“So, who’s the new boy?”
“Huh?”
Mom stared at me.
I shook my head, embarrassed. “How did you know?”
“A mother knows. And I see it in your eyes. What’s his name?”
“Tiago.”
“Tiago? Sounds Portuguese.” I heard mom’s unspoken concern.
“Brazilian.”
“Same thing.”
“No, they’re quite different, actually.” We both understood the double meaning.
“Good. Good. When do I get to meet him?”
“Uhm, when I know if it’s serious?”
“I can live with that.” Mom finished her toast. “Want one?” she asked, holding another one up.
“Sure.”
“I noticed you’ve done less shots of Nicole recently.”
“Yeah, she’s busy. All we have is weekends, and even then sometimes she’s not around.”
“Shots of her sell well.”
“Yeah, you know me, I just use my best friend for her body.”
“You got an idea for the book yet?”
I shook my head.
“What about the bikers? You could do something with them. I’m sure Thunder could introduce you to some other gangs. It’d be a good niche.”
I looked up at her, grinning. “Thunder?”
Now it was her turn to blush. It was barely noticeable, but it was a definite blush.
“What,” I said, “are you guys, like, spending late nights texting each other now?”
Mom looked down at her knees. “He’s fun. That’s all it is.”
I didn’t say more about it. It seems no matter what we said, dad would always be in the room with us. And more for mom than for me.
Dad had never been the perfect husband, but he’d made up for it. He taught me that people can change.
“Is your studio ready?” she asked.
Another reason we’d chosen this apartment was for the all-purpose room. I had been dumpster diving and searching online for cheap equipment to be able to make a home photograph studio. It was an area of photography I’d read much about, but not actually experienced.
“Pretty much.”
“What about a portrait of each biker, with some history about his life? And maybe a poem from you—or maybe even a poem describing his life?”
“Thunder would never agree to that.”
Mom stared up from her coffee, the look of a woman who knew she was in control.
I grinned. “How much time would you need to convince him?”
“You practice those studio shots, I’ll deal with Thunder.”
“I’m glad you’re happy,” I said. “With Thunder.”
“It’s nothing serious. Just a distraction.” She went quiet, looked at me. “You know he’ll never replace—”
I put my hand up. “Don’t go there, mom. We spent eight months on the road together. You’re more than just my mom.”
She nodded, grabbed her coffee.
And then, just because I felt impish: “Good sex?”
The coffee in her mouth almost went over the counter!
“Wow, that good, huh?”
And then it did go over it.
-2-
Friday, May 29
The next day, we met up at a little known place called Little Brazil in Manhattan. It’s a tiny street between fifth and sixth avenues, colored mostly in the Brazilian green and yellow, and filled with Brazilian restaurants, bars, stores.
By “we” I mean me, Tiago, Nicole, and a gaggle of NYFA students—most of whose names I still couldn’t remember. So Nicole ran through introductions again.
I remembered Simone. I was surprised to see her here. When Tiago had told me he “and a few friends” were meeting up at this restaurant-bar, I hadn’t equated Simone as “a friend.” She was dressed, again, like a slut. And that’s not an attack on her character. It’s just how she was dressed. If she sneezed, I’d see her nipples. If she sneezed again, I’d see her vagina. She smirked a lot while sipping her Martini. Her bright blue eyes flickered between me and Tiago quite a bit.
Bright blue eyes, practically friggin luminescent. And perfect blond hair. Thick, perfect bangs covering her perfect oval face which was decorated with perfect make-up. She was confident, I’ll give her that. As confident for a woman as Tiago was for a man. There probably isn’t a guy around who’d ever resisted her charms.
The looks she gave us are best described as seductive. I wasn’t sure if she only had eyes for Tiago, or if she had eyes for me as well.
Or if she simply wanted to eat me.
I didn’t want to judge her. I didn’t. But she was making it so difficult not to.
