Chapter 4: Liquid Confession
The smell of stale beer and pine cleaner was a welcome shock to Izzy’s system. The Rust Nail was all sticky floors and mumbled conversations, a world away from the suffocating silence of her apartment or the sterile glare of the precinct. She sat in a corner booth, fingers tracing the condensation on a glass of bourbon she hadn’t ordered. Me had simply placed it in front of her with a wink before gliding toward the bar.
Izzy watched. That’s what she did now. She observed the world from inside a body that still felt like a crime scene, newly discovered. The taste of that night, a metallic ghost, lingered at the back of her throat.
At the bar, Me leaned over the polished wood, saying something that made the blonde bartender—Elias, his name tag said—throw his head back and laugh. He was all easy gestures and loose limbs, wiping a glass with a practiced, distracted motion. His eyes, though, stayed fixed on Me, bright with a curiosity that looked like it was tipping over into something else.
Izzy took a sip. The bourbon burned, a clean, familiar fire. She saw Me reach out and pluck a lemon wedge from a garnish tray, sucking on it slowly, her eyes locked on Elias. He faltered, the towel pausing mid-swipe. Me said something else, her voice lost in the murmur of the bar, and tilted her head toward a door marked ‘STAFF ONLY’ next to the coolers.
Izzy knew that tilt. It was a command disguised as an invitation.
Elias glanced around, a quick, nervous check of his mostly-empty bar. He said something, probably about his shift. Me just smiled, that serene, unshakeable smile, and turned, walking toward the door without a backward glance. She knew he would follow. So did Izzy.
And he did. After a second’s hesitation, Elias ducked under the bar flap and followed the green hair into the dim hallway.
Izzy waited. She counted to thirty, the bourbon glass cool in her palm. Then she slid out of the booth and followed them.
The hallway was narrow, lit by a single bare bulb. Muffled music from the bar faded behind her, replaced by the hum of coolers. She heard a low voice, Elias’s, saying, “Me, come on, I’m working—” before it was cut off by the sound of a door creaking open and then clicking shut.
Izzy found the door. Storage. She pressed her ear to the cool metal. No sound for a beat. Then a crate scraping on concrete.
She turned the handle. It was unlocked.
The room was small, crowded with stacked kegs and crates of liquor. The air was cold and smelled of damp cardboard and grain alcohol. In the center, Me had Elias bent forward over a crate of bourbon, his palms flat on the wood, his back arched. Her hand was fisted in his messy blonde hair, pulling just enough to tilt his face up. His bar apron was bunched at his waist.
“You’ve been thinking about this all shift,” Me was saying, her voice a calm murmur against the shell of his ear. “Watching me sit there. Wondering what I taste like.”
“I… it’s not professional,” Elias managed, but he wasn’t resisting. His breath fogged in the cold air.
“Professional is a costume,” Me said. She looked over his shoulder, her eyes finding Izzy in the doorway. She didn’t smile, just acknowledged her with a faint nod. An inclusion. “Take it off.”
With her free hand, she yanked at his belt and jeans, shoving them down to his knees. Elias gasped, his knuckles white on the crate. Me released his hair and stepped back. She unbuttoned her own jeans, shoved them down her thighs, and simply… squatted.
It wasn’t theatrical. It was functional. A steady, powerful stream of urine arched out, splashing against the small of Elias’s bare back, tracing a hot, golden path down the cleft of his ass, soaking into his jeans where they gathered at his knees. The sound was a loud, drumming cascade in the cramped room. The sharp, acrid scent cut through the smell of alcohol.
Elias jolted as if electrocuted. A choked noise—not a scream, not a protest, just pure animal surprise—burst from him. He shuddered as the hot liquid painted his skin.
“This,” Me said, her voice still eerily calm as she finished, standing and pulling her jeans up, “is how you confess, barkeep. No words. Just truth.”
She stepped around him. “Turn around.”
Shaking, Elias pushed himself upright, turning to lean against the crate. His face was a masterpiece of confusion, arousal, and shock. The front of his boxers was tented, straining. Piss gleamed on his chest and stomach now, dripping.
“Clean it,” Me said.
He stared, uncomprehending.
“Lick. It. Off. Me.”
Understanding dawned, horrific and irresistible. He sank to his knees on the concrete floor, his movements jerky. He leaned forward, his tongue darting out tentatively to lap at the wet skin of her thigh. He gagged, once, a dry heave, then pressed forward, his eyes squeezed shut. He lapped at her, his movements growing less hesitant, more driven by a deep, shameful hunger. He cleaned the spatter from her inner thighs, his tongue working with a desperate focus.
