Messy Ch. 09

Further back in my gallery were pictures of Tori and I. Plenty that were sexual, but plenty that were not. Tori preferred to do, not photograph, and while she wasn't adverse to hitting the head in order to snap a pic of her shirt pulled up over her tits or bent over with her pants pulled down, the majority of the pictures I had of her were of us doing stuff far less carnal.

Pictures of the two of us making faces for the camera at a barbecue, several of a water balloon fight at the same party, Tori flinching and laughing as a balloon exploded against her.

One pic stuck out to me though - a picture taken of another person who's name I'd forgotten in the intervening years. Their face dominated the left side of the frame as they looked back at me from a lawnchair, Tori only slightly unfocused over their right shoulder. She had to be twenty or twenty one in the pic, and she looked it, a youthful glow to her that had dimmed but only barely in the next three to four years, a softness to her features that came from being barely out of her teens.

She'd been struggling with unimaginable trauma at the time, but had spent months and years trying to heal me after the loss of my family. Just a girl, and one hurting immensely, and she'd given me three years of her life.

And in the process, become my best friend.

I should be more grateful.

I woke up face down on the bed, and my questing hands couldn't find my phone. Rolling over I couldn't find it on the bed, and I checked the floor. Yup.

No texts, either inbound or outgoing. That was good. I'd had six or eight drinks last night and hadn't been in a right mind regardless. I tried to remember back to my evening with Jessie, but it was a pleasant blur of cold and her high pitched voice in long conversation and then at the end, burning sexual obsession.

The clock showed nearly 11am.

Fuck me.

I made a pot of coffee and while the room filled with the scent of roasted beans, I fired up my convertible and started searching for Milwaukee winter nightlife.

I drank the scalding liquid and made reservations. Even if Jessie backed out, I was going to have a fun evening.

I texted her, asking her to meet me in the lobby of my hotel at six that evening, and with now five hours left to burn, decided to hit the weight room. My arms and abs ached and it took me a few minutes of circuit training to remember that I'd turned last night's lust and obsession into obsessive bodyweight exercise.

My phone dinged halfway through my workout, Jessie texting me that she'd meet me at six thirty. A smile tugged my lips, and I went back to the weights with a renewed vigor.

After the weights I swam laps, then showered in my room. I was toweling off when my convertible started to ring, a trilling pulsation that alerted me to an incoming video chat.

I opened the invite and after a moments connection found myself looking at Tori and Sienna lounging on a Tori's couch, both of them wearing bathrobes.

"Gary, you didn't need to get dressed up for us!" Sienna said with a grin.

I looked down at my dripping wet torso and the towel wrapped around my waist. I hitched it a little lower. "Next time you call I'll be more casual, I promise."

"We interrupting anything?" Tori asked.

"Nah. Just got done working out in the hotel weight room. How are my girls?"

Sienna blushed and Tori rolled her eyes. "We're having fun. Went out and got pedicures last night. Today we both had half days so we decided to hang out after lunch. You having fun? Lots of good sex?"

I snickered. "None so far. I'm just chilling and having fun."

"Awww..." Sienna stuck out her lower lip and stretched, sliding sinuously against Tori. "You can always come back here and have lots of great sex with us..."

"I would, but I've already got dinner plans. Sorry. You girls carry on without me though."

"We're making videos!" Sienna crowed, and Tori have her a dopeslap upside the head. "That was supposed to be a surprise, dummy!"

"You should punish me for that..."

"Gary, you need to come back," Tori said, mock pleading. "She's insatiable."

"I'll be back soon, I promise. You girls have fun while I'm gone."

"Oh we will. And when you come back, we'll have even more."

"Are you doing anything besides having sex?"

Sienna cocked her head to one side like she was puzzled. "We're ordering pizza tonight and talking about boys while we watch Ghostbusters. The old one, not that new piece of shit."

"Tell me how you really feel.."

Tori rolled her eyes. "Have a fun weekend, neighbor."

"You too, neighbor."

They blew kisses at me and pretended to lick V signs and giggled at me and I waved and shut the computer. I really liked them. It really did my heart good to see them again.

I dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and wandered down to the bar for a sandwich. I decided it was overpriced but delicious, which meant it probably wasn't overpriced. And with a few hours to go, I called for a cab to pick us up at six forty five, then went back to the room to surf the web and take a nap, relax my aching muscles.

