"Jesus Christ," Jake said, licking his lips unconsciously, knowing he should just turn around and leave but unable to muster the willpower to do so.
"But anyway, back to Carmella," Mindy said, her right hand going to her nipple where it started to pull and twist it. Her left began to slide a finger in and out of her pussy, almost casually. "I think she knows how much I like feeling her touch me. She's always gentle and she never complains when I ask her to shave me. And when she's done... mmmm... you know what she does?"
"What?" Jake squeaked.
"She takes baby oil and she rubs it all over my pussy. You notice how soft and silky it looks right now? That's because she just got done rubbing it down before you came in. She slid her fingers in and out of me to make sure it got everywhere. It felt so good, Jake. I almost came all over her hand. In fact, I bet if you would've gotten close enough to her, you would have smelled my pussy all over her fingers."
Jake broke at this point. The visual image of Carmella fingering her coupled with the actual image of her playing with her shaven pussy was too much for him to take. He fell on her, burying his face between her legs, his tongue stabbing out and licking her juices. She squealed in delight at the contact.
He ended up staying for dinner and for a long, extended dessert. When he left at eleven o'clock that night he was behind the wheel of his Corvette and they had plans to get together the following weekend.
On the following Monday morning Shaver and Georgette, meeting each other in person for the first time, gave an impromptu press conference in front of the National Records building shortly after Jake and the rest of the band arrived and fought their way through the throng awaiting them. The statements the two agents gave were short and to the point. They admitted that Jake and Mindy were indeed involved in a romantic relationship with each other and that their previous denials regarding this relationship were out of a desire to keep their private lives private. Both Shaver and Georgette managed to sound indignant and angry as they chastised the media for sticking their noses into the business of two consenting adults. Neither Jake nor Mindy were present at the press conference although prepared statements — again having primarily to do with their wish for privacy — were read. There was no question period after the statements were given but that did not stop the press from shouting them at the retreating agents.
"When did they first become intimate?"
"Did they have sex together the night of the Thinner Than Water premier?"
"Does Mindy snort cocaine with Jake?"
"Are they considering marriage?"
Strangely enough, or perhaps not so strangely, the number of paparazzi and media people hounding Jake and Mindy decreased dramatically once the admission of their involvement was released. There were still paparazzi popping up whenever they were together, and there were occasional groups of reporters and videographers shouting at them and trying to catch them on tape, but they stopped showing up in front of Jake's building and at the National Records building. They stopped hounding them when they went out to clubs or restaurants together. Now that the world knew they were together and they had acknowledged it, the focus had turned from merely catching them in each other's presence to simply keeping a loose eye out for scandalous behavior.
Jake went back to ignoring Shaver, talking to him only when there was something new to release to the public — which wasn't often. Georgette, however, like any good agent, quickly embraced the new reality her client had forged and began seeking ways to shape it for the best advantage. Jake noticed their efforts the first time they went to a club together after the admission. Mindy wore a red dress that was short in the legs and displayed an impressive amount of her very impressive cleavage. Instead of sipping demurely from a glass of diet cola like she usually did in public, she ordered Long Island iced teas and drank several of them in rapid succession. She also chain smoked cigarettes from Jake's pack and made a point of swearing whenever a likely member of the press was near.
"All this is going to get you better movie roles?" he asked her after her third drink and her sixth cigarette.
"Goddamn right," she told him. "The public needs to see me as an adult. A hot, sexy, alluring adult. Actresses who look like adults get adult roles." She put out her latest cigarette. "Come on. Let's dance. Let's show these people what we can do."
What they could do on the dance floor was quite a lot. Jake, like most musicians, had natural rhythm. He had also been forced to take an intense accelerated course in modern dance before going out on the Descent Into Nothing tour. His body, used to brutal aerobic workouts and grueling ninety-minute sets on the stage was in excellent shape despite the cigarettes and the booze he imbibed in. And he certainly knew how to move his body to the music. Mindy, though not a musician, had more than three years of dance lessons under her belt as part of her dramatic arts training. She too was in superb shape secondary to thrice weekly workout sessions. The first tune they danced to was We Got the Beat, by The Go-Go's. They moved against and around each other with a fluid-like precision, their shoulders, hips, legs, and feet moving almost in unison.
The crowd was impressed with the two of them, so impressed, in fact, that for the next song — Physical, by Olivia Newton-John — they did something that Jake thought was only done on movies like Saturday Night Fever and Flashdance. They formed a circle around the two celebrities, clapping their hands to the beat, and letting them dance alone in the middle of the floor. Jake felt exposed like he never did onstage, felt all the eyes looking at him, staring at him. He prayed he wouldn't do anything stupid or nerdy. He kept the neutral expression on his face and let his body and his instincts for music take over. He didn't particularly care for Physical — not in a million years would he have chosen it as the song to dance to before a crowd — but he at least knew it well since the American public had been inundated with it over the past eighteen months far beyond what a reasonable culture could be expected to tolerate. Mindy knew the song well too, and the two of them twisted and turned, spun and swayed, doing what they did best: performing. As the song played out they began to get more daring, more risqué. Their bodies moved closer together, so Mindy's breasts were virtually dragging up and down his chest, their pelvic regions ground together, and their hands moved up and down each other's backs, dipping dangerously close to the border between lower back and ass. Flashbulbs began to fire off around them but neither noticed, so intent were they upon their dancing. And when the song finally ended the entire club erupted in spontaneous applause, cheering and whistling at them.
"That was fuckin' fab!" Mindy yelled, loud enough for anyone within twenty feet to hear. "Let's go get another drink."
They went back to his place after the club that night and he took her less than thirty seconds after they walked in the door, pushing her against his couch, lifting her red dress above her waist, pulling her matching red panties to the side, and slamming into her while she panted and yelled obscenities to the room.
In the very next issue of Celebrity News magazine, there was a picture on the cover of the two of them on the dance floor, Mindy's breasts pushed against his lower chest, her lips less than two inches from his neck, his hands just above her ass. JAKE AND MINDY GET 'PHYSICAL' read the caption. The article that accompanied it was four pages long and described every detail of their dance.