Up For Review:
Jake's Fish Tank (MF, MF, exhib, voy, rom)
It is 5,504 words long, a little longer than I would like, but I just couldn't pare it down any more. I must say that I would never have written this story without Ray having jumpstarted me with the idea, and I never considered submitting a story to the FishTank. I am considering writing further episodes using the characters in this story, and would love to have feedback before I do this."
I used to be a biker. That's not a job, it's a life. Twenty years of riding Hawgs, traveling from town to town and doing whatever shit work was available: green chain offbearer, tugboat hand, taxi driver, dishwasher, odd-job man and anything else that needed more brawn than brain and paid enough to keep me in food and beer and cheap rooms until I had saved up enough to move to the next town and the next dead-end job.
I say "used to be" because that all ended three years ago. A moonless night, an empty road, a stupid deer and a stupider rider driving himself too hard, too far and too long to stay alert. The result: a sudden meeting in the dark, with the stupid deer staring stupidly at the approaching headlight, and the stupid rider staring stupidly at the deer. Until, that is, the two embraced to tango.
Three months later this stupid rider finally got out of the hospital, and I had time to think and tally up the pluses and minuses. On the minus side, I no longer had a bike, or even the remnants of one that I could use to build another ride; I felt sore all over, and some of my wounds would take months longer to heal; I was missing one (1) left leg and had the cheapest charity replacement they could find, because after all I'm just a tramp biker passing through, and you wouldn't want to spend too much money on somebody who isn't even a taxpayer.
There were, however, some pluses. The big one, of course was that I was still alive, and still able to think and move and do just about anything else except ride a bike. To my way of thinking, that neatly tips the scales way over on the plus side. And I had a nice insurance settlement from my bike. Not enough to make me a rich man, but enough to go out and start a small business.
Appearances to the contrary, I have a pretty good head for business on my shoulder. And once I had reconciled myself to the fact that I could no longer ride a two-wheeler my rambling days were over then and there, without any regrets. So I took one last ramble by bus to a fair-sized city near where I had ended up in hospital, and looked around for a small business to buy into.
With the amount of money I had, it had to be really small, and preferably in a bad part of town. Someplace that had been on offer for so long the real estate guy would practically pay someone to take it off his hands. And that's how I wound up the proud owner of the Bide-A-While Tavern, a hole in the wall in a very bad part of town that in previous incarnations had specialized in serving those customers (cash only!) that the more respectable places had turned away. I had just enough money to make the down payment and fix the place up a bit and I had just enough confidence in myself to think that all those years that I spent in every tavern in the country were better research for me than an office full of business analysts.
A few weeks of fixing the place up, hauling out garbage bags full of junk and doing the cheap things like painting and polishing had it looking almost presentable. A name change to "Jake's Place" made it sound slightly less low rent. Then I went to every bike shop in town and distributed leaflets saying that I was biker friendly and a fair dealer. And I mean every bike shop, including all of the Japanese ones. Things started a little slowly, but I soon got a reputation as a good place to hang out, where Harley-riding club members sat at tables next to the boy-racer types, and if anyone, civilian or biker tried to start something they would be gently but firmly shown the error of their ways.
Things started going so well that I was saving money over and above the lease payments, and because I lived in some rooms back of the tavern I started thinking of ways to spiff it up some more. All those years of research paid off, because I had more ideas about how to make things better than I had money to do them with. Bit by bit I changed the furniture and fixtures, got better glasses and stocked some better booze and even cleaned up a little myself. It was no fern bar, but it was relaxed and homey, and my customers liked it..
In six months I had two part-time bartenders to help me with the workload on weekends. And I hired an old alky who had been a damn good chef before diving into the booze. All my regulars knew to order their meals and snacks before nine o'clock, because that was about the time every night when we had to put old Sam to bed, and my part-time barkeeps can't cook worth shit.
So everything was going along just fine. I wasn't getting rich, but I made more than enough to keep me comfortable, and I enjoyed being the boss of a place that I wanted to spend time in. I should have known that something would come along to screw things up.
I got a call just before opening time one morning.
"Hello."
"May I speak to Jake please?" said an unknown voice on the other end.
"Yeah, I'm Jake."
"Hi, my name is Judy McLaren. I work for the Star Ledger newspaper, and we're doing a review of your bar and I'd like to ask you some questions before we go to press."
