by S. Ann Cole
“What’s a good drink to have?” I asked Trudy before she made her order.
Trudy’s eyes bulged at me as if I’d grown a second head. She knew I didn’t drink. But I needed to swipe the plaguing thoughts of Lovello screwing Nicole’s brains out from my head, and I thought alcohol would do the trick. Trudy tried to speak in objection but I held up my hand. “Don’t even bother, Trudy. Just order me a damn good drink.”
Trudy turned to the waitress, resting her hand at the curve of the waitress’s shoulder and neck, and seducingly made languorous circles with her thumb on the base of her neck. The waitress didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she smiled brighter.
“Two Black Labels on the rocks,” Trudy ordered deep in the waitress’s ear, and, if my eyes weren’t lying, she bit her on her ear lobe. The waitress dazed back with an expression that proclaimed she had definitely been bought. Trudy winked at her, then glanced over her shoulder in Tish’s direction. An unpleasant frown clouded her face when she realized that Tish’s attention was directed at her phone screen. It was apparent then that the seducing scene she’d enacted with the waitress was an attempt to make Tish jealous. But unfortunately, Tish missed it — or was pretending not to notice. “And a Screw Driver. Hard on the vodka, easy on the orange juice,” Trudy spat out, leaving the poor waitress mystified.
Mystified was correct, because she couldn’t have known Trudy was just using her to make an oblivious Tish jealous.
Trudy peevishly slumped down on the glowing white banquet next to me. Tish, finally stowing away her cellphone, stood up and tugged on my arm, pulling me up to my feet and walking me to the thick black rope that parted off our booth. “Pick one,” she said, gesturing to the dancers on the floor. “You need a lap dance.”
“Oh no,” I began backing up. “This is all your shit, not mine. You want me to pick a dancer for you? Sure. You look like you could do with a lap dance. But none for me.”
“Well, I was gonna get one anyway. But you gotta get one, too,” Tish grinned.
“No stripper is coming in here to dance with anyone!” Trudy bellowed from behind us.
Stifling a laugh, I turned to look at her peeved expression. What the hell was her problem? It was all fun for her to ignore Tish, but she obviously couldn’t bear it when Tish ignored her, huh?
“You heard her,” I said, repressing a laugh. “No dance, for no one.”
Tish rolled her eyes, muttering something under her breath and remained by the rope, while I went back to sit next to Trudy.
A few minutes later, the waitress returned with our drinks. “Two Black Labels on the rocks and one Screw Driver,” she announced, setting the drinks down on the table.
The waitress tried to continue the flirt with Trudy, but with Tish’s back turned to us, Trudy wasn’t playing that game anymore. Nevertheless, the waitress pressed a piece of paper into Trudy’s hand and sashayed away with exaggerated sways of her hips. Trudy unfolded the paper to reveal a phone number scrawled under the name ‘Sherry’. She crumpled the paper in her palm and tossed it aside. This woman was about no one but Tish. From ‘a beast’ to a lovesick puppy. Talk about transformation.
“Don’t start, Axia,” she hissed, as she handed me one of the Black Label drinks and noticed that I was smothering a grin.
That only made me burst into laughter. “Well, someone’s awfully miserable tonight.”
“I really hate you,” she said on an eye roll, but I knew that her ‘I hate you’s’ were actually ‘I love you’s’.
She cut her eyes to where Tish stood at the front of the booth, rocking to the high-tempo music blaring in the club. Tish’s long brown hair dangled around her bare shoulders and her lean figure murdered a short and tight purple dress — was quite possibly murdering Trudy’s brain cells, too.
Trudy called for Tish all of three times to no avail. When she barked out her name the fourth time, Tish spun around and Trudy held up the glass of Screw Driver. “Your drink.”
Tish smirked and raised a brow. “Would you look at that, you remembered my drink.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, I remember all my girls’ drinks,” Trudy burned.
Tish wasn’t fazed. She blessed Trudy with a saccharine smile, took the drink from her hand, and sallied back to the rope to watch the topless dancers on-stage. Taking a sip of my own drink, my eyes squeezed shut as it went down my throat. Christ, this was strong. I haven’t had alcohol since I was eighteen, and even then, it had only ever been beer. I would just have this one glass, of course, because I had to drive.
