“It’s tempting,” Laura said, “but...”
“Screw tempting,” Tally said. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I want to know if you physically want me to go down and eat your pussy? Do you desire to feel my lips and tongue between your legs? I’m not saying you should let me do it, I’m just asking if you want it.”
“Yes,” Laura admitted. “I want it very much.”
Tally’s smile grew wider. “Well, maybe we can work something out here then. We’ll just have to do it quickly.”
It was 12:30 when the phone rang in G’s hotel room. The groom was there, dressed in his tuxedo, looking quite snazzy. Ricky, the best man, and the groomsmen were there as well, all dressed in their respective tuxes and ready to get on with the show. G was doing what he did to relax in circumstances such as these. He and the rest of the crew had just downed a few shots of Jägermeister to mellow them out.
The phone began to ring. Ricky picked it up. “Talk to me,” he said into the mouthpiece. He listened and then turned to Jake. “It’s for you,” he said, holding out the handset. “Your old lady.”
Jake looked at the clock for a moment. What the hell does Laura want right now? he wondered. He walked across the room and took the handset. “Laura?”
“Hey, sweetie,” Laura’s voice said. “Remember how I was telling you that I got a vibe off of Tally last night?”
“Uh ... yeah,” he said. “I remember.”
“Well ... it turns out I was correct. She’s into girls.”
Jake blinked. “Uh ... I see,” he said slowly. “That’s very interesting, of course, but why are you calling to tell me this right now?”
“Because I’m in Neesh’s hotel room with her right this moment and she wants to eat my pussy out before we go to the staging area.”
Jake was too stunned to say anything for a moment. Had he really just heard what he thought he’d just heard?
“Jake, you there, sweetie?” Laura asked. “We don’t have a lot of time here.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m here. Is this a joke, hon?”
“It’s not a joke,” she said. “She’s standing in front of me right now, waiting for me to talk this over with you. That was our agreement, remember?”
“Yeah,” he said, his head swimming. “That was our agreement. Is this something that ... you know ... you want to do?”
“Very much,” she told him.
He briefly let a vision of Talia in her bridesmaid dress going down on Laura, his wife, flitter into his forebrain. It was a pleasant image that sent a little blood surging into his little head. “Well ... all right then,” he said. “It’s all right with me. Just be sure to make it to the ceremony on time.”
“Will do, sweetie,” Laura told him. “Thanks.”
“You bet,” he replied. The phone clicked in his ear. He held onto it for another few seconds and then slowly hung it up.
“What was that about?” asked G.
“Nothing,” Jake said dismissively. “She was just checking to make sure we’re all on schedule here.”
The wedding started on schedule. Jake and Laura met up with each other in the staging area just before it was time to walk out onto the lawn. He was paired up with Laura for the walk to the podium. They had a brief moment alone before showtime.
“Did she do it?” Jake whispered to her.
Laura smiled and nodded to him. “She did it,” she whispered back.
“While you were wearing your dress?”
“Yeah,” Laura said dreamily.
Jake nodded appreciably. “That’s pretty hot, hon.”
“It was,” she said. “It was very hot. Thank you for letting me do it.”
“Anytime,” Jake said.
It was time to go out. Since Ricky was G’s best man, he was paired with Talia. Jake took one look back at them before heading out the door. Talia’s eyes caught his. She smiled and gave him a nod. Jake smiled and gave her a nod in return.
I wonder how all this came about, Jake couldn’t help but wonder.
He couldn’t wait to hear the story.
Chapter 12: It’s Only Make Believe
Coos Bay, Oregon
July 20, 1995
It was another beautiful coastal Oregon summer morning. The sky was clear over the beaches, with the marine layer staying several miles offshore. The temperature was in the high fifties and the offshore breeze was light and gentle as the sun was just barely above the eastern horizon and had not yet had time to heat up the land and draw the cooler ocean air ashore. The tide was currently out, leaving the beaches around KVA’s cliffside house open and accessible. As was usually their habit when staying in town to record, Jake and Celia were making their morning run together on the beach route.
After reaching the state park to the south of them, they went up the stairs back to the roadway, the most difficult part of the run. Jake had been exercising regularly of late, having found a few trails near his Oceano home that led down to the sand dunes of Pismo Beach, so he took the stairs easily. Celia, on the other hand, had been a bit deficient in keeping up with her aerobic level exercise until coming to Coos Bay two weeks ago, and she was still sucking wind pretty good on the stair portion. Three quarters of the way up, she had to pause and rest to catch her breath. Jake stopped with her and patted her shoulder companionably.
“You’re getting better,” he told her. “You almost made it all the way up today.”
She nodded, her breath tearing in and out of her lungs, her face red and sweaty, her white t-shirt soaked with exertional sweat both on the back and the front. Even her legs, bare in her black running shorts, were glistening with a sheen of perspiration. She took a drink of water, swallowed it, and then panted for a few more breaths before answering. “I’m going all the way up this thing tomorrow,” she said. “Even if it kills me.”
“Hey,” Jake said lightly. “No dying until we at least get your basic vocal tracks down. That way the rest of us can finish your CD and cash in on you posthumously.”
She barked out a little laugh and shook her head. “Your concern for my welfare is moving,” she told him.
He put his hand between her shoulder blades and rubbed a little. His hand came away wet. “The show must go on,” he said.
“The show must go on,” she agreed. “Come on. Let’s get to the top of this perra.”
“Let’s do it,” he said.
They walked the rest of the way up. Celia was still sucking pretty good wind at the top, so, instead of resuming their jogging pace, they kept up a steady walk back toward the house to let her recover a bit. Gradually, her breathing became normal and she was able to speak a full sentence without gasping.
“Well,” she said, “at least this will get me back into shape for touring. As it stands right now, I don’t think I’d be able to last through a ninety-minute show.”
“What about two and a half hours?” Jake asked.
“Two and a half hours?” she asked. “What the hell?”
“Do you think you could work your way up to that?” he asked. “There would be a twenty-minute intermission about an hour ten in.”
“Jake, what are you talking about?”
“A little idea that Paulie and Obie planted in my head the other night,” he said. “Apparently this is the up-and-coming thing for A-list musical acts. Two to three hour sets and no opening band. Just the headliner. The Eagles are doing it, Rush is doing it, U2, Metallica, the Rolling Stones.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Really,” he confirmed. “Paulie asked me to talk to you about the possibility.”
“That’s a really long set,” she said doubtfully. “And I don’t think I’m quite in the same league with those other acts.”
“You’re not,” Jake said. “You’re in a higher league. You’ve sold more CDs in the past two years than all of them combined. You’re hot commodity. I would say—and Paulie agrees—that you are at the very top of the A-list as far as musical acts go.”