by C. D. Reiss
“He’s not in the business, Gabs, please come on.”
She tugged my sleeve. “Wait. First of all, everyone’s in the business, even if they’re not. Okay? And what are you hiding from me? What?” She was a few inches shorter and looked up at me like she could pierce me with her eyes.
“Nothing.”
“Monica.”
“I want to go home.” I took a step toward the door, but Gabby leaned against it. I dropped my bag, giving in. “Fine, he wants to make this bet, and it has to do with sex, and I’m not hanging out with him tonight, I’m hanging out with you.”
“Cancel with me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because Darren would kill me.”
“God damn the two of you!” she shouted.
“Gabs, please. Give me a break.”
“No, you guys won’t leave me alone to take a dump and you think I’m too stupid to notice? Now you have the chance to get the ear of a major fucking player—”
“He’s not—”
“Shut up. Because you don’t know anything. He teaches business at UCLA where Janet Terova heads up the Industry Relations board, and you know who that is, right?”
I sighed. I felt like I was taking a quiz.
“Arnie Sanderson’s ex-wife?”
“Eugene Testarossa’s boss. Right. Him.”
“Gabby, if something happened because I went to have sex with some guy I barely even know…”
She put her hands on my arms and looked up at me with those big stinking blue eyes, the ones that had rolled to the back of her head and could only be brought back with a slap in the face, and said, “I promise I will not try to kill myself tonight.”
“Your word is the last thing I should believe.”
“I tried to kill myself because I felt hopeless. You do this, I have hope. Okay?”
“You’re whoring me out.”
“Am I taking a cab home or not?”
I had to admit, the temptation was painful, almost physically so. Here she was, not only giving me permission to leave her alone and promising not to hurt herself, but pushing me out the door.
The exquisite ache between my legs grew to a distracting level when I thought about being with Jonathan. The afternoon’s frustration had turned into a longing that seemed bigger than my body.
Right then Darren’s face showed up in my mind. He looked disappointed and angry.
I pushed past Gabby and went out to Jonathan and Theresa, who had moved to the bar. He put his hand on the back of my neck when I got close enough, and I whispered in his ear, “If I win, you cancel your flight and see me tomorrow night.”
“And no Tiffany?” he asked, smirking.
“Yes, Tiffany. If you win, I’m at your command until sunrise. And after the sun comes up, I’ll scrub your floors.” He laughed. I didn’t know exactly what he was laughing at, unless it was the presumption that he didn’t already have a team of people to sterilize his house, but I smiled back at him because it was a stupid offer and I knew it.
Gabby situated herself at the end of the bar and ordered something. I hoped it was soda. Alcohol’s a depressant, and she could assure me she had hope all she wanted. I didn’t believe she had as much control as she asserted.
“You drive a hard bargain.” He put his drink down. “And you’re funny. I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth next.”
I had a million jokes about what was going in my mouth, but I kept them to myself as I pulled him into the back room.
eighteen.
The dressing room was locked. I was momentarily stumped, but I remembered there was another one for men. I took his hand and led him deeper into the back, passing the kitchen and backmost hallway, to the least populated part of the club.
“I’m really liking this scrubbing idea,” he said as I pulled him into the second dressing room, which was as gross as the first, and slammed the door behind me. If he had more wisecracks, they got swallowed in a kiss. I ran my fingers through his hair, pressing his face to mine, then ran them down the length of his body. I pushed him onto the chair, which squeaked when he fell into it.
I kneeled in front of him, the industrial carpet digging into my knees, and opened his fly. I stroked the hardness under his boxers until I teased out his cock. It was rock hard and gorgeous.
“You ready?” I asked.
“You are really cute.”
He held his arms out as if to say come at me.
I pulled up his shirt and kissed his stomach, which was hard and tight, down the line of hair, until I got to his base. I put him between my lips, kissed it, sucking the length on one side, then the other, running my tongue up and down the taut skin, tasting the sharpness of it. He took a deep breath. I flattened my tongue against the underside and ran it up to the end, then put the head in my mouth, sucking it on the way out. I tasted a salty drop of moisture on his tip.
I looked up at him as I slid it into my mouth again. His lips parted and he looked straight at me, moving my hair from my eyes. Perfect. I moved down, sliding the whole huge length of him into my open mouth.
“Oh,” he whispered as I took him to the bottom. I moved my head up and down, taking all of him with every stroke, sucking on the way out, rubbing him with my tongue on the way in. I looked up at him again, going slow, letting him see every inch of his dick going in my mouth. I picked up the pace slightly, then gave three really fast strokes. He sighed and thrust his hips forward, jamming himself down my throat. I had him. All I had to do was slow down and tease him so close he’d beg me to finish him.
But he put his head back and looked at the ceiling, groaning deep in his throat. It was such a position of surrender, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stop. I was going to make him come way before he begged.
He was going to have me at his beck and call until sunrise.
I didn’t like jewelry that much anyway.
nineteen.
