Standing On Top

Chapter 9B

After finishing up their cognac on the deck, the desert wind started to kick up a bit, turning the temperature from brisk to pretty damn cold. They retreated inside the house where Greg suggested they have a few more cocktails in the entertainment room.

"Before we do that," Celia said, "is it okay if we get out of these damn dressy clothes and into something a little more comfortable?"

"Something more comfortable?" Greg asked, a little taken aback by the suggestion — it was Greg, after all, who had specified in the invitation that dress would be semi-formal for dinner.

"Damn right," Celia said. "I, for one, am sick of this dress. It's tight around my boobs and it makes my skin itch. We're among friends here. How about we go throw on some jeans and T-shirts?"

"Uh... well... if everyone else would like to," Greg said, obviously not very hot about dressing down.

"What do you think, Helen?" Celia asked. "Ready to go full casual for the rest of the night?"

Helen wasn't quite sure how to respond. "Well... it would be nice to a little more comfortable." She had noticed Greg taking more than casual interest in the view of her cleavage on several occasions — which thrilled her on one level but made her a little leery on another.

"I gotta vote for the jeans too," Jake said, before he was asked. He just hated wearing dress clothes when it wasn't necessary.

Greg knew when he was outnumbered. "All right then," he said, giving in. "Let's go find some jeans."

They went upstairs to change. Jake got in a few good gropes of Helen's breasts when she pulled off her strapless bra to put on a regular one. She slapped his hand away, but not too forcefully. His touch was turning her on.

"Can I have just a little suck on one nipple?" he asked, giving her puppy-dog eyes.

"Jake," she said, exasperated, "they're waiting for us down there."

"Just one suck?" he repeated. "It'll tide me over until we hit the rack."

"Oh... I guess just one wouldn't hurt," she said.

She fed her left breast to him and he latched onto her erect nipple, tonguing it and suckling it. She didn't push him away. Before long his fingers were down the front of her panties, sliding between her very wet lips, and her hand was in his underwear, palpating his erection hotly. When he bent her over the bed and pulled her panties down to her knees, she raised her butt up to allow proper positioning.

Jake slid into her from behind and pounded her quickly and forcefully, holding onto her hips hard enough to leave red finger marks on her flesh. She came very quickly, not squirting on him, but juicing up enough that her secretions dripped onto the floor and saturated his testicles. He came right after, pulling her body tightly against his.

"I can't believe I just did that in Greg Oldfellow's guest suite," she panted as he disengaged from her. She looked down at herself and gasped. "Oh my God! I need to clean myself up!" She glared at Jake in a friendly, sexually semi-satisfied way. "You're an evil man, Jake. Do you know that?"

"That's what the papers all say," Jake said, pushing his own underwear to the floor.

Both of them went into the bathroom and hastily sponged off their nether regions with water from the sink. They dressed quickly in jeans, T-shirts, and tennis shoes and then headed back downstairs where Celia and Greg were waiting for them.

"Sorry we took so long," Jake said. "We... uh... had some trouble digging out the casual clothes."

Greg didn't bat an eye. "Understandable," he said. "I don't know how you managed to fit enough traveling clothes into two small suitcases."

Celia, on the other hand, gave them a knowing look and an amused smile. "I glad you managed to finally put things together," she said.

"Well... you know how it is," Helen said, blushing.

"Yes I do," Celia agreed. "Although I'd never admit it in public."

"Huh?" Greg said, looking at her in confusion.

"Never mind, Greg," Celia said. "How about we get Jim to get some drinks going?"

Jim brought them all tall, fairly potent drinks he'd constructed at the bar. As they sipped them and started to buzz a little from the evening's alcohol intake, the conversation became a little livelier as inhibitions were dropped.

"What's the deal with Matt and that porn star?" Celia asked Jake. "Is that for real?"

"It's for real," Jake replied. "It's the first time he's ever been in a relationship with a woman for more than three sexual encounters, so it has to be real."

"You'll excuse me for berating your friend, Jake," Greg said, "but I find it quite appalling that anyone would date a woman who has sex on film for the entertainment of the lower classes. It's just gauche."

"So you're saying," Celia said, "that it would be acceptable to you if she was having sex on film for the entertainment of the middle and upper classes?"

Greg gave her a look that was part amused, part irritated, and part exasperation. "You know what I mean, Celia," he said. "Having graphic sex on film is quite uncouth. I can only imagine the personality of a woman who is willing to do such a thing."

