39 - Whadda Ya Know?

When Tony came back from the bathroom, Lilah was on the phone.   He pulled on his boxers and listened with half-an ear to her conversation as he grabbed his cigarettes and dragged a chair over to the window. 

“That’s so cool!” she was enthusing her eyes glowing with happiness, her back propped against the headboard with the sheet tucked under the arm she’d draped across the top of her breasts.  “So you’ll be getting’ paid every week?  Uh-huh.  Well, I’m excited for you guys, but keep it in perspective.  Don’t go droppin’ all your fall classes just yet.  Promise?.....  Thank you………….  I should be home by then……...  Of course I’ll come to one of the shows!  Am I allowed to bring my camera and video if I promise not to put it on YouTube?”

He chuckled and blew smoke out into the night sky, unaccountably relaxed.   She smiled sheepishly and mouthed, “Sorry,” but he waved her apology away.  It was obviously her son, and Lilah was happy to hear from him.  He must have had good news to share. 

“Yes, I’m havin’ a good time……”  Her still-dancing eyes flicked to Tony’s with a quirky little grin, and she tucked her hair behind her ear. “No show tonight......  It’s okay, I’m glad you called.  Is there anything you need?   I can transfer some money into your checkin’ account, but if you need somethin’ else, call your Dad or Joanna.  Or I can call.  Don’t live on jelly cream pies and pizza…..  I don’t care if that’s what you like.  Change it up once in a while…….  No, Taco Bell doesn’t count.” 

Typical teenage boy.  

Tony shook his head with a smirk.  At that age, he had preferred to live on McDonald’s, whenever it was an option.  Would still live on pizza if it weren’t brutal to his cholesterol.  He felt a zing of jealousy at the teenage metabolism.    

Inspecting the tip of his cigarette, he watched it burn slowly, a curious frown forming.  It should be awkward listening to the woman he'd just had down-and-dirty sex talk with to her kid, but it wasn’t.  Right now, he was nothing but relaxed, feeling well-satisfied and knowing that she was too.  Tony was looking forward to finishing his smoke and crawling between the sheets to wrap himself around a naked woman, where they might both be satisfied again, or simply fall asleep.  Either was equally appealing.

That should have you scared shitless, Jack.

“Call me if you need anything, okay?  I’ll talk to ya in a couple days.  I love you, Baby.”  She disconnected the call and slid the phone onto the nightstand.  “I’m sorry.  Andrew and his buddy got a regular gig at one of the local restaurants-slash-bars, and this time they’re getting’ paid.  He’s pretty excited.”

Stubbing out the remains of his cigarette butt on the windowsill, Tony stood and dropped it in a glass on the desk. 

“He should be.  That’s a big deal.  You think he’s gonna hit the big time?”

She shrugged sliding out from under the sheet.  Finding her panties, she slipped them on and admitted, “I doubt it, but if he wants to try, I’ll be right there with my camera like an embarrassing groupie mom.  I just want to keep him in school as long as I can, so that if he does drop out to pursue the big time, he won’t have as much to finish when he comes back to it later.”

“Don’t,” he requested quietly when she started to pull a t-shirt over her head.  Swinging his feet up on the bed, he patted the spot that was still warm from her bottom.  “I’ll keep you warm.”

She considered it for a moment, studying him with an intensity that took him back to that first night.  He felt like she could see something inside him.  It didn’t creep him out so much this time, and he let her look her fill.  Another second later, she dropped the shirt back into her suitcase, bending to reach for a zippered bag. 

“Okay, but I have to take out my contacts.  I didn’t do it last night and they’re just about to kill me.  Be right back.”

While she slipped into the bathroom, Tony admired the wiggle of her butt in those purple polka dotted panties until a notion overtook his conscious thought.  He couldn’t say where it came from, because it had no connection to her polka dotted ass whatsoever, but it was as clear and vivid as those panties and he knew he hadn’t just made it up.

“What time do you have to be up in the morning?” Lilah called through the open door.  “Do you need me to set an alarm for you?”

“Mm, no, I’m good.”  Tony blinked a couple of times, scratching absently at his chest as she extinguished the light and returned to the bedroom.  He let the thought slip away in favor of studying her bespectacled face.  The dark-rimmed glasses were cute.  Very librarianish, they made her look studious and intelligent.  The novelty of them was almost enough to distract him not only from his own musings, but the luscious sway of her breasts.

You just had her like a raging beast.  Show a little fuckin’ couth.

“What time do you have to be at the venue?”

He forced his eyes to her face, rolling lazily onto his left hip and tossing back the covers for her to crawl in next to him.  When she was settled in on her back, covered to the tops of her breasts, his libido took a smoke break.  It was something other than that which prompted him to burrow against the sheet until his hand settled over her lower abdomen.  “Eleven.  You coming with me?”

Tony’s exceedingly lively imagination saw pain streak across her face like a lightning flash before she fashioned her mouth into a vague smile and eased the librarian accessory from her nose.  Folding the arms of the glasses together, she rolled to her left and set them on the nightstand. 

“No, I don’t think so, but thank you.  Do you mind if I turn out the light?”