At six I dressed, black dress pants, an untucked white dress shirt, and a black dress jacket. My heart hammering in my chest, I grabbed my phone, my closet, and room keys. Looking around the darkened room one last time I pulled the door shut and headed down to the lobby.

The lobby was ornate to the point of busy, potted plants providing a contrast of greenery to the gold and off white carved walls and the painted ceiling. I found a crème colored sofa facing the door and settled in to spend some time with my phone.

Jessie walked in at six thirty six, and I had to remind myself to start breathing again. I'd seen her dressed for sex. I'd seen her dressed casually. And now she was dressed up.

Simply.

But beautifully.

Black high heels led up to her only concession to color - black stockings with red and green stripes. She wore a loose knee-length sleeveless black dress, cut low between her breasts and secured around her waist with a broad black leather belt. A black choker finished the ensemble, her only ornamentation. Her hair looked the same as yesterday, shiny black loosely framing her face and she didn't seem to be wearing makeup, not that she needed it.

Her wool coat was draped over her arm and as I stepped up to her, I took it and held it open. "You're gonna catch cold, Jessie."

She jumped slightly, startled as I pulled the coat from her arm, and then that smirk quirked her lips. "Cold is a small price to pay for looking hot."

"You do indeed."

She slid her arms through the coat sleeves, and I stepped in close to belt it around her her. "How was your day?"

"Same as yesterday. But worse."

"That's not good. How so? Did I keep you up too late?"

"No, I drank a lot of coffee. I was just preoccupied all day thinking about tonight." Jessie embraced me, her arms going around my neck. I wrapped my arms around her lean body, pulled her close. I could feel her heartbeat hammering through multiple layers of fabric. Or was that mine? She burrowed her face into the crook of my neck for a moment, then raised her head to nibble on my earlobe. "And...my cunt has been wet since I saw you yesterday afternoon. Its distracting."

I disengaged and stepped back, feeling a slight sense of shock at her words. That shock evaporated when I saw the look of glee on her face and remembered who I was dealing with. "Language, Jessie."

She shrugged. "What? That's what it is."

I sighed and she grinned at me me. "How was your day?"

"I worked out. Made reservations for tonight."

"Where are we going?"

I took her hand and led her outside. "I'd rather surprise you. And keep you distracted."

The taxi took us only a few blocks away - we might've passed the restaurant on our walk yesterday if we'd taken a slightly different route - and dropped us off in front of the most elegant restaurant I had been able to find on short notice.

"Fuck me," Jessie breathed as we walked inside. " You didn't have to do this."

"I know, but I work so hard throughout the year, I don't like to half-ass it when I have a chance to go out and have fun."

We were seated at a white linen covered table and given a carafe of water and glasses, and then the waiter disappeared into the crowd, presumably to go get someone to take our orders.

Jessie looked sound the restaurant. "I've never been here before. This place is gorgeous."

It was. The décor was heavy wood, and overhead the crystal chandeliers twinkled points light across the shadowed ceiling. Bookshelves were set into some of the wood panels, dusty, multicolored tomes that probably hasn't been touched in years. The smells of searing meat filled the air behind the clink of silverware and the cacophony of indistinct conversation coming from the well-dressed diners.

I wished I'd tucked my shirt in.

"I don't eat like this often," I admitted. "I'm a burgers and vodka guy really."

She paged through the menu. "You can still get a burger here..."

I found the item she was looking at. "Yeah, for forty bucks."

Jessie looked at me, the mirth gone, a slightly wounded expression on her face. "You're not spending this much on me."

I nodded smugly. "'fraid so."

"Can I pay for drinks at least?"

"Not a chance."

"You know," she said crossly, "Ostentatiously displaying wealth isn't going to make me jump into bed with you faster. Just the opposite actually."

I think she expected me to wither under her glare, and I couldn't tell if this was mock anger, a test, another one of her gonzo people watching experiments, what. It didn't matter. I held my ground and smiled.

"Good evening. My name is Jerry, I'll be your server." Jerry looked uncomfortable interrupting whatever it was he thought we were doing.

Jessie's attitude changed in an instant, smiling sweetly at him. "Hi Jerry."

"Nice to meet you," I said. "Busy night?"

He looked around. "A bit. Can I get you two started off with drinks?"

"Do you have Wild Turkey?" Jessie asked.

