After Care

by L. B. Dunbar

  “That’s Chief,” Todd offered in my ear, startling me like the buzz of a mosquito. I turned to him, and followed his gaze to the man he referenced, the same man I’d been ogling seconds ago.

  “Hey, Merek!” He motioned for the man to come closer. “Come meet Emme!” The tall man turned in our direction, and his dark eyes narrowed in on me. His hair looked thick, with a hint of salt at his temples. His face displayed a few days’ growth. His skin was tight, but the crinkles by his eyes gave away his age.

  My face flushed again, and I wanted to melt into the sidewalk, disappearing under the weight of his returned stare. Dark eyes twinkled with specks of gold met mine and playfully sparked the reflection of another round of fireworks. He held my eyes for a moment, and I noted the glassy gleam that winked at me before he took a step: an uneven, swaying step. The man was drunk. A slow curve crept up one side of his perfectly puffed mouth and tugged the other side to join, revealing a dimple I wanted to trace. My panties smoldered. The next spark of fireworks in the sky matched the instant pulse between my thighs, igniting my sensible cotton underwear. I squeezed my thighs together, imagining this stranger’s mouth on the most intimate parts of me. My sex clenched, and I looked away. Oh God, I was desperate, if I was imagining a stranger doing such things to me.

  “Merek Elliott, meet Emme,” Todd offered. “Emme, Merek.”

  “Yummy,” he muttered with a chuckle. Instantly, I was enveloped in a sloppy hug. A dribble of beer from his bottle poured down my back as his mammoth arms engulfed me. He inhaled deeply next to my head, before he pulled back. With a slur, he said: “You’re lovely.” A hint of Irish brogue twisted into his drunken compliment, and cursing myself, I blushed again.

  “It’s Emme,” I emphasized when he released me. “It’s short for Mary Elizabeth. M. E.” Using my finger, I traced the letter M and E in the air as I enunciated my nickname since childhood.

  “That’s what I said, Yum. Me.”

  “Okay, Chief. Don’t be hitting on my ladies.” Todd reached out a hand to steady the man beside us. Drawing back, Merek held my gaze before his eyes slowly drooped downward to close, and then snapped open again. He swayed back on his feet, one kicking out to catch himself.

  “I’m not hitting on her,” Merek said. “No hitting,” he said, raising his beer bottle and taking a final long pull. I turned to Gia, who shrugged her shoulders, before glancing ahead again at the crowd near the end of the block. She returned her attention to my phone.

  “MatchMe?” Todd asked, squinting at what held Gia’s interest. “Don’t you already have like twelve of those accounts?” he teased.

  “Thirteen,” she said without batting an eye, “and it’s not for me. It’s for Emme.”

  “Gia,” I squawked, raising a hand to cover one side of my face, as if it would shield my embarrassment, while she shared this information with our most notorious neighbor and a sexy stranger. Why didn’t she just mark me with a giant D, like the scarlet letter? D is for desperate.

  “MatchMe?” Merek questioned with a slur. “The dating site?”

  I couldn’t respond. Reaching for my phone again, Gia relinquished it to me, and I stared down at a picture of myself. I hated having my picture taken, and this one didn’t flatter me anymore than any other might. I instantly found a hundred things to criticize. My chin sagged. The skin under my eyes had darkened with age, suggesting I didn’t sleep. My eyes didn’t sparkle cobalt blue like they once had. My nose was too pointed. My hair was almost white-blonde, and I had an age spot on my cheek.

  “How do I delete this?” I scowled, at Gia and anyone else standing too close.

  “You don’t,” she offered. “You use it. Just see what happens. Who responds.”

  “I bet you’ll get plenty of offers,” Todd commented. “But mine still stands, of course.”

  I glared at him, and I sensed the weight of Merek’s eyes on Todd, too.

  “I’ll make you an offer,” Merek suggested. All three of our heads turned in his direction.

  “Oh yeah,” Gia teased. “What offer you going to make her?”

  “What do you need?” He tilted his head ever so slightly to one side.