Next to her was the perfect opposite. I remembered her from the party, ebony-skinned, round cheeks, high cheekbones. Dyed red hair. As red as fire. I snapped my fingers trying to remember her name. “Tina,” she shouted, and laughed. Her laugh was catching, effusive. She had an accent when she spoke, not sure what though. French, maybe.
I mean ebony in the most literal sense. She was dark. It would be interesting to photograph her in a studio. Dark skin reflects less light, and if the lighting isn’t right, you can have part of the face disappear completely into shadow. Sometimes you want that. It adds a mystical quality to the photo.
I knew all of this, of course, merely in theory. I had yet to take my first studio shots.
More people: Britta. A shy looking girl with an innocent round face. Janice. Keith. Another girl with black hair and fresh green eyes, plumpy, but attractive. All the acting students were attractive, I noted. Two more guys whose names I didn’t get. Another guy with light brown hair, gold-rimmed glasses, shorts, holding a beer. Then there was Jase, the guy Nicole had defined as the “most good looking guy” in NYFA. He was, actually. His look was typical. Tall, solid, hard jaw. Patrician. Looked like he came from money. Around his neck was a white sweater, the sleeves tied up in front of him. Blond hair. Probably blow-dried.
And then...Delon! That was his name! (Rhymes with LeBron.) The Usher-lookalike with the glitter-nails. He had on his fedora again, a waistcoat, chessboard capris pants and orange boat shoes. Purple shirt, horn-rimmed Gucci spectacles.
“And now the boring students,” Nicole said.
Tiago and his crew all shouted “Hey!” in unison. I assumed they were the boring students.
“Erik,” Nicole said, pointing at a blond guy in a dress shirt. “He’s German.” She pointed to another guy. “I forget his name.”
“François!” the dude said.
“Right. Frann-SWAH. He’s French, if you haven’t guessed it. And Lissa.”
Lissa had black hair, a pixie-cut, square face, and wore a dress shirt and suit pants covered by a sports coat. She shook my hand and adjusted her thin-rimmed glasses.
And there were others.
“Wow,” I said. “A lot of people.”
“Not half of them,” Nicole said. “These are just the ones who don’t absolutely hate soccer.” Brazil was playing a “Friendly” tonight and Tiago had invited some people over to the bar-restaurant-club for drinks and to watch the game later. It would only start in two hours, so most of the students were using the time in between to get appropriately hammered.
The “boring students” turned out to be the Documentary guys. Seems there was a running gag about them in the academy.
Tiago kept his arm around me and sipped his beer. I went virgin, remembering my mom’s words about a fake ID. Now that I was making my own money, pissing it away to the government just didn’t make any sense. But everyone else drank. So did Nic.
And definitely Simone. She guzzled it down like gas into a Hummer.
Tiago leaned down and nibbled my ear. “You look incredible.”
I did not. I was wearing a scarf and a loose sweater with a wide collar. Hair tied up in a messy-chic style. It was a good look for me, I’d thought. Until I’d seen Simone’s tit-revealing attire.
“I do not,” I said. �
�I didn’t realize we were expected to dress up.”
“The models always dress up. That’s their thing. It’s a waste of time for Friday drinks in my opinion.” Tiago was in his customary vest and jeans. He wore them well.
“Models?”
“Yeah, actors. Half of them are models.”
Right.
The place was loud. Samba music played over the speakers. The scents of grilled fish and espetada (gargantuan beef pieces on a skewer) wafted through the air.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, still talking in my ear.
I held him closer. “We’ve seen each other three times this week.”
“Seen. Not touched.”
My stomach tightened.
“I want to...” His words were cut off by a dance song whose beat clanged over the speakers.
“WHAT?” I cried out.
He gestured for us to go outside. Women’s eyes lingered on him as he walked past them.
We got outside to under some scaffolding. New York. There’s always scaffolding. He didn’t finish his statement. He just grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me. I inhaled his scent of cologne and sweat as my tongue trickled under his bottom lip. “I like you without your beard.”
