by Anne Marsh
I wink at her. “So you want me for more than my dick.”
She winks right back. “I’m in it for your pretty face.”
I like this girl.
What? You find that hard to believe? You think I’m just planning the best way to get her out of that dress and bouncing on my lap wearing just her heels? I’m an excellent multitasker, so sure. But I do like her. She’s funny, she’s tenacious and she returns any shit I give her with interest.
Her gaze flicks toward the front seat. There’s a panel separating us from the driver, but it’s closed. Plus, he gets paid to pretend that the backseat of my car is Vegas—and what happens here, stays here. Maple doesn’t have to worry that she’ll wake up tomorrow to find herself splashed all over the gossip sites.
Her hand wanders over my thigh. Then she leans in and squeezes my dick through my dress pants. “I’m thinking of this as a two-for-one special.”
“Are you?” My voice comes out as a growl.
“Mmm-hmm.” She’s humming something else now while she makes free with me. “Or maybe a three-for-one special. I’m hanging with an athleisure wear company that’s looking for an influencer, plus I get to give back to the arts in San Francisco.”
“That’s two,” I point out. “You want a seat on the board for a ballet nonprofit and you can meet the right people to make that happen.”
She pats my thigh. “You’re number three. I get to hang out with you.”
The opera house is lit up like a Christmas tree, except we’re the presents. When our car pulls up in front of the steps that sweep up from the street to the main entrance, someone opens the door and I get out first. I know the drill. My job is to help Maple get out without flashing her panties to the waiting photographers and then make sure her dress is still covering her ass before she hits the red carpet. Flashbulbs explode everywhere. The knee pop, the ankle cross, the cute-couple-glued-together-at-the-hip—we pose our way up the carpet.
Okay. Let’s be honest. I totally hate this part, but it matters to Maple. This is the other kind of exposure she enjoys, the less sexy, more commercial kind. Plus, when a photographer asks us to kiss, I’m happy to take one for the team and swoop Maple backward over my arm. When I’m asked to comment on the status of my relationship with Maple, I just wink and say that I’m a very lucky man.
Once we finish running the gauntlet, we hit the open bar, and then Maple’s talking people up, so I lean against the wall and observe. I learn four new things about her.
Item: She loves those bright red maraschino cherries the bartender floats in our drinks.
Item: She’s into something she calls house porn. This apparently involves lusting after online pictures of expensive houses rather than guys. Or girls. Or both.
Item: The stuff she puts in her hair smells like coconuts. Coconuts manage to be a fruit, a nut and a seed—there’s probably a bad joke in there but Maple failed to warn me that on a scale of one to ten, tonight’s boredom factor would rate a hundred.
Item: Okay. Maybe ninety because apparently I like making Maple happy—and she likes feeling me up when no one is looking.
Eventually we’re ushered into our seats, which are box seats. Naturally. Neither nature nor the opera is a meritocracy, and only the best people make it to the mezzanine and the box seats. You have to be either very, very rich or a super donor to sit in one of these spindly, gold-gilded seats.
“I think we got upgraded,” she whispers, running a finger over the red velvet that covers the edge of the box.
“Or Christmas came early,” I say with mock seriousness as I nod to the occupants of the box to our left. There’s a senator sitting there, along with two mayors, a representative and three foreign dignitaries. If this was political bingo, I’d be yelling, Bingo!
But let’s be honest. We know what’s going to happen: I’m going to be making a very large donation to the opera.
Maple
“You sit like you’re on a throne.” Max’s amusement tickles my ear. I think I had too much champagne before the opera because my stomach is warm and full of happy tingles that spread through my body like ripples in a fountain when you toss a quarter in for luck.
