by Heidi Lowe
She planted slow kisses on my tummy through the fabric of my T-shirt.
“That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. I made her look at me, stealing her attention away from my stomach. “Can we talk for a minute?”
“Of course. What's on your mind?”
“I know you like that I'm always available when you wake up, and that you like spoiling me; but, Jean, I need to make my own money now. I need a job.”
She frowned. “You already have a job. You're an artist.”
“In the real world being an artist isn't really a job. And let's face it, you're basically my only fan, and you're biased. I can't keep taking your handouts.”
“It's not a handout. I compensate you for your art like any other customer. I adore your paintings, you know that.”
She couldn't separate her bias from business when it came to me, and she couldn't see that. My paintings were fine, but they weren't mind-blowing, life-altering. I'd come to accept that; now she needed to.
“I need a proper job. I'll still paint on the side, in my spare time, and you can have it all. Free.”
“You won't have any spare time with a job.” The way her eyebrows were furrowed made it seem as though she had been personally insulted. “No spare time to paint, and no spare time to spend with me.”
So that was her worry, that I wouldn't have time for her. I smiled then, thinking that my proposition would please her.
“That's why I want a job at the bar.”
“Please tell me you're talking about the legal bar and not my jazz bar.”
“Oh, come on, it's a great idea. I could do a few evening shifts while you're there, and we could still see each other.”
“Lissa, why would you want to work in a bar, especially a jazz bar? You don't like jazz. It's not nearly as glamorous as it looks, honey.”
Usually her use of the word 'honey' didn't have condescending connotations to it, but this time it did.
“You sound like my high school career guidance counselor!” I groaned. “I've worked in a bar before. I know what it's like.” Yeah, for a few weeks when I was seventeen. Once they found out I'd lied about my age, I got fired.
“I'm sorry, all right. I didn't mean to sound so patronizing. But if you really want a job, why not an office job with normal hours? Something that might actually challenge you? I have a brokerage firm; I could get you to shadow one of my top brokers and let him give you on-the-job training.”
“I don't want to be a stockbroker. I want to work in the Lox Ridge Lounge with people my own age, with down-to-earth people, with my girlfriend a few meters away from me. That's what I want.”
She stared at me with a blank expression, and I thought she was going to tell me to go to hell. When she got up abruptly without saying anything, my heart started pounding in my chest with mounting fear, fear that I had pissed her off, gone too far with my demands. I thought I would be out on my ass.
She grabbed her car keys off the desk and headed to the door. Damn it! I never knew when to let up. Surely she'd had enough of me now.
“Jean,” I said, pleading and remorse in my voice. Emotionally there would be no coming back from losing her. I was way too invested, way too in love. If it took begging, I would be on my hands and knees to do anything she asked.
“Well, aren't you coming?” she asked at the door.
“Where?”
“You said you want a job at the bar, so you've got it. And your shift starts now.”
She pulled into the staff section of the Lox Ridge Lounge parking lot and cut the engine. The whole ride over I'd been wary of where she was actually taking me. Only when we turned onto the street of the bar did I realize that she was being sincere.
“Jean, are you mad at me?” I asked, giving her a puppy dog look, even pushing out my bottom lip to complete the effect.
“Of course I'm not mad at you, honey. I don't understand you fully, but I'm not mad.”
“So you're really going to let me work here? For you?”
“If that's what you want, yes.” I knew it wasn't what she wanted, even without her choice of words. But she leaned over and kissed me. She always smelled divine; sweet and spicy. I tried to keep the kiss going as long as I could, holding her when she was about to pull away. And when she finally did, she chuckled. “Trying to get your final kisses in before you start work, I see. You know once we get in there, and once you become my employee, you don't get any special treatment for being the boss's girlfriend, don't you?”
“I can't kiss you or touch you until my shift ends?” I said, floored by the revelation. What good was being the boss's girlfriend without the sex at work benefits?
She shook her head. “That's right, no hanky-panky at work.”
“But you and Robyn...” Did I need to remind her that I'd spied on her being screwed on her desk by one of her employees?
“Well, Robyn runs the place. She may be my employee, but she's management. There are different rules for management.” A tiny but visible smile stayed on her lips as she spoke, probably making up the rules as she went along. She wanted me to give in and change my mind, go back home with her and resume our functioning arrangement where she took care of me and I gladly let her.
But I wasn't going to be dissuaded. “That's a-okay, boss.”
“I'm a bit of a slave-driver, I should warn you.”
“I'm not afraid of hard work.”
“If you screw something up more than once, I won't hold back on telling you, in front of everyone, what a failure you are.”
I gulped. She wouldn't really do that to me, would she? She wouldn't do that to her employees? “I'll just have to not screw up.”
“And when I ask you to do something, I expect you to do it without any complaints or arguments.”
I shouldn't have been so turned on by all of this, but I couldn't help it. She was at her sexiest when she was in business mode. Here was a woman who employed hundreds and hundreds of people across the world, gave orders every night and everyone obeyed her; yet when we were together that whole facade disappeared, and she was mine to do with as I pleased. It made me feel powerful.
