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Chapter Sixteen

On Friday, I leave work a few minutes early because, once I get home, I won’t have much time to get ready before David picks me up. I have no idea what I am supposed to wear to the club, and I hope to hell that he was kidding about me wearing a catsuit. When I walk into my apartment, it’s already six-twenty so I grab a quick shower and dress in a pair of black jeans and a dark purple shirt. I finish getting ready and am done by the time he knocks on my door at precisely seven.

We head into the city, and this time David is actually driving like a normal person. When we get downtown, he pulls into a metered space and gets out. He wraps his hand around mine, and we walk together down the sidewalk for four or five blocks. He tugs me into a side alley and up to a door. When he pulls the door open, my nose is saturated with amazing smells. As soon as I look inside, I understand. He has brought me to the Thai restaurant he told me about a few days ago. It’s a tiny space crammed full of chattering people. I am very, very excited. I have never eaten in a place like this.

“I love this place already,” I say shyly to David. He looks over at me and softly grins and squeezes my hand. When the hostess comes over to seat us, she greets David by name and takes us to a small table. It is the only open table in the place. The other people standing near the door, presumably waiting for a table of their own, look at us with envy or spite or whatever. I really don’t give a damn. I am hungry as shit and loving David for bringing me here.

“Just wait till we eat,” he says, “then you’ll really be in love.”

While we wait for our food, we talk about his friends in the band and how he met them. They were practicing for a gig at a bar he was working in, and they have been friends ever since. He assures me again that the kind of music they make is not going to win any hearts, and then he tells me that I might hate the club, and I might hate the music. And if I do, I should let him know and we can leave. As the waitress is putting our food down on the table, I tell him that, no matter what kind of music or club it is, I won’t be asking him to leave.

“I have never in my life asked a date to leave somewhere,” I say. “I’m game for whatever.”

He raises his eyebrows at me. “Wait,” he says dramatically, “did you just imply that this a date? Do fuck buddies even go on dates?”

“Sure, they do. Especially when one of them wants to be shown a good time before they get to the fucking.” I can tell from his facial expression that David has never, ever had a woman say such a thing to him before. My insides are jumping with amusement, and I am trying to keep from smiling.

“But I thought the fucking
was
the good time?” he says. Damn him. I can’t think of a single thing to say in response, so I just sit there smiling like a total crackpot. “Emma, wherever you come from, it must be one hell of a place,” he adds while shaking his head and looking down at his plate.

“You have no idea where I come from. Well, actually, yes, you do. You already met Michael, so that should give you a pretty good idea.”

“Yeah, well, we all got strange shit in our past.” He trails off as if he is thinking hard. A few seconds later he adds, “That picture in your room, is that your mom and you?” Oh. He noticed the picture.

“Yep. That’s my mom. Before Michael was in our life. We didn’t have a lot, but we were happy. My brothers were decent kids back then. But once Michael got a hold of them, everything changed.”

“Michael really fucked things up for you, didn’t he?”

“Between him and my brothers, I was royally fucked up by the time I was eleven. And literally fucked at thirteen.” I am telling him too much.

“Thirteen, huh?” He looks more concerned than surprised.

“Yep. Thirteen. And not by my choice either.”

“Jesus, Emma.” Now he looks downright distressed, and I am feeling an overwhelming need to sink my face into my hands. But not because I’m embarrassed. Because I don’t like the way he is looking at me. I need to steer the conversation.

“How about you?” I ask. And his face instantly changes. He looks humored now. Thank fucking goodness.

“Let’s just say I was way older than that,” he says, “and it was totally by my choice.”

“Who was it with?”

“My dad’s secretary.”

“No way. Seriously? Did she go all cougar on you when you were in high school or something?” Oh, sweet mother of God, why did I say that?

He chuckles. “Kind of, I guess. She was a little older than me, but I was twenty, so I don’t know if the whole cougar thing applies.” He was twenty-fucking-years-old? I don’t believe it. By the time I was twenty, I had already screwed more boys than I care to remember. I suddenly feel really, really weird. And self-conscious. Which, of course, is total bullshit.

“Twenty? You’re full of crap,” I say, in hopes of calling his bluff.

