by C D Cain
“Oh no. I’m finished.” As if I was going to say anything different to Dr. Ball Breaker. I’d completely forgotten she was Violet and wondered if she too had forgotten or rather regretted the friendship we had started developing in Florida. Could she feel it a betrayal to Sam? I ignored the image of Sam as it appeared in my thoughts.
I peered around Violet’s shoulder to Tyler. “The nurse will bring you an instruction sheet as to how to care for the wound.” Tyler looked at me with begging eyes and I knew she didn’t want me to leave her with Dr. Breaker. Sorry, chick. You’re on your own here. “I’ll see you in seven days.” I turned to Violet. “Dr. Breaker.”
She nodded. “Dr. Storm.” Then she winked and mouthed the words, “Nice seeing you.”
I walked from the room and wondered how she could do that. How can you bless out a sweet young nurse and then smile a second later?
“I’m going to need a shot of something strong after this night,” Angie said as she passed me while wheeling yet another cart into the room. “Dr. Dick’s wife and Dr. Ball Breaker all in one room. Being charge nurse sucks dirty ass. Do you hear me? Dirty ass.” She held back the curtain. “Dr. Breaker,” she said in a more pleasant voice. “I apologize for us not being better prepared for you. I’ll be your nurse from here forward?”
Angie had a point though. Tonight called for a shot of something very strong and I knew just where to go.
***
“Hey, you.” Jazlyn was adjusting the sound board as I walked into the Pineapple Post. “You’re cutting it close tonight. Women should start coming in very shortly.”
I wondered if she ever considered I might choose to stay one night. So far, I hadn’t. “Got tied up in the ER. Some fiery OB/Gyn came in raising hell. Had the whole ER buzzing.”
Jazlyn gave a hardy chuckle. “Uh oh. Did she turn into Dr. Ball Breaker tonight?”
I blinked at her surprised that she knew Violet’s nickname. “You know about that?”
Jazlyn stepped down from the deejay area. “Oh, hell yeah. Vi’s sort of proud of the nickname.”
“No shit.”
“Are you kidding? She loves it. She says people respect her more if they’re afraid of her.”
“Well, then she was gettin’ a whole lotta’ respect tonight.” I followed Jazlyn to the bar. She reached into the ice bin to pull out a beer. “Not tonight, my friend. I think I need something a little stronger.”
“Oh, really? Been one of those days?”
“You can say that again.”
“Pull up a stool. I’ve got just what the doctor ordered.” She pulled a bottle from the shelves behind her and poured a clear liquid into two shot glasses.
I recognized the Patron bottle the minute her hands gripped the neck. I closed my eyes to the memory of Sam’s hands over mine as she instructed me on the art of shooting tequila. She’d given me a swarm of butterflies that night. Butterflies that drowned in the warmth of the tequila buzz. My lips loosened to let spill the intoxication of her smell as I fell into her arms.
“Hey.” Jazlyn’s hand was on my arm. “Where’d you go?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She pushed the shot glass toward me. “I’ve learned that only one person brings that look on your face.”
I slammed the liquid back and hoped the burn would ease the hurt in my heart. Unfortunately, it only managed to make me cough. I slid the empty glass back to her. “Again.”
Light poured into the darkened club as the entrance door opened. Jazlyn squeezed my arm to steady me. I realized I must have jumped.
“Hey, girls. Come on in. The pool table’s all set up for you.”
“Thanks. Can we have a pitcher of whatever you’ve got on tap tonight?” one of the four girls said as they walked to the pool tables.
“Sure thing. Got a light and dark. What are you in the mood for?”
“Make it a dark.” She held the hand of the shorter girl next to her.
Jazlyn gave me two more shots in the time it took her to fix a tray with a pitcher of beer and four mugs. She pointed at me as she walked around the side of the bar. “Stay. I’ll be right back.”
