Beg (Songs of Submission #1)(8)

I went home barely able to walk from wanting him and completed my breakup with Darren the next day. If desire was supposed to feel like that, I needed more of it. I felt awake, alive, not just sexy, but sexual. Thoughts of him infected me until I saw him again and we tumbled into bed, screwing like wild animals.

A year later, when I walked away from him, weeping, I realized I’d let my sexuality control and manipulate me through him. He took my music and crushed it under the weight of his own talent. He ignored what I created, dismissing it, degenerating it, so that within three months, I couldn’t sing a word and any instrument I picked up became a bludgeon. I’d never felt so creatively dead and so sexually alive.

When I got the strength to walk away from him, I vowed never again.

***

I snapped my locker closed, thinking about those Dodger seats on the first base line. A corporation gets a skybox. A real fan gets tickets at field level, luxuries be damned. I’d never seen a game from that angle.

Debbie came into the locker room, buzzing with talk and flirting and locker doors banging, and handed out our tip envelopes. “A good night for everyone,” she said, then got close to me. “Someone is waiting for you at the front exit. If you want to avoid him, go through the parking lot, but be nice. He’s a friend of the hotel.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Quickly, I have to count out.”

“How many drinks did he have?” I asked as quietly as I could.

Debbie smiled as if I’d asked the exact right question. “Two. He nurses like a baby.”

“I know you don’t know me that well yet, but… would going out the front be a mistake?”

“Only if you take it too seriously.”

“Thanks.”

Debbie walked off to hand out the rest of the envelopes. What she said had been a relief, actually. It made the boundaries that much clearer. I could hang out, be close to him and feel the buzz of sex between us, but I had to be careful about climbing into bed with him. Fair warning.

***

Jonathan Drazen stood in the lobby, talking to Sam, laughing like an old buddy. I wasn’t going to approach him with my boss right there. Sam seemed like a fine guy for the fifteen minutes we’d talked. With his white hair and slim build, he looked like a newscaster and had an all-business attitude. I just pushed through the revolving doors, figuring fate had lent a hand in deciding whether or not I’d see Drazen outside a rooftop bar.

I was three steps into the hot night when I heard him call my name.

“You stalking me?” I asked, slowing my steps to the parking lot.

“Just wanted company to walk to my car.”

We strolled down Flower Street, the long way to the underground parking lot. Any normal person would have gone through the hotel.

“How do you know Sam?” I asked.

“He introduced me to my ex-wife, which I’m trying to not hold against him.”

“You’re a good sport,” I said. “Have you always been blue?”

He tilted his head a few degrees.

“Dodger fan,” I said. “I would’ve taken you for more of an Angels guy.”

“Ah. Because I have money?”

“Kind of.”

“I like a little grit,” he said, that smile lighting up the night.

“Is that why you met me after work?” I asked, turning toward the parking lot entrance.

“Kind of.”

He let me go first into the underground passage, and I felt his eyes on me as I walked. It was not an uncomfortable feeling. When we got to the bottom of the ramp, we stopped. I parked in the employee level and his car was in the valet section. I held up my hand to wave good-bye.

“It was nice to talk to you,” I said.

“You too.”

We faced each other, walking backward in opposite directions.

“See you around,” I said.

“Okay.” He waved, tall and beautiful in the flat light and grey parking lot.

“Take care.”

“What do I have to say?”

“You have to say please,” I said.

“Please.”

“Where do you think you’re taking me?”

“Come on. Text a friend and tell them who you’re with in case I’m a psycho killer.”

***

The early hour guaranteed a traffic-free trip to the west side. I’d gotten into his Mercedes convertible thinking most killers don’t drive with the top down where everyone could see, so I just let the wind whip my hair into a bird’s nest. Jonathan drove with one hand, and as I watched his fingers move and slide on the bottom of the wheel, the hair on the back of it, the strong wrist, I imagined it on me. I grabbed the leather seat, trying to keep my mind on something, anything else, but the leather itself seemed to rub the backs of my thighs the wrong way. “So, you pick up waitresses a lot?”

He smirked and glanced over to me. The wind was doing crazy shit to his hair as well, but it made him look sexy, and I was sure I looked like Medusa. “Only the very attractive ones.”

“I guess I should take that as a compliment.”

“You definitely should.”

“I’m not sleeping with you.”

“You mentioned that.”

So maybe the rumors were true, and he was a total womanizer. Well, I’d already told him sex was off the table, so he could womanize all he wanted. Didn’t matter to me at all. I was driven by curiosity. Who was this guy? What was it like to be him? Not that it mattered, I told myself, because again, I had no time for a heartbreak.