by Piper Rayne
* * *
“I shop here all the time,” she said. “I saw you walk into the dressing room, and when Fiona took a break, I slipped in,” she said. “You are even sexier than I remember you. Now I really want you as my lover,” she bent down to lick my nipple.
* * *
I pulled back and quickly got dressed. Where was Skar?
* * *
“I really need to get going,” I said, running out of the dressing room and looking for Skar. He wasn’t where I had left him sitting. He wasn’t in the store at all.
* * *
I ran out to the parking lot and spotted his car. He was there. Sitting behind the wheel. His eyes were closed. Maybe he was just that tired and needed to take a nap. I walked up to the car and opened the passenger door and nearly slammed it shut when I looked inside.
* * *
Nestled between his legs was a mess of long blonde hair. Then I recognized it as the lingerie shop girl’s hair. Fiona’s hair. It was bobbing up and down, and Skar’s hand was on the back of her shoulders, pushing her down against his crotch. I was shocked but couldn’t look away.
* * *
Her mouth was taking in his long thick dick, sucking away, and he was letting out a deep breath while keeping his eyes closed. It was sexy but shocking at the same time. I was repulsed, but fascinated by it at the same time.
* * *
I stood there until he came, and she licked him up, until he opened his eyes and saw me staring at him with her. Bolting up, he gestured for the shop girl to leave. Then as she turned around to look at me, I felt my heart fall. She looked satisfied and triumphant, as though she thought I would never get to suck on Skar’s dick as she did.
* * *
Well, phooey for her, I thought. That’s all she was going to get out of Skar.
* * *
The door opened, and Skar called out, “Thank you for helping out, Fiona.”
* * *
She grinned happily. “Of course, Skar. Anytime.”
Then she pushed past me, eyeing me with hatred as she went.
* * *
I stood there frozen, not knowing what to do.
* * *
“Get in here, Lily,” Skar said. “Close the door.”
* * *
“What was that?” I managed to say, getting in. I should have not listen to him and slam the door in his face, but like a stupid glutton for punishment, I sat down in the passenger seat where Fiona had just been, and asked, “Why?”
* * *
Skar started the car and drove me to the hotel. Once there, he followed me up to my suite, and handed me an envelope. “That’s payment for your first week and a bit more, Ms. Talbot.”
* * *
Ms. Talbot? Why so formal? What happened to just Lily?
* * *
“I don’t get it…what about us?”
* * *
“I’m not ready for a commitment,” Skar said. “And like I said, I will do anything for a client and for my agency, including putting up with you for my purposes.”
* * *
“Putting up with me?” I couldn’t help the tears running down my cheeks. “I thought we were a couple…I thought,” I began.
* * *
“In Hollywood, my dear,” Skar said. “Especially in the world of public image, anything can be an illusion, including the illusion of a ‘us’, Miss Talbot,” Skar said. “Your work was satisfactory, especially the photos you took of Mrs. Repp’s medical records and the audio you recorded of her talking in the limo. For that, I’ll write you a letter of recommendation for your next job. But because of your connection with Mrs. Repp, we can’t have you continue to work for Slade PR no matter how good you were in obtaining incriminating evidence against Mrs. Repp. Including what happened in the dressing room, which Fiona was able to arrange, clever girl.”
* * *
My heart burned with jealousy even now when I heard him praise the shop girl.
* * *
“You enjoyed what we’ve had,” I said.
“Enough to get Fiona to blow me,” he said. “She’s been after me for a while, and well, after you, I wanted something different.”
* * *
My face burned with humiliation. I wanted to hide.
* * *
“Don’t worry, Ms. Talbot, you’ve been well-compensated for just a week with us. We’ve given you three months’ pay as well as a bonus.”
* * *
I couldn’t even look at him as he walked out the door.
All I wanted to do is crawl under the covers and cry, but I couldn’t even do that, I was still in disbelief.
8
Lily
I laid in bed, not having moved since Skar left the room, feeling numb until night when I received a text message from someone I least expected.
Antonio: Hi Lily!
Me: Hi Antonio. How are you?
Antonio: Good. Just wanted to let you know I passed the bar. I could practice as a lawyer.
Me: Congratulations!
Antonio: Thank you. How is your new job?
Me: I was let go today. Sad face.
Antonio: Oh no! Want to talk about it? Come over to my place? Mama made too much food. Have you eaten yet?
Me: That would be nice, but I don’t have an appetite.
Antonio: Come out with me to celebrate me passing the bar, then. Please help this pathetic guy with no life to at least celebrate a big milestone today? Pretty please?
Me: (Laughing) You could celebrate with your mother.
Antonio: I have with dinner, but there is so much mothering a guy can take. Like I said, I’m pretty pathetic. This is not how I pictured me starting my law career.
Me: I didn’t pictured me starting my PR career this pathetic as well. I think I have you beat on being pathetic.
Antonio: Well, let’s get some drinks, do something fun, at least. Where are you staying? Not the Hollywoodland Apartments still?
