My name is Beth and I dash. Jeez, it sounds like I’m at an AA meeting or something! I did that once but it wasn’t for me. Yeah, I like to get plastered and yes, it’s caused me some ‘issues’ but alcoholics anonymous just wasn’t my thing. Nor does it really have anything to do with this confession other than to provide background. I just needed to get it out there right at the beginning. Because it’s true. So is the fact that I dash.

I saw an ad on TV and signed up to be a Door Dasher. I ride my bike around the city delivering practically anything that will fit in my carrier. It’s done wonderful things for my legs, glutes and abs and I’ve never felt fitter. Like being a traditional bicycle courier, there’s a downside for someone built like me but nothing a good sports bra doesn’t take care of. Next time you’re about and about in NYC and you see a delivery girl on a bike at ten o’clock at night, it might be me.

I’m not tooting my own horn here. I’ve been told I’m hot and I get it. I’d definitely do me. I mean I do anyway, but you get the idea. Blonde hair that usually stays in a ponytail, good teeth, I’m 43 but could pass for late 20’s in the right light. Okay, early 30’s. I’ve included a picture. That was a challenge to actually do, but I figure hey, if someone reading this knows me, then, come on, hit me up. I’ll probably say yes the way I feel right now. Unless you’re Eric. Eric, you still owe me money and you ain’t getting pussy until you pay up.

Now that I’ve said all that, you probably think I’m a stuck up bitch. I’m not. Really. I wouldn’t be writing down this confession if I were, right? I’ve got issues. I already said that. I like the sauce - I said that too. But yesterday I think I might have found an answer to a question I never even considered asking myself.

Why. I mean that’s really the question, isn’t it? Why do I like to drink? What am I hiding from? Why do I feel this burning desire to get answers now? I certainly wasn’t drunk when I started dashing late in the afternoon of what I’ve already begun to think of as day zero.

As a dasher, all I’ve got to do is open the app and click the dash button. My phone pings and I go to the address where there’s food or whatever, to be picked up for a customer. Since COVID-19, the app’s been all the rage. You can get a pizza delivered from your favorite mom-and-pop pizzeria and someone like me will leave it outside your door. No contact. Paid for using your version of the app. Even the tip gets prepaid if you want. You might never even see who delivered your food.

There are a lot of good people who don’t add a tip to their bill and some sleaze bags who just plain don’t tip. You don’t find out till you’re at the door finalizing the transaction. The dasher app just asks if the dasher wants a $4 job. That means there might or might not be a cash tip at the end. I figured out that sometimes those pathetic-looking jobs actually pay the best, but in cash that doesn’t need to be declared at tax time.

Anyway, I took one of those jobs and that’s really what this confession’s about. It turned out to be a 2 liter of coke, believe it or not. Yeah, people really ARE that lazy. But who am I to judge? Coke goes real good with Bacardi. You can’t write off a dash just because someone ordered a bottle of soda. Probably cost them $5 on their version of the app, too.

So I get the Coke, take it to a brownstone that’s been divided into apartments and it’s one of those, leave-it-at-the-door dashes. Only I can’t just leave it at the door. It’d stay there 2 seconds before someone stole it. The customer knew that and that’s where the special instructions come into play. Those instructions said I had to have the customer buzz me in. But that’s also where it got interesting.

There were two special instructions, neatly listed out. Other than the instruction that said the customer would buzz me in when I announced who I was, there was a second one I thought they’d messed up on and it made me giggle. ‘Take a picture of yourself with the bottle outside my door’. Taking a picture of the delivery is standard. Doing it as a selfie is NOT standard.

The picture proves you did what the customer asked when someone steals your stuff and you get a complaint lodged against you. Like a safety precaution to prove you did your job, right? But I’d never had a request to provide a picture of myself delivering stuff. That was new. So was the fact that the only distinguishing feature of the door where I was to leave the coke was the apartment number. And that number was only like 2 feet off the floor, like a midget had installed it or something. I mean at face value, that was perfect. Sit the coke on the floor, snap a picture and the apartment number’s perfectly in frame. Done and done.

But done and done with no fucking tip. It was a $4 order. I figured some sleazeball wanted to know what his dasher looked like so he could judge what the tip should be, if any. I know people and that’s something some people do. Not a fan but hey, if it takes a picture to get a good tip, why not?

The problem with the apartment number being so low BECAME a problem when I tried to take a selfie. I couldn’t get me, the coke AND the apartment number in the shot and I had no intention of fucking with a $4 order for 10 extra minutes. The answer was obvious. Get down on my knees. That worked. I was just waiting for my stupid phone to focus so I could snap the picture when the door opened. The first thing the chick on the other side saw was me on my knees. I guess she smiled tolerantly. I heard the smile with her greeting. O ... M ... G ... I had to reel my eyeballs back into their sockets too, though. She was like some sort of video game goddess and all I was seeing were her legs reflected back at me from the phone screen.

“Mmmmm ... now aren’t you a lovely little thing on your knees,” she said from like a foot in front of me. All my phone screen caught of her was her boots. Lace up, past the knee with the highest, spikiest heel I’ve ever seen in real life.

Keep in mind that I had my back to her apartment door, taking a picture of myself with the coke and supposedly the apartment number in the frame. I jerked in surprise and made to get up but she stopped me with a single word. “No.”

I froze.

“Take your little picture, dear. It was in the instructions after all,” she added after what seemed like an hour of me processing her greeting and order to stay where I was. She didn’t move either.

