Leather Bound (14 page)

So I did.

And then she pulled me out of my seat and started to drag me onto the stage with her.

* * *

I flailed, like the dork that I am, forgetting that there was a whole theatre of people watching the two of us. I planted my feet and dug in my heels and windmilled my arms like a wild thing. There was no way I was getting up there on stage.

Kitty was stronger than I expected; she held her ground easily, but when she realised I was panicked, she stopped pulling me. Her face near me, she lowered her voice.

‘I chose you,’ she said.

I shook my head. I had no idea what that meant. My heart was thumping so hard in my chest I thought it might break a rib or something. My face was hot. I just wanted to crawl back into a dark corner and hide.

‘Isn’t that why you’re here?’ Her voice was so low against my ear I could feel the vibrations.

I realised I was supposed to go up there on stage with her. I was supposed to talk to her about Davian. I was supposed to save my store and my friend and my job. I was supposed to say yes to her.

But I couldn’t. I just stood there, shaking my head, my whole body planted and trembling. I couldn’t step forward. I couldn’t get up there on that stage. Not clothed. Not naked. Certainly not in a sexual context. No way.

Kitty looked at me for a moment longer, her neon eyes expressionless. Then she carefully placed me back in my seat.

‘Take me,’ I heard Kyle say, and without a pause she pulled Kyle up onto the stage with her instead.

The whole thing must have taken less than thirty seconds, because most of the crowd seemed not to have even missed a beat. If they’d seen the exchange, they didn’t react to it.

Kitty and Kyle were already up on stage, the lights back down to nearly nothing, the music slowing yet again to a slow dance song, something I remembered from high school. It would have seemed like the silliest thing ever, them slow dancing up there with Kitty’s big hair and vinyl suit and Kyle’s dark jeans and sex-rumpled hair. But somehow the way they moved together made it wildly sexual, as though they were just filled to the brim with the kind of lust that could barely be contained. I shrank down into my seat, watching them dance together, hip to hip, his arms around her. Their bodies pressed and released, a fluid movement that seemed to work its way even through the pounding of my heart and the heat of my face.

Facing me, Kitty beckoned Kyle down on his knees. I expected him to turn and look at me, to run off the stage, to protest somehow. He did none of those things. Slowly, he slid down the front of her, his hands on her hips, then her thighs, lowering himself to the floor. Kitty spread her legs in front of him, pulling the snaps of her vinyl suit open to expose her shaved pussy, the piercing glinting among its folds.

She said something to him that I couldn’t hear, and he bent forward. Her hands went to his hair, her body gyrating in time to the music as she held him there.

I couldn’t see his face, only hers, but I knew what that tongue felt like, that mouth. My body responded with the memory of him sucking me, tugging on the point of my clit, lapping at me with the flat of his tongue. I remember how he liked to drag his teeth ever so softy along my labia, and then slide his tongue deep into me, to fuck me like that until I came.

I was wet beneath my dress, but I didn’t dare touch myself. I needed to pay attention, to catch every nuance. I’d screwed up, but maybe there was time to fix all of this.

Kitty didn’t put on a fake show for the crowd; there was no lip-biting or orgasmic screaming. In fact, she closed her eyes. A whole room of people watching her and she closed her eyes. Went inwards. I caught my breath, watching. Her body gyrated against Kyle’s, again and again, her fingers seeming to guide his movements. They stayed that way for a long time, the music rising and swelling, Kyle on his knees before her. She reached one hand down between them, leaning her upper body back.

And opened her eyes. She looked right at me, those odd cat eyes, bright in the low light.

When she came, I saw it in her eyes first, a tiny flare of pleasure. Her face tightened and released, her back arching tighter as she ground against Kyle. With a long, low cry of joy, she brought both hands into the air, her final, grand gesture.

The theatre went black. The music died. There was no more sound from the stage. Around me, the ragged breaths of those who’d been watching.

If Kitty had been trying to tell me something, I’d missed it.

I sat and waited, waited for the touch of someone, for the arrival of someone. For Kyle to come back. Even as I heard other people leaving, shuffling out in the darkness, still I sat. The people on either side of me left, and still I waited.

