I hardly drink alcohol, but when I do, it’s cocktails. Not a good combination really, the hard stuff and not having a practised head for it, but – what the hell. That meant that for my birthday the place to go was a no-brainer: Bootleggers – a cocktail bar in Lynnwood with a cult-following because it had an original way of running things.

We were quite a big crowd and easily took up a quarter of the place, so we felt quite free to give ourselves over to being raucous, especially as some of the other parties started drifting over to join us.

Of course I started with a strawberry daiquiri – it is a tradition after all. From there I know there was a mojito because I love them. After that? I was trying to pace myself and I had lots of water in between, but for a non-drinker, that’s a lot of alcohol. By midnight I wasn’t feeling too much of anything. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t quite my cautious self when my friends insisted I order a Sex-on-the beach. I just shouted it out lustfully as many had before me that evening. No-one warned me they had a rather special way of serving it after midnight. The barkeeper serving us flashed a grin my way as I did so, but that also didn’t spark off warnings in my head as we’d been eyeing each other all evening. So maybe I get a little friendly when I drink, but he was CUTE.

The next round was delivered, but mine wasn’t with the other drinks. Instead the bartender shouted “Sex-on-the beach” loudly enough to be heard over the din and everything stopped. There were a few laughs as the people looked around expectantly and stopped their conversations.

“That’s mine,” I answered, even then still not clued in by the giggles around me.

“Go fetch it.” someone urged, so I did.

When I got to the counter, there was no drink waiting. Instead, Mr Sex-Appeal bar tender came around to the front of the bar and hoisted me onto the highly polished dark-wood counter top. What? Hmmmmm, yummy? A jumble of incoherent thoughts flashed through my brain. Before I could react or say anything, he lay me down on countertop and spread me as he wanted me – legs straight, arms loosely at my sides. I don’t know if it was that or the encouraging catcalls from my friends, but I was now getting a clue and feeling a bit like a sacrificial lamb, especially when I was decorated with a glass at the juncture of my thighs and a cherry perched between my lips. The final clue was the lidless cocktail shaker that partially disappeared into his pants, the top third sticking up just like an eager erection as he returned to his side of the counter.

Mr Sex-Appeal started spinning and twirling his bottles with style, his showmanship as awesome as his bottle spinning skills. He spinned, caught and tossed intuitive measures from the bottles into the shaker he’d hooked in his pants with never a bottle missed or a drop spilt. Then he took a mixer and played around with it a bit to extend the show, until that too was roguishly inserted in his pants. By now the well-oiled crowd were cheering him on, completely caught up in his edgy act.

The whole bar crowded closer and closer around us and I was surrounded by the surprisingly-heady smell of alcohol and sweat, which only heightened the atmosphere. Still, I was nervous, shaking all over as I lay there, a taut and expectant sacrifice. Some sort of participation was clearly very soon going to be expected of me and I didn’t know how far it would go, how I would react.

During his show he had stayed close to me all along, a touch here and there as he was doing his work. Now he leaned over me and whispered in my ear, his breath warm and personal as a kiss.

He smelled deliciously of work and play, fresh and feral all together.

“Are you with me? Can I carry on?” I couldn’t do more than nod as my mouth was still balancing the cherry he had placed there. “Pinch me if you want me to ease up – any time.” That was kind, as he could back off a bit and I wouldn’t lose face. I shook my head slightly, indicating he could go ahead. As he was whispering to me, looking straight at me and seeming to ignore the crowd completely, he took my hand and was rubbing it palm down across his chest. He was gorgeous! Spinning cocktails clearly had its benefits. He trailed my hand down his chest towards the mixture, achingly slowly, all the time watching me, following my cues.

Down he led my hand, down, down, until I felt just the tip of his erection before he closed my hand around the mixer. I was so caught up in him, in the infinite possibilities I saw in his eyes that I got an enormous fright as he pressed the button, his finger over mine on the switch. The mixer in his pants vibrated as eagerly as my own body was. I sensed from the tensing of his hand on mine, the flutter of his eyes that the pleasure for him was powerful, and it was a struggle to remember to play to the audience.

Eventually, reluctantly, he flicked off the button, shutting off the vibrations and grinned at the crowd as they cheered him on. Not a man there didn’t have real appreciation for his situation; not a woman there didn’t want to be the hand pushing the button. Carefully, precariously balancing the cocktail in his pants, he too got up on the bar counter. Push-up style he stretched himself over me. Oh my god!!! As he balanced there, eyes intensely focussed on me, he started rocking his hips, hunching them deeply in the most erotically lifelike imitation of deep, slow, penetrating sex. I was distraught that his body was actually hovering 10cm above mine where neither of us could get any real pleasure from the act, but was oh so incredibly turned on.

Faultlessly, rocking over me without pause, he poured all the liquid from his crotch into the glass between my legs. When he was done, to raucous applause, he remained hovering above me in a one-handed push up, and removed the cocktail shaker with his free hand to set it aside.

Using both hands again he lowered himself into his final push-up, achingly slowly, completely focussed on me. I had forgotten everyone and everything; all I saw or felt in this loud, supportive crowd was him. He hovered so close that I could feel his body’s warmth along the length of me. Still my entire body quivered, but no longer from nerves, and I could feel now, in the sometimes brushing of sensitised skin, that his did too.

Never taking his eyes from mine, he plucked the cherry from my lips with his teeth, a kiss, and yet not. In slow motion he drew away, lowering himself onto his knees and dragging his torso back down my body. Once he was there, face hovering over my crotch, he paused for effect before he dropped the cherry on the top of my cocktail in the glass still lodged between my legs, only then breaking eye contact with me to raise the glass high like a prize for everyone to admire.

Sliding off the bar first, he bowed elaborately, before holding my hand tightly to give me something to focus on as I regained a bit of sanity, he helped me down. The clapping and laughing around me was all in good spirits, partly respectful of my playing along, partly envious. That didn’t bother me as much as the card I felt being slipped intimately into my jeans pocket as he helped me down.

“If you can, wait for me until I finish at 3. If you can’t use the number on the card tomorrow.”

I waited.