“You can pay me homage later.” I know how I sit, but I still look down anyhow, as if something might have changed. Thanks to years of ballet training, my spine is straight, my legs together, bent to the side, ankles crossed. It’s how the British royal family sits and it guarantees I don’t flash my panties at anyone in the theater. But as soon as I think that, my brain tumbles down the rabbit hole. I’m aware that there are hundreds of people here, most of whom are at least pretending to watch the performance onstage. I squeeze my thighs together, pretending to myself that I’m not imagining a different scenario, one where I ease my legs apart. One where strangers are staring at me, their eyes tracing down my body, over the shadowed space between my legs. I’m wet just thinking about it.
Max tugs on the charms that slide against my bare wrist. “Earth to Maple.”
“Sorry.” I flash him an apologetic smile. “I’m paying attention.”
It’s true, even if I’m not paying attention to what I should. The lights go down and the gold velvet curtain that’s hidden the performers rises. Show time. I’d forgotten how performing made me feel, the hot, warm nerves, the delicious tension that I release into the dance. It made me feel alive, and I miss it. I read a book once where the main character had her first ever movie audition and came from the heat of the lights and all those gazes on her. There’s probably some disturbing Freudian explanation, but all I could think was I know that feeling.
At some point during the first act, Max nudges my shoulder with his, holding out another flute of champagne. He’s like the alcohol magician, producing it from nowhere. Usually, I limit myself to two glasses, but I’m tired of rules tonight. I’d rather have the ticklish prick of the bubbles in my nose and the warmth of hundred-dollar-a-glass champagne sliding down my throat. And even while I know I’m lucky—I could be Lieutenant Bob or a million other people who don’t have even a fraction of this moment—I’m missing something.
Max says something. It’s under his breath and the tenor is letting the whole theater know in no uncertain terms that the woman he’s serenading onstage is his everything. At best, my Italian is rusty. Other than food words, my conversation is limited to cursing and place names, so I should be concentrating on the singers. I should lose myself in the music. But I’m too aware of the man slouched in the seat beside me. Max has no boundaries. His body bends and flows and takes up all his space and some of mine. Our arms touch. Our legs brush.
Honestly, I’d crawl in his lap if it wouldn’t be some horrible breach of theater etiquette. Max’s fingers tap and his leg fidgets. Not in time to the music, but as if he’s hearing something uniquely his in his head. Or maybe he’s bored? I did drag the man to the opera after all. I partially blame him, though. The man is just so appealing in a tux. Or half a tux. He’s undone the first few buttons of his dress shirt and the bow tie he has yet to wear is half-stuffed into the pocket of the jacket draped across the back of his chair. Instead of wanting to do him back up, however, I want to finish the job and strip him down right here. In public.
I snort before I can stop myself. We’d never be invited back, no matter how big of a check Max wrote. Sitting next to me, he’s somehow teasing and frothy, as expensive as the champagne that’s a perfect complement to the evening and I’m lucky. So very lucky. Stupid tears prick my eyelids. I won’t be sad. I shouldn’t be. I have so much.
“Maple?”
I hear him whisper my name as his big, warm palm covers my forearm and strokes. His voice, pitched low because we do not, ever, yell in theaters, is both rough and hungry. When I slide a glance at him, he’s staring at me and not the stage. Instead of looking away, I watch him back. He’s right. This is so much better. The more he stares at me, the warmer I
feel, as if something’s filling inside of me with each breath I take.
“I’m okay.” I motion vaguely toward the stage. “We should watch that.”
He nods and pulls a face. He knows I’m lying. We really do have the best seats in the house. It’s the kind of box that seems like it should belong to royalty. A shoulder-high wall separates us from the next box and we have six gilded, red velvet chairs all to ourselves. Despite the tiers of seats above and below us, it feels as if we’re alone.
I do my best to lose myself in the music, which is glorious. I know Puccini’s story ends tragically, the American naval officer betraying his geisha bride and irrevocably breaking her heart, but right now there is nothing but beauty and pleasure. The geisha bride and her new American husband sing about how they’ll be reunited when the robins nest and they’re just so happy that you have to smile. I sway in time to the music, bending toward the performers like an open flower in the sunshine.
