“Wait!” I cried out. “I know I said I had to go to work straight from the airport, but this is more important. I’ll call Jay and tell him I’m sick and we can go back to your place and talk about this.”
“Don’t bother. I need to be alone to sort some things out. I don’t think you should come over tonight when you get off work. Go back to your apartment tonight. I’ll talk to you in the morning after we’ve both had time to think.”
“You’re not thinking about breaking up with me over this are you?” I cried out. I sounded hysterical, even to my own ears, but I couldn’t help it. “Don’t you see I did it for you, because I love you? I never meant to betray you, or lie to you, or hurt you. You were right; I should have been honest and revealed everything to you right from the start. That’s what being a couple really means. I knew that, but I just got swept up in thinking I was doing the right thing, that I never realized what a horrible mistake I was making. I’ll never make that mistake again. Don’t throw away the wonderful relationship we have over my stupid mistake, or your mother will have won. She’ll have succeeded in breaking us apart.”
“This isn’t about winning or losing against my mother. It’s about truly being partners with each other. I have to go home and think. Don’t call me or text me. I’ll see you in the morning.”
With those final words, Dimitri walked across the lot to his car and drove away from me; possibly forever.
Chapter Four
“Where the hell is that bitch?” I shouted out as I burst through the backdoor of the BBW Club and walked swiftly down the back corridors towards the dressing room.
It was Thursday night and I knew she was scheduled to work the same shift as me.
“Avery! What’s going on?” Candy asked with the same startled expression all the other girls in the tiny dressing room had.
“Where’s Shawnee? This is between me and that betraying bitch. She ruined the best thing I had in my life and I want to know why!” I had never been so livid with rage.
“I did you a favor,” Shawnee said insistently as she strode from the stage and squared off to me confidently. “You needed to tell him; so I did what you wouldn’t, before things got worse.”
“Things couldn’t get any worse than you’ve made them. He left me because of what you did!” I lunged at Shawnee, slamming her against the wall and struck out at her with my arms flailing. Growing up with nine sisters had made me tough and I knew how to fight when I needed to.
Unfortunately, Shawnee knew a thing or two about fighting too and fended me off with a brutal punch to the gut that made me double over in pain. As I struggled to regain my breath she said, “He left because of what you did, not because of me. You have no one to blame but yourself.”
The girls circled around us excitedly, eager to watch the fight. Jay was calling above their shouts, saying, “I’ve got an empty stage. If you girls want to kill each other, do it out there for the audience to see. Otherwise get the hell out of my club! I need someone on that stage right now!”
The girls ignored him and I lunged at Shawnee again, ready to rip her hair out if I could just get my hands on it. I scratched and clawed at her and she pushed me back with all the force she had in her arms, causing me to flail back into the hallway. She stepped after me, and I tackled her low at the waist, knocking her off balance and the two of us rolled together in a heap from the hallway out onto the stage. The crowd gasped in surprise and Jay immediately took advantage of the situation, giving a blow by blow analysis of our fight over the microphone and encouraging the crowd to roar and cheer with excitement. Soon they had rallied into two camps; one rooting for Shawnee and other half cheering for me.
My fury and rage at her for betraying me gave me strength and energy I never knew I had, and my pain and fear in thinking I had lost Dimitri forever drove me to keep going when I wouldn’t have otherwise.
Despite my passion and persistence, I was driven by hysterical emotion and the physical exertion of trying to fight Shawnee exhausted it out of me. As my muscles became fatigued and my breathing grew labored, I lost my will to attack her. All Shawnee had to do was dodge my wild blows, and wait for me to collapse into a heap of regret and tears.
The crowd realized their brief girl fight was over and starting booing. Jay ushered us quickly away and announced Candy onto the stage with a pulsing beat of rock music blaring from the speakers.
“Everybody out! I want to talk to these two alone!” Jay snapped at us the moment we were back stage, driving the girls from the dressing room out into the corridors. “Does one of you want to explain why the fuck you’re trying to ruin my club and screw up tonight’s show?”
