No. But yes. It was a good song. It was missing how I really
felt: frustrated and angry. So I belted out the last line of the chorus,
I’ve got you, under my skin,
without
Sinatra’s little snappy croon, but a longing, accusatory howl.
“Hang on,” Gabby said. She took a second to find the melody, and
I sang the chorus the way I wanted it played.
“Wow, that’s not how Sinatra did it,” she said.
“Play it
loungey
, like we’re seducing
someone.” I tapped her a slower rhythm, and she caught onto it. “Right, Gabs.
That’s it.”
I stood up and took the rest of the song, owning it, singing as
if the intrusion was unacceptable, as if insects crawled inside me, because I
didn’t want anyone under my skin. I wanted to be left alone to do my work.
Having the guys here to record it so I could hear it would have
been nice, but I could tell I was onto something. The back room at Frontage was
small, so I needed less rage and more discomfort. More sadness. More
disappointment in myself for letting it happen, and begging the pain away. If I
could nail that, I might actually enjoy singing a few standards at a
restaurant. Or I might get fired for changing them. No way to know.
I did it again, from the top. The first time I sang the word,
“skin,” I felt Jonathan’s hands on me and didn’t resist the pleasure and
warmth. I sang right through it, and when Gabby accompanied, she put her own
sadness into it. I felt it. It was my song now.
My phone rang: Darren.
“Where the hell are you?”
“Harry just called me. His mother is sick in Arizona. He’s out.
For good.”
I would have said something like,
so no bassist, no band,
but Gabby would have heard, and she wasn’t
ready for any kind of upset.
“And you’re not here because?”
He sighed. “I got held up at work. I’ll be there in twenty.
Tomorrow night, I have a favor to ask.”
“Yeah?”
“I have a date. Can you get her home after your gig and make sure
she takes her meds?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks, Mon.”
“Go get laid.”
I clicked the phone off and used the rest of the time to work on
our performance.
***
Thursday afternoon shift at the Stock was slow by Saturday night
standards. I earned less money, but the atmosphere was more relaxed. There was always
a minute to chill with Debbie at the service bar. I liked her more and more all
the time. I tried to keep it light and hold my energy up. Just because this gig
tonight wasn’t my own songwriting, I still wanted to do a good job. But after
Darren’s call and the sputtering dissolution of the band, I lost the mojo, and
I just sounded like Sinatra on barbiturates. I had no idea how to get that heat
back.
Debbie got off her phone as I slid table ten’s ticket across the
bar. Robert snapped it up and poured my rounds.
“I think he likes you,” Debbie said, indicating Robert. He was
hot in his black T-shirt and Celtic tattoos.
“Not my type.”
“What is your type?”
I shrugged. “Nonexistent.”
“Okay, well, finish with this table and go on your break. Could
you go down to Sam’s office and make a copy of next week’s schedule?” She
handed me a slip of paper with the calendar. The
waitstaff
hung around waiting for it every week as our station placement and hours
determined not only how much money we’d make over the next seven days, but our
social and family plans as well. And here she was giving it to me two hours
early. She smiled and patted my arm before walking off to greet three men in
suits.
I went to the bathroom and freshened up, then headed for Sam’s
office.
It wasn’t a warm, fabulously decorated place like Jonathan’s at
K. It was totally utilitarian, with a linoleum floor and metal filing cabinets.
The copy machine was in there, and I put the schedule on the glass without
turning the lights on. The windows gave enough afternoon light.
The energy saver was on, meaning the copier was ice cold. I
tapped start and waited. Lord knew how long it would take. I stretched my neck
and hummed, then whispered,
I’ve got you,
under my skin. I’ve got you, deep in the heart of me. So deep in my
heart—
I gasped when I smelled his dry scent. When I turned, Jonathan
stood in the doorway with his arms crossed. That was the first time I’d seen
him in daylight, and the sunlight made him look more human, more substantial,
more present, and more gorgeous, if that was even possible.
“Jonathan.”
“Hi.”
I realized the deal with the schedule copying just then. “Debbie
sent me up here.”
“You didn’t know she was a yenta?”
“You’re very persistent.”
