Tease (Songs of Submission #2)(3)
Author: C.D. Reiss

“How?”

“Take it back to your house.”

“How would you get back to your car?”

Lil smiled as if I was a seven-year-old asking why water floated down, not up. “I’m not the only staff. Don’t worry. Please. I do this for a living.”

I smiled at her, broadcasting pure discomfort, and slid into the back seat.

I’d never been in a car like that before. Darren and I had taken a limo to prom, but it smelled of beer and vomit and the carpet was damp from a recent shampoo. I’d ridden in Bennet Mattewich’s Ferarri down the 405 at two a.m. He thought the ride bought him a blow job, but it almost bought him a slashed tire. We’d stayed friends, but he never took me out in his dad’s car again.

The Bentley was huge. The leather seats faced each other and it had brushed chrome buttons I didn’t understand without a crumb or speck of grime anywhere around them. The paneling was wood—real wood, dark and warm—and though the ride took about ten minutes, I felt as if I’d been transported from one world to another via spacecraft.

The car stopped on a dead end street in the most industrial part of downtown, somewhere between the arts district and the river. Next to the car was an old warehouse with a top floor made exclusively of windows. The side of the building facing the parking lot was painted in matte black with modernist lettering listing each tenant. No mention of a Loft Club or anything like it.

I’d seen enough movies to know I should wait, and Lil was at my door in two seconds flat, as if I was incapable of opening it myself.

“Go on in to the desk, and the concierge will take care of you.” She handed me a cardboard rectangle the size of a business card with a few numbers printed on the front. The word LOFT was printed on the top, in grey.

“Thanks,” I said. I walked up the steps and inside. When I showed the card to the Asian gentleman behind the lobby’s glass counter, I was still convinced I was either in the wrong building or the whole thing was a cruel joke.

He checked the card against something written in a leather book in a way that wasn’t rude but was somehow officious. I shifted a little in my waitress getup: a black wrap shirt and short skirt, from Target and the thrift store on Sunset respectively. I felt as though my clothes exposed me as an outsider or worse: a liar and sneak. But he looked up with a smile and said, “Down this hall behind me. Pass the first elevator bank and make a left. I’ll buzz you through the doors. There’s another elevator at the end of the hall. Take it to the top.”

“Thank you.”

My heels clicked on the concrete floors. I shrugged my bag close. I passed the first set of elevators and made the left. A pair of frosted glass doors stood in my way, and I noticed a camera hovering above them. A second later, a resonant beep preceded a click, and the doors whooshed open.

Beyond those doors, the hallway changed. The lighting was softer and came from modernist chrome sconces. The walls were a softer white, and when I got close, I saw the texture was silkier, somehow more nuanced. The oak and brass elevator didn’t look like a refrigerator, as most do, and it hummed in D minor and dinged in the same key before it whooshed open.

I stepped onto the floral carpet and hit the button that said Loft in block letters. The door closed, and the elevator took off without a sound. I closed my eyes, focusing on the force under my feet. The elevator’s movement somehow added to the pressure between my legs that maybe had more to do with the fact I was seeing Jonathan than the perfect speed of the vessel I stood in.

The doors opened onto a room made of glass overlooking the city. I could see the library, the Marriot, the whole skyline, and the miasma of smog hovering over it all. The marble floors had a gravitas all their own and were buffed to a shine that didn’t look cheap. The woodwork seemed to have gotten seven extra turns of the dowel.

The lobby was lightly populated with people speaking quietly. A clink of laughter. A klatch of young men in perfect suits. Leather couches. A chandelier as big as my garage. I couldn’t take it all in fast enough.

“May I help you?” The woman clasped her hands in front of her and bent a little at the waist. Her hair was twisted in an unremarkable bun and was an equally unremarkable color. She smiled in a way that was attractive but not stunningly so. Even though she wore a blue Chanel suit, her job seemed to be to appear as unthreatening as possible, and she was very good at it.

“Hi,” I said. I smiled because I didn’t know what else to do.

She noted the card I’d crumpled in my hand. “May I?”

“Oh.” I was so nervous I was being an ass. I was entitled to be there. I was invited. I had no reason to feel unworthy just because I didn’t know where I was. I handed her the card and stood up straighter, no thanks to my thrift store skirt and two-year-old shoes.

She thanked me and looked at the card. “Right this way. My name is Dorothy.”

“I’m Monica. Nice to meet you.”

She gave me a courteous smile and took me down halls and byways. When I noticed how many outer walls had windows, I remembered how the building had looked from the street. Places all over the city looked mysterious and inaccessible from the outside, and that warehouse was one of them.

Finally, Dorothy stopped in front of a door. “If you need anything, I’ll be your concierge. My number is on the card.”

She gave me a white card the size of a playing card, then opened the door.

“Thank you.” I didn’t know if I was supposed to tip her or say anything in particular, so I just slipped in. Dorothy clicked the thick wooden door shut behind me. Two walls were made of windows. A third wall made of shelves included wine, glasses, a bucket of ice, and a wet bar. The fourth wall had a huge oil painting that looked like a Monet or a damn good copy. The Persian carpet looked real. Antique couches flanked a six-foot long coffee table cut from a single tree.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

I spotted a bottle of Perrier and two glasses on a small table on the opposite side of the room, against a window, and walked over to it. The leather chairs next to the table were worn in the right places and their arms were bolted with brass studs. An envelope with the word “Monica” printed on the front balanced between the two glasses. I slid the note out. Printed on the club letterhead, which was embossed with silver, was,

Five minutes late – Jonathan.

I looked at my watch, then poured myself a glass of water and waited in the chair, humming and looking at the skyline. I was looking forward to seeing him and feeling his touch, the curves of his body, the heat of his mouth on mine.