agger’s story ends abruptly. So much so that I wait. I think that he’s just paused. I wait and give him time to resume.
But he doesn’t.
When I can’t hold out any longer, I nudge him on. “And?” I say, “What happens next?”
So far, it definitely qualifies as intriguing, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it’s mind-blowing, the way Jagger’s been hyping it up.
“That’s it for now,” Jagger answers. I can hear his smirk, the jerk.
“Nope,” I protest. “Not happening. I want to know what happens next. You have to tell me. You can’t not tell me now!”
“My, my, you’re getting feistier by the day,” the pilot replies. “I should spank you, the next time I see you.”
“How very presumptuous of you,” I remark, although my body tingles at his mention of spanking me. His strong, large hands… mmm.
“Seriously, though. The remainder of the story is for another time. Who knows, this might be a really long one, with many cliffhangers,” Jagger boasts.
“Uh, are you trying to pull a 1001 Nights on me? You know, in the original legend, Scheherazade only started telling those stories because if she didn’t, she’d get her head chopped off,” I dig deep into my knowledge of mythology to explain to him. “Beware you don’t get your head chopped off!”
“Don’t worry,” Jagger says. “There will be more to the story. You’ll be glad you waited.”
“Yeah, sure,” I answer, letting myself lean back into bed, switching the phone from my right ear to the left. “Let me guess. He goes back the next night, this time she isn’t playing with herself, she’s got her legs wide open for him, she gets laid real good by the thief who’s also got a giant dick, and they fall in love. Naturally, they both live happily ever after!”
Jagger puts on his dramatic disapproving voice. “Tsk,” he says. “You have such little faith in my abilities as a storyteller. You know, this was exactly as I intended. To have you be a giant brat, protesting me splitting this story into parts.”
“Parts?” I point out. “So it’s not just part one and part two?”
“I never said that.”
“It was implied, Captain!”
There’s a pause on his end that I’d like to assume also comes with a shudder of delight. “Now, I need to get some shut-eye, because I only have a few hours left here before I have to get ready to fly again.”
“Ah,” I say knowingly. “Stalling, so you can figure out how to paint yourself out of this corner with the story!” But I figured that Captain Long had a long story in mind.
“Naw, I already have it all mapped out. There’s an outline and a mind map and everything, believe me,” Jagger says, clearly triumphant at my interest. “Now, like I said, even pilots need sleep, because otherwise they park planes on the sides of Alps.”
“Please don’t do that,” I quickly say, horrified.
“I won’t. But especially not now. Because you said so,” he reassures me.
“Okay, in that case, I’ll wait. Call me when you land. Make sure I get the rest of that story,” I tell him. He hangs up first, although we make a game out of it, daring each other to be the first one to end the call. He eventually relents.
I’m willing to admit to myself here that I’m intrigued. Not just by the story, but by Jagger’s willingness to handle my most difficult, stubborn sides. I put him up to unrealistic challenges that would be hard for anyone to manage, and yet he passes them with flying colors.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think that the man had something to prove.
I wake up the next morning in a panic. Six missed calls, all from Sonya. Of course! I tumble back into my real life with a bump. I’m rolling out of bed as I remember. Sonya is coming over to help me move my stuff out.
She’s the one with a car.
“Okay, I’m sorry! Let me buzz you in!” My voice sounds like I’m under water as I pick up her seventh call.
My best friend comes up, with a face that wore out its patience. She’s carrying empty boxes. “What the hell were you doing just now that you missed all of my calls?”
“Uh, sorry… I was asleep. I mean, can you believe the time? It’s way too early,” I say with a dry, tired voice.
“Alexa, it’s eleven thirty. Noon’s just coming up the street.”
“God, Sonya, you’re starting to sound like Helen.” I’m rubbing my head as I show her in and heading to the coffee machine. “Except Helen would never get on my ass for waking up late. Only because she woldn’t be awake herself in time to know.” I yawned. “She only wakes up around five in the evening, mostly so she has a few hours to do her makeup and go to whichever club it is she’s haunting that night,” I quip. “Anyway, what do you think? I’ve got most of my stuff packed away.”
