Chapter Eleven
Sam
The alarm on my phone rings its soft chime. Ugh. Six fifteen. Rise and shine. I untangle myself from the heat of Uriah’s arms and place a pillow over my head. I’m an eight-hour girl and had only five hours of sleep last night. Maybe I can grab a nap before tonight. We’re hosting a party here in the backyard after dusk. David’s building a bonfire.
I sigh, toss the pillow toward the foot of the bed, and stretch. I could never get back to sleep, anyway. I’m not used to having a man in my bed. Lying on the floor, Hero is stretched out in the same direction as me. His head rests on his paws, a watchful eye, rimmed in pink, turned up to catch my gaze. Poor baby. He’s not used to a man, either. Leaning my torso off the edge of the mattress, I scratch him behind his ears, which perk at my touch.
My movements and the tinkling chimes wake Uriah, who groans, pulling me back into his arms. He smells like lemon verbena, my favorite soap scent. I smile. We showered together after our lovemaking last night.
I whisper into his ear. “I’m supposed to remind you that you’ve got to decorate your classroom for Halloween. You’re also bringing the kids to the diner after lunch. I made them cookies decorated as pumpkins.”
“You have such a beautiful mouth,” he replies, tracing the contour of my lips. His touch is feathery as he pulls a few strands of hair from my mouth.
I roll out of bed and stumble to the bureau to silence the alarm. I turn toward Uriah, scrolling through texts.
He rubs his eye and then shifts to regard me, placing a couple of pillows under his head. Smiling, his eyes travel up and down my body. He clears his throat. “What’s the status of Welcome Home?” His Southern drawl is so pronounced first thing in the morning; sometimes I can’t understand what’s he’s saying.
I fumble with my phone. “The last message from Braydon was written an hour ago. Let me see here. Yippee!” I exclaim, throwing my arms into the air. “We survived Devil’s Night without incident. Score one for the diner.”
Last night the staff each took a three-hour shift from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., every light blazing. We made sandwiches and coffee throughout the evening for anyone who volunteered to assist the authorities. Uriah, Addie, David, and I hung out from six to nine, which was intentional. I want David and Uriah to get to know each other better.
Thanks to our vigilance, a juvenile curfew, and heavy police and fire patrol, we’ve made it through the night. To be fair, it’s not like we’re a target, although with the enemies we’re collecting, we may as well be. October 30 in Detroit is Devil’s Night. The moniker is linked with widespread arson. With all of the abandoned homes in the area, there’s plenty of kindling. The fires have dwindled tenfold through the years, but they haven’t stopped. Everyone’s on guard.
“I’ll make coffee.”
He falls back into the comforter, stretching out his glorious body. “Aaaah. Your coffee’s an aphrodisiac.”
“That, Uriah, is the last thing you need right now.” I laugh. “Save it for later.”
I grab my robe and blow him a kiss before walking to the kitchen. Hero follows on my heels, his nails clicking on the hardwood floor. After replenishing his bowls with water and dog food, I make the coffee—a blend I’m always tweaking—listening to Uriah’s movements in my bedroom. I should feel exhausted, but his presence in my home make me feels like I’ve tapped into an electric current. He enters the kitchen, half-dressed in the same clothes he wore yesterday. After buttoning his woolen plaid shirt, he tucks it into his jeans.
“Will you have time to run back to your place and change before school?”
He shakes his head. “I should have remembered to bring a change of clothes. But the kids don’t notice what I wear. Maybe I’ll throw a sheet over my shoulders. Pretend I’m a ghost.” I move toward him, my lips parted. He slides his hands down my torso. Hero, tail tucked between his legs, trots over and whines. Uriah glances down at the dog. “Poor fella. Competing for your affection must be hard on him.”
He bends to scratch him around the ears. I chuckle. “Not at all. He’s trying to tell you that he’s the one who always plays the ghost. Maybe I should rethink the costume he’s wearing today.”
“Which is . . . ?”
“You’ll see. Hero and Bon Temps will both be suited up to fit the occasion.”
He pulls me into him and kisses me. His hardness pushes against my thigh. I wish we had the day off. Mornings are luxurious when we don’t have to work. “Stay over after the party tonight,” I whisper. “And bring an extra set of clothing. I’ll keep it in my closet.”
