Tempting Taylor. Joan Elizabeth Lloyd
camera and editing software to make that two-minute thing you call a music video and I provided some cash for God knows what. ‘I’ll get it back to you when this video makes us famous,’ you said. Well, Steve, you still haven’t made a dime and I’ve invested mucho bucks already.”
“Okay, okay,” Steve said, his attitude softening. “Let’s just let this drop.” He walked behind her chair and began to rub her neck to relieve the day’s tension. Slowly his hands slipped down the front of her blouse, sliding beneath to find her nipples. Pulling and pinching, his fingers immediately caused the flesh between her legs to swell and moisten. “Oh baby,” Steve said, “your body makes me hot.”
Tay let her head fall back against his groin and she could feel his hard erection beneath his jeans. His hands were magical, playing her body as if it were one of his instruments. He leaned over and bit the tendon at the side of her neck, while he efficiently unbuttoned her blouse and rubbed her belly. The zipper of her slacks came next and all thought became impossible.
He walked around her chair and parted her knees so he could stand between them. She quickly freed his rampant cock from his slacks. Since he usually wore no underwear she could easily lick precome from the tip. She marveled that she could so easily excite him.
She sucked and listened to his moans. Then they were naked, stretched out on the bed in the tiny bedroom. He quickly covered his cock with a condom, his only accommodation to her needs, and, draping her legs over his shoulders, rammed his swollen erection deep inside her.
As always she was more than ready for him, and as one of his hands played with her nipple and the other rubbed her clit, she came. He continued to ride her while she rose again and her second climax was matched with his.
The following evening he brought up the subject of the sound board again, and when she again told him she wouldn’t pay for it, he again made love to her. Later that night she told him that despite the sex she wasn’t going to spend that kind of money on new equipment, Christmas gift or no Christmas gift.
“You’re really serious,” he said, incredulous.
“Totally.” She was replete, happy after good lovemaking, but she was slowly smarting up, too. Any time she turned him down he fucked her brains out. As she thought back she realized that, up to now, it had always worked. Not anymore, she thought.
“I don’t get your total disinterest in what I want.”
“It’s not what I want and not what I intend to do.” She sighed. Sadly, it was time they had it out. Steve was going to have to decide whether he was in their relationship for her or her credit card. She was very afraid she knew the answer, but she hoped she was wrong. She had to be wrong.
She wasn’t, and Steve moved out the following day. It had been a Saturday, and after a morning spent in bed, he’d asked again and again she’d turned him down. Furious now, finally realizing that she wasn’t going to change her mind, he climbed out of bed and threw on his jeans and a T-shirt. He flung a few things into his backpack and said, “You’re a selfish cunt. I don’t understand why I’m not worth a measly few thousand dollars. Selfish, selfish, selfish. Well, so be it. I don’t want anything more to do with you.” He turned to her and said, “And your voice isn’t that much, either. I’ll be great without you. I don’t need you.”
Now that a decision had been made, Tay found herself surprisingly calm. She watched from bed as he pulled on his sneakers and stuffed his canvas bag with his precious DVDs and an assortment of video games she’d bought him. Grabbing both bags, he tucked his guitar under his arm and stormed out, slamming the door behind him and making the wood rattle.
The following day while she was at work he’d picked up his keyboard and amplifier and the pair of five-hundred-dollar speakers she’d gotten him for his birthday. For good measure, he also took the two hundred and fifty dollars she thought she’d secreted in her underwear drawer. That had been three months before and Tay was still smarting, not so much about Steve’s leaving, but about her stupidity in letting him string her along for so long. Steve had manipulated her with sweet words, promises of making a life together once his career began to take off, and lots of really active sex. She’d had relationships before but never one like him, sex at least once a day, and she’d gotten used to it. Now she’d been without it for months and missed it. Her vibrator just wasn’t enough. She’d gone to clubs and out with folks from her office but no one had clicked with her. The drought was beginning to get to her.
Tay tried to jam an errant strand of baby-fine deep blond hair back into the French braid that hung partway down her back, but when it flopped over her ear again, she merely tucked it behind.
Lissa squealed again, bringing Tay back to the present. Again she had to hold the phone at arm’s length. “Calm down, Lissa. You’re going to burst a gut and ruin my hearing.”
“Sorry. Sorry. Okay, yeah, right.” The tone of her friend’s voice had changed slightly and slowly Tay sensed that something was up.
“I hear something in your tone. There’s more, isn’t there?” Tay said when Lissa became silent.
“Well, there is one thing. There’s still one obstacle and I need your help.”
What in the world could she do? “Okay, I’m listening.”
Chapter
2
Tay could hear Lissa let out a long breath. “It’s the animals.” Lissa had three cats and two dogs, all adopted in one place or another, along with a snake, a rabbit and two ferrets.
The collection had begun when the girls first moved into their SoHo loft. “I’m a wildlife photographer so I have to have a good subject for my photos,” Lissa had said, trying to justify bring home the largest, hairiest dog Tay had ever seen. Shades of white, gray and brown, the dog constantly had his tongue hanging out and seemed to pant even when sleeping, which he did most of the time.
“That,” Tay had said, pointing to the hairy beast, “isn’t wildlife.”
“I know that, but he’s going to teach me a lot about photographing animals.”
“Animals. Is that what he is? He looks like Chewbacca from Star Wars. Remember that someone called him a walking carpet? Well, this guy doesn’t walk upright, but the carpet part fits.”
“Don’t be like that,” Lissa pouted. “I’ll do all the walking and cleaning up, I promise. You won’t even know he’s around.” She gazed at the dog. “I got him at the pound. They think he’s mostly sheepdog, with a little other stuff thrown in. I call him Mopp. With two p’s.”
Tay looked around the small apartment, shaking her head. “Lissa, we can’t have a dog.” She sounded less than convincing.
“Why not? There’s nothing about dogs in the lease and he’ll be a great guard dog.”
“Sure,” Tay said, looking into Mopp’s sad eyes and wet mouth, “but only if a burglar was allergic to saliva.” Tay gazed at the animal, thinking about the problems of dog hair on everything, but when Mopp stood, padded over and licked her hand she was hooked.
Tay, Lissa and Mopp made a workable threesome, with Lissa truly doing most of the doggie chores. Then, in the year before the two girls moved into their apartments, Lissa had added Precious, a tiny, homeless black and white kitten who’d grown into a cat with a remarkably miserable disposition, and Honey, a sweet Persian whose hair was almost as long as Mopp’s. Each girl had adapted her wardrobe so that fur brushed off most things easily. Clothes brushes could be found everywhere in the apartment.
After she moved out, Lissa had added a homeless, mostly beagle puppy named Fred and a third cat, a gold and red tabby named Ginger, who had adopted Tay and curled in her lap any time she visited. Tay, on the other hand, was delighted to finally not have any animals in the house. It wasn’t that she didn’t like them, but it was a relief not to have to turn her clothing inside out as soon as she got home, and keep a lint roller in her purse.