“I don’t know how I feel about you drinking, Axia,” Trudy cautioned. “What’s going on with you? Is this about Nicole?”
“What about Nicole? Love’s fully hers now. I just needed a frickin’ drink. What’s so bad about that?”
Trudy’s eyes blew wide. “You broke up? When? He was really cheating on you with her?”
“He came to my gym today to ask me if I wanted to have lunch with him and Nicole,” I informed her, then took a larger gulp of my drink.
“What? Are you serious?”
“As a judge.”
“Shit, what on earth was the douche thinking? Was that his insensitive way of telling you he’s choosing her?” Trudy rhetorically asked, then took a gulp of her drink. “Well, she stops by his office like every other day, dressed to the ninth in killer heels and stylish clothes. I should’ve known the bitch was trying to sneak her way back into his life. But there was no way for me to be sure, seeing that I’ve ended things with Carla and there’s no other way for me to get valid inside gossip. She and Carla have become buddies now, though.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep. Nelson isn’t always there when she pops up. So Carla’s who she sits around and chats with until he arrives. If you can remember the quarters that are down the hall from his office, that’s where she lounges for hours while Nelson works, I hear.”
As I quietly took another sip of my drink, I could feel Trudy’s eyes burning into me. But she knew better than to croon the ‘I told you so’ ballad to me.
We both snapped up our heads when we heard a male voice shouting in Tish’s ear. Was that Trevillo? What the hell was he doing here? Was his asshole brother here with him?
Tish refused to move the rope. She turned to face me, ignoring Trevillo’s irritated glare. “You want this guy in here, Axia?”
“It’s okay, you can let him in.”
Tish returned Trevillo’s glower as she reluctantly pulled the rope for him to enter.
“Hello, Axia,” Trevillo greeted as he walked up to me, casually dressed in a black, close-fitting T-shirt, faded jeans and heavy black boots. His usually neatly styled hair had a tousled, rockstar vibe to it tonight.
“You don’t take orders well, do you, Kinky Boy?”
Trevillo’s lips pulled up into one of his many demonic smiles, his teeth extra white under the psychedelic lights. “So what, now I can’t say ‘hello’ to my potential sister-in-law if I see her on the road?”
“You can, but only if you promise never to refer to me as your ‘potential sister-in-law’ again.” I knocked back the last of my drink. “Your brother and I aren’t together anymore.”
“Bombshell,” Trevillo said, he eyebrows shooting up. “When the fuck did that happen?”
Discussing my life like this was never my style, but it seemed the Black Label had rendered me loose-lipped. “Since his long-legged Nicole came back from France and he discovered that he was never out of love with her.”
Trevillo’s brows furrowed as he shoved his hands in his pockets, darting his eyes out to the dance floor uncertainly, as if wavering something in his mind. “Listen, I’m here with a couple of my friends and there are only two V.I.P. booths in this club. They’re both occupied by you and some other moneybag. Seeing that it’s just three of you here, can my friends and I share this booth with you?”
“It’s easier to just find another club, Trev,” I shot.
“Don’t care for finding ano
ther club. This is where I wanna party,” Trevillo shrugged. “C’mon, Axia, the booth’s big enough to fit twenty people comfortably, and it’s just five of us.”
Turning to Trudy, I raised a brow in question, but she just shrugged.
“Okay, fine. As long you all keep outta my hair and stay on the far end over there,” I said, pointing to the farther end of the booth.
Trevillo flashed me a crooked smile and strode from the booth. There was something about his cheekiness that I knew I shouldn’t trust, but who cared? The lightness that the alcohol had induced felt great, and I knew I’d lied to myself when I swore I was only going to have one glass. Especially when Trevillo returned with his ‘friends’. A cohort that consisted of two buff guys, one older-looking blond that I’m pretty sure was Trevillo’s current bed partner, Carla and her … Nicole. They all jiggled their way into my booth without even a nod of acknowledgment.
“What the fuck, Trev?” I swore, when his ‘friends’ sauntered down to the other end of the booth.
Trevillo lifted his shoulders in an innocent shrug. “I promised to stay on the far end.”
