green eyes look into my own from the mirror, I watched her take my cue and work open the button at the front of her stone-washed denims. My fingers lingered over hers as she undid her zipper.
But I let her do the work. Because this was for her to do.
"I make her feel good," she told me as she stared into my eyes. "So good."
The raging fire below my belly erupted then, and I felt the smooth fabric of my panties dampen. It wasn't my orgasm, but it was the first step toward one. I sighed as it happened, and trembled against Dahlia's back, and my breath came out in an unsteady stream. She turned away from the mirror to glance back at me. I leaned against her back for a moment, catching my breath, brushing my lips against the flesh below her tattoo.
I blinked. I would finish my own business later. Right now was about Dahlia.
I looked up to see the redhead still glancing at me over her shoulder. She grinned at me, and that daring look of hers sizzling like live electrical wires in her eyes. I dragged my fingernails across the tight flesh of her stomach just above the waistline of her jeans. She sucked in a hissing breath, and I told her, "Then go ahead. Make her feel good."
Dahlia turned back toward the mirror, and locked onto my eyes. Her left hand glided across my hand, across my fingers, across her own belly. Then it dipped into the opening at the top of her jeans, and slipped beneath the sheer material of her teal panties, and the tip of her middle finger disappeared between the glistening folds of her pussy.
Her eyes fluttered briefly and closed. She groaned from the sensation, and I moaned with her, and I felt her trembling as she eased her body back into mine. I watched her work her finger in a slow circle over her delicate clit, then run two fingers down the wet length of her lips before dragging fingertips back up to her greatest sensitivity.
I dragged my eyes away her mesmerizing sex when she rested her head back against my right shoulder. The scent of lavender vanilla made me giddy, and my pussy throbbed fiercely. She tilted her face toward me. "Touch me," she whimpered. "Please."
My tight folds convulsed inside me, and I gasped against her shoulder. I mashed my lips against her collarbone, kissing her hard as I dropped my hands to both sides of her slender hips, my fingertips tightening down on the smooth flesh above the waistline of her jeans. I shuddered as she pressed her firm ass back against the front of my skirt, and I suddenly knew that this girl would be absolutely incredible to fuck from behind.
"Not there," she whined, and I bit back another moan at the pleading sound in her voice. She didn't open her eyes, and I watched the graceful features of her face shift as she worked herself closer to the explosive fulfillment that only she could achieve.
"No one else can give you the pleasure that you can give yourself," I whispered to her, running my tongue along the rim of her ear as I held onto her waist, squeezing her hips. She rocked against me, and moaned out with a fantastic lack of awkwardness, and I wondered if I might end up reaching my own fulfillment just from the sound of hers.
I looked back at our reflections, as tightly twined as a pair of passionate lovers. I smiled at the image, and watched Dahlia caress her slick lips with increasing enthusiasm. She was getting close. Her breathing quickened. I nipped with my teeth at the soft flesh below her right ear, and sucked on the skin of her shoulder, and held her against me.
"Open your eyes," I told her as I felt her breath start to rush jaggedly. She murmured deep in her throat as her body trembled against mine, and I told her again. "Look at that gorgeous girl. I want you to see how unbearably sexy you are when you cum."
Dahlia's eyes flew open then. She tilted her head up and her lips parted, and a long note rolled out of her throat as her fingers finally drove her over the edge of a stunning orgasm. "Look," I whispered to her as she came hard against me, her pussy clenching against her fingers. She cried out as another wave hit her, and I said, "Watch."
She did. As hard as that stunning orgasm ripped through her body, she kept her eyes open, locked on her own reflection in that full-length mirror. She watched herself cum in my arms, and she didn't even know that the unbearable sounds of her orgasm had brought me within a breath of my own. Or maybe she did. Because even as the tidal wave of her fulfillment receded, I held onto her hips, and shook against her back.
I breathed hard against her skin for several long moments. When I was finally back in control of my body, I kissed the side of her neck, and laughed softly as she shivered under my touch. She brushed her hair out of her face, and looked at me in the mirror, then turned around to face me. The zipper and button of her jeans were still open.
She stepped in close, looking down at me from her two-inch advantage. I felt a little vulnerable standing below her like that, and I liked it. I stared up into her startling green eyes, and told her, "The shoes are yours. And so is the job, if you want it."
The redhead didn't even hesitate before she nodded. So I reached to her face and held her cheek in my palm. I brushed the pad of my thumb across her bottom lip, and bit my own bottom lip. I looked up at her, said, "Then welcome to Club Coquette."
FINIS
# # #
About the Author
Cheyenne West is the daughter of a poet and an architect. She has a Doctorate of Philosophy in American Literature and Bachelors Degrees in Business and Accounting. She owns and manages Club Coquette in downtown Conshohocken, and writes by night.
Every time she's told what a dirty mind she has, she takes it as a compliment.