I dislike Uriah’s place. Aside from a few kids’ drawings that he’s tacked on the wall, and a framed picture of his parents on his dresser, the apartment feels as cold and temporary as a hotel room.
He stares into my eyes. “I’ll be counting the minutes.” I hand him his coffee, and he walks to the door. Then he unbolts the locks, turns his head, and smiles. The door closes behind him in a soft thud. Hero gazes at the closed door, his tail now wagging, relieved the interloper has vanished. I laugh, bending to rub his neck. “Oh, Hero. You’re my main guy. No man could ever replace you.”
The ping of a text. We just said good-bye, and now he’s texting me. Nice. The guy’s got it bad. I straighten and retrieve my phone. My shoulders sag. It’s only Addie, who wants to come down and have a quick cup before she gets ready for work. She must have heard his truck drive off.
No problem, I text. My tummy’s still fluttering, and I’d rather savor the afterglow without her company. But whatever. At times like this, it would be nice to have my own place.
She walks into the kitchen, wearing her favorite robe: a robin’s egg–blue silk kimono her mother brought her back from China. Her fluffy, whipped-cream bedroom slippers always remind me of toy poodles scuttling about the floor. I pour her a cup of coffee and place it on the counter.
She hands Hero a biscuit, which he gobbles from her palm in a gulp. “Morning, Hero. Morning, Sam.” She slides onto a stool, and I take a seat beside her.
I catch her eye. “What’s up, buttercup?” My cousin appears so delicate and vulnerable when she’s not wearing that lipstick and mascara.
She takes a sip of coffee and smiles. “Mmmm. Cinnamon and chocolate, right?”
“Yep. This time I’m combining imports from Mexico with a Kenyan bean. All fair trade, of course.” I glance at her. “Do you think the proportions are right?”
“It’s heavenly.” She sniffs at the brew, takes another sip, and looks up, catching my eye. “It was nice getting to know Uriah a bit better. A math teacher. Interesting. He seems to be so passionate about his work.” She taps my side with her elbow and winks. “What a sexy drawl, right?”
I lean into her, placing my hand on her knee. “Addie. He asked if we could be exclusive.” I grin. That threw water on any doubts I might have harbored that he thought I was hookup material. He’s even seen me at my worst: fresh from work, exhausted, and smelling like trout.
She stares into her coffee, tapping her fingernail against the handle. “Hmmm.” Her eyes flit toward me and then back to her coffee. “Don’t you think you’re falling into this relationship rather quickly?”
“What? We’ve been seeing each other since summer.”
“But he sleeps over all the time.”
“No, he doesn’t. Just a couple of times a week.” I press my lips together. Really? Is this any of her business? God, I’d like to have my own place.
“Before you know it, he’ll be moving in.” Twisting her ring, her eyes dart about the kitchen as she appears to be measuring her words. She straightens, then leans into me. “Remember your relationship with the barista? When I visited you in Manhattan, you two were living together. You told me you’d let him move in too soon in the relationship.” She grabs my forearm. “You said that yourself. And you remember how it all came down.”
My mouth falls open. “God, Addie. Andy is nothing like Uriah. Can’t you see he’s a very special man? You and David were chatting it up with him last night. You saw how he acts toward me, hanging on to every word I say.” My head begins to throb. “Gosh. His arm was over my shoulder the entire evening. Besides, you and David live together.”
“We dated three years before taking the plunge.”
“That’s because you worked in Ann Arbor, and he in Detroit.” I straighten, folding my arms across my chest. This is nuts. She’s worried about Kevin. Good lord. Why can’t I conduct my love life without all this interference?
Searching my face, she flushes and pats my arm. “OK, Sam. No worries. We’ve got to get moving. I’ll be down in twenty minutes.” She finishes her coffee in a gulp and slides from the chair. “Let’s take the bus together.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I don’t offer her a refill.
At work, most of the staff, including the dogs, are costumed in full regalia. Bon Temps strolls the garden sporting a sequined tulle tutu. Hero wears a Batman outfit, complete with bat-ear headdress and a black cape. Sun Beam’s class, as well as Uriah’s, will be trick-or-treating after lunch. The dressed-up dogs will amuse the kids. We’re having a bonfire in the backyard of our house this evening.
