by Berry, Kitty
I enjoy the feel of the silky stockings as I work them up my leg and allow myself to imagine how good they would feel on their way down my legs under Damian’s hand. I clip them to the garter and step back to examine myself in the mirror once more. I look sexy and hot but also a little slutty. This look makes me think of kinky sex and Cinnamon Stick. Ah, if Damian only knew how deep my dark side runs. I remind myself how confident I felt on stage and try to replicate that feeling now.
I slip the dress on but can’t zip the back. I’ll have no choice but to ask him to do it when he arrives so instead I slide my feet into my Louboutin’s and marvel at what they do to my legs. They elongate them and make my calf muscles look firm and lush.
Feeling as read as I am ever going to be I go into the living space to wait for Damian and feel the first twinge of nerves. I have no idea where he is taking me or what he’s intending in this relationship, if it’s even that. He agreed that we need to discuss things but I’m not sure where to begin and how can we truly discuss things when there is this huge issue I can’t bring myself to discuss?
I check my texts to find one from Damian from earlier that I must have missed while in the shower: 4 u never enough, Syd & nothing can b as beautiful as u. Day
There’s a knock on the door and when I answer it all my nerves disappear under my complete and obvious arousal at the well dressed man standing in front of me. Damian is wearing a dark blue one button suit, a matching crisp dark blue dress shirt, a silk silver tie and lace up shoes all from Armani. His hair is dangerous looking, hanging into his face and necessitating his flipping it back out of his eyes. He smiles as his eyes roan over my body from head to toe then the look on his face changes to one of pure unadulterated lust.
“Wow, holy fuck, you look hot as hell” his raspy voice purrs to me.
“Thank you; you don’t look so bad yourself, Mr. Perfection.”
“I heard some rumor about you enjoying the view” he teases me as he reaches for my hand to twirl me around.
“Can you help me with my zipper?” I ask as he reaches for my hand.
“Let me have a look at you first. I may have been wrong. Vera Wang might be better than nothing; it makes the anticipation all the sweeter.”
I duck my head, embarrassed and also because I’m not ready for where this is quickly heading.
He turns me around and I hear his breath hiss as he gets a sight of my exposed back. He pulls the zipper up then kisses me on the nape of my neck giving me chills.
“Shall we? You can show me the paint and all the things you got later. I don’t want us to be late for the show. I think you’re going to like it” he says as he gives me his arm and leads me out of the apartment to the bank of elevators for the ride one floor below to the lobby.
Damian guides me again in his possessive way with his hand on the small of my back sending chills once again down my spine. There is heat where our bodies connect and I wonder what it would feel like to have more of him touch me, to be closer to him, to have him inside me.
When we make it to the curb I don’t see the black Escalade and for a minute I think we are going to walk. I panic because in heels this high I will never make it around the corner without landing on my face. At that thought Mac steps out of a blue Mulsanne Bentley and opens the back door for us to climb inside. I look at Damian with a questioning look on my face and he explains, “This is my car for evenings out.”
We arrive between Broadway and 8th Avenue on West 45th Street, in the theatre district. In my four years here in the city I have never made it to a Broadway play and I am excited for my first experience, it is even sweeter that it will be with Damian as my escort. We enter our theater and are escorted to our private seats.
“Once” is about an Irish musician who lacks confidence and a Czech immigrant on the streets of Dublin who are pulled together by their shared love of music. Over the course of one week, the same amount of time I have known Damian, an unexpected friendship and collaboration quickly evolves into a powerful but complicated love story.
I sit enthralled in the musical but because I can sense Damian staring at me, from time to time I look up at him and he smiles at me. I continue to see similarities in our progressing relationship and the story line of the musical unfolding in front of us. I wonder if Damian knew I would feel that way and choose this musical for that very reason. Could Damian be trying to tell me that he’s not as confident as he portrays himself? Maybe all the flash and pomp and circumstance that come with this man are to hide his feelings of insecurity, but about what? He’s a specimen of perfection in every sense of the word.
The love story is not your traditional one as I suspect mine and Damian’s, if it ever turns out to be a love story, won’t be either. The lead male character has put his emotional life on hold due to a broken heart. It makes me question if Damian has suffered from a broken heart that has led him to close himself off emotionally. “I’m not used to sleeping next to anyone; I’ve never spent the night with a woman before” comes to mind.
In Once, the lead female character helps him open himself back up to life. Maybe Damian is hoping I can be that for him. But with everything I would have to dump on him, could I be the one to help him as much as he helps me? During the day the lead male is one person but another more real person at night. Maybe Damian is the same, being the corporate refined CEO by day and something else more real by night. Is it possible that he’s hiding a past from me as well?
