Different Circles

Chapter 21: Red Skies at Night

Los Angeles International Airport

Los Angeles, California

March 17, 1994

It was 9:30 AM, twenty-four minutes after the big board reported that American Airlines Flight 612 from Sau Paulo had ARRIVED, when Jake first caught sight of her. He was sitting in one of the hard plastic chairs near the bottom of the escalators that led downward from the gates of Terminal 4 to the main concourse. A steady stream of arriving passengers from a variety of American Airlines flights had been making their way down those moving staircases ever since Jake had planted his butt there. Now, at last, he saw a familiar female figure with a head of hair a familiar shade of red at the top of the ride. Gathered around this familiar looking person were several other people who looked familiar as well—a group he had spent a week hanging out with and playing live music with five months before.

His eyes locked onto her, a smile coming to his face. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a loose-fitting t-shirt with a picture of a chili pepper on it. Her hair was down and flowing across her shoulders. Even from a distance, Jake could see that she looked tired and haggard from her travels. Even so, she was beautiful, he loved her, and his heart was extremely happy to see her with his own two eyes.

He stood and made his way toward the bottom of the escalator. He waved his right hand at her as he approached. About halfway down, she spotted him and her face lit up. She waved back enthusiastically. The moment her feet stepped off the bottom step, she rushed to him, weaving in and out of other passengers and loved ones in the crowd until she slammed into him nearly hard enough to knock him down. They put their arms around each other and she began to cover his face with wet kisses.

“I missed you so much!” she told him, kissing his lips, his cheek, his ear. “It’s so good to finally be home!”

“I missed you too, hon,” he told her, relishing the feel of her body in his arms, not minding at all that she smelled of sour sweat and stale cigarette smoke (smoking on domestic flights was no longer allowed, but the ban had yet to be applied to long-haul international flights). He could not wait to get her back to the house and into bed. He was already springing a semi just from the thought.

By the time they broke their embrace—after one final, passionate mouth kiss that involved a bit of tongue play—the rest of the musicians had made their way over to the couple. Squiggle, Groove, Sally, Homer, and, of course, Z himself—all looking burned out and haggard to varying degrees themselves—each shook Jake’s hand and gave him warm greetings.

“How was the flight?” Jake asked.

“Fuckin’ long,” Homer said. “Thirteen goddamn hours in the air.”

“Yeah,” said Z, “but at least it led to home.”

“Damn right,” said Sally. “No show tonight, no show tomorrow, no show anytime in the near future. We’re back in the land of wanton waste and the twenty-four hour drive-through, where it’s reasonably safe to drink the tap water and eat from a roadside taco stand.”

“You got that shit right,” Z said, shaking his head with a painful grimace. “You ever had dysentery, Jake?”

“I never have,” Jake said.

“Take it from me and Sally,” Z told him. “Don’t try it just to see what it’s like. Especially not if you have to do a ninety-minute show.”

Laura giggled a little. “I had to extend my sax solo for him a few times that week so he could go take care of some emergency business. I improvised for nearly ten minutes straight one night.”

Jake nodded, impressed. “The show must go on, right?”

“Right,” Z said sourly. “Sometimes, however, I think maybe we should change that to ‘the show might go on’.”

The group made their way through the concourse to the assigned baggage claim area for their flight. They found a spot near the carousel and, while Jake and Laura held hands and stood with their bodies in contact, the rest of the band continued to regale him with a few anecdotes of their time in South America.

It took the better part of twenty minutes for everyone’s checked baggage to drop down and get collected. Laura had one large suitcase and her saxophone case—an insurance policy had been taken out on the sax to cover its potential loss or damage by American Airlines—and they were among the last items to emerge (naturally). From there, the group made its way to the terminal exit. A limousine had been arranged to take away the rest of the band and it was waiting out front.

It took another ten minutes for Laura to give a tearful farewell to the group of men she had been traveling and playing with almost constantly for the past eight months. The emotion of the moment was quite thick in the air as they exchanged hugs and goodbyes with her. Though Bobby Z intended to start putting together his next album very soon, he would not be needing a saxophonist for quite some time and Laura had not, in any case, even committed to being that saxophonist when the time came. This would be the last she would see of this bunch for months, possibly even forever.

Jake watched quietly as this played out, his hand resting on Laura’s suitcase. He could not help but notice that when it came time for her to say goodbye to Squiggle, the hug was extra-long, extra-snug, that the tears running down her face began to run a little faster, in higher volume, and that the kiss on the cheek she gave him was positioned a little closer to the corner of his mouth.

“Take care of yourself, Teach,” Squiggle told her. “Maybe we’ll play together again sometime.”

“Anything is possible,” she told him, giving him one last hug and then tussling his hair.

Laura absolutely insisted on showering first.

“I cannot wait to get my hands on your dick,” she told him, hunger in her eyes, “but I am not going to let you see me, smell me, taste me, or fuck me while I’m all sweaty, gross, and my hair smells like cigarettes.”

“I don’t mind,” he insisted.

“I do,” she told him. “Now go pour us some wine and wait in the bed while I get cleaned up.”

“Wine? It’s ten o’clock in the morning.”

“I’m still on Sau Paulo time,” she reminded him. “It feels like mid-afternoon to me. And besides, I’ve been flying all night long. I want some wine, some dick, and then some sleep. In that order.”

“Yes ma’am,” he told her, smiling and giving her a little salute.

He got the wine for her but she did not end up drinking any of it. When she emerged from the bathroom she was wearing only a white robe over her bare flesh. Jake was wearing nothing at all and his little buddy was standing tall and proud, ready to perform the service for which he had been designed and constructed.

The robe came off and they fell into each other’s arms. They kissed hotly, their tongues swirling together, their hands touching everywhere, everything. Jake licked and sucked her nipples for a few minutes and then began to kiss his way southward, heading for that freshly shaved, sweet smelling junction between her legs. He barely made it to her belly button, however, before she hooked her hands into his armpits and began pulling him back up.

“Fuck me!” she demanded, her voice full of lust.

“Let me eat you first,” he said. “You love it when I put my mouth on your pussy.”

“I do,” she said, “but I don’t want that right now. I want cock, baby and I want it all the way in!”

Though he really wanted to get a taste of her juices, he did as requested. He slid his body up atop hers, found the proper positioning, and sank into her hot wetness in one stroke.

It was absolute heaven after so long feeling only his own hand for stimulation. He hardly thought of Celia at all as he began to thrust in and out of her.

April 1^st, also known as April Fools Day, was a beautiful example of early spring in southern California. The temperature at noon was seventy-two degrees, with just enough of a westerly wind to blow some of the smog out of the basin and let one see the actual blue of the sky above.

Jake and Greg were spending the day at the Pacific View Country Club above Malibu. Greg had been a member of this exclusive set of links for the past ten years and the two of them played here together several times a month when time, work schedules, and weather permitted. Greg, who was a better golfer, almost always won the matches. Jake, on the other hand, almost always won the bets when his handicap and his greater propensity for shining under pressure were factored in.

He had already taken the first nine by sinking a twenty-foot putt just prior to the turn and edging out Greg on the automatic press. Now, as they mounted the tenth, fresh beers in hand and Cuban cigars smoldering in the cart’s ashtray, Greg declared it was time to start kicking some rock star ass.

“You always say that,” Jake told him, pulling a driver from his bag walking up to the tee.

“I know,” Greg said sourly. “This time, I’m going to do it.”

“Care to double the bet?” Jake asked lightly, knowing that Greg could not resist such a thing even when he knew he was likely going to lose.

“How about we double the stakes but take out the automatic press for the game?” Greg suggested.

“I can still request the press if I’m behind?” Jake asked.

“Of course,” the actor told him. “But I’m not compelled to grant it.”