  “Nothing,” I blurted at the same time Gia said, “Sex.”

  An audible groan escaped Todd, and a shaky hand wiped down his face then slid over his large belly and lower, adjusting himself at the mere mention of sex. I looked away, willing the ground to open up and swallow me. I wanted to kill Gia at the moment, just strangle her right in the street. I could read the headline now: Friend Murders Friend for Soliciting Sex with a Stranger on Her Behalf. I covered my own face in horror.

  “I’m leaving now,” I said, spinning away from Gia.

  “Wait,” Merek’s voice froze me in a half-spin. “I’ll give you a ride.” He swayed back on his feet again. He righted himself this time with a firm stomp with his left. Legs straddled, he put in the effort to hold himself still. Something softened in those dark eyes, but I assumed it was nothing more than the sleepiness that takes over a drunken man at the end of his limit.

  “You’re too drunk to drive. Besides, I walked,” I said, swiping the hand that held my phone before me. I didn’t live far, and the two-block walk was what I needed to burn off the shame and fury.

  “Here,” he suggested, holding out a hand for my phone. “I can delete your MatchMe account. I used to have one.”

  Reluctantly, I held my phone out for Merek. He pressed several buttons and pushed down the home key. The phone went to the main screen. Returning the phone to me, I pushed the home key, and the first window to open was my contacts.

  “What’s this?” I scoffed, holding out the phone for him to read.

  “My number. Think of me like Uber. You need a ride, I’m your man.” He winked. Gia snatched my phone from my hands and laughed as she glanced at the screen.

  “Oh, my God.” Forgetting all about my phone, I turned and stalked toward my home on the other side of the park.

  Hidden Gems –

  The Nights are mentioned in this story. Read how their story starts here.

  The Legend of Arturo King

  Prologue

  I was submerged in darkness. A feather-light, floating feeling surrounded me, and yet I felt heavily weighed down. The sensation was still pleasant, comforting even. I was warm, maybe too warm, but I didn’t move. I was peaceful except for the steady beeping noise in the background.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  I was relaxed enough that I felt disconnected from my body. I could hear voices and wanted to respond, but I couldn’t compose words. My tongue felt thick, filling my mouth, but, quite simply, I didn’t have the energy to speak.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Tones came and went in my head. A rough older gentleman’s voice was almost musical. Music? I needed music somehow, but I didn’t know why. Another voice was female. She sounded slightly hysterical, talking too quickly for me to follow the stream of conversation, and occasionally sobbing in between words. A softer female voice was closer. She spoke of love, but it wasn’t a voice I connected with love.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  There was a voice only in my head that reminded me of love, and that voice was absent from the background. The music I needed to bring me out of the darkness was that sound. Her voice. Where was she? Why wasn’t she here?

  Four months earlier…

  I

  Arturo

  I paced the stage as I sang the heartfelt ballad about lost love. A thin sheen of sweat glistened off biceps I’d worked hard to tone, accentuating the tattoos up each arm, fully exposed under the sleeves of my light-gray T-shirt. My dark jeans hugged me tightly, and I felt a trickle lick down the muscles of my back, slipping into the waistband of my pants. I shook my dark hair, cut short and choppy, and a bead of sweat on the side of my face kissed my stubbly cheek. My eyes closed to focus on the words, and a c
ollective sigh of the ladies in the crowd was heard as I imagined them watching the deep brown sparkle disappear for a moment. I was told at times it looked like I was in ecstasy as I sang this song.

  As lead singer of The Nights, I knew my body made girls sigh and my husky deep tone made them weep. Yet, it was almost ironic that our rock-n-roll band was first known for this tune. I was to the point I was almost bored by it. As I sang the lyrics that brought tears to female eyes, I opened my own again to scan the crowd absentmindedly. Singing should have involved letting my heart out, but I just wasn’t feeling it tonight.