Me: No, at a hotel. Tell you what? I’m checking out today. I’ll meet you in front of the hotel.
I gave him the address and started packing. At least I had all the designer clothes and shoes Skar bought me to pack into my suitcase. As soon as I could, I would sell them off. I didn’t need designer clothes that costs as much as a month’s rent at an apartment. By selling them off and with the pay Skar gave me, I would be able to take the time to find another job.
Skar. I didn’t even want to think about him. I couldn’t even comprehend how anyone could treat someone like the way he treated me. He must be all kinds of messed up to think it was fine. I still couldn’t get over the hurt he had inflicted on me emotionally and psychologically. What kind of game was he playing?
“You big asshole,” I yelled. “I don’t care if you’re hot as hell and can make me orgasm just with a touch, you are dead to me!” I screamed. “Someone should teach you a lesson!”
People were staring at me and mumbling to themselves as I stopped screaming, realizing I was standing in front of the hotel lobby doors, waiting for Antonio to pick me up. “Sorry,” I said to an elderly couple walking in and staring at me as though I was crazy. “I had some bad fish in there. Gets into the system, you know.” I coughed and took a sip from my water bottle.
“You mean the fish gave you an orgasm just by his touch?” the old woman asked, looking at her husband.
“How could a fish do that?” her elderly husband said.
“Certainly not a cold fish,” the woman said, looking disdainfully at her husband.
She looked at me and said, “If your fish could give you an orgasm just by one touch, keep him. It’s worth living with a passionless cold fish for fifty years like it’s a death sentence.”
I had to laugh. It wasn’t what I’d expect to hear from an nice old couple. For a moment, I remembered how I felt when Skar touched me and made me come. He really did affected me that much with his touch.
Too bad he was such an asshole bully.
If ther
e was one thing I have always hated, it was a bully. Although I had one misfortune after another since beginning this job from the moment I took off from New York to now, it was not my fault, as he had implied. It was not because I was so dumb, naïve, and pathetic as he thought. Life happens. And you make the best of it. That was what I had always learned to do. Without becoming a jaded emptied uncaring asshole like Skar had become.
“Lily! Hey!” Antonio’s voice called from the old blue Audi in front of me.
“Oh, Antonio,” I said, startled. “I didn’t see you.”
“No, you looked deep in thought,” he smiled, looking at me with warm eyes. “Come on, tonight we’re celebrating. No room to dwell on sad thoughts, okay?”
“Okay,” I said as Antonio took my luggage and placed it in the trunk. He opened the door for me to get in before closing it and getting into the driver’s seat. “You know, you passing the bar and contacting me, came at the right time.”
Antonio smiled, “I would have called you sooner, but I really had to focus on passing the bar. Not everyone who graduate from law school pass the bar. I mean, after going to law school for how many years and accumulating such a debt from student loans, you should work your butt off to pass the bar. But sadly, there are many law school graduates who don’t so they never get to really practice law.”
“At least you committed to it and succeeded,” I said.
Antonio nodded slowly. “So this is why me passing the bar is a celebration for all the sacrifices I made to get to become a lawyer.”
“Congratulations!” I said. “I just took it for granted how lawyers get to become lawyers.”
“Like how Publicists get to become Publicists,” Antonio said. “But it seems as though you’re bothered by something other than work. I mean, you’re smart and competent. How could you get laid off just after one week?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” I said.
“So, you’re not working for that He Man anymore?” Antonio asked.
“Skar Slade?” I said, almost wincing at his name. My heart felt heavy when I think how much it hurt to see him with that blonde Fiona shop girl. How he didn’t even bat an eyelash at how he threw me to the curb.
“Lily?” Antonio asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Why?”
“You’re crying,” Antonio said. He handed me some tissues. “Let’s stop somewhere to get you some food first. Then you can tell me all about it. I’ll try to help.”
I wiped away my tears and said, “It’s just all the stress I’ve had all week. It finally hit me.”
“I bet,” Antonio said. “If I had to go through what you did, I’d be crying too.” He made a sad face, which made me stop crying. “Under the circumstances,” he went on, “You’ve been pretty strong.”
“I’ve tried to be,” I said. I looked at him. “I’m not giving up and moving back to New York. Asshole bully boss or not, I’m going to make it out here.”
Antonio nodded as he parked the car. “So that’s the problem. Well, we’re here. Hope you like pizza.”
“I love pizza,” I said.
“This is nothing fancy so don’t get your hopes up high. Nothing like Mama’s cooking, but a great way to blow off some steam.”
“It can’t be that bad,” I said.
“I love this place as a kid,” Antonio said. “It was a great way for my mom, who was a single mom, to take me out for inexpensive entertainment.”
“Wonderful World of Pizza!” I said, looking at the colorful block letters. “We have one in New York.”
“There you go!” Antonio said. “A taste from home.”
