Then someone knocked on the door.
Fuck.
They’d go away.
Only they didn’t. The hammering became incessant.
A look come back to Dee’s face as though she’d been in a trance and just remembered where she was.
“Alex, open this fucking door now or I’ll get the bouncers to knock it down.”
It was Sally. I thought she’d had the night off but she was here, wanting to get into her office.
Dee jumped off the desk and threw her clothes back on. There was no disguising what had happened though. The smell of sex filled the office.
“Fuck, sorry,” I whispered.
She turned away from me.
I put my cock back in my pants, the ache almost killing me, and opened the door for Sally. Dee blushed with embarrassment and looked around the room as though hoping for a way of escape. But there was no escape. Sally would be livid and, while Dee hadn’t realised just how badly Sally would take this, I was fully aware.
Dee
I had to leave the apartment sometime. Two days of sulking in bed and eating pizza achieved nothing except making me bloated and cranky. I wanted to take Past Me and slap her around until she got some freaken sense in her brain.
What had I been thinking?
Obviously, I hadn’t been thinking at all. All the blood had gone to my lady parts, leaving my brain starved of oxygen. And with Alex, of all people. I’d become layers of wrong. Like one of those rainbow layer cakes, only less delicious. I’d seen a hundred rockers playing before and not one of them had filled me with a brainless cock lust, so why did it have to be Alex?
The worst bit was walking home afterwards. I dug my hands deep into my bag, hunting for my keys, and then fished out something. The photo of Jake. It was always with me. I’d made a promise to him, to his memory, and that promise had been to get revenge on Alex, not have crazy, wild sex with him in a store room.
“I’m sorry, Jake,” I whispered.
I couldn’t even lay the blame elsewhere. I’d only had two drinks, so was practically sober, and I couldn’t blame Alex because I’d been the one who went to him. I could only blame the crazy lust that went right to my bones, stirring me up inside.
That made it even worse. If I saw Alex again, who knew when that crazy lust would strike?
I never wanted to hear from Alex again but jumped up every few minutes to check my messages. It wasn’t like I wanted to be his girlfriend. That’s the last thing I wanted. But some acknowledgement would be nice.
God, the sex had been good. It’d been mind-blowingly amazing. As much as I detested myself for what I’d done, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Alex had touched me. Every minute of every day, I had to fight the urge to run to him again. But it was only sex. I could fight it. I had to, if I wanted to live with myself.
We still had the gigs to play, and I had to face Sally again. I lived in Alex’s apartment, played at his club and had taken everything he offered me.
I had to get out from his thrall. There was only one solution. I needed to get a job. That should’ve been obvious from the start. I didn’t need Alex’s charity. If I had my own money, I’d be free.
Pete had been the one to guilt trip me into taking the Devil’s deal and he actually had a job and his own money. I’d do the same. I had experience working in a cafe. Surely, I could do that kind of thing.
I showered and put on some makeup then dressed in my most approachable outfit. I only had sneakers or my biker boots. Maybe sneakers would be best. It said I was used to standing on my feet. And I’d need to put in some leg work to find a job.
I hit the streets, after using Pete’s printer to print out a bunch of resumes. On paper, I didn’t sound like much. I’d have to use enthusiasm and brightness to counteract that. I could fake that, surely.
After an hour of looking for “help wanted” signs though, the enthusiasm became much harder. These people, they wanted everything and would only pay shit for it. One place offered me a free trial for a shift. I said I’d take it, even though I was pretty sure they just wanted to get some free work out of me. The other places had taken my resume and said they might call. They didn’t sound like they would, though.
It was getting late and I needed to go home and pick up my gear for rehearsal. I’d leave the rest of job-hunting for tomorrow. After all, not many people get a job on their first day of looking.
On the way back to the apartment though, I took a short cut down one of the alleyways. I was starting to get my bearings in the city but, halfway down, I heard footsteps behind me. I didn’t want to turn, I just picked up my pace. Once I got back out in the open, I could run into a shop.
That seemed the smart thing to do but a hand grabbed me and I got slammed into a brick wall at the back of a building. That really hurt and I swung around, ready to knock someone’s head off.