I was stunned. I'd never done any advertising, and I thought you only got a review if you dropped some green on the paper. And I wasn't sure if I wanted the free publicity. I figure most of my customers didn't read the paper, and I sure as hell didn't. And I felt sort of proprietary about my place. We're not exactly a destination resort, and I didn't think a review would be anything better than saying the food didn't poison the reviewer.
So I uneasily answered a few questions and tried to find out what they were going to say about us, but she was evasive and refused to say anything other than that the review would appear in Saturday's paper. Well, next Saturday I got up earlier than usual and went out to get a paper. They liked us! They really liked Sam's food, but they also raved about the "funky, laid-back atmosphere" and the crowd of "characters" that hung around the place. So overall I was pleased, but I didn't think much would come of it.
I was wrong. That night strange new groups of people started coming in at supper time. Strange for my place, that is. Ties, suits, clean shaven. Yuppies. We had been invaded. Sam tried to keep up with all the business, but he couldn't keep up all alone, so I had to fill in as a cook's helper while my part-timers looked after the bar. I started to worry about Sam as nine o'clock approached, but he kept going until well after ten that night.
When I closed up and counted the receipts I found we'd done three times the food business of a usual Saturday, and almost twice the bar revenue. When I had time to think about it I wasn't sure I was really all that happy about the extra business. Now I like money as much as the next guy, but I wasn't sure I really liked the new customers. I hoped that the new folks would forget about us and quietly go away.
But they didn't. For the next few weeks they kept coming, if anything even more than that first night. I had to hire a cook's helper for Sam, and put the two part-time bartenders on full time. The money was rolling in, but I felt less and less at home in my own place. And I know I lost some of my regulars, who were feeling the same way. I had to do something, or success would kill all my enjoyment.
First, I instituted a "Bikers First" policy, which meant that if there was a line up any real biker would get in before any civilian. That went flat because the damn yuppies who came to my place all started getting bikes too. Instead of the scruffy assortment of aging bikes outside my place, suddenly there were a lot of shiny new Harleys and BMWs parked there as well, and those wannabes who didn't get new bikes were content to wait in line for long periods just to experience the "lifestyle".
That really torqued me, so I had another brilliant idea. I would drive out the yuppies by giving them way more lifestyle than they could handle. I thought for a long time about how to do this. "Sex, drugs and rock and roll" were the basis of the lifestyle as I saw it. Well, drugs were out, because those damn yuppies would just eat it up, literally, and I didn't relish getting a double nickel in federal prison for my efforts. And rock and roll was a non-starter because everybody would just get a kick out of that. That left sex.
I figured these puppies enjoyed sex as much as the next guy, but I could make them very uncomfortable with the kind of sex that would be going on around here, and their wives and girlfriends would eventually force them to leave.
I started off slowly by letting some of my bros know that I wouldn't be at all upset if their old ladies took of their tops in the bar and had a good time. Sure enough, a few started to do that, taking off their t-shirts after having a few drinks, and hooting and hollering and having a good time. Competition started taking over, with some of the guys wanting to show off what fine babes they had, and the women in competition with the other girls to show that they still what it takes. It actually made my place more of an attraction to my old clientele, but it didn't have the effect I wanted on the clean cut new group. In fact, after a couple of weeks the yuppie women were starting to come in wearing more and more revealing tops and lots of leather.
I knew I was sunk when after about a month of my new policy a group of three yuppie women at a large table got up and strutted around the table while slowly taking their shirts off. Then they sat down, excited and noisy and kept their shirts off, to the approval of the yuppie bikers sitting with them. I still kept hoping that this was just an unusual group, but in the weeks that followed more and more of the women who came in with the new crowd started taking their tops off, and leaving them off all night. The sight of all the bare breasts filling my bar almost made me rethink my desire to get rid of the bunch of them, but I figured I would still have the women in the old crowd after I got rid of the yuppies, and feel a lot happier to boot.
About this time I got a visit from the city licensing department, who told me that there had been some complaints about public nudity from some passersby, and that I would have to make sure that there was no way to see into the bar from outside. I wondered who the hell in this neighborhood would complain, and for sure nobody from the good side of town would stroll around here unless they were coming to my place, but so be it. I blanked out the two small windows on the front, and had a partition installed so that nobody could see inside through the open door. And I started to plan the next phase of Operation RUB (RUB is a biker term for Rich Urban Biker).