"Actually," said Helen, "that was kind of the way I felt at first. And then I met Kim in person, and..."

"Who is Kim?" Greg asked.

Helen giggled a little. "Kim is Mary Ann Cummings' real name. Kim Kowalski."

"Ahh, a Polish woman," Greg said, his tone implying that that explained everything.

"Yes... well, anyway," Helen continued. "She really is a very nice girl. She's smart, funny, and she knows how to stand up for herself."

"Are those orgasms she does on camera real?" Celia asked.

Greg looked at her with wide eyes. "Celia," he said, shocked. "Don't tell me you've actually seen one of those vulgar productions!"

Celia blushed. "Well... I might've caught a glimpse of one once when I was walking through a room out on tour," she said.

Jake and Helen laughed. Greg simply shook his head in consternation.

"She assures us that the on-screen orgasms are one hundred percent fake," Jake said.

"She's a pretty good actress then," Celia said. "The... uh... one that I saw fooled me."

"Please," said Greg, rolling his eyes. "Do not insult my profession by referring to a porn star as an actress. That would be like calling Weird Al Yankovich a musician."

"Oooh," said Celia. "I have to say that that's a good analogy, Greg."

"I think Kiss would've been a better analogy," Jake said. "At least Weird Al is slightly entertaining."

"Doesn't Matt have a problem with the fact that his girlfriend is having sex with other men while she's dating him?" Celia asked. "Men with... you know... bigger equipment than his?"

"It doesn't seem to bother him," Jake said.

"Besides, he's still having sex with other women," Helen said.

"He is?" Greg asked, aghast.

"Matt is Matt," Jake said. "Fidelity, to him, is some vague notion he heard about once on a television show. In a way, Kim is the perfect girl for him. She's nice, but she can be just as crude and vulgar as Matt. They kind of compliment each other."

"So you think he's growing up a little?" Celia asked.

Jake shook his head. "Not really," he said. "He still likes to live his life on the edge. He drinks like a fish, snorts coke like Al Pacino in Scarface, and smokes about an eighth of greenbud every day he's not working. He drives like a maniac. I got in his Maserati with him a couple of weeks ago and he scared the living shit out of me."

"What did he do?" Celia asked.

"We were driving from his house to San Diego to go check out a new night club he'd heard about," Jake said. "We were on I-5, on that stretch between San Clemente and Oceanside. You know where I'm talking about?"

Helen and Celia both nodded. Greg shrugged. He didn't do much driving.

"So anyway, it's pretty empty out there since there's nothing but the marine base. All of a sudden, he asks me how fast my plane flies. So I tell him that the cruising speed is one hundred and twenty knots. He asks me to convert that to some fucking system of measurement that he understands, so I tell him it's roughly about a hundred and forty miles per hour.

"'Yes, ' he says, 'but how fuckin' fast can it go when you're going balls out?' And I tell him that the maximum, never exceed speed of my aircraft is one hundred and sixty knots, or, in terms that he can understand, about one hundred and eighty miles per hour.

"He scoffs at me and says that that ain't shit, that his fucking car can go faster than that. That's where I made my big mistake. I told him there was no fucking way his car went faster then my plane."

"Uh oh," Celia said.

"Uh oh is right," Jake said. "He just gives me this weird smile, reaches back and pulls his third beer of the trip out of the ice chest, and says, 'watch this'. He put the pedal down and that engine started to scream. We'd already been going about ninety, which is Matt's usual freeway cruising speed, and that speedometer shot up over a hundred and twenty in a matter of a few seconds. Before I even had time to get properly terrified, he pegged it out at a hundred and eighty-five."

"Jesus Christ," Greg said. "He's a lunatic."

"You could say that," Jake said. "I've never gone that fast in a ground vehicle before. It feels like you're going three hundred the way the engine is screaming and the scenery and the other cars are shooting by you. He kept up that speed for almost five minutes, just to show me that it wasn't a fluke, that his car could maintain that speed."

"You could've been killed, Jake," Celia said, alarmed.

"Yep," Jake agreed. "After that, I vowed not to get in that Maserati with him anymore. Hell, I don't get into any vehicle that's he's driving if I can help it."

"That sounds like a wise decision," Greg said. "The man is a menace."

"He's a menace all right," Jake said. "He's also quite possibly the best guitar player in the history of rock music."

"I will agree with you there," Celia said. "I loathe him as a person, and my brother still wants to kick his ass, but I have to respect his musical abilities."

