Perfectly Bad: a bad boy romance (31 page)

He leaned back. Looked her up and down. Deciding something. Right then she so wanted to fuck him. Most men, that would seal the deal. This man, this Bogart? Angelica stood with her legs a little farther apart, tilted her hips towards him, put her hand in the back of her hair.
 

Looked at him under her eyebrows as she let her head fell a little forward. Bit her lip. His black leather jeans, right in the front, they were moving all on their own. Like a cat was waking up inside. Stretching itself. He stood up. Took her elbow and led her out.

He led her down a corridor to another room. Inside, it looked like the finest room in the tackiest hotel in town. Big room, huge bed, red, shiny cover, plump red and pink cushions. Brown wood wardrobe, dresser, table and drinks cabinet. Red drapes on the walls, closed to distract from the fact that there were no windows. A worn leather sofa and chairs, dark brown like the carpet.
 

He held up one of the drapes. “Big mirror.” He said, revealing a huge mirror surrounded by a very heavy and ornate gilt frame. She noticed that the mirror wasn’t hanging and tilted forward, it was absolutely on a plane with the wall.

She said, “And what’s on the other side of the mirror?”

Bogart said, “Damn, you are sharp, woman. I’m going to have to watch you.”

He opened a door to a shower room with a hand basin, a mirror and a lavatory. He said, “Take a look in the wardrobe. Pick something out.”

She opened the wardrobe and as she looked through the hanging clothes asked him, “What’s the occasion?”

He said, “First day at a new job. Look your best and be ready to celebrate.”

She picked out a long silky dress, very low in the front and back, split up the side. About as classy as the room, but in a blue that could definitely work on her. On a shelf was a pair of heels that fit her okay and could match.
 

The shoes weren’t made for long walks. There were new pairs of hold-up stockings, so she chose a dark gunmetal pair. She said, “Any makeup?” He looked at her a moment. She saw his pants stir again.
 

He said, “There probably is, but it’ll be cheap. You really don’t need to fix your face. It looks just fine.”

She thought that what he meant to say was, ‘Your face looks just like the face of a whore, and you’re going to be whoring.’ But when he said about her face, “It looks just fine,” she thought she detected a tiny crack of an emotion sneaking out under the words. He worked the muscles in his jaw and quickly looked away after he had said it.

She went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Her face had smears of mascara and lip polish. It did look to her exactly like the face of a whore, and a tired, hard-worked whore at that. She closed the door and changed into the dress, put on the stockings and shoes. “C’mon,” he called from the room.

When she stepped out, his dark eyes widened and then narrowed. The slinky dress wasn’t exactly Parisian haute couture, but it displayed plenty of skin. Her simple silver chain with a small crucifix from her Papa and the little St Christopher she had worn since her first communion were now the only things Angelica wore that belonged to her.

The blue dress draped and flowed over her ample breasts well enough, and below the slashed back it shimmered and made something of her ass. The long slit showed her thigh as far up as the stocking top. His voice was thick as he put out a hand and said, “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Out in the bar, Bogart had Angelica walk ahead of him and he steered her through the dense crowd to a table in a set-off area in the far corner. A pudgy man in a nice grey suit was sat at the table trying to look comfortable in a dark room full of bikers. Like this was the kind of a place he usually hung out for his gin and tonic after work. He looked up and caught sight of Bogart, his eyes showed recognition. And some relief. Then he got a look at Angelica. That woke him up.

“Alderman Greaves.” Bogart said, and his hand went out to the man. The man stood and they clasped hands. Bogart clapped him on the shoulder. “I’d like you to meet Angelica.”

She put out a hand to him, paw down like a princess. He took it and attempted a courteous bow. A couple of drinks earlier he might have carried it off. The three of them sat around the table like familiar old Rotarians or Water Buffaloes. Alderman Greaves, “Please, call me Benny,” he said, mostly to Angelica, and he made some small talk with Bogart.

Angelica said, “Why don’t I arrange some drinks for us?” She was certainly going to need one. Benny said he was drinking vodka tonic. She said, “I think we can do better than that, Benny, don’t you?” Bogart looked at her, quizzically. Benny watched her walk over to the bar and she felt his eyes at the bottom of the plunging open back of the dress.

The bartender was a burly, grizzled looking older guy in a leather vest and a white wife-beater that showed a chest covered in ink like a map and a lot of curly white hair. Lots of hair on the sides of his head, and a bush of it sprouting from his chin and cheeks. None on top of his head. Angelica asked his name, he said, “Rusty,” and she told him hers.

Angelica asked, “Do we have champagne?” He told her, yes, and she asked him for a bottle of champagne, a bottle of tequila, a couple of cans of caffeine energy drinks and three shot glasses. Rusty’s eyes sparkled and he said that he would bring them right over.