I got wind of the fact that the local aquarium was going to sell some of their fish tanks at auction, so I showed up on the day of the sale and ended up the proud owner of a ten foot by five foot tank that stood five feet high. Because it was so large I was the only bidder and I got it for peanuts. After I had it carted to my place I had it placed on a strong plywood floor that I had installed after I bought it, and filled it up from the tap water supply to a height of about four feet. You see, I didn't intend to keep fish in it, so I didn't care about water purity or oxygen supply. I had a sturdy table placed beside it on which somebody could stand, and I put a sign on the table that said "Pool Table". Inside the tank, beside the table, I had a small ladder made so you could easily step down to the bottom. And then I waited to see what would happen.
That night lots of people looked at it, but couldn't really figure out what to do with it. After a few days of this I had my first bite. Somebody's old lady was getting pretty pissed that nobody was paying her bare tits any particular attention, so she got up on the pool table and took off her boots and jeans and thong. Completely naked, she got into the pool and paddled around a bit. Well that got her the attention she wanted. Some of the guys came right up to the tank, and stared in at her, until the guys from the tables farther away protested and made them sit back down. Her old man and a few others at their table had been whistling and cheering all the time she was in the tank, and I just waved and smiled at her.
Seeing that I didn't mind the impromptu skinny dip a friend of hers at the same table got up on the pool table and took off her clothes too and joined her in the tank. The water wasn't heated, being at room temperature, and their nipples started to harden in a very delightful way. After paddling around for about ten minutes they both got out and bowed to the cheering crowd. I had a couple of bath towels ready, and they dried up and put their clothes back on, making sure that everyone could see them by standing on the table as they got dressed.
Nobody else got in the tank that night, but I guess a lot of people had been thinking about it. The next day was Saturday, our biggest night of the week, and I wanted to make sure that the new crowd got more atmosphere than their women would allow. So I added another sign to the one already on the table that said "Maximum Capacity 3 People" and then a small banner hanging from the front of the table that said "Saturday Night - Couples and Threesomes Only".
I figured my biker pals wouldn't disappoint me, and they sure didn't. About half past eight one of the girls who went into the pool the previous night got up and took her clothes off at the table. This night things went more quickly, because she wasn't wearing any underwear, so she only had to take off her boots and jeans because she had taken her shirt off earlier. She grabbed her old man by the arm and led him to the pool table. He protested a bit, but not too much, and when they got up front she started to take his shirt off. He kept protesting and she kept pointing at the signs, and he finally took his the rest of his clothes off. There they were, both naked, clambering into the tank and being cheered by the crowd.
She must have really gotten off on the applause, because as soon as they were in there she started stroking him and rubbing her tits against his chest. He, on the other hand, was more than a little shrunken by the cool water and by being on display in front of a whole crowd. She took his hand and rubbed it on her pussy, and his cock slowly started to perk up. They were doing this for what seemed like ages, though it probably wasn't more than five minutes, with him stroking her ass and her pussy and she rubbing his cock. The crowd was really excited now, and I had to stop a bunch of them from congregating around the tank. I didn't want the views of my upscale clients to be hindered, and I was hoping that this would be enough to drive the women off, and take their men with them.
Finally the guy was hard, and he easily lifted his old lady up and eased her down on his hard cock. He had her pressed against the side of the tank, and we all got a good view of her ass squashed against the glass and his cock pumping in and out. He finally came and held her tight to him as he unloaded all of his jism into her. She was still working away at his cock, and only a minute later she came too, with a loud yell and some frenetic movements. They separated as he pulled his cock out of her, both of them looking somewhat sheepish but both wearing the biggest grins I had ever seen.
And that's all she was wearing for most of the evening, because after they dried off and he put his clothes on she just picked up her stuff and sat down at their table. I kept glancing back at her every so often, and she sure did look fine, with that just-fucked glow that makes any woman look beautiful.
Nothing much happened in the pool the rest of the night, though I did see a few guys try to convince their old ladies to go in with them. I guess the couples only sign kept anybody else from going in alone, and nobody else was brave enough to go in as a couple. The first couple had set the bar pretty high, and I wondered how many would take up the challenge when they had gotten used to it.
My one disappointment was that none of the RUBS had been forced out of the place by their women. I knew none of the guys would voluntarily leave a scene like that, but I'd figured that at least a few of the women would make them go home RIGHT NOW. In fact, the yuppie women had seemed just as eager as the men to watch the action, and I wondered just what I'd have to do to get their asses out of my place.
Over the next few weeks I learned that probably only a few sticks of dynamite would do the trick. My business was better than ever, and two-thirds of the crowd were now yuppies. I had to hire a bouncer to stand at the door all night just to keep out the overflow, and my purchase of wine and hard liquor for shooters went through the roof. And those yuppie chicks couldn't get enough of the "lifestyle". Almost as soon as they came in they took off their shirts and ran around bare breasted all night. And some of them took off the rest of their clothes too, even when they weren't going into the tank. I began to wonder whether I was running a bar or a nudist colony.
