by Adams, PJ
“And the rest of them?”
“Sadly, they’re the ones I do business with.”
There was a tension in the way he held himself now. It was a shift she had learned to recognize. Ray was a man who didn’t like to lose control of things, didn’t like being pushed around, didn’t like it when he didn’t know for sure what was happening. It was why he could record an album in twelve days straight and then spend months mixing and tweaking the recordings, because he wanted to get it just right.
“Mo said it was TV people you were seeing?”
“TV. Record company crew came along for the trip. They all want a piece. There’s a lot at stake with this new album. I’m a lot of people’s pension plan and they all want to call the shots. And everyone tells me I have to just go along with it all. I haven’t been this much of a corporate whore since I was a nineteen year-old kid from nowhere on the cusp of breaking through.”
“When all you really want is to make music, right?”
He looked at her, as if he thought she was teasing, or mocking, but then relaxed when he saw she wasn’t.
“I don’t need all this.”
“So what do you need? Why are you flying to Berlin and jumping through the corporate hoops again? Do you need the money? Is that what this is about?”
He snorted a laugh. “No,” he said. “Ray Sandler Inc isn’t about to run dry.”
“So why are you doing it? To prove a point?”
“Is this what you do? In your business consultancy? I bet you’re good.”
“I’m very good.” They were both smiling now. “I’m very very good.”
“Oh, I know!”
They kissed. Slow and tender.
“So what would your advice be?” asked Ray, as Emily settled her head on his chest again. Such an intimate way to be: half-sitting, half-lying like this.
“I wouldn’t give advice yet,” she said. “I could offer you some truisms, of course, like try to understand what you can control and learn to let go of what you can’t. Treat people well. Try to dictate the pace and the rules. That kind of thing. But you can get that kind of advice anywhere. What I do is work my way into your business mindset, understand it from the inside. I’d keep asking questions until I understood what made Ray Sandler Inc work, or not work.”
“So ask.” He’d moved a hand to the back of her head now, the thumb gently stroking the nape of her neck, sending thrills right through her.
“Why are you doing it?”
“‘It’?”
“This comeback. You say it’s not for the money, and yet you’re frustrated because you’re being pushed around by the people who do control the money. Why?”
There was a long pause while he thought about her question, then he said, “Because that’s how the business works?” His answer had turned into a question, because he clearly didn’t understand his own motivations.
“But you don’t need it. You don’t need ‘the way the business works’ to dictate to you. Why make this record?” She sat up now, so she could see him better.
“Mid-life crisis?”
“You’re a bit young for that.”
“It’s been a while,” he said. He’d only released two solo albums before: one immediately after the Angry Cans split, and then another a couple of years later. Nothing in something like seven or eight years. “A few months ago I was talking with Rake about the old days. I guess that set me thinking...” Rake had been the Cans’ bass player, the one everyone fancied if they didn’t fancy Ray. According to press stories Rake and Ray weren’t on speaking terms but that was clearly not true. “A couple of new songs came along and then without ever planning to I was thinking in terms of an album.”
“Did you feel you had to prove something?”
“Maybe. But it’s more than that. To be honest, there’s not much left to prove–”
“Except that you can still do it.”
“Ouch!” His mock hurt face was very close to the real thing.
“Maybe not prove something then,” she said. “Are you trying to recapture something?”
“The music.” Unlike his earlier answers, this one was sharp, decisive. “It really is all about the music. I wanted to get back to that passion for the music, and to do that properly you have to be playing in a band, putting a record together, putting on a few shows. The works.”
It really was all about the music.
“You know the most valuable piece of advice I can ever give?”
He waited for her to go on.
“It’s to stay true to yourself. To understand why you’re doing what you do and then make everything you do serve to further that.”
“You could have said that at the start.”
“I could. It wouldn’t have meant anything, though. But after a bit of digging you’ve just told me what it’s all about, and suddenly the advice means something: stay true to your music and don’t let people lead you away from that. You’re not doing it for them – you’re doing it for you.”
Now she echoed his position from earlier, sitting sideways on the sofa, one leg tucked under the other. She liked him like this, so wrapped up in his world, exploring.
He smiled now, and Emily said, “What? What’s so funny?”
“Just wondering how much you charge?”
“For my advice? I’m expensive. But I take payment in kind.”
An eyebrow, slowly raised. He leaned forward so that his face was close to hers. “You think it’s time to settle up?”
“Maybe.”
He traced a finger down the side of her neck to her collarbone, teasing her blouse open just a little so that the fabric pulled at the buttons and across her breasts.
She reached up and released one of those buttons, so that now his finger could run down over the first swell of her breast. He turned his hand and the contact from one knuckle was firmer than his finger had been. She released another button and he ran his knuckle down her cleavage, the back of his hand on the smooth skin of one breast, the back of his finger running across the other.
As she moved towards the next button he covered her hand, his fingers inside her blouse, against one breast. Holding her like this, he drew her towards him, kissed her, made her heart race and thump.