“Dead serious. I was twenty.”

“And how old are you now?” I ask.

“I’m twenty-six.”

“So you’ve got four years up on me in age, but I’m three up on you in experience.”

“I guess so,” he says with a shrug. “But there’s really no need to point out all my inadequacies.”

I lift my eyes up from my plate and look him straight in the eye. “David, there is not a single thing inadequate about you.” I know he is flattered by my comment because he looks a bit sheepish and he doesn’t offer a smart-ass kickback. “Not so far, anyway,” I add with a smile.

When we finish eating, I tell David that it’s easily the best Thai food I’ve ever had. He picks up the tab, even though I tell him I’m happy to pay my half, and we are out the door.

As we walk out the alleyway and back towards the car, David tells me we are going to drive to the other side of town and have a few drinks at a bar. Apparently underground clubs don’t open until midnight, and the band won’t start playing until well after that, so for the next two hours we drink beer and talk about everything from carpentry training to where I can get a good white pizza. He tells me about how he got the BMW from an old lady who used to live in one of Carl’s buildings and how he did, in fact, fix it up himself. He tells me about how Carl was once so drunk after poker that he stripped down naked and walked home wearing nothing but his shoes. And they were on his hands. As I listen to him, I realize that David is pretty damn amusing. I find myself smiling a lot at his stories. I tell him a few stories of my own, too, but none of mine seem to be as interesting as his. And, before I know it, it’s twelve-thirty. David settles with the bartender, and we start walking down the street.

Fifteen minutes later, David rings the buzzer next to a large metal door, and after that I hear a clicking sound. My mind is a riot of curiosity. He pulls the door open, and we walk together down a long corridor and then up several flights of stairs. When we get to the top, I can hear loud but muffled music. He opens another metal door, and we walk into a massive warehouse-like room. The room is absolutely filled with people. The whole place is glowing under multicolored lights. I can see immediately that I am the only one here without a tattoo. I am also pretty sure that I’m the only one here without a parole officer. It makes me wonder if David has one.

I glance over at him, and he is watching me keenly. I know he is trying to gauge my reaction to this mass of pulsating, freakish humanity. I narrow my eyes at him and give him a sideways, smart-ass-y smile. We walk together towards a long bar on the left side of the room. David talks with the bartender, and then he presses the front of his body into my back and wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me close. He reminds me that we can leave at any point. I cannot take my eyes off these people, and right now you couldn’t pay me to leave.

We walk down the length of the bar, through all the people, and up some steps to the left of the stage. A large man is standing on a platform at the top of the steps. When we reach him, he puts his hand out to David and greets him with a handshake and a back-slapping man-hug. He looks at me and smiles and whispers something into David’s ear. They both grin. David takes my hand, and the man steps aside and opens the door for us. As soon as we enter the room, I can see that it’s where the band is camped out. The room is filled with smoke, and there are about a dozen people sitting and standing around, talking and drinking and smoking. Four of the guys stop what they are doing and come over to us immediately. David greets them with more back-slapping man-hugs and then introduces me.

“Gents,” he says, “this is my girl, Emma.” But he isn’t looking at them when he says it. He is looking at me. He wants to see my reaction to his words. No one has ever referred to me as “my girl” before. “Emma, this is Steve, John, Caleb and Saz.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say to them, only taking my eyes off of David’s well after I say it. I shake their hands one by one, and we make small talk about how David and I met and my job and my initial impression of the city. David is right. They seem to be really nice guys, and I like them immediately. Soon they decide it’s time to head to the stage, and we say our goodbyes. They tell us to stick around after the show so we can hang out more, and they can warn me about David. They joke about how they want to figure out what the hell I am doing with the likes of him. I smile when they say it, and then I tell them that I only like him for his tool belt and that I’m perfectly prepared to heed any warning they’re willing to share. David looks back and forth from me to them.

“I don’t think we’ll be sticking around,” he says. “Not this time, you fuckers.” I think he’s only half joking. Then he leans toward Caleb, shakes his hand and says something to him that I cannot hear. Caleb laughs out loud, and David takes my hand. We walk out to a chorus of goodbyes.