“Fine.” As she went to step out of the car, I added, “So you won't have a problem with me flirting with the customers, you know, as all barmaids do on the job?” Two could play this game.
There was that little smile again, only this time I wore one of my own.
“No problem at all.”
“Good,” I said.
“Good,” she said.
We went inside. All of her employees greeted her warmly as soon as we stepped in, but gave me dubious looks as I stood by her side. It felt like Take Your Daughter to Work Day!
The bar was quiet; gentle jazz music played from the surrounding speakers. No live bands tonight, but things were expected to pick up later for the happy hour at nine. Robyn entered the room from out back, and when she spotted me, her expression, which had already been sullen, became even more so.
Robyn's loyalty to Jean both fascinated and angered me. Despite being all but replaced by me as Jean's right hand gal – at least in the sack and at home – she continued to be the dutiful second in command in business, and of course in providing nourishment. I wouldn't have known where to start in obtaining blood donations. I knew Jean needed her, probably more than she needed me, and I hated her for it. Whenever she was around I felt my role had been reduced to one of live-in fuck-toy.
“Robyn, do you have a minute?” Jean called to her. She strutted over, shot me a filthy look, then gave her full attention to Jean. “Lissa's going to be working here a few nights a week. Could we find a uniform for her, and then get someone to walk her through everything?”
“We don't need any new staff, Jean,” Robyn said stiffly. I could tell it pained her to hold back on screaming profanities at me, or at her boss for now incorporating me into the business. Had I been in her position I would have felt the same.
“We could always use an extra p
air of hands,” Jean said, smiling. “I'll leave her in your capable hands. I've got some things to do downstairs.”
She was leaving me with Robyn! Did she wish me dead or something? Yeah, Robyn's hands were capable all right. Capable of strangling me!
Jean didn't even look back before she strolled off. I wanted her to come back, save me from the misery I'd gotten myself into, but she was gone.
Robyn glowered at me, looking down at me like I was a pile of trash.
“So now she expects me to babysit you,” she said, shaking her head.
“I don't need babysitting. I just need a job,” I retorted, sounding as childish as I felt under her glare.
“No, you want to keep an eye on her, to make sure she isn't doing anyone else. Already paranoid, huh?” She grinned cruelly. The way she spoke suggested that she'd been in the same position once.
Sadly, there was much truth in her words. Although Jean and I spent a lot of time together, we didn't spend all of our time together. When she wasn't with me, and when I was sleeping, she conducted her business the way she had done before I'd come on the scene. That included going to the bar, being among her willing givers. Old memories, most of them probably good. I didn't like it one bit. When Hilarie went to work for hours on end, I never thought about what she was doing. When Jean went in for a couple of hours, if she wasn't there when I woke up during the night, I freaked out. Worried and wondered, picking up the phone to reach her and find out what she was doing, though never actually pressing call. If your lover was constantly surrounded by attractive ex-lovers, people from whom she still drank, you'd be paranoid too.
“I give it a month,” Robyn said, laughing wickedly to herself. Then she called one of the barmen over. “This is Lissa. She'll be working here for a little while. Can you show her around, get her a uniform, that sort of thing? I'll be downstairs with Jean.”
Her eyes glistened with relish when she said that last sentence, and even more when she added, “Don't disturb us for any reason.”
The man was a scarf-less blond named Kurt, who looked a couple of years younger than me. He had a good-looking, cheeky, elf-like face with pointy features. I'd never seen him here before, and immediately thought Petr would like him.
“So, how do you know the boss?” he asked as he showed me how to serve the perfect draft beer. It was a skill I'd never mastered in my four-week stint in the dive bar when I was seventeen. A skill I also wasn't about to pick up now, as I was far too distracted to take anything in.
“Uh, she's an old friend.” Was I right in saying that? Had Jean announced her new relationship status to them already?
“Right. I've been here two years and never seen her hire someone personally before. You must be special.”
I wasn't paying much attention. Right then I didn't think I was special. Robyn and Jean had been downstairs for almost an hour by then, and every minute of it had been pure agony, wondering what they were getting up to. Although we'd never spoken about being exclusive, the arrangement seemed to imply it. You didn't tell someone you loved them, move them into your home, give them half your closet space and everything they wanted if you still planned on sleeping with other people. Or did you? I wasn't sure anymore. I had to find out.
“Do you mind if I use the bathroom?” I inserted quickly before he continued babbling about how to work the beer tap. At that point I wouldn't have cared if he'd been sharing the secret of turning rocks into gold – I needed to know what was going on downstairs.
“Sure. It's through that door and–”
“Yeah, got it.”
I all but sprinted down those stairs once I was alone, and practically ran to the back office. When I got there, however, the door was closed. I heard shuffling inside, so I tried the handle. It was locked.
Okay, don't panic. Maybe she went out the back way. Maybe that's not her in there, I tried to console myself.