Sylvia has been working full-time for two weeks and is the only staff person, besides Braydon and me, not dressed for the occasion. She began as a waiter but had issues counting back change. This could be corrected with time and training, but her lips barely opened when she was waiting on tables. Obviously, the poor thing was trying to hide those devastating teeth, but the customers had to lean toward her to hear what she was saying.
Prep work is a better fit for Sylvia. Her stiff back and pinched face relax in the kitchen. She makes herself useful backstage, scraping food off plates, washing dishes, and assisting with culinary tasks. She seems to have a knack for baking. It’s hard not to watch her as she flutters about the kitchen. The poplin chef bandanna she wears on her head is decorated in a tapestry of orange, green, and yellow flowers. I imagine her as a rare tropical bird with a bright, ruffled plume trailing along a broken wing.
I’ve heard just the basics of her background. That her deceased father was American, and her Brazilian mother sold her after he died. A sharp pain seared through my gut when I heard this—she was just a kid. Sylvia’s petite; she must have been a fragile girl. As bait on the end of a line, how did she survive? This peculiar woman piques my interest.
Braydon, Paul, and I have been training her, but most of her smiles are reserved for Braydon. I’m sure they identify with each other, having lost their families in their early teens. I pretend not to listen as I peel a bunch of onions, then chop them into a precise dice.
Braydon is showing Sylvia how to make Heartbreakers. These supersize chocolate-chip-and-walnut cookies have turned out to be our calling card. The cookies are tender and gooey on the inside and are encased in a crispy-crunchy, sugary brown crust. A few weeks after opening, a customer, swooning, licked the crumbs and chocolate from her fingers and declared, That was so good, it breaks my heart. And the name was born.
Sylvia retrieves containers filled with flour, sugar, baking soda, and baking powder from the dry-goods shelf and returns to the table and their conversation, paying no attention to my presence.
“I hear you, Braydon. I grew up in Rosedale Park. You know the area?”
“They’ve got some nice homes in that section of the city,” he says as he measures ingredients and puts them in a large glass bowl.
Sylvia smiles. “I went to a regular school, and Dad worked as a mechanic in an auto shop.” She pauses, inhaling sharply. “He called me his angel.”
She studies the recipe in front of her for a minute, her lips pinched together. Then she scoops cake flour into a measuring cup, taps it on the counter, and holds it up to the light. “Since we’re doubling the recipe, we’ll need two cups, right?” Braydon nods and she adds it to the bowl. Then she begins whisking the ingredients together as if her life depends on it. She stops and points to the smooth, sandy mound. “That about right?”
“No lumps, Sylvia. It’s perfect. You’ve got the strength of Jehovah in your right arm.” She awards his comment with one of her rare smiles. I wonder if the two of them will find more than friendship with each other.
Braydon hands her the butter. “It must be cold, but not too cold. Your finger should be able to make a slight groove in it.” She presses her forefinger into the pale yellow brick and then points to the indentation.
“Like that?”
“Perfect,” Braydon responds, handing her a knife. “Now cut the butter into one-inch pieces and put it, along with both sugars, into the KitchenAid.” She slices and then places the chunks, one by one, into the shining silver bowl. With the edge of a rubber spatula, she scrapes the sugars into the mixer, as well.
“Next, Sylvia, we beat them together until they’re well combined. To turn on the machine, you push the lever forward, like this.” He demonstrates the process and, after several seconds, turns it off. “See? Now it’s one sticky mass.”
She cranes her neck over the bowl. “Got it.”
Picking up the recipe, she speaks aloud, her words directed to the sheet in front of her face. “Family life changed when Daddy’s cancer began eating him alive. We had government assistance from his working in the military, but it wasn’t enough. The disease sucked away our every last dime.”
Braydon nods, smiling gently. Then he touches her wrist as if she were a wounded bird and points at a step in the recipe. “Beat four eggs into the mixture and then slowly add the flour blend.”