Izzy watched, leaning against the doorframe, the bourbon a warm coal in her gut. She felt nothing like disgust. She felt a strange, hollow kinship. She remembered the taste. She understood the translation.
Me’s hand rested on Elias’s head, not guiding, just weighing. When he was done, she gently pushed him back. “Stand up.”
He did, shaky, his face flushed. Me turned him back around, bending him over the crate again. She spit into her hand, slicked herself, and guided him into her with one sharp, efficient thrust. Elias cried out, a raw, unfiltered sound, his hips bucking immediately. He was beyond control, fucking her with a frantic, ragged rhythm born of total sensory overload. The crate rattled against the concrete.
Me’s eyes found Izzy’s again over his straining back. She crooked a finger.
Izzy moved. She approached, her own breath coming short. She unbuttoned her jeans, pushed them down. She understood the assignment. She spat into her palm, warmed it, pressed against herself. Then she positioned herself behind Elias, aligning with his other entrance. He was so tight, clenched with tension. She pushed, slowly, until the head of him popped past the ring of muscle. Elias gasped, his rhythm faltering.
“Don’t stop,” Me commanded him, her own voice beginning to fray at the edges. He obeyed, resuming his frantic pace, now buried in Me while Izzy worked herself onto him, inch by burning inch until she was fully sheathed, her body flush against his sweaty, urine-damp back.
The connection was electric, grotesque, unbelievably intimate. They were a circuit, a closed loop of heat and desperation. Me’s hand snaked between her own body and Elias’s, rubbing her clit in quick, precise circles. Izzy could feel every one of Elias’s thrusts translate through his body into hers. She matched him, her own movements becoming urgent, seeking friction against the base of him with each drive forward.
Elias was the first to break. A wounded, sobbing groan tore from his throat. Izzy felt him swell, pulse, and then the hot, liquid rush of him filling Me. The sensation of him coming inside the woman pressed against her front triggered something primitive and undeniable in Izzy. Her own orgasm crashed over her, a silent, devastating wave that locked her muscles and stole her breath.
Me followed a second later, her body bowing backward, a sharp, guttural “Yes!” ripped into the cold air of the storage room.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of three people gasping for air in the frigid, reeking dark.
Then Me moved. She slipped off Elias, who slumped over the crate, boneless. She turned, her gaze clear and demanding. She didn’t look at Elias. She looked at Izzy, then at the floor between them.
Izzy understood. She pulled off Elias, her body protesting the sudden emptiness. She sank to her knees. Me joined her.
Elias, still slumped and dazed, watched as the two women faced each other. Me leaned in first, her tongue cleaning the evidence of Elias from Izzy’s inner thighs, from the tangled hair between her legs. The act was shockingly tender, a meticulous restoration. Then Izzy reciprocated, her mouth finding the mixed mess of fluids on Me, separating salt from salt, claiming it all, making it theirs.
When they were done, they helped a shaky, silent Elias pull up his pants. Me fixed his apron, her touch now almost maternal. “Your shift’s almost over,” she said softly. “Go wash your face. You’ll be fine.”
He nodded, unable to meet their eyes, and stumbled out of the storage room, leaving the door ajar.
Izzy and Me were alone again, surrounded by the smell of sex and piss and bourbon. Izzy pulled her jeans up, her fingers fumbling with the button.
Me leaned against a tower of kegs, watching her. “You didn’t have to follow.”
“Yes, I did,” Izzy said, her voice rough. She finally got the button through. “He’s just a kid.”
“He’s a grown man who wanted a story. Now he has one.” Me pushed off the kegs. “You walked in. You participated. That’s a different story.”
Izzy met her gaze. “What’s mine called?”
Me stepped close, cupping Izzy’s cheek. Her thumb smeared something damp—whether it was sweat or Elias or herself, Izzy didn’t know. “The one where the ghost learns to haunt other people.”
They left the storage room, slipping back into the hallway, then the bar. Elias was behind the counter, scrubbing a glass that was already clean. He didn’t look up.
Me led Izzy out into the night air, which felt like a slap after the bar’s closeness. The city noise rushed in. Izzy took a deep breath, expecting to gag on the memory. She didn’t. She just felt vast, and quiet, and terribly alive.
“Where now?” she asked, the question hanging in the space between them, a new kind of momentum.
Me linked her arm through Izzy’s, their steps falling into sync on the pavement. “Anywhere,” she said. “Everywhere. The night’s a big, wet confession. Let’s go hear some more of it.”