Blue Notes

by Lofty, Carrie

  His eyes are shadowed, but I can see his earnestness. And I can see the hurt my self-defensive assumptions caused.

  “I have a hard time believing stuff like that,” I say with needles in my throat. “I didn’t mean anything against you. It’s my baggage.”

  I push deeper into his embrace, so that he has no choice but to wrap his arms around my low back. The fingers of one hand rest just above my ass. All sorts of memories of what we did in his car come rushing back. I’m not wearing jeans today. He’d have . . . access.

  “Is this your way of trying to distract me?” His eyebrows are arched, and a small smile has returned to his beautifully sculpted mouth.

  “Is it working?”

  “Partly.” He kisses my forehead. “What would you say if I told you you’re the first virgin I’ve wanted to be with?”

  “Um . . . that I hope you know what you’re doing?”

  He laughs, releasing the tension from between us. “Me too.”

  “You’re doing just fine.” I grin, and kiss his jaw. “I’ve been trying to come up with a name for this. Like I said, what am I supposed to think? Tonight could be step two in The Jude Villars Handbook to Deflowering the Worshipful and Unsuspecting.”

  “It hasn’t gone to press yet.”

  I laugh, ducking fully into his arms and placing my lips against the thin, smooth, musk-scented skin at the base of his throat. “This is seduction, Jude. I don’t care where it winds up. I’m having too much fun following your lead.”

  “I think you’re fooling yourself there, Keeley,” he says quietly.

  “How so?”

  “You don’t like getting into a car without knowing where it’s headed. I don’t believe you don’t care where this will wind up.”

  I exhale and shudder. I’m sure he feels me quake. I’m scantily clad, the night is warm, and he’s got me pressed against his chest like a second T-shirt. “Okay. Got me. I care. How’s that?”

  “Perfect. And in return, I’ll admit something too. I haven’t stopped thinking about you for days.”

  He could’ve put his hand down my panties, there, standing on the street, and surprised me less.

  “So you have to tell me, Keeley. Can you live with not knowing where this’ll lead?”

  I pull away, but I still hold his hand. I won’t give that up unless forced. “Life’s unpredictable.”

  “Yes,” he says, so rough and low. “Life’s unpredictable.”

  I feel like the playfulness of our mood keeps getting overshadowed by, well, shadows. That’s not a good sign. Even if he’s being completely honest about the haven’t stopped thinking about you for days thing, which still makes me shiver with the want, the need to believe it, he doesn’t have any more control over how this will go than I do. His parents dropped out of the sky and died on a clear January day. My father blew my mom away with a shotgun.

  Life is unpredictable.

  Maybe that desperation breaks the spell of maudlin. Funky enough. It seems totally backward. But, suddenly, all I want is to prove that past bullshit wrong. I’m holding hands with Jude Villars, about to enter a club called Slink, on what has to be the hottest night in one of the coolest cities in the whole country.

  Fuck the past. Tonight I’m living for the here and now.

  I link my arm through his. I stand on tiptoe and kiss his jaw. Then, when that isn’t enough, I grab his chin and drag him closer. It’s my turn to kiss first. He opens to me instantly, as if he was just waiting for the same escape route. Come this way, I think. It’s more fun over here. The future can take a leap too. This is all about making each other feel good, and letting Jude honor the promise he made. I believe his promises.

  What I can’t believe is what used to be true about myself. In the last week or so, I’ve performed onstage. I’ve made friends. I’ve met an amazing man. These aren’t the everyday workings of Keeley Chambers. I like the change. So much. It’s who I’ve always wanted to be.

  We’re still kissing when we reach the entrance. One of his hands is possessively clasped around the base of my skull, while the other roams up and down my ribs. He never brushes a stray finger across my breasts, but he hints at it so often that I hope for it every time. My hands are around his trim waist, beneath his loose flannel, skimming his hot, thin cotton T-shirt. His body is sinuous and strong, pulsing with life. I can’t get enough of exploring him. Every new touch makes me want to take another leap. I’ve felt his bare chest, but what about the rest of him?