I walked up to him, tilting my head up to meet his eyes. “Is this your way of trying to get me to leave the club so you can get the damn booth, assface? You could’ve just asked. I would’ve given it to you since you’re so fucking desperate to have it!”
The hellion blinked at me with impassivity. “No, Axia. Just wanna party, is all. I made Nicole promise to stay out of your way. She knows it’s your booth.”
Tish pushed her way between Trevillo and me. “You wanna leave, Axia? I can get us a booth at the next club five blocks away from here. It’s just as sumptuous.”
“Oh, hell no!” Trudy exclaimed over the music, loud enough for everyone to hear. “No tramp is gonna chase us from our own booth. We’re not leaving, Axia.”
I’d forgotten that her ex, Carla, was among the batch. Which meant she was just as pissed as I was.
Trevillo’s crew knew better than to open their lips and argue back. While Carla and the older blonde woman zoned in on our conversation, Nicole — dressed in a short, silver dress that had a deep V down the center revealing the inner swells of her very perfect breasts, and in heels that rendered her legs extra definition, looking as polished and shined as when I’d first seen her — kept her gaze out on the dance floor, rocking to the club music and pretending not to have a care in the world. Either Trevillo had warned her well or she was just being a cocky bitch. Who could blame her? I’d have the same attitude, too, if I’d effortlessly reclaimed what was mine from another woman’s hand. She had every right to wear the cocky cloak.
“Now that’s the spirit,” Trevillo cheered. “Nobody’s going anywhere.”
“Fine, Trev, you’ve won,” I hissed. When he turned to leave, I called, “And Kinky Boy? You’re in charge of our drinks.”
Trevillo held his hands up in defeat, taking backward steps to his group and grinning his little devil face off.
This was going to be a rather interesting night.
XXIII
By my third glass of Black Label on the rocks, my mind had grown nebulous, so I decided that the third would be the last. No way was I going to go through that irresponsible drinker thing where I end up vomiting my guts out on someone, then wake up the next morning with a massive headache and not have even the vaguest idea of how I’d gotten home. As much as I wanted to decimate all unwanted thoughts of, and feelings for, Lovello, drunkenness was no solution, so I had to be responsible.
We were surprisingly enjoying ourselves, being alcohol-fueled and all. Even forgetting about Trevillo’s crew — well, until they popped a new bottle of champagne and became more boisterous. An idle thought wandered across my mind: where was Lovello and what was he doing at the moment? His brother, assistant and his, um, ‘old flame’ were here, yet he wasn’t. Though I would’ve been thunderstruck if I saw him here, because he’d never struck me as the type of man who did strip clubs, or any club for that matter. In his own way, he was kind of a geek. And so soft in areas where one would’ve thought him to be tough. But that part of him was hard to see. Not with all the mind-fogging macho sexiness that he perpetually exuded. It was pretty damn hard to see past all that, for sure.
To see Trevillo here? No shock there. The guy seemed to stand for everything perverse.
“Gonna rest my feet. These heels are killing me,” Trudy whined, and went flopping down on the banquette, leaving Tish and me dancing to The Black Eyed Peas’ I Gotta Feeling.
To be honest, I’d been ready to ditch this clubbing idea for the last couple of hours. No, it wasn’t because of Trevillo and his crew. It was just me. Clubbing and drinking were simply not my thing. I’d never gotten the fascination of scads of strangers converging in an open space to merely jump around to music and imbibe glass upon glass of noxious alcohol.
I’m miles from prude, and not in the least puritanical: prurient would be more like it. But to me, some things, like this revelry, are pointless and a waste of quality time. It was on impulse that I’d suggested we went clubbing, but, as always, each time I tried partying, I’d always end up feeling as if I’d wasted a huge chunk of my life. Call me a bore-whore if you please, but that’s just me. Axia.
Despite my lack of interest, I didn’t want to be labeled as a kill- joy, so I’d sucked it up — along with some alcohol — and aimed to be a lively companion to my girls. Alas, my patience level had gone from ‘tolerance’ to ‘fuck-this-shit’. “You girls won’t mind if I leave, would you?” I asked Tish over the loud music.
A disappointed frown crossed her face, but then she shrugged. “I don’t. But you’ll have to ask Tru —” she broke off mid-sentence as she turned to motion towards Trudy and saw what was taking place behind us.