“It’s my fault,” Shawnee stood up for me. I couldn’t believe she was willing to do that after I had attacked her. She really was a better best friend than I deserved.
“Well then consider yourself fired,” Jay said to her with cruel contempt.
I jumped up to her defense, saying, “No, it’s my fault. I started the fight. You can ask anybody in here and they’ll confirm it. If anyone should get fired, it’s me.”
“Well then, consider yourself suspended for a week,” Jay said to me and neither of us could believe the unfairness of the situation. “As long as you’re dating that movie star boyfriend of yours, I need the publicity you bring. But a week without pay should teach you not to screw up my show.”
“Well you don’t have to worry about that happening again, because I quit,” I said, finally getting the courage to do what I should have done long ago.
“That doesn’t mean I’m hiring your friend back, so you might as well stay,” Jay said. He was acting completely unruffled, but I knew inside he must be panicking.
“I don’t care. I’m done with this place. Come on, Shawnee. Let’s go home.” I turned to Shawnee in a show of solidarity, but she just shoved past me with an angry glare.
“There is no we anymore,” Shawnee shouted as she stormed out the back door of the club. With her car still in the repair shop she had no choice but to walk back to our apartment building, with me trailing her the entire time.
“I can walk just as fast as you can, you know? I’m sorry Jay fired you, but if you give him time to cool down he’ll probably take you back tomorrow. Besides, this whole thing wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t gone behind my back and sent that text to Dimitri.”
“I did that for you!”
Shawnee stopped in the street and squared off to me. “I see how crazy in love the two of you are, but you can’t have a relationship based on a lie. You weren’t willing to tell him the truth, so I knew I had to. Besides, it wasn’t right what his mother was doing to you. I felt it was my duty as your best friend to do what I can to help you.”
“Oh, bullshit!” Now I was the one marching down the sidewalk while Shawnee trailed after me. “You weren’t thinking of my career or how you wanted to keep Dimitri and me together; you were thinking of ways to tear us apart.”
“And why the hell would I do that?” Shawnee wanted to know.
“Because you’re jealous!” I said the first lame excuse I could think of, even though in my heart I knew it wasn’t true. The accusation took her breath away and her reaction gave me the encouragement I needed. I grabbed onto the ridiculous accusation and wielded it with all my might. “You’re jealous that I have a boyfriend who’s rich, famous, and takes me to fabulous places, while you’re stuck with a loser working the Kraft Services cart. My boyfriend has his own line of cologne, and yours smells like onions at the end of the day. Well, I don’t need your jealousy fucking up my life.”
“You think I’m fucking up your life?” Shawnee was the one who was livid now. “Who tried to help the other stop the blockade to her acting career? And who got the other one fired? Do the math; I’m the one building you up and you’re the one tearing me down.”
We had reached our apartment building, and Shawnee realized she had better lower her voice before the landlord heard us. We entered our apartmen
t, locked the door soundly behind us, and then started our fight fresh, with hushed voices. Even though our voices had softened, our anger at each other was harder than ever.
Shawnee said, “I did everything I could to help you, from taking you in that day I met you two years ago, to trying to help you with all the shit in your life that you’ve been fucking up now; and all I get from you is a punch in the lip and fired from my job. Now you think I’m jealous of you? Jealous of what? Your life was a mess two years ago and it’s an even bigger mess now. You’ve been going nowhere all this time and haven’t made one ounce of progress. Be smart for once in your life and let the people who care about you actually help you. Dimitri and I can help pull you out of this slump, but you have to trust us.”
“That’s it! I can’t put up with this condescending bullshit one minute longer!” I was furious at her; mostly because I understood the truth in what she was saying. I was the one who had sabotaged my own life, but it was just too painful to admit and all I wanted to do was get away from it all. I grabbed a suitcase from my closet and started flinging clothes into it as fast as I could. Looking at Shawnee, I shouted out, “Fuck you! I’m moving out! You can let onion boy move in with you for all I care!”