Max trails his fingers down my neck. I love his hands. Like the rest of him, Max’s hands are sure and confident, his hands callused and roughened by hours on a surfboard. If I close my eyes, I imagine I smell the sun and salt, the ocean and the wax he rubs on his board for speed.
He leans in more, his mouth brushing the sensitive spot behind my ear. “You smell amazing.”
I whisper the words before I think. “Make me forget?”
Max doesn’t miss a beat, doesn’t ask why or what or how. He simply leans in more, his weight pressing against me, his mouth kissing my ear. I don’t have the theater any more, but I have this. With a rough sound no one can hear but me because poor little Butterfly’s husband is making more promises he has no intention of keeping, Max slides his hand over my knee.
The box to our right is empty.
The box to our left is rapt, their attention focused on the stage.
Max’s hand skims further up my leg. I don’t even know what I want. I’m afraid to demand specific things, to tell him this or that or more or even right now. When I look at Max, his eyes are dark, the lines of his mouth hungry and intent. He has a plan or a fantasy, and either is good enough for me. This is how I want to feel—alive and eager, my body anticipating the next move in our dance. What would he do? What could we do in a darkened theater? Max has an excellent imagination.
“May I?” he whispers.
“Hurry up.”
Warm fingers wrap around mine and he takes my hand, pressing it against the front of his dress pants. He’s hard, his dick arching against the fabric. I measure his length with his palm, squeezing gently. “You like me.”
“Yes,” he growls.
Yes.
This is a bad idea, the best worst idea ever. We’re in a public theater for a highly publicized charity performance. There are photographers, guests, a thousand reasons I shouldn’t do this—and two of the best reasons. Max. Me.
I meet those brown eyes that seem to see me in a way no one else ever has. He pays attention as if there’s no detail too small or too silly about me. Everything matters. Madd never looked at me like this, as if I were interesting. As if he wanted to talk with me, touch me, be with me. As if just sitting here were enough. I know we’re just friends with benefits, a casual hookup, but it feels like it’s enough. As if I’m enough.
I move my hand, wrapping my fingers around his wrist, and pull his hand higher on my thigh. He lets me, his mouth easing into a smile that warms his eyes and turns up the corners of his lips.
“Touch me here.”
I whisper the words, not because I’m ashamed but because the tenor onstage is crooning passionate words to his soprano, their voices filling up the immense space of the theater, and yet somehow even as they reach the back of the stalls, singing, soaring, they’re quiet too. I move to their music, my body finding their rhythm as Max strokes the curve of my upper thigh with his thumb.
“Like this?” he asks. “Or higher?”
“Make me come.”
His mouth brushes my jaw in a soft kiss. “Then watch the show.”
My heart soars, leaping about my ribcage as if I’m about to take flight, to leap across the stage. This is a new piece for me, a dance I’ve never rehearsed, but the trick is to trust your partner when he lifts you. Max won’t let me fall—or fail.
His hand moves higher, fingertips grazing the edge of my panties. When he slips beneath the lace, the ache between my legs grows worse.
“You like this.” Max’s voice is a low, whiskey growl in my ear. “Do you like the way I touch you? Or that all our neighbors have to do is stand up and they’ll see you riding my hand in the theater? Or that no one knows, not really, what we’re doing and that it’s our dirty little secret?”
There’s nothing to say because it’s all true and maybe that makes me greedy, but it feels too good when Max touches me for it to be wrong. His arm presses against mine, his body shielding me from the audience on our left. I unbutton his pants, easing the zipper down. I take a brief second to be grateful for cotton boxers that open in the front and then I’m curling my fingers around him and stroking his bare flesh.
He eases my thighs apart, spreading me open, shoving my dress to my waist. Velvet brushes my bare skin like a thousand tiny, hungry tongues. I think I moan. I need more. I’m a swing pumping up toward the sky but there’s still so much further to go.