This discussion led to another discussion in which both Jake's and Celia's musical abilities were praised as well. And this led to the suggestion by Greg that the two musicians put on a little performance for the enjoyment of the non-musicians in the crowd.

"A performance?" Celia asked.

"Sure," Greg encouraged. "Go get a couple of guitars out of the music room and play for us. I'm sure Helen would love to hear it as well as me."

They looked at Helen, who was nodding enthusiastically. "That would be great," she said. "I've never seen Jake in action before. And I'd love to hear Celia unplugged."

Jake and Celia looked at each other.

"What do you say?" Jake asked. "Do you have a couple of acoustics lying around?"

She smiled. "I think I could dig some up," she said.

She dashed upstairs and returned about five minutes later with two acoustic guitars in hand — a Brogan six-string and a Fender twelve-string. She held them both up by the neck. "Choose your weapon," she told Jake.

"How are you on the twelve-string?" Jake asked her. "I haven't played one in a few years."

"I do a lot of my compositions on the twelve-string," she told him.

"I'll take the Brogan then," he said.

"I was hoping you'd say that," she said, handing over the six-string. "You go first, Jake."

"Okay," he said. "What do you want to hear?"

"Point Of Futility," Helen said at once. "I just love that song."

"You realize it's a song about breaking up, don't you?" Jake asked her.

"Yes, of course," she said. "That's what I like about it. It's so sad, so melancholy."

"Well, all right then," Jake said, pulling a pick from a small pile Celia had set on the coffee table. He checked the tuning of the guitar — it was perfect, of course — and strummed a few times to get the feel of it. He then launched into the original version of his most popular ballad, the version he'd originally come up with shortly after breaking up with Michelle Borrows — future hypocritical magazine article writer. Helen, Greg, and Celia all stared at him with rapt attention as he sang and picked. He didn't miss a note. They applauded with sincerity when he finished.

"All right, my turn," Celia said. "What'll it be?"

"Let's hear Caribobo," Jake said. "I'd love to hear the strict acoustic version on the twelve-string."

"Caribobo it is then," she said. She strummed a few times and then started to pick out the opening melody. Her playing was beautiful and flawless, the twelve-string giving a rich, ringing tone to the chords that wasn't possible with a six-string. Her singing voice, however, was her crown jewel and always would be. The melodious contralto poured out of her mouth like a gentle rain, her Latin accent doing nothing but enhancing the sound as she sang about the most famous battle in Venezuelan history.

"That was incredible, Celia," Helen told her when the piece came to an end. "I must admit, I never bought one of your albums and I've only heard a few of your songs on the radio, but that was just... beautiful."

"Thank you, Helen," Celia said. "Of all the songs I managed to get recorded, that one is my favorite."

At Celia's request, Jake did the unplugged version of I've Found Myself Again, which she declared to be one of her favorite road songs. Helen then requested that Celia sing I Love To Dance, which was La Diferencia's first hit and their signature song. Though Dance had been composed by a group of Aristocrat Records songwriters and did not translate easily to an unaccompanied acoustic, Celia managed to pull it off.

"What next?" Jake asked when she was done.

"Can you guys do something other than your own material?" Greg asked.

"Greg!" Celia said. "I can't believe you asked that."

"No offense intended," Greg said, holding up his hand. "I love your music, both of you. It's just that I was thinking this could be maybe more like a traditional campfire kind of guitar singing. You guys should sing the classics."

"You know something, Greg, that's a good point," Jake said. "Maybe it is kind of arrogant of us to sing only our own material."

"You do know songs by other people, don't you?" he asked. "That's what I was asking. You physically know how to play them, right?"

"I can play almost anything that I've heard enough to know the lyrics to," Jake said.

"Me too," Celia said.

"Well let's hear something then," Greg said. "Jake, one of my favorite songs is Proud Mary. Can you do it?"

"Child's play," Jake scoffed. "And I mean that literally. I learned that one when I was about ten years old."

"Let's hear it then," Helen said. "I love that song too."

And so, Jake played Proud Mary, launching into it without even a warm-up strum first. He sang about leaving a good job in the city, working for The Man every night and day. As his fingers played the simple three chord progression, a wave of nostalgia swept over him. He remembered playing this song over and over again in his bedroom as a child, belting out the lyrics into a fake microphone he'd rigged up, pretending he was singing before an audience of thousands. How long had it been since he'd last done Proud Mary on his guitar? Ten years? Fifteen maybe?

"Bravo," Greg said when he was finished. "John Fogerty himself couldn't have done it better."