Shawnee just watched me with her hands on her hips and a disgusted expression contorting her face. “You’re leaving? You have no job, hardly any money saved up, and now no boyfriend. Where are you going to go? Just stay here with me. We can sort this out; best friends always do.”
“No, forget it. I don’t want your pity or your help. Just leave me the hell alone!”
“Where are you going? The busses have stopped running for the night.”
Looking at the clock I saw that she was right, but I still didn’t care. I was hurt beyond the ability to reason. Her words had cut me to the core. She was right about everything, but staying in that apartment would mean admitting that to myself and I just wasn’t willing to do that.
“I’ll walk to the motel on the corner and stay there for the night. Tomorrow, I’ll take a taxi to the greyhound station and go back home to Utah. I’m done here; Hollywood has beaten me. Now you can let Mike move in with you and live happily ever after, and have a dozen babies with him.”
The anger had gone from my voice and I saw that Shawnee was crying
“I’m going to miss you,” she said and wrapped her arms around me in a hug. I thought about dodging her embrace, but then I hugged her back instead.
“I’m going to miss you too, but I can’t stay here one more second. I have to leave tonight or this fucked up city will just suck me back in again. Goodbye.”
I walked out into the night, pulling two suitcases behind me. I was done with L.A. and California.
Chapter Five
I tossed and turned on the lumpy motel mattress for hours before finally crying myself to sleep. I awoke the next morning when the sound of the couple fighting in the next room disturbed me. I checked my cell phone and saw three missed messages from Dimitri. I thought about calling him back, but I didn’t want to hear the words I knew he was going to say, ending our relationship forever. I would rather just disappear without having to endure that heartache and humiliation. I knew he was right to dump me; I had been a shitty girlfriend keeping such a big secret from him. So I called the greyhound station and got the time for the next bus that would take me to Utah. I thought about calling ahead and letting my parents know I was coming, but I wasn’t ready to endure their “I told you so” speech either. It would be better just to show up and surprise.
My bags were already packed, so I put on a pair of denim cut-off shorts and a comfortable blouse that buttoned down the front, and headed to the reception desk. The worker behind the cage was talking to a man in a black hoodie so I stood to the side and waited for my turn. Then suddenly I realized it was Dimitri.
“This is her picture. Please tell me if she checked in last night or checked out this morning. You don’t know how much this means to me.”
“I already told you, man. We can’t reveal any private information about guests, including if they may or may not be here.” Suddenly Dimitri saw me, and he stood staring at me from across the dingy lobby of the crappy motel. He sighed with relief and said, “Thank God I found you.”
“How did you know where I was?”
“Shawnee told me you left in the middle of the night to stay in a motel on the corner. I had no idea how many there were. I’ve been to more of these places than I can count looking for you this morning. I was terrified you’d already left for Utah.”
“I’m heading to the bus station now. Let’s not do this. I don’t want to hear what you’re going to say, so just let me go.”
“All right.”
To my surprise, Dimitri didn’t argue with me. He paid my motel bill, lifted my suitcases and said, “Can I at least drive you to the bus station and save you the cab fare? It’s the least I can do after we’ve dating all these months.”
“Okay.” We drove in silence for a while, and then Dimitri finally spoke. “After we parted at the airport last night, I drove out to my mother’s house and she and I had a long talk. I didn’t have to cut her out of my life like I’d been threatening to do, but she finally saw the error of her ways. She promises not to interfere with your acting career anymore.”
“Thanks,” I said quietly.
“She also promises to let me make my own dating choices, even if she thinks they’re wrong. Showing her a copy when she posed as a porno magazine centerfold helped give her some perspective. She was eighteen and had used a fake name, but it was undoubtedly her and reminded her that we all do what we can to survive in this city. After that, she wasn’t nearly so judgmental.”
