#approximation

The music in the club was muted, a mid-range warble just loud enough to discourage real conversation, and a couple girls were dancing on a small stage while most were smiling politely in booths with the clientele. Bobby didn't really register any of them yet, too fixed on bellying up to the bar. He ordered three shots of expensive Scotch and knocked them back in succession before sliding a platinum credit card to the bar tender. Nodding his head in the direction of an empty booth, he told the man to keep drinks coming, then went to take a seat.

Bobby'd hardly been seated long enough to contemplate his drink when the first woman approached him. She was tall, with long black hair and high breasts. He greeted her politely, even managed a fascimile of a smile, but she drifted away quickly when he didn't ask her to take a seat. A redhead followed behind, then a Black woman with a long, swinging braid, and the scene replayed itself twice more.

"I suppose you're going to send me away, too, huh Lurch?"

Bobby startled at the sound of the voice - nearly convinced it was his partner, it was so similar. It wasn't Alexandra, however the woman who stood across the table was also petite, with blonde-leading-on brunette hair and a smile like Eames': cute yet somehow stern.

"Lurch?" he echoed.

"Because you're so tall," she chuckled.

"What's your name?" Bobby asked, sure that it would be Alex in some cruel twist of Fate.

"Kelli." He gestured at the free space alongside him in the booth, and she took her time sliding into it. "Unless, of course, your wife's name is the same."

Draining his rum and coke, he signalled for another. "I'm not married," he said simply.

"Really? You look miserable enough for it," Kelli responded, and her eyes lit up when it got a breathless chuff of laughter out of him.

"Would you like a drink?"

Bobby wasn't the least bit surprised when she ordered a Bourbon.

"So. Want to tell me why the long face?" she prodded.

Bobby took his time before answering with, "I lost someone."

"Girlfriend?"

He shook his head.

"Wow," Kelli exhaled over her Bourbon, "for a guy with no wife and no girlfriend, you look real bad off. Must have been some loss."

"It was . . . someone I could have saved."

She regarded him with her hazel eyes that were so like Alexandra's. "I don't believe that. If people are gonna fuck up, then they fuck up. If they're gonna come around eventually, then they do. Everything else is just time."

Bobby didn't want to believe that, either, but he admired the simplicity.

"Is that what you do for a living?"

"What's that?"

"Try to save people. A doctor?" she guessed.

"No."

"Shrink?"

"God, no," he chuckled.

"Good, 'cause you might need one yourself," she teased, and bumped his shoulder with her own.

He liked her laugh, but would never tell her. "I'm a police Detective."

She eyed him for a long moment, sizing him up with more interest. "You come lookin' to check the permits or somethin'? Jerry runs a clean place. Take my word for it."

Goren finished another drink. "I don't give a fuck about the permits. Or Jerry," he sniffed, ordering more liquor.

"I believe it." They sat in silence for a few minutes, nursing their drinks. "So what do you want?" she tried. "It's obviously not small talk, and if y'wanted a lap dance, you'd have sat closer to the stage. What's the secret?"

Not that long ago, he had been strapped to a table in a prison, eyeball-deep in his own raving madness, practically crying for a mother he no longer had. And this woman wanted to know why he didn't look like a man who wanted a lap dance. Bobby swallowed his drink and relished the burn of the liquor while he searched for an answer.

What did he want? He wanted Donny back. He wanted his mother. He wanted his partner to be proud of him, to not have to put up with the pitying looks the rest of One-PP gave her when they thought he wasn't paying attention. More than all of that, in that moment in that muted shitty strip bar, Bobby wanted to be a man who looked like he wanted . . . something.

Downing his drink, Bobby screwed his eyes shut and let out a sigh that was also half a groan. "C'mere." His big hands reached for her without waiting for a response. He knew she'd let him.

The petite woman fit in his lap with room to spare. She remained silent, merely curious where it was heading. When Goren parted his knees, Kelli instinctually settled her thighs over his leg. God, he was big. The flex of his leg muscle alone sent a rush of goosebumps through her. With his hands still heavy on her hips, he fixed his gaze at her waist and gently encouraged her to rock.

Bobby shut his eyes again, focusing on his sense of touch as the club drifted away. He could feel the clench and release of her leg muscles, the thin outlined ridge of the pair of short shorts she had on, and before long the insistent jut of her hard clit.

He wanted to get it out of his system.

He let out another soft, sighing groan which spurred Kelli to grind harder against him. She was soaking her shorts, and soon it was another sensation he acknowledged. Fingers fluttered curiously over where he'd grown hard inside his pants.

"Tell me your name,' Kelli murmured near his ear, still chasing her pleasure while his femoris muscle battered her clit.

"Robert."

She cupped him, stroking him as best she could through the unforgiving material of his pants, allowing herself for just a moment to imagine what it would be like to let the hulk of a cop fuck her with what she assumed was a proportionately hulking cock. It drew a muffled whimper from her, which in turn made his cock twitch.

It was just another Tuesday night, and Kelli was about to come on this guy's leg. She smirked and leaned in to his ear again.

"Tell me her name," she breathed.

He responded 'Whose?" But he knew.

"The woman you're picturing dripping all over your thigh," she chuckled. "It's ok, I'll let you call me that - whatever it is."

She increased pressure against where her hand was still keeping his interest up. Bobby was hard, a little drunk, exhausted; his eyes rolled in pleasure and sensory overload.

"Alex," he confessed. He licked his lips. "Alexandra."

She matched the rhythm of her rocking to the stroke of her hand over his bulge. "Alexandra," she echoed, and her voice, so like his partner's, was what did him in.

The smug satisfaction in feeling him stiffen and grunt beneath her got Kelli off, trembling on his thigh as she left the evidence on his pants. She gave him a few minutes before she backed off of his lap, still smiling personably. There was a swig left of Bobby's drink and she slaked her dry throat with it.

"Come back any time, Robert," she said quietly. A moment later and she was on her feet, walking toward the back of the room where the club dissolved into dressing rooms and bathroom stalls.

Bobby looked around a bit sheepishly, wondering if others had been watching, but found the room still just a dim getaway full of people looking to escape themselves. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he decided he would get his credit card back from the bartender and go home.

Maybe he would call Alex when he got there.