Cabaret.
That was her idea of Berlin. Decadent. Wicked. Sexual and dark. Like the Liza Minnelli movie.
Yet when she got there, it didn’t seem that different than any other place, at least from the airport to the hotel. Her tourist English-to-German translation book got her around Berlin as much as she needed to; this was not a sightseeing trip. The Brandenburg Gate and Charlottenburg Palace would have to be experienced another time.
Julianna sat in the back of the nightclub, watching the group of men drink and make half-hearted passes at the waitress, and thought how much easier it had been than she had expected. A friend had given her his sky-miles for the plane ticket, an unexpected bonus at work had made it easy to hide the expense of the hotel. A few of her vacation days, and some vague story to her husband about work training, and she was gone.
The men in the nightclub ordered another round, she noticed they had moved to Jagermeister from beer. Hidden in the shadows, it was easy to observe the group without being noticed. It wasn’t like any of them expected her to be here, only two of the men knew she existed, one of them knew what she looked like.
And she wondered if he would know her if he saw her. It is hard, sometimes, for her recognize a person from a photograph, even a recent one. Would you walk past someone you have seen in a picture, never noticing them?
She wondered.
She had recognized James the second she saw him. He had mentioned the name of the hotel, even emailed her pictures of it, so she was certain where to go when she got to Germany. And sure enough, by simply sitting in the lobby, she had watched them check in – him, his best mate, his brother and a couple of other men, a stag party weekend.
It would have been difficult to miss them, she had thought as she watched. Six Englishmen, laughing louder than anyone else in the lobby, she figured they had starting drinking on the plane and continued at the airport. She had felt a bit creepy, watching the group, like an international stalker, which in fact she was. But, it was too late to back out now.
Julianna could have changed her plan, sent a note to his room, a message, call the hotel phone. She could’ve turned around and go back to the States without even seeing him, he would never have known she was there.
But now, it was in for a penny in for a pound. She sat in the darkened nightclub, the music started and a couple of girls dressed in bikinis took the stage, dancing lethargically, it was obvious there were not the headliners. The men at the table looked at them, made a couple of comments, but mainly simply talked among themselves, doing shots, drinking beer, shouting, each trying to out-drink and out-manly each other.
But she only watched one closely. He was in profile to her, short hair more salt than pepper, his lovely smile almost hidden in the darkness of the club. He wasn’t as loud as the others, almost reserved compared to the younger men in the group.
But she knew he was not the proper Englishman he appeared to be, that his mind was as sexual as anyone she had ever known. They had shared these thoughts, things they had done, things they wanted to do, things they did with each other, through a computer screen. She knew his kinks, and there were many, how he got off on watching a woman’s fingers sink into her pussy, how he had shared a lover with his friend, how he fucked his wife with other women’s faces, and breasts and pussies, in his head.
One of those pusses was her own.
They had met, as is almost always the case in the 21st century, online, a sex website where most of what people said was a gross exaggeration if not complete bullshit. They both knew that when they struck up a conversation in a chat room with pornographic images in between the lines of talk.
So she knew how his mind worked. She knew what he was thinking, as he talked to the topless women walking past the table, that he was indeed noticing them, thinking of what he wanted to do with them and to them. She was looking at him with the same thoughts.
James, her horny Brit, leaned in to talk to a woman, then threw back his head and laughed. She took this opportunity of his distraction to signal the waitress, and used tourist English-to-German to order a round of drinks for the table. She told the waitress, as best she could, to tell the men the drinks were from the redhead in the back. She used the word “red” verbatim, and head using a mixture of broken German and gestures, she hoped the young woman would get it right.
She wasn’t sure if her horny Brit would think of her at the mention of a redhead, especially while sitting drunkenly eyeing women in a Berlin nightclub. Maybe some distant synapse would fire in the back of his mind, maybe not. But, it was a first move.
For all I know, she told herself as she watched the waitress load her tray with the drinks, he may have a whole herd of redheads, the reference may not mean a damn thing to him. What she knew of him, she realized, was what he chose to share, how honest he wanted to be.
But she also knew, somehow, that he was honest with her, as she was with him; there was really very little reason to lie. They lived in two different worlds, it never occurred to either of them that they would ever meet, much less have a relationship beyond what they already had: words across a screen.
When he invited her to join him in Berlin, it was more of a throw away comment, part of conversation about the trip. But the seed of an idea was planted, and now here she sat, hidden in the back of the club, steadily drinking to calm her nerves and quiet the doubt that was in the back of her mind
And it was working, she was relaxing, she pulled a chair up to use as a footrest and leaned back, watching as the waitress set down the drinks and tried to explain to six drunken Brits that an American woman with red hair, hidden in the shadows in the back, had bought their drinks. The men turned and looked, squinting into the darkness. She knew she was hidden, so she gave a small half-wave, which seemed to satisfy the group, who turned back to the dancers on the stage.
Except her horny Brit. He did glance back up at the stage, but kept turning back to toward the back.
She stood up, the buzz she had been working on suddenly deserting her. She went to the DJ, who had been playing a collection of bad techno, and handed him a slip of paper with the requests she wanted in German. Her thighs threatened to turn to jelly as she walked through the few couples groping each other on the dance floor.
She walked toward the table of men, and he looked up, as if he had been expecting her, looking for her. As the techno beat faded, and the funk of the song she requested came up, he froze, her horny Brit. His mouth opened, his jaw literally dropped. None of the other men seemed to notice, save for the man sitting next to him, who followed his eyes to her walking toward them.