I watched Jazlyn as she talked to the four of them. They looked young, alive and full of uninhibited smiles. I felt a heavy weight on my shoulders at the irony of me describing the girls in that way. They were probably a mere couple of years younger than me. Yet I felt at least ten if not fifteen years older than them. Two of the girls giggled as they had found an escape in one another. They playfully tugged at each other’s body as they leaned against the side of the pool table.
I rested my head in my hand as I propped my arm up on the bar. The empty shot glass sat in front of me. “I don’t remember the last time I giggled,” I said to Jazlyn as she walked back behind the bar. “You know, giggled.” I rubbed my fingertips in circles around my temples. “I feel so old. Like a woman who has watched her life go by.”
Jazlyn placed her finger under my chin and raised my eyes to her level. “But see, that’s the beauty of it all. You aren’t old and you haven’t let your life pass you by. You’re young and fully capable of changing anything about your life you want.”
I tapped my finger on the rim of the empty shot glass. “Why don’t you ever ask about him?”
She filled my glass. “Because he has no bearing on our friendship. And he’s your story to tell. Figure when it’s us—it’s us.”
“She used to ask about him all of the time.”
“That’s because he had a huge bearing on yours and hers. Sam wanted you from the get go. He was who had you.”
“Not really.” I drank the tequila hard and fast. “He’s never had me the way she did. Why couldn’t she see that?”
“She was too close.”
I thought of Tyler. I saw her tearful eyes looking into mine, searching for answers I’m sure she didn’t find. The tequila rose in my throat with a soured taste as I thought of Paxton and Grant’s plans. Not once had he mentioned the possibility of the year extension. I thought of her sitting alone in an emergency room. But in all reality, she wasn’t alone. She was sitting there with their unborn child. I thought of her feeling pregnant, alone and trapped in a marriage she didn’t want to be in any longer.
“I don’t want this life.” The glass had magically been filled again but this time I felt the spinning of my head as I leaned back to drain its contents. My vision had to catch up to the position of my head as I looked back at the giggling girls. “I want that.”
“Whoa, sister, you’re going to have to slow down. That last bit came out a little slurred.”
“No.” I held my glass up. Or at least, I think I held my glass up. “Please give me another. I don’t want to think right now. Please.”
I opened one eye to notice dimmed recessed lights above me. The room was a quick blur as I lifted my head to look aroun. Damn tequila. At some point Jazlyn must have helped me up the stairs to their loft. I pictured a distorted image of her leaning over me and telling me we’d work all of this out together. That must have been when she deposited me on her couch. I dug my cell phone out of my back pocket to send a text before rolling back on my side.
Text Message to Mo at 1:55am…”I’ll b there.”
Text Message from Mo at 2:10am…”Gr8!”
Chapter
“See, what did I tell you?” Jazlyn screamed over the crowd.
I had thought the Atanta club would be crowded but I’d never imagined this. The club was at least twice as large as the Pineapple Post and I dare say there wasn’t one single spot of flooring not covered by feet.
“I’d kill to have a place like this.”
Or at least that was what I think I heard her say over a multitude of voices drowned out by sounds of music pumping through the speakers. Then it occurred to me, no one here knew me. I could be who I wanted to be without anyone back home the wiser. I could absorb the scene around me yet not have to talk or be nervous or even dance as there wa
s little room to do any of it. I didn’t have to worry about expanding out of my own thoughts as it was too loud to do anything but feel the base vibrating my chest. A little over two hours from Birmingham and here I was standing in a club full of gay women. Their bodies leaned into each other as they strained to hear one another. Their casual touches of hands on arms, shoulders, smalls of back were a sign of attraction or comfort between them. A sign they didn’t try to hide or dampen. They were open to everything they wanted to share. And here I was standing in the middle of them grinning like a fool.
I caught Jazlyn looking at me with a huge grin on her face. “See. This is why I kept asking you to stay at my club instead of jetting before the ladies came.”
“Yes, but no one in this crowd knows me.”
She smiled in understanding but was suddenly distracted as she looked up over the crowd. “Come on. She’s about to start.” She pulled my arm to move us closer to the large deejay box. “We need to get closer.”