Jake smiled. He knew that Greg could no more refuse a request to press the bet than he could refuse to have an olive placed in his martini. “Deal.”

“All right,” Greg said. “Let’s do this.”

The tenth hole was a long, picturesque par 5 that stretched along the ridge and offered stunning views of the ocean (the name of the club was not false advertising by any stretch of the imagination). Jake, who had won the ninth hole, made a slow, easy swing and blasted his little white ball more than two hundred and fifty yards downrange, where it rolled to a stop near the right side of the narrow fairway.

“Nice,” Greg said, nodding. He then proceeded to outdrive Jake by a good twenty yards and end up with favorable positioning for the second shot.

They put their clubs in their bags and got back into the electric cart. Greg was behind the wheel for this round—they took turns being the driver from round to round ever since Jake had yelled at the pompous actor several years before that he wasn’t a goddamned limo driver—and he drove them down the well-maintained cart path. Both puffed on their cigars as they made the journey.

“You seem a lot more relaxed since Laura got home,” Greg pointed out.

“Yeah,” Jake said, nodding. “There’s still a shitload of stressful things going on, but ... you know ... when you’re back to getting regular sex after a long stretch without it, it does tend to have a mellowing effect.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Greg said sourly.

“She’s still not giving up the trim?”

“She’s not refusing to have sex with me,” he said, “but she’s not offering it up either. The two times I’ve gotten some since she’s been home were only after I initiated things quite strongly and fought through a concrete wall of disinterest on her part. And even after all that, she just laid there and let me do what I needed to do, not participating much in the effort.”

“That thoroughly sucks,” Jake said with sympathy. He knew, after all, how passionate Celia could be in bedroom.

“No kidding,” Greg said. “Quite honestly, taking myself in hand is more pleasurable than that. At least my imaginary lover moves a little.”

“I wish I knew what to tell you,” Jake said. “Is she still giving you the silent act?”

“She claims she isn’t. She’ll talk to me when I talk to her, answer whatever I’ve asked, but that’s about it. We talk about business things, scheduling things, household things, but not much else. She doesn’t tell me about her day, not even if I ask about it. She doesn’t ask about my day. When I tell her things about my day, she just nods and grunts—never asks any follow-up questions.”

“It certainly sounds like you have a communication issue of late,” Jake said.

“That might be the understatement of the year,” Greg said.

They had arrived at Jake’s ball. He got out, took a quick look at his distance to green—it was still well over two hundred and fifty yards—and then pulled out his three wood. He took a few practice swings until it swished over the grass at just the right level and then addressed the ball. Greg kept respectfully silent behind him. He swung the club and the head made good contact with the ball, launching it into the air with a resounding smack. It sliced a little to the right, but not enough to really matter. It landed thirty yards short of the green, bounced a few times, and rolled to a stop an easy chip shot away.

“Nice one,” Greg said when Jake got back in the cart.

“Could’ve been better,” Jake said as the cart began to roll again.

“It can always be better.”

“This is true,” Jake allowed. He took a puff from his cigar, a drink from his beer. “If it makes you feel any better, Celia’s not all that communicative at tour rehearsal either.”

“No?” Greg asked. He seemed a bit surprised by this.

“Strictly business with me and the Nerdlys both. Even with the band, she’s short, succinct, to the point and not much else. She even yelled at Charlie the other day when he took too much time disinfecting his bass during the encore break. Almost made him cry.”

“That guy is bizarre,” Greg said. “And as someone who regularly works with homosexuals, directors with over-the-top OCD, production managers with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and just plain crazy people, that is saying a lot.”

“Charlie does take some getting used to,” Jake agreed as Greg brought them to a halt at his golf ball.

Greg’s shot was about as close to perfect as it could be. He made solid contact with his own three wood and the ball was right on the line. It bounced and rolled and finally stopped just short of the fringe of the green.

“Almost on in two,” the actor said with a shake of the head.

“You’re just showing off,” Jake said.

“I do not show off,” Greg said. “I perform.”

“Right,” Jake said as they lurched forward again, heading for Jake’s ball.

“How is the tour rehearsal going anyway?” Greg asked. “Celia is obviously telling me very little about it.”

“It’s dialed in tight,” Jake said. “She may be dealing with her demons and her own issues off that stage, but when she steps up there and starts playing, all that shit seems to slip away and she puts on a hell of a show. The audiences are going to love the performance. She’s a natural.”

“That’s good to hear,” Greg said. “The suits over at Aristocrat keep insisting that the whole thing is going to be a failure—she did tell me that much. They continue to pressure her to put on the sexy outfit and do a little bit of dancing.”

“Yeah, Pauline and I both keep hearing that crap as well. Trust me, not them. It’s a stellar performance we’ve put together that is pure music in the format it’s supposed to be heard in. Even the opening band that Aristocrat is sending out with her isn’t half bad—for a bunch of hackers anyway. We’re doing two days of dress rehearsals next week. After that, the roadies will start setup and tear-down training so everything will be ready when they hit the road for the first date in Phoenix on the 27^th.”

“Hmm,” Greg said. “As of yet, I have not been invited to either of the dress rehearsals.”

“I’m sure you have an open invitation,” Jake said. “We’re doing them Wednesday and Thursday nights, with the openers taking the stage at 7:30, which is what time the show starts at most of the venues.”

“I will talk to C about it,” Greg said. “I’m sure she’ll just tell me to do what I want. That’s been her standard answer these past months.”

“Hopefully things will get better,” Jake said with sincerity. He honestly did want things to work out between Greg and Celia. “She’ll have lots of time to think while she’s out on the road.”

Greg nodded. “That’s kind of what I’m afraid of,” he said softly, speaking more to himself than Jake.

Since returning home from South America, Laura had turned into a considerable homebody. She would go days at a time without ever leaving Jake’s house, and if she did leave, it was only to perform a brief, necessary errand and then she would come right back home. Her routine these days was to sleep until well after ten o’clock in the morning, at which point she would shower and dress in comfortable clothes like shorts and a T-shirt, usually leaving out the bra. She would then eat whatever Elsa had prepared for her—or leftovers if it was the weekend and Elsa was off—and then spend the rest of the day either reading some novel from Jake’s collection or watching television. She listened to no music and her saxophone remained in its case in the music room. At night, after dinner, she would drink wine and smoke some of Jake’s marijuana, getting herself into a mellow mood. Most nights Jake would imbibe with her and they would end up in bed for a lengthy session of sex. Her lovemaking (or ‘fucking’, as she still preferred to term it) was as passionate as ever with one small exception. She no longer asked Jake to perform cunnilingus on her—an act she used to demand during nearly every session—and, if he went downtown on his own, she would usually let him lap away at her for only a few minutes before dragging him back up and encouraging him to bury himself in her body.

Jake thought this new aversion to having him eat her out was a bit strange—and disappointing, as he truly loved performing that particular act—but in all other things Laura was pretty much the same Laura he had fallen in love with. True, she had developed a considerable taste for drinking wine and getting stoned during her tour, but other than that she was still the funny, quirky, adorable redhead she’d always been. He did not mind that she was doing little work these days. He certainly understood that tours were brutal and one needed to rest up after completing one. Her bank account was nicely swollen thanks to the tour revenue and the royalty checks she regularly received from KVA Records, and even if it hadn’t been, Jake had more than enough money to support them both.

“I’ll pick up the sax again soon,” she assured Jake the one time he had asked her about it. This had been in bed, just after they’d finished taking a few hits from the old pipe. “I’m just a little burned out on playing after all the touring. Right now, there’s only one horn I want to blow.”

“Oh yeah?” Jake asked, smiling as her hand began to caress the horn in question.