I am in love with the experience, the actors and songs right up until the end when the message that sometimes you meet someone and it's not meant to be even though they may change your life for the better is delivered. As the curtains close and the lights go on Damian leans in and presses a soft kiss first to my lips then to my forehead. He takes me by the hand and we walk together in silence to the Bentley waiting for us on the curb. The lights flash bright in my eyes and before I can focus more lights blink, blinding me. I reach for Damian and he puts me into the car.
“Sorry about them, baby. The paparazzi like to follow me around from time to time. I’m afraid you might find yourself on the cover of some trashy magazine tomorrow” Damian apologizes.
I’m dazed and overwhelmed by the press but I relax into Damian’s side as the car pulls away from the curb. We hold hands in the car on the way to Columbus Circle and arrive at Masa for our dinner. I have heard about this restaurant but I would never have dreamt I’d ever eat here. It’s elegantly designed in a modern Japanese style, one that I adore. We are shown to our table among the other empty tables to begin our omakase experience; Damian must have rented the whole place for the evening.
There is no menu so Damian and I spend the next hour focused on nothing but each other. No decisions need to be made, not about what we will be eating or if we will share a plate or have our own and I welcome the ease in which the food is presented and we are allowed our privacy.
Damian tells me about his childhood growing up in the city. He claims that he was shy when he was younger and didn’t have many friends but by the time he was in high school he had started to come out of his shell. He tells me that it was difficult growing up in the city with a powerful father who never had time for him. His mother was also distant with him when he was growing up, leaving him in the care of nannies and chauffeurs. He speaks warmly of his cousin and his wife.
I discover that he’s eight years older than I am but has a younger sister my age that was a surprise to his parents but the best thing that ever happened to Damian. He tells me she’s traveling out of the country at the moment but that he hopes I’ll get to meet her soon. When she’s here in the city she usually stays with him, preferring his company to that of their parents.
His father owns real estate throughout the city and began making his money as young as Damian did. Damian opened Stone Empire, Inc. shortly after graduating college.
“Where did you go to school? Here in the city?” I ask.
“No, I went to Connecticut for school. I
had to get away from my parents and the city for a while. It killed me to leave my sister behind but I had to do it for myself or I knew I was going to end up in a bad place.”
“That’s funny. You left here to go to Connecticut and I did the opposite. I couldn’t wait for the big city and all the promise it held. Did you feel homesick at first?”
“Not at first. It’s where I met Alex, you know. He was my roommate freshman year and we hit it off right away. The worse part about being away was September 11th. I had just started at school and then the attacks happened and I couldn’t reach my parents, my sister, my cousin or any of my friends who were still in the city. I didn’t know if any of them had been in the Towers that day.” Damian takes a long drink of wine and turns to look away from me, experiencing the fear of that day all over again. He continues, “I lost friends that day, guys who skipped the college route to go into their father’s businesses, others who were in school in the city but interning in the Towers. I didn’t know that my father was away on business and not at his office in Tower One until the next day.”
“That must have been terrible, I’m so sorry. I remember watching the news coverage on TV with my dad but I was only nine at the time. I remember being scared that my dad would go there to help. He’s a cop” I report but Damian seems a world away.
************
It was only the second Tuesday of school, only the third time the day’s classes would be meeting and Damian was already bored out of his mind. He briefly thinks that his friends who went straight to work in the city had the right idea. The only problem Damian would have had with that same plan was his father. That’s what sent him running off to the Ivy Leagues of Connecticut even if it was daddy’s school first.
He had three classes back to back starting with Women and their Sexuality at 8am. The only up side to this was that Alex was in the class and the teacher, Professor Blake was hot and dressed the part. For the last two classes she had worn black leather, the first time a skirt the next time pants. Both times her shirts revealed a sizeable pair of tits and her ass still looked firm even though she must be in her mid-thirties.
Damian arrives to class with Alex and they find their seats. After the first class when they tried to sit with the hottest girls they discovered none at their level of required hotness so they deserted those seats and on the second class opted for seats right in front of the hot professor. Damian thought she looked at him for just a bit longer than necessary when he raised his hand with a smart ass answer. Maybe having a May December fling would be good for him; he could learn a thing or two from an older more experienced woman. He’s heard about professors doing it all the time, maybe this class will turn out to be good for something after all.
Damian was no virgin, he had his share of flings and one night stands with the girls who ran in his circles back in the city. Without fail one of them would be drunk or high at the clubs and would follow him to a backroom or a bathroom for a quickie or a blow job. What he never had was a repeat liaison with a girl to learn what she liked and to hone his sexual skills on. He knew the basics and thought he got the job done well but he never worried about the girl’s pleasure, as long as he got off what else mattered?
About an hour into the class Professor Blake is going on about pornography and erotica and their effects on women’s sexuality when a ruckus brakes out on the campus grounds outside the window of the classroom. Professor Blake goes to the window, opens it and tells the students to keep it down. At that moment another professor, one whose class must have been next door comes running in. “A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center” he yells then runs out.