“I feel naked without it.”
I grinned while he kissed me, my mind lingering foolishly on the word naked.
In his classic move, he pinned me again between his arms, grabbing a scaffolding bar on either side of me.
“I like it when you do that,” I said. “Pinning me.”
He pushed into me, digging my back against the bar.
His lips traveled down my neck, his hand to my butt. “I’d like to do a lot more to you.”
This is as far as we’d taken it all week, and only for a few minutes at a time. Usually in a park. Just kisses. Long, passionate, mind-blowing kisses.
And then he’d needed to go.
“I’ll be free this weekend,” he said. “Just finished a five minute documentary.”
“Is that long?”
“In filming? Damn long.”
“Let’s spend tomorrow together,” I said.
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
We made out under the scaffolding forever, neither of us interested in going back inside. The more his lips touched me, the more his hands felt me, the more my mind hovered.
And the more I wanted him.
I tugged his shirt, pulling him against me. My legs opening.
I took a deep breath, tried to calm myself. But Tiago wouldn’t stop reaching relentlessly for my neck with his lips.
“So much for taking it slow,” I joked.
“It’s been a week. I’m going through withdrawal symptoms.”
We were still fully into it when Nicole broke us apart with a shriek. “Goddamnit, you two! I have to sit in there listening to a lesbian talking about women’s rights, a slut socialite about nails, and a German talking about freedom of speech! I’m going insane without you! You can catch up later but right now we’re all supposed to be having a night out together!”
For a moment we were stunned. Then Tiago said to her, “Five minutes.”
Nicole glared at him, then looked up despondently at the wooden-plank ceiling. “God!” she groaned.
Tiago pinned me again, kissed me slowly.
“I have to be with my friend,” I said.
His warm tongue hypnotized me.
“I know. Catherine,” he said. “I need you to understand something about me. Sex is not such a ‘major step’ for me. I don’t consider what we did a week ago in that construction site as much different to the full act. ... I sense you’re uncomfortable. Hear me out first.”
“OK,” I whispered.
“I’ll go slow with you. I’ll go as slow as you want me to go because I like where this is going—you and me. I know that my ideas of sex are different to yours. I know that to you it would be a major step. I can respect that.
“But at the same time, you dazzle me. I go mad thinking about us on Thursday night.” He waited a beat. I wasn’t looking at his eyes. “I want to”—he kissed me—“touch you. You know what I mean? I want to feel your slick moisture on my fingers again.” His hand slid lower. “I want to...taste...you.”
I gulped.
“I loved”—he kissed my earlobe—“your whimper in that concrete room, your groan.” His hand slid down my backside. “I loved how you bit into my shoulder and left teeth marks. I want that again. I want that rush.”
His shirt was creased beyond repair from my fists around it. I lifted onto my toes, kissed his neck, his lips.
“My place is free tomorrow. My roommates will be out all day. Come over. You know I won’t push you too far. You know I’ll let you push me as far as you want. And you know I’ll stop if you tell me to.” He licked my neck. “But I want you. I want you as much as I can get you. We can talk afterwards. We can walk in the park for hours. We can spend the whole weekend together. But first I want you. I want to hear you moan. And I don’t want it in a park or behind a statue or where NYPD can get us for indecent exposure. I want it in a bedroom, quiet, romantic.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. The words hurtled out of me like hot coals: “What time is your place free tomorrow?”
“Eight AM.”
“I’ll be there at eight-oh-five.”
-3-
“Halle-fuckin-lujah!” Nicole looked like she’d been through a war. When she turned to me she rolled her eyes in Simone’s direction.
The group talked noisily and elatedly. Those that weren’t dancing spoke passionately or checked out the talent. Lissa argued with François about some or other French movie and how “the sex scene did not display lesbian lovemaking in a true perspective, but as a voyeuristic desire of a male-dominated world!”
I decided I’d pay for Nicole’s drinks.