The lights dimmed to black as the masses of voices around me quieted. The music of a single violin began to play. The crispness of the speakers made the music sound as if it had taken the stage before us. Its notes streamed together in a near torturous song of shyness seduced by pain and sadness. A soft, falling rain filled the wall-to-wall screen behind the deejay’s booth. The violin’s scream became stronger, confident, and powerful as the raindrops strengthened into a storm. A flash of lightening erupted across the wall as the lights above us turned on bright all at once and then faded again into darkness. The intense energy of the room was electric from the music and created storm. My senses were intensified to everything around me. A synthesized beat joined the violin. Another flash of light and lightning.
“Can you feel it?” a sultry voice, deep and low was heard over the electronic music. “Come on, ladies. I said can you feel it?” The voice held the last words to linger over the sound system before they faded into song.
The lights lit up one by one over our heads. A keyboard’s notes teased into a slow crescendo.
“Say my name and you can dance.” That voice. The voice I had grown to know as a friend sounded much different than the one I had heard over the phone.
The crowd erupted in a scream. “Mo!”
Boom.
The bass exploded with one final lightning strike. I could feel the beat pounding in my chest as laser lights danced around us. Strobe lights flashed until they centered on the female standing in the deejay box.
The crowd roared in unison as they sprung up and down on their feet. One beat. One crowd collectively dancing to that one beat.
She held her hand up in the air as she danced with them to the music. She adjusted the oversized earphones until only one covered her ear. “The night is ours!” She moved her hands along the large instrument panel until the beat faded into an even faster paced rhythmic collection of strings, keys, and beats. “Now dance your beautiful asses off.”
Jazlyn’s face was as energetic as the bodies moving around me. “Isn’t this friggin’ amazing?”
And it was. I was held captive by Mo. Her body flowed and became one with the music. She raised her hand in the air and swayed to the beat as the other hand deftly moved across the panel—pulling, pushing, or spinning the device to will her tunes. Her hands created their own rhythms as they moved from the panel board to adjust the phonos from her ears to her bare neck. I wondered if she had cut her hair as I couldn’t imagine that much hair staying tucked in the newsboy cap she was wearing.
The beat she created enticed my body to sway with hers. I was under her spell as much as anyone surrounding me. She didn’t release any of us as her music streamed unbroken. Her voice called to give our bodies freely to her, reassuring us she was in control tonight. Women shouted their submission to her as their bodies moved together. Heads bobbed to her cadences, they bounced on their toes to her tempos and swayed their hips to her pulses. I was no exception although my screams were silent. It was a seductive trance she had us in, undulating our bodies to her creations. Sweat gently rolling down the small of my back. She was as erotic as the music she was vibrating through the women…through me.
The strobe and dancing lights kept the faces darkened from me. Only rarely would one hit a face just right for me to make out their expression. Flash, beat. Flash, beat. The faces of women all strangers to me spun around in the light. Was I so oblivious to think I would see one type here? Had I not considered women of all shapes, sizes, races joined together for one night. Feminine. Androgynous. Casually dressed. Sporty dressed. All strangers to me. The lights flashed on and off to the beat.
Sam.
Off.
On again. Sam’s face.
Sam?
Off. I looked at Jazlyn.
“What?” Jazlyn mouthed. “You okay?”
I nodded. Couldn’t be. I’m seeing things.
The music lowered. “Ladies. You’re killing me. You look too damn good for me to stand up here all night.” She moved her hands across the panel one final time before she took her earphones off and walked down the stairs. The screams were the loudest I had heard yet.
Mo made her way through the crowd. Not an easy feat as she was stopped multiple times. Her clothes did much to hide the body underneath. She wore a white tank top which fit snugly against her chest. Her lean, long arms were adorned with bracelets. Her hips were covered with blue jeans tied together by leather straps instead of a zipper and button.
Jazlyn swooped her up in a hug the moment she came to stand in front of us. “Girl, you’re freakin’ killing it tonight!”
Mo grinned ear to ear. “This crowd is too crazy. I don’t think we could fit another woman in here tonight.”
