“You know your dad is watching us,” Stephen stated, smiling.
“Yeah,” she said. She turned on the spot to face the same direction as Stephen and looked up. Margaret was scanning the crowd below on the opposite side of the table from George Anderson, who was, indeed, looking down at them. He wasn’t smiling. Too bad, Herman thought as she nuzzled herself against her lover. His hands were linked across her belly and his erection pressed against her back. His presence was as intoxicating as his magic was real.
It crossed her mind to stick her tongue out at her dad, and she huffed out a single wry laugh. She didn’t want to rub in her father’s face that she was in love with a man he hated, but really, his opinion didn’t matter. She knew in her heart that Stephen was right for her. She turned again to face her man and wrapped her arms around his neck. He kissed her deeply, wholly, his tongue meeting hers and twirling around it. She breathed a sigh of home, feeling content, happy, aroused.
When the music changed, they returned hand in hand to the table. Herman’s dad stood and offered her his jacket, but she refused it.
“It’s too hot,” she said.
The table was cluttered with empty glasses, and her father was as glassy-eyed as Margaret. Herman watched as the other woman leaned over and said something in Stephen’s ear. He nodded.
He turned to Herman and with their foreheads touching, said, “I’m going to work a little magic for Margaret. Are you okay with that? I’m just going to dance with her.”
“Yeah, sure,” Herman said.
He kissed her and got up to follow his best friend, already on her way down the stairs. Her dad shifted his chair closer to hers so he could talk to her.
“Have you ever sat back and watched him perform?”
“He’s hardly performing. He’s just going to dance,” Herman said. She saw Margaret lead the way across the floor, holding Stephen’s hand behind her.
“Everything your boyfriend does is a performance,” her father said with a snarl. “Watch.” He placed his hand atop hers on the table where it rested, and Herman regarded the couple below, waiting to say I told you so.
Margaret looked around the dance floor until she found, presumably, the person she had spotted from the upper floor. There she stopped and began to dance with her arms over her head. Stephen danced necessarily close to her considering the density of the crowd, but that wasn’t for long. Miraculously, or rather magically, the other dancers began to recede so they had a space to themselves. They continued to dance close, pelvises grinding suggestively on hips, his hands at the small of Margaret’s back, reminding Herman that they had far more history together than she really knew.
Then Margaret spun around to face the one in the crowd she was interested in, off to Herman’s right. From her side view, Herman could see that Stephen was grinding up against Margaret’s backside much as he had with her. As she wondered whether he was as hard, the room began to go dark around the couple. Margaret licked her lips and smiled at a shadowy woman dancing close to an even more shadowy man so that the two women were mirrors of each other. Herman’s breath caught in her throat as, incredibly, she watched Stephen reach around Margaret to cup her breast with one hand and with the other, he folded the short skirt of her dress up; his fingers disappeared between her legs. Margaret reached behind her and rubbed his crotch.
“You see?” her father said into her ear, the familiar scent of alcohol wafting from his breath.
Margaret left Stephen to dance alone as she writhed across the gap that separated her from the couple she wanted. Herman lost her silver dress in the crowd when she turned her attention back to Stephen. He continued to dance, but now he was engulfed in bodies. The room turned black but for a spotlight on her lover. A nauseous dizziness overcame her when Stephen reached out and placed his hand on top of the head of the woman closest in front of him. When she knelt, Herman saw that he had his penis in his hand. The woman started kissing it, and then two more women dropped to their knees and while the first one stroked his erection, the other two licked and sucked. She couldn’t stand it anymore, but she was helpless to tear her eyes away. In some distant part of her rational mind she knew her father’s hand was somehow causing what she witnessed, but she was paralyzed. Stephen stretched his arms to his sides and his hands wandered up the skirts of two more women. He turned to the one on his right and kissed her full on the lips—it was a very pregnant Nina …
Herman felt herself falling even as she blacked out.
CHAPTER 12
“What the fuck did you do to her?”
Stephen’s voice was close by. Herman opened her eyes and saw a pair of gray-clad shins to her left: her dad’s. He was crouching down beside her on the floor. Herman lifted her right hand and touched a leg. Stephen’s. It felt like his thigh. He was kneeling. She found the inseam of his pants with her fingertips and left her hand there.
“Herman, are you okay?” Stephen asked. She lifted her hand and let it drop.
Then she remembered why she’d blacked out, and she took her hand off his lap. What had he done?
“What did you do?” Stephen asked her father again.
“Showed her what you’re capable of. Who’s the pregnant one?”
“Nina …” Herman said, or thought she said. “It wasn’t real.”
“Herman?” Stephen again. “Herman?” He stroked her arm gently, his face close to her cheek.
“What pregnant one?” Stephen asked her father. “What the fuck did you do to my girlfriend? To your own daughter?” He was losing his patience.
Herman put her hand back on his leg. “Nina,” she said. “I saw Nina on the dance floor with you. It wasn’t real. She was too far along.”