And then Simone appeared out of nowhere. She was so close to me and Tiago I almost felt violated. “You guys have fun?” Simone asked lewdly. Her voice actually squeaked.
She was onto bottled beer now.
Caught off guard, I didn’t really know how to answer. So I said, “Uhm, yeah.”
She raised her eyebrows like she “knew something” and suddenly the whole thing felt cheap and tawdry.
“You two look...good together,” she said. Why does it feel like she just stuck her finger up my ass?
“Thank you.”
Tiago seemed a little tense.
Simone slugged down more beer, looked around. Then, nimble as a cat, she did two things at once. It happened so fast that I think even Tiago was caught off-guard.
One: “Tiago, dance with me, baby!”
And two: She had him by the wrists, and had practically dragged him onto the dancefloor!
Nicole sidled up to me, PBR in her hand. “Bitch,” she said.
We were both looking at Simone and Tiago now.
What made it worse is that Tiago is a good dancer. An insanely good dancer. He dances...like a Brazilian. He shook his arms and pelvis frantically, his whole body trembling rhythmically as he raised his arms and took over the dancefloor. People made way. The girls at our table stopped talking and watched.
Simone just danced sluttily, running her hands through her hair, writhing her perfect model figure. Squirming like she was about to come or something. Like a pole dancer.
“The worst is that you can only stand and watch,” Nicole said. “To go in there would make you look like the fool. Trust me. I know. I would have done the same in high school if I were her.”
I started to turn away. “No, don’t do that either. Watch them. Cheer them on. She’s trying to get his cock hard. But if he’s into you, he won’t let her. Look at her, you see how she’s getting closer? You see how she’s pushing her ass closer to his pelvis? He’s Brazilian, he won’t push her away. Rubbing his ass against some woman’s pussy is like shaking hands for these guys.”
I did nothing.
“Trust me. Cheer him on, like you
mean it.”
I looked dubiously over at my best friend.
“Have I ever let you down? Don’t answer that. Go on, cheer him on. Trust me.”
Trust me...
“Do it, damnit!”
Doubtfully, I shouted, “Go, Tiago!”
“WOOT!” Nicole shouted, getting into it. “Shake that booty, baby!” She whistled so sharply I had to cup my ear.
And then a miracle happened, like Nicole said it would:
Other girls joined in the cheering. “Shake that ass, baby!”
“Damn, he’s hot!”
“Oh, yeah, come to momma!”
Soon the attention shifted from the two of them, Simone and Tiago, to only Tiago.
“Go, sexy boy!” a woman in her forties cried from the back. By her eyes, I think she was ready to do him right there. The older woman started muscling Simone out the way!
Tiago just kept dancing, arms out to his side, ass moving, quivering to the rhythm.
Then Tina bounced onto the dancefloor from behind us, her red hair shining like flames under the lighting. Her bountiful ass shook as she shimmied next to him. Delon leaped and bounded (literally) into the dancefloor and muscled his way around the competing girls. He and Tiago got, uhm, dangerously close.... Like shaking hands, as Nicole had said. A semi-circle formed. Simone kept trying to get into the middle of it but, well, she just wasn’t a good enough dancer. She’d been pushed aside by the others. Then there were three more women around Tiago. Varying ages, every one of them extremely attractive and...no doubt...horny as hell. You could tell by the way they rocked their pelvises so suggestively.
Even Britta, the shy brown-haired girl, joined in.
“Should I also go?” I asked my smirking best friend. Nicole sipped her beer like a victorious queen, her eyes glued to Simone. Simone had been pushed completely out the way by now, and had caught the attention of some other guy who would no doubt give her what she wanted tonight.
“You see, babe...” Nicole pointed to the dancefloor with her beer. “...The difference between you and all those other fools in there, is that Tiago will come to you. They all have to go to him. If you had gone in there earlier and butted in between him and the slut, you would have admitted that you lack that command over him. That, my dear Watson, is what makes you different from every other woman in here.”
Losing Johnny Page 9