Finally, Smaug came and found me. He looked less intimidating now than he had when I’d arrived. He dropped my cell phone into my hand without a word.

‘Please,’ I said. ‘I need to talk to Kitty.’

‘You can’t,’ he said. ‘Sorry, kid, but you screwed up. She chose you, and you said no. It’s all over.’

‘But you said I could come back. A million times, you said.’ I was babbling. I could feel it, and yet I couldn’t help myself.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I said if you didn’t get chosen, you could come back. If you get chosen and you say no, there’s no second chances. You’re just out.’

He looked me over, much as he had when we’d walked in, which seemed like lifetimes ago now. ‘Still, never seen no one say no to Kitty before. You’ve got balls, you have. Or you’re really really stupid.’

I suddenly felt lost and angry, like a child who’d been abandoned and then scolded. Or maybe pouty was the right word. I was pretty sure my lip was sticking out.

‘What about Kyle? The man I came with.’ What about Kitty, the woman I was supposed to talk to? What about all these million things that I didn’t have a grasp on?

‘Kyle’s not coming back. At least not tonight. You should go on home.’

Everything about his voice said, ‘You’re out of your league, kid.’ And I probably was. I’d never felt so off-kilter, so uncertain and out of place, so nervous and yet so utterly, thrillingly aroused in my whole life. I had no idea what was going on.

I nodded and stood, not knowing what else to do. He led me out of the theatre and down the long hallway where we’d come in. When I stepped outside, it was like the night had stopped. It was still and quiet; the only thing that was loud was all the stuff going on in my head.

‘Thank you,’ I said, not even sure what I was thanking him for. Maybe just because he’d been nice. He nodded, and turned, letting the door begin to close behind him. As he turned, I caught a glimpse of the side of his neck beneath his shirt collar. There, almost at its base, a tiny tattoo. I knew that shape. I’d seen it … where?

It clicked for me then. On Davian’s card. That dark keyhole. That wasn’t a mole at the corner of her eye. It was a tiny keyhole tattoo.

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Can I –?’ But the door was already falling closed behind him, and I was pretty sure that no amount of hammering on it was going to get him to open it back up.

So there really was a sex club. And it had apparently eaten my boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Date for the evening. Whatever it was that we were now.

As I walked away from the club, I called Kyle and left a message asking him to call me and tell me he was OK.

I couldn’t get the image of Kyle down on his knees out of my mind. It was so sexy, and yet I wondered why it seemed so easy for everyone else to show their sexuality in front of other people. I could barely breathe at the thought, and yet Kyle had gone willingly. He’d actually volunteered. ‘Take me,’ he’d said. That simple.

I walked around the block and the next block, carrying my thoughts with me, until I found myself in front of the Cock’s Tail. Even from outside, I could hear the live music, a thumping beat that seemed to start at my feet and work its way up to my brain. A little loud music, maybe a little dancing; it didn’t sound perfect, but it sounded way better than going home alone to my cold, dark house.

I stepped into the bar, the live music swelling around me. It was something that defied genre, a little bluegrass, a touch of dance beat, a thread of big band, well played by three enthusiastic men and accented by a woman’s clear, true voice. The tables around the dance floor were packed, as was the floor itself. The bar was pretty full too, but I saw a spot at the far end, between a couple and a man who was paying too much attention to his phone to glance at me twice. I hoped.

I slipped in between them and took a seat. I’m not tall, but the barstools at the Tail always made me feel like I was. Clambering onto them was a task, but I liked the result.

Part of it was that the floor behind the bar was lowered by a couple of inches. Which made even Jay, the bar owner who was currently playing bartender, look a little shorter than what I guessed was his actual six-feet-something height.

Jay gave me a smile and an elbow wave, still pouring a pint in the process. Even in the low lights and looking slightly frenzied by how busy the place was, he was a beautiful man. Olive skin that was accented by his dark hair and dark eyes, plus that wide-shouldered slim-hipped physique that was hard to ignore. He knew how to dress too, even for a bartending shift. His jeans hugged his ass perfectly, and his short-sleeved button-up was a dark green that set off his skin perfectly.