I confess I tilted the camera up a little. She was wearing stockings under the boots and there was a pair of bare legs for about a mile after the stocking tops and before the frame finally showed the hem of a black leather skirt. From my perspective on my knees, I half expected to get a hint of panties on the screen too. I didn’t and for some reason, that frustrated me.

I need to pause again and make it clear, I’m not a lez. Not even bi. I’d like to say that I was distracted by the $100 bill she had clutched in her hand but it wasn’t that. It was her raw sexuality. The way she spoke down to me. The way she was dressed. The sound of her voice. She’d buzzed me in without a word, so this was the first time I’d heard her speak and maybe it was the situation, but all of the above went straight to my pussy. I actually felt it throb inside my spandex bike shorts.

The first picture was fuzzy. I found myself apologizing and trying again. This time the coke bottle was completely out of frame and I had the weirdest look on my face. The third one was at least what it was supposed to be except that the apartment number wasn’t visible because her legs were there instead.

Can you believe I still didn’t even know what she looked like at that point? I’d just taken 3 pictures of a woman’s boots, a bunch of bare leg and a skirt hem. I felt so sneaky, tilting the camera up higher as if I wouldn’t be caught trying to get her head into the frame.

In retrospect, I could have done a bunch of things I didn’t do. First and foremost, I didn’t need to stay on my knees outside this stranger’s door. Second, I didn’t need to take a picture. There’s an option on the app that says, ‘handed to customer’. I could have done that. I’d like to say that for a $100 tip, I was only thinking of making this particular customer happy and in a way, that’s absolutely true. But it’d also be a lie. She’d told me to stay where I was and to take my picture, so that’s what I’d done.

Thinking hadn’t formed part of the equation. Even tilting the camera up was not conscious. For some reason, I just wanted to see the woman who’d given me orders and who I’d submitted to instinctively. My first conscious thought was I was where I belonged. At the feet of a very powerful woman.

“Tisk, tisk. Now did I say you could take the liberty of looking at me?” she asked in that hypnotizing voice. There was something stern in it, yet playful. My camera lens didn’t make it past her chest. A chest encased in, of all things, a corset. She had a small chest compared with mine, but still a large C or relatively small D. My thumb hovered over the shutter button but I didn’t press it. It seemed to take a force of will to instead tap the ‘use photo’ button on the photo I’d already taken.

“Good girl,” she said. It felt like she was praising me. My whole body tingled with the compliment. Still, I stayed kneeling there.

She hadn’t told me to move, yet it didn’t feel awkward. It probably would have if there’d been anyone else in the hall. I mean how would I explain kneeling with a bottle of coke next to me and a phone in my hand, taking a selfie.

“Finish the transaction then go unavailable,” she suddenly ordered.

I’d only just started dashing. This was only my third delivery. I had rent money to make. I couldn’t just go unavailable because she’d told me to. I did as she told me, pausing my dash, while still kneeling there. She watched me do it.

“Bring the bottle. Crawl inside and you can make me a drink.” It wasn’t a suggestion. It wasn’t really an order either, just what had to happen next. That’s how it felt, anyway.

I did as I was told. I even closed the door behind myself. She’d silently moved away from me, giving me room to enter. I didn’t even hear her heels on the carpeted floor. She just wasn’t in my way when I about-faced and entered her apartment on my hands and knees, using the coke bottle as a sort of crutch.

The door clicking shut was like a gunshot, sort of bringing me back to reality and dispelling the haze. I suddenly felt stupid, having crawled into a stranger’s apartment on my hands and knees, lugging a coke bottle with me. I blushed as I imagined the picture I was presenting. Here I was, a strong, independent woman, basically my own boss - they call dashers independent contractors for a reason - crawling into a stranger’s apartment because that stranger had told me I’d be preparing them a libation.

Who the hell did she think she was, anyway? Sure, the outrageous outfit and the beyond sexy voice had caught me off guard, but what was I? Five years old, doing all over again what my mom told me to? I’m not a hard up lesbian. Never was. I like to please, but that’s just my nature.

Then I laid eyes on the rest of her. She’d planted herself on a recliner and she was watching me, amusement clearly written on her unbelievably beautiful face.

“I know. I get that look all the time and no, I’m not a supermodel. I worked hard to become the woman I am and I never once slept with a man to guarantee my success. You, on the other hand, intrigue me. Your bearing screams submission and although I was hoping for a male to play with, you’re what I got. So welcome. The Brugal is on the shelf. A tumbler is next to it. Ice cubes are in the freezer. Chop chop!” She clapped her hands to hurry me along.

I could have feigned anger. I could have just stormed out and forgotten the $100 she’d taunted me with. Instead I got to my feet and moved to the open kitchen area. There were two glasses next to a bottle of Brugal Papa Andres. No one in their right mind would add coke to a rum like that! I’d only heard the name in passing, never having seen an actual bottle of it. Something like $2,000 a bottle!

My brain kind of began functioning again. Had she invited me in to have a drink with her? There WERE two tumblers and I’m partial to a shot of ... well anything, really. But those two words, ‘join me’ hadn’t been uttered. I made a choice.

I carefully took just one tumbler down, added ice, the rum and once I’d cracked the coke, poured a dash of it on top. I couldn’t bring myself to totally destroy the drink by topping the tumbler off with coke. I then carried the drink to the customer who acted like it was her due for me to serve her. She didn’t hold out her hand to accept the beverage.

Although there was an end table next to the recliner, there was no coaster on it, so I was stuck. I was raised in a singlewide trailer in Binghamton, New York. The most expensive piece of furniture was mom’s big screen TV, although mom had me keeping the place spotless for her and my brothers since as far back as I can remember.