Come Dancing (22 page)

“Who were those people?” I asked, undoing my top button.

“Just some guys I know.”

“Was your guitar ready?”

“Dan has to adjust the pickup. Hard day at the office, dahling?” he asked in a high-pitched, housewifey voice. “How many manuscripts did you bring with you? Any psycho-pop?” he asked, rummaging in my backpack. “What’s this?” He held up a proposal.

“That’s a therapist who’s doing a book on why men won’t commit. I’ll read you some choice passages from it later,” I said, grabbing the backpack and dumping it on a chair. I didn’t want to discuss my homework; I only wanted him to ravish me.

Jack picked up a glass from the table and took a sip, slivers of ice swirling. “What do you feel like listening to?”

For once he wasn’t in an amorous mood. I started to say something about the girls and the coke, but I didn’t want to act like it bothered me. “I’d love to hear the tape of the new album. Those songs at the club were incredible.”

“I’ll have to bring home a copy. We still need to figure out the first single—what’s the A side, and what’s the B.”

“The A side’s the one you think will be the hit, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Although sometimes we’re completely wrong, and it’s the B side that takes off.”

“How do you decide which songs to use?”

“Patrick and I argue for about three weeks, and then we flip a coin.”

Jack put his hand on his lean hip, the line of dark hair below his navel suggesting black powder leading to a lit fuse. He looked so gorgeous standing there with his bare muscled chest and raw hipbones that I couldn’t wait any longer. I came close and gave him a smoldering kiss as I undid his jeans. Dropping to my knees, I took him in my mouth, tasting the tang of liquid pearl at the tip. I took the drink from him and sipped it, capturing an icy fragment. Then I wrapped my cold tongue around his rigid cock, gliding up and down in the way he’d showed me he liked. I pressed the chilled glass against his backside and drew him in deeply, hearing his breathing become uneven.

“Julia.” Jack pulled me up, taking the glass from my hand. “Come over here.” He went to the couch and put the drink on the table as I followed him, shedding my clothes. He pushed me back on the cushion and captured both my wrists in a one-handed iron grip above my head.

“I’m not letting you up, you know.” He looked at me, eyes glittering. “You started this.” His long fingers searched in the glass for a piece of ice. He slid a cold shard down my breast, making me gasp as I watched my nipple harden into a rosy bullet. Jack put his warm mouth over it and tongued me roughly. Then he took the ice and ran it across my nipples again, making me squirm. I tried to free my hands from his grasp and started to speak.

“No talking,” he said, putting the tiny remnant between my lips. “I think you’ve melted that one. Let’s see what else needs cooling off.” He got another sliver from the glass and traced a shivering track down my belly. “I can think of one place that’s always nice and hot.” Still holding my wrists tightly above my head, he slid the ice inside and began to stroke me.

“Bet I can get this one melted really quickly,” he purred in my ear as I writhed under his touch. “Yep, it’s gone already. Let’s try a bigger piece.” The shock of the cold combined with the light brush of his hand was unbelievably erotic; my hips rose to meet his fingers as they molded me into a scalding mound. I was verging on the brink when Jack suddenly stopped. He kissed my breasts and smiled down at me.

“All right, we’ve done the B side. Now let’s flip you over and try the A.” He pulled me up and tipped me over the arm of the couch so that my ass was angled high. “I think this one’s going to be huge,” he said as he dipped his cock inside. I began to moan as he reached around to caress me. “A really … big … hit.” He thrust in all the way just as I climaxed, my cries lost in his guttural growl.

Jack crooked the phone in his shoulder and zipped his jeans as he ordered dinner. I was flaked out on the sofa, still catching my breath.
I guess there was something I hadn’t done with him yet, after all. I wonder how many other variations he has in his repertoire
. The thought gave me the shivers.

Jack hung up and came over to me, grinning. “So where were we when you started to go down on me? I believe you were saying how much you liked the new album.”

I laughed. “I don’t know what got into me today.”

“I think it was a piece of ice. And then after that, something really big and hot.” Jack cocked his eyebrow at me.

“Ha, ha. I was saying how much I liked those songs we danced to. My favorites were always the hard-driving ones you sang, even when I was a teenager.”