She rested her free hand flat against his chest, the muscles so solid.
It felt almost like a first time. That kiss. The feel of him. Maybe it was a reaction to the tension from earlier. It hadn’t exactly been a fight, but it had come close, and it had changed this moment, made it into a tentative, exploring thing, made it into something incredibly precious and valuable.
She ran her hand down over his ribs, over his belly to his hip.
When she had freed his jeans he raised himself slightly so they could both ease them and his shorts down over his thighs.
She met his look, and held it as she moved to kneel between his legs, as she took him in both hands, as she dipped her head and swept her tongue up across his balls and along that hard shaft. As she took the swollen head into her mouth and pushed down.
He was so big... She was barely halfway down when he hit the back of her throat and she had to swallow.
His hand came to the back of her head, fingers laced into her hair, applying gentle pressure. She swallowed again, and felt him slip briefly into her throat before he slid back out. Swallowed again, and held him there, before slowly drawing her head upwards.
His eyes had narrowed, but still he held her look. His mouth had sagged open, and now his hand fell away from the back of her head.
She started to bob up and down, as fast as she could go, matching her rhythm with those two hands around the base of his shaft.
Pressing his hands into the sofa, his whole body stiff, he pushed upwards against her.
She wanted him to have this. Wanted him to feel how he made her feel.
She squeezed her mouth tighter around him and that was all it took. He thrust upwards against her and she felt a throb in the base of his sh
aft, felt a pulse of wet heat exploding in her mouth. She swallowed, sucking him in deeper so that she swallowed that salty wetness and the swollen head of his manhood. Swallowed again and another pulse of his juices filled her. Again, and he started to grow soft in her mouth, a delicious, intimate transition.
She swallowed again, more gently, and then held him in her mouth. Swallowed again and this time was able to take him fully inside her so that her face was pressing against his belly, her chin against his balls.
She would have stayed like that, but his hands drew her head away, and then he extricated himself, moved to kneel next to her, took her head in his hands again and kissed her. He must taste his own juices in her mouth, must be taking them in, sharing them.
He eased her onto the sofa, and this time it was her jeans that they removed, her lacy shorts that he drew down her legs. Her leg that he lifted to rest over his shoulder so he could slide a hand underneath her, squeezing her ass, holding her.
He dropped his head and kissed the narrow strip of hair that ran down the center of her mound.
He worked his way down, his lips kneading that softness, his tongue sliding. She felt a tremor of the muscles in her belly when his tongue slid over the hood of skin that covered her clit, and then again when the tip slid between her labia and swept back up to that little hard stud, flicked over it, started to glide slowly around it.
Lower down, he pressed his knuckles against her, grinding against her softness, then allowing his knuckles to slide along the folds of her sex, parting them. A finger found her opening, pressed, and she felt it slide inside, pressing deep until the inside of his thumb and the knuckles of his other fingers came to press against her. He pulled away again and now, when he pushed, there were two fingers sliding inside.
And all the time, the tip of his tongue drew delicate circles around her clit, teasing that most sensitive of places, occasionally flicking across it and sending bolts of pleasure stabbing through her belly.
He started to thrust with that hand, sliding fully in and then pulling back until the tips of his fingers were just teasing her opening, before sliding deep again. There was a strength to that action, a sense of careful control, as if he could carry on forever, relentlessly driving her to heights of–
She was close!
All of a sudden, taking her by surprise in its abrupt intensity.
There was something about the way he was driving those fingers into her, about the impact of knuckles and thumb against her as he thrust deep, and the rapid flicking of his tongue, now passing back and forth directly over her clit.
She reached down, and held his head hard against her, so that now he didn’t have room to keep thrusting those fingers and it was only the flicking of his tongue, orchestrating everything, building it all up to a peak.
She pulled his face even harder against her, felt a sudden tightening, a tremor of muscles deep inside her, and then she was bucking against him, grinding herself against his face, using him to milk every last drop of sensation out of her climax.
§
With a little reluctance, she let go of his head. He eased away, his mouth still against her, and drew in a deep breath, then slumped against her. She thought he was going to stay like that, but then he rolled his shoulders, pushed himself away from her, and hauled himself up onto the sofa beside her.
They settled into a position that echoed how they had been earlier, Emily tucked into him, her head on his chest, her arm draped across his belly.
They dozed and woke, shifting position occasionally as stiffness settled in.
Finally, Emily forced herself to stay awake. It had gone dark outside, and she needed to get home. She hadn’t come up with a decent reason to stay away for a night so soon after last time, and she didn’t want to stir up Thom’s suspicions any further.
She sat, and put a hand on Ray’s arm to rouse him, and it was not long after she managed to wake him that all Hell broke loose.
11
“You don’t have to go, you know.”
“I do. You know I do.” He was doing that thing again, the thing that somehow combined innocence with a small boy’s mischievous sense of doing just about anything to get what he wants. “I told you I can’t stay out another night. I have to go home, Ray. You know that.”
