High Notes

She'd called earlier to invite him to meet with her. Tonight. He'd been surprised to hear the message when he returned home from work. Surprised she'd called at all. It was unusual that she wanted to meet, particularly on a weekend, as she was always busy, too busy, at this time of year. The tourist season was a gift for her but a gift that wore heavy as chains when she pulled herself through his door on the nights when she couldn't make it all the way to her apartment.

"I'll have my nights cut back as soon as Jack finds someone to stand in. I'm not exactly easy to replace, though," she grinned, barely opening her eyes. "Oh, tonight there was a couple from Texas celebrating their anniversary. It was incredible. Thirty years and he still grabbed her ass on the dance floor."

As soon as she'd convinced herself, stoking her own fire until the sparks showed in her eyes, he dropped the issue. Every time. Honestly, regretfully, he was getting tired of the game. But tonight, he thought, she'd decided to give in.

"I'd like you to come to The Shoe tonight at eleven. There's a table reserved in the Cave."

From the street The Shoe, as it was nicknamed, looked completely unassuming. The patio was like the hundred others throughout the city and concealed the size of the building behind it. The patrons sat in their plastic chairs sipping the same Long Islands or Coronas. She did have one tell to be caught by the more imaginative passer-by. That sign. Her name, her current name that is, had been given in a sudden moment at a garage sale when Jack had found her, dormant neon, leaning against a table leg surrounded by boxes of patent leather heels like his mother had worn to go dancing. The Easterly Shoe Shop. Not everyone saw the whimsy in naming a bistro after a shoe shop but those who did always went in.

He went in, more than half an hour early for their date. Enough time, he hoped, to order a round of drinks for the two of them before she went on her break. If he was there she always found him on her break. One way or another.

The place was a cavern of polished wood, and old brick. Silks of flowering vines twined around the trellis and beams that hung beneath the skylights. Stairs twisted up or plunged like the waitresses' necklines towards the various platforms that held the dance floor, two bars and three "restaurants". Noting the size of the crowd, he stopped at the main bar to get the drinks himself before heading through, down into the oldest part of the building.

Sultry notes floated up to him as he descended. "Come away with me in the night. Come away with me and I will write you a song..." They hovered, sank and melted into the next note as Collette, the resident jazz devil ripped through her first set, peppered as usual with standards, Norah Jones covers and a few originals. In denim and velvet she was at first completely unassuming but she had a tell. And, when the house lights fell she told everyone who listened as she looked out, past the stage lights that she'd ordered set far dimmer than normal, watching the audience watching her. Collette nodded in his direction as he walked past as she did with all of the regulars. Jack was waiting at the top of the stair.

"I tell you, I can't believe the things I do for that girl," said Jack as he lifted the hook and rope that had closed the Cave off from the rest of the customers. "She'll be down pretty quick. But only one hour. Strict. Do you know how much I'm out giving up these tables? Don't know why I do it." The grin and quick roll of his eyes spoke volumes about his weakness for his favourite employee, her easy smile and black heels.

"Tell me about it," though he had intimate knowledge of every reason that there was to give in to her. He knew most of the excuses now, too.

Tables? Music echoed slightly off of the rock walls of the Cave. Save for the tables dressed in their red cloths and candles and the greenery that moved through the entire establishment the Cave was entirely empty. It was an impressive feat even for her. So she wanted them to be alone?

"So won't you try to come... come away with me and we'll kiss..."

He sat down at the middle table intermittently tapping the side of his rye and ginger. At the top and centre of the stairs he could see Collette, the upward angle making her upper torso visible over the heads of the crowd. She swayed with the music. He tapped his glass, harder, until the ice clinked and settled.

She broke his view of Collette as she came to the top of the stairs and paused to lift the hook and rope. Fire burst and faded around her shoulders as the lights from the stage came from behind to hit her red hair. Velvet, he thought happily, seemed to be the theme for the night. Legs, gleaming in the soft light, flirted with him under the black asymmetric hemline of the dress as she walked to a spot just a few feet to his left.

"Hello?" A smile tugged at his lip as he looked down at his watch and back at her. "It's not quite break time yet."

"Aaah, no," she replied, a slightly nervous exhalation turning into an answer, a soft smile.

"And this...?" He leaned back in his chair; his left arm brushed out slowly toward her then gestured out to the emptiness around him.

"Do you remember Friday night?"

Head tilted, he looked at her. The shake in her voice was throwing him off.

"Friday night," her brow furrowed for a moment then she cupped a breast in each hand, a gift of flesh, "you said..."

He cut her off. "I remember." Remember wasn't the right word. "You're sure?"