He nodded and before I could say anything, she'd ordered for the both of us. He set down more menus and left to get our drinks, and she smirked at me.

"Clearing up that initial misconception you were dwelling on," I told her pointedly after the drinks arrived "I'm not trying to get you to jump into bed with me. Yeah, that'd be NICE, but if that were my aim, I could've had that like, what, three times last night? I'm doing what I think is fun, not what I think will impress you."

She sipped her drink and regarded me with the same feral, intelligent gaze I was beginning to enjoy.

"And besides, I already know you want me. You said I've been distracting you for more than a day already."

"No fair using my words against me..."

"So. What are you getting?" I changed the subject completely.

When Jerry came around again, we ordered - her steak and salad, me steak and pasta - and another round of drinks. "So, tell me about yourself," I said when the next round arrived.

Jessie shrugged. "What's there to tell? You know what I do for a living. You know what my hobbies are." She said "hobbies" with a knowing grin.

"That's not all there is to know about a person. I don't have to know it all, but I'd like to know some. You interest me."

"It's pretty boring," she mused. "I grew up on the outskirts of Milwaukee, moved into town at eighteen, been working for small companies for the last ten years. That's me. Pretty boring"

"You're nearly as old as I am?" I said incredulously.

"Twenty seven, nearly twenty eight. How old are you?"

"Thirty this year."

"You don't look it."

"Neither do you."

"Your turn."

I thought back over my life. What scant few sentences would encapsulate my experiences? "Grew up on the outskirts of Minneapolis. Got my finance degree right out of highschool and went to work for a bank. Four years ago I applied for and got a job teaching economics and finance at the local tech school. Pay is pretty good and they kinda let me set my own hours. I teach two months a quarter and then spend two to four weeks up north. Pretty cushy gig."

"And there are the hot blondes throwing themselves at you."

"That doesn't suck either."

"Hopefully she does though."

"You're funny."

The food arrived and we tucked in. Just like the previous night, Jessie matched my appetite, devouring but savoring her food. I sucked down whiskey and watched for a moment. It was nice to watch a beautiful woman eat so heartily that she had to pause to wipe meat juice off her chin.

"What are you grinning at?" Jessie asked.

"You."

We split a piece of chocolate cake when the meal was gone, and I asked where she wanted to next. "Comedy show or something more energetic?"

"More energetic... Like your hotel room?" the twinkle in her eye gave no indication of whether she was interested, offended, or playing games.

"Nope. Bar. A fun one I found."

She stretched, rolled her neck. "Comedy show. I need to digest for a little bit."

I paid our bill and called up the taxi.

Halfway through the show, Jessie agreed with me that we should've gone straight to the bar. The comedians seemed to be trying to channel Who's Line but with more audience involvement, possibly to make up for the fact that none of the mostly college age cast weren't anywhere close to being as charismatic or interesting as Drew Carey and his crew. And while vulgarity is not a prerequisite for my enjoyment, the show was rigidly PG.

At the end we walked out into the cold parking lot, glad to be free of the warm theatre and the forced laughs.

The taxi driver shuttled our now tipsy selves to the next bar. Outside the car, the cold, snow-covered world passed in a whirl of ice crystals, darkness, and harsh orange light bouncing off buildings and cars. Pressure on my shoulder and I looked over to see Jessie's head resting on it.

I felt weird about that, like I'd won a prize I wasn't sure that I wanted.

Or was afraid to admit that I wanted.

The bar was in what felt like a different downtown. Instead of the tall gleaming glass and steel monoliths, the buildings were brick and block and closer to the ground, smaller shops rather than international businesses and law firms.

I paid the driver in front of our building and we got out, climbed the stairs and pushed through the heavy wood door. Inside was a completely different scene than either of the venues we'd visited tonight. An old warehouse, the main floor of the bar now housed dozens of pingpong tables, while blue and green lights shown down from the exposed rafters. Loud pop music played on speakers, and the floor was crowded with people.

We dodged elbows and pingpong balls and paddles as we made our way to the bar at the back, and I claimed it with our coats over the seats. I got us drinks at the bar and brought them back to the table. Jessie smiled as she accepted her drink and put her ancient android back in her coat. "Just checking in with my girlfriend, assuring her that you're not going to kill me tonight. She's convinced you are."

I laughed. "Not a chance. What do you think of the bar?"

Her face lit up. "I love it! How did you find it, I've never even heard of it before?"