“Oh my God! I can’t believe she ever did that!” I laughed despite myself, and the mood in the car became notably lighter. I put my hand on Dimitri’s knee and asked, “So what does that mean for us?”
“It means you were right; my relationship with my mother does mean a lot to me and I would have hated cutting her out of my life. I appreciate the fact that you were trying to protect me, and I understand you’re motives for what you did. I forgive you for keeping your secret and respect you for having the guts to try and go against a woman as powerful and formidable as my mother completely on your own. She’s broken people much bigger than you, and it took a lot of courage for you to defy her.”
Tears of relief had sprung to my eyes and I blinked them back. “So you don’t want to break up with me?”
“No, in fact I want you to move in with me.” I was so taken aback by his proposal that I didn’t know what to say. Taking my awkward silence as hesitation, Dimitri rambled on quickly before I could refuse. “I’ve been thinking about it long and hard, and I think now is the perfect time. We’ve been dating long enough to know how we feel about each other. You’re the first person I want to see when I wake up in the morning and the last person I want to see before I fall asleep at night. All I think about when I’m not with you is how long I have to wait before I can see you again. Sometimes I’m so distracted by it, I can’t concentrate. If we lived together, that would solve everything.”
“Well, not everything,” I cautioned. “I just lost my job and I don’t know when I’ll get my next one. You’d be stuck paying all the bills and that doesn’t seem right to me. Maybe it’s time I went home for a little while.”
“But that’s what makes this so right. You need me right now. Let me help you so you can stay in L.A. and follow your dreams of being an actress. Now that my mother is no longer going to hold you back, you might very well get your next acting break. This is not the time to give up on your career. Stay with me, if not permanently than just long enough to find out what’s going to happen with your career. Please, I know we could be so happy together.”
I sat silently processing everything that he had said and noticed for the first time that we weren’t going to the bus station, we were driving up the long road to his house. I was surprised to discover that it
made my heart swell with happiness. It already felt like going home to me and of course I would love to get to live in such luxury with the man I loved. Still, something was holding me back.
As Dimitri pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine, he kissed me gently on the lips and said softly, “I want to take our relationship to the next level and build a future with you. Please say you’ll move in with me.”
I stared deeply into his eyes and saw all the love he felt for me burning there. He was holding his breath with hope and fear, and I knew in that moment that I didn’t want to live without him either.
“Yes, I’ll move in with you,” I said and he whooped with joy before taking me into his arms and kissing me happily.
He carried my luggage up to his bedroom suite… I mean our bedroom suite, and unpacked all my things for me while I lounged on the bed and watched. Then I beckoned him onto the giant king-sized bed and he flopped down beside me, grinning with pure joy.
“You’ve made me the happiest man in the world today. Now tell me what I can do to make you happy,” Dimitri said in a soft low voice full of sensuality.
“You can start by unbuttoning my blouse,” I whispered and he moved his fingers to unfasten them, working his way slowly from the top to the bottom. I wasn’t wearing a bra and my tits sprang free from the garment, begging to be touched. He put his lips to them tenderly at first, and then with growing urgency. My nipples puckered into taut nubs and I arched my back and moaned as he rolled them between his forefinger and thumb, pinching and pulling at them erotically. When he took them into his mouth and nipped at them his teeth the shock of light pain made my breath quicken and my pussy moisten. Every nerve in my body was suddenly brought to life and wanted more of the pleasurable pain he had given me.
“Now take off my shorts,” I breathed and Dimitri tugged off my shorts and panties together as one, so I was now completely naked. He kissed the toes of my feet, working his way over my tan shins, my ticklish knee caps, and up my supple and tanned thighs. When he came to the triangle of my sex, I spread my legs wide, inviting him to pleasure me there. His lips were like magic, and he drove me wild with desire within moments; he lapped at my labia, massaged my clitoris, and thrusted with his fingers until I was crying out with rapture.
Stripped Love #5 (BBW Alpha Male Romance) Page 3