There was a brief flash of pout – the spoilt small boy thing again – and then he shrugged, smiled, and his entire face was transformed. “I’ll walk you out to Caledonian Road,” he said. “Make sure you get a cab safely.”
She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you,” she whispered, so softly it was almost inaudible. She swallowed, and pulled away. She hadn’t meant to say that... it just spilled out. She didn’t even know if it was true, hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on it or think it through.
It was just there.
Out.
He stood, but didn’t say anything. Maybe he was being sensitive, understanding what a big thing that was for her. Maybe he hadn’t even heard.
“I’ve got to go,” she said again, as if repeating that would somehow move them on past this moment.
She turned and went out into the passage.
At the front door, he stopped her with hands on her waist. Turned her, so that he could kiss her. Then he reached for the door, released the catch and pushed it open and instantly there was a jabber of voices and the night was light up by a barrage of flashes.
Ray’s hand on her upper arm, gripping so tightly it must surely bruise, hauled her back inside and he slammed the door.
“Fuck.”
“What is it? What’s happening?” It had all been so quick. Out in the street, and on the short set of steps leading up to the front door, there was a knot of people. Maybe a dozen of them. Cameras flashing, quickfire. Voices raised, competing with each other.
“Ray! Ray!”
“Who is she, Ray?”
“Where’s Róisín, Ray? What does she think of your new–?”
“Ray! Over here, Ray.”
Now the two of them stood in the passage, the door shut. A series of expressions rushed over Ray’s features, then he muttered “Fuck” again and slapped a hand against a wall.
Then, more softly this time: “Fuck...”
“Did that hurt?”
She stood there, arms folded, one eyebrow raised. Ray opened his mouth to say something, then stopped, met her look, and laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “Too damn right it hurt.”
“So I guess they’re onto us?” She was trying to make light of it, trying not to give into the panicked rush of thoughts filling her head.
Did they know who she was? Even if they didn’t have her name, had they managed to get any usable photos of her in that instant when the door had been open and the cameras flashing? Were the two of them going to be plastered all over the Sunday tabloids? It was early enough still for them to make the later editions; if not, would they be in the papers on Monday? And forget the papers: would those snatched photos be all over the internet tonight, or tomorrow? All through the social media?
If the paparazzi had any half-decent photos, or if they knew her name... it was no longer even a matter of whether Thom would find out, but when...
“God, Ray,” she sighed. “This isn’t good, is it?”
She slipped into his arms, the fit against his body perfect as ever.
Gently stroking her hair, Ray said, “This takes me right back: I haven’t had the press on my doorstep since... well, it’s been years and there was a trashed Lamborghini and three Belgian girls involved in the story.” He was trying to joke, but not doing very well.
“You wouldn’t think they’d be interested,” said Emily. “Surely you’re allowed to have a life, and it’s not as if I’m anybody.”
“I haven’t been allowed to have a life since I was nineteen. And it doesn’t matter who you are: they don’t care. Oh yes, if you turn out to be some other minor celebrity then it gives them a juicy angle, but that doesn’t really matter. I’m Ray San
dler, I’m still married as far as they’re concerned and now I’m sleeping around again. That’s all they need.”
“You might not have been allowed a life, but I have,” she said. “And now they’re going to dig, and keep on digging until they have what they want. My name’s going to get out there and suddenly I won’t have any privacy, and Thom’s going to find out, everyone’s going to find out...”
She could feel him nodding as she spoke. Now he said, “And how do you feel about that? How do you feel about Thom knowing? How do you feel about him, full stop?”
“I don’t know. I’m scared of him finding out, because he’ll take it badly. He’s not violent, not physically, at least, but he really does know how to twist the knife. But I can handle it. I’ve set myself up for this, I can take the blows. But more than that, I don’t want to hurt him, Ray. We’ve both become different people and our marriage is dead, but I don’t want to cause him pain.”
“Maybe you need to tell him before your name gets out there. It’s like you told me: you have to try to understand what you can control and learn to let go of what you can’t – if you tell him first then you’re still in control.”
“You were listening.”
“Raptly.” They both laughed.
They moved apart. Ray turned to walk through to the back of the house and Emily followed.
“What I want to know is who told them?” said Ray. “They don’t just start doorstepping you without reason. Nobody knew you were here, apart from your friend Marcia: do you think she–?”
“No. Marcia’s flaky, but she’s not stupid and she’s not disloyal. I trust her more than I trust anybody.” She stared at Ray’s back, wondering what was going through his mind. She swallowed, then went on: “If you want to know who told them, you need to look closer to home than that.”
She said nothing now, leaving Ray to work it out.
“No,” he said, finally, glancing back over one shoulder. “Mo wouldn’t–”
“I saw him, Ray. He was out there, watching the baying mob.” Mo had been standing by a car on the other side of the road. Leaning back against the driver’s door, arms folded, smiling. Just a glimpse, in that brief moment before Ray had slammed the house door closed again, but it had been enough.