Damian’s world began to crash around him. He was still sitting at his desk but he felt like he was floating above his body. He knew he had to get out of there, call home but he couldn’t make his body work. Alex put his hand on Damian’s back and it snapped him back to life. He stood up to leave and Professor Blake asked, “Where do you think you’re going? Sit back down.”
“My father” was all Damian said as he rushed out of the classroom already dialing the number on his cell to his father’s office in Tower 1. The call never got through. Damian tried his house phone but that call never went through either. He called Tate then Brook, trying their apartment in the city, their cells and work numbers, none went through. He ran back to his dorm and turned on the TV and powered up his lap top.
By then Flight 11 had already crashed into the north face of Tower 1, well above Damian’s father’s office on the tenth floor. The plane entered the core of the building, severing all three stairwells. Combustibles and the remains of the plane were ignited by burning fuel. People in the North Tower were trapped by fire and smoke in the upper floors .Damian hears the reports that people below the severed stairwells started to evacuate immediately so there was a good chance his father was already safely out of the building.
But he couldn’t help the thoughts his mind keep having, he thought about his father lying in the rubble dead, about his sister maybe on a class trip now trapped inside the burning building. His mother could be having breakfast at Windows Around the World with her friends, Tate and Brook could have been anywhere in or around the Towers. That made him think of his friends, how many guys did he know that would be in that building today? Dozens at least.
He continues to listen to the TV while he tries to call everyone in the city he knows to no avail. He vaguely remembers Alex coming back and asking if he wanted company but he brushed him off saying he wanted to be alone. Alex respected his wishes and left him.
Not twenty minutes after the first plane another, Flight 175; crashed into the south face of Tower 2 and a massive evacuation began below its impact zone.
At this news Damian lost it. He became crazed and ransacked his dorm room, he threw and smashed the matching white digital alarm clocks and softly illuminated lamps that looked to be filled with water. He always wondered if it was real water, he found out today when they smashed and wet the floor. He flung the lamp from the desk through the window and after flinging the phone to the ground he stomped it to death. That’s when Professor Blake walked in after hearing the fiasco inside and trying the door only to find it open.
She called his name over and over then waited for him to calm down. Damian was breathing heavy, his lungs unable to take in enough oxygen, his chest was heaving up and down and he was covered in sweat. Professor Blake went to him and he collapsed to the floor from the human contact of her hand on his shoulder.
“Get up, you need to come with me this instant” she ordered and Damian not able to make a decision of his own obeyed and followed her to her car. He didn’t notice the make, model or color, he just climbed into the front seat. They didn’t speak and they didn’t make eye contact. A few minutes later they were exiting the car and walking into a hotel. Damian thought that maybe she lived there or that she was going to make him stay there after what he’d done to his dorm room. He thinks about calling Alex but then she is opening the door to the room and he gets a glimpse inside.
************
“Day? Damian, are you okay?’ I ask with worry in my voice. He looks at me as if he’s only just realized I was sitting here.
“Oh, God Sydney, I’m so sorry. That was rude of me. I’m sorry, I was just thinking…” he trails off.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re the one who said we all have demons remember?”
“Yeah. It’s just that day, it still haunts me. Then other things…things that happened because of that day that…changed me. I don’t know, forget it, I don’t want to think about it. Hey, do you want to go? I don’t think I can eat anymore. You can show me your paint colors and all the things you got today. I’d love to see what you’ve done.”
“Yeah, it’s late anyway. I have two finals tomorrow in the afternoon and I want to be able to at least get the bedroom finished. So I have a busy day ahead of me, I should try to get some sleep.”
Damian lives more money than necessary to cover the
bill and a very generous tip before we exit the building only to be photographed again by the paparazzi. We climb into the back of the Bentley and I am overwhelmed with tiredness. I hadn’t felt it in the restaurant but now that I am sitting with my leg brushing against Damian’s all comfy cozy I am overtaken by it. I put my head on his shoulder and he leans into my head, kisses my forehead then inhales my hair deeply.
“Thank you for tonight by the way. I had a great time. Once was amazing, it was my first Broadway experience.” I yawn with the back of my hand covering my mouth.
“I’m glad it was with me. I had a wonderful evening as well, thank you for joining me. I’m sorry I spaced out back there on you” Damian says as he clasps my hand and entwines our fingers then places them in his lap. He rubs his thumb over my hand and I can’t help the sigh that escapes me.
When we arrive at the apartment Damian gets playful and picks me up, carrying me into the building saying, “Come on little girl I think you need to be put to bed.” It makes me giggle like I used to as a little girl when my dad used to do the same to me to get me up the stairs and into my bed remotely close to my bed time. When my dad still lived with us in our little cozy house, the house where my room was a safe place.