Hooked (7 page)

And then his mouth was on mine. He rubbed my pussy,
making me so wet. I felt crazy, like I would cum any moment. With his other
hand, he was grasping my breast lightly, eagerly—rubbing at the nipple, making
me want more.
More.
I grabbed his shoulders and pulled
him toward me. But his eyes opened at the force. “No,” he said. And he grabbed
me and pushed me against the great window, all of Chicago draped at my back.
The lights were glowing in the night sky as I leaned my head back, as I felt
the glass against my ass.

“All of the city can see your perfect body,” Drew
said. “
All of the
city knows I’m fucking you.”

And then, I pulled at his boxers, shooting them down
to his ankles. My eyes wer
e
bright in my face as his cock
was revealed to me; so large,
pulsing. He pushed against me, pulling it into my wet, dripping pussy. I sighed
loudly, letting out a great call to the room—this hotel room that was so much
bigger than my actual home apartment. I felt him come in and out of me, in and
out, as my body crashed against the glass. “Yeah,
d
o
what you want to me,” I called to him. “Do anything you want to me.”

After a few moments at the window, pulsing against
each other, bringing our lips together, having his lips, his tongue on my
nipples, he suddenly pulled out of me and lifted me onto the bed.

My eyes were bright as I spread my legs to him. I
wasn’t accustomed to having sex anymore. I tried to remember the last time
Kevin—the college boyfriend—and I had fucked like this—without any boundaries.
I couldn’t think of a time.

Drew knelt down and brought his tongue over my
pussy. I started gasping, rolling my head back against the pillow. “
Fuck,
”
I moaned.

“Yeah, baby,” he called to me.
“Yeah.
I want you to
moan
.”
I felt his tongue again, hot and tender inside the lips. I gasped, holding onto
my breasts.

Finally, he pulled himself up on me again, moving
inside of me, holding
himself
against me. He pulsed,
over and over again, filling me with his dick. I called out to the Chicago
world as it darkened completely to my right. “OH GOD. OH GOD.” I was about to
come. I felt it; I felt the tremors. The orgasm burst through me, elevating my
brain. I couldn’t think about anything except the supreme pleasure. “TOUCH ME.”
I called to him. And he pressed his finger against my clit as his penis
remained in my body, filling me, straining me.

The orgasm lasted several moments. My eyes were
closed; my body was brimming with feeling. Finally, I opened my eyes
and watched him continue to
thrust in and out of me
, ready to come. He pulsed, pushing his
dick further and further in. And finally, his eyes closed,
allowing his
orgasm to tremor through him, to force him into a state of ecstasy. “Yes. Yes,”
he whispered.

He fell to the side, wrapping his naked, hot arms
around my naked body. We lay there together for a few moments, kissing
tenderly, allowing our tongu
es
to ravel around each other. Then w
e drank the champagne
casually, falling into a sort of drunken haze. Sometime in the middle of the
night, we both fell asleep in each other’s arms, not a thought for the outside
world. In that moment, I was really, truly happy.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The next morning, I awoke with a start. I was
shocked I wasn’t in my own bed. Perturbed, I allowed my eyes to roam around
this strange environment. Where was I? My head was pounding; I was so clearly
hung over. I hardly ever drank anymore, especially since Mel had had the baby,
since my friends had filtered off to other cities around the United States.

I finally realized. An arm passed over me, beneath
my naked breasts. It trembled just for a moment, as if the owner was in the fit
of a dream. I turned my head toward his—toward Drew’s head, I suddenly
realized—and noted how beautiful his face looked in the morning light. His
eyelashes were long; his face was utterly relaxed. I leaned my head close to
his, kissing him on the nose. He didn’t wake.

I turned my head to the side to look at the clock.
Surely it was still early in the morning, I thought. But the clock blared back
an angry 11
;45
. I shot up straight out of bed
immediately, shocked at how late I had slept. Drew—god, this sincere power in
bed—slept on, turning onto his other side. I longed to get back in bed with
him, to allow him to do what he had done to my body, again and again.

But I couldn’t. The girls would be waiting for me at
four in the afternoon, and I had to make it to the dance studio; I had to prep.
I had to tell Mel everything about the previous evening in order to understand
that it had been real—that it hadn’t been a dream. I thought about it, peering
at the carpet beneath my feet, the few bruises I had from the previous
evening’s raucous sex. It had been real. It had been completely, completely
real. My heart leaped to my throat.

In a hurry, I rushed around, finding my clothes. I
found a notepad, as well, and wrote a quick note on it;

“Drew. Had a meeting with my assistant, had to run.
Thank you for the marvelous evening.” I paused before writing the last part.
“Call me. X.”

Satisfied, I placed the notepad directly by his
sleeping form and fell from the room, by habit taking the elevator all the way
to the first floor. When I reached the end, panting and sweating, I erupted
into the world of concierges, of rich people. I saw the concierge who had seen
me naked the evening before and tipped my head to him, acknowledging him. He
nodded back at me, a glimmer of excitement in his eyes. I shook my head,
wondering at how different my life was, then. How nothing, perhaps, could ever
be the same.

I rushed back to Wicker Park, my phone still in my
pocket, hoping ever for a phone call from him.
From Drew.
I burst into the coffee shop in which I had initially met him and ordered a
coffee and a large bagel and cream cheese for my lunch to refuel for the class,
from the great, exerting sex. I giggled at myself as I spoke to the same acned
boy who had helped me just the other day. I wanted to reach across the counter
and kiss him flat on the cheek. “Thank you,” I said to him, taking the bag and
the coffee. I winked at him and he turned a deep purple.

