by L. B. Dunbar
“Dude!” I yelled as I pushed through the crowd to the guy air-guitaring it. “Where did you get that?” I finally stammered loudly as I stood in front of a long-haired, goateed guy with glassy eyes.
“My girlfriend.” He smiled with a crooked grin as if he knew a secret.
“What girlfriend?” I blurted, looking around like I would recognize this stranger’s girl.
He ignored me and began to play my prized position, which had gone missing a few years back. I didn’t know what happened to it, and Ana tried to convince me that I had given it away to a charity.
The man played a mean guitar, and his performance seemed like a challenge. I stood my ground, arms crossed, and listened as others around me hooted and hollered encouragement. Out of nowhere I was handed a guitar as well, and began to play in response to this guy. His eyes looked up in challenge. His hands flitted powerfully against the classic instrument he held, but I could meet him lick for lick and I did. Our bodies were dripping with sweat as we played on and a circle formed around us, now encouraging both of us to keep up the duel.
In the frenzy of our play, I saw him rub his nose and I took another bite of candy on my wrist. The drug was fueling my energy and I played on despite a run of sweat down my nose. My hair was soaked and I shook it out to the squeals of girls around me. I had lost the girl that lured me into the cave and I suddenly felt like her actions had been on purpose. My fingers ached and my arm spasmed, but I rocked on in a haze of music madness.
I woke the next day with a powerful headache in a strange bed and Ana standing over me. Her sick smile made my skin crawl as I cursed myself for not remembering the night before and praying to God that I hadn’t repeated my foolish younger actions with her. I knew then about her relation to me and my son. I started to argue with her.
“How did that guy have my guitar?”
“What guy?” she asked coyly.
“You know what guy. He had my 1956 guitar. The one you eagerly told me I had given up for auction.”
She hung her head, but her fake smile was still apparent.
“You stole it from me, didn’t you?”
“Why would I do that, Arturo darling?” she hissed.
“That’s what I’d like to know?”
“You know nothing, Arturo, and you never will,” she sighed.
I tried to sit up, but my head protested and I laid back with a deep grunt of pain. I’d never had such a throbbing headache and it occurred to me that the wrist-candy was more potent than I thought.
“Ana, when are you going to learn, it’s never going to happen again between us?”
I felt the bed dip as she sat next to me, but I refused to look in her direction. She ran a hand up my leg over the thin covering and I shivered like a family of spiders was creeping over my skin. I still didn’t know where I was, but somehow she found me.
“One day, you’ll realize that I’m right for you. We aren’t blood related except for the son we share, and I could be everything you want. I could be your queen, Arturo King.”
I cringed. She would never be that to me. I heard a rustling from across the room and lifted my head only enough to see a man standing in the doorway. He was the same man from the night before. His long hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he had a grim look on his face as he stared at the back of Ana’s head.
“What’s this?” he hissed.
She turned slowly, only looking at him over her shoulder.
“Ace, honey. I told you to wait for me in the other room.”
“Don’t honey me. You told me you loved me.” For a hardcore-looking guy, he sounded hurt.
“I do love you, baby,” Ana whined, but it was an unconvincing performance. Ace, as she called him, approached the bed and stared down at me.
“You look familiar,” he said.
“We battled last night,” I reminded him.
“I mean, more familiar than that.” He paused, concentrating. Narrowing his eyes, Ace looked at me for a moment longer before opening them wide.
“You’re Arturo King.”
I blinked in response.
“Holy shit. You’re Arturo King,” he repeated, dumbfounded. “Man, I worship you.”
I balanced on my elbows and looked at him.
“How did you have my guitar?” I growled against the pressure in my head.
“Ana gave it to me.”
She stood with a quick jerk and turned on Ace. “You idiot,” she hissed.
Ace blinked and stumbled back as if Ana pushed him, but recovered himself and looked back at me.
“I had no idea. She gave it to me, saying it was to show her love for me.”
I felt sorry for the guy. He wasn’t the first to be taken in by Ana’s traps.
Pushing past him in anger, she purposely bumped into the lanky guy and continued out the door. I now noticed my guitar was placed against the wall just inside the door frame.
“What was the plan here?” I asked out of curiosity.
Ace seemed to question me with a look before responding. “I was to battle you until you lost.”
“She knows I never give up.”
“I don’t think she knows how strong your skill is, man,” he said like a fan before he added another apology.
I threw my achy head back on the pillows after Ace exited the room and stared at the ceiling. Moments later, the door opened slowly and the girl from the night before entered the room.
Seeing her made things crystal clear to me; I had been played by Ana from the start.
“You forgot your leather jacket last night,” the girl offered as I sat up on my elbows again. She dangled my coat from her long thin fingers. I eyed her lush body.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Allora.”
I had to laugh at the irony. She lured me in alright. Just seeing her here meant she knew Ana somehow. I took a moment to appraise her body better now without a drug-induced brain. Visibly eyeing her up and down, I nodded once then spoke.