Not that I was complaining about all the ass and tail running around. It gave me a thrill just to see all the naked bodies, and a good way to get to sleep after spanking the monkey. Since losing my leg in the accident I hadn't been with a woman. My equipment worked fine, understand, but I just didn't have the heart to expose myself and my missing leg to anyone. Of course anybody who saw me walk could tell I had something seriously wrong with my legs, but I didn't want it to become an issue so I didn't make any moves that could get me into a compromising position.
Then one weeknight a new chick came into the bar. She was with a few girlfriends celebrating an anniversary, and they sat at a table near the bar. I couldn't take my eyes off her. Short brown hair, lips to die for, smiling expression, body firm and filled out in all the right places. It was obvious that she wasn't wearing a bra under her blue sweater. A lot of my customers do that, and I guess the word gets to the newbies before they come here. In any case, her nipples stood out and made interesting bulges like pencil erasers under her sweater. When she stood up I just wanted to go over and stroke her ass, it looked so good. I guessed she was in her mid twenties, and could only look at her and sigh, resigned to being just another watcher.
A few hours later, after lots of rounds of shooters and wine, her whole table was feeling no pain. They finally had enough drinks in them to do what they obviously came here for in the first place. I saw a few of them talking and giggling, and then one of them took off her shirt. It usually takes only one person to open the floodgates, and sure enough soon all of them were sitting there showing off their bare tits to the crowd. I especially appreciated my special girl, whose firm tits and hard roseate nipples put all of the others to shame. And then she really turned on my crank when she got up, stepped over to the poolside table and started taking off her shoes and pants. I stood there, feeling my cock get harder and bigger, and watched as she tugged her pants down to her ankles and then stepped out of them. She had a beautifully trimmed pussy that just begged to be fucked, and as she climbed on the table and stepped over the top to the ladder on the other side I could see her cunt opening up to show me the pleasures inside.
I almost groaned in frustration as she stepped into the tank and started to swim very slowly from one end to the other. Back and forth, back and forth, just a couple of strokes from one end to the other. She did this for some time, and I appeared more quickly than usual with a towel when she started to get out of the tank. She smiled at me as I handed her the towel, and proceeded to carefully wipe herself dry.
"I'm Desdmona. You must be Jake."
"Yup. That's me. Jake." I'm such a smooth talker.
"Great place you've got here."
"Thanks. I like it." I really, really needed a good writer.
"Thanks for the towel. I'll be seeing you around."
"Sure. Anytime." What I wanted to say was "May I dry your pussy for you? And then fuck you all night long?", but I just couldn't come up with anything but lame responses.
Desdmona picked up her pants and shoes and took them back to her table, and sat there the rest of the evening laughing and talking to her friends. I knew I had to get laid real soon now, 'cause I couldn't stop looking at her every so often, with her breasts winking at me and her pussy issuing invitations that I didn't feel I could accept.
She came in fairly often on weekdays in the next while, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone. And every time I had the same response. Sometimes she took off her top and sometimes she didn't, but she never went back into the fish tank again. We would talk sometimes and I slowly loosened up. I found out that she worked as an executive assistant at a law firm downtown, a fancy term for legal secretary. She found out a little about my life. When things got a little too friendly, I made sure she knew about the accident and the missing leg. Best to get these things over with and avoid embarrassment for all concerned.
Then she came in one Saturday night, the first time she had done so. I always figured that she had dates and good times with her friends on the weekend, but I never asked her about it. She walked in and after looking around for a place to sit came over to the bar and sat on a stool right in front of me. She ordered a drink and then we shot the shit for a while until it got too busy for me to stay and talk to her. I brought her some more drinks over the course of the evening, but we didn't have too much time to talk because of the crowd. Finally closing time came, and the mad rush to fill the orders for the last round.
Desdmona just sat there nursing her last drink as the place emptied out, and I hovered around encouraging the last customers to leave, but not her. Finally, when everyone but Desdmona had gone I told the other staff to go home and locked the doors. I headed back to the bar and started talking with her about everything under the sun, glad to enjoy her presence and conversation.