He’d smirked when he’d given me his address and tried to give me directions, but I knew where he lived, give or take. He was up in the park, where the lawyers and magnates play. I remembered Debbie’s edict to just have fun, but the fact I’d failed in my mission to get him to take me to Tiffany rankled. Not that I really had anything to go with the carats I would have made him buy me, but failure wasn’t something I took lightly, especially if it meant I’d been weak.
The valet pulled up with his dark green Jaguar. “Can I drive you to your car?” Jonathan asked.
“I’m in the lot,” I said. “It’s fine.”
He put his face close to mine, until I could feel his breath in my ear. “If you don’t want to go home with me, I won’t hold you to it. We can wait, or we can call it off.”
“A bet’s a bet.”
He brushed his nose on my cheek. “You sure? I can be demanding.”
“So can I.”
He stepped back and smiled. “Not tonight, you’re not.” He moved onto the curb. “I’ll leave the gate open for you.” He got into the car and drove off. I watched it head down La Brea, swaggering just like he did.
When I went inside, Gabby had already called a cab. I could smell a vodka tonic on her breath, but she seemed relatively sober.
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” I said.
“Monica, you want to go, so just go. I’m tired of being babied.”
And that was that. I put her in a cab and walked to my car.
My phone buzzed as I got into my little Honda. It was Vinny. Fucking Vinny.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Vegas, baby.” He was somewhere loud and unruly, yelling into the phone.
“We’ve been looking for you. The band broke up.”
“I can’t hear you. Listen, Sexybitch, you did a gig tonight at that shithole on Santa Monica?”
“Fron—”
“Eugene Testarossa’s partner was there. Testarossa himself wants to see you. So you text me when you’re up next, and I’ll
call him back and he’ll show up. Bang! You’re in.”
“Vinny, I can’t—”
“Text me, baby. Love you.”
He cut the call.
What an asshole. He goes to Vegas for how long and now he wants his fifteen percent because I got my own gig? Oh no. That wasn’t going to work. I texted him,
—You’re fired—
I was at my car when the phone dinged.
—Fuck I am. You signed a contract—
—The band signed a contract. The band didn’t play tonight. I played solo—
There was a longer pause, and I sat in the driver’s seat waiting to hear back, my night of subservience forgotten.
—Good luck getting WDE to take your call—
I shut off my phone. I wanted to throw it, but I couldn’t afford to replace it when I smashed it into a million pieces. He was right. No one at WDE was going to take a call or email from me. They’d contacted Vinny. I wouldn’t get past the first round of assistants. Their job was to filter out artists. I could sing Under My Skin a hundred more times and never get another opportunity like this.
I think I looked out the window for fifteen minutes, resigning myself to the fact that I had a manager I hated and distrusted, and he was going to take a chunk of money from me from now until I accepted my Grammy.
I started the engine, but I had forgotten where I was going. Then that weight between my legs came back. Shit. I had an evening of wild sex planned with a rich womanizer who liked cute broke chicks. I was worrying about Vinny Landfillian. Fuck him. I hated Los Angeles.
All money and connections.
He can be a valuable friend.
All I needed was a lawyer to unravel that contract, and I was about to screw a guy who must have had a hundred sharky lawyers on speed dial. All I had to do was let him boss me around all night. The pleasure would be all mine.
I put the car in drive and headed east to Griffith Park.
It was wrong. My mother didn’t raise me like that. She raised a nice girl who cared about her body more than her career. I didn’t know who that girl was or what she wanted out of life though. I knew who I was. And the only thing I wanted more than Jonathan Drazen’s body was an agent at WDE.
twenty.
The houses north of Los Feliz Boulevard aren’t dream houses. A dream house in Los Angeles has four walls and a roof and maybe heat, but no one can afford it. The houses up in Griffith Park are scenery. They’re owned by other people, the people who live on the other side. Not nouveau riche rock stars and actors. Old money. Generations’ worth of trust funds. Three thousand square feet was a palace behind ten-foot hedges. I drove up the winding pass. Never having looked at the addresses before, I was at a loss to find them. It was as if you were supposed to just know where you were going because you belonged there.
I finally found the address under a gigantic fig tree with a brass plaque next to it, announcing the tree’s status as a protected landmark. The gate opened for me, and I went up the drive and parked next to the Jag.
I sat in the car and looked at the house, convincing myself I still had a choice between going in or going home. The house was a craftsman, all warm lighting and dark woods. The porch was as big as my living room, leading to a wide, thick door. It was closed.
I took a deep breath.
Bottom line: He was hot, he was charming, and he didn’t want anything out of me but the same thing I wanted. Unless he wanted me to clean his bathroom. I took hours to clean a bathroom, and I wasn’t cleaning his.
I slid my phone out of my purse and called Darren.
“Hi,” I said. “How was the show?”
“Fantastic. What’s up?”
“I thought you should know…” I swallowed hard. “I sent Gabby home in a cab.”
“You what?”
“She’s tired of being followed around.”
“And where are you?” He was pissed. He sounded like he was in the middle of a street, with people everywhere.
“Griffith Park. I can explain more later.”