  Oh, the crowd at The Round Table was energetic and that vibe could keep me going for hours. The unusual cylinder construction of the underground bar made for some amazing acoustics, and with a screaming, jumping audience, the volcanic pulse of the place was heart pumping. The problem for me this evening was that I was over the “love” I lost in this song. It wasn’t someone I fondly remembered. It was more an ideal of someone from an unclear memory involving one lonely night, two sweaty bodies, and too much alcohol.

  That night was eight years ago, when an innocent, horny boy of seventeen couldn’t keep his manhood in his pants. After he plowed through the girls at various high schools, he attended a college party with his older brother, Kaye Sirs. That boy was me, and I was extended the invitation for sibling’s weekend. I looked older than my youthful teenage body, moving with ease within the fraternity party. Shot after shot, girl after girl, I made my way through the throngs of people to collide with a senior beauty that latched onto me, quite literally. I bumped into her as I tried to elbow through the co-eds, causing her to stumble backward. As a gentleman, I reached for her before she tumbled over and that set off the remainder of the night. The older college beauty clutched my biceps as I wrapped my arms around her, and I wasted no time in pulling her against me. In return for my assistance, she kissed me immediately – open mouth with tongue. I almost took her there, against the wall in the middle of the party, but she led the way to a vacant bedroom. I graciously followed, as a high school boy about to make it with a college girl.

  I was sullen about that night for almost six months. Missing the feel of her body, the pleasure in how she moved against me. The passion in what she taught me to do. The lust in the ways she let me do her. She became my muse for the first song I wrote solo without the band, and this catapulted my career as a songwriter. The Nights went from high school battle of the bands, to headliners at the local bars during college, and a future world tour after our second major album.

  Of course, all great bands appreciated the start they got at The Round Table. It was owned by Leo DeGrance, a shrewd but honest businessman, who collected emerging bands like kids might collect baseball cards. He studied them. He tutored them. He gave them a start. If he liked them. If he liked your sound, your dedication, and your ability to listen to directions, including constructive criticism, Leo and The Round Table could take you to the top. If you refused, you just kissed your chances of a career goodbye.

  My father knew Leo from some other time, some other place, but I didn’t want to think about that tonight as I continued to scan the crowd. The walls were in shadow to me, but I knew the architecture of The Round Table well. A dirty brick façade gave the place the feel of a medieval castle. Bright lights highlighted the stage with a glow of fuchsia and yellow, but low lights of blue dimly lit the standing-room-only pit floor. The stage was semi-circular in order to fill in a section of the rounded room. A similarly shaped bar lined the opposite wall, lit with the gleam of liquor in warm shades of amber, citron, and crystal clear. I desperately wanted one of those bottles to numb the words I sang. The memory it caused.

  Closing my eyes briefly, forcing myself to sound forlorn and heartbroken, my thoughts flipped momentarily back to my father. Thinking about him almost did the trick to make me sound full of lost-love angst. Almost.

  Hoping to find Leo, I searched the crowd one more time, but I knew he was not present tonight. Something about his daughter graduating from college this evening, I recalled. Leo didn’t often share the personal side of his life, and I respected the man enough to not ask questions. I was surprised when Leo willingly gave the information about his daughter’s important evening, but I couldn’t recall anything else from that conversation. I didn’t remember much about her. It was two mornings ago when the band arrived to practice before the bar was set to open. Despite the bright sunlight of New York City, the dark dungeon of The Round Table gave no warning of the time of day, or night, for that matter. I had the vague sense that the close of this set would put us at almost midnight, and I did hope my old friend would make a brief appearance regardless of the late hour.

  I drew near to the guitar riff that my best friend, and lead guitarist, would play in a moment. I’d known Lansing Lotte the longest out of my band mates. Dark hair, wavy, and laden with sweat at the moment, Lansing set the ladies’ hearts on fire. He had a killer dimpled smile and bright blue eyes. He looked almost angelic and I knew that pretty face caused the band many a problem. Lansing’s and my history went deep, and our friendship was loyal.