She picks up an egg and, with a swift stroke, cracks it against the stainless rim. The yolk, a dazzling sunflower orange, oozes into the bowl. Smiling, she adds the remaining eggs to the batch. “I still can’t get over the difference in color between a fresh-laid egg and one you’d buy in the grocery store.” She tosses the shells into the compost, rubs her fingers on a dishcloth, and turns on the mixer to incorporate the eggs into the buttery mass. After turning it off, she pours a portion of the dry ingredients into the bowl and pushes the switch. She stares mesmerized at the churning machine, and in the whir and clatter of metal on metal, I can’t follow their conversation. Braydon pulls the lever toward him, silencing the machine, and once again I hear their words.
“My parents died in a car accident when I was a kid,” he says. “My aunt and uncle took me in, otherwise I’d have been an orphan. Didn’t your grandparents help out? What about aunts or uncles?”
“Nope. Daddy’s family was God-fearing Baptists, the Bible-thumping kind. I wouldn’t recognize ’em if they walked right into this kitchen. They hated my mom and wrote us off. Said he’d lowered himself to marry a Latina.” She turns to Braydon. “I’m so sorry you lost your parents. That must have been horrible. But you’re lucky you had some relatives. How’d you learn to cook?”
“My parents taught me the basics when I was a kid, but we never used a recipe. Cooking must be programmed into our DNA. We were born knowing how to make food taste good. Especially barbecue. Man! My dad’s pork had the smoke, bite, and sweet that made you glad to be alive. He converted an oil drum into a grill and smoked ribs over the same greasy asphalt every year during the Woodward Dream Cruise.” He turns to regard me, a question in his eyes. “Can I do that at the diner, Sam? During the classic car parade?”
“Braydon, every idea you’ve brought to the table has helped improve Welcome Home. If you want to turn an oil drum into a barbecue pit, have at it.” He appraises me with a half nod, a half smile, and turns to Sylvia.
“Welcome Home brings back the happy times when I was a boy and made supper with my folks. What about you? What brings you to this kitchen?”
Good, I think to myself. I’m curious to learn more about Sylvia’s past. I try making myself invisible, a grease mark on the wall. I rummage through our vast collection of recipes, intent on the pages, forearms pressed into the cool stainless table.
“Mama was depressed enough when Daddy had cancer, but his death broke her for good,” the woman continues. “We lost our house and had to move to a place that was a dump. To get electricity, we ran a line to our neighbor’s. Our yard was littered with bald tires and rusted motor parts. But Mama said it was a palace compared to her home in Rio. I suppose it was all she could think to say to cheer me up. The only time she smiled was when she was plastered. Soon enough, school for me was just a memory.” Picking up the recipe, she squints to study it. “Oh, goodie. The fun part’s next. We get to work the dough with our hands.” She places the recipe next to the knife rack.
“There was this one woman in a suit with eyebrows plucked thin and penciled in black. She stopped by our house from time to time, claimin’ she was on her way to the office. Sometimes she gave a twenty to Mama. Said it was for food. But we all knew it would go to the bottle.” She pours chocolate chips and toasted walnuts into measuring cups.
“This went on, I guess,” she continues, “a couple of weeks. After a while, she told Mama she could help me. Said she knew a nice couple who could be my foster parents. She said she’d take Mama to visit me every Sunday. Said I’d be homeschooled and learn life skills, even share a computer with the other foster kids. I figured if I could get on track, I could find a job and straighten Mama out, too.”
Her face pales as she stares at Braydon, running her tongue across her lips. “I was sure wrong about that.” She grabs a spatula, scrapes the batter from the bowl onto the prep table and then turns to regard him.
“She gave Mama five one-hundred-dollar bills. We’d never seen so much cash. When I hugged Mama good-bye, I never dreamed it would be for the last time. I’d just turned fifteen—that was five years ago. Brenda had the police go to that house to get her some help, but she’s gone. I need to find her.” She swipes an eye with the back of her hand. “That is, if she’s still alive.”
Braydon looks at her, his face pensive as he bites his lower lip. “I’ve a feeling she is. I’ve a feeling you’ll see your mother again. So what happened next?”