“Yeah,” she said, licking her lips and then lowering her head to begin the performance.

On the night of April 8^th, however, her presence at Celia’s final dress rehearsal was pretty much mandatory. She put up no fuss when Jake told her this. In truth, she was getting anxious to start interacting with the world once again, and she had not seen or talked to Celia in a long time now—since a few days before she’d left on the American part of the Bobby Z tour. She dressed in a pair of new blue jeans and a fashionable blouse, put on a little makeup for the first time in weeks, and even did her hair a little. Before getting into the limo that Jake had arranged to take them to the performance she made sure to pack her one-hitter pipe and a baggie of Jake’s greenbud in her purse.

“Greg’s going to be there?” Laura asked Jake as they sat in the back of the limo and sipped from a bottle of wine she’d opened.

“That’s the rumor,” Jake said.

“Is it awkward being around them?” she asked. Jake had told her what the situation was between the actor and the singer, including the reason for the rift. She felt bad for both of them, but also more than a little sympathetic. She certainly did not approve of infidelity in a relationship, but she also knew what it was like to be far away from the one you loved and understood the sexual frustration that went along with it. Yes, she understood that very well indeed.

“Most of the time, no,” Jake said. “They both remain personable with everyone else, and they don’t fight or put each other down or anything like that. It actually takes a while to realize sometimes that they’re not talking to each other. It’s subtle.”

“Interesting,” she said, pondering that. She then turned to Jake and grinned. “Do you mind if I suck you off really quick before we get there?”

“Uh ... well ... no,” he said. “I’m certainly not going to say no to that.”

“All right then,” she said, putting her wine glass down. “Break that thing out and let’s do this.”

He broke it out and she did it, putting her head in his lap and sucking his manhood between her lips. She had been doing this a lot lately. She tried to tell herself she just loved the taste and texture of Jake’s cock—and she truly did—but she knew that wasn’t the complete truth. Being out on the road all those months, the only girl among a band and crew of males while her lover was far away had put a sexual pressure on her that she had never experienced before—had never even really imaged. She was still trying to come to grips with how she had chosen to deal with that pressure in order to remain sane and faithful to Jake. Her compulsive need to have her hands, mouth, and vagina on Jake’s erection now that it was available to her was how she was dealing with a combination of guilt, confusion, and desire brought on by the experience.

She finished up the blowjob, swallowed down the offering without spilling a drop, and still had enough time to reapply her makeup and rinse out her mouth with another glass of wine before they arrived at the rehearsal warehouse.

“I’ll give you a call when we’re ready for pick-up,” Jake told Tony, their driver, after passing him a folded green piece of paper with a picture of Ulysses S. Grant on it.

“My cell phone is on, Jake,” Tony promised, taking the bill and making it disappear. “I’ll be here ten minutes after you call.”

“Good enough,” Jake said, taking Laura’s arm.

They went inside the building, where the stage, the lighting, and the soundboard had all been set up in the exact configuration that was going to be used in the actual venues out on tour. Though the warehouse was much smaller than a concert venue, there was still enough room for a couple of dozen folding chairs between the soundboard and the stage. Many of these chairs were already occupied by men in suits. These were bigwigs from Aristocrat Records, Brogan Guitars, and the Yamaha Corporation’s music division. The Aristocrat suits were here because they were financing the tour and were entitled to see what they were paying for (even if they didn’t like it). The Brogan and Yamaha people were here because several of the musicians in the band had signed endorsement contracts with them for the tour and they wanted to see what they were paying for.

Jake led Laura over to these front row chairs and introduced her to the suits. She shook their hands, told them she was happy to meet them, and smiled pretty for them, knowing she would not remember a single name, and hoping she would not have to talk too much to them.

She did not. After making small talk for less than five minutes, Greg came in through the front door. He was alone, dressed in a custom-tailored business suit complete with jacket and tie. Laura rushed over to greet him and gave him a big hug before kissing him on both cheeks. Greg seemed very pleased with the greeting, his smile genuine instead of an actor’s pretend smile.

“You look as beautiful as ever, Laura,” Greg told her.

“Thank you,” she said, feeling herself blush a little. She loved Jake with all her heart, but it was always flattering to have a handsome Hollywood actor call you beautiful.

“Are you going to come with Jake to the premier of So Others May Live?” he asked her.

“Absolutely!” she said. “I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never been to a real Hollywood premier before.”

“It’s just like going to see a film at your local movie theater,” he assured her. “Except, you know, the dress is formal, and there are a bunch of stars and directors there, and there are appetizers prepared by the best chefs in the region.”

“Jake said the drinks are free?” she asked.

“The drinks are free,” he assured her.

“That’s all you had to say,” she said. She then leaned forward and gave him another kiss on the cheek.

Pauline and the Nerdlys showed up next. Laura had had a meeting with Pauline, her manager, shortly after arriving back home, so she rushed right by her to give big hugs to Bill (who blushed furiously as she embraced him) and especially to Sharon.

“Congratulations!” she told the master of audio engineering, who was already exhibiting a distinct glow. “Jake told me the news last week. It’s so exciting, isn’t it?”

“It’s actually kind of nauseating, truth be told,” Sharon said. “Now I understand what my mother is always holding over my head.”

“The tendency toward circadian rhythm disturbances and early day nausea and emesis should pass around the completion of the first trimester,” Bill said matter-of-factly. “At least all of the internet research I’ve done on the subject seems to suggest this.”

“Early day nausea my ass,” Pauline said sourly. “When I was growing the clump, I’d puke any fucking time, day or night, usually with only six or so seconds of warning.”

“Did this condition resolve by the end of the first trimester though?” asked Bill.

“More or less,” Pauline said with a shrug.

“That is fortunate,” Bill said. “I am quite looking forward to the surge of hormones in the second trimester that is purported to trigger increased sexual desire.”

“The second trimester horniness,” Pauline said with a fond nod of the head. “That’s a real thing. Obie almost didn’t survive it.”

“He told me he had to turn it down a few times during that phase,” Jake said.

Pauline nodded. “This is true. He’s such an old man.”

“How much longer until he comes home?” Laura asked.

“He’ll be here for Greg’s premier,” Pauline said. “The final tour date is May 16^th in Portland. Tabs and I are going to fly up there to catch the show and then spend a little time in Coos Bay.”

“You’re going to bring a baby to a concert?” Laura asked.

“Damn right,” Pauline said. “She’s from a musical family, isn’t she? I want her first concert to be her daddy’s—even if it is that crappy-ass country music.”

7:30 was rapidly approaching, so everyone found seats to plant their respective butts in. Laura and Jake sat as far away from the suits of Aristocrat, Brogan, and Yamaha as they possibly could. The Nerdlys tried to sit at the sound board so they could monitor the hand-picked engineers and techs they had assembled for the day to day operations, but were soundly rejected on the grounds that it was time to let their little birds fly free. They ended up sitting next to Jake and Laura. Greg sat on the other side of Jake and sipped from a glass of wine he’d poured from the small bar that had been set up.

The opening band was a group called Flex, an alternative rock group from Minneapolis that Aristocrat had signed six months before. Flex’s debut album, titled Under the Surface, had been released for sale three weeks before and the title cut was getting some decent airplay across the nation. They were, of course, operating under a first-time contract that exploited them horribly and pretty much guaranteed that, no matter how successful they became, they would do nothing but lose money and go into debt to Aristocrat. The owners of KVA Records did not approve of this, but they knew it was the world they lived in and there was little they could do about it.

Flex took the stage and played a forty-five minute set that included every cut on their debut album and two unrecorded songs. Laura was not terribly impressed with them, but she understood that this was primarily due to her still-present prejudice against rock and roll music. Good rock could impress her—Jake had shown her that—but almost never at first listen, and only if it was truly good. Flex did not have the sound of something that might eventually grow on her.

