Chapter 27

Monday, Nov 1, 2021

The next six days after Jamie’s stripper debut ‘were nerve-wracking,’ was a very charitable grouping of words with what I was planning for tomorrow. It had been on my mind nearly every waking minute.

This had been the weekend of Jen and Robert, but that wasn’t what had been haunting me, although it was there in the background. Jen promised me a video, from a professional videographer, a woman she’s used to video many of her dances, and I was nervous about that too, though, on tenterhooks to hear how it had gone. Knowing my friend, I had no doubt they’d both enjoyed their little sojourn immeasurably.

What had me so neurotic was the simple fact that Tuesday was ‘Freedom from Vagiblok’ day, and I had plans for the rest of the night after the club closed.

Katie saw how wired I’d been and insisted we go shopping and dinner Monday, our day off from the club. I tried to call my husband in the morning, and he didn’t answer. I wasn’t concerned because it’s not uncommon, he’s with a customer. I left him a message that I loved him, and shortly after, Katie and I left for our daily session with LeAndra at the gym.

I’m so envious of Katie at the gym; she’s gotten to the point where she can arch her body backward and put both feet behind her head with hardly a strain, among other impossible positions. It’s almost like she was born a contortionist but didn’t realize the degree of her flexibility until we started training with LeAndra. I was loose when younger and have gradually regained much of the flexibility so that I can bend my body in ways I’d never dreamed until the last couple months, but nothing like Katie. I wouldn’t have been able to at her age either. But still, I’ve been proud of myself in what I have been able to do.

It was after we showered that we went uptown, first to Lover’s, our favorite store, a sex store. I remember going to Castle, the sex store in Kennewick, with my husband, how I was mortified stepping foot inside. Lover’s is much more extreme, but now, I love it, we both do.

I found several g-string and bra sets, but I’m not sure how much I’ll wear the bras, and four VERY sexy negligees that I’ll add to my collection at the club, two of the slingshots like I gave to Jamie, two dresses, AND some fun-looking toys for later, after the Vagiblok unlocks. Nine weeks it had been. One. More. Day!

Oh, maybe I should mention what I was wearing when we left the store. First off, I’ll mention that it was eighty-six degrees outside, not exactly the kind of weather I’m accustomed to in November, living in the Pacific Northwest. It was only last year that Thanksgiving weekend, only a few weeks from now, it was in the single digits with a foot of snow on the ground. Here, the temperature on November first was eighty-six degrees.

So, I didn’t exactly need cold weather clothing. Katie and I both found tops and bottoms we changed into, hers a wet-look, vinyl skirt and crop top, both befitting something a stripper might wear on a warm day. I bought a pair of denim shorts and top, not exactly something a typical teacher would wear though. The shorts were ... let’s just say they would have made a very small bikini bottom, skin-tight frayed denim, and very low on my hips, The top was no more than a skimpy, lace halter-bra, tight frayed denim to match the bottom, with strategically placed straps and dangles.

Needless to say, between the top and shorts, they covered very little of my butterflies.

Yep, a slut unreservedly ... and loving it!

To top the outfit off, I bought a pair of clear pumps with four-inch heels, enough to emphasize my legs, but still be comfortable enough to walk in, sexy, very sexy. Plus, they looked really good with the ankle bracelet Robert had bought me last Christmas. This was the first time I’d worn it here, and I loved it. I wondered how many people knew of its significance.

What can I say, we were two cute girls out for a day of fun, and we were both giggling when we left the store, our original clothes safely tucked away in bags with our other purchases. To say that I was feeling sexy would be such an understatement.

I looked at Katie, seeing her as a man would see her, as Bindi would see her, and I wanted her, badly!

Katie drove to the Pirate Water Taxi parking, we bought two all-day passes, and waited the few minutes until the next boat arrived. I’d been wanting to go out in pubic wearing something sexy, and I thought an evening on the Riverwalk, wearing the outfits Katie and I had just bought would easily qualify. From the looks we were getting from the men on the water taxi, I think they agreed.

Our first stop was Francesca’s, the store where Robert and I had been in his coma, and then for real that first time we were in Tampa for my audition. We browsed and I found a dress, an elegant silk evening dress, long with a slit up one side, backless, and beautiful, oh so beautiful. I wanted it, I wanted it to wear in the club, to take off on stage, to wear it for my husband ... for him to take off me. Francesca’s isn’t an inexpensive store, the dress was pricey, four-hundred-ninety-nine dollars, ninety-nine cents, almost all the remaining money I’d brought. But it was worth it, every penny.