Rusty brought a battered Jack Daniels tray to the table with glasses and the drinks. He set the bottles and glasses out like he was a wine waiter at the Ritz. He could have had a white linen cloth over his forearm. When he left, Angelica poured a quarter of a glass of energy drink and the same of tequila into each glass, then a third of a glass of tequila. Bogart knew what she was doing. Benny didn’t. She showed Bogart how to cover the glass with his palm and lift it a couple of inches from the table. He played along.

She said, “Benny, you know slammers, don’t you?”

He said, “Of course.”

Bogart knew that she was flattering the mark. And she knew that she was building bonds with Bogart. A channel of communication, a common language was developing between the two of them. They shared secrets. They were complicit. In
Hell’s Kitchen, Bar & Grill
, Angelica got her first practical uses of what she learned in law school about interrogation and examination of witnesses.
 

Angelica and the two men covered their glasses with their hands and slammed them on the table. The drinks foamed up and they slung them back in one hit. Benny spilled about half of his but Bogart and Angelica were careful not to notice.
 

Bogart said, “Benny, there’s something I have to do. I’m sure that you and Angelica can find plenty to talk about, though. Maybe I’ll see you when I get back.” Benny stood to give his version of the bro-hug that Angelica had seen Bogart and Jake make earlier.

As Bogart left, Angelica said to Benny, her new best friend, “I’ll only be a moment. You won’t run away will you?” and she moved as elegantly as she could in those heels after Bogart.

She caught him up and said, “What ever you want. What. Ever. OK? I’ll do it. Just. Get. My. Sister.” He looked at her. He knew that she was thinking about bargaining for him to fetch her sister first.
 

He understood the respect that Angelica showed him, trusting him that he’d honor the deal, and honor, trust and respect came high on Bogart’s priorities. Even though he hadn’t said that he would do it, not in so many words. He was about to leave when she touched his arm and said, “The drape over the mirror. You want that I should pull it back.” He nodded.

Her hand still on his arm she said, “Before you go, give me something.”

“What?”

“Doesn’t matter. Anything. Just something so that I’m not completely alone in this place. Something that I can hold in my hand, American.”

“All I’ve got in my pocket is keys to the bikes.”

“One of those will be perfect. Please.”

“You wouldn’t think of trying to ride off, would you?”

“Yeah, that’s a worry, right?” She cast her eyes around the bar, at the bikers in heavy leather, most of them with colors on their backs. All of them tough, hard, mean looking men. “Nobody here would mind about me trying keys in the bikes outside, one by one, would they.” He saw what she meant.

Angelica thought about raising the matter of whether or not she knew how to ride a Harley, but then she thought better of it. Decided it was a topic that would keep for another time.

“Okay,” he said, and worked a key off his chain and he handed it to her. As she took it, it seemed very precious to both of them, now. She was trusting him, and he trusted her with something of his own. Something important. She put it on her silver chain and it hung on her collarbone next to her Catholic trinkets.

Looking for Somebody 

In a back room of the clubhouse, Beanie found Lump and asked if he’d seen Cap. Lump said, “He’s probably in a barn or somewhere, still sleeping off the party.
 

When Beanie asked Snori if he’d seen Cap, Snori just said, “No,” but the Viking’s manner seemed odd. It looked to Beanie as though there was there was something wrong with this picture, and he couldn’t shake the idea loose. And couldn’t find his buddy.

Bird on a Wire

It didn’t take much for Angelica to get Benny into the room at the back. Right after Angelica planted it in his mind, he had the exciting notion of a three-way. To her surprise, he picked up on a two-man team. Funny, she thought he’d want two girls. No matter. Chiz was a huge, baby-faced teddy bear of a man she picked out. A little too late she saw a thin shaft of resentfulness in his eyes.

In the room, she pulled back the red drape over the big mirror, real slow. Benny wanted to watch Chiz and her first, and she saw that would work for Chiz. She didn’t see it suiting Bogart’s purpose too well, though, so as she shimmied and slid the blue silky dress up over her stockinged legs, she got up close with Chiz, nuzzled in the fuzz of his barrel chest and turned her head up to whisper into his ear. His hands were inside the front of the dress already.

Benny was sat on the bed, his hand on his cock. It wouldn’t be much use if all the view from the mirror was of Benny having a wank and passing out while Chiz split her three different ways.

Angelica grabbed Chiz’s hair and she whispered slowly and clearly in his ear, “You want to see me suck on Benny.” She looked up at him. Hs eyes and his head were full of her tits. She pulled his head down, so he got a better view of them and she whispered, “I don’t want to do it. But you’ll make me.”
 

A grin started to stretch across his face. She said, “You’ll make me suck his cock, and then you’ll both fuck me. I won’t want to do that either.” His eyes were shining now.
 

She stroked his face and then she touched the bike key on her breastbone. Bogart’s key, drawing Chiz’s attention to it. “We can all have a lot of fun, biker. Make it look good, but don’t get carried away.”

Chiz grinned from ear to ear. Angelica really had no idea how this was going to play. Would Chiz get off on giving her a slap or two? Would he lose control? And, if he did, what the fuck would she be able to do about it?