Tease (Songs of Submission #2)(15)
Author: C.D. Reiss

“You pick.” I stepped away. The call Gabby and I had to make had started worrying the back of my mind. “Whatever it’s worth to you. If it makes me scream and yell your name, even better.” I kissed him quickly. “I have to go.”

I walked toward the doorway, but I didn’t get past it before I heard him say, “What are you wearing?”

I stopped and turned. “Why?”

“Because you’re a beautiful woman, and what you wear is important.”

“If I’m going to embarrass you, I can just stay home.”

He stepped forward and grabbed me around the waist. “Jessica makes art because she has so much money she’s bored and because she has the sharpest eye I’ve ever known. If she’s going to see me with you, she’s not going to see you wearing Target.”

I looked him in the eyes. “Really, Jonathan? You never seemed like the catty type.”

“I also want to see you in something better. I’m sorry. Come on. Go to Barney’s and talk to Lorraine. She’ll fix you up and bill me.”

“Now I’m the one who’s really uncomfortable.”

“Please? Just go. And if you spend less than three thousand dollars, I’m spanking you and sending you back to Wilshire Boulevard.”

“I’ll come in just under three large then. And not because I have any intention of returning to that side of Wilshire.”

CHAPTER 9

I stood under the shower head with my hands on the wall, letting the water scald my back. My head drooped, and my hair fell in front of me. I couldn’t move without aching, and when I opened my eyes, I saw the insides of my thighs through the steam.

At first I’d thought they were dirty. When I touched them and felt a sharp pain, I knew they weren’t dirty. They were bruised.

I got out of the shower and looked in the mirror. My ass, the area just below it, and between my legs were black and blue. It hurt to move. My pu**y was so sore, it had hurt to clean myself. I heard a soft tap at the door, and Gabby asked, “Mon? Is that you?”

“Yeah. You need to pee?”

“Yeah.” She started to open the door. Gabby and I saw each other naked and stood in the same room to pee all the time, but I couldn’t let her see me that way. I looked as if a shark had tried to bite me in half. I grabbed the door handle and pulled it closed. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine, I just….” I had no excuse. “Give me a minute.”

I wiggled into a tee and jeans I pulled from the hamper, cringing from torn muscle and broken blood vessels. I snapped the door open. Judging from her clean clothes and brushed hair, she’d been up a while.

“Where did you go last night?” she asked.

“I saw Jonathan.” I brushed my wet hair while she peed.

“Oh, really. Well? How was it?”

“He knows how to f**k, that’s for sure.”

“Better than Kevin?”

“It’s the difference between a man and a boy.” I slid my toothbrush out of the cup and got to the point. “I figure we should call WDE at about ten-thirty. Those guys don’t get in until ten, and I want to give him a chance to get his jacket off and bang his secretary, but I want to catch him before he goes into a meeting.”

“I’m nervous. Are you nervous?”

“Yeah. Actually, I am.” I lathered up my toothbrush, and Gabby leaned toward the mirror, picking some nonexistent crud from the corner of her eye. “But you know how it is,” I continued. “You get all nervous for a call, and you make it and they’re not available. Then they call you back when you’re going eighty on the 101.”

“Since when can you go eighty on the 101? Give me a break.” She held up a tube of aloe moisturizer I got from the farmer’s market. “Can I try this?”

“Go ahead,” I said, brushing my teeth. After I spit, I said, “I want to be clear we come as a set. You and me. Okay?”

“Why?” She seemed unfazed by my suggestion.

“Suppose he can’t get a keyboardist for some band, and then you’re off touring, and what am I supposed to do?” I pulled my hair into strands so I could braid it.

“We should give ourselves a name.” Gabby pushed me onto the toilet. I winced, but she wasn’t looking. God, sitting was going to be torture today, and maybe tomorrow.

Gabby had braid mojo. Our first year of Colburn, we made ninety percent of our friends because she could braid like a magician. She picked up the strands I’d started. I turned my head so she wouldn’t see me grimace at the pain in my behind.

“I really liked Spoken Not Stirred,” I said. “But Vinny reps them.”

“That wasn’t the last cool name we have in us,” Gabby said.

“I guess it depends on what he wants out of us. Am I recording my own stuff? But how could he want that? He doesn’t even know if I can write a freaking song.” I gestured with my hands and saw the bruising around my wrists. Fuck. I slipped them between my legs, wishing I’d worn long sleeves.

“You can, Mon. Your songs are amazing.”

I let her ministrations tickle my scalp. “What I’m saying is, if it’s my stuff, then that’s one name, but we’d need a whole band. If it’s just you and me, that’s a totally different sound. Which is fine, but even then, are we writing new material? Or are we doing Irving Berlin?”

“He might not even know what he wants.” She concentrated on the strands, looping one around the other, tugging and pulling, straightening and separating the lengths with a black comb.

“He knows,” I said. “Those sharks don’t start swimming around unless they’ve smelled blood. Some label is looking for a specific something he thinks we can do. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come out. Trust me.”

She pulled my hair off my neck. “Whoa, Monica.”

“What?”

“Hickey City back here.”

I stood and looked in the mirror. Gabby held up a handheld mirror so I could see the trail of bruises at the back of my neck.

“Fuck,” I said. “Can you braid it to cover it?” I sat on the toilet again and Gabby undid her work. My ass, my wrists, and now my back. If it hadn’t felt so good, it would have been assault.

“Sure, but what’s the diff?” Gabby asked. “It’s a phone call.”

“I’m going to the Eclipse opening at L.A. Mod tonight.”