I bought perfume to go with it, the same perfume as Robert told me about from his coma. I spritzed with it and Katie swooned, loving it and bought a bottle for herself too. I gave the sales girl an approximate time that we’d be back to pick up the dress ... and then Katie and I splurged, we found a little homemade ice cream shop, ‘Dave’s Homemade’, and bought a cone each.

They were only kid’s cones, but a lot for us. I hadn’t had ice cream since ... that family dinner before I left home for Tampa. It was pistachio and oh my God, it was good. We sat on a bench under a palm tree overlooking the Hillsborough River, ate our ice cream, and I explained to Katie about Robert’s coma and his dreams.

“He’d never been to Tampa,” I told her, “but he told me about the water taxi, Francesca’s, and he knew it by name. He bought me a dress there, and he described the same perfume we just bought.” I pointed down the way, “See Jackson’s Bistro, we had dinner there, he described it exactly, like he’d been there the day before.”

Katie was incredulous, like everyone else who’d heard the story. “How?” was her question.

As I always have, I shrugged, “There’s no answer to that, but there’s so much, and so many things that hadn’t happened yet that have happened since, it’s like...” and I gazed out over the river, “not only did he know things he couldn’t have known, but he saw into the future. He knew about my movie, how they were looking for an actress before the studio even knew. He knew my agent’s name and phone number, for God’s sake!”

I nodded down toward Jackson’s again, “He told me some of the things on their menu, things we’d never heard of, like Faroe Island Salmon, have you ever heard of it?”

Katie shrugged, “No,” was her obvious answer.

“Neither had we, but Robert told me what it was, probably a month after he woke up, we’d never been to Tampa. That’s just a tiny example of the detail he remembers from his dreams, even to this day, it’s all embedded in his mind. The whole thing’s just so impossible.”

Our ice cream cones were long finished, and Katie suggested we just walk, “Calories to burn off,” she said, so it’s what we did, walked and enjoyed the looks we got. As we walked past Princess Ulele, I told Katie, “That’s another, the statue, Robert told me all about it and about her, we’d never heard of her before.”

“I’ve heard Princess Ulele’s story, how she saved Juan Ortiz from execution by her father,” Katie told me, “I think everyone in Tampa knows.”

I nodded, “I don’t remember most of it now, but Robert told me all of it in detail. If we could ask him now, he’d still remember everything, all of it from his coma.”

She didn’t respond, there just isn’t any response, there’s just no way any of it could be, except it is. We will NEVER understand.

We continued on our walk past the park. I love palm trees, and the river is so pretty. Half an hour later, we turned around and stopped at Jackson’s for an early dinner. There it was on their menu, Faroe Island Salmon, just as Robert had described, and Katie just shook her head.

I ordered the Mediterranean Shrimp salad, and Katie, the Asian Chopped Ahi salad, “Never been afraid to try something once,” she explained.

I asked her what Ahi was, and she shrugged, giggling, “No idea,” she answered.

It turned out to be a type of tuna, who knew?

On our way back to the apartment, nearly eight, I checked my phone, and there were two calls from Robert. I’d forgotten to turn on my ringer, even the vibration was turned off.

I called one more time, and guess what, it went to voicemail. It was five o’clock there, always a busy time in the store for another hour. I left a message again for him to call me later when he was free.

“Why don’t you come over later, we’ll watch a movie or something,” Katie suggested, once we were back at the apartment.

Maybe the ‘or something?’ I thought. “Be there, give me an hour,” I told her.

I carried my packages from Lover’s inside, then back out to get my dress. I couldn’t wait to wear it, just the kind of thing for the audience to fantasize about watching it come off from some girl in their bedroom.

Robert called me a few minutes later and we talked for a half-hour. I asked him how his weekend with Jen went, and he deferred, not telling me a thing, except, “You’ll get the video when it’s ready.”

I told him that I was going over to Katie’s in a little bit to watch a movie with her on our night off, the first ‘free’ night off we’ve had since ... I couldn’t even remember, it hardly ever happened.

I didn’t mention to him that tomorrow was ‘the day’, or the plans that I’d been so nervous about.