Seeing him made me realise how long it had been since I’d been in. When we’d first opened Leather Bound, Jay and his employees had been some of our biggest supporters. We’d even had our grand opening party here. For a long time, Lily and I had been here almost every night, and then at least once a week, and then, well, now I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been here.

‘Janine,’ he said, wiping his hands on the bar towel tucked into his belt. ‘I thought you’d dumped me.’ He leaned across the bar to kiss my cheek, making even phone guy look up briefly.

‘You didn’t get my Dear Jay letter?’ I asked.

‘I get so many,’ he said. ‘Hard to keep them straight. Your usual?’

I was surprised I still had a usual. But then again, that was probably why Cock’s Tail was such a popular bar. Sure, it had a great atmosphere and Jay brought in the best unknown musicians around, but it was also that he remembered everyone. And, apparently, their usuals.

Even if I didn’t. I was mostly a gin and tonic girl, but sometimes went for the oddballs.

I gave him a smile and a nod. ‘That would be perfect.’

Then I sat back to wait and see what he would bring me.

As I watched the crowd and, beyond them, the musicians, my mind kept rolling over what had happened at the Cat House. I felt in way over my head, and I wasn’t even sure why.

‘Long day?’ Jay asked. He set a drink in front of me, a martini glass full of creamy chocolate-coloured liquid. I leaned forward and sniffed it. Chocolate and coffee. Oh, right. I’d been drinking coffee martinis while we finalised Leather Bound. That made sense. I’d needed all the alcohol and caffeine I could get back then. In some way, I supposed that was still true.

‘Very,’ I said.

He leaned in so that I could hear him beneath the music.

‘It’s nice to see you, either way,’ he said.

‘Thanks, Jay.’

He returned to his other patrons while I sipped my drink, scanning the crowd, realising that I didn’t know a single face. Either tonight’s crowd was unusual or the patronage of the Tail had completely turned over while I’d been gone. I turned my attention to the band instead, captivated by the woman who sang lead. She shimmered in a flowing purple dress that seemed to be made of sequins, her voice a clear high beckon that flowed through and over the music. I envied both her voice and her hair, short blue curls that framed her head like a rare flower. No one noticed me in the fray of people, and I liked it that way. I just wanted to sit and watch.

I let the warmth of the drink and the sounds of the music wash over me, feeling some of my tension slip away the longer I sat there. Jay caught my eye occasionally and threw a smile my way.

When the band announced they were done for the night and that the next band would be coming on shortly, I realised I’d been sitting there for nearly an hour and was on my second drink. If my tension wasn’t gone by now, it wasn’t going. It was time to go home. I gave Jay the settle-up sign and he brought my cheque.

‘Don’t be such a stranger,’ he said.

‘Promise,’ I said. I meant it. I’d missed being here, the music and the life that always filled this place.

‘Good,’ he said. He turned away, trusting I’d leave the money on the bar as I always did.

As I was digging out cash, the lead singer slipped between my stool and the man next to me, offering her apologies as she did so. Closer up, her hair was neon blue, like looking through sapphires in the sun, her skin the colour of pure milk. I caught a whiff of her, the sweet scent of maraschino cherries, as she leaned across the bar.

‘You have a fantastic voice,’ I said.

She glanced at me, canting her head sideways. It was an oddly shy gesture, almost birdlike. Her eyes were huge, a denim hue that matched her earrings.

She lifted her hand to her throat, a fluttery movement that I recognised. Shyness. Something slightly submissive. Her throat was bare of jewellery, but at the very centre, in the hollow of her neck, a tiny black tattoo beat with her pulse. A keyhole. It was a simple shape, but the shading somehow made it seem as if you could put your eye up against her throat and see through to the other side. It was the kind of work that Kyle would appreciate for its simple complexity.

I knew that shape. It seemed like I was seeing it everywhere lately. Like when you buy a certain make and colour of car and every time you go on the road after that, that car is all you see. Keyhole tats were my new Honda Civic.

‘I know that –’ I said. But she didn’t wait for me to finish. She leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth, the scent of cherries washing over me like a breeze. Her lips were soft, barely touching me, and yet I could feel her breath in the hollows of my mouth.

When she pulled away, all I could see were the big blue saucers of her eyes.