“I just kept telling myself I didn’t want you, but we said no
lies, and I think that includes lying to myself. How about you?”
I didn’t know what to say. I had shut out thoughts of him for
almost a week. I thought about baseball, chord progressions, and getting a new
manager whenever he came into my mind. So having him in front of me was like
opening a closet door and having all the stuff come tumbling out.
I took a step forward, and he did, too. We were in each other’s
arms in a second, mouths attached, tongues twisting. He reached back and closed
the door.
Okay, I was going to get this over with now. Me and him. Right
there. Just get it done so I could move on. He thrust me onto the desk and I
opened my legs, wrapping them around his waist. He was pushing against me
again, like on the hood of the Mercedes, a million years ago.
He put his hands up my shirt, across my stomach and to my
breasts.
“Yes?” he gasped.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes to everything.”
“Yes,” he whispered in my ear, then pushed my bra up and cupped
my tits, finding my nipples and rubbing them with his thumbs. My hips levitated
from the desk, and I made some noise deep in my throat. Damn, he was good. Lots
of practice. He knew exactly what to do.
He looked down at my chest, nipples hardening from his touch and
the cool air. “My God, Monica, you are magnificent.”
I laughed, because being admired like that made me nervous, but
he shut me up when he put his mouth on one nipple and his fingers on the other,
pressing and twisting. My legs tightened around him, hitching my skirt up to my
waist. With only my panties between me and his jeans, he felt harder and more
forceful. He pushed against me, and I flowed with him, my hips to his rhythm as
I gripped his hair. I’d almost come like that, eons ago, with some guy in
freshman year I couldn’t even remember now, and it felt like it might happen
again.
As if reading my mind, he pulled away. His own breathing was
heavy as he looked at me, not as if he was undressing me with his eyes, but as if
he was making plans for the body in front of him. He moved his hands down my
sides and pulled my skirt up, bunching it at the waist. My underwear bottoms,
which I hadn’t given a thought to when I’d dressed in the morning, were the
only thing between me and the world.
“Listen,” I started, “I don’t know if Sam would think this is
ok.”
He put his fingertips to my mouth, and I shushed. Let him explain
to Sam. Let me get fired. I parted my lips and took two of his fingers in my
mouth, sucking them down to the back.
“Ah, Monica,” was all he said as he pulled them out, slowly, and
pushed them back in at the same pace. I cupped my tongue around them and
sucked. Not too hard, just enough. I knew I was doing it right when his eyelids
closed just a little, and he opened his mouth for something between a gasp and
an
aah
. He
rubbed them over my bottom lip, curling it back, then put them back in my
mouth. I took them eagerly, tasting his skin, feeling his warm breath on my
face.
He slid his fingers out and stepped back, taking his crotch away
from mine. I suddenly felt exposed and started to close my legs, but he pressed
them apart. I reached for his buckle, but he pulled away.
“I want to touch you,” I said.
“Not yet.”
“I’m going crazy.”
“No, you’re not. Not enough.”
With that, he moved the crotch of my panties to the side and put
the finger he’d just removed from my mouth onto my wet folds. We both gasped.
Then he slid two fingers into me. Slowly.
“Oh, God,” I whispered.
He slipped them out without a word and put his thumb on the thin
strip of cotton covering my clit. Lightly. Barely touching it. Just enough so I
knew it was there, and he leaned over to kiss me, flicking his tongue in time
with his thumbnail as it gently scratched the fabric of my underwear.
I thrust my hips forward. His fingers went deep into me, but the
thumb wouldn’t press down any harder. It just grazed the cotton as he glided
his two fingers in and out.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I want you to fuck me.”
“What’s the magic word?”
“Now?”
His fingers worked my body while he bent down to whisper into my
ear. “You have three minutes of break left.”
“I don’t care.”
“I’m going to spend hours fucking you.”
My hips pushed against his hand, but he kept control: a light
touch of the thumb and a slow grind with the fingers. I was on fire. I thought
I had known what that meant, but I didn’t.
“After your shift.”
“I have a gig right after. We have to do it now.” He might have
considered it for the next three thrusts, but he didn’t give my clit more than
a stroke through fabric. I couldn’t decide if that was pleasure or torture.