He pushes a finger inside me and heat spirals through me, my body tightening around him. He makes me fly and I don’t want to stop. I want everything he’ll give me—and Max is infinitely generous. He explores me leisurely, slowly, surely. His fingertips glide up and down my slick folds, finding spots that make me see white or whimper or clutch at his dick as if it’s the joystick for this wild, mad ride.
I forget to wonder who might see us. Later, I’ll tell myself that it’s okay if someone saw. I’ll tell myself I love the thrill of being watched. But right now, I can only think about Max and how he makes me feel as he fingers me in the theater exactly right. I clutch his hand between my thighs, squeezing, riding him because we’re both coming more than a little undone and it feels so good. Little sounds escape me and there’s the unmistakable sound and scent of wetness. I’m not sure our dirty little secret’s such a secret anymore because someone’s head turns in the box next to ours but then I’m whispering words again. I’m coming. Right now. You too.
I know this is just a single moment, and I know that Max is as off-limits for me as Butterfly’s naval officer is for her. Max will never be a forever man, but when he comes, his dick shoving against my palm as I squeeze, I feel happy.
Max
After the performance, we mingle in the lobby, where the caterers have set up a dessert and champagne bar. While I distract the event organizers from our opera box shenanigans with a generous donation and newfound passion for the opera, Maple loads up her clutch with a selection of finger pastries for Lieutenant Bob. Apparently, she’s come prepared and stashed empty plastic baggies in there.
Bob’s properly appreciative when we deliver the goods, and then I walk Maple to her door. She’s humming something I don’t recognize.
I hum a bar with her. “Do you always have a playlist?”
“I like music, Max. Do you have something against Romeo and Juliet?”
“Isn’t that the one where the guy loses his virginity and then promptly kills himself in a crypt because the dumbass can’t tell that his girl isn’t dead? Because that one makes me wonder just how bad our hero was in bed. I think you should pick something happier.”
Maple laughs. “Do you have a suggestion?”
“My all-time favorite movie in high school was the one where Bo Derek does some naked horseback riding. I was too busy staring to pay attention, but if that scene had a soundtrack, that’s the one I want.”
Maple’s still laughing when I kiss her.
FYI? I outkiss poor stupid, dead, cockblocked Romeo.
Our mouths come to rest on each other gently and then we’re kissing. It’s sweet and slow, like one of those dreams where you’re running but getting nowhere, the air a thick, sweet tether—but without the stress. We’re getting somewhere, but neither of us is in any rush. I breathe in, she breathes out, and our kiss grows rougher as tongues and teeth come into play. I cup her head, holding her still so I can take her mouth, and she grinds up against me, doing some taking of her own, and fuck Romeo—we’re going to have our very own happy ending right here, right now.
I tear my mouth free. I think I might be panting. “Can I come up?”
There’s only one way this ends, right?
“I—”
“Maple?” Someone clears his throat. Loudly. Or maybe that’s just Karma laughing her ass off at me.
Maple jerks back like she’s been stung by a bee, except it’s dark o’clock and bees prefer to shack up in their nice, cozy hives at night. It’s a simple phototactic response. They gravitate toward the light.
Maple’s brow furrows as she peers at the shadowy throat-clearer. “Madd?”
Of course she can identify him by basic biological responses, the cockblocker.
“I think we should talk,” he says as he comes forward.
Talking is highly overrated, unless it’s the kind of yes please give me more conversation Maple and I shared in our opera box tonight.
But Maple is staring at Madd and Madd’s extending a plastic-wrapped, supermarket bouquet of pink flowers. I size up my competition: he’s three inches shorter and wearing stupid chino pants and a green-and-white-checked shirt. He’s pretty, though, with blond hair and ink covering his forearms and throat. That must have hurt and I’m glad. He deserves to suffer.
I stare at him, willing him to leave. Or to drop dead. I’m really not fussy. “What do you want?”
Madd doesn’t take his eyes off Maple, which is a smart move. He’s showing her that she’s the focus of his world, which makes him a smart dick. “A second chance.”