The newbies finished their set and then left the stage to the sound of polite applause from the fifteen people who made up the audience. The roadies began to clear Flex’s equipment from the stage so Celia could come on in thirty minutes. It was as much a dress rehearsal for the roadies and the techies as it was for the musicians—maybe even more so.

“Where do you think you’re going, Nerdlys?” Jake asked as Bill and Sharon began to rise from their seats.

“We just want to have a brief word with Flint and Jeff over on the sound board,” Nerdly said.

“Right,” said Sharon. “The mid-range on the bass was just a little too high and the secondary mic volume was a little too low. We want to make sure that...”

“Sit down,” Jake said firmly. “We’ve been over this, remember? It’s time to let them do their jobs.”

“But the mid-range!” Nerdly said. “It has to be adjusted before Celia steps out!”

“Flex sounded fine to me,” Jake said. “Celia will sound fine as well. Let your guys do their work.”

The Nerdlys sat back down, but it was under protest. “Can I at least send a note over?” Nerdly asked.

“No,” Jake said.

“Don’t be so disappointed,” Pauline told them. “Pretty soon you’ll have Brainwash to pick and probe at and to be anal about.”

“Yes,” Jake said. “I pity them already.”

Celia and her band took the stage exactly on time. The house lights went down and the stage lights remained dark. The vague silhouettes of the performers could be seen moving about the stage, getting into position. And then a single spotlight came on, lighting up the front-center of the stage, where Celia’s microphone was positioned. Celia was there, wearing, as promised in negotiations, a pair of jeans and a sleeveless blouse. Her hair was down and flowing across her shoulders. She held a Fender acoustic six-string guitar in her hands. She began to pluck out a gentle melody on it.

“Good evening, West Covina,” she said into the microphone. “Welcome to the show.”

She continued to pick out the melody, gradually increasing the tempo and power of it, finally morphing it into something solid and fully organized, something that displayed her skill with the acoustic guitar quite well. She paused at the top of a bar—obviously a cue, Laura could tell—and then the rest of the stage lights came on, revealing the rest of the primary band. At once, they launched into a song, all of them playing together. Laura had listened to a copy of Celia’s new CD (and Jake’s as well) a few times—it was, in fact, the only music she’d listened to since returning from tour—and she recognized the tune as Should We Believe?, which Jake had told her was going to be the first released for airplay.

Celia played and sang beautifully, strumming her guitar for the rhythm while belting out the sure-to-be-controversial lyrics that questioned the existence of the Christian God. Laura had never met Coop or Charlie before, but she recognized them from their pictures on the Intemperance album covers she’d seen. The baby-faced man on the lead guitar and the slightly chubby older woman on the piano were completely unfamiliar to her but were competent enough. The sound, which the Nerdlys had been agonizing over since the first note of Flex, came across as damn near perfect to her ears, with just the right volume on the vocal mics and the instruments so that every word Celia sang could be heard and every instrument being played could be distinguished from every other. It was dialed in far better than she had ever heard Z’s people accomplish even on their best day in the most favorable acoustic conditions.

After Should We Believe?, Celia and her band moved into territory that was more familiar to Laura. They played The Struggle, with Dexter Price stepping out onto the stage and laying down the saxophone parts that she had spent so many hours perfecting. He played them as they’d been recorded, his phrasing a little different than hers, perhaps, but that was to be expected. The young guitar player handled Jake’s parts, including the solo, quite nicely as well. All in all, it was a wonderful rendition of the first song she had learned in Celia’s employ. She clapped enthusiastically when it was over.

In all, Celia and the band performed almost every song on both albums during the ninety-minute set, loosely alternating between the new songs and the old ones, playing the bigger hits toward the end—with the conspicuous absence of Why?, which was her biggest hit of all and was likely being saved for the encore. Dexter was given no extended sax solo, but the young kid on the guitar was allowed to wail for about five minutes after finishing up the outro on Small Talk, one of the harder-driving pieces from the new album. They closed out the main part of the show with Playing Those Games, the breakout hard rock song from the first album—Celia abandoning her own guitar and singing into the microphone while moving back and forth on the stage.

“Thank you, West Covina!” Celia shouted into the mic when Playing was over. “Thank you and goodnight!” She and the band then left the stage but the lights stayed on. This was where the audience would be shouting for more—presumably.

Celia came back out on the stage a few minutes later, waving, carrying a twelve-string guitar in her hands. With her was the chubby piano player, but she did not go to the piano and sit down. Instead, she accompanied Celia to Celia’s microphone. The young eastern European girl who had been playing the violin during the show walked out as well and positioned herself just to the right of Celia. The young guitar player also came out, carrying his own acoustic guitar instead of an electric. Coop, Dexter and Charlie stayed backstage.

“All right,” Celia told the audience as she started to strum her guitar a little. “I guess we have time for a few more.”

With that, she began to play the melody for Why?. Laura couldn’t help but break into applause as she heard this. Though she had had no playing time on the cut, Why? had been one of her favorites on the album anyway. It was such a hypnotic, profound tune, with harmonious acoustic guitars, gentle violin, and, of course, the two-part harmony of Celia and Pauline’s voices singing the lyrics. The pianist standing next to Celia actually sounded better than Pauline, both in aesthetics and use of her voice, and the rendition was enough to almost bring tears to Laura’s eyes.

After Why?, Coop and Charlie came back out while the guitarist swapped back to an electric and the pianist returned to her instrument. They then played a song from Celia’s days with La Diferencia: Carabobo, which, Laura knew, was one of the few songs that Celia had penned back then that had been included on one of the albums. Since Aristocrat had been La Diferencia’s label, they were allowing her to perform La Dif songs—had, in fact, tried to pressure her to play some of the bigger hits like I Love To Dance—but Celia refused to do anything she had not written. The rendition they did now sounded considerably better than the studio version, probably because the musicians and the sound were both better.

The final song of the encore was Done With You, another one of Laura’s absolute favorites. She had happy, vivid memories of putting this tune down up in Oregon, playing the dueling solos with Mary on her electric violin while Jake and Celia laid down the backing rhythm with their guitars. Dexter and the young eastern-European looking violinist did considerable justice to the outro, expanding upon the dueling solos for the better part of three minutes before finally winding up the tune in a flurry of instruments punctuated by one last repetition of the chorus that was drawn out by Celia.

“Yes!” Laura yelled happily, standing up and clapping enthusiastically as the musicians came to the front of the stage to take their bows. Nor was she the only one. It had been a great show and the applause was quite real and heartfelt.

“All right!” Jake said to the audience once the house lights came back up. “That’s the show we’re going with. Was it badass, or what?”

“Outstanding!” Pauline said. “They’re going to kill them!”

“Hear, hear!” Greg agreed. “That was my wife up there, and she was amazing!”

“A premium performance,” Nerdly said. “Although, in truth, I think if we adjusted the medium range on the...”

“Shut up, Nerdly,” Jake barked at him. “They’re dialed in. The guys did a great job on the sound.

“It was acceptable,” Nerdly grunted.

“It was fucking badass!” Jake insisted. He then turned to the suits from Aristocrat. “Well, boys, what do you think? Did she manage to keep your attention?”

“It was pretty good,” the head suit acknowledged. “But still, imagine what it would have been with a little choreography, and some costume changes, and some professional dancers.”

The suits all took their leave shortly after the performance. Everyone else met out on the warehouse floor to have a few drinks and talk things over. The band made their way out from the backstage area one by one after taking their post-performance showers. Laura was formally introduced to Coop and Charlie.