“Most?”
“Would you like coffee?”
“What’s that sound at the door? Oh, its noon in the real world. No, Alexa, I had my caffeine fix half a working day ago.” She tried to look stern. I kissed her blearily.
“No coffee then?” I popped in the coffee and started the machine.
“‘Most’?” She arched an eyebrow.
“Well, I’d certainly appreciate it if you helped me make a last pass through the apartment, just to establish if there’s anything that obviously looks like it’s something of mine,” I suggest. “Or anything that I’ve forgotten to fix or clean.”
“Fine, I’ll start doing that while you caffeinate yourself. In return, you’ve got to tell me about your hunky hookup,” Sonya says, grinning at me.
When I have some coffee I lead her to the bedroom, first and foremost. Sonya’s never been inside, so I take a lot of heart from the way even she’s impressed by my place.
Helen’s place, that is.
“Well, I told you he’s a pilot, right? He’s been busy. Flying a lot. Internationally. He likes to call me when he lands. It’s cute. But I’ve also made it clear to me he can’t call me unless he’s got a story,” I explain.
“What do you mean, a story? Like a report on how his flight went?”
“Not that,” I shake my head at my best friend. “Think. He’s got to make stories up, fictional ones, to keep my interest. If I’m intrigued enough, I’ll go see him. But a guy as cocky as him shouldn’t imagine he’s automatically entitled to sex, just because he’s hot as hell.”
Sonya bursts out laughing. “Alexa, you love having sex with this guy. You know that the only person who loses out by denying him is you, right?”
“Well, I’ve got him sufficiently addicted,” I grin.
“You’ve got to have one of those golden vaginas. Magic and glitter coming right out of you. Honestly, this turns me from jealous to plain angry. So you’ve actually managed to ensnare the handsome, cocky Casanova? Just by letting him sleep with you twice?”
“We never actually slept together. They were just, you know, casual things,” I correct her.
“Casual things don’t end up taking all your time, Alexa.”
“True enough,” I shrug. “Anyway, he’s got to come up with a story. And I’ve just realized that the reason I like doing this, is because it gives me a bit of a buffer zone. He doesn’t know where I live, so I’m mostly anonymous. I don’t want it to be a case where he thinks I’m a person I’m not, you know? He might be expecting Helen and receiving Alexa. Just because I wore a few classy, designer dresses and shoes those times I’ve seen him, doesn’t really mean I’m any less valuable than people who can afford to buy those expensive clothes.”
“I hear you, you’re preaching to the choir here,” Sonya says. “So what are you going to do about it?”
“No idea,” I shrug. “Something, eventually. He’s only seen me decked in Helen’s things, I imagine he thinks I’m some rich girl who does nothing. Well, I’m going to have to correct that impression, sooner or later.”
Sonya nods, pointing out a brooch I forgot to take from a desk drawer. “I gave that to you!”
“You did, I’m sorry! It’s just that the brooch is black, and the drawer is grey, I didn’t see too well…” I soothe Sonya.
“You’re going to miss this place, aren’t you?” the ever-inquisitive journalist notes. “You were hardly here that long, and now you’re going to have to bum over at my place, until you get back on your feet.”
“I know,” I frown, not wanting to accept the reality that there is only a lot of stress facing me in the immediate future. “I guess I’m going to have to go back to my old life. Jeans, flannel, waiting tables.”
“If he’s worth it, he’ll embrace you completely,” Sonya promises.
“But if he’s not, he’ll lose interest,” I counter. “And I’d do anything so he doesn’t lose interest in me for something I can’t control.”
Sonya drops me off back at Helen’s place. All of my stuff is with her now, but I still have one last night in the apartment. My anxiety surfaces in the compulsive way I keep telling myself to clean the place, even if I’ve already done it.
Helen’s going to be back tomorrow evening, and if I leave the place without a thorough, deep cleaning, I can just see that Helen will pull out some white gloves and start searching for dust, ready to bitch me out over not keeping her place spotless clean.