“Foster parents?” Sylvia smirks. “What a joke. There weren’t no foster parents. There was just Bobby. And three other girls. I became a part of his ring. He gave me pills, which I pretended to swallow but hid beneath my tongue. When no one was looking, I spit them out. I saw what they were doing to the other girls.” She pours the walnuts on top of the batter and then lowers the empty cup on the table so hard it hits the stainless with a jolting clang. “Every day I worked the streets. Bobby laid his fist into my mouth when I didn’t earn my daily quota.” Her fingers dart to her lips in a subtle, telling reflex.
I swallow, choking back a gag. Sylvia pulls sordid images from her past as casually as one would wipe a smudge off their cheek.
“I quit counting the men,” she continues, straightening her bandanna, “and began counting the ways I could kill myself.”
Beads of sweat pop above Braydon’s brow, and his eyes dart side to side like a trapped animal. He appears derailed, even panicked for a couple of seconds. Then, he composes himself, straightening his apron. He studies Sylvia, wearing an odd expression I don’t recognize as she works the chocolate and nuts into the dough.
“Next,” he says, “let’s divide the batter into twenty-four balls. Then we freeze and then partially thaw them before baking. That step is the secret behind their delectable gooey center and exterior crispy crunch.”
Her mouth, a splinter above her chin, is like a blade slice in a nectarine. She nods at Braydon and continues. “At first I was afraid of the men, but that fear went away in time. It was the mirror that terrified me—I was scared of what I’d see.” She presses her palms into her cheeks. “That my face had disappeared, or something.”
Braydon glances sideways toward Sylvia, lines drawn across his forehead. His lips twitch. “So how did you escape?”
She wipes her hands on her apron.
“After I got used to the job, I began to feel a sliver of hope. I quit thinking about killing myself and began thinking of ways to escape.” Hands on her hips, she scowls at the prep table strewn with ingredients and empty dishes caked with batter. “Mercy. What a mess.” Dirty bowls and spoons clang together as she stacks them on a sheet pan. She carries them to the sink and places them into the first compartment of the dishwater, then returns to the table.
“A year or so passed, and luck came a-calling. Rumor had it the dude who hung out on Cass and Temple was an undercover cop. Bobby warned me not to approach him. Said if I didn’t like my teeth now, I sure wouldn’t like them after he was done with me.” Running a wet rag across the counter, she folds her lips over her teeth, darting a glance at Braydon. “The other girls were terrified of Bobby. But not me. I made my plan. I propositioned the officer and was thrown in jail. The best place I’d been since Daddy died. Turned out they’d been trying to break up Bobby’s ring for close to a year.”
Braydon shakes his head. “Street slime should be hosed into the sewer.”
“It scared the starch out of me when I was on the witness stand, facing him, telling the court what he made me do. His eyes were like black coals, burning into me. Branding me. As if he still owned me. I make myself sick worrying he’ll get one of his goons to find me. Torture me. Or worse.” Biting her lower lip, her face tightens.
“Not a chance, Sylvia. You’re safe now.” For a moment, his eyes lock on her profile, and then his gaze returns to the heap of cookie dough, dotted with nuts and chocolate bits.
“The judge gave him a twelve-year sentence. And I’ll never forget his words. He said Bobby wasn’t selling only sex, he was also selling misery. He said no prison sentence could ever do justice for the pain and suffering us girls experienced, and, hopefully, his imprisonment would be the start of our healing. So I was sent to the High Hope Center, along with the rest of the women.” She shrugs, glancing around the room. “And here I am. In this kitchen.”
Heads down, they begin shaping the batter with the palms of their hands. I can’t understand the rest of their conversation. But I’ve already heard too much.
I cover the onions in plastic wrap, put them in the fridge, and head toward the pantry shelf. Studying the various ingredients, I summon inspiration for pork cutlets, trying to turn my mind off to the ugliness of this poor girl’s past. My consolation is her support team. The authorities, social workers, doctors, and lawyers who’ve given their time and hearts to help get her to this place. We’d known we wanted to help; we just didn’t know how much help people needed.
I return to the prep table, a tub of bread crumbs, mustard, and dried herbs in my hands. Sylvia and Braydon are there, two sheet pans in front of them, large balls of cookie dough lined up in tidy rows.