Carla was straddling Trudy on the banquette, grinding against her and plunging her tongue down her throat. Tish’s face grew as red as Rudolph’s nose, and if my mind wasn’t this turbid, I’d attest to seeing steam blowing from her nostrils. She stomped over to them and tapped on Carla’s shoulder. “Get up, Carla, and go back to your restricted corner,” she ordered in a rather calm manner, despite her raging demeanor.
Carla snorted. “She was never yours. Mine, Tish. And always will be.”
Tish made an impatient shake of her head, grabbed Carla by the nape with one hand, hauled her from Trudy’s lap and tossed her to the floor with such ease you’d think Carla weighed less than a pound. “Bitches just never listen!” Tish said to the ceiling, throwing her hands up in the air and wagging her head.
Carla scrambled to her feet and rushed towards Tish, but at lightning speed Tish caught Carla by the neck, her fingers wrapped tightly around her throat as she held Carla at arm’s length, while removing one shoe from her foot with her other hand. Damnnnnnn. “Try anything stupid, Carla, and I swear I’ll have your eyeballs on the heel of my shoe like marshmallows on a stick!”
Tish was much taller than Carla, and I knew Tish’s physical strength well enough to know, undoubtedly, that she could floor Carla in a nanosecond. “Remember that I’ve had what she’s had, Carla. And I can see why she’s bored with your ass. You got a lazy tongue.”
“Whoa! Whoa! Chill out, ladies,” Trevillo came rushing between the two, pulling Carla from Tish’s strangling grip.
Throughout the whole thing, I just stood aghast, feeling like I was a part of an MTV reality show. This was not my scene!
Trevillo pulled away a chastened, teary-eyed Carla, promising to ensure that she kept her distance, while I thought about how ridiculous this whole thing was. Trevillo was a mega billionaire, so I couldn’t, for the life of me, imagine why he’d want to share a booth. I figured he just couldn’t help being the miscreant that he was, and wouldn’t have a good night’s sleep if he hadn’t made my damn night a living hell.
Tish turned to Trudy who’d remained seated and unobtrusive throughout the whole ordeal, feigning insouciance. She was finally receiving the attention that she’d been s
eeking from Tish all night, and I was pretty sure that she was smiling inside. Tish bent at the waist so that she was at eye level with Trudy, and gripped her face with one hand, squeezing Trudy’s cheeks so hard that her face looked distorted. “No more of this shit. You understand? I’m done playing this game with you, Trudy.”
Surprisingly, Trudy was meek. “I never touched her. She just came over and —”
“Stop. Lying,” Tish hissed. “You’ve been doing this on purpose all night to piss me off. Well, guess what, now I’m not just pissed, I’m fucking pissed. And you know what I’m like when I’m fucking pissed. Is that what you miss? My angry tongue waging war with your clit?”
Wow, I’d never seen Tish this fierce before. Is this why she’s a game-changer for Trudy? Is this what Tish is like behind closed doors, tough and commanding? This lesbian thing is so confusing. One minute, it seems as if Trudy’s the one with the upper hand, and in the next minute it’s Tish? These two people felt like strangers to me all of a sudden. Strangers, I tell you.
“The game ends here, Trudy. All games. Get it?” Tish continued. When Trudy didn’t answer, Tish squeezed her face harder, eliciting a whimper from Trudy’s lips. “Get it, Trudy?”
Trudy gave an obedient nod.
“Good. Now always remember that you’re mine, ‘cause I’m done sharing you. And don’t even pretend that’s not what you want, because I know you love me.”
Trudy’s eyes widened on a gasp. “How did you know?”
Tish sighed and released her grip on Trudy’s face, then straddled her on the banquette, cupping Trudy’s face gently in her hands and brushing her thumbs over her cheeks.
I edged closer, not wanting to miss out on the action. These two seemed to be lost in their own world.
“Because you told me … in your sleep. No one ever told you that you talk a lot in your sleep?”
Trudy shook her head and smiled. “No. Never.”
“Well, you do. Maybe no one tells you because that’s when you’re most honest and they don’t wanna let you know that you always spill the beans while you sleep,” Tish laughed. “But that’s how I know what I mean to you. So can you just stop pretending now?”