“After your gig,” he said. “I have a dinner meeting anyway. Meet
me at the hotel tonight. Room 3423.”
“I have to take care of my roommate.”
“Figure it out.”
He pulled his fingers out of me. I felt the loss of them and his
tormenting thumb so deeply I moaned. Sitting there, splayed and nearly naked on
Sam’s desk, I felt foolish and exposed, not to mention ravenously aroused.
“Don’t.” I didn’t have anything more to say, except don’t stop
there; don’t leave me like this. My eyes must have pleaded with him for some
release, because his face, with its parted lips and heavy lids, shone with a
lustful satisfaction. He knew I wanted him to fuck me for hours, starting on
that desk. “You are despicable,” I said.
He pulled my skirt down, and when he leaned down to kiss me, I
returned it with no little anger on my lips. “Too true. And tonight, you’re
mine.”
“What if I don’t show?”
“You’ll show.”
After opening the door as little as possible, as if to protect my
destroyed modesty, he was gone.
***
I had another three hours to work, and I couldn’t keep my mind on
the task at hand: pouring drinks. A moron could do it. First example: Robert. A
hunk by any measure, but dumb as a post.
He slid the tray over the service bar. Each had the requisite
alcohol as listed on the order ticket, clockwise from twelve o’clock, where
he’d put the ticket. My job was to fill each glass with mixers from the soda
gun and juice bin.
Like I said, a moron could do it. But I stood there, with Debbie
next to me checking stuff off the inventory list, and I put soda in a whiskey.
I stared at the glass and watched it over flow and why? Because the pain
between my legs was uncomfortable and exquisite, and I was counting down the
hours before I could get home and release it.
“Whoa!” Robert shouted, waking me up. “You got soda all over the
tray!”
“I’m sorry!”
“Monica,” Debbie said, slipping her pen onto the top of the
clipboard, “come sit with me.”
She pulled me over to an empty table by the kitchen door. We
tried to keep it clear until the bar got too packed. I pressed my legs together
when I sat even though my skirt was long enough. I felt like she could see my
arousal.
Debbie placed her clipboard in front of her and leaned forward.
“What’s happening? You took the wrong order to Frazier Upton; you stepped on
Jennifer
Roberg’s
foot. That’s not how we do service
here.”
“Why did you do that, Debbie? Why did you set me up to meet
Jonathan upstairs?”
“I saw you looking at him the other night. I thought it would be
a nice surprise.”
“If you could avoid doing that again, that would be great.”
“Of course. I’m sorry, I thought I was doing you a favor.”
“You were. It’s just…” I looked at my hands in my lap. “He’s… I
don’t know.” I felt suddenly embarrassed talking about a man’s hold over me
with my manager. I should have been mad at her, but in the world I lived in,
she had done me a kindness, and it wasn’t like he’d raped me. I’d loved it. I hated
it ending when it did. “I just don’t need to be with anyone right now. Or ever.
I had this boyfriend, Kevin, a year and a little ago. He wouldn’t let me sing.
It was awful, but what I’m trying to say is, I don’t want to be that person
again.”
“Okay.” Debbie sat up straight. She pushed her long, straight
hair out of her face with a single, French manicured finger and got down to
business. “I am going to tell you things you need to hear, but don’t want to.
Are you okay with that?”
“Sure.”
“Jonathan Drazen is not going to stay with you long enough to
care what you do with your spare time. He is very attracted to you, that much I
can see. But he is in love with one woman, and one woman only.”
“His ex-wife.”
Debbie nodded. “When Jessica left, he begged her to stay. She
wouldn’t. He broke down at a shareholder meeting. It was ugly. He was
humiliated. He’s
still
humiliated. He
won’t put himself in that position again, I promise you. So if you like him, I
suggest you enjoy yourself with him. He will treat you very well, and then
you’ll go your separate ways. He can be a valuable friend.”
I nodded. I got it. I felt comforted, in a way, that I could meet
him later, have mattress-bending sex, then go home without worrying. I knew I
wasn’t getting involved, and if he had the same idea, I was safe.