I do a double take as I clock the bartenders’ dress code. “I think there’s been a mistake,” I explain firmly to him. “I am not wearing a bikini.” This guy is on another planet if he thinks he can get me into those red shorts and yellow bikini top. Hell will freeze over sooner.
A well-endowed female bartender walks past us. She gets in the path of the strobe lights and I see the full outline of her nipples through her bikini. I haven’t even been this exposed at the beach.
Jonas laughs in my face. “You want to work here then you wear the bikini, lady. No negotiation.”
“I don’t have a price for wearing a bikini,” I retort indignantly. The nerve of this guy. “No, thank you.”
He laughs again. “Everyone has a price, lady. Up to you, I don’t have all night. Trial. Two hours. If you want to earn 150 euros a night, then hurry up and get changed.”
Say what? How much? We’ve been earning twenty euros a day max at the boat tour stall.
Maybe I do have a price. If we work here for a week, we have enough to go island hopping. How bad can it be? I eye him suspiciously. “What do you have to do for 150 euros?”
He smirks at how quickly I abandon my morals. “Serve the drinks, talk to the punters. You’ve worked in a bar before, yes?”
Last summer I worked in the village local, The Wee Donkey. The closest I got to making cocktails was a Jack and Coke. Does that count?
Behind the bar, a bartender slams down eight shot glasses at lightning speed. He fires two bottles in the air then simultaneously pours all eight shots and sets them on fire.
I’m not sure the skills I gained at The Wee Donkey are transferable.
“You know how to smile, sweetheart?”
I bare my teeth, curling my lips upwards. ‘Smile for salary’ is the name of the game here.
He looks us up and down. “You.” He points to Megan, asset number one. “You start behind the bar. “You,” he mutters something that sounds suspiciously like lips and legs under his breath in Greek.
“Let’s try you out front, pulling in the crowd.”
He wants to put me outside to pull in the crowd? Megan should be showcased outside first. Flirting is her forte. I’ve watched her hone her skills for a decade and she is top of her game. She’s the dick whisperer.
“What does that entail?” I ask. “Do I have a promotion sign or something?”
“Yes.” He points between my breasts. “These are your promotion signs. Do whatever it takes to get them into the bar. Then it’s up to the bar staff to keep them here. Be back here in five minutes changed otherwise stop wasting my time. The trial has started so you’re losing money by the minute.”
***
“It’s humiliating, Megan,” I wail.
We’re standing in front of a half-length mirror. Unfortunately, I can’t see my bottom half, but I can feel a draft around my bum where a half-moon has formed in my Lycra shorts. I pull the shorts down for a fuller coverage but give myself a plumber’s crack at the top. It’s a trade-off. “Nudists wear more clothing than this.”
Megan turns to me, looking like a whore. They didn’t have any red shorts left in her size so her slight muffin top hangs over the Lycra, two sizes too small. “No one’s wearing any clothes here-we fit in. Stop being a granny.”
Side by side, no one would mistake us for sisters. I’m all gangly legs and arms, more akin to an ostrich than a Victoria’s Secret model, whereas Megan is short with sexy curves and fiery red hair. With my dark hair and high cheekbones inherited from my Croatian mother, I’m sometimes mistaken on the island as a native.
The bikini bra covers more of my modesty than Megan’s. I’m a decent B cup but next to Megan I look flat-chested. A bloke once had the audacity to compare me to two Tic Tacs on an ironing board, and that was with my clothes on.
“Ready?” Megan asks in the mirror.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
She takes my hand and forces me out of the changing room.
While walking back to Jonas, I notice that attention to us has multiplied by a billion percent since the outfit change. No one looks above the neck. Now I’m just a headless body with bright yellow tits.
Jonas nods his approval, gives us instructions, then hands me a tray of green shots. Together with my breasts, the shots are bait.
“See you later,” I whisper to Megan, feeling needy. “Good luck.” She squeezes my hand and I head out to brave it on the street.
Up and down the pedestrianized street, hustlers just like me compete to lure drunk tourists into bars. It’s the red-light district for bar hustlers. An Oscar-winning performance is needed here.
My bait tray narrowly escapes being tossed by two brawling boys. “Watch it, dipshits,” I hiss at them as one knocks into me.
Beside me there’s a deep grunt; I turn in horror to see I’ve spilled sticky alcohol all over a guy’s Tshirt. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a white T-shirt that moulds nicely over muscle in all the right areas. In fact, I can see the definition through the T-shirt. To my dismay his thick chest is now splattered in neon green. The baseball cap hides his face. I can’t help but wonder what he would feel like on top of me as he attempts to remove the mess I’ve caused.
“I’m so sorry, sir!”
My eyes travel up from his chest to see piercing blue-grey eyes fixated on me. Annoyed.
Oh. Wow. My breath catches in my throat.
So, this is what drop-dead gorgeous looks like. He’s older than me, maybe late thirties, forty max. Broad but with a natural bulky physique, not a gym bunny. But it’s his face that winds me an angular jaw, strong Roman nose, high cheekbones, heavyset chin. Not to mention the most beautiful dark eyebrows framing his striking eyes.
Fuck me.
A modern day Adonis. Thank you, Greek gods.
“I really am sorry,” I stammer, taken completely aback.
“Forget it.” He speaks in a deep baritone that is laced with frustration. Like really deep. One hundred per cent sexy British gravel. It’s an English accent, but I can’t pick up on the region.
Jonas watches us from the door. “The trial’s over if you don’t get someone in the bar within ten minutes,” he shouts in Greek at me.
Laughing hysterically like Jonas just cracked a joke, I turn back to the hot grump who is observing me like I’m contagious. “Please don’t complain to him that I spilled a drink over you, it’s my first night working here,” I babble, being my own cock block. “My friend and I are on trial and we really need this job.”
“It’s fine, excuse me,” he says dryly as he sidesteps me.
I silently curse myself for bumping into the most handsome man I have ever seen in my life in such a humiliating situation. “Wait!” I grab his forearm to stop him from escaping. It’s warm, slightly hairy and solid with muscle. A pair of forearms that could lift you up and throw you over a shoulder with little effort. “Don’t go. Come into the bar,” I plead.