Angie, a live-in-the-now singer-songwriter on the cusp of fame, sweeps Mike, a proper Mama's boy and a structural engineer by day, off his feet the moment they shake hands.
They can't deny the chemistry between them, so they start with a boom. What'...
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▪️Saturday, December 19th, 2017▪️
▪️Los Angeles, CA▪️
The water rushes over Mike's hand that's going over my thigh with a soapy washcloth. His gentle movements soothe yet set my skin on fire. My hand throbs, but I stand by my decision to put the pills back into my pocket in the bathroom at the club. Mike dulls some of the pain. My focus is not on the misery inside me, but the gentle beauty in the shower with me. A sharp pleasure of seeing his naked form kneel in front of me, washing away the day's toll, etches new words on my brain. There's no music to go with them, but, inspired by the drops falling on the glass of the shower, I sense the light rain of a new melody landing on the lyrics.
"Higher." My lips break through the stream of water falling on my head. He made me very clean. It's time to make me very dirty.
Mike listens, and my stomach tenses when he reaches the point he rediscovered in the car. I inhale, and the pleasure that started as a light web across the surface of my skin convenes and grows into a pulse, a rhythm that climbs higher. I brace against the wall, not trusting my legs to hold me. The intensity obliterates any lingering uncertainty, and I rush to the peak, curl my fingers into the hard surface of the marble tiles, and groan into the ceiling. The pure ecstasy of the release drives another noise out of my throat. Not a moan, but not a word either.
He rises without letting go of my body, holding me up, while the waves of the aftershock rumble through every cell of my being. The spray crashes into the broad stretch of his shoulders and lands on my chest, reminding me we are in the shower, the hotel, LA, on planet Earth. My eyes are the only things I have the strength to move. I absorb the dark stubble on his chin and cheeks. His long dark wet eyelashes shield half of his pupils that are following the trail his hands continue to burn into me.
"I knew it," I say.
"Knew what?" Mike's eyes find mine.
"You are magic. There's no other way to explain what you do to me."
One corner of his lips goes up. "What do I do to you?"
"Make me forget the world."
"And that's a good thing?"
"It feels great. But it's scary. Like a drug. I want more, but I'm afraid I'll get addicted. I don't want you to ruin me."
Mike's finger runs along my jawline, collecting the beads of water, sealing the cracks, trapping the sensations of his skin against mine. I store it in the vault of my memory for later use.
"I'm as real as it gets," he says. "No magic."
"Your real is my magic."
He kisses my words as they leave my mouth, and I let go of the wall, digging into the wet firmness of his back. Slippery skin, soggy hair, pink splotches from the hot water beating on us slows down what would otherwise have been a frenzied exchange. It changes it into languid strokes that require a different resolution, one I don't want to do in the shower.
