Karin smiled into her Bluetooth headset “I’m in Ohio” she told her. Pennsylvania had been a long bitch. It was snowing too and she wasn’t thrilled with the roads. The interstate was well plowed but it wasn’t her she was worried about but the other drivers.
“Where are you going to stop?” Cassie asked knowing how late it was.
“Somewhere soon, I’m tired” Karin confessed. She had been on the road all day and the stress of the snow and driving was tiring her out.
“I think I’m flying over you right now” Cassie teased.
“How was Detroit?” Karin asked already having heard from a team member about the numbers.
Cassie launched into a recital of how beautiful the show had been. It was so high tech now and they were all performers, the ticket holders really got their monies worth these days but at the prices they were paying, they deserved it. Karin had explained early on it didn’t matter how well Cassie sang if they didn’t give a spectacular performance. They were entertainers, so entertain the masses. She had copied something that Garth Brooks had learned long ago, added in Madonna’s spectacular shows, and hired a man away from the Celine Dion shows in Las Vegas to help accomplish it time and again. It worked. Cassie Summer’s shows were entertainment!
‘You’re here!’ she thought as she gazed at the body curled up in her bed. She quickly got out of her clothes and crawled in next to the woman sleeping in the bed. The muted light on the bedside allowed her to take in the planes of the woman’s face and the contours of what she could see of her body that had been exposed by the sheets. She was surprised to see Karin wearing a shirt, she never wore clothes to bed if she could help it, she found them too restrictive, too constrictive. Cassie watched her breathe for a long, long time, amazed at how much she loved this woman. This wild, impetuous, stubborn woman. Finally she dozed off, her head on the pillow gazing at the woman she loved.
Karin woke to the most delicious of dreams. A warm wet mouth was kissing and tonguing along her neck finding that exact spot that made her want to....she sighed in her sleep and hugged her pillow tighter, her back and buttocks arching in response to the stimulation. A hand caressed down her back and over her hip seeking a spot between her thighs, feeling its warmth, created its own. She sighed deeply, what a great dream. She gently parted her legs to allow the probing fingers access and lo and behold they found the hard little nub that was begging for attention. She could feel her wetness against the hand that began its little tickling dance. She sighed in her sleep as she turned over onto her back as the wet mouth began going down her torso, she could tell when a nose nuzzled aside the shirt she was wearing and found her engorged nipple, begging to be tongued and obliged so willingly. She sighed as she rolled over towards the warm body. It was the contact with that body that had her coming almost violently awake.
Grabbing Cassie’s hands in her own she said “stop! Cassie, STOP!”
Cassie grinned and ignored her. Karin pulled Cassie’s hands away from her own body and Cassie looked at her in surprise. “You don’t really want me to stop do you?”
“Actually, I do! We HAVE to talk, and we have to talk NOW!” she said ominously.
Cassie looked at her and realized how serious she was. She stopped struggling against Karin’s grip and pulled back. “I guess we do” she said quietly and looked a little embarrassed.
Karin was still tired and having come awake so hard was still struggling with her eyelids and getting them completely open. She let go of Cassie to rub her eyes.
“I’m so glad you’re here” Cassie said and she couldn’t hold the excitement out of her voice.
Karin looked at her as though she had gone mad. “You might not be after you hear what I have to say.”
Cassie looked at her warily, she knew she had been a bit high handed and that Karin had been angry. “I’m sorry! I really am, but I missed you so much I wanted you here...” she began and then left off as Karin looked at her incredulously.
“So you demanded my presence? What, I’m your beck and call girl now?”
“No, it wasn’t like that.”
“Then tell me what was it like?”
“I was just so pleased that you were moved in that I couldn’t wait for you to get here.”
Karin could hear the excitement in Cassie’s voice, she didn’t want to kill that, she didn’t want to hurt her, but she couldn’t remember ever being so angry at this woman before, well maybe once... “So you set your dogs on me to escort me to the limo, to the private jet, to your hotel room?”
“It wasn’t like that I swear, I just wanted to make it easy for you!”
“Do you know how much like a kept woman I felt when Meredith came in with her key into your house and calmly informed me that she had three dresses for me to choose from for Sunday, that they matched yours and then informed me that she had a limo waiting to take me to the airport?”
“I just wanted to make it easy for you....” she began again but cut it off at Karin’s glare.
“Just because we are engaged, just because I moved in with you, does NOT mean that you own me in any shape, manner, or form!” Karin made a move to get out of the bed and Cassie grabbed her shoulder to hold her to the bed.
“Look, it wasn’t like that. Not at all. I just ...” she looked down at her hand and realized it was the one that had her ring on it, she gulped and released Karin to finish “I got so excited by everything coming together like it was and thought we could be together sooner. It wasn’t meant to be a command performance, I swear.”
“Your servants certainly follow your orders well” she said dryly.
“I asked them to make a smooth transition for you.”
“You could have at least waited a day so I had time to relax!”
“I thought you could sleep on the plane ride...” she began and stopped again at another glare.
“Do you know how much I’ve been through in the past couple of days?”
Cassie nodded and then looked puzzled.