Sylvia looks at me, her eyes soft and welcoming, as if she’d just been talking about the weather. The air is filled with the ethereal scents of sugar, chocolate, and toasted walnuts from a recently thawed batch now baking in the oven.
“Am I jabbering too much?” she asks.
I smile, checking the time on my smartphone. “Not at all. It takes me forty minutes to prep a batch of Heartbreakers. It took you only thirty-five. After a stint in the freezer, they’ll be ready to bake to Instagrammable perfection. Good job, Sylvia.”
“I hope it’s OK to talk about my past. Brenda encourages me to grieve. She says if I tell my story, talk about my nightmare with friends I can trust, one day the sting might get lost in the telling.”
“Running from emotions is more painful than feeling and expressing them. Welcome Home’s your family, Sylvia. You can talk about your story as much as you like.”
Her considering me a friend suffuses me with warmth, but at the same time, I feel uncomfortable about my comparably charmed life. Will I ever feel at ease around this woman—qualified to help her at all?
She removes a whisk from the mixing bowl, and moist batter clings to the metal. A bit of dough drops onto her forearm, and she stares at it, her eyes glistening as if she’s tranquilized. In a flash, she brings her arm to her mouth, licks it off, and then her eyes tumble into mine, as a pair of dice being rolled onto a table.
“Making Heartbreakers suits me fine.”
Addie
The full harvest moon rises quickly, her blood-orange color native to October Michigan skies. She beams across our group as a searchlight, her glint reflected in a large piece of broken glass in our neighbor Curtis’s backyard. A draft of wood smoke travels from the bonfire, burning my eyes, and it spreads across the black night air in a porous cinder shade. The air is crisp with autumn, and it’s refreshing—not as chilly as it usually is this late in the season.
Jévon is walking toward our circle, his hand entwined with his lady friend’s. Her full-lipped, angular face is as finely wrought as a carving of ebony art, and they glide through the moonlight with catlike grace. Jévon nods at us, and Lella retrieves two additional chairs, sliding them into our circle around the flames.
Paul and Tim, in a heated conversation about the recent city council elections, smile at the couple and pass them a bottle of bourbon. Kevin mentioned he’d be partying at a downtown bar. I suspected that would be his plan after learning that Sam and Uriah would be a part of our group. I wish Sam could have waited a bit longer before rubbing her new dude in his face. And their relationship is going way too fast. This morning I tried to warn her, even after David advised me to leave it alone; that train had left the station.
“Bad news about the Banksy piece, right?” David says, addressing Jévon.
“One hundred and ten thou’s not chump change, man, but estimates were it could fetch four hundred thousand at auction. That’s a big gap.”
“Imagine,” Sam says. “One day a piece of graffiti is tucked away in dystopia, water lapping its base. A few years down the road, it’s eye candy in some Beverly Hills mansion. Too weird.”
“The gallery’s official word is the proceeds will help fund an East Side art space with a focus on kids,” Jévon says.
“That’s all fine and dandy, but the piece is part of the soul of Detroit. It should have stayed in our city,” David says, shaking his head. “The gallery would have gained prestige hanging on to it. The mural would be a tourist attraction, pumping funds into the city.”
“Water under the bridge, I guess. Maybe, one day, the new owners will bequeath it back,” I say, crossing my fingers.
David—his face and lips painted the pancake white of a vampire—begins strumming his guitar. Sam and Uriah rise, and bodies entwined, they slow dance around the outside of our circle. Hero clambers to all fours, and his head follows their movements. Sam said he enjoys wearing the costume of a hero, and we giggle watching the dog, so comical with those bat ears still affixed to his snow-white head.
Sitting next to David, I feel sexy and alluring, having vamped up the costume I wore at work. After showering, I traded my tattered black shirt for a corset that laces up the front and pushes up my breasts. I tied a clove of garlic around my neck to taunt my vampire and lined my eyes heavily in thick black kohl. I hope I’ve hit the gothic wench target.
David stops playing the Grateful Dead and, with an impish grin, kicks an orange glowing stick, which has strayed from the ring of tinder, back into the flames.
“Let’s do some Johnny Cash—a little bad-boy music.”
“You mean white-boy music, my man,” Jévon laughs, squeezing the hand of his lovely partner.
