I was working at REDS as a promoter. Each week I would recruit thousands of teenage girls to come to a REDS Teen Dance Party. I originated the idea, handled the marketing, business development and exclusively promoted it. The lines around the club on Sunday afternoons were longer than the lines at the movie theaters. They were not paying me the way they promised, so I said screw it, and started to work as a bartender and part time manager at the Salty Dog. There are so many stories from my time at the Salty Dog, I could probably write a book about those experiences alone. However, the one that stands out as the most memorable chapter of love, was with the coat check girl. She was not the coat check girl when I started bartending there. Over time, she hung out at the bar so often that the GM gave her the job just to keep her busy. She was very beautiful, petite, black hair and a body to die for. She was down to earth and smart. We talked all the time. She became a good friend.
There was a lot of sexual tension between us. But, she was shy and also, engaged. I don’t know why her engagement ended, but as soon as it did, the flirting became much more extreme. I started hanging out at the front door, with the bouncers, just because I wanted to spend more time with her. She started working just before the holidays. It was cold, that year, so there were always tons of coats. In fact, there were so many that they could barely fit in the coatroom. Often, coats would be tagged and brought to the second floor. That was the restaurant area. That area closed at about ten pm so all the booths became another spot to store the overflow of coats the de facto second floor coatroom so to speak.
I knew her at least six months prior to her starting to work the coatroom. Within a few weeks it was clear that there was a connection. Not just as friends. We wanted each other. But, we were both shy. Neither of us wanted to be the one to start something, fearing that the other person was not interested. Plus, as I said, in the beginning she was engaged. It was safe to flirt with humor. If it wasn’t met with a return flirt, you always had an out. When I finally worked up the courage to ask her on a date, we skipped the date and went immediately to sex. We started by making out in the front vestibule, where the coatroom was. It was isolated, so we felt safe enough. Everyone was busy inside, at the holiday party. No one was leaving anytime soon, as we had an open bar.
The soft first kisses and hugs turned into wet lip action and much deeper kisses, as we wrapped our bodies tightly around one another. We were both lost in those kisses and the grinding of our bodies against one another for at least an hour. We moved to the coatroom, which had barn style split doors. We were both rather intoxicated and once we felt safe inside the coatroom, our clothing started coming off. We were lost in the passion. We were standing up inside the coatroom, going at it like seasoned, passionate, lovers. But, soon enough, people did start to come to get their coats and we had to stop.
She would give coats to the exiting patrons and we would immediately go at it again. She decided to take her underwear off and have me take her from behind, as she stood at the opening of the coatroom, leaning on the bottom half of the barn doors. We moved a coat rack filled with coats parallel to the opening and arranged the coats close to her body so you mostly only saw her, even though I was inside of her, it looked like I was simply standing in the coatroom helping her. Of course, I had to pull out and reinsert more times than I cared to, almost cuming every time I went back in. I held off, as I wanted this to be as good for her as it was for me.
We were as intoxicated as the guests. I am sure that many of those people knew what was going on, but we didn’t care. Either did they, for that matter. We were so engaged in raw, physical pleasure, that we kept going even when we heard voices coming towards us. We waited until heads started to turn the corner to the entrance of the coatroom lobby. My head said pull out. But sometimes I just couldn’t stop. She was bouncing back and forth as patrons came up to her. I would pull out and pass her most of the coats. As the evening progressed, she was going to have to retrieve coats from the second level.
She had to get about a dozen coats so I came with her. Once we got upstairs our clothing came off and we started to passionately fool around on a pile of fur coats. We went at it for a few minutes but we knew we had to get the patron’s coats. She stayed up there locating them and I brought them down, sometimes as many as ten coats at a time. Many of the coats left that night with wet spots on them. We didn’t much think about that at the time. We were obsessed. As more and more people left, we were spending more time upstairs and less in the coatroom. As we ran out of coats, people started to hang-out on the stairs, so we couldn’t use the second-floor booths anymore. Instead, we went into the juice room that was under the stairs.
It was tight, but she was petite and I was determined. We stripped down to our shirts and went at it for about a half hour, until we both came together. The stairs were old and as people stood on them, the treads would bend and let thin streams of light shine down on us. We were nervous someone was going to see us naked and we would both be fired. The GM who was our boss had to walk down those stairs, right over us, to get from his office to the bar. He did this several times. We could even hear him ask people where we were. They were cool and said we were outside getting something from the car. They knew where we were, but they did not share it.