“I drove to Wisconsin. We packed up that trailer in record time; I emptied that house that I haven’t really lived in for the past few years....”
Cassie interrupted “you could have moved in sooner if you ...”
Karin raised a hand to cut her off “I wasn’t ready! Didn’t you get that?” She frowned and turned away from her fiancée so she could think. “I’ve been traveling the last few years, going ‘home’ was a ritual for me. When we packed it all up last month, I still didn’t really feel like I was moving” she gulped “I just wanted time to adjust. The actual trailer packing took very little time with everything in boxes. The boys had the few pieces of furniture in there within a relatively short time. The plants were in the Pathfinder, I was ready to go. And yet” here she paused “I decided to have a drink. They dropped me off on their way out of town back to their homes. My boys,” she paused again “have lives of their own and now they have no home to go to” she said sadly.
“Karin, they knew that last month when they got their stuff out for you. I thought when we boxed everything up then that this was the next logical step” Cassie tried to console her.
“We lived there a lot of years; they grew up in that house. Now, we will only visit each other’s houses. It’s the end of an era. I started drinking with a beer and then switched to a screwdriver. Once that buzz was there I let it wear off with kiddy cocktails since I don’t really drink. It was nice, I was in a bar where no one knew me, thinking about life and what do you think happens, in walks someone who once made my life miserable when I lived there, before this job, before school, in another lifetime. The look on her face must have mirrored mine. She had the nerve to come over and say hello as though we were friends again, as though nothing had ever happened between us.”
“What happened?” Cassie listened carefully.
“I said hello and she asked what I was doing there, she had heard I moved away. I laughed and said yes, I’m moving to Nashville. I flashed my ring at her and said
‘I’m engaged’ showing it off as though a trophy. Then I finished my drink and just then the taxi I had ordered arrived. Kismet, great timing, whatever, I smiled at her and said ‘have a nice life, I know I will’ as I grinned, threw a twenty on the bar for a two dollar drink and walked out the door. I felt good about that.” She smiled in remembrance. It was one of those rare moments when you come out on top.
“And then I came home feeling good, crawled into my sleeping bag, and began thinking of you. The small amount of alcohol made the bumps and bruises of moving things that day go away for a while but it also relaxed me enough to make me horny and to begin thinking of you. Then you called.”
Cassie smiled remembering that call. It had gotten them both hot and horny knowing how much each of them had wanted the other. They had seriously thought about having phone sex but each had wanted to wait until they were together, they could wait, each was worth it for the other.
“I slept for only four hours that night before realizing it was stupid. I was rested, the house was empty, I got up and grabbed my sleeping bag and few other things and left. There was nothing there for me anymore; my things were in the trailer. I did nothing but drive almost straight through to Nashville, thinking about my life, our life, what was next on the agenda. Emptying that trailer into your garage and returning the trailer to U-Haul, I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was rest and take a shower and in walks Meredith with a clipboard of demands all dictated by you. I was tired, I got angry!”
Cassie remembered that anger, the phone call that she hadn’t answered and the message she had gotten had put her into a fine mood. For a moment there she had thought their engagement was over, Karin had been that furious. Then the second phone call that she missed and an equally nasty message. Then the silence, ominous silence. She had obsessively returned the calls and it was obvious that Karin’s phone was turned off. Meredith’s too as she couldn’t reach her either. She had no clue what had happened, that was why she was so happy, relieved, and thrilled to find Karin in her bed when she had gotten into the hotel last night. She had left rehearsal so dejected that she had snapped at her band mates and they knew something was up. She had cut things short at rehearsal and pissed off a few important people but she was no good there, worrying about her relationship with Karin.
Karin relaxed a little as she told Cassie what she had done. Getting up and threatening Meredith and taking her key from her she had thrown her almost bodily out of the house. She had slammed the door and then picked up the gowns that she had left and thrown those in their garment bags at a bewildered and retreating Meredith before slamming the door again. Sitting there for only about five minutes, long enough to call Cassie the first time who she knew was rehearsing; she headed for the shower and soaked there for about fifteen minutes. The heat of the water had relaxed her muscles, taken off the layers of dirt that were on her skin, in her pores, and taken the edge off her anger. She began to pack methodically. She was an expert at it as she had lived out of these suitcases for the past couple of years so she was done quickly. It only took a few minutes actually before she was out the door and surprised to see the limo still sitting in the driveway. She was surprised it was still there but she supposed Meredith hadn’t wanted to leave without Cassie’s authorization and was confused what to do next. The driver practically dove out of his seat to take her bags. She kept her briefcase with her as she got into the back where Meredith cowered.
“Give me your phone!” Karin barked at her.
“My ph phone?” Meredith stuttered looking bewildered.
Karin held out her hand and waited. Meredith handed it to her hesitantly. For a second Karin considered smashing it or throwing it out the window. The slamming of the trunk though startled her from that line of thought. “I’m not having you calling her, texting her, or notifying her that I’m following her orders. You will not tell her that I’m on my way, or have arrived. You will get your phone back after I have a little talk with her and not before!” She didn’t say another word to the assistant who looked at her as though she had gone crazy. The limo drove off. Karin intimidated Meredith, always had, but she had also always been kind and courteous. This side of Karin no one had seen and Meredith wasn’t sure how to handle it. She cowered in her corner.