She nodded, hands still at her breasts she took another step. Looking beyond her to the slow movement on the stage, he waited.

Collette, rounding off the number arched back into the last verse, "So all I ask is for you..." and her head fell back as she held the note. The line of her throat curved down to her breast, stopped suddenly by the hand on her stomach. As one, the crowd waited. She came back up to them. Letting her hand follow the line back up to the mic she caressed herself, her response visible to all. He heard a gasp from somewhere. She smiled straight out over the sea of reaction, nodding.

Nervously watching him in his long pause she missed the moment that he decided that he'd play along. The languorous movement of moments before were gone. He pushed the chair back and rose, his left arm snaked out around her waist and pulled her in. His right hand drove under her skirt and clutched her thigh, pulling it across his lap as he sat back down. Straddling him now she looked at his eyes, down, then back. Her hands fluttered from her breasts to his shoulder. Taking her wrists he put her hands back on her own skin.

"Show me."

A near imperceptible nod and she slipped one hand then another inside the deep V of her neckline. The black velvet and the lace bra had only held her by a hope. He watched, imagining the weight of her full breast in his own hands. Her nipples tightened under his evaluation and the cooling night air that came in from the giant patio windows. Pushing the fabric further up her thighs, he smiled as his palms traced from stockings to... her. Nothing but her. With his fingers curved at the junction of hip and thigh he brushed his thumbs between her bare outer lips and upwards.

"I want you to keep your hands on your breasts, hold them out to me. Don't let go."

She nodded and repositioned her hands so that she plumped herself in and up. Her nipples were so close now that he would only have to turn his head slightly to switch from one to the other. He traced his finger along her skin from the tip of her index finger to her lips. A new energy had moved into her eyes that had nothing to do with her earlier nervousness.

"I'm going to mark you," he said. With a hand at the small of her back and pressure at her shoulder he encouraged her to arch slightly backward. She'd be able to see what he was doing but just barely. "You'll feel me on you. You'll feel me long after the bruises are gone." He smiled. She was watching.

Leaning in, he took her right breast first, drawing her nipple over his lips. Light at first, he pulled her in then loosened, letting his tongue slide before gripping her again, the pressure moulding his mouth to the hard tip. When he felt her hips moving against him he slid his thumbs up again to her clit, back and up, until she was moving, wet against him. Then he bit down. Hard enough to make her cry out, her eyes opening wide. Hard enough to make the new brutal pull of suction seem a reprieve. She ground herself against him.

Collette had just moved into her final song of the set after joking with the crowd. Her voice swallowed the cry of the woman in the Cave. "Like a flower waiting to bloom. Like a light bulb in a dark room." He shifted his head the few inches to her other breast, revelling in the small motion of her hand that pushed her closer even as he moved. He skipped the warm-up and pulled her in hard and deep, further now, straining the soft skin around the areola, teeth digging in as he sucked.

Her legs were tensing harder. He stopped. Thumbs, fingers, hip and mouth. Stopped. He braced his hands against her thighs, held her puss just at a distance, then let her push toward the barest ineffective contact with him. When she rolled toward him he held her back, roll and hold, until he heard the plaintive kitten cries of frustration in her throat. Then he sat up to admire his work.

The marks were barely visible on the darker, wrinkled skin but the smooth skin of her breast had bruised beautifully. The deep purple-blue and red held just under her skin and, still shining in spots with saliva, looked like fresh wax that had rolled down her smarting nipples. He moved as if to take her in his mouth again but stopped, hovered above her audaciously arching body. Her eyes begged.

"Do you like to touch your nipples?" She nodded.

"Does it help you cum?" Again, yes.

"Touch yourself. Show me. Show me how you like your marks."

Obedient fingers moved up her skin. Her palms kneaded carefully testing to see if her body would now take the pressure she preferred. She rolled her rigid nipple between the knuckles of her thumb and index. He eased the pressure at her thighs, letting her push against him again. They quickly regained their rhythm, roll and hold. One hand drug its way over her hip, brushed behind to the small of her back, feeling the tensed movement of the muscles that she was using to get just a fraction more. He moved down, working his hand between them, to cup and squeeze her ass. She arched further with his push, lifting herself high on the balls of her feet. And waited.

"Please."

He paused, listening to her ragged breathing, her pleas, weaving between the entreaties from the stage.

"It's been so dark since you've been gone. After all you're the one who turns me off but you're the only one who can turn me back on." Collette's gaze was intense, hands hovering on the mic stand, her movements pared down to the occasional rock of her hips.