He thought for a moment. “So let’s see, when you were seventeen, I was … twenty-five, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Huh. Barely legal. I’d like to see a picture of you back then. Tell Dot to send one, okay?”

“Do you have any old pictures around?”

“I have one box. Most of ‘em’s back at Mum’s house.”

“Could I see them?”

“Sure, if you’re interested. Nothing too thrilling.” He went to his room and returned carrying a battered cardboard box with masking tape around it. “I haven’t opened this since my last move,” he said, slitting the tape. Inside, there were stacks of photographs, black and white and color, decades old and more recent, in no particular order. Jack began passing them to me. I saw a young, freshly scrubbed Jack and Patrick buttoned up in stiff suits; Jack, hair below his shoulders, his arm around Sammy; a school portrait of Jack that resembled the picture of Oliver on his bureau. He handed me one of a handsome older woman in a Sixties-style hairdo, a twentyish Jack in psychedelic threads kissing her cheek. “That’s Mum,” he said. “I have a more recent one of her somewhere.”

“I can see the resemblance.” He had her arched eyebrows and wide smile.

Jack considered a sullen photo of him and Mark with some men in suits. “Busted,” he commented. “What a load of crap.”

“Did you have to go to jail?”

“Yeah, just for a few days. The buggers were only after making an example of us.”

He dug around in the box and gave me several shots of him onstage. “I liked that outfit,” he said, indicating a rhinestone shirt. “I always wondered where that got to.”

I selected a picture of him with an extremely thin blonde woman, both looking very stoned. “That’s Caroline. I went out with her for a while in my mid-twenties.”

“She looks like the model/heiress type.”

“She was sort of an heiress; her father owned a huge shipping company. So she was rebelling against all that. We split up before I moved to New York.”

“Why did you break up?”

“So you are interested in my past,” Jack said wryly. “We broke up because she started acting like a ball and chain. I thought she was a free spirit, but she really just wanted to play house. Eventually she reverted to type and settled down with a diplomat. A real prig, from what I heard.”

So that’s his way of letting me know he isn’t into anything long-term. All right—I’ve been warned
.

I was quiet for a few minutes while we looked at more photos, Jack finding a recent one of his mother, some gray in her hair, and Sharon, a petite young woman holding an infant Emma. We came upon a shot of Oliver brandishing a toy truck, almost concealed by a mountain of wrapping paper.

“He’s adorable. He looks so much like you,” I said.

Jack beamed. “That’s what everyone says. I took him to the zoo when he was three, and the papers went wild, thinking they’d finally found my love child. It drove the attorney up the wall. Ollie doesn’t look a thing like him.”

“You really don’t care for Sharon’s husband,” I commented.

Jack scratched his chin. “He asked me once if I could get him some ‘backstage action’ when we had a gig in London. Like I’d do that to me own sister.” He dumped the pictures in the box. “I think that’s it for the blast from the past.”

The buzzer rang for the delivery. Jack looked in the takeout bag and removed two eight-track tapes. “Everybody thinks they’re a musician,” he said, shaking his head.

While Jack was having a joint in bed before turning out the light, I decided to tweak him a little about Freeman, since he’d made such a point of saying he couldn’t be tied down. “Did I tell you our big author’s in town?” I asked with a faraway look in my eyes.

“Who’s that?”

“Freeman Fyfe. He’s a rather glamorous guy, for a writer. Kind of debonair.”

“Sounds like you have a thing for him.” Jack drew deeply on the joint, making the tip spark.

“I have to admit I thought he was attractive at first, but then I realized he’s just a playboy. All the women at work think he’s sexy. But I don’t. Not really.”

Jack blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “Are you seeing him while he’s in town?”

“We’re having a party for him next Thursday at Pierre’s. It’s a really fancy event; I expect I’ll wear that black dress of Vicky’s.”

“What time’s the party? I might stop by and check it out.”

This took me by surprise. “I don’t have the details yet,” I said, trying to backtrack. “There’s going to be press there and everything. You might start a stampede.”

“I know how to be cool,” Jack said, stubbing the roach in the ashtray.

“They sent out the guest list ages ago. I’m pretty sure you have to have RSVP’d.”

“I never RSVP.”