“I’m sorry,” Charlie told her when she held out her hand to him. “I don’t shake hands. Nothing personal, it’s just that we, as humans, touch some really nasty things with our hands and those bacteria linger there, just waiting to be passed from one person to the other.”

“Uh ... right,” Laura said. “No handshake. I did enjoy your playing very much though.”

“It’s good to have a gig again,” Charlie said.

“I bet,” she said.

“Have you ever wondered,” Charlie asked her suddenly, “if some of the bacteria we’re exposed to each and every day might have actually been brought here from a different civilization on a different plane of existence?”

“Uh ... no, I’ve never actually wondered that before,” she said. “Maybe the next time I get high I’ll ponder it though.”

“You do that,” Charlie said seriously. “Now, if it’s all the same to everyone here, I’m going to head home and try to score as much dick as I can before we hit the road.”

“A good plan,” Jake told him. “Catch you later, Charlie.”

Charlie wandered off. Laura watched him go and then turned to Jake. “You’re right,” she said. “He is really weird.”

“He’s so fuckin’ weird that weird people say he’s weird,” said a large man with blonde curls.

“That’s deep,” Laura said.

“I thought so,” the man said. “I’m Coop. Jake’s told me a lot about you. And I’m not afraid to shake your hand.”

“That’s good to know,” Laura said, holding out her hand to him and accepting the shake. “And Jake’s told me a lot about you as well.”

“Really?” said Coop, a little alarm showing on his face. He turned to Jake. “You didn’t tell her about the time me and Darren got wasted and ended up fucking that grandmother together, did you?”

“Uh ... no, Coop,” Jake said. “I didn’t tell her about that.”

“Oh ... good,” Coop said. “That shit’s embarrassing, you know?”

“The secret is still safe,” Jake assured him.

Next, she was introduced to Elizabeth Watertown (“Call me Liz,” she told Laura. “It’s what I prefer”), the pianist and secondary vocalist. Up close and personal, Liz showed her age even more so than up on stage. She was forty-six and had been playing and teaching both piano and voice for more than twenty-five years. To supplement her income from the private lessons, she had worked on and off for Aristocrat Studios over the years doing sessions, mostly overdubs and dramatic television soundtracks. She had two children in college and an ex-husband who couldn’t hold a job. Aristocrat, Jake had told Laura, had not wanted to use Liz as Celia’s pianist and vocalist even though she was, by far, the most talented of those who had been auditioned. “She’s old and fat,” they insisted. “Nobody wants to see her up on the stage.” They had been wrong about that. Celia had wanted to see her up there, and, more important, to hear her up there. For Liz, this was a dream assignment. She would make more on this tour than she made in two years of giving lessons and doing sessions.

After Liz came Natalie Popanova, the violinist. She was tall, thin, young and pretty—which was why Aristocrat had recommended her for the job. She was also classically trained in her art and an excellent performer, which was why Celia had chosen her. Natalie had been doing sessions for Aristocrat’s film soundtrack studio for the past three years and was married to a doctor who was twenty years older than her.

“I’m Russian, not Ukrainian,” Natalie told Laura sternly, even though Laura had not asked about anything even remotely connected to her ethnicity.

“Uh ... okay,” Laura said. “Got it.”

“Ukrainians are nothing but tundra trash,” Natalie insisted. “Corrupt thieves who would sell their own mothers for a pack of counterfeit food stamps. The only thing worse are those Romanians—oh, and the Chechens, of course.”

“Of course,” agreed Laura, who had no idea what a Chechen even was. Nor did she really have any interest in finding out.

Dexter Price was the next to emerge.

“Well, well, well,” he said, looking Laura up and down. “The girl who replaced me on the Bobby Z show. We meet at last, Miss Laura.”

“I guess we kind of replaced each other,” Laura told him with a smile. “And it’s an honor to have you playing my tracks up there on that stage.”

“You did some good work on C’s first album,” Dexter told her. “And I’m told you filled my shoes quite well out on the road with Z.”

She blushed. “I did my best,” she said. “As for filling your shoes ... I don’t know about that.”

“Don’t be modest, girl,” Dexter admonished. “I keep my earballs to the ground and I heard you were badass out on that road. Embrace it.”

“Okay,” Laura said. “I was badass.”

“That’s the way!” Dexter said. “You just keep that attitude and it’ll take you far.” He hesitated for a moment, and then: “How is Z doing these days, anyway? Is he ... you know ... seeing anyone regular like?”

They had a little discussion about Z’s current love life—not that Dexter gave a shit or anything, he proclaimed—before Celia herself finally emerged from the back stage area. She was freshly showered, her hair still a bit damp. She was now dressed in a pair of beige slacks and a frilly blouse. She headed immediately for Laura—walking right by her husband without so much as a sideways glance at him—and threw her arms around her.

“It’s so good to see you again,” Celia told her, kissing her soundly on the cheek.

“It’s good to see you too,” Laura said, returning the embrace, feeling her cheek burn a little where C’s lips had touched her. “I loved the show.”

“Did you really?” Celia asked as she released the embrace.

“It was very entertaining,” Laura said honestly. “The fans are going to love it.”

“Thank you,” Celia beamed. “We’ve been working so hard on it. How was your tour? Jake said you came home with some road fatigue.”

“That’s a good way of terming it,” Laura told her. “The tour was great, but being on the road is draining, especially when you’re always in a foreign country.”

“Well ... my tours have always been in a foreign country,” Celia said with a chuckle.

“Oh ... yeah,” Laura said. “Sometimes I forget you’re from Venezuela.”

“And you did some shows there, didn’t you? What did you think of mi tierra?”

“I loved Caracas,” Laura told her. “A very vibrant, very alive city. The people there were fantastic ... very friendly, very enthusiastic about our performance. And then we went to Mara ... something. I don’t remember the name.”

“Maracaibo,” Celia asked. “That’s our financial center, where the oil industry is based.”

“Right!” Laura said. “Sorry, that seems like it was so long ago now. It was a nice city too. It seemed a little more working class, a little rougher, but the people still loved us there. We did three sold-out shows in the arena downtown.”

“I’ve only been there a few times myself,” Celia said. “I’m hoping to take you and Jake on a little trip to mi tierra with me sometime, once all the touring and recording and releasing settles down.”

“I’d love to go back and spent a little time in Venezuela,” Laura said. “A few other places down that way as well.”

“Let’s do it!” Celia said. “We could spend a few days in Caracas and I could show you two the places the tourists don’t know about. After that, we can go see my family in Barquisimeto. Madres de Dios, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen mama and papa. Not since the wedding.”

“I’m up for it anytime,” Laura told her. “I seem to be between gigs at the moment.”

“Savor it,” Celia advised. “Breaks are heavenly.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” Laura assured her.

“Me too. As of the end of that encore song, I am officially on hiatus until it’s time to hit the road. Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” Laura said. “I have no plans at the moment.”

“How’s this sound? Girls day in Beverly Hills. We hit Rodeo Drive and burn a hole in some credit cards, go to the spa for a mani-pedi and some of those cucumber slices on our eyeballs, and then go grab some food—either late lunch, or early dinner, depending on how much shopping we do.”

Laura was a bit taken aback. She and Celia were friends, but their relationship had always been primarily professional. The few times they’d socialized it had always been a couples thing, with Jake and Greg present. And even on those occasions, the gathering had always been business related in some way. Still, a girls shopping trip with Celia Valdez sounded like fun. It sounded like a very Hollywood celebrity thing to do. “Sure,” she told the singer. “I’m up for it. What time?”

“Ten o’clock,” Celia told her. “I’ll get a limo and pick you up at your place. That way we can ... you know ... enjoy a few drinks while we’re doing our thing.”

Laura smiled widely. “I’m looking forward to it,” she said.

