Mistletoe

It was the busiest night of the year.

Yoka did not typically pick one religion or custom over the other. To the woman who wanted to be a god, worshipping anyone other than herself seemed an act of blasphemy.


But, with so many holidays taking place in December, she'd be a fool not to cash in on what other gods and nature provided for her. Tonight, that meant mint themed drinks, cookies, eggnog, spiced wine, and outfits that used a lot of ribbons, jinglebells, red velvet with white trim, and mistletoe.

Yoka's dancers were not whores.

She was very strict about the dividing line between entertainers and prostitution. That's not to say that none of Yoka's dancers were involved in sex work. The fox owned a sex hotel, too, and some of her employees took on double shifts. it's just that she generally preferred to keep the two separate. She was known for having her security guard, an impressive looking drow whose muscles spoke more than he did, haul out patrons who became too handsey.

But, tonight, there was an exception.

Yoka was raising money for a scholarship for Yokai students with a kissing booth.

Some of her dancers signed up to stand beneath the mistletoe after their last dance and take donations to peck a patron on the cheek. One of her dancers, a busty woman with ram horns currently donning a sexy krampus look, was really bringing in the bucks. Fifteen percent of everything raised tonight was going to help fund that scholarship.

Fifteen percent was going to be a lot of money. The room was packed, the music loud, and Yoka was finding that tonight would be the perfect night for her to work. Yoka did not dance frequently; she was the owner, she was old, she hired people do that shit for her. But, occasionally, she liked to remind her employees what seduction looked like. She liked the rush of power she felt when men and women and every gender between soaked their panties in arousal.

The dance she gave tonight was no exception. Yoka was dripping with sweat and oil and she smelled like peppermint. She didn't cast an illusion over herself. Tonight, she was a long-legged Japanese woman with amber eyes, glowing skin, and curves carved onto fertility statues. Her outfit was modest by the standards of her other employees, but she was not wearing anything beneath it, letting her pert breasts strain against the near-see through layer of black chemise. She was the only one not wearing something christmas-themed, save for the two large jingebells she had tucked into her thong for anyone who thought they could cop a feel.

When Yoka slunk off the stage and made her way to the mistletoe, she couldn't go any further.

She had to stop and do a double take for the man sitting on the plush leather chair near the end of the stage. It was a VIP spot, and Yoka had many choice acronyms for that man, but not a single one was very important person.

Very important pain-in-the-ass was probably better.

pinstripes, suite, looking like a film noire star from the 1940's. That perfect damn jawline. Those fucking eyes.

Yoka was dripping with sin.

"Gin?" she said.

One of her employees said, "Yes m'am" and took off to get Yoka a drink, but that's not what she was talking about. She was talking about the man.

Enoch.

Her ex.

There was no doubt about it.

It was him.

Yoka was certain but she was uncertain. She brushed a hand through her dark hair and then tossed her hair to the side.

What was he doing here.

What was he doing on this island, in this town, in this strip club? In her strip club? Did he come here intentionally? She wouldn't put it past him. That was one of the things that attracted Yoka to him originally but it'd been years. Christ, how many years had it been?

Yoka realized she was standing in the club.

She had two options.

She could ignore him or she could confront him.

In the past, Yoka might have ignored him, and she might still do that now, but that was when Yoka did not realize the benefits she could gain just from being direct.

So she saunter up to him. Her hips sashayed, her breasts swayed, her lips parted in a perfect pucker before she said, "What are you doing here?"

She was surprised he didn't say hello first.

What was wrong with her?

Was she caught off guard?

Oh god he knew just the way to get under her skin.

Yoka crossed her arms, shifted her weight from one hip to the other, and then arched an eyebrow at him.

She appeared nonplussed but the corner of her upperlift twitched for a moment like she was trying to resist showing her canine teeth in a very vulpine display of anger.

"Hellos are reserved for someone you wanted to see again," Yoka said.

