The Reckoning Read Online Free PDF

his way in and had to settle for a place on down the stage.
    “Here, please!” he called at her, proffering a ten.
    Melissa moved down the line, planting kisses on foreheads and cheeks, capturing donations with a snap of her g-string, skillfully—and diplomatically—avoiding feelies.
    Royce flagged the ten. Melissa’s brown eyes flared, and she hurried it up a bit.
    “Thank you,” she breathed into Royce’s ear, and blew with a hint of probing tongue that made him shiver. She let him kiss her on the lips.
    “Excellent job—your breasts, I mean,” he said nervously, staring at them.
    Melissa frowned but quickly regained her simpering composure. She snapped open her g-string, offering him a soft pocket to deposit his money.
    His nose hovered at her bosom. They were deliciously scented of baby oil, hairless and smooth. “Please…”
    She smiled knowingly, then hefted her breasts in her hands. Royce raised the bill and she enveloped it with her blue veined cleavage, snaring the greenback and taking it away. Just that brief touch of her sensual, pliant flesh against his hands made a shock of cold surge up his spine.
    Tony had a worried look on his face. He took hold of the birthday boy’s arm.
    “We gotta go. Les will be pissed.”
    “Where is she going?” Royce demanded.
    Melissa had retrieved her costume and the remaining dollar bills off the linoleum and was heading (her heels click-clicking) to the stairs.
    Tony squeezed Royce’s arm, saying, “It’s okay. We’ll come back. Catch her another night.”
    “Nooo!”
    Royce shoved his friend’s arm away, stepped up onto an empty chair and mounted the stage. He waved a twenty in his hand.
    “Royce!”
    But he was too quick for Tony, bolting for the stairs and climbing, his eyes scoped on Melissa’s butt.
    MC: “Hey, mister. That’s a no-no!”
    Royce’s right hand clawed at the thin elastic of Melissa’s g-string and yanked. Screeching, the girl turned back and lost her balance, falling into Royce, her breasts softly mashing against his face and rebounding like giant Nerf balls.
    They pivoted together—she into him—and fell. Royce’s right elbow struck the stairs first, breaking the fall for both of them. They settled at the bottom, their bodies sprawled akimbo on the stage.
    Frantically, he buried his face between her jugs.
    Steely digits took hold of his right wrist and jammed his right hand into the small of his back, bending the elbow as if it were the joint of a chicken wing.
    “You done it now, asshole!” the bouncer snapped, tickled for the opportunity to pounce on something as easy as this middle-aged doofus.
    Royce squealed in pain, spittle trailing from his lips to Melissa’s chest.

Royce shuddered. “Christ, Tony. What did I do?”
    The attorney shrugged, nursing his beer. He pushed his hat back at a rakish angle. “It happens. Just one of those things. You just had to let off some steam. Been workin’ too hard.”
    After the police had arrived, and Royce had been given a ticket for drunk and disorderly conduct, the two men had retreated to Excalibur’s, a nearby sports bar. Royce drank coffee, too upset to go home to face his wife yet.
    On one of the TV screens, Raven head coach Brian Billick was trying to be optimistic.
    “God, how I miss the Colts,” Tony quipped. Then to Royce: “How’s the arm?”
    Royce gingerly outstretched the limb. Now, with the shock of his fiasco finally over, he was feeling the pain. The elbow was blighted by a wicked-looking bruise.
    “I guess they won’t have to amputate, but it hurts like hell. What happens next?”
    “You’ll have to make an appearance, probably pay a hefty fine. Five hundred bucks or so.” He grinned dryly. “And don’t forget, you’re banned from Club Pussycat—for life.”
    Royce winced, obviously not cheered by his friend’s humor.
    “I mean, will I serve a sentence or something?”
    “Nah. Your record is clean. It’s not in the state’s interest to put