“And the variety of pizzas,” I gushed. “Chicken alfredo pizza, peanut butter and jelly pizza, pad thai pizza…”
“An all-you-can-drink fountain drink soda bar with frozen ice drinks and even an espresso machine,” Antonio said. I spent many nights just coming here to drink from the espresso machine while studying.”
I laughed as we went in and found a table. “I can’t wait!” I said.
We quickly filled our plates with a variety of pizzas and pasta, some salad, and even a baked potato and garlic bread. We took our tray and decided to sit in the Nostalgic ‘80s theme room where they were playing Karate Kid.
“I love this movie,” I said.
“Me, too,” Antonio said. “Wax on…”
“Wax off!” I said.
He got up. “What drink would you like?”
“Blue cherry,” I said.
“Be right back,” he said.
I watched the film in front of me, getting lost in it, and repeating some of the lines, when he came back with my drink and some espresso. “You really do like the coffee here,” I said.
“It’s a hidden gem,” he said. “Sometimes the hidden gems are found right in front of you, if you only take off your blinders.”
“Wow, so deep,” I said, knowing what he meant.
We watched the film together, while we ate. It was comfortable, like being with my old friends from New York. “Do you miss New York?” Antonio asked, as though he knew what I was thinking.
“I didn’t have much time to think about it,” I said. “But I do.”
“Are you thinking of moving back?” Antonio asked.
“If I can’t make a living out here,” I said. “But I will.”
“What do you intend to do now that you don’t work for Slade?”
“I’ll work somewhere else. He’s not the only fish in town.”
Antonio beamed, “That’s the fighting spirit.”
“Yeah, like in Karate Kid, I won’t be bullied. I’ll learn to fight back even if I have to get beaten down first.”
“That’s what I was about to say,” Antonio said. “And, you know I’m now a lawyer. Fighting against bullies in a legal way, is what we do. Besides, I work at a Los Angeles firm. They let me off to study for the bar, but I’ll be starting with them next week.”
“I don’t know if I can take legal action,” I said. “But I do want to fight back.”
“Wrongful termination?” Antonio asked. “It could be the case.” He grew serious. “Did you two have any relations outside of work?”
I looked down and blushed. “He and I did kissed and touched a lot,” I said.
Antonio looked angry for a second. “Was it consensual? Did you want it?”
I said, “Yes, I wanted it. It was consensual.”
“Okay,” he said. “You didn’t feel pressured into it, despite him being your boss?”
“I wanted to please him, yes, but I was very attracted to him.”
“Would you have had a relationship with him, if he wasn’t your boss?”
“I think I would have found him very attractive even if he wasn’t my boss. I did when I first bumped into him in the elevator before I knew who he was.”
Antonio drank up his espresso and stood up. “I’m getting more. Would you like anything?”
“Ice cream?” I asked.
“Alright,” Antonio said. “Come with me?”
I finished my plate and walked with Antonio to the self-serve soft serve ice cream machine. We both made spectacular ice cream sundaes with multiple toppings and sat down in another theme room. The tropical paradise room, decorated in fake palm trees and pineapples. We ate our ice cream in silence, but in deep thought.
“Antonio,” I turned to him. “I’ll tell you what happened. You tell me if there’s something I can do about it.”
“Sure,” Antonio said. “I’m listening.”
I burst opened about everything that happened, finally having someone who would listen to me. When I finished, Antonio cheerful face was seething in anger. “I knew I shouldn’t have let him take you out of our home that night, that bastard. He used you, and was dishonest with you, Lily. I think we may have a case against him.”
“Could he do what he did as a way to win a case for his client? Is that what Hollywood agencies and PR firms do? I know things are diff
erent out here…”
“It is different,” Antonio said, “but the law is the law.”
“That’s what I was counting on,” I said.
“Feel better now?” Antonio asked. “Let’s play a round of Jurassic Park or Terminator. He led the way into the Arcade and Games part of The Wonderful World of Pizza. We played all the games in the Arcade and Games that night until we were exhausted.
Not once did I think about Skar and his touch, except maybe once or twice. Playing video games kept me focused off of him, until I was in Antonio’s car, driving to his place. “Do you have a place to stay?” he asked.
“I did, but I checked out. I was hoping to find a low-rent apartment that I can share with a roommate.”
“You can stay at our place tonight,” he said. “You can take my room, and I can sleep on the sofa. Mama would love to have you there. She’s always wanted a daughter.”
“I can’t. You two have been so kind to me already,” I said.
“I’ll behave,” Antonio said. “Contrary to what Slade said about me being a Mama’s boy and wanting to jump all over you, I am a gentleman…unlike him.”
“You’re right,” I said. “He wasn’t.”
“So, it’s settled,” Antonio said. “You’re staying over tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll help you find an apartment.”
“You’re an angel,” I said. “You and your mother are probably the nicest people I’ve met in Los Angeles.”
Antonio’s eyes were on mine as he said, “I hope we will be more than that someday. But good things take time. And now, we’re both tired so let’s get some rest.”