I rushed around the corner, looking forward to
finding Mel at the dance studio already, fresh with a complaint about her
husband, about how tired she was because of the baby. I was ready to listen to
all of it. I had everything at my fingertips, now. I had my dance studio, a new
man,
a
best friend—even a cat! Nothing could stop me.
I rounded the corner, looking at how the September sun gave a bright glint to
everything all around me. I loved this city, I thought to myself. I loved it
more than I had loved anything else. Everything had ultimately worked out. If I
had joined the ballet, if I had actually made it as a dancer, I wouldn’t be
here, so content and so wild after the most amazing night of sex of my life.

I arrived at the door to my studio, a portion of the
bagel sticking out of my mouth. Looking at it, as I searched for my keys, I
resolved to stop eating bagels. They were so bad for me, after all; I could
choose better things, more weight loss-appropriate things. I could be extra
skinny, extra model-like to fit in with Drew’s amazing, rich world.

I was considering this as I took another bite and
pushed the key in the lock. But the lock was already open; the door flung
itself out onto the street. I looked up, blinking, seeing a dark-haired,
graying man before me. His glasses were gleaming in the sunlight, just like the
windows. His trench coat was long, ominous. I narrowed my eyes at him, still
chewing ravenously.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked
him in my best Chicago accent.

The man cleared his throat. “Come on, Molly. You
recognize me? I know it’s been over a year, but.” He pounded his hands over his
chest. “I’m the building owner! Langston!”

I clapped my hand over my eyes, so embarrassed.
“Langston. I am so, so sorry. I didn’t recognize you. Have you lost weight?”

Langston allowed me to enter. I held the bagel away
from my face, bringing my supplies in with me. I was going to have to change
before the four o clock rehearsal. I had already begun to think about it; how I
wanted to re-work part of the girls’ entire routine. I wanted to
liven
things up around there, to make them really, deeply
interested in it. I started humming, pouring some coffee grounds into a filter.
“Langston. Do you want some coffee?”

“Um.”
Langston hesitated. He was looking all around the room, at the mirrors, at the
floorboards. “Sure. Sure. Say. You’ve done great work with this little space. I
didn’t think it was good for nothing.”

I laughed, looking at him. My eyes grew a bit
serious as I began my speech. “I love this little building, Langston. I know
,
I know I’m a bit behind on my payments. But I just wanted
you to know that I have a good deal of money coming in very, very soon.” I
paused for a moment, considering what I was saying.
“So.
Just. If you were coming to kick me out, don’t. Please don’t. I have everything
worked out. I wrote out a whole—
“ I
snapped, trying to
thinking of the word.

“Spreadsheet?”
Langston asked me.

I nodded vehemently. “Yes! Spreadsheet,” I sighed.
“I am going to get those payments in on time. Don’t you worry about
it.
”

“Right,” Langston said. He started scratching at his
graying, black hair. “Listen, Molly. I really like you. You know I like you. I
like all my tenants, but you’re my favorite. You have so much talent. I’ve seen
you dance—saw you dance at Butler, since my daughter was going there at the
time.” He shook his head for a moment. “She got kicked out after that, but
that’s neither here nor there.
Anyway.
We’re in a bit
of a pickle, my wife and I. We don’t have a ton of money coming in.”

“Like I said,” I piped in then. “I have some money coming
in. It’s going to be totally fine. I’m going to send the checks to you
immediately. You and your wife won’t have any problems anymore. I promise.”

Langston nodded. His eyes were red. I wondered if he
was drunk; it wouldn’t have been the first time I had seen him drunk. Behind
me, I heard the coffee pot begun to grunt. It was finished making the coffee. I
poured us two cups and brought his steaming cup to him, offering it to his
shaking hand. “Langston. Are you sick?” I asked him, looking concerned. I
bobbed my head to the right, allowing my eyebrows to filter down over my eyes.

Langston shook his head. “In my heart, yes,” he
said. He looked up at me, blinking wildly. “I had to sell the building.” He
took a deep sip of his coffee, closing his eyes. “I had to sell it.
Some big-wig buyer.
I don’t know.” He shook his head, over
and over. “You know how popular Wicker Park is getting these days.
People—people want this real estate.”

I put my mug down, feeling panicked. My heart was
beating rapidly, like a
rabbit’s
. I put my finger up.
“Yeah.
I mean. I want this real estate. That’s why I’m
leasing from you,” I said, my voice almost choked. “You can’t do this to me.
This is the only place I can—I can work. This is where the kids live. This is
where the older moms live. This is the furthest people will go to take dance
lessons—a purely underrated form of exercise and entertainment. And now you’re
taking that away from them?”

Langston didn’t know what to do with his hands. He
put them first on his hips, second against his brain. He held his coffee mug
with his last three fingers on his right hand, and it bobbed up and down as he
got upset. “You can get loans,” he whispered. “You can get loans to get a
different place, somewhere around here. If you really have money coming in—“

But I stomped my foot. I didn’t actually have money
coming in; it was just the easy lie I turned to whenever I needed it. I turned
my eyebrows toward him, humming with anger and resentment and sadness. “What am
I supposed to do?”

Langston shook his head. “You have to be out of this
place in the next several weeks.” He shrugged. “They didn’t tell me a whole lot
other than that. You just have to be out.
Along with the
people who live upstairs—the people who pay their rent on time.”
He
positioned his free finger on his nose, tapping it.

“Go to hell,” I told him, whispering it. I didn’t
want to be made a mockery of, not now that this was happening to me. Not now.

Langston spun around, walking slowly back toward the
door. I yelled at him. “Leave the mug!”

And he dropped it on the ground, forcing it to
shatter everywhere. He didn’t look back at me as he exited, allowing the bell
to jingle
jingle
jingle
.
Instead, he went on his merry way, unable to comprehend life beyond the
paycheck he had received from whatever rich bastard was ultimately ruining my
life.