Karin also talked to the captain when she got on the private plane. She told him she didn’t want Meredith having access to a fax machine, a phone, or any communication. Was that understood?
“Is there a problem I should know of?” he asked her in surprise.
Karin looked at him exasperated and realized it wasn’t his problem. “I’m about to marry your employer” she waved her engagement ring for effect, as if he and the other employees didn’t know how happy Cassie was about this “who do you think she will listen to when it comes time to fire or be fired?” she asked him. He got the idea and agreed to her request.
During the five hour flight to Los Angeles Karin fought hard to stay awake. She didn’t trust Meredith to somehow communicate with Cassie and she watched her like a hawk, a very sleepy and irritated hawk. The limo ride took a relatively short time from the airport. She was glad that Meredith wasn’t holding grudges as she expertly handled the desk clerk as Karin and she were soon in Cassie’s private suite of rooms. Meredith went directly to her own small room and Karin wondered if she made a call from there but was too tired at that point to care, she was there as ordered and she pulled her jeans, her bra, and her socks off leaving her shirt on and crawled into the welcoming bed. The next thing she knew, Cassie was making love to her.
“Look, I’m sorry. I really am but I wanted you here this weekend and when you got done so soon I thought getting you here early would be something you wanted too...”
Karin looked at her. She couldn’t stay angry. She loved her too damn much. Giving her a big sigh she looked into those gray blue eyes and leaned in for a kiss. That was all it took to forgive and forget as they began to make love. Karin and Cassie exploded into each other’s arms. They were apart too much to waste time in anger. It was a while later before they got up to start the day.
They went to shop on Rodeo Drive to find Karin a last minute gown for the Grammy Awards on Sunday. Karin found nothing that she liked that wasn’t outrageously expensive and even then, nothing felt right. She did not want to ‘match’ Cassie so the gowns Cassie had bought were totally out of the running. Cassie had to go to the theater to practice as they would be performing Sunday. Karin was left alone to find her own gown and was growing frustrated. She knew she shouldn’t have waited until the last minute or she should have gotten something appropriate in New York. She couldn’t wear just another business suit as she was representing Kreske Public Relations firm as well as Cassie’s fiancée and manager. She knew she wanted to look nice for Cassie and wearing a business suit would be her defeat, she wanted to make Cassie happy, she wanted to make her proud. She wanted to fit in and yet not draw attention to their real relationship. No one had figured out that their rings matched although the press had tried to figure out the significance of Cassie Summers wearing an engagement ring for the past two months. They hadn’t really been seen together and on Grammy night they would be. Karin still wasn’t sure if she wanted the world to know that they were engaged, that she was the one that Cassie Summers loved. For all anyone outside their immediate circle knew, they were just promoter and client. Many times clients took their managers with them to these events. Karin had been to the various award shows as Cassie took awards at the CMT Music Awards, the MTV Video Awards, and various others but she always kept in the background, always kept Cassie out front and never let on that she was anything other than ‘just’ her manager. It wasn’t easy, the press weren’t stupid but Karin was very adept at avoiding questions and Cassie’s no comment on the subject of her engagement had only fueled the fire. The madhouse would be at the Grammy’s.
Karin wandered into the Galleria Mall in downtown LA. She stopped at a few shops and found nothing that she could wear. S
he stopped in a bridal shop and began looking at the different gowns they had on display, not the bridal gowns but the bridesmaids and the ones they rented out for those ‘special’ occasions. Well, this was certainly a special occasion. She couldn’t tell the saleswoman she needed a gown for the Grammy’s but she helped her look through those they had on the floor in her size. She was getting depressed as she had seen hundreds of dresses that day and nothing had really done anything for her. She had seen hundreds of cocktail dresses, sleazy things, ones that were over the top and would never been seen on her body, some that would have been okay but she was looking for that one special dress. She wanted to dress to please Cassie and she was almost getting desperate enough to wear one of those Cassie had chosen that would match her own. She thought that would certainly give them away to the press.
“Ma’am” the clerk was feeling her own desperation as she showed her just one more.
Karin turned from where she was staring bemusedly at a bride trying on a gown and was pleased with the dress the woman was holding up. Of a deep green color she liked the cut of it. “Wow, where did you find that one?” she asked enthusiastically as she held her hand out for it.
“I know we’ve seen a lot of dresses this afternoon but we can keep trying” the saleswoman said helpfully.
Karin held the dress up to her body in the three way mirror and narrowed her eyes. She realized immediately if this one fit it would be the dress for her to wear. It matched her jade green eyes exactly, she was startled to realize. She hurried into the dressing room to try it on and hurried out just as quickly to look in the mirrors. The clerk helped zip up the long zipper from her buttocks up her back and Karin had never felt something so skin tight but when she looked in the mirrors she was amazed. It fit her like a glove, like it had been made for her. She turned this way and that and was thrilled with what she saw.
“Oh miss, that looks marvelous” the clerk gushed spontaneously. They were supposed to compliment the clientele but she was sincere this time. This woman had been a hard sale but even she realized this one was something special.
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