“Go ahead.”  He went through the same vision-impaired ritual, putting his glasses on the opposite nightstand as the room plunged into darkness.  Tony situated himself comfortably on his left side and skated his hand over the velvety skin of her belly.  Squirreling two fingers under the elastic waistband of her panties, into the groove of her thigh where the little tattoo lived, he traced random swirls over it with his fingertips.  “I’m kinda surprised you don’t wanna come.”

Lilah went motionless and then brought gentle fingers to stroke his forearm from wrist to elbow.  “Are you?  I think it’s best for everybody if I stay out of the way.”  Without a breath, she immediately changed the subject, stealing away any chance for him to respond.  “The tattoo…  I got it last August, after I finally I understood the significance of what happened to me at HullabaLOU.  It was life-altering, and I wanted to commemorate it.”

Frowning, he rubbed his whiskered chin softly over the ball of her shoulder.  “You’re changing the subject.”

“Yes, I am.  Would you like to know what the symbol inside the frame of film is?”

He didn’t like the way this was going, but considering that he was only interested in someone to warm his bed, did he really need to know her real reason for not being in his hair all day tomorrow?

You’re a damn liar.  You might want your bed warm, but not by ‘someone’. 

Regardless, their… friendship wasn’t the kind that demanded full disclosure.   It was just weird, considering how gung-ho she’d been about it yesterday, the day before and the week before that, in Dublin.  But if she didn’t want to come, so what?  It was no skin off his nose.

“Sure.  What’s it mean?”

The pillow rustled when she turned her head toward him.  Tony’s eyes had become acclimated enough to the darkness that he could just make out the shape of her face and tell she was straining to see his. 

“Fate.”

They were back to that again.  If he were honest, he would just tell her he’d gotten used to the idea and almost accepted it.  Even if he didn’t fully believe it, he believed that she did, and he had no other way to account for the things she’d spouted off about him today.

Like you have no way to account for…

The notion from a moment ago rushed back to the forefront of his mind, followed by a hazier one that he’d had earlier.  At first he attributed it to the booze, but now it was stronger.  More prominent.  More real.   

“It’s not an exact representation of the Chinese symbol, but more of an artistic rendering,” she continued unaware of his mental detour.

Do you think they are real?  Is this the kinda shit she’s been talking about?

There was only one way to find out.  

“Lilah.”

“Hmm?”

What he was about to chance doing was enough to make him withdraw his touch and put a little space between them.  If he was wrong… 

Then you’re wrong.  And the crazy one.  Stop being a chicken shit and a teenage drama queen.

“You’re not the only one who knows things.”

She went motionless and then rolled onto her right hip so they were face-to-face, for what good it did in the pitch darkness.  “What… do you mean?  Like my premonitions?”

“I guess.  Unless I’ve gone nuts and started making shit up.”  He was a putz for going out on this limb.  It should’ve taken a helluva lot more booze to get him to do something like this.  Was he still drunk?  Could he claim that?

“Tell me.”  Her whisper was as much a breath on his cheek as an audible sound, and her fingers sought his, sliding between them with a gentle squeeze.

“These things don’t go together,” he warned, stalling and maybe distracting them both from the psychosis in progress. 

“My knowin’ your sexual preferences didn’t exactly go hand-in-hand with your feelin’ left out with your family,” she reminded him dryly.  “I’m not going to judge, I just want to hear.”

He was hesitant to infer something that wasn’t true, but Tony knew it was.  He couldn’t explain how he knew, but he did.

“You have it in your head that your son is all you’ve got.  I don’t know what the deal is with your friends and the rest of your family, but you feel like it’s just you and him, and when he goes off and does his own thing…”

“It’s gonna break my heart,” she finished softly.  “Yeah.  He’s the one person who accepts me for me.  I might not talk to him or see him every single day, but I know where he is and what he’s doin’ for the most part.  That’s not always gonna be the case.”

Not knowing what else to do, and feeling awkward for voicing the stupid thought in the first place, he squeezed her hand and touched the back of it with his lips.  Lilah didn’t say anything.  She just returned the squeeze and let him keep hold of her hand. 

It was time to move on to the other idea he had stuck in his head.  The one that wasn’t so heavy.  The one he might have made up due more to desire than any type of mystical insight.  Thinking about it, his skin sizzled enough that he had to slip his leg in between hers to ease the need for contact.  Even if it wasn’t right, he could make it work and have a helluva time doing it.

“I know… that you want to be dominated… but not in the traditional sense.  You crave somebody who will force you to take what you want.”

A slow, whispery gasp found his ears by way of his libido.  Her surprise was sexy.  “I… can’t say that I’ve ever had that specific thought, but it kinda… does somethin’ to me.”

Relief and desire warred for supremacy and, being a man, Tony opted to focus on the desire.  He eased their hands apart and slipped an arm around her bare waist, pulling until their hips bumped.  “Next time,” he promised with the lightest brush of his mouth over hers.  “Right now, I wanna know why you’re wearing those panties.”

“Because I can’t sleep naked,” she murmured into his kiss, his stubble scraping her palm as it stroked over his jaw.

“You will.”  His even teeth sunk gingerly into her bottom lip, causing her to inhale with the tiniest of purrs. ”If I have to drive you to the point of exhaustion every single night, you will get over that.”