"That was great, Jake," Helen said. "Why haven't you ever serenaded me before tonight?"

"I've forgotten how fun it is to just play and sing," Jake said. "Celia's turn. Pick something for her, Helen."

"Okay," Helen said, looking at Celia thoughtfully. "This is one of my favorite songs. I don't know if it's something you can play on an acoustic though."

"What is it?" Celia asked.

"Barracuda, by Heart," Helen said.

Helen grinned. "You have good taste, hon," she said and picked up her guitar pick. "That's one of my favorites too." A moment later she began strumming out the twelve-string acoustic version of the main riff, her fingers flying over the fret board.

"Yeah," Jake said, tapping his fingers on his own guitar to the rhythm. "Sing it."

She sang it, her melodic voice and Latin accent doing more then justice to the tune. When she got to the part about how you're gonna burn, burn, burnnnn to the wick, she drew out the last burn perfectly and then hit a solid "Barracuda". It was enough to send chills down the spine.

She hit the second verse and then the chorus. Just as she belted out the next "Barracuda", she looked up at Jake. "Do the solo for me," she whispered. "I'll keep tempo."

"Right," Jake said, putting his hands in position.

She continued to strum the backing riff of the tune while Jake picked out a lightening fast, mostly improvised solo to the song. When it was over, he joined her in the main riff, adding the sound of his guitar to hers.

"Yeah," Helen said, smiling, bobbing her head. "This is awesome."

"And we're getting it for free," Greg agreed, obviously just as into the music.

They finished up Barracuda and Jake, without waiting for a request, immediately launched into the opening of Never Been Any Reason by Head East.

"You know this one, Celia?" he asked her.

"Yep," she said.

"Let's do a duet then," he said. "Pick up the backing guitar and the second vocals."

She grinned and put her pick to the strings. "I'm on it," she said.

Jake belted out the first part of the verse.

"Did you see any action? Did you make any friends? Would you like some affection, before I leave again?"

And Celia sang the second part.

"I've been walking behind you, since you've been able to see. There's never been any reason, for you to think about me."

When they got to the first chorus, they both sang in almost perfect unison.

"Save my life, I'm going down for the last time. Woman with the sweet lovin' better than a white line. Bring a good feelin' ain't had in such a long time. Save my life I'm going down for the last time."

When they got to the solo of the song, Jake, by unspoken understanding, kept up the rhythm while Celia formulated a solo. She picked out a perfect translation of the original Head East solo, her pick striking the strings, her left hand bending and manipulating them. They fell back into the dual rhythm guitar of the main riff and then alternated voices for the last verse. When they got to the final chorus, the both took their hands off their guitars and sang it A cappella, leaning into toward each other so their shoulders touched, their mouth less than a foot apart. When the chorus was over they launched back into the ending — which turned out to be a little rough since they had differing memories of how the song actually concluded.

Helen and Greg both broke out into actual applause when they were done.

"That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen," Helen said.

"Hear hear," Greg agreed. "It was like you two had rehearsed that."

"Nope," Jake said. "That was totally improvisational."

"We both just have a good ear for the classics."

"Do another one," Helen said. "Another duet."

"Well... all right," Celia said, giving a little strum of her strings. "How about this one, Jake? It's a little sappy, but I've always liked this song." She started to play the opening for We've Got Tonight, which had originally been a Bog Seger solo tune but had turned into a huge hit when Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton had covered it about five years before.

"Though I would deny it to my death in a public setting," Jake said. "I do kind of like this one. Let's do it."

"Right on," Celia said. "You take the first and the rhythm?"

"You know it."

They did it, the performer's instinct in them compelling them to gaze lovingly into each other's eyes as they took turns singing the lyrics on the verses and singing in unison on the choruses. Neither of them noticed that Helen and Greg did not seem to particularly care for their interpretation of this tune.

"Not bad," Greg said when they were done.

"Yeah," Helen agreed, licking her lips nervously. "How about some more solo stuff though? Jake, can you do Stairway To Heaven?"

"Does The Pope shit in the woods?" Jake asked.

For the next hour and a half, the two musicians did what they did best. They sang everything from Frank Sinatra to Fleetwood Mac to Rush to Slayer to Firefall. They even threw in a little Eurythmics and Cutting Crew — two of the few eighties bands they didn't consider to be complete atrocities.

Jake and Celia were having such a good time that they didn't notice their violation of the primary rule of show business. They didn't stop while their audience still wanted more. By sixty minutes into the performance, both Helen and Greg had had their fill of music and were ready to head up to bed. It was only after Jake and Celia covered Supertramp's Goodbye Stranger — another duet of sorts — that Greg decided it was time to speak up.