The two ladies did indeed enjoy a few drinks on their outing, and then a few more. It started with mimosas in the limousine as they made the trip to Beverly Hills. After that, it was bloody Marys to wash down a couple of breakfast crepes in one of the restaurants. They then spent the better part of two hours wandering in and out of shops on Rodeo drive, looking at pants, skirts, dresses, shoes, jewelry, and more shoes. Their credit cards were put into action in most of these places and by the time they decided to hit the spa for their pampering, they had a combined total of four thousand dollars worth of merchandise in the trunk of the limo. In the spa, they refreshed their fading buzzes with glasses of chardonnay while their fingernails and toenails were clipped and filed, painted and buffed.

Celia genuinely enjoyed hanging out with the redheaded saxophonist. She was glad to discover this because she had been extremely nervous about coming face to face with her the night before. Only her own acting ability—much of which she had learned from her husband—had allowed her to avoid projecting that nervousness and guilt to a level that Laura might have picked up on it.

I slept with the man this woman loves! her mind kept screaming at her as she’d walked across the room to embrace her, to talk to her. Not only did I sleep with him, but I’m in love with him as well. She understood at that moment how awkward it must have been for Jake when he’d first come face to face with Greg after the deed.

The invitation for the girls shopping trip today had come out of her mouth spontaneously, from well out in left field. She had had no idea she was going to invite Laura on this outing until the words were already spoken.

What the hell? she’d asked herself in the moment. Where did that come from? She actually tried a few times to come up with a reason to cancel the trip—a family emergency, a sudden illness, a twisted ankle—but the fact was, while she was a decent enough actress, she was a terrible liar and didn’t think she’d be able to pull off such a falsehood.

Now, however, after spending hours in Laura’s company, going from shop to shop, trying on clothes with her, judging shoes with her, and having their toes and fingers done up, she was glad she’d made the invite, glad that Laura had accepted. Laura really was a fun and likable soul, someone she really did feel a kindred spirit with. They were having a blast, and although their camaraderie of the day had served to smooth over the awkwardness of the hidden and not-to-be-discussed infidelity that she and Jake had shared one snowy night, the guilt at what she had done was not assuaged. In fact, that guilt had ramped up a few notches.

Laura would just die if she knew what Jake and I did, she thought as they walked out of the spa and back out onto Rodeo Drive. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything, but I must never let her find out it happened—for her sake, not for mine or Jake’s.

“Where to now?” Laura asked as they made their way back to the waiting limo.

“Let’s get some food in us,” Celia suggested.

“Let’s do it,” Laura said. “Where shall we eat?”

“I’m thinking that French place just past the shops,” Celia said. “Nourriture Chere.”

“Nourriture Chere?” Laura said. “Are you kidding? I hear the waiting list for that place is months long.”

Celia smiled at her warmly. She was just so adorably naïve sometimes. It was part of her charm. “Have a little faith in me,” she told her as they stepped into the limousine.

“You already made a reservation?” Laura asked.

“No,” Celia said. “I won’t need one.”

“You won’t?”

“I won’t.”

She didn’t. They arrived at the small eatery less than five minutes later, both wearing some of their new clothes they had changed into after the spa. They approached the maître’ d’s desk and listened as he explained to a well-dressed older couple (in a voice that was quite condescending) that there was simply no way he could seat them at any time today. And no, there was no possibility of a cancellation later on allowing them to slip in. Nourriture Chere simply did not work that way. The couple went away disappointed and Celia stepped forward, dragging Laura with her.

“Can I help you, madam?” the maître d asked, his eyes showing a hint of recognition as he looked at Celia’s face.

“I think you probably can,” Celia replied. “I’m Celia Valdez. This is my friend, Laura Best. We were hoping you could find an open table for us so we could grab a little bite.”

That hint of recognition became full-fledged. The little smile on his face turned instantly from pretentious to subservient. “Why yes, of course, Ms. Valdez,” he said at once. “We can certainly accommodate you and your friend.” He looked down at his master list, perused it for a few moments, and then scratched one of the entries off. “It looks like table seventeen is open. We’ll get you right in.”

“Thank you,” Celia said with a smile. She took a couple of twenties from her purse and laid it on him. He made the bills disappear.

Two minutes later they were sitting at a circular table, glasses of ice water with lemon slices sitting before them, a plate of goose liver pate and little bread crusts between them.

“That was amazing,” Laura said, looking around the place. “You name dropped and they let us in ... just like that.”

“Well sure,” Celia said. “It’s one of the perks of being a celebrity—a little something to offset the stalking by paparazzi and the publishing of pictures of your ass in the National Watcher with headlines proclaiming how much weight you’ve put on. Doesn’t Jake ever do things like that?”

“Well ... he’s taken me to Flamers a few times, but he always calls first and makes the arrangements. And my understanding is that Flamers encourages that, that they like to be known as a place where celebrities eat.”

“And so does this place,” Celia told her. “It’s just not as formalized here. That snooty-ass maître d might not even like me, might detest the very ground I walk on, but he’ll let me in because he knows that having me in here is good for business.”

“But he scratched out someone else’s reservation to seat us,” she said. “That’s not right.”

Celia simply shrugged. “They were probably some pretentious rich pricks he scratched out,” she said. “The odds are pretty good.”

“I suppose,” she said, though she still looked doubtful.

Celia picked up a piece of the bread and shoveled a slice of the pate onto it. “Look,” she said. “I don’t do stuff like that very often—I don’t mean to give that impression—but it’s okay to play the celebrity card every once in a while. Embrace it. Like I said, it’s the good part of being who we are, and it offsets a whole lot of bad parts.”

Laura seemed to think this over for a moment and then she smiled. “All right,” she said. “I’ll embrace it—at least for today. How is the pate?”

“Excellent. Fatty liver never tasted so good.”

Their waiter was named Jacque and he spoke with a heavy French accent. Celia suspected that he was actually an American actor wannabe named Jack and that he had probably never even been to France before, but he was good enough at his craft that the suspension of disbelief held. She ordered a ninety-dollar bottle of chenin Blanc and a plate of garlic simmered escargot from him.

“I’ll have it out to you immediately, Ms. Valdez,” he promised.

“Merci beaucoup,” Celia replied.

They drank the entire bottle of wine and ate all of the garlic tasting snails before ordering their main courses. They ordered another bottle of wine to go with it and by the time their plates arrived, Celia was feeling quite tipsy once again and could tell that Laura was feeling the effects as well. Her words were slurring just the tiniest bit and her lips began to get a little loose.

“Jake told me about what happened,” she said after the waiter made his retreat.

Celia looked up at her sharply. “What ... what happened?” she asked. He wouldn’t have told her that, would he? And if he had, she wouldn’t be sitting there talking so casually to me, would she?

He hadn’t and she wouldn’t. She wasn’t talking about that at all. “About ... you know ... what Greg did up in Alaska.”

“Ohhhh, that,” Celia said, unmistakable relief in her voice.

“What did you think I was talking about?” Laura asked her.

Celia shook her head rapidly. “Nothing,” she said. “I wasn’t sure what you were referring to at all.”

“I hope you’re not mad that he told me,” she said. “Or that I’m bringing it up now.”

“It is a rather sore subject with me,” Celia said. “But I understand him telling you. After all, I told Greg that Jake knew. Couples share things with each other.”

“I was shocked when I heard about it,” Laura said.

Celia snorted. “Imagine it from my end,” she said, though in her mind she was thinking, you don’t have to experience it because Jake and I both had the common fucking courtesy not to confess what we did.

“I can imagine it,” Laura said softly. “It seems like you and Greg are not doing so well because of this?”

“No, we’re really not,” she agreed. “Although in truth, it’s not just the infidelity that led us to where we are now. That was just what got the ball rolling. There are other factors in the equation.”

