Merry Christmas to my tummy!
The song played a third time as I crunched on chocolate and coconut, melting with each yummy taste. Words started coming to me as I focused on the upbeat tempo. A complex, harmonic structure rose in my head.
I finished the box of cookies, grabbed my keyboard, and began mimicking the tune, mumbling words with each press of the key. “Die for me baby...die for me...cry...cry for me...you’re mine.”
I turned the track on and played along with my keyboard, pretending to be Gio.
What would Gio probably say to her? This girl that’s dancing with him. It’s hot. No one’s there but them. They’re at a club. No, a party. Maybe the party is outside, and the stars are above and she’s looking in his eyes, thinking that it could be love. What would he say to her?
“Shit.” I held my hands above the keyboard. “I think I’ve got something.”
I jumped up from my chair, almost knocked everything over, rushed for my notebook, and wrote tons of sentences down. An hour later, I continued to toy with that idea.
“I’m dying to be inside of you.” I started messing around with the bass line as I sang. “Give it to me, baby, I would melt with you, I would burn for you.”
I tapped my feet, pictured him with no shirt on dancing with me under the stars, and made a note to play with some of the wording. “Take me to the sky, I would fly with you, get high with you.”
My heart beat faster. Sweat beaded around my forehead as I swayed with the tune, making it my own. “Tear open my soul, lose control with you, let it go with you.”
In my mind, he captured my lips and shattered me with pleasure. “Break me. Hurt me. Fuck me. I would lie for you, homicide for you.”
Knocking came at my door.
Fucking asshole of severed, decaying balls!! Who? The? Fuck? Is? It?
Anger raged over my face. I barely ever lost my temper and almost never got into an argument. But when I was interrupted with creating, I was ready to kill someone.
I froze at the keyboard, hoping the person would leave. Being that I’d been singing loudly, they must’ve known I was there.
The knocking came again.
Annoyance dotted each word. “Who is it?”
My manager, Ru’s voice came next. “It’s me, Simone.”
I sucked my teeth, rose from the keyboard, stomped over to the door, and opened it.
“Really?”
“Merry Christmas to you too.” He closed the door behind him and held a large box wrapped in purple paper with a huge pink bow sitting on top. In his other hand, he held a fresh bouquet of flowers.
Ru towered over me in a designer suit, sleek and expensive. If one didn’t know him, they’d think he was in his twenties. His chestnut hair was in a contemporary pompadour, something Elvis Presley would’ve rocked if he’d come out in the 2000s. Surprisingly, it finished off his whole classic style, polishing him from head to toe. He had the face of a male model and the soul of the devil. The latter made him one of the top-earning managers in the industry. He’d been in the entertainment industry since he was a kid, starting off as a child actor for Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club. Once puberty came and his voice lowered, he left the performance side and focused on the business of music.
Now in his thirties, he had a hot list of clients. I was blessed he’d given me a chance.
“Let’s try this again.” Ru targeted me with that wicked green gaze. “Merry Christmas, Simmy.”
“Merry Christmas.” I smiled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t get you anything.”
He handed the gift over to me. “Of course not. I bet you haven’t gotten yourself anything either.”
“I’m writing.”
“Good.” He went over to my forgotten vase where he’d placed roses two weeks ago. Now they’d rotted, the stems molded sludge in the dark bottom of the vase. Brown petals were scattered on the table. He tidied the area up and scanned my small apartment. I immediately felt self-conscious. Dishes were piled in the sink. Magazines were stacked on top of the pasta machine I never used.
“Thank you,” I said.
“No worries.” Ru took the vase into the kitchen. “I like to spoil you.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m your manager and, most of all, because I’m a gentleman.”
Ru was many things. Some would say gentleman, but most would call him an impeccably dressed and sweet-tongued womanizer.
Although he showered me monthly with flowers and gifts for whatever holiday that came, I happened to know that he had two women waiting for him right now—his wife in Lennox Hill and his devoted mistress in the Bronx.
Both women spent their days waiting. It hurt me to even imagine that sort of life; waiting for his attention, waiting for him to call, waiting for him to say he loved them. So much waiting. And they were as patient as sheep, longing to hear the click in the doorknob and the dangling of his keys, wagging their tails like those fluffy poodles of the rich, when their master came home.