We knew we had to make an appearance quickly so we fixed ourselves up in the bathrooms. She went back to the, fairly empty, coatroom and I busied myself buying some of the VIP guest’s drinks, to make sure people saw me. Finally, she was out of coats and was allowed to leave. Neither of us wanted it to end there. I walked her to her car. We got in. I sat next to her and we started making out again. It was a small sports car. We managed to put the passenger’s side seat down and started at it again. It was fortunate she was so petite. It was freezing. The windows were coated with ice when we started. I loved going down on her. I kept at it for a good thirty minutes, before we realized the ice on the windows melted and the few stragglers leaving the club were getting a good look at her half naked body. By that time, I was mounting her and driving deep inside her. She was in an orgasmic state when I released inside her. She grabbed me fiercely and dug her nails so deeply into my back that I had eight or nine bloody scratches by the time we were done. It must have been about four in the morning. We held each other and fell asleep in each other’s arms with the heat on.
When we woke up, it was to a full-fledged brawl between two of the guests. I had to get out of the car and break it up. I was shocked to see it was the Editor of the Hofstra College Newspaper and his Assistant Editor. They were pissed at each other and it ended badly. I made sure the cops didn’t arrest them by hiding them in the, now closed, club. I told the officers that they already took off. Someone called them when the fight got bloody prior to me seeing what was going on. It may have been the neighbors who called the police. With all of this going on, I suggested that she go home. We would see each other at the Salty Dog the next evening anyway.
When I came back the next day, I found out that she quit. I didn’t have her phone number, or even know her last name. The GM would not give it to me. He said it wasn’t allowed. But, he gave her my number. Unfortunately, she never called. I had no way of finding her. Months went by. I thought about her almost every day and asked everyone if they knew her last name. No one did. I was so disappointed. I liked that coat check girl very much, so much so that I know that we would have spent a great deal of time together if she just showed up the next day and shared why she was quitting. Months later I was in a relationship with a cocktail waitress who worked there. Out of the blue, she showed up. I didn’t know what to do or say. I had been so disappointed that she bailed on me. Dating the cocktail waitress was convenient, but it was not turning into love or anything close. It was just an ongoing hook-up. She tried to explain that many of her friends saw us that night and was embarrassed even though she was falling in love with me.
She could tell I was disappointed, hurt and feeling rejected when I first saw her. I was trying to be cool about it. When I told her I could not see her again because I was involved with the cocktail waitress, she told me she had been grounded for months. Somehow, her parents found out what happened when she went home, apparently still intoxicated. They were incredibly strict. She was not allowed to use the phone, or car, until the very day she came to see me. When I told her we were done, she cried and started to leave. I got emotional as well and tried to stop her. I started to tell her I would end my relationship with the cocktail waitress. I realized that she would never want me again, knowing that I did not wait for her. It was a tough moment. My heart sank so low I thought it would stop beating. As is the case with so many of the girls I dated, in the hospitality industry, we shared a short chapter of love. For me it was meaningful. She was a great young woman, with a beautiful smile and laughter in her heart. She was also humble despite her great beauty. I did see her again years later, when I was visiting Long Island, after moving to the city. We shared a nice conversation but she was rather cold. As I found out shortly afterwards, she had gotten back together with her fiancé and he was there with her. When he excused himself to use the bathroom, she gave me an incredible kiss and said that she never got over me despite her return to her fiance.
I was not over her either, but I let it fade away, knowing I was now in the city and a reverse commute was not going to be my gig. Especially, since I was already involved with NYC women and bartending at the Palladium. To this day I can still visualize her ebony eyes and silky, long black, hair. Of course, the memories of making love to her in that coatroom with the door completely open, the juice room and her sports car, will stay with me forever. A few years later when I went for a stroll down memory lane, back to the Salty Dog, I stopped at the coatroom for an extended reflection of our short chapter of love.
As I was leaving, the GM said, “You better not do that at the Palladium, you two were going at it all night.” He was much older so I said something like, “that’s great advice. Thanks.” and left. I had no idea that he knew what was going on that night. I found out from some of the bartenders months later that they all knew, but thought it was cool that one of us was able to hook-up with her. I never did screw around in a juice room or coatroom again, but there was this one girl who grabbed me during a concert at the Nassau Coliseum and pulled me into a walk-in freezer, but that was just a quickie and another chapter all together.
Chapters Of Love 