  Perkins Vale, or Perk, was our drummer. He wanted to be part of a band, so desperately, that he taught himself to play drums in his secluded forest home. Perk’s mother liked to emphasize the necessity of seclusion in his ‘learning to play’ phase because the sound of his banging would have surely disturbed any near neighbors and discouraged his continuation in developing his talent. His determination to be the best won out in the long run, and he was a damn fine drummer. He joined our group shortly before college. What surprised people most was his large body and the tenderness with which he could command each beat. I noticed Perk’s brown eyes were closed and his shaved dark head was covered by a backward baseball cap, soaked on the edges with his exertion. Perk was lost within himself when a concert raged on.

  Tristan Lyons rounded out the group on stage as the bass guitarist. As nephew to a very powerful man, who was one of my many nemeses, Tristan was a risk to take on at first; however, he approached me and our friendship grew in spite of the family rivalries. We were able to work out an unspoken agreement of compromise on all things related to the family segregation. Tristan also had light-brown hair, curling up his neck, longer on the top, falling into his eyes at the moment as he concentrated and watched his own fingers caress his guitar. His focus on rhythm was inspirational. I had actually witnessed a woman once have an orgasm as he strummed his strings frantically across his classic Fender. It was almost embarrassing to witness. Almost.

  I closed in on the last line of the refrain and turned to look at Lansing, signaling the direction of the crowd and the shift of the song. I had been clutching the microphone on the top of its stand, both hands wrapped around it, holding firm. I often told myself to think of the mic as a woman. Caress it in passion or clutch it in lust. It made no difference as long as this prop seemed an extension of my instrument, my voice. I released the mic slowly and shifted my own body slightly to angle to the right toward Lansing. Glancing over the crowd, what I told myself would be one final time before I pulled my head back into the gig on stage, I saw her.

  She was a vision in white. Literally. Her long flowing dress stood out amongst the crowd of dark T-shirts, darker jeans, and occasional bare skin. Her skin was bare in places as well. Slender arms hung at her sides, completely exposed. The pull of the dress bodice was up around her neck in some fashion that also exposed her shoulders; an area that I found could be very sensitive on a woman. Her shoulders just might redefine sensual in my brief opinion as I further took her in. The dress fell to the floor, but I could sense that those hidden legs were long. The way the dress hugged the undisclosed portions of her body, I knew she was slender, sleek, and sumptuous in all the right places. Her hair looked dark, long and wavy, but the blue glow of the floor lights hinted at some brighter highlights.

  I couldn’t make out the color of her eyes at first, but then she stepped forward under a light as if
she were coming to me. I felt them pierce my soul. I saw a sparkle in those lake blue eyes as my own locked with hers. She stood still for a moment, suddenly frozen in my trance. I watched her lick her lips and I felt that lick in my pants. I didn’t want to look away as a wave of…something…crawled through my body, but she did.

  She turned to her left, but I couldn’t see who stood there in the shadows. Her head returned forward and she seemed to be listening to the guitar, taking in the stage, but refusing to look again in my direction. I felt like I was willing her to notice me instead of the blank stare she focused above the bands’ heads. I almost turned to see what could be so interesting behind me. Almost, but I didn’t dare to look away from her.

  She moved after a slight shift again from her left. She was obviously parting ways from someone near her, and she slowly made her way through the crowded pit floor. As if the audience knew someone otherworldly was within their presence, the crowd parted slowly as she approached each person, making a clean-cut line across the wooden floorboards without another glance in the direction of the stage. Watching her walk sparked an extra beat in my heart and a throb in my pants. If she was sensual just crossing the floor, I dared to imagine what she would be like in my bed.

  My vision focused solely on her subtle movement. Silky, I would have described her. She moved slowly, as if she were a ribbon sliding, slipping, through dark water. The white dress continued to glow from the dim blue lights, accentuating her slither through the waves of people. I was only vaguely aware of the guitar riff coming to an end at my left. I reached blindly for the microphone. This was a move that took no thought for me. It was as natural as breathing to hold the warm metal. I felt a slight catch in my throat as the words were climbing to escape my vocal chords. Lansing hit his last note and I held my breath for the pause before a new cord was hit and the words burst forth.

  It was the last look, of last night