It was probably a low blow and probably also untrue. Yoka couldn't resist the sass, though. She did want to figure out what she was feeling right now. This anger and irritation was a lot easier to deal with than any of the other complicated emotions.

"How long have you been on the island?" she asked. She was still bristling on the inside about the comments to her club. The club was her baby. It was the best.

Yoka was going to say something, some kind of wicked retort that was already falling off her tongue when it died right there.

"You mean you--"

She stared at him and then her lips fell into a straight line. The next words that came out where punctuated by the narrowing of her amber eyes set to kill.

"What do you mean, across the street?"

Ribbons and bows.

He could be talking about any number of times. He could be talking about the time she wore nothing but a red ribbon and asked him to open his present with his teeth.

Instead, Yoka sighed and said, "Yes. It's just what every woman wants for Christmas...a dick in a box."

Or in her club.

"You know how it is," Yoka said. "Best to get something unpleasant with over quickly, and it was always over quickly, at least that was a relief."

Okay, so it hadn't been unpleasant, and it hadn't been over quickly. She remembered hot screaming sex. But that wasn't going to help the snark right now.

Fuck. Across the street. Yoka hadn't been paying attention to what was going on across the street. She was too busy fixated on her property investment in the strip. That was a mistake. Since her last assistant went MIA, Yoka needed to get someone to figure this shit out for her, and quickly. She thought about Cherry, but she needed Cherry's presence at the club.

"Tonight is the charity night," Yoka said. "Lap dances are paid for by a donation to the Yokai Student Scholarship. The dances are teired. If you want a dance, your donation will get you a girl based on the teir."

Yoka pointed to the christmas tree on the far wall with the dancer's names across them.

She'd teired herself at the top because she didn't feel like dancing more than she had to. It was an exorbitant amount of money.

Three weeks.

He'd been back for three weeks.

"How long do you plan on staying?" Yoka asked. It wasn't clear if she meant at the club or on the island. Yoka wasn't sure herself.

That smug son of a bitch.

Yoka did not think he was going to do it. She thought she priced herself out of the casual customer, but then again, Enoch wasn't really a casual guy.

His face was close enough to hers that she wanted to bite it.

"Very well," Yoka said. She reached out, offering her hand, and beckoned to the stage. As if on cue, the lights dimmed.


Fucking son of a bitch.

But Yoka was smiling as she sauntered onto the stage and a large plush chair was dropped right infront of the center stage pole.

She beckoned to Enoch.

If he was looking closely, he'd noticed the first finger she beckoned with was her middle finger.

The lights dimmed.

The music started to play. The first thing Yoka did was start on the pole and slide her way down, then crawl on her hands and knees to Enoch. She grabbed his knees suddenly and pushed his legs apart, spreading them and opening the space for her to rise up before him, her large breasts pushing up against his chest and face as she rose up. Her arms were high above her head, resting against the pole, and Yoka moved her hips in circles, straddling one of her legs. She turned and bent, spreading her legs so her ass rose in the air, and now she was straddling him completely. She rubbed her hips in seductive motions across his hips.

When Yoka danced, she did not picture the dance moves as individual motions. When she danced, she poured her energy into it, poured small portions of magic and illusions. It was almost safe to say she put her soul into it.

She told a story with her body, a story of hot, dirty sex on top of the covers, on the back of a fast car still steaming with exhaust from the engine.

She tilted her head back and rested it on his shoulder, exposing her long neck to him even as she continued to move her hips. Yoka slid down his body slowly, dragging herself against him, and when she came back up, she was facing him. Her hips were aligned with his, her sex and his separated only by their clothes and Yoka had to admit that she was enjoying this just a little bit.

It didn't feel like work.

It felt like old, familiar routine.

She took his hands and placed them on her hips, letting him feel her hips swiveling and her muscles working as she danced on him, stimulating sex with every fiber of her being.