She opened her eyes. An expression of pain and concern blurred Stephen’s perfect features.
“You know who she is,” Herman’s dad said to her. “And now you know what your boyfriend wants to do with her.”
“She’s already pregnant,” Stephen said.
“You still want her though, don’t you? And all those women …” George leered. “I just showed you what he was thinking about. Do you believe me now that he’s no good?”
All at once tears sprung up and overflowed, running down into her ears. Not knowing which way to turn for comfort, she lay flat while she listened to Stephen call her father names. The fact that he didn’t defend himself to her dad caused a lump to form in her chest. After a moment, Stephen turned back to her and put his hand under her head.
“Do you think you can get up?” he asked.
She opened her eyes to see her dad sitting on his chair with a drink in his hand, staring drunkenly down at her.
“I’m sorry, Herman, but you need to know what you’re really associated with,” he said. He took another slug and turned away.
“We need to talk,” Herman said to Stephen while avoiding his eyes.
He helped her up and held her as he guided her to a chair on the far side of the table, outside of George’s earshot. She didn’t feel bruised anywhere, but she had a bit of a headache.
“We need to get out of here,” Stephen said.
“Not ‘til we figure this out. I need to talk to my dad.”
“I doubt you’ll get anything coherent out of him in his condition,” Stephen said, glancing over at her father.
“What really happened down there with Margaret?”
“We danced, Margaret walked away, and I came back as quickly as I could,” he said.
“Did you have a space on the floor all to yourselves?”
“For a few seconds.”
“Did you … touch her?”
“Not sexually, if that’s what you mean.”
“My dad said he showed me what you wanted to do.”
Stephen looked down at his hands and back up to her face. She felt sick.
“Herman, I’m a man. I’m not going to lie to you, it crossed my mind. But Margaret and I have a long history, and it’s
difficult not to remember.”
“So, he did show me what you’re capable of then?” The tears accumulated in her eyes again.
“I was capable of all kinds of things before, but not now that I have you. There’s a difference between thinking something and actually doing it. Your dad is living proof of that: if I’d done to him what I thought about doing when I found you on the floor, he’d be on a gurney right now.”
“I also saw three women blowing you, and you touching two other women. One of them was Nina. You had your hand up her skirt and you were kissing her. Is that what you think about doing, too?”
“No,” he said. She thought he was lying.
“Okay, I might have thought about it. But I wouldn’t do it,” he said. “And as for having five women around me at once, you know my history, Herman. He showed you things I was once capable of doing. Isn’t it possible he showed you what you already knew from my past?”
“Were you thinking about it when you were down there? Dancing with whoever came to join you after Margaret left?”
“If I did, it wasn’t conscious.” He looked tired. He probably was tired of trying to explain himself to her.
“I don’t want to know what you’re thinking, ever again,” she said.
“Then you probably don’t want to be taught the magic that you might have inherited.”
“My father’s cursed magic. I still need to find out if there’s more.”
“He’ll tell you when he sobers up.”
They looked over at him. He smiled crookedly and lifted his glass in salute, to what, probably not even he knew.
“After what I didn’t do to him tonight, he owes me,” Stephen said.
“You wanted to hurt him because he showed me what you were thinking?”
“I wanted to hurt him because he hurt you. I can’t stand the thought of anyone hurting you.” He glanced at George and shook his head in disgust. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’ll take one look around to see if Margaret is still here first. I don’t want to abandon her.”
“I’ll come with you.” She picked up her father’s glass and knocked it back. She thought it was whiskey. To her, it tasted similar to the way gasoline smelled. She stood up slowly, testing to make sure she wasn’t going to fall again, but she felt fine.
They walked once around the upper floor, looking for a glimpse of Margaret’s silver dress on the dance floor below, with no luck. When they reached the stairs, Stephen asked her if she felt well enough to go down. She nodded and held his hand.
As they walked through the throng of dancing bodies with Stephen in the lead, people parted as though he had a group of invisible bodyguards ahead of him. They traversed the dance floor this way, unimpeded. Again, there was no sign of Margaret.
“She must have left. I’ll text her to tell her we’re leaving before I text the limo,” he said, taking his cell out.
“Wait.” As she grabbed his arm, she looked up at her father. He was slouching in his chair contemplating the glass in his hand.
“Dance with me again,” Herman said. The music throbbed with a slow heavy beat, and the sweaty crowd pounded against one another like the sea against rocks. It was like being on the edge of a storm. Herman wanted to get in and drown in a sea of forgetfulness with Stephen.
“Do what you’re capable of. With me.”
“Oh please, Herman,” he said with a smile. “I’ll probably blow the place up.”
She smiled back with deep sincerity. “Love me then,” she said. “Blow the place up with love.”
Taking her hand, he led her to the middle of the floor. This time they had to squeeze between the bodies. He stopped and turned and held her close. His hands on her cheeks and his mouth on hers shot fire through her at the same moment the water came down. They moved in sync, like fish in a school moving with the current. The energy exuded from them so that soon the whole floor was gaining momentum, caught up in the churn, and the two of them in the middle, the nucleus, the eye of the storm.