“Take off your clothes.”
She giggled and blushed until she realized I was serious. I watched in bored wonder as Allora followed my demand and removed her clothes.
“Everything.”
She slipped off her underwear and bra, her head hanging down, but a shy smile on her face. By now I had sat up, revealing my bare chest and a growing morning wood that was noticeable under the sheet.
“Put the jacket on.”
I watched her slowly slip one arm in and then another. It was two sizes too big for her regardless of her shapely frame, but her curves still showed and her long legs begged for me. I jumped out of bed, wincing at the ache in my head, before slamming her against the wall of the room. In an unchivalrous move, using the wall as leverage, I fumbled with a condom from the pocket and entered her as she wrapped herself around me, wearing the jacket Ana gave me when I thought I had lost the guitar.
No, I couldn’t tell Guinevere that story. She wouldn’t understand that it was more about getting back at Ana, which I later learned worked double fold. Not only did I fuck the girl in my jacket, but it turned out Allora was one of Ana’s best friends.
Of course, I later apologized to Allora for being so rough and she smiled that shy smile at me as she admitted she liked it. She was obviously happily married now and had a child on the way. Sometimes women surprise me.
Guinie always surprised me. By the time we returned to my apartment, she had simmered down, although she was still quiet like she could be at times. She didn’t seem to trust my intentions with her. We were moving fast, but I knew what I wanted. It didn’t happen the way I wanted it to happen, but once we were home I couldn’t take the pressure anymore.
“Marry me,” I blurted as we entered the living room.
“What?” She turned on me.
“I said, marry me.”
Guinevere
He was out of his bloody mind if he thought I would marry him, especially after I just left a room of women he had s
lept with and was still apparently friends with. Not to mention that he hadn’t told me he loved me, only that he cared about me. I couldn’t take the job even if I got it. Even if I wanted it, it would all be too awkward, and I was now mad at myself for wanting it. Trinity hated me, Lace looked at me skeptically, and Allora certainly had fond memories of Arturo from her embarrassed smile. How could I be in the same room with those women and play in the quartet? On second thought, I could be in the group now being labeled as one of Arturo’s conquests.
I shook my head at him as I crossed my arms over my stomach and leaned against the couch. The same couch he took me up against only yesterday. He was coming on strong and it made me nervous. He was so intense, and it both thrilled me and scared me. In this case, it angered me.
“I can’t marry you,” I said softly.
“Why not?”
“I just … I just can’t.”
“What is this really about?” he asked as he sidled up to me from where he stood across the room.
“You tell me what this is about?”
He smiled slowly, rubbing my bare arms tenderly.
“I want you to be my wife. That’s what this is about.”
“I can’t be your wife.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m still figuring out who I want to be for me.”
“That makes no sense.”
I knew he wouldn’t understand, although I thought, if anything, he would be the only one to get it. He knew it was important for me to be someone for me, not because of who my father was, and not because of who Arturo was. I couldn’t be marked as another lady on his long list.
“You’re Arturo King. But who will I be?”
“You can be my queen.”
“And what does that do for me?”
“I’m selfish. It does for me.”
“I want something for me.” I paused and then I added with confusion, “It does what for you?”
“It allows me to worship you every day the way you deserve to be worshipped. It provides me with my muse. That is what it does for me.”
“And what will it do for me?”
“It will allow me to worship you every day. The way you deserve to be worshipped.”
Well, who can argue with that?
“I love you, Guinie. More than anything. You’re my one and only. My future. Let me let go of the past.”
Of course, it wasn’t a real proposal. After he made love to me on the couch this time, he assured me that he was going to ask me to marry him again for real in a traditional manner, and he added that he wanted my father’s blessing. I had to laugh because I knew that my father really liked Arturo, but I wasn’t sure he would give his blessing for a marriage after only a few weeks of being with him.
Like a thief in the night, I snuck out of Arturo’s bed and went home to my own room that night. I needed to gather my thoughts without the suffocating presence of Arturo. It wasn’t suffocating in a smothering way; it was suffocating in an all-consuming way. A way that I knew would break me if something went wrong. I got a hint to add to my concern when I went to see my father in the morning. His office door was slightly open, but I could hear heated voices on the other side.
“Things are moving rather quickly, don’t you think?” my father said.
“I think it’s moving in our favor, Leo.” I recognized the voice of Kaye Sirs immediately.
“This isn’t like her. She didn’t come home on Sunday night. She came in after two AM this morning. I won’t have her be one of his groupies.”
“She’s not going to be a groupie. She’s an asset, Leo, and you know it. He asked for your permission to marry her already.”
I sucked in a breath as I listened and covered my mouth in horror. How could my father already know and not mention it? How could Arturo play it off like he hadn’t already asked my father?
“She’s not an asset, she’s my daughter.”