“You just make sure you bring this sort of crowd out when you come play at the Post.”
“No doubt.” Mo diverted her attention to me and smiled the one I did not see when she talked to the young girl at the taco stand. “Hey you.”
“Hey, yourself. You’re amazing.”
Mo leaned in to hug me. “I believe you owe me a dance.” Her voice and the breath that followed it tickled the hairs of my neck.
I let my lips find her ear, sort of hoping mine might would have the same effect on her. How could it in reality? Any one of these women could be hers. “I believe I told you I don’t dance.”
She leaned back, raised her eyebrows with surprise and grinned. “But what if it was your favorite music?”
The music suddenly changed as another electric violin played, followed by the undeniable voice of Annie Lennox singing, “Sweet dreams are made of this.”
I could do nothing but smile in my defeat. Mo’s face brightened in the flashing strobe light. She shook her hair free from the newsboy cap and handed it to Jazlyn. Thank the Lord she hadn’t cut it.
“We’ll be back.” She grabbed my hand and led me out into the crowd of staring women. Their faces were visible to me in the flashes of the strobe lights. Thankfully, I still did not recognize a face. Although many of them carried the same recognizable expression. I felt like the envy of each of them as they watched the woman who’d taken over their bodies guide me to center stage.
The music changed. The opening of “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” started to play. She had made a collection of popular eighties songs. She turned to me and walked backward as she sang. She swayed her hips.
“I’m serious. I don’t know how to dance,” I yelled over the music.
Mo smiled. “Look around, Love. There isn’t room to dance.” She held her hands in the air. “Feel the music.” She leaned into me and breathed into my ear. “Feel me.”
I felt my heart skip. This time the vibration came from Mo not the bass. Her hands slowly skimmed down my arms and around my wrists as she placed my hands on her hips. She followed with her hands on my hips. I felt the pressure of her grip urging my movements to and fro with hers. She uttered not another word. Yet her eyes spoke volumes to me in her unreleased stare.
I immed
iately recognized the lyrics of “I Melt With You”. It was one of my favorite songs from the eighties.
“Moving forward using all my breath,” I sang along to the music.
I became unsteady in the sensation of her body morphing into my own. Her hips against mine ignited me. I wanted to stop the world and melt into this moment. I envisioned no one but us in the strobe-lit darkness. The grip of her hands soft yet determined as they held me tighter against her. I felt the heat of her palm against my skin as she slipped her hand under my shirt to lie against the small of my back. The strength of her hand pushed me into her thigh as her leg interweaved between mine. She smiled as she nestled my thigh tightly between her legs and used the strength in them to lower our hips ryhmically together.
So many of my favorite songs from the era filled my ears as the back of her fingers, warm and sensual, traced a pattern along the inside of my jean’s waistband. A clip from “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” started playing. I knew the feeling of her hands on my skin was one sensation I would not forget for a very long time. Her hands reached the front of my jeans where she gripped them tightly and pulled me all the more into her. Perspiration of desires not awakened for so long broke out in beads of sweat along the back of my neck. Her hand found the dampened curls there as it traced a pattern up my back.
Each pulsating beat tore me down from the inside. She was taking my breath away just as the lyrics of the song described. Her eyes held me in a locked trance as they drifted from my eyes to my lips and then back again. Her hair tickled my cheek as her body melted into me. My breath was as the song described—taken away. I wondered how she picked so many of my favorite songs. Dizziness filled my head within the fog of curtain smoke as her chest, heavy with her breaths, rose and fell against mine. The closer she brought our bodies together, the more I felt the pressure of her breasts against me. Excitement…intrigue…arousal. Each completed me in equal proportions to the very core of my body as it was held in the gravity of her arms. Breaths escaped and retreated in labored fashion as her hand found a new tempo along the skin of my stomach. My body was hers for all she wanted it to be in that dance. The last lyric played told me what I wanted to feel in this moment. Even if only for today, if only for this moment, couldn’t I be unafraid?