But then I heard, “Come back later. We're busy right now.” It was Jean's voice, no doubt about that. And clearly there was someone else in there with her. It was all I could do not to break the door down. Would she have been furious with me if I had?
I returned to the bar in an even worse state than I'd left it, and the first couple of hours of my first shift were awful. I couldn't smile or flirt with the customers, I kept forgetting their orders, I completely fudged the drinks.
Having been tucked away downstairs with Robyn for almost three hours, Jean finally resurfaced. The bar had really picked up and filled. I'd been put on table duty, and was wiping the hell out of a table, taking my anger out on it, when Jean spoke behind me and startled me.
“If you keep scrubbing it like that, you'll take the paint off,” she said, laughing.
I didn't even look at her, simply continued wiping.
She came and sat at the empty table. I felt her eyes on me the whole time. I refused to look at her.
“How's your first shift going?”
“Fine.” My answer came short and stiff. The table had been spotless for a minute, but I kept wiping.
She put her hand over mine and stopped me. “Just fine? How is everyone treating you?”
My eyes became slits of hatred when I finally looked at her. She'd obviously straightened herself up after her roll in the hay with Robyn, because she looked as put together as she had done three hours ago.
“What the hell do you care?” I said, my voice lowered.
“What do I care?” She sounded amused. “I care a lot. What's the matter, my darling?” She was teasing me, playing with me while I was flipping out. She thought the whole thing was a joke. She sat there with her leg crossed, in skin-tight black jeans, cowboy boots and a white blouse that was purposefully tight around the breast area. Her dark hair was pulled to one side and fell over her shoulder, covering one breast. My God was she sexy! It hurt to look at her knowing she'd betrayed me. How could I have been foolish enough to think I could have someone so beautiful, so desirable to myself, forever? But damn her for making me believe I could.
“Was that my punishment for wanting my independence?” I felt like hurling the wet cloth in her face, more to shield her heart-stopping beauty from me than anything else. I snatched my hand away. “You screw another woman while I'm upstairs cleaning your tables and serving your customers?”
“This is hardly a conversation we should be having here, wouldn't you agree?” Why didn't she seem to care that I was upset? She'd cared so much before now. What was different? “Shouldn't we wait until we're home to talk about it?”
“I'm not coming home tonight.”
“Why's that? Because you think I did something naughty? And why would you think that? Is it perhaps because you came downstairs to check up on me again?”
So she knew I was there, just like she'd known before. I still didn't know how she did it. She said she couldn't put it into words, that it was just a sense she had.
“Leave me alone,” I growled, furious at being caught yet again, and even more furious at her for enjoying my pain.
“Okay, I will. I'm heading back home now. I've arranged for someone to drop you home when your shift ends.” She got up and stood so close to me she was almost on top of me. Then she whispered, “Maybe while you're here you can think about all the things I've said to you these past couple of months. Then really ask yourself if I would ever do what you're suggesting I did.”
Her warm breath still caressed my ear long after she'd departed.
TWENTY
The second half of my shift went better than the first, but only slightly. Now instead of being angry and distracted, I was bewildered and distracted. Add to that the memory of Jean's smooth, English voice in my ear turning me on like never before. I could have taken her there and then, in front of the whole bar. That was how hot she'd made me. Converting my fury to mind-numbing lust was her specialty.
So nothing happened down there between her and Robyn? Was that what she meant? Only once the car had dropped me outside our home was I finally cont
ent to answer those questions. As I trudged up the stairs, which seemed to have a million steps now that I was exhausted, I knew they hadn't slept together. So blinded by my rage and jealousy, I'd forgotten everything that she'd said to me; every kiss, every cuddle, every declaration of love, every promise. Everything. I felt silly.
“There's my working girl,” she announced when I walked into our bedroom. She was already in bed, in nothing but her bra and panties, a door-stopper book open on her lap. Like this she could have been a normal woman waiting for her partner to come home from work. Like this we could have kissed each other goodnight and fallen asleep like a normal couple, waking up beside each other the following morning without one of us bursting into flames.
I climbed out of my clothes without saying a word to her, and she watched me with lustful eyes, putting her book blindly on the nightstand. I pulled off the dinner jacket slowly, pulled off the T-shirt even slower. All the while I kept my distance from her. She'd put me through hell tonight at the bar, even when she wasn't there. It was time for me to return the favor.
Under her longing gaze I climbed into bed beside her and didn't kiss her, didn't touch her as I turned my back to her and pretended to go to sleep.
It took her thirty-seven seconds – I know, I was counting – to tire of being ignored. I felt her hand caress my back, felt her mouth on my neck.
“I missed you,” she whispered between kisses, pressing her breasts to my back. I prayed her hand didn't wander south to my crotch, where she would discover just how much I'd missed her too. I wanted to make her suffer a little while longer.
“I didn't miss you. Not one bit. I got to know my coworkers really well. One in particular. We got to know each other extremely well...”
Her kisses ceased abruptly. “What is that supposed to mean?”