  A thin, short man at the club’s entrance looks at us and rolls his eyes. He has a trio of bar piercings through his left eyebrow and a spike through his lower lip. Several heavy earrings dangle almost to his shoulders, and half his face is marked with abstract black ink. Only half. Exactly half. He’s like a comic book villain. Two-Face? From Batman? I try not to stare, but honestly, it’s impossible not to. Besides, he’s the one glaring at us as if kissing is strictly prohibited at a place with a name as suggestive as Slink.

  Jude pays the cover charge, and we both get our hands stamped. I don’t remember him having a stamp before. Maybe it was the suit. He looked like a Real Grown-Up at Yamatam’s. Here, he’s just another twentysomething who needs to be carded. Under the light of Slink’s neon sign and its brightly lit basement entrance, I see that his T-shirt has an abstract graphic of bold, colorful human figures dancing among cartoon lemons. As we climb down toward the mysteries of the club, I ask him what it’s about.

  “Keith Haring,” he says, with a question in his voice—one asking if I know who he’s talking about. Which I don’t. “He’s a pop artist from the eighties. Big into anti-apartheid and AIDS awareness. Died when he was really young. U2 was a big fan. This T-shirt is from their PopMart tour. I was seventeen when my dad took me to see them. He’d been a fan for years.”

  “You met them, didn’t you? The special Villars backstage pass?”

  “Oddly enough, you don’t make that sound bitter or insulting.”

  “Just impressed is all.”

  “That I met U2?”

  “Sure,” I say, totally copping out as we push into the club. “Must’ve been cool.”

  What I want to say is, I’m impressed you have anything of your parents that you cherish.

  Twenty-One

  I dodge any probing about that slipup by doing what would come naturally to anyone: I try to absorb the sights and sounds of Slink. It’s a circus. Yup, an indoor adult circus where the patrons are the performers. I can’t believe the variety of people. Shapes, sizes, colors, clothing, decorations—so many decorations. It’s a festival for the eyes, as dubstep blares from a pair of human-sized speakers hanging from the ceiling.

  Jude leans in close, nearly shouting. “We won’t be able to stay past midnight because we’re not members.”

  “Huh?”

  He grins. “After midnight, it becomes a private dungeon club. Sex stuff. Kinky. You know, BDSM?”

  I can’t help that my eyes are totally wide open and my I think I know everything self gets a kick in the ass. “A sex club?”

  “Within limits, but yeah. If you want a drink, they’re only served for another few minutes. Then it’s water and soda.”

  “Why?”

  “Keeps people safe.”

  Possibilities reel as my eyes flick across a hundred faces—and their bodies. Because sure enough, lots of people are wearing next to nothing. My little black dress feels like a prom getup by comparison. There’s a woman with electrical tape crisscrossed over her nipples and a sheer belly dancer–style skirt offering a tantalizing view of everything else. One man is naked except for tight leather shorts and a hood.

  Jude tugs my arm. He plants me on a love seat of sorts and lifts his hand to signal a waiter. The waiter has a chain that drapes from his nostril to a cuff on his right wrist. Jude orders club soda for me and a tonic and lime for hi
mself. With unmistakable invitation, the waiter walks his gaze over Jude’s long body, glances at me, then shrugs. He saunters off to collect our drinks.

  “He likes you,” I say. Well, say might be a little tame. The music is loud. We have two volumes: shout face to face, or shout more softly with mouth tucked against ear. I’d do more of the latter if the club wasn’t busy sucking up my attention.

  “Too bad for him,” he replied. “So, do you think you’ll be able to get some firsthand information for your paper?”

  I laugh, then cover my mouth when he looks nearly disappointed. “Sorry,” I say. “But I’m not going to be able to get many firsthand interviews here. I could try, but I’d be hoarse long before midnight.”

  He shrugs off that boyish look of having gotten it wrong. “Never mind.”