The DJ expertly faded out the song and melted straight into the middle of “More Than A Feeling” by Boston, and the entire floor swayed to the beat. People looked down from the balcony, pointing at the floor, amazed at the power that brought together an entire room of individuals, to join in the energy that had become Herman’s entire life. Mirrors on the ceiling reflected their love before her eyes. Stephen laughed and held one hand up high. He yelled, and the crowd joined in until they were a chorus of howling, dancing mass of flesh, everyone with one hand in the air. The song came to an end the crowd cheered and Stephen laughed and Herman with him.
Back at their table, Herman sat on his lap while he texted Margaret.
“That was something else,” Herman’s father said to her. He seemed to have sobered a little.
“You’re not going to break us up, Dad, so please, just give up.”
“We need to talk,” he said, stubbornly.
She began to shake her head, but he held up his hand. “Not about Stephen.” Hearing him use Stephen’s given name got her attention more than anything else he could have said. “We need to talk about that pregnant woman I saw.”
“Nina?”
Stephen looked up from his phone. “What?”
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” George said. “It doesn’t matter tonight.”
“Well,” Stephen said as he dropped his phone back into his coat pocket. “Margaret took the limo. She’s driving around town partying in it. She’ll pick us up in twenty minutes.”
“Time for another round then,” George said, holding his hand up for the waitress.
To Herman’s fascination, people approached their table just to touch the two of them. It seemed their energy down on the dance floor was drawing people in. The two of them were like a flame, and everyone else in the room was a moth.
“The power of love lives on,” she murmured to him up close. He kissed her lips and smiled.
“It’s not only about what I’m capable of, it’s what we are capable of together.”
“I’m just glad we didn’t blow the place up.”
“Me too,” he said.
* * *
The limo pulled up to the curb, and the back door opened before the driver could get out. He came around to stand beside it.
The chauffeur, a tall thin man with sandy hair peeking out from beneath his uniform topper, said, “Good evening, Mr. Dagmar.” He appeared to be trying not to smile.
Stephen nodded back. The car bounced, and Herman heard giggling from within. She wasn’t sure she wanted to look. Her father did; he stepped up to the car and poked his head in.
“God damn,” he said as he straightened.
A man in silver pants with a round Latino face emerged from the car, followed by a pale, gaunt woman in a skirt and bra, her top in her hand.
“Thanks again,” the woman called into the car. She turned on her heel and saw Stephen.
“OH!” she breathed. “Aren’t you the guy from the dance floor?” She touched his collar with her fingertips.
He smiled and took a step back.
Her companion seemed displeased. He pulled her away, and they staggered off down the sidewalk, arguing.
Stephen bent to ask if anyone else was getting out of the limo.
“I guess not,” he said as he stood and, with a gesture, invited Herman to get in ahead of him.
“Get ready for it,” he said with a slightly crooked grin.
She realized the second she stepped into the limo what he meant. Margaret and another woman lounged on the seat facing the rear of the car in a tangle of limbs, kissing. Both were nude except for their shoes.
Stephen got in next and sat beside Herman on the seat facing the driver, followed by her father, who perched himself on the edge of the bench opposite the door.
“Is everything in your life tits and pussies, Dagmar?” George asked, not bothering to look at him.
“Isn’t it in ever
y man’s life?”
Stephen picked Margaret’s dress up off the floor and threw it at her.
“Get dressed,” he said. “You’re making George drool.”
“Oh.” She looked up, bleary-eyed, mascara running down her cheeks. “You’re here.”
The other woman turned and seeing Stephen, predictably went straight for him. She was pretty, with short dark hair and breasts that seemed unnaturally large for the rest of her body. They hung as she slid off the seat onto all fours and crawled across the short distance between the seats toward Stephen.
“Well hello, gorgeous,” she said.
Herman didn’t wait for him to react; she shifted to sit on his lap, straddling his legs with her back to him.
“Hands off,” she said.
At the same time, Margaret got up and grabbed the woman by the hair.
“No you don’t,” she said. “That one’s taken.”
“Yeah, he’s gonna be taken by me,” the woman said. Ignoring Margaret’s hold on her hair, she reached forward with her hands and slid them up Stephen’s inseams, right past Herman.
“What is she on?” Herman asked Margaret, slapping at the woman’s arms.
“X, I think. Among other things.”
Margaret shifted to her feet to get a better grip on the other woman just as the car started forward, knocking both of them into Herman and Stephen. The woman’s face unfortunately ended up between Stephen’s legs. She didn’t seem to mind Herman being there either, so she went for both, all hands and mouth.
“That’s enough,” Stephen said. Margaret and her new friend flew backward onto the seat. He lifted Herman off his lap and placed her beside him. Then he sat forward on the edge of his seat and stared deeply into the stranger’s eyes.
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