I shrugged. "Looked up Milwaukee nightlife online. Seemed like a fun place. Now you know why I wanted you dressed in something you can move in."

"You want to play pingpong?"

"Yeah, that's why we're here, isn't it?"

Drunken pingpong was fun. Jessie erupted into fits of giggles every time she missed the ball which was often, and her returns were far too forceful for the table, which led to me batting them back at her speed.

I'll never forget her bent nearly double laughing hysterically because she missed a hard return by a mile, the ball flying behind the bar.

I excused myself to use the restrooms, and came back to find her studiously scrutinizing a human sized jenga tower off to the side of the pingpong court, swaying imperceptibly to a British-sounding artist singing about silhouettes. I ordered us both new drinks and set hers on the table, stepped up behind her, and put my hands on her slim waist. "I don't think you're sober enough to play this game. It requires a steady hand."

Jessie straightened, arching back against me, grinding her ass against my crotch. "But that's half the fun..."

"You tip that over on yourself, you're gonna get hurt."

She turned in my arms and pushed her mouth to mine. The kiss was drunkenly awkward, forceful, and sloppily wet, and it seemed to stretch on for an eternity even though it only lasted about 5 seconds. "Or you could hurt me instead," she breathed.

"Hurt me," Sienna said in my dreams.

I stepped back, realized the look on my face, and covered it with a long slug of bourbon from my glass. I drank hungrily, the conflict and indecision and guilt in my soul demanding it. Jessie saw her glass sitting on the table and took a delicate sip. "You drink like I do."

I raised my eyebrows at her. "How's that?"

When she spoke again, her voice was serious. "Like it's water, and you wanna drown. Like it's a life preserver and you wanna be saved. Like its morphine for the pain of the wound of being alive." As if to illustrate her point, she took a long draw.

"Ain't you just a poet tonight."

"I have my moments."

We collaborated on the tower, uneasily drawing the wooden pieces out and stacking them awkwardly high. Eventually shaky hands got the better of us and the tower collapsed in a clatter at our feet. I rebuilt while Jessie laughed like a lunatic.

Pingpong was even more futile now, and we gave it up after losing four balls in the crowd.

"You want to try another bar?" I asked after paying my tab.

Jessie shook her head, and then shook it harder in the opposite direction, hair flying as she tried to get the horizontal hold back on her vision. "I just wanna go home."

"I'll get you there."

The cab took about ten minutes to arrive, and we huddled together in the doorway, holding the door for the incoming couples and laughing insanely about the dumbest things we could invent to laugh over together. When it finally arrived we climbed in, and Jessie gave the driver directions to her home. The taxi sped through the streets, headlights bouncing off progressively more rundown buildings and scenery, scrubby parks and ugly alleys, dark spaces under overpasses and boarded up buildings.

The cab parked just before an intersection on a shadowed street, and the cabbie said "We're here." I looked around in surprise. This was ugly. Run-down apartment buildings sagged towards the earth up ahead, and this block looked like it was all businesses, vacant mostly, a few shuttered till tomorrow with heavy grating and chain. Even from within the confines of the car, the atmosphere seemed to push its way into my soul, whispering of poverty and despair.

I paid the cabbie and got out, walked around the cab and opened Jessie's door. She slipped out half gracefully, half drunkenly and leaned against me. I pushed her back to arms length. "Thanks for a nice evening," I said with a smile.

Even in the dark, I could see her eyes widen. "You're not coming up?"

"Do you want me to?"

Jessie wrapped he arms around me and her lips went to my ear. "More than anything."

I shut the cab door and sent the cabbie on his way, then followed Jessie, her fingertips curled into mine. The night was still and silent, even cars seemingly dead in this barren neighborhood. Snow fell heavily, and the air - despite an absence of wind - was frigidly chill, burrowing through clothing and into the bones.

Down an alley, then another, and Jessie stopped beside a heavy, metal door. She unlocked it with a key from her purse. I held it for her and she locked it behind us as we stood in a pitch black hallway. She lit the space with a keychain light, and unlocked the door set in the cinderblock wall a few feet ahead, then locked it behind us once we'd passed through. The keychain light did little to illuminate the large space, but I got a sense of hoists and hulking machinery, distance and far walls. Staying close to the nearest cinderblocks, Jessie led me with practiced confidence up a set of metal grate stairs and across a a catwalk to another heavy door.