“Like what?” Laura asked.

Like the fact that I’m in love with your boyfriend, know that he is in love with me, yet he plans to ask you to marry him soon and I can’t get this out of my fucking head. “It’s very convoluted,” she said aloud. “It’s also deeply personal.”

“I get you,” Laura said with a nod. “None of my business.”

Oh, but it’s very much your business, Celia thought. You just don’t know it. “It’s just complicated,” she said. “And a little too much to go into here, in a pretentious French restaurant.”

“I understand,” Laura said. “Anyway, I hope you and Greg can work this out.”

Celia shrugged. “We’ll have to wait and see on that one. I’m hitting the road very soon. I’ll have lots of time to think about what comes next. In truth, that was the primary reason I jumped so fast when Aristocrat offered up this tour. I knew it would get me away from Greg and from...” She slammed her mouth shut, then shuddered a little as she realized she’d almost said, ‘from Jake’. “ ... from, you know, everything, and give me a chance to bury myself in my music and let me try to find perspective.”

Laura nodded slowly. “It gets lonely out on the road though,” she said.

“Yeah,” she agreed solemnly. “Incredibly lonely at times. Maybe that’s a good thing for me to experience just now.”

“Do you really think so?”

Another shrug. “Who knows? I’m just a simple singer who doesn’t even have a college degree. It could be I’m making a bad mistake here. It could be that I’m being unreasonable in how I’ve been treating Greg since he told me. I just don’t know. Getting away seems the right thing to do though.”

“I think that trusting your instincts is a good thing,” Laura said. “Jake taught me that.”

“Jake is a wise man,” Celia said. “He has impressive insight into things.”

“I love him a lot,” Laura said. “I really do.”

“I know you do,” she said, fighting to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “You two make a cute...”

“Can I talk to you about something?” Laura interrupted. “Something ... very personal? Very private?”

Celia looked at Laura’s face. She saw it was anxious, nervous, perhaps a bit ashamed, but also determined. “Uh ... sure, of course,” she said slowly. “I’m here for you.”

“I’m not sure talking to you about this is the greatest idea I’ve ever had—you and Jake are so close, such good friends—but ... well, I’ve got to talk to someone. This is tearing me apart inside. And you’re the closest thing I’ve got to a friend, other than Jake himself that is, and I can’t very well talk about this to him.”

“Talk about what, Laura?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

“Something ... well ... happened between me and Squiggle down there in South America.”

“Squiggle?” Celia asked, confused. “Who or what is a Squiggle?”

Laura sighed. “Squiggle is Eric ... Eric Bland. He’s the trumpet player for Bobby Z. He was out on the tour with me for the entire thing, North America and South America. We grew kind of close to each other. There was a certain chemistry between us.”

Holy shit! Celia thought. Is she talking about ... about what I think she’s talking about? “And ... something happened between you and this Squiggy guy?”

“Squiggle,” Laura corrected. “They call him that because of his handwriting ... but that’s not important. And it’s not what you’re thinking ... well ... not really anyway. We didn’t ... you know... do it or anything like that.”

“You didn’t do it?” Celia asked. “You mean you didn’t have sex with him?”

“Not ... uh ... in the conventional sense of the word,” she said.

“What do you mean, Laura? I’m not quite following you here.”

Another sigh. Another miserable look. “I got used to having sex regularly since Jake and I got together,” she said. “Good sex, incredible sex even. Jake is very good in bed.”

I know, Celia thought bitterly. “Uh ... I imagine he probably is,” she said. “He’s certainly had a lot of practice in his time.”

“I missed having sex when I was out on tour,” she said. “I missed it a lot. So, I ... you know ... learned to take care of myself when the pressure got too great.”

“Ahhh,” Celia said knowingly. “You started paddling the pink canoe, as they say. Yeah, I’m familiar with that method of coping. My canoe has been getting quite a workout of late. I’m probably about halfway to a circumnavigation of the globe at this point.”

“Really?” Laura asked, surprised. “You do it too?”

“Often and well,” she said quite truthfully. “When one has made the decision to cut one’s husband off, yet is not going to have extramarital relations, one must have a release valve or the pressure will make you explode. Is that what this is about? Were you jilling off thinking about this Squiggy guy?”

“Squiggle,” she said. “And yes, I did bring the thought of him up more than a few times while I was doing it.”

“And you’re feeling guilty about that?” Celia scoffed. “Girlfriend, we all think about someone else while we’re getting lost in the deep end. Guys do too. It’s perfectly normal and natural.”

“That’s uh ... good to know,” Laura said. “I was raised by Mormons, remember, and they did not discuss sex with me in any way, shape, or form other than to say that you never do it until you’re married and you never do it to yourself.”

“That’s something right out of the 1950s,” Celia said, appalled.

“Right,” Laura said. “Jake has done a lot to bring me out of that world and into the real one. But ... it wasn’t just fantasizing about Squiggle that has me all torn up inside. Something else happened.”

“What do you mean? You said you didn’t have sex with him, right?”

“Right,” she said. “But ... we did ... uh ... I’m not even sure there’s a word for it.”

“What did you do?” Celia asked, quite intrigued now.

“Well ... like I said, we got to be close to each other, and there was a definite chemistry between us. If I hadn’t been with Jake, I’m sure we would have hooked up.”

“Does Squiggle have a wife or a girlfriend?”

“He’s divorced,” she said. “And he’d been seeing someone before going out on tour, but it was casual. He would hook up with a groupie once a week or so, but he wasn’t really a fanatic about it. Certainly nothing like what Jake has told me he was like out on the road.”

“There are smooth jazz groupies?” Celia asked, surprised.

“Yes,” Laura said. “Anything you want and Ron—he’s the head of security—would get it for you.”

Celia nodded. She was familiar with the duties of the head of tour security. “I see,” she said. “Anyway, you were saying that you and Squiggle ... did something.”

“Squiggle was really easy to talk to,” she said. “That’s where it started. It got to where we could tell each other about anything. And I was attracted to him as well, not like I am to Jake, but ... he’s cute, and in good shape, and he plays the horn just like I do, and ... well ... at some point we started talking to each other about ... you know ... how we took care of ourselves out on the road.”

“Very intimate conversation indeed,” Celia observed.

“Yeah,” Laura said with a sigh. “And then one night ... it was after the show in Lima, we were having drinks on the bus on the way back to the hotel, and we’d just smoked some pot. Squiggle was rooming with Sally—he’s the trombonist—and Sally had himself a groupie that night but Squiggle didn’t. I roomed by myself because I was the only girl and it was in my contract that I got a private room. Anyway, I offered to let Squiggle come back to my room for a little bit and hang out until Sally was done doing his groupie. This was nothing unusual. He’d been to my room before without anything happening. Like I said, we talked a lot and in my room was where a lot of that talking took place.”

“But something different happened on this night?”

“Yeah,” Laura said. “On this night I was particularly horny. Just playing with myself wasn’t really doing it for me the way it used to. As such, I hadn’t done it in more than a week and ... I was like a bomb about to go off. As it turned out, Squiggle was in the same boat. We sat in my room, talking like normal, and then the subject of self-pleasuring came up ... as it often did. I mentioned that I was going to have to take care of myself that night—it was just naughty, flirty little fun ... at least in my mind.”

“Not in Squiggle’s though?” Celia asked.

“I guess not,” she said softly, looking around to see how close the waiters or any eavesdroppers might be. “Squiggle let me know that he was going to have to take care of himself as well. And that led to a discussion about what we were going to be thinking about while we did it. I was a bit vague with my answer at first ... until Squiggle told me that he was going to be thinking about me while he played with himself.”

“Uh huh,” Celia said softly. “And then...?”