David laughs and begins strumming the refrain from “Ring of Fire” on his guitar.
Sam pushes away from Uriah. “Ouch, you stepped on my foot.” Placing her hands on her hips, she raises her chin.
“Johnny gets all the credit for the song. But it was his wife, June, who wrote it. She penned the lyrics when she was falling in love with him.”
Sam begins to sing, circling the fire, her lovely soprano filling the night air as David accompanies her on his guitar.
“Johnny Cash is a legend, no doubt. But I’m with Sam on this one. I prefer listening to June,” I say. “She sang the words with such emotion and passion. Her voice touches something deep.”
David stops playing, and his voice is soft, his eyes rising to the moon. “God, June was a beauty in her day. The way Johnny looked at her in pictures, like he was ready to eat her alive. The song’s about their forbidden love.” His eyes slide down from the heavens, and he winks at me, his voice now a growl. “And we know that’s a road paved to hell, the real Ring of Fire. Right?”
“She didn’t set out to write a song about hell,” Sam retorts, a tiny snarl in her voice. “June was writing a song about passion.”
David plucks a string on his guitar, absentmindedly. “Passion, hell—one and the same.”
Turning my head, my eyes burn into his. “Passion is your idea of hell?”
He puts down his guitar and inspects me up and down, mirth in his dancing blue eyes. “I’m talking forbidden passion—in-fi-de-li-ty—you sexy wench. June was married to another man when she wrote that song for Johnny. Move a little closer so we can bare our fangs at each other.” Fitting rubber vampire teeth into his mouth, he pushes my hair away from my neck and attempts a clumsy bite.
What does David know about infidelity? I take the bottle from Tim, pour myself a short one, and then down the bourbon in a gulp. Its amber glow lights my chest.
Close to midnight, everyone has left the gathering except for David and me. He stirs the embers and throws some branches into the pit, which reignites in a flash of flames.
I am mesmerized by the pops from the crackling flames. Every spitting spark sends a flash up my groin. I turn to look into David’s eyes and, without blinking, yank away the garlic clove tied around my neck and unlace my corset. My breasts tumble into the moonlight, and I reach for his head, pressing it into the soft slopes of my flesh.
“Mmmmm, garlic,” he murmurs.
“Sizzle it with bacon and I’ll taste like carbonara.”
His laughter is muffled between my boobs.
After a pause, I stagger to my feat, noticing that his face makeup has painted streaks across the pink of my nipples. Annoyance coils around my brain like a serpent, but I catch myself before frowning and rubbing it off. Forcing my smile of seduction, I grab his hands and lean back, encouraging him to stand.
The effects of alcohol have now subsided; I am in control of this performance. After instructing him to remove his shirt and shoes, I kneel and unzip his pants with my teeth, that thing I do in full swing. Removing his belt, I pull down his pants, and he kicks them off to the side of the fire glowing orange and red. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what men want. Knowledge of the basics suffices. I give him a minute or two of this head-on, full-throttle attention. Then I rise and push him into a chair. The curtain falls on act one.
After adjusting my thong and bunching the folds of my skirt around my hips, with caution, I step into the back openings of the arms of the chair. The ragged plastic scratches my thighs as I brace my heels into the ground behind him. Act two is to hex infidelity—a woman with shorter legs could never pull off this stunt.
Straddling him, my legs hooked in place, I give him a thousand-dollar lap dance. Then I worry the chair may fall backward. I could break my legs. I slow my gyrations and get off. He’s so close to coming that I want to make this good.
Pausing a moment, I throw my skirt next to the coals and position myself atop the taffeta. I imagine how sultry I must look now, lying here, nipples erect from the evening chill, face made up as a vixen.
David stands, staggers, and falls to his knees. Ripping off the string of my thong, he shreds the lipstick-pink lace. Crap. Another thirty dollars sacrificed. Entering me, he whispers my name and comes after three heaving thrusts. He touches me, and I follow suit, moments after him.
Final curtain, applause, applause.
That was hot. But that thing is a lot of work.
“Baby girl, you care about me, dontcha,” he whispers, stroking the side of my face. Goose bumps spread across my body, and I sandwich my hands, suddenly cold, in his armpits.
“I do.”