“No, explain now why you let a suicidal woman go home alone when her meds obviously aren’t working and she’s showing the same behaviors she did just before you found her bleeding into your kitchen sink.”
“She’s fine.”
“This is completely irresponsible.”
He hung up, which was a huge favor. I didn’t want to tell him why I’d ditched Gabby.
I got out and walked up to the porch. Stained glass windows bordered the door. The light on the other side was soft and inviting. This would be all right. Just fine.
I knocked so softly, he couldn’t have heard me unless he’d been waiting. I needed to see if he’d found something else to occupy him or if he was looking forward to seeing me. That could set the timbre for what I could request in the way of a warm call to WDE on my behalf.
The door opened immediately.
He wore the same button down shirt and jeans he’d worn at Frontage. His feet were bare, and in his right hand, he held a glass containing whiskey on ice.
I stood with my bag in front of me, which didn’t stop him from looking at me as if he wanted to eat me alive. He leaned on the door jamb and swirled his drink. “I thought you weren’t coming. I was starting to think I was losing my touch.”
“This is a nice house.”
He paused, and I waited. Despite the distractions of the past half hour, I was back to wanting to put my tongue all over his body. “All bets are on?” he asked.
“I’m yours to command.”
He took my bag and put it on a side table. “Turn around.”
I put my back to him. My car sat in the drive, next to his, the gate to the street wide open. He clicked the button on a little handheld box, and the gate slid closed.
The ice in his glass clinked, and I felt the touch of his hand at the base of my neck, then a tug as he unzipped my dress. “Jonathan…”
“No one can see.”
The zipper went down past my lower back, and he slowly pulled it open. The sleeves slipped off a little when his hand, cold from the drink, touched between my shoulder blades. He ran his hand up to my neck, then over my right shoulder, pushing the dress off. Then he ran his hand to the left shoulder, until the dress slipped off and pooled around my ankles. I felt a breeze over my body. He slipped his finger under the bra strap. “Take this off.”
I did, dropping it to the porch floor. He stroked under my waistband. He wanted that off too. I knew it, and I complied. I was fully naked except for my shoes, with my back to him.
“Face me.”
I did. I’d never felt so naked in my life as he took his time looking me over.
“Hands behind your back.”
I think if anyone else had gotten to command number four, I would have started laughing, but he wasn’t anyone else.
“You doing okay?” he asked, stepping up to me. He put the glass to my lips and tipped it. Warmth filled my chest. It was good whiskey. The single malt I’d suspected.
“It’s warm tonight,” I said.
He put his face up to mine and whispered, “Infield fly rule. What is it?”
He kissed my neck as I answered. “When there’s a force play at third, any fly hit inside the baselines, whether it’s caught or not, means the batter’s automatically out.”
“Why?” He bit the corner of my neck and shoulder, and I gasped.
“To prevent an intentional error that would manufacture a double play.”
“You are very real.” He enunciated each word.
He drank the last of the whiskey and took an ice cube in his teeth. He put his face to mine and pressed the ice cube to my lips. I sucked on it, then took it from him, holding it in my mouth.
He took half a step back. I must have been a sight: naked but for my heels, hands behind my back, with an ice cube in my mouth. “And you are stunning,” he said, lifting his glass. He put the cold base of it to my nipple, and I groaned as it hardened. He touched the other on
e, chilling it to a rock.
He bent down and warmed my breast with his mouth, sucking on the hard tip, pulling on it with lip-blunted teeth. I gasped, but couldn’t open my mouth farther or I’d lose the ice. I guess that wouldn’t have been the worst tragedy, but I knew the game was to keep the ice in my teeth. His attention to my breast made me groan, awakening the warmth in my crotch. The ice in my mouth melted, dripping down my chin and neck, tingling a wet path to my stomach. He licked the droplets that found their way to my breasts, warming cooled skin with his tongue. When I thought I couldn’t take another minute of his attention without falling down from the pleasure of it, he stood straight and put his mouth over mine, sucking the ice back.
He crunched it and said, “Come on in.”
I stepped past the threshold, and he closed the door behind me. The living room was impeccable in dark woods and Persian carpets. The bookcases were full. The whole place was the exact opposite of the cold modernity of his hotels.
Jonathan stood in front of me, watching my eyes take in the details of his house. The paintings. The stained glass. The clean corners and fluffed pillows. He kissed me again and, having forgotten the edict about the position of my hands, I put my arms around him. His hands warmed my back, his touch solid and strong. He kissed my cheek and neck. “Go upstairs. There’s a room with the light on and an open door. Sit on the end of the bed. I’m going to lock up down here.”
“Okay,” I said because I needed to hear the sound of my own voice at the end of so many commands. I backed up, and he watched me as I turned and went up the stairs.
The room he wanted was right in front of me. There were other doors, all closed. I heard him banging around downstairs with locks and lights. I could peek in one room, just to see, then say I was looking for the bathroom, but the idea lasted the time it took for me to step into the room with the single, glowing lamp.
I sat at the edge of the bed. It must have been a guest bedroom. There were no pictures, no personal effects, just a hardwood bed and matching craftsman style dressers.