When they step onto the stage, they seem very different. The music they play is raw and loud and enraged, and the mass of people congregated on the dance floor in front of them rage right along with the music. The room is like an enormous tangle of energy. After two songs, they introduce themselves as Noel’s Sex Toys and call the audience a “bunch of fucking unemployed cocksuckers.” Everyone in the crowd lifts their beer into the air and screams.

David tells me that most of the songs they play are originals, but somewhere in the mix, I catch a fast and deafening cover of Metric’s “Gold Guns Girls”. Every time I look over at David, he is perfectly still. We are standing next to the front of the bar, and I want to go dance, but instead I just drink my beer and watch and listen.

After a few more songs, they stop playing, and Caleb pulls the microphone to his mouth. “Our mate David has a new girl,” he says. “This one’s for her.”

David’s eyes widen and then briefly close. When he opens them, he turns to me and mutters, “Those fucking assholes. I’m gonna slash their goddamned tires.” I can tell he is joking, though, because of the lilt in his voice as he says it. He must recognize the song before I do, because soon after they start, David’s chin sinks to his chest, and he shakes his head.

I know from the lyrics that it’s “Creep,” but the music is faster and far more incensed than Radiohead’s original. Caleb’s voice sounds sinister and, yes, creepy. By the time they reach the middle of the song, David’s head is raised, and he’s giving them the finger. With both hands. I don’t think they can see him, though, because of the stage lights, but David keeps his hands up anyway. A minute or so later, he drops them and wraps his arm around my shoulders.

“Assholes,” he mutters again.

“You want me to kick the shit out of them?” I tease. “’Cause I’ll go up on that stage right now and take those boys down.”

He grins with pride and says, “Atta girl.”

We stay for the rest of the show, drinking and watching. When they are done, and the DJ clambers back up onto the stage, David tells me it’s time to go. On our way out, I stop to use the ladies room. I’m decently drunk, and when I open my cell phone to check the time, I see that it’s nearly four o’clock in the morning. Fucking hell.

When I am done, I go back out to David. He pulls me out the door, down the steps, and to the car. All without saying a word. My ears are ringing, and I am exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. David starts the car and drives. But he isn’t headed toward home. At least not in the direction I recognize as home. He switches on the radio and turns it up loud. I don’t know where we are going, nor do I care. I open my window and stick my head out, breathing in deep pulses of air. After a few minutes, I pull my head back in and lean over, laying my head down on his lap. I twist myself around so I am face up. He looks down at me in surprise, and I smile up at him.

When his eyes return to the road, I look up at the birds. He is holding the steering wheel, and I run my index finger from his wrist up to his underarm, tracing the outlines of their bodies, touching their feathers, feeling David’s skin. In my drunken haze, the birds seem even more vivid, more alive. The dash lights cast shadows on his arm, but I can see that the bird closest to his right underarm is a raven. It is larger than the rest, and its black feathers stand out against all the colors. I trace the raven, pushing the pad of my finger softly against David’s skin.

“I like this one the best,” I tell him as I move my finger down the raven’s back.

“Oh, yeah? Why that one?”

“Because ravens are clever and self-assured. And peculiar.”

“Huh,” he says. Then after a pause, he adds, “Sounds like you.”

“And you.”

“Like I said, we’re two of the same, Emma.”

“Indeed.”

He pulls the car off the road and down a steep, narrow gravel lane. From his lap, I can see the lights from a bridge above us. David parks the car off to the side of a small parking lot and turns off the engine. When I sit up, I see that we are facing the river, not far from the shore. He gets out and walks over to my side of the car. He sticks his face into my open window, clasps my head between his hands, and kisses me. I close my eyes, enjoying the way his tongue caresses mine.

His kiss twists my mind into a flurry of want, curls my body into a gnarled-up ball of need. My breath is heavy, and it is taking everything in me not to leap out of the car and throw myself at him. Instead, I climb up on to my knees and push my upper body out the window. My hands are on the sill, holding me up like a couple of shaky sticks. Before they give way and cause me to collapse like a moronic, redheaded marionette, he grabs me by the waist and pulls me out of the car. Thank God.