Elise - S01 E08

Story 8 months ago

Elise - S01 E08

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 8

The interior was more or less what a bar should look like. Booths against the street wall, a darkened stage to the left, a pool table well to the right, a mix of stand ups and tables with chairs in the middle and about a ten foot gap between them and the bar with another three well-spaced stand ups.

The bar took up most of the rear wall area with three sets of beer fonts placed along it. Mirrored back wall with liquor racks, glass fronted beer fridges and two very modern electronic tills that were operated by key cards held by the staff. Serving hatches at each end of the bar. I could see the signs for the washrooms, guys to right and women to the left. Sensible as they would not have negotiate the pool players, leave that for the guys.

In all it was a well laid out bar.

I could see Elise busy serving customers but she had obviously seen me entering and beamed a huge smile at me pointing towards the left of the bar. I made my way there and there was a stool with a reserved plaque on it. That made me smile as the bar was quite full even at that time with most of the seating and stand ups in use as well as a good few folks in the bar front area. There were four people behind the bar including Elise and Sean. Three waitresses were transporting drinks and empties. All of the staff, apart from Elise, had on the same blue polo shirts and wore blue jeans with the waitresses sporting a front facing fanny pack around their waists. Obviously for collecting tabs and dispensing change to customers.

I sat down and a beer appeared in front of me with Sean saying,

"Elise says to make sure you don't go thirsty."

I raised the bottle in thanks to Sean and took a swig. Ice cold and full of flavor. I looked at the label and saw the name Budweiser. I thought maybe they had managed to make a real beer then taking my hand off the bottle the word 'Budvar' appeared then it clicked. This was the original Budweiser from Czechoslovakia, not the supposed 'King of Beers'.

"Have a 'Bud' with your bud" came to mind. That made me chuckle as I disliked the stuff preferring imported beers and those from micro breweries even though they cost more.

"Hello stranger " Elise's voice surprised me from behind. "I see the Johnny Cash look is fashionable again."

I spun on the stool to see her grinning.

"I wore black because I liked it." I drawled in my poor imitation of the man in black.

"I wouldn't give up the day job just yet if I were you!"

Elise gave me a quick kiss on the lips and whispered in my ear,

"We are going to be hectic tonight but I'll make it up to you."

And she eased herself through the patrons to the hatch and started filling an order from a customer. She glanced across at me smiling and gave me a slow wink followed by a blown kiss.

Already my dick was semi-hard from her brief kiss and that wink made me think of delights to come.

I finished my beer and signaled for another to Sean. He brought another one of those Budvar beers and was about to walk away when I asked him to open a tab for me.

"No need, the boss says to keep you happy."

"Sean, I'll be happy if you open that tab. I'm not a freeloader and always pay my way."

"I'll do that for you but someone might get irked about it." He nodded his head in Elise's direction down the bar. I handed him one of my credit cards.

"Let me worry about that, thanks, Sean."

"No worries mate"

With that phrase I recognised his accent now, Australian.

Crocodile Dundee sprang to mind! He left and zipped my card down the side of the till display, keyed in the beer and slipped my card into what looked like a business card folder but with bigger pockets with blank strips where he wrote my name. He moved off to deal with another customer.

I was enjoying the taste of this beer and made a mental note to get some next time I did the groceries.

I looked down the bar where Elise was constantly dealing with patrons as were the rest of the bartenders, now I know what she meant about getting hectic.

Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail exposing her face. No heavy eye makeup tonight, just eyeshadow and a pale lipstick. She had a discrete comms unit on her right ear and I noticed that all the staff had them. She kept up a constant flow of chatter into it and also with customers ensuring they got served and moved away to allow others to reach the bar. She and the other bartenders would pick up signals from the waitresses and fill a tray with drinks ready for them when they reached the bar with a tray of empties. How they never spilled the drinks as they passed through the thickening crowd was a wonder.

I raised my empty bottle for a new one and this time it was Elise herself that brought me a replacement. She pressed a button on the comms unit,

"Privacy mode," she said across the background chatter of the bar.

"Mr Independent are we?"

"What?"

"A girl offers to ply you with free booze and you turn it down? There would be some guys that would top shelf on that but you, no."

"Elise, I pay my way and don't take advantage of people."

"I'll let you off on that but what you putting across the bar goes to my guys tip jar so sup it up, Johnny!"

Her grin lit her face up and I so desperately wanted to hold and kiss her.

"The band will be on in an hour or so and the counter work will drop off a bit so I'll have a bit of space and can get to your side of the bar for a break."

"I think I have a space between appointments tonight that I could fit you in for if that suits."

Elise brought up a mixer dispensing gun and aimed it at me.

"You were saying?"

"Oh, looking at my diary again it would appear that they have all cancelled and I am free all night."

She lowered the dispenser and said, “Lucky me then! OK, I need to get back to it. Later then. Mwah!"

She had given me one of those celebrity air kisses and clicked on her comms unit and headed down the bar after making a very deliberate performance of racking up my beer to my tab.

I was enjoying the taste of the beer quite a bit and felt a very light buzz from it. I was going to pace myself but enjoy it at the same time as I am not a big beer drinker.