  “Hey,” I say, grabbing his face between my hands. I kiss his nose. “I’m having a blast. And besides, it’s a helluva lot more firsthand stuff than most people in my class would dare try to find. I read the textbook. Now I can see it all in person. That’s not nothing.”

  “Textbook?”

  “On the sociology of human groupings. People like to be in groups that match internal versions of themselves. You’re wearing Docs—well-worn Docs, I might add—because part of you doesn’t want to wear suits all the time. You have a vintage U2 shirt, and a flannel like some grunge throwback. You’re a mash-up. Here, you can do that, where there’s no judgment. What would be outrageous for you outside these walls is ho-hum boring inside. You can be daring in your own mind, but otherwise anonymous.”

  He’s staring at me as if I just did a tarot reading. “And your little black dress?”

  “Oh, that’s just me wanting to look nice for you.”

  I must’ve pulled off just the right don’t give a care tone, because he smiles and gives a little nod. “You win at that.”

  “Makes me wonder, though.”

  “About?”

  I tug the knit collar of his T-shirt—not too much, because it’s old. “I unbuttoned your shirt the other night, and I touched a lot of skin.” I grin, blushing but not caring. “A lot of skin. But it was too dark to see if you have any tattoos. Are you hiding more from the world than just a pair of shit-kicker boots?”

  “Do you?”

  “Nope. Virgin skin.”

  Virgin? Really?

  I say it so quickly and so frankly that he busts out laughing. I join in laughing as if balloons have burst inside both of us at the same time. We needed it. Maybe that’s what’s so intoxicating about being with Jude. We build up and up and up—then something drags us halfway down again. Never all the way down. Every moment with him is building, in unpredictable fits and starts. It’s that roller coaster again. More danger.

  What’s around the corner? How bold can I be? How much will I love it?

  “You said that on purpose,” he says, wiping his eyes.

  “No way. Look at my blush. Are you serious?”

  “Then your subconscious is a huge tease.”

  “You like when I tease back. It’s like permission to do your worst. Or best.” His grin is positively devilish. He licks his lower lip, deliberately, making me laugh all over again. Only when I catch my breath do I force my voice to work again. “Are you listening, Mr. Villars? I don’t like repeating myself.”

  “You’re mocking me with that one.”

  “Totally. But the question remains. Do you have a tattoo?”

  “Yup.”

  “Oh, c’mon. Now you have to show me.” I affect a mock serious expression. “It’s for science.”

  I’m convinced he won’t, because doing so would be straightforward, and not too much about us—other than the seduction—has been straightforward. But he lifts the hem of his T-shirt, right above the pronounced, lick-worthy V that dips into the waistband of his jeans. It’s a latitude and longitude marker.

  “Where my parents died,” he says simply.

  I swallow back a rush of emotion. I want to say I’m sorry, or even apologize for making it such a flippant, teasing thing. Maybe that’s why he was so blunt about revealing it. There’s nothing flippant or teasing about it. So I say the only thing that makes sense to me right then. “Thank you for showing me.”

  “You’re welcome. And,” he continues with a shrug, pulling his shirt back in place, “I didn’t want questions about it later.”

  “Makes sense.” I try to breathe, try to recover the momentum of the easygoing side of us. Looking around Slink is entertaining, but I’m so wrapped up in Jude that I just want him back. “So, other than its educational properties, is this where you take girls to shock them?”

  “Nope, never been.” As if by silent agreement, he goes along with me, returning to the neutral territory of the club and flirting and thick, delicious innuendo. He wiggles his brows and leans close enough to kiss me—but doesn’t. “You need to quit assuming I’m running by some playbook. I’ve never been here. I’ve never been with a virgin. And before you make another assumption, I haven’t been with a college girl since graduating.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh,” he says, grinning. “I won’t have you thinking the worst of me, sugar. Won’t have it.”

  “You didn’t start out that way.”

  “Eh.” He traces my shoulder until one of the dress’s straps dangles down my upper arm. “You could’ve been anyone when we met. I have standards.”

  “Which include?”