"Great music, guys," he said, standing up and stretching. "But we do have a nine o'clock tee time in the morning. We really should be getting to bed."

Jake looked up at the clock, surprised to see it was well after eleven o'clock. "Oh... yeah, I guess we'd better," he said. "My fingers are starting to get a little sore anyway."

"Mine too," Celia said. "My throat too."

They said their goodnights to each other. Celia gave Jake a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and then did the same to Helen. Greg stuck with shaking hands with Jake although he did not squirm away when Helen gave him a hug.

They went to their respective bedrooms, leaving the guitars (at Greg's insistence) for the "staff" to pick up in the morning. Jake and Helen enjoyed a slow, lustful session of sexual congress atop the silk sheets of the guest suite bed and then climbed under them to settle in for sleep.

"You and Celia were unbelievable, Jake," Helen whispered to him. "I've never seen anything like that before."

"It was fun," Jake said. "It's been awhile since I've just sang for the sheer enjoyment of it."

"You two seem to have some sort of... well... connection. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah," he said. "I guess I do. She's a great musician. It's a joy to play with her."

"Have you ever thought about doing an album with her?" Helen asked.

"No... not really," Jake said. "I'm not sure how the public would take a collaboration between the pop queen and the raunch king. Besides, we're both under contract for different record companies. There's no way in hell that either one of them would allow it."

"I suppose," Helen said. She yawned and curled up into him, resting her head on his shoulder.

Soon, they were both asleep. They slept soundly until seven the next morning, when a discreet knock on their door by Jim brought them awake. It was time to start a new day.

The temperature was sixty-eight degrees the next morning, with a light breeze out of the south. It was perfect for golf. In addition, the Mojave Springs Country Club — of which Greg was a prominent member — was one of the nicest, best maintained courses that Jake had ever had the privilege of playing.

"It better be," Greg said when Jake mentioned this to him on the second hole. "I'm paying nineteen thousand a year to be a premier member here. That's not to mention the six hundred a month I have to spend at the clubhouse or the bar."

"Quit bitching about it," Celia said. She was looking incredibly cute in her white golf shorts and tan polo shirt. "You pay almost nineteen grand a year for haircuts, don't you?"

Greg seemed amused by her mention of this. "You exaggerate," he replied. "I spend ten thousand a year, tops, for personal grooming."

Greg and Jake both agreed to a two thousand dollar Nassau with an automatic press clause. Since Greg was shooting scratch golf these days and Jake was still holding onto his twelve handicap, Greg agreed to give him ten strokes for the match. It was just enough for Jake to rise to the occasion. He beat Greg by two holes on the front, one hole on the back, and three for the entire eighteen, netting a six thousand dollar payoff when they settled up in the clubhouse.

Greg wrote out a check without saying much. He was not in the best of moods. He had refused to bet with Helen in any way since she was a woman, since she was playing from the men's tees, and since he didn't consider it sporting to take advantage of the fair sex. Helen had beaten him scratch, shooting a sixty-nine to Greg's seventy-three.

They returned to Greg's house after the match, their plans to enjoy another five course meal and then drive to a private club for drinks and dancing. As soon as they walked in the door, however, Jim was standing there, looking serious and forlorn.

"What's the matter, Jim?" Greg asked.

"Begging your pardon, sir," Jim said, "but a Ms. Kingsley, Mr. Kingsley's sister, has called and requested that Mr. Kingsley contact her immediately. Apparently there is something of some importance she needs to discuss with him."

"Oh shit," Jake said. "What now?" He looked at Greg. "Is it okay if I make a long distance call on your phone?"

"Of course," Greg said. "You can use this one here or you can use the extension in my office if you require privacy."

"I'll just use this one," he said. "Might as well get it over with."

He walked over and picked up the phone. It was one of the new, cordless models. He dialed Pauline's personal line from memory. It rang twice before she picked it up.

"Jake?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said. "What's up?"

"We got trouble," she said.

"That phrase again," Jake said, shaking his head.

"What's that?" Pauline asked.

"Never mind," he said. "Go ahead and give it to me. What kind of shit's going down now?"

"It's Matt," she said. "He's in jail. Kim is too."

"Jail?" Jake asked. "What the hell for?"

"It's pretty serious, Jake. He doesn't seem to grasp it just yet, but they're in a lot of trouble this time."