She sighed. “The thought of that turned me on even more. It was flattering, it was ... dangerous. And so ... so I told him that I would be thinking of him as well.”

“Very risqué,” Celia said.

“Yes,” she said. “A little too risqué, really. Because once that was out there, Squiggle suggested that since we were going to be thinking of each other anyway, wouldn’t it make sense if we just ... did our little deeds right there in the room and ... and watched each other doing it.”

“Wow,” Celia said. “That’s quite a suggestion.”

“It was,” she said softly. “And I was a little drunk and a little stoned and a lot horny, and I knew what he was suggesting was wrong but ... but it seemed like a harmless idea all the same. It was just watching, as long as we kept it on that level. And watching isn’t cheating, right?”

“A debatable point,” Celia said. “And that’s assuming the game stays at just watching.”

“Yeah,” she said, sighing again. She said nothing else.

“Did you do it?” Celia asked her at last.

She nodded slowly. “We did it,” she said quietly. “I laid down the ground rules. No touching of any kind, just looking. He agreed to that. And then ... I laid down on the bed in the room and I ... I took off my shorts and my panties and started touching myself. Squiggle stood at the side of the bed and undid his pants and let them drop. He was already hard.”

“I bet,” Celia said, feeling a little surge of moisture starting to brew between her own legs.

“And we did it,” Laura said. “He asked me to pull up my shirt so he could see my boobs too. I did it. He reached down to touch them as soon as I did this. I told him ‘No! No touching!’ and he pulled his hand back. He didn’t try to touch me again but we kept going. It was very sexy, very erotic. I’ve never even done that with Jake before ... you know ... playing with myself in front of him, and it didn’t take me very long until I was on the verge. And through it all, Squiggle just kept stroking himself, and he was panting, and his face was flushed. When I came, he did too. He shot his ... you know, his stuff ... all over my belly and my boobs.” She chuckled a little. “There was lot of it.”

“I bet there was,” Celia said. “What happened next?”

“Well ... he was a gentleman. He pulled up his pants and then went and got me a towel so I could clean myself up. After that, I got dressed again and ... well ... things were awkward between us.”

“I can see how that would be,” she said, thinking of her and Jake the morning after their little encounter.

“I made him leave the room,” she said. “Once the orgasm was over, I felt guilty as hell. I almost ... this might sound stupid ... or maybe not, since Greg did this exact thing to you ... but I almost called Jake right then and there to tell him what I’d done.”

“No,” Celia said with bitterness. “It doesn’t sound stupid at all. Based on my own experience, I’m pretty sure Jake is better off not knowing about this ... assuming, of course, that it wasn’t repeated ... or furthered.”

“It wasn’t,” she said. “I enjoyed what we did, and I still had an attraction to Squiggle, but I also loved Jake and I still do. I didn’t want to hurt him. And I knew we could never do that again. I may be sheltered and not wise to the ways of the world when it comes to sex and all that, but I’m smart enough to know that if we kept doing that it would eventually ... quickly even ... lead to us doing other things. One of the times he reached down to touch my boobs while we were playing with ourselves ... I’d probably let him, telling myself it was only a little touch. And then that, of course, would lead to other touches, and pretty soon I would be letting him put that thing of his inside of me.”

“Yes,” Celia said blandly, thinking of that certain snowy night again. “It’s funny how one thing can lead to another like that.”

“I told Squiggle the next morning that we could never do anything like that again. He was disappointed, tried to talk me into just doing it when the pressure got to be too much. He promised that he would take responsibility and never let it go beyond just watching and touching ourselves, even if I begged him to let it go further, but I was insistent that it had to stop and I think he was picking up on how guilty I was feeling. He let the matter drop. He never brought it up again, never tried to convince me to do it again, even indirectly.”

“How was your relationship after that?” Celia asked.

“It wasn’t the same,” she said, a distinct note of sadness in her voice. “The flirtation between us stopped pretty much completely. No more innuendos, no more of the old double entendre. Those had always been kind of fun, one of the basics of our relationship with each other, and it was sad when we lost it. And he could never come to my room again to hang out while Sally was doing his thing with some groupie. Until that night, I’d never thought twice about having him in there. After that night, it seemed too ... dangerous.”

“Once you cross a certain sexual boundary, it’s hard to keep things the way they were,” Celia said. “It’s a fact of life unfortunately.”

“Yeah,” Laura said. “I guess I found that out. We stayed friends otherwise. We could still talk about non-sex things with each other, we were still close to each other throughout the rest of the tour, but it wasn’t the same. It will never be the same. I haven’t talked to him a single time since we came home, not in person, not on the phone.”

“That’s sad,” Celia said, “but maybe for the best?”

“Maybe,” she said, shrugging again. “In any case, once I told Squiggle that we couldn’t do anything like that anymore, that still left the problem of ... you know ... horniness and the pressure.”

“Yeah,” Celia said. “That would be the other trade-off, I suppose. What did you do? Just go back to she-bopping again?”

“Uh ... well ... not exactly,” Laura said.

“Not exactly? What does that mean?”

“Well ... I was kind of afraid if I didn’t find a way to relieve the desire by something other than ... you know ... touching myself, that I might be tempted to invite Squiggle back to my room some night. I didn’t want to do that.”

“So ... what did you do?”

“I found a solution,” she said simply.

“Which was?”

Laura told her. Celia could not have been more surprised by her words than if she had seen Laura rise up out of the chair and float off into the sky. “Madres de Dios,” she whispered to her. “You’re not making this up to fuck with me?”

“No,” she said. “Everything I just told you is true.”

“Madres de Dios,” she said again, making the sign of the cross. She was quite surprised to find that her panties were now soaking wet inside her new outfit.

The limo dropped Laura off in front of Jake’s house about an hour later. The two ladies chatted about neutral things on the trip home but stayed well away from what they had talked of in the restaurant, not wanting the limo driver to overhear anything. Though the limo drivers were, as a general rule, very discrete about what they saw, heard, or smelled in the backs of their conveyances, this subject was dynamite.

They shared a hug just before Laura stepped out.

“Thanks for listening to me,” Laura said. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you or shocked you.”

“Embarrassed no,” Celia told her. “Shocked, yes.”

“Mum’s the word though?” Laura asked. “Even to Greg?”

“Even to Greg,” she promised. “I will give you one piece of advice though.”

“What’s that?”

“Two pieces, really. Don’t tell Jake about the first part, the part about you and Squiggle. Take it from me, he doesn’t want to know and as long as you’re not doing it any more, he doesn’t need to know.”

“Okay,” she said. “That’s kind of how I was leaning anyway.”

“Good,” Celia said. “The second part of your story, however. I would tell him that part.”

“You would?”

“Yeah,” she said, her eyes shining a bit. “I would.”

Laura went inside. Celia sat in the back of the limo and had another glass of wine on the trip home.

After being dropped off and tipping the driver a hundred dollars, she carried all of her purchases inside of the modest, eight thousand square foot home she and Greg slummed in when they were staying in Los Angeles. She dropped her packages in the foyer and then went to the back of the house, finding Greg in the entertainment area, watching the large screen television, which was currently showing the promo for So Others May Live—the one that showed how Greg had taken flight training from an instructor to prepare for his role.

“Hey,” Celia greeted him.

“Hey,” he returned, seemingly a little surprised that she was talking to him. “How was the shopping trip?”

“Very enlightening,” she said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said, walking over to him. She put her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go upstairs.”

“Upstairs?” he asked slowly. “For what?”

“I want you to eat my pussy out until I come all over your face, and then I want you to fuck me.”

He looked at her for a few moments, as if trying to determine whether this was some joke or not. Finally, he said: “All right. Let’s do it.”

They went upstairs. They did it.