  I know it’s just a skinny little black strap, but now that it’s fallen, my shoulder—that whole side of my body—feels more exposed. He kisses there, licks softly, then nestles his lips just below my earlobe. “Quick recovery when an arrogant asshole gives you shit. The ability to take a dare and fling it right back in that asshole’s face. And a body . . .”

  “Oh, don’t,” I say. Even though his words are all the compliments a girl like me could want, I can’t let him continue. I like knowing he admires me for how I stood up for myself that first night. I did great. He was an enigmatic weirdo. And here we are at Slink. Yay for us making it past an intriguing start, to use his word.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Wax poetic about how I look. Knobby knees and mouse brown hair do not a poet inspire.”

  “Take that back or I’ll drive you home right now.” He tugs down the other strap of my dress. “And I don’t mean that in the good way, where we’d be alone and on page six of my playbook.”

  He’s grinning so wide that I can’t breathe. Or maybe it’s because he’s practically undressing me in public. Or, more shatteringly, maybe it’s because the sudden, smack-me-sideways idea of being seduced by Jude Villars becomes very blunt. It’s not a question anymore. It’s a fact.

  We will have sex.

  It had all seemed so theoretical, even when he’d made me explode in the backseat of his car, with just his hand on my jeans. But it’s going to get more serious than that, and I’m paralyzed by possibilities, nerves, anticipation.

  “Take it back, Keeley,” he says, then draws my earlobe between his teeth. I shiver until I feel like my bones will shake apart. “Take it back and let me tell you what I see when I look at you.”

  “Do I have to believe it?”

  “No. But it’ll be part of our . . . seduction? You’ll believe it before we’re through.”

  I smirk. “Is that on page eleven or something?”

  “You’ve been reading ahead.” He toys with one strap, barely nodding to the waiter who deposits our drinks on a little table beside Jude’s knee. “I’m waiting.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I take it back. Go ahead.”

  “You’re graceful. You’re natural and unpretentious. You’re tall—I really like that. You have poise and this air of living in some other world. It sets you apart. And unlike most guys and all the stereotypes we’re working against here, I happen
to adore small breasts.”

  “No way.”

  “I’m totally not bullshitting you.” He pulls me close so that he’s more my recliner than the love seat is. “Small is exotic. Neat and perfectly formed. Give me that any day.”

  “You shouldn’t be allowed to talk to me this way.”

  His eyebrows dip. “Why not?”

  “Because I like it.”

  His hand grazes my side. Finally, as if I’d been holding my breath in anticipation of the moment, four long fingers feather over my nipple. The ghostly touch moves on, leaving that sensitive skin aching for more. He’s watching, smiling to himself as if he’s just performed a magic trick. My libido doesn’t argue.

  “Should I try that again, sugar?”

  “Anyone can see what you’re doing.”

  He leans in closer, moving my hair aside to kiss my throat. One kiss is so intense and deep that I pull away. “Come back here,” he says. The club melts into colors behind my eyes and a whirl of distant noises. He talks against my skin, where goose bumps lift to meet his lips. “I’m not finished with you. And you haven’t answered my question.”

  More kisses, until he captures my mouth with his. His hands are back at it, doing that restless dance up and down my ribs. I know he won’t go any further until I reply.

  “Public. Place.” I manage the words in between gasping breaths and his heated kisses.

  “There’s a guy over there dancing in a cage, wearing gold hot pants and go-go boots. Do you think anyone here cares if I caress your breasts? Or if you let me do even more?”

  “I care. It’s . . .” I remember what he said about waiting for me to finish my thoughts, how they’re worth the wait. That’s almost as flattering as his compliments about my looks. So I pull it together. “It’s like being onstage. Under the spotlight at Yamatam’s, I couldn’t see anyone in the crowd. I clung to this idea of a bubble of privacy. Like now. But that doesn’t mean we’re alone.”

  “Do you want to be alone?”

  “Eventually,” I say, feeling kinda powerful. “But for now . . . you can keep doing what you’re doing.”