George Michael began explaining what she wanted.
“There’s things that you guess, and things that you know,” George sang, “There’s boys you can trust and girls that you don’t. . . “
She reached the table, as she watched his friend talk into his ear, a question, and he simply nodded in response, too shocked to speak. She walked around the table, singing along with George, and reached her hands out to the man with his mouth open, who started laughing, pure joy on his face, trying to find the presence of mind to stand.
She continued dancing, grabbing the hands he offered and pulling him up onto his feet, out to the dance floor. He stood, motionless, watching her, and for a split second, she wasn’t sure what his next move would be, but then he was there, his arms around her, holding her to himself, so tightly she couldn’t breathe. They didn’t move, just stood there, each feeling the other, unsure they could trust it.
She opened her eyes and saw the men at the table all looking at them, almost as shocked as her dance partner. She pushed herself out of his embrace, as George Michael helped her tell her long distance lover why she was there.
“Every man’s got his patience, and here’s where mine ends. I want your sex.”
She kept dancing, her heart beating harder and faster than it ever had. Each time George sang, “I want your sex,” she felt herself get more and more aroused, knowing now that he was indeed glad she was there, regardless of the five men now openly staring and asking each other what the fuck was going on.
James simply stood, letting reality catch up with his blown mind. She danced around him, her hands never leaving his body, trailing around his waist, getting close enough to smell the liquor on his breath, then turning around, finally kissing his mouth just as George asked, “What’s your definition of dirty baby, what you consider pornography?”
His hands went behind her waist, pulled her closer, he closed his mouth over hers, every sweet kiss she ever imagined rolled off his tongue and on to hers. The music kept pounding, she no longer saw or cared about the men he was with, or the looks from strangers, the other couples dancing around them. Her throat closed up, tears she had fought down threatened to choke her. She opened her eyes to see James was the same, shiny reflections of the dance floor lights spilled over onto his face.
The song ended, Marvin Gaye’s smooth voice began asking for Sexual Healing.
“Ba-aa-a-bee, I’m hot just like an oven, I need some lovin . . .”
Julianna and James swayed together, oblivious. He tried to ask questions, she didn’t, wouldn’t, answer. This was not the time. Now, this dance, was everything, them together, holding each other.
James reached up and untied the ribbon that held the braid down her back, loosening her hair, his fingers in it, just as she knew he would.
She could feel his hard on through his jeans, without realizing it she raised a leg to pull him closer, her skirt hiking up her thigh, where his hand felt like velvet, sliding higher, she could think of nothing but how she wanted him inside her, there, in that instant, on the dance floor of a strip club in Berlin Germany.
She wrapped her arms up around his neck, pulling him close, and put her mouth near his ear.
“Please,” was all she could get out, a whisper, a plea.
James made a noise in his throat, no words, just longing, desire. Anguish.
Before she realized they were moving, he led her across the floor to an elevator. She heard men calling after him, along with Marvin, whispering for them to “get up get up get up, let’s make love tonight.” As the doors slid open and people left the lift, they entered, never letting go of each other. The doors closed, and they were as to being alone as they had ever been.
James held her against the wall, kissing kissing kissing her, his mouth never leaving her body. She reached down, unbuttoned his jeans, shoved her hand inside. His cock jumped, throbbed at her touch. She heard a sound come from her mouth, half moan half sob, and found herself on her knees, desperate to have him in her mouth, after months of imagining.
And it was perfect, his dick swelling in her mouth, his hands in her hair, she was moving on pure instinct and emotion, no technique or thought. She put her hands behind him, pulling him forward, wanting more and more of him.
The elevator emitted a sound, James had not pushed a button to indicate where they were going, he reached over and found the STOP button, pushed it.
“No,” Julianna told him. “Please, take me to your room, your bed,” she said, standing to face him. “I have waited so long, I was so scared I was doing something foolish . . . “
“How could you think that?” he asked, genuinely puzzled. He put his hands on either side of her face, aligning their eyes, making sure he had her attention. “I love you, you know that, don’t you? Haven’t you felt it, all these months? Why would you feel like this is anything except right, this is what we have talked about, this is what I want.”
The sound of his voice, his accent, the longing in his words, made her wonder if she would be able to stand erect much longer.
James pressed a button, the elevator jumped. They kissed again, harder, their breath coming fast. Hands pulled at clothes, the couple stumbled toward his room, he barely had the presence of mind to slide his card in the door to unlock it. They fell into the room, not looking for the bed, nor caring if they found it. All they knew this moment, the taste and feel, the solidity of each other, the reality of this.
But find the bed they did, Julianna peeled James’ shirt from him as she fell back on the bed. He pushed her knees up to her chest, splaying her open.
“God you are beautiful, the pictures are not enough,” he told her as he plunged his finger into her, so wet and open she dripped out onto the bed. He put his mouth onto her, she could feel him loving her, loving her cunt. She had never come instantly, but she did, simply from the tip of his tongue touching her clit. She shouted, wordless sounds, sobs, a prayer of thanks and love.
“Please, please, haven’t we waited long enough?” She pulled him up to her, clamping her legs around his waist, pushing his jeans down over his ass.
“Baby, oh Julianna, yes,” he opened her blouse, sucking one breast then the other, hesitating at the mouth of her pussy, savoring the moment.
“I love you,” they said, laughing at themselves for saying it in unison. James pushed down, Julianna pulled him into her, months of electronic sex became real.
“My horny Brit.”
“My American bird.”