When the song ended, Yoka leaned backwards and gripped the pole and flipped herself backwards and upsidedown onto it, ensuring that he got a nice upskirt view as she moved. Since she was upside down, her chemise fell down and exposed her breasts to him and only him. Yoka slid down the pole slowly, once again dropped into a crawl, but this time she picked herself up infront of him, turned around, and walked off the stage.

That

son

of

a

bitch.

Yoka needed a drink.

And, maybe, another pair of panties.

Yoka hated this man.

It took her a while to realize what the emotion was. There was lust, sure, but that was probably only because it had been a while since Yoka felt passionate about something. She was old, but she was young for an immortal, and Yoka had plans to stay alive for a very long time.

She could probably go the rest of the life hating this man. Normally, hate was exhauting, but not with this one, oh no.

No one walked out on Yoka.

Yoka was the one who left. Always. It was like a rule. She left before they died. She left them well-fucked with goodluck and with fond memories. Yoka liked things tidy. But oh, no, not this man. He was not tidy. His suite was an illusion. He was dirty and all kinds of shades of fucked up.

And yoka loved it.

"I see," Yoka said. "If the dancing is that bad now, your standards must have really dropped to get aroused from such a subpar performance."

He invited her over for drinks.

And Yoka hated it.

She was working. She was obviously working. It was a ruse. There was no way she was going to talk out on the busiest night of the year, leaving her employees to fend for themselves. But she already danced. There was no other reason for her to be here. She trusted her employees.

Yoka chewed on the inside of a cheek. She watched him leave.

Revenge was a dish best served cold but Yoka was smoldering.

She excused herself and went upstairs to the apartment she stayed at when he was working late at the club, showered, and put on the silkiest dress she had. The cut was very modest, with a high neckline in front but a scoop in the beck that showed off the back of her neck. It was slit in the side, but not enough to cause a scandal, just to allow for the ease of movement. She grabbed her clutch, pulled her hair up and clipped it back with a butterfly brooch, and then sauntered out of her apartment, out of the club, and across the street.

She opened the bar door and stood inside.

Her eyes examined the place and then she raised an eyebrow.

"And you complained about the cross fox?" Yoka tsked. "I mean, I know it's only been three weeks, but yikes. I hope the drinks aren't as bad as your decor."

"Yes," Yoka said. "As matter of fact, there is something bothering me. You."

The cross fox was a good building. It was solid, classic, brick. The columns outside provided for great ambiance. Even now, with the brazers burning, the whole building looked fantastic. it was the best thing she'd ever purchased, besides her education and that first passage out of Japan.

The Manta Carlos had been her home outside of home. It was where she went when she did not want to pretend to be anything other than a kitsune. It was her safe place.

And now he was here.

He brought out her coaster and she tried to pretend that she didn't have feelings about that. Christ, he'd saved it?

Was that sweet or stupid? Was she touched or pissed? She wanted to throw it at his face and she wanted to kiss him. This just made Yoka angrier. When he slid the drink to her, she took it, and she wanted to pretend it wasn't good, but it was. Syrupy and sweet.

"Thank you," she said.

She crossed her arms. "I'm not interested in impressing anyone. What I am interested in is this: Why are you here?"

"Work," Yoka repeated.

She knew exactly what he meant. It'd been both interesting and alarming to her. She didn't express it at the time, but she'd wondered if it had been a ploy for him to steal her soul. It wouldn't have been the first time someone tried.

But he hadn't. He'd never asked about it, and it relaxed her.

But he had a deadline.

"You didn't like it when I tried to get testy in the bedroom," Yoka snorted. Trying to surprise him with her ability to shift genders was not as sexy as she thought it'd be. Yoka sipped on her shirly temple. It had just the right amount of grenadine.

Yoka didn't want to process this feeling, either. SHe could process all of her feelings later. Was it relief that he was still here? Or despair?

"I'm tying up loose ends," Yoka said. There was no hesitation in her answer. That's why she was here. He was a loose end. "How long is your vacation?"