We went on like that for at least half an hour, just grooving on the talk and feeling mellow, and I just didn't want the night to end. When she finally sipped the last drop of her drink she stood up, and I thought she would leave and that would be the end of our night. But she surprised me. Instead of saying goodbye and heading for the door she walked over to the table by the fish tank and started to take off her shirt. I was surprised but delighted. As she slowly removed her top her gorgeous breasts were revealed to me and I again marveled at how good she looked. Firm and full, but obviously all natural, they were topped by a pair of nipples that made me drool.
She kicked off her shoes and then proceeded to take off her tight jeans, shimmying them down over her hips and her delightful ass. As she bent over to pull them off the end of her feet I got a thrilling view of her ass sticking up in the air and her pussy from behind. My cock was at full attention, straining against my pants and searching for a way out past my belt. She turned around, looked at me and pointed to the Couples Only sign on the table, smiling all the while.
I just shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. There was no way I was going to get out of my pants in front of anybody. Still smiling, she walked over to me.
"Jake, I really want to go for a dip, and this is still Saturday night, so I need a partner."
"No way. I've gotta finish some things up here and then go to bed."
"But Jake, wouldn't you like to go for a swim with me? I really want you in there with me."
I got all serious at that point. "Desdmona, nobody but doctors and nurses has seen me naked since the accident, and I don't want to change that now. You're a beautiful woman, and you should find yourself a nice young lawyer to play with, and not an old cripple like me."
"But I want to play with you, Jake." she said moving closer.
As she neared me she reached out for my shirt and started to undo the buttons, slowly and with great deliberation. I stood there dumbfounded as her hands moved down, unbuttoning me until my shirt was completely open on the front. Then she reached up and around and took it off me. Her hands reached down to my belt buckle and she pulled out the end of my belt and pulled it to release it from the buckle. Then she stepped back and just looked at me.
I knew I had a decision to make. I could either continue this and finish undressing myself or I could just walk. I had fallen off an iron horse, and had never gotten back on. My decision now would determine whether I ever would get back on this particular horse. I stood there for what seemed like forever before I sat down and pulled off my boots. Still sitting I pulled my pants down past my feet and dropped them on the floor. My boxer shorts followed them, and I stood up and walked over to the table, Desdmona following right behind me. Sitting down on the table, I started the awkward process of removing my artificial leg. Desdmona watched as I did, looking interested but without any sign of the revulsion or disgust I feared.
When I finished she stood up on the table beside me and helped me stand up on my one good leg. Then she slipped into the water and reached out for me to help me down. As I slid into the water I suddenly felt more free and alive than I had been in a long time. The buoyancy of the water supported me so that I no longer even noticed that I had only one leg. I put my arms around her and stroked her back and her ass, and she responded in kind. We stayed that way for ages, feeling each other with our ands and our whole bodies. I could feel my cock resting against her pussy, getting harder than I had thought possible, and I could feel her breasts flattened against my chest.
I moved one hand from stroking her ass and cupped one of her breasts in it, stroking up and down and in a circular motion, reveling in the feel of her body. She reached down and took hold of my cock, moving her hand down its length and stopping to fondle my balls before moving back up. I put a finger into her cunt, feeling the warmth of her slippery inside and rubbing her clit and her cunt lips with soft caresses.
We continued our attentions to each other's bodies until neither of us could stand it any longer. I moved her toward the side of the tank and lifted her up and braced her against the glass, then gently let her down on my cock. I penetrated her, feeling her warmth engulf me, and slowly moved up and down inside her. Our movements became faster and more frantic after a time, and I exploded inside her with more force than I had ever experienced. She came right after, clutching me tightly as she wriggled and moaned and at last let out a loud yell.
We stayed locked in each other's embrace for another minute and then I lifted her slightly and we disengaged. One of the many downsides to making love in a fish tank is that you can't lie down and hug afterwards. I clung to the top of the tank as she stepped out and then took hold of the hand she reached toward me to pull myself out. We dried each other off, taking longer than strictly necessary, touching every part of each other's bodies with towels and soft skin. I reattached my leg, and we walked back toward my bedroom arm in arm.
There's not a lot more to tell. The bar is still going gangbusters. As long as I don't have a cover charge or pay the staff to go naked the police leave me alone. The customers like everything the way it is, and the yuppies are still packing the place. The uneasy truce between them and the real bikers has held, and me and the bikers find enough in common with them to feel comfortable. Sam has gotten too interested in what's going on around him to bother drinking any more. Besides, he was so proud of the review he got that he's working like crazy to get an even better write-up next time they come around. Desdmona and I have lived together for almost a year now. Life isn't perfect, but it's better than an old scooter tramp has a right to expect.