(no subject)
Leaving his bed was no more difficult than Alex expected it to be. James was warm, solid, and he'd held her exactly the way she liked best. Staying behind her, his arm draped over her hips and she felt his breath on the back of her neck. Comforting, encompassing, and still she easily slipped free when she had to leave. Ignoring the clock telling her he only had another hour or so to sleep, she dressed in the dark, packed her bag and then the leftovers. Inside one bag she slipped a short note: Thank you, sweet man. I hope you slept well.
Fridays and Mondays were her most complex days, and the next Friday was no exception. She got off the phone as she got out of the cab back from his apartment cursing softly at the messages already changing her schedule before dawn. Before climbing into the shower she sat in her office and laid out the next few days so she could see them all together. Lunch that day had been moved up an hour, which meant she had to rush. Dinner had a second person added which meant more money but in this case not much more work.
What really bothered her was that late night drinks had become a party lasting into Saturday morning. Not only did she have to line up one, maybe two, women to help her out, but she would have to cancel with James. She would not see him the same day she worked. And most certainly not the same day she'd worked a party. She took a moment to find the number for his office and left a message for him there. Hopefully finding that would be a pleasant enough surprise to soften the blow that she'd be missing their Saturday in the garage. The message was simple-a job had come up and she'd be busy all day. She made no promises of finding time before the next Thursday.
Of all her work on Friday, the early lunch was what she found herself thinking about after shopping with her sister on Sunday. The woman, a highly successful actress, made Alex look wishy washy. Married to another actor, mother to an up and coming child star, everything else in her life was splashed all over the place. Her marriage was happy enough, but he liked to call the shots. With Alex the routine was set in stone from the first kiss to the wording of the goodbye. Only once had they deviated, with the actress' permission, and two days later Alex received a call for a 'do-over.'
Alex liked her. They chatted easily enough on the phone scheduling appointments. When she could, Alex went to see her movies and had to laugh at the series of ditsy, flighty women she played. If only the world knew what a sharp, on the ball cookie she really was. Still, she had a core of discontent. The part of her that sought Alex betrayed loneliness. Laying in her tub on Sunday, Alex considered her life in contrast. Intensely private, she still had close relationships with her family. She wasn't sure James believed that, not that it mattered. Her last two lovers hadn't gone anywhere near her family.
She enjoyed her time with him. Working on his car was more fun than anything she'd done in a long time. One thing she had to admit-she'd fallen into a rut. The level of control she exhibited had somehow kept her from taking on new projects. She hadn't even done much with the last two software suites she bought. A rut. How embarrassing. She grinned at what he'd say if she told him that. Probably insist she do something wild like take him home for dinner. Or stay the night.
Monday she worked her little ass off again, barely making it to her last appointment on time. Luckily it was Brian and all he wanted was a quickie and then dinner. Brian was her one exception. Or half exception, she supposed. If her life had three compartments-work, family, personal-he was allowed into two. He would never meet any member of her family, but she had brought James into his home. That entitled the man to ask some questions and he took advantage of that fact. Besides her sister, Brian was probably her oldest friend. When he asked her about James she answered honestly, if limitedly.
Tuesday she only had one client, but he was a doozy. Sometimes it felt like all her toys, and all her abilities to act and compartmentalize, were brought into play for this guy. He ended their sessions battered, fucked almost to bleeding, and in a final note of humiliation that did nothing at all for her, pissed on. He was the only client she'd never climaxed with. At first she faked it, but over time she realized he liked it better that she didn't. She had no idea what it was about the experience that worked for him and really didn't want to know. Clients like him had been the foundation blocks of the walls around her life.
At home afterward, curled on her couch reading a book, she was mildly disturbed to realize she was thinking of James. He seemed to slip through at the oddest times. Her head back on the arm of the couch, she let him come. She could almost smell him and certainly feel his hands on her. Large, strong hands moving over her breasts and down between her legs. Laughing under her breath, she felt him rubbing her feet. She owed him for that one. Then she remembered how she had already thanked him and shifted so suddenly her book fell to the floor. Her attempts to get past those thoughts and get herself to sleep that night took longer than usual. When she finally rolled over she was covered in sweat and her thighs ached from rocking against the thick dildo she preferred.
She spent Wednesday on a kind of work. Given that she used her body as a tool, she had to maintain it. Waxing, manicures, pedicures, facials were all work. Two hours with a personal trainer to make sure she was on track-work. More than once fellow gym rats had assumed she had sugar daddy and the reactions of the women who waxed her were priceless. Once, after a particularly rough day's work, she'd laid on the table to the tsk-tsking of an Asian woman even smaller than her. Instead of condemnation, the woman had offered an old Korean folk remedy for abrasions. Alex still used it. By the time she got home that night she fell into bed after doing only one thing-leaving a message for James that she would, in fact, be at the garage the next day.
It had been too long a fucking week to miss seeing him one more day.
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