Sneak Peak: The Story of Jonas (Patreon)

The first half of chapter 6 is pretty much ready to publish, but in the meantime, here's a glimpse of what follows after.  This follows a short scene with Julia.  I'm a little unsure with this transitional stuff, though it's setting up some important plot points for later in the narrative.  In any case, this'll be wrapping up the clubbing experience and set up the next "story", which will bring us back to that first week back at work, and resolve the Dan storyline.

Enjoy!  As always, sneak peak's are still in their draft stage and liable to change, and possible outright deletion!

***

The Story of Jonas

He couldn’t understand, of course, that I was suffering an existential crisis as I wailed and clung to him as a drowning sailor might a life preserver in a tempestuous sea. Both sides of my selves were collapsing into each other as I sobbed into this confused boy’s shoulder. His shirt darkened under my tears, and he winced a little as my nails dug into his arm. Jonas held me lightly and made little comforting sounds. He had no idea what was going on or quite how he’d ended up with this girl holding on to him. He told me later he’d questioned whether a half-assed blow job was worth the price of so much drama.

He didn’t have to put up with me for long. Though intense, my crisis was short-lived. I felt remarkably better as I pulled away. Something had dislodged within me. Something toxic, now expelled and almost instantly my head cleared and an odd elation took its place.

“Wow,” I said and smiled to see his confusion. “What was that, huh?”

“Are you—okay?” He blinked. “Should I get Bruno over here? He can take you to the medical room.”

I laughed. “No.” My shoulders shook, seeing his unconvinced scowl. “No—really. It’s… fine.” I pressed my hand to his chest, fingers spread. “Really. Tonight brought a bunch of stuff to the surface. I really just needed a good cry. And… thank you for being there when I needed someone.” With my other hand I cupped his cheek. “You’re a good kid, Jonas.”

“Kid?” His crooked smile sparkled with a hint of condescension. “I bet you’re not even twenty-one.”

“My ID says I am,” I answered and stuck my tongue out at him. “So there.”

“You alone tonight?” He made a show of looking around. “No beefy boyfriend coming to beat the crap out of me?”

“Nope. You’re safe.” There’s a little sardonic smile to his lips that’s equal parts charming to annoying. “What?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m just—surprised, I guess. A girl like you, single?”

“I know, right?”

“Here with friends?”

I nod. “Yeah. I should probably check in on them.” My little clutch purse sat at the back of the pod. “But—they’re big girls. I’m sure they’re fine.” I sidled a little closer to him, arm sliding around his waist. I leaned into him. “I’d rather be here right now.”

“I—” He blushed. “Um—are you sure you’re okay?”

I nodded.

We sat in silence for a short while. Occasionally someone walked by, often peeking in though the darkness of the pod offered comforting shelter. At one point the girl from the neighbouring pod got up, stretched and stared for a long time at the rising sun. Eventually she wandered off, awkward in her chunky heels. The digital sky brightened and lit up the hall under an amber glow, momentarily chasing shadows away.

I giggled.

“What?” Jonas asked.

“Oh, I was just thinking,” I said, and nudged him in the ribs. “I’m glad it didn’t do that—you know—earlier, when I was—you know.”

A tremor of his laugh passed through him. “Oh. Yeah. No chance of that.”

I glanced up at him. “How so?”

“The pods….,” he continued, were equipped with a number of miniscule cameras linked to the surveillance software watching over the entire club. While visuals were obviously anonymized for legal reasons, the AI had been trained to identify hotspots and flag security as needed: such as when a girl suddenly finds herself isolated and alone on the dance floor, surrounded by boys turning nasty. It’s how Bruno got to me so quickly, he explains.

“Oh,” I said.

He rubbed my shoulder. “The AI also monitors these pods. It adapts the visuals to match the needs of the people in the room, which isn’t always easy because obviously not everyone’s needs the same thing at the same time, but—” Jonas chuckled a little uncomfortably. “Well, if people are getting a bit, uh… intimate, I guess, you know, it triggers a low-light mode for, um, privacy.”

I twisted a little to sit and look up at him more clearly. “How do you know all this?”

He nearly beamed with pride; he’d clearly been hoping I’d ask. “Oh, well… it’s my AI," he said. “I’m the one who trained it. Still train it. It’s a side job. Bruno brought me in a year back and I’ve been working for the club since.” He chest puffs out a little. “By every meaningful metric, it’s made things better here. Fewer call outs to the police, sexual assault rates, theft, drug ODs way down—it’s made the place a lot safer. The old club AI was a bit shit, but I’ve brought it a long way.”

I was listening, but also curiously looking across the length of the lounge, picking out the individual pods and their inhabitant. I blushed a little, to think of all the other girls at the same moment as me, on their knees—enough to bring on sheltering darkness as we pleasured our men. “I wonder how many,” I murmured.

“Hmm?”

“How many other girls were, you know—like me—when I, uh, with you?”
 He laughed. “Oh, that! Oh, I don’t know—I mean, I could find out,” and he waved a hand at his laptop, “but it might’ve just been you.”

“But you said—”

“Yeah, but it’s my AI, right?” He grinned. “I’d have to check the log, but I suspect it was doing me a favour.”

“Shit,” I exclaimed, and gave him a punch in the shoulder. “Your own digital pimp?”

His eyes went wide. “What, no! No, nothing like that!” He looked around, as though security forces were about to jump out and drag him away. “Believe me—this was a first! I normally just sit here and work away, you know. Help Bruno out sometimes. But you—”  He laughed a little nervously. “Girls like you don’t normally come and sit with me.”

I made a show of eying him warily. “If you say so….”

He threw his hands up in mock surrender. “Trust me. I’m totally legit.”

“Fine.” And then, rather impulsively, I leaned in and gave him a little kiss on the cheek. “And thank you again.”
 He looked a little embarrassed again. “It was, um—my pleasure.”
 “I really thought I could do it, you know,” I said. “I really wanted to.”

“I don’t follow.” His hand was at my waist again, and again I lean into him.

I gave a little smile. “You were my first.”

“First—?”

“Blow job.”

“Bullshit,” he said. The word just sort of popped out. His eyes went wide and he immediately grimaced.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.”

“No—not nothing. What did you mean?”

“It’s just….” He shrugged apologetically. “I mean, look at you, at the way you’re dressed.”

I looked down at myself—at the dress—at the gleaming expanse of thigh and cleavage and the scintillation of every movement. And I knew what he meant—agreed with him, to some extent—but wasn’t letting him off that easily. Beneath the wreckage of my makeup, my cheeks flared red with anger. “What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?”

“Nothing!” He raised his hands, palms out. “Nothing. You look… great.” There was a brief struggle in his eyes; he couldn’t help himself. “It’s just—”

“Yes?”

“The way you’re dressed, you know, girls like you?”

“Girls like me?” I arched an eyebrow. “Oh, please, do go on. That’s the third time you mention “girls like me”. What about ‘girls like me’?”

A tremor entered his voice, one part anger to one point defensiveness. “Oh, come on—you know what I’m saying.”

“Yeah, I do,” I said. “But I want to hear you say it. Go on, tell me about ‘girls like me’ and they way we dress.”

He took the bait; his eyes flashed and he leaned forward and when he spoke, his voice flushed with arrogance and scorn.