“You know what I mean,” Kaye interrupted the angry growl of my father. “She’s a bonus. If she makes Arturo happy, he’s more likely to follow through with signing over control of the company to us. You have the upper hand because Guinevere is your daughter and he wants her.”
My eyebrows pinched together as I tried to process what I was hearing. Was I being bought and sold for business? What business did my father and Kaye want from Arturo?
“I might want to run Camelot Records because this bar scene is getting old to me, but I’m not trading my daughter to secure Arturo’s promise. Either he gives me control because he has faith in me, or he doesn’t give me the position. Guinie is not a bargaining chip.”
“Leo, you understand that she can be. You give your permission for them to marry and he gives you the company in return. You planned it this way yourself. You introduced them in hopes that Guinie would win him over to the idea.”
Bile rose in my mouth. It had all been a setup. He forced us together for that fateful walk in hopes of … in hopes of gaining a company, and he kept up the ruse encouraging me to go upstate with the band. He knew that if Arturo paid me any attention, I might win him over. That’s what I had been trained for all my life. The society functions as the quiet companion to my father all those years. I was out of the rock-and-roll scene so I could charm my way into it. No, so Leo DeGrance could charm his way into a company.
“Guinevere?”
Talia’s sweet voice behind me made me jump. I turned to look at her in slow motion. Her forehead crinkled in concern as she told me that Arturo was waiting for me in the living room. At the same time she told me this, my father opened the door to find me outside his office standing frozen with my mouth literally gaping open.
“Guinevere?”
He questioned with a firm tone before realization crossed his face and he noticed my rigid stance.
“Guinie, honey, come into my office? Let me explain.”
I was rooted to the carpet in the hall. My feet wouldn’t move. I couldn’t form a sound to respond to my father.
“Guinie?”
Arturo’s voice behind me was the final straw. I turned to him, all my anger funneled at him when it shouldn’t have been. He stood sheepishly with his hands tucked in his jeans’ pockets, his hair still damp from a shower. He actually kicked at nothing on the floor before he spoke.
“Where did you go last night?”
“Home,” my father answered over my shoulder. “Arturo, this isn’t a good time. I think you need to leave.”
“No,” I squeaked out and Arturo took this as an invitation to move toward me.
“No,” I said to him as well, putting my hand up to stop his motion.
“I’ll leave instead,” I said and mustered the strength to exit through the emergency stairs next to the elevator that adjoined the two halves of the Round Table: my father’s business and what I thought was my home.
Guinevere
I didn’t know where I was going until I was there. The Emerald Isle. I opened the heavy wooden door and entered the blinding darkness from the brightness of the morning light. Lace was behind the bar again, cleaning off glasses, when her head bobbed upward and noticed my entrance.
“It isn’t Monday already, is it?” she tried to joke, but she must have seen something in my face that made her immediately ask me to sit down at the bar. I climbed up the chunky stool and placed my elbows on the wooden surface, slipping my fingers into my hair.
“What’d he do?”
I almost laughed that she immediately assumed it was Arturo, and then I remembered that she did know him. They all knew him.
“He asked me to marry him.”
I heard the thud of the glass as it hit what must have been the industrial plastic mat behind the bar. It didn’t shatter, but clanked and bounced. Lace bent slowly to retrieve the item before righting herself and continuing to stare at me, even though I hadn’t looked up to see her face.
“Wow. Just wow. How come you don’t look happy?”
“It was all a ploy to
get a company. My father was using me to entice Arturo so he would hand over Camelot Records to the famous Leo DeGrance.”
“Whoa. That’s rough, honey. Are you sure that’s what happened?”
“I heard it all myself this morning.”
Lace looked over my shoulder for a moment and I didn’t move, my head still pointed downward as I began to trace on the bar with my index finger.
“I’m a fool.”
“Honey, I don’t think it was all a ruse. I saw the way he looked at you yesterday. That man has love written all over his face.”
“I don’t know about that, Lace. I mean, he’s Arturo King. He has a reputation. The Chivalrous Lover. And his legendary list of women.”
Lace laughed nervously.
“He told me about you. And Allora. And Trinity.”
“Oh Trinity never slept with Arturo.”
At this my head flew upward to meet those soft caramel-colored eyes.
“Trinity hates Arturo.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know. Maybe because he didn’t sleep with her? Maybe because he did sleep with me and Allora.”
She paused for a moment.
“This is awkward, but I’m going to say it anyway. That was a long time ago, and I’m not proud of all the things in my past, as I’m sure Arturo isn’t either. Don’t hold it against me, okay? We’ve all made mistakes.”
At this comment, she narrowed her eyes at me, and I sensed again that she might know something about me. At that same time a small voice spoke behind me.
“Can I speak now?”
I turned on the stool to find Morte and Ana behind me. I had no idea how long they were standing there, but I suddenly felt that my dialogue with Lace was also a one-sided conversation with Ana LeFaye as well.