The Harder They Come

I was changing in the office bathroom for Freeman’s fete, trying to shimmy into Vicky’s form-fitting dress in the cramped confines of the stall. Jack hadn’t mentioned the party again, and I was relieved he’d dropped it, imagining the flurry if he showed up.

I stuffed my pantyhose into my backpack and pulled out the garter belt and black stockings that I’d bought as a little treat for Jack, since I was planning to go over to his place afterwards. I had never worn one before, but imagined he’d seen a few in his day. I stepped into the garters and drew a stocking up my right leg. My knee bumped the toilet paper, which burst out of its socket and rolled under the door. No one was in the bathroom so I quickly scuttled out, holding up the hose with one hand while reaching for the roll. Just as I was standing up, Meredith walked in. I kept my grasp on the roll but not the stocking, which slithered down to my ankle.

“Getting dolled up for the party?” she asked with raised eyebrow.

Of all the timing
. “I just knocked the paper loose,” I said, retreating to the stall. After several attempts, I got the first stocking hitched in a way that would allow forward motion. Balancing on one foot, I leaned against the door and tried to wrestle the second one up my leg. It seemed to be several inches shorter than the other; I should have known better than to buy them at discount on Canal Street. Only by straining the belt could I get the elusive snap to reach the edge of the hose. The tampon box clanged loudly as I wheeled around trying to hook the one in back; I was circling myself like a dog chasing its tail.

“Those things are a bitch to get on, aren’t they?” came Meredith’s amused voice.

How utterly humiliating. “I ran out of pantyhose, and this was the only thing I had left in my drawer,” I replied lamely.

“Let me know if you need help.” It sounded like she was laughing.

At last I was fixed up, but with all the twisting and turning, I now had to pee. I pulled down my underpants, which came to an abrupt halt, trapped by the garters. Were you supposed to wear them
underneath
? Darn, I’d have to unhitch the things to get my panties down.

Now I really was in a rush. I decided to ditch the less complicated undergarment, realizing no one would ever know. I stowed the undies in my bag, got the garters sorted out again, and finally exited the bathroom. The day had turned freakishly cold due to a hurricane coming up the East Coast; I knew I’d be chilly in my strappy dress, but I’d just have to cope.

I caught a cab to Pierre’s with Erin and Rachel, shivering with the draft up my skirt. We said hello to the coat-check girl behind her half-door partition—a last-minute afterthought, but one Harvey felt necessary since it was so frigid out—and started stacking books that Freeman would sign for anyone who bought a copy.

People began filing in and Freeman arrived, escorted by Harvey. Freeman spoke to a couple of reporters, was photographed with our sales director, and then came over to kiss me on the cheek. “I really appreciated your careful editing,” he said courteously. “Your ideas about the ending rounded it out very nicely.”

“Thank you. I can’t wait to see the reviews.” I so rarely got this kind of feedback; his compliment made my day.

Rachel led Freeman away to meet some bookstore owners, and Erin and I commented on how well the party was coming off. Suddenly her face took on a strange expression. “Is that …? It can’t be.” I turned in the direction she was staring and was astonished to see Jack entering the room, Sammy in tow. Jack looked absolutely dashing in a sleek black suit that I’d never seen before, his long hair a sensual counterpoint to the formal attire. He stopped and gazed around, then strode over to me. As he kissed me on the cheek, I caught a drift of whiskey.

“Where is this guy? I want to meet him,” Jack said, oblivious to the swiveling heads.

“Jack, Sammy, this is my friend Erin. We work together.”

Erin’s eyes were glazed; she looked like she might pass out. “Nice to see you,” she said faintly.

“Hello, Erin,” Jack said.

“You want to meet Freeman?” I asked.

“Yes.” Jack crossed his arms.

“Okay,” I said with a smile. I led him and Sammy over, and touched Freeman’s arm. He turned, his elegant white hair contrasting with his weathered face.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but a friend of mine wanted to say hello.”

Freeman took him in. “So nice to meet you, Jack; I adore your music. This darling girl was an enormous help with my novel.”

For a moment Jack looked flabbergasted, then his mouth stretched into a broad smile. “Good to meet you,” he said. “Julia has told me a lot about you. Here’s our keyboardist, Sam.”