I had to pee and headed to the john. It was amazingly clean with no dropped towels on the floor. There were small signs above the urinals and you had to get close to read the small print. The one above mine said, ' Stand closer, it is not as big as you think it is.' I had to laugh at that. Washing my hands I was thinking that the other signs must be along the same vein. Probably I would have the chance to find out later.

Returning to my stool I drained my beer and signaled for another. This time it was one of the girls that served me. She had bobbed blond hair and was quite cute in a bubbly sort of way. She smiled as she left the beer and went to the till to charge it to me.

A single tight spotlight beam blazed on to the stage and this brought on whistling and clapping from the crowd. The crowd deepened around the stage making a bit of space near me. The beam of the spotlight swept back and forth over the stage revealing instruments but no musicians.

It blinked off and then I could make out the band taking positions. The stage flooded with light to reveal two guitarists, a bass player, keyboard player, drummer and a diminutive, young female vocalist with electric blue hair at the front mike.

The crowd burst into applause and the vocalist smiled back at them.

"Good evening people. I hope you are here for us and not the beer!"

The crowd erupted with cheering and whistling.

"Alright then, here we go. You know this one."

She turned to the band as she held the mike stand.

"Let's go boys!"

The band hit a bunch of repetitive chords and the girl launched straight into Janis Joplin's Cry Baby.

Her voice was incredible as she hit all the notes.

The crowd went wild and she raised her hand in acknowledgement and the tumult died down and let her rip into the song.

I thought what a sensational opener and she could really sing.

The song progressed and as it ended the audience roared and clapped.

With very little pause they tore into Joan Jett's I Love Rock and Roll bringing more appreciation from the crowd.

The next number they slowed it down a bit with a song I had never heard before.

"Well. What do you think?" Elise's voice at my side startled me.

I hadn't noticed her coming as I was watching the band.

"Damned good. I wasn't expecting her voice to be like that. Just a little thing and belting it out full blast."

"Susanne is only nineteen and could make it if she got the breaks."

She nudged my arm that my beer was being held in. "Finish that and come with me."

As there was only a mouthful left I emptied it and left the bottle on the bar. I followed her through the hatch and into the office at the end.

As soon as the door closed Elise threw her arms around my neck and kissed me hungrily pressing herself against me.

My arms encircled her and pulled her tight to me as I responded to her kiss.

She broke it off and said, "I wanted to do that as soon as you came in tonight. My mind has been doing flips all this time and I had to control myself."

"You are not alone with that. Watching you behind the bar, so close but out of reach is torture."

"It is going to be like that for the next three hours too. The bar comes first when I am here as it is my livelihood."

"That is not a problem for me as I know how hard owning a bar is."

"Just as long as you understand then things are fine."

She crushed her mouth against me and slipped her hand onto the bulge developing on my jeans and rubbed it. She broke the kiss and said,

"This will have its work cut out for later. OK, back to the grind."

Back in front of the bar it was proving difficult to get comfortable after her hand had aroused me.

The next song from the band was You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette. I noticed that the song choices were from powerful female singers and this little girl, Susanne, was capable of doing a great version of the songs so far.

I ordered another beer and again it was the little blond bar person serving me. A bigger smile this time as she turned away. Cute but not my type. I have never really gone for blonds as I prefer darker haired women.

The band brought a change in tempo for the next song, Peter Green's Need Your Love So Bad with the lead guitarist taking the vocals. This was followed by another song I didn’t know with Susanne singing again.

Time seemed to pass slowly with me enjoying the music and the beer and feeling quite relaxed. A lot more relaxed than I had been for some time.

Elise came up her side of the bar and leaned over to talk to me.

"The band has about another hour and the bar will wind down a bit. These guys always pull in a big crowd doing covers and original songs and they are well worth their fee. Hopefully I can be on your side of the bar if it is not too busy."

"I will be hoping for that too, Elise."

"OK, we'll see how it goes."

She went to serve more customers down the bar.

I could not stop looking at her and was desperately wanting time to fly by.

About 40 minutes later the singer, Susanne, was at the mike.

"Folks, last two numbers coming up and we're done for this time. We hope you enjoyed tonight and hopefully we will see you soon but before we go we have a treat for you. Elise, come on up girl."

I saw Elise behind the bar laughing and shaking her head.

"Folks, she needs a bit of encouragement, give her a hand."

The crowd whistled and clapped with some chants of 'Elise, Elise!'

Elise looked at me, shrugged her shoulders and made her way onto the stage. The crowd got more enthusiastic as she and the singer talked off mike. Susanne nodded and spoke to the band who also nodded. The lead guitarist brought his mike up front next to the singers and adjusted the height.

The band launched into the driving beat of the Cranberries song Dreams. Elise was holding onto the mike and looked down nodding slightly to the intro. When the opening verse was to start, I was open jawed as Elise raised her head and moving to the mike started off the song. The singer joined in with the harmonizing in the verse and covered the vocal solo with Elise again singing the opening lyrics of the second verse and the singer harmonizing again. Same for the third verse. Both of them joined in for the outro. The band brought the song to a chord crashing end instead of the fade of the actual tune.

The crowd erupted as Elise hugged Susanne and gave the band thumbs up as she left the stage.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was amazed that this green eyed angel had a talent like that. Between the two of them they had made a more than passable cover of the song.

The band played their final two songs and if someone were to ask me what they were I'd have no idea as I was stunned at what I had just witnessed.