This is particularly unfair, because I know for a fact that when I got here, there were whole rows of bookshelves that probably hadn’t been dusted since she moved in. Behind the fridge, there were small cobwebs.
She can’t demand perfection if she herself isn’t taking care of everything!
Of course, as a stepsister, I do have a small responsibility to be good to her, and do my best to keep her from too many troubles.
I make dinner for the very last time at the apartment, scouring through her cabinets for ingredients. I decide to make a lush, avocado-focused deconstruction of a burrito, using bread that isn’t quite perfect for the job — several pieces of Indian naan bread, made organically in Portland, of course — along with four types of salsa.
Apparently Ben’s obsessed with salsa.
I’m hoping she’s seriously jet-lagged after her long flight, because at least that means she’ll be too tired to deal with me.
Oh, Helen.
Dinner is good, but dessert is even better. Helen keeps two tubs of ice cream in the freezer — one that’s half-empty, and another that’s untouched. Given both tubs have an expiry date for today, I decide it’s worth it to finish her ice cream, as a final chore.
While I’m digging a scoop into the tub of Rocky Road, I get a phone call. Helen should still be in the air, so I guess it’s either Sonya or Jagger. Sonya just saw me leave her apartment. There could have just been something she suddenly thought of, though. Otherwise she would have no reason to need to immediately call me again. I hoped. I hoped, it really could only be one dashing gentleman.
“O Captain, my Captain,” I say, exaggerating the words of poetry with a played-up moan.
“Goddamn, Alexa,” Jagger laughs. “That… that did things to me.”
“I’ve been missing the sound of your voice too, flyboy,” I reply, setting the ice cream down to the couch armrest to my right. “How was your flight?”
Jagger makes a hmm sound, which he quickly explains. “I don’t think I recall you ever asking me how my flight went. This is nice. Well, there’s nothing much to it. Big-shot client, small corporate jet crew, I have to bring the guy to airport X or Y before meeting time Z, and I always do a good job. Pretty easy.”
“I guess that’s a good thing,” I say, enjoying the self-assured state he always embraces when he talks about work. The sound of his voice, the dips and turns, it carries his words like a dance. Like a swirling, turning current below the conversation.
We trade snippets of our day. I mention helping someone else move, obliquely describing my big departure from Helen’s place. I make it sound like it’s a friend, but I don’t explicitly mention Sonya. Its like we’re talking over a dinner table. But underneath, in the darkness under the white linen all kinds of other stuff is going on.
The flirting flows and runs between us. It goes back and forth so well I swear, every time I talk to him, he seems to get smoother and smoother. There’s nothing he doesn’t have a snappy comeback for. And every time, he’s firing more on target. And I am, too. When he laughs, that’s when the warmth in his voice clearly drives through and he makes me squirmy and hot.
“I’m always so turned on when I talk to you,” Jagger says, as he inevitably does, his voice carried on weighty breaths.
“No, no play until you’ve done work,” I shut him down.
“What are you talking about?” I know he knows what I mean. “I don’t have to fly again until tomorrow,” Jagger has a glint in his voice than makes me think of his flashing teeth.
“Not that work,” I explain, patiently waiting for his incredulity to be much less pronounced. “I mean the fact that you owe me, buster. You’ve got part two of a story. Part two of two, I hope, because I really don’t want to have to keep pressuring you to tell me more stories.”
“Hah! Why’s that?”
“It makes me feel like you’re just winging it, making things up as they go,” I observe. “Is that the case?”
“There’s always room for some improvisation,” he admits, but then he adds, “I can tell you this story is as tightly-plotted as possible. Like I said, I’ve been thinking about this. And okay, okay, I did make you a promise.”
“That you did,” I tell him.
Jagger clears his throat, pulling away from his phone, his voice sounding a little less close. Distant, even. But after he’s done clearing his throat, his dominant, confident tone of command returns. “Very well. Oh, but wait… I forgot where the story goes.”