He softened his grip, steadying her as she eased back down. She groaned as he pushed himself into her. Roll and hold, roll and she clenched, hard, so hard that the rhythm that had moved into his hips was not enough. He stabbed into her. The dim light caught the squeeze of her hands as they clutched her breasts; the bruises peeked out from between her fingers as she shook with each jolt. Each intake of breath became a barely audible mewling cry.

"No!" It had come out harsher than he'd intended. "Don't come yet." He wanted the timing to be perfected. She would, he hoped, be pleased. He drove in again, barely giving her time to register the command.

The votive candle flickered as the table rocked with his thrusts. She was watching. Cinnamon breath hit the mic as she leaned in so close on a whisper that she brushed against the metal. "My glass is waiting for some fresh ice cubes." He knew, she'd told him, how much she loved the feel of the cool mic on her lips. She smiled again. Straight out over the crowd. And nodded at him.

"Now."

"I'm just sitting here waiting for you to come on home and turn me on."

The last note faded. The crowd, visitors from anywhere she could imagine, put their drinks down to clap. And in the Cave they came. For her. He wondered if she could even hear the scream over the applause?

His body reacted, his pulse opened up again, before his mind had registered the sound of her heels on the stairs. She stopped at his left.

"Did you two enjoy the show?"

He barely looked at Collette but his partner moaned a lazy wordless affirmative, stretching her spine as she sat up.

"How rude of me. I can be a terrible hostess sometimes." She leaned in close and put her arm around his shoulder, mouth by his ear, her fingers toying with the velvet at the other woman's sleeve. "Michael meet Angela. Angel, Mike."

Smiling despite himself, he shook Angel's hand in mock seriousness. "You must be the new girl at work that Collette keeps talking about." It was clear from Angela's reaction that she was surprised but pleased that Collette had been talking about her.

"You're looking much better, hon," Collette said, stroking her friend's arm. "Angel was suffering from a bad case of stage fright earlier."

"I noticed. It was a little distracting but she pulled through very nicely."

Collette threw her head back, her entire body laughing. "No Mike, she wasn't afraid of you. She was more than ready for you."

"She seemed to know more than she should. You two must have had quite a talk."

She nodded. Smiled. "I thought that you had particularly enjoyed Friday."

He looked up at Collette, gave her a shrug, a sad almost smile danced on his lip. It was as far as he could get from denial without making a confession. He pulled Angela closer, running his hands up and down her back as she slid the delicate black lace back into place. She leaned into him, nuzzled in and kissed his neck. But he'd lost her focus.

Collette ran her hand over Angela's head, smoothing her hair back into place. She looked up at the touch and opened to the kiss. He could see the muscle in Collette's jaw as she worked her friend's lips.

"You'd better head up, Angel, Jack wants to introduce you."

Her eyes cut to the crowd then back, in turn, to her two companions. Several times Angela started to say something but settled for a grin that lit up and hit deep behind her eyes.

"Thanks again, for everything," she said.

"It was a pleasure."

"Break a leg, hon." Collette offered Angela her hand then watched her move away up the stairs. Turning back, she took up Angela's spot on Michael's lap. She had that look, her teasing "I know something that you're about to find out" look.

"So, did you like my replacement?"

"You're not exactly easy to replace."

For a moment she looked almost soft in the candlelight. Then her hand was inside his shirt, against his skin. She opened until she could see, touch, his chest. He tightened even more as she examined him. "The marks healed quickly." Disappointed. The skin didn't even show the memory of a bruise but he pulled in a sharp breath, feeling her even before she took his nipple between her fingers.

"Well, it has been more than two weeks. What did you expect?"

Shocked, not by his casual rudeness but by the fact that so much time had really slipped by.

"I am sorry." And she stopped there without any attempts to justify her neglect. "Let's go home."

"And your second set?" he asked.

"And we'll stay in bed all day tomorrow."

"What about the afternoon show?"

She grinned in answer to the question still on his face when Jack and Angela took the stage. A few people in the crowd looked around for her after the introduction and announcement that Angel would be performing at The Shoe while Collette was on vacation. She waved up at Angela who smiled back before picking up her guitar and starting the second set.

He shook his head, amused and irritated with himself. "Your replacement."

"Now ... let's ... go ... home." She got up, gave him that look, that low lidded deceptively languid smile that he always gave in to. With one arm around her, her hand in his back pocket, they started up the stairs.

Angel nodded to them as they walked past. As she'd been told to do for all of the regulars. Jack reminded Collette to take it easy on her break, he wanted her back as soon as possible. Wait staff and customers waved and nodded as they left. At the instant that they crossed through the front door, before disappearing unnoticed into the hundreds walking outside, Collette clenched her hand, digging her nails hard into his ass. To remind him.