We did talk about my going home, two weeks, fourteen days. I also didn’t mention how much I was going to miss my life here that I’d grown to love.

When we got off the phone, I went in the bathroom, touched up my makeup, including my hot pink lipstick, and snapped a selfie on my phone. I looked at the picture, the tiny denim shorts, the ‘top’ i.e. bra that showed the bumps of my nipples, the white straps wrapping around my tummy, accentuating its bareness ... Like nearly everything else now in my life, I’d have been mortified to wear this at home, except that this little apartment seemed like my home now, my other life in the distant past.

But I WAS going back to that past, to my husband, albeit with some, probably a lot of changes that I didn’t even know what they might be. Clothes, for one thing though, my ‘old lady’ wardrobe was going to go away, especially my panties and bras. I was sure the shoppers at Salvation Army would love them. A few things I’d keep though, like my gold lame dress Robert had bought, I love that dress. I thought about having it here, how exciting it would be to let it fall off from my body in the club. No, it was special.

I came back to the present and typed out a message to Robert, ‘This was my outfit today, you should see Katie’s! Going to her apartment shortly, horny and we might ‘play’ a bit, hope so. Love, Tara’

I attached the picture and hit the ‘send’ arrow before I realized that I’d signed it ‘Tara’, rather than Dani.

Another thing, I didn’t get my heels in the picture, so he didn’t get the full effect, ah well. Maybe I’ll get another with both Katie and me, maybe even with us wearing nothing except the heels.

I sat down at my table and poured myself a glass of wine, for courage, before walking to Katie’s. I’d learned to love wine over the last months. After two glasses, I got an unopened bottle out of my pantry for Katie’s.

It was about a five-minute walk to Katie’s apartment, and she’d left the door unlocked for me, so I stepped in, locking it behind me. We never bothered knocking at each other’s doors, even had keys.

Katie was in the kitchen putting dishes away from the dishwasher, a rather mundane task considering the fun day we’d just had. She worked away, not even realizing I was there, so I snuck up behind her and gave her a kiss on the neck as she was putting silverware in the drawer.

She jumped, startled, holding her hand over her heart, and I gave her a very brief kiss on her lips, “Gotcha,” I told her, both of us giggling over the ‘nothing’.

“Let me just finish this and I’ll show you what I found on TV the other night,” she said, and I went to work helping her putting plates away in her cupboard.

A few minutes later, we were sitting on her loveseat with a glass of wine, and her TV was on Netflix, “I found this show, ‘Sexy Life’, and it’s hot, I thought maybe we could watch some of it.”

She left unsaid the ‘before we ... you know.’

We were sitting next to each other, our legs just naturally rubbing, watching this girl, Sarah Shahi, ‘Billie’ in the show, she was H.O.T. hot, accidentally meeting up with an ex-lover, Cooper, from before her marriage. Yummy, with a hot, Australian accent ... Anyway, he got her alone for just a moment, kissed her, and she started remembering...

Katie’s hand just sort of migrated to my leg, her fingertips doing wondrous things.

Billie went home to her husband, a sort of quiet, ‘dry’ sort of guy, and couldn’t get Cooper, the exact opposite of her husband, out of her mind. Naturally, they’d exchanged numbers and she kept getting these suggestive texts, trying to hide her rising emotions from hubby.

Nothing really happened, except Billie’s surging emotions, her memories and desire for the passion she once had, the flashbacks ... and Katie’s fingernails on my inner thigh were sending me into overdrive!

Episode two and their first ‘real’ meeting, how Cooper pressed Billie up against the door and ravaged her, reigniting everything inside her ... and Katie ... how she leaned my way and our lips met, with Billie’s screams of pleasure in the background.

Katie had known exactly what she was doing when she put this show on.

Not that I was complaining!

Her fingers went inside my shorts and found... “You still have it,” she moaned, “how much longer?”

“Tomorrow,” I answered, wishing it was tonight ... now!

“Ooh,” she said, pressing her fingers toying with the little locking clip on one end of the Vagiblok, “you must have plans,”

I tried to suppress the humping and the moan, “Hadn’t thought about it,” I lied.

She laughed, her TV showing Cooper pushing Billie’s dress up over her head, her naked under it, “Give, tell me,” pulling at the clip, “how long now?” Katie asked.

I was intently watching what Cooper was doing to Billie, imagining ... would my screams have been acting ... or real?