Jake was caught off guard by this suggestion. He opened his mouth to deny what was being said but then slowly closed it again. Could she be correct? Could she?
“Think it through, Jake,” Pauline said. “Hell Freezes Over is selling like mad, despite the negative press over the ticket prices. As Nerdly would say if he was here, we have empirical evidence that album sales remain unaffected when one gains a reputation as a profiteer. Capitalism reigns supreme. People will pay the market value for the tickets. They’ll grumble about it, but they’ll pay it. All we would be doing is shifting that profit from the black market to ourselves and making our tours a significant source of income instead of just a promotional gambit. The only real objection I hear from you and from Celia is that you don’t want to be thought of us greedy by the fans.”
Jake looked over at Celia, who was looking at him, a guilty expression on her face.
“I think maybe she’s right,” Celia said. “When I sit and think about it, that really is what concerns me the most; being thought of us greedy.”
Jake wanted to deny this was his primary concern, but his annoying tendency for self-honesty kept him from doing so. “Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “I guess that is my issue when you come right down to it.”
“All right then,” Greg said with a smile. “Now that we’ve opened up Jake and Celia’s souls and seen the darkness that lies within, let’s get this horse on the track. Do we give into the inevitable and embrace our greed, or don’t we?”
The two musicians looked at each other again. Celia raised her eyebrows questioningly. Jake hesitated for a moment more but finally gave a little nod.
“I guess we give in,” Celia said. “At least that’s what I’m going to vote.”
“Yeah,” Jake said with a sigh. “I guess I’ll have to vote for greed as well.”
About an hour after dinner, Laura and Celia were outside in Pauline’s back yard, sitting on the patio furniture and looking out at the setting sun as it sank through the smog layer and turned the sky a brilliant reddish-purple. Both ladies had a glass of wine sitting on the table between them. Laura opened her purse and pulled out a small one-hitter pipe and little bag of green buds. She stuffed some of the latter into the former and then flicked her Bic and sucked it down. Celia watched her impassively.
“Want a hit?” Laura offered after blowing the smoke back out into the air.
“I’m good, thank you,” Celia said.
It occurred to Laura that she had never seen Celia smoke any weed before, had never even heard her talking about it. “Do you ever get high?” she asked her.
“No,” Celia replied. “I’ve tried it a few times. I seem to be one of those people that it doesn’t have much of an effect on. It never really did anything for me except make me hungry.”
Laura finished stuffing another hit into the pipe. “That’s too bad,” she said. “I never really got into it either until Jake and I got together. Even then, we didn’t do it very much. Once I went out on the road, however, it got to be a regular habit.” She chuckled a little. “One little habit I didn’t leave down in South America.”
Oh, you little liar, Laura’s mind sang to her. She silenced the voice by sucking down her second hit. And then she found herself wondering what Neesh was doing tonight.
“Did you ever ... you know ... do as I suggested and tell Jake about those ... things you did down in South America?” Celia asked her.
“I did,” she said, feeling the THC going to her brain. She stuffed the pipe and the little baggie and the lighter back into her purse. “I told him the night he asked me to marry him.”
Celia raised her eyebrows a little. “Before or after he asked?”
“After,” Laura said. “I had to. I couldn’t say yes to him until he knew about ... you know ... those women and me. I had to be sure he was okay with it before I committed.”
Then why haven’t you told him about what you and Neesh did? the little voice spoke up again. This time she poured some wine on it. And then she started thinking about Neesh again, remembering how good it felt to have her tongue in her mouth, remembering the feel of her soft, sexy mouth kissing her thighs, pondering the thought of where that mouth would have ended up if she hadn’t remembered their clothes at that very moment.
“I’m assuming that he was okay with it?” Celia asked.
“It kind of caught him off-guard, I think,” she said, trying to shake the images of Neesh out of her head. She succeeded, but only by catching a glimpse of the side swell of Celia’s breast. She wondered what it would feel like to put her mouth on it. Jesus, what is wrong with me?
“I can imagine,” Celia said. “You caught me off-guard when you told me about it.”
“But Jake is ... well ... he’s Jake,” she said. “I told him the whole story ... well, not the whole story—I didn’t tell him what happened between me and Squiggle that one night, but I did tell him about the chemistry between us, and that I started doing those things with women to keep from being tempted to do anything with Squiggle. He understood. And he accepted it. He told me he still wanted to marry me anyway and I said yes.” She held up her left hand, the one with the engagement ring. “And here we are.”
“I think you did the right thing,” Celia said. “You didn’t really do anything with Squiggle—not when you come right down to it—and most guys will not see what you did with the women as cheating.”
“That’s exactly how it worked out,” Laura said. “I’m thankful for your advice.”
Celia took a good long drink of her wine and then set it back down. “Tell me something,” she said, her voice a little quieter now. “When you came back home after the tour ... did you ... uh ... I mean do you still ... you know... think about doing things with women?”
Why is she asking this? Laura wondered, a little alarmed. Does she suspect something? Does she know something?
“Uh ... well ... why do you ask?” Laura said, fighting to keep her voice casual.
“Well ... it’s funny,” Celia said. “Ever since you told me that story about you and the women, I’ve been ... uh ... kind of ... you know ... thinking about it a lot.”
“Thinking about it?”
“Yeah,” Celia said with a nod. “Almost obsessively at times.”
Laura licked her lips a little. “In a good way or a bad way?” she asked.
“In a curious way,” Celia said. “I’ve never ... uh ... done anything with a girl before. I’ve never even kissed one. But ... well ... I’ve thought about it. The idea was never really repugnant to me, but I never obsessed over the issue or was tempted to try it or anything. And then once you told me your story, I started thinking about it all the time ... mostly about what you did, having a girl go down there and lick me.”
Holy hell, Laura thought, amazed. Celia wants to get it on with a girl! The thought was blackly exciting and she felt a gush of moisture go rushing to her nether region. “That’s uh ... it’s uh ... kind of sexy, C,” she told her softly.
Celia smiled. “Is it?”
“Yeah,” Laura assured her. “Do you think you’d ever do it?” Maybe with me? her mind added. She felt immediately ashamed for thinking that—but the intrigue remained.
Celia paused for a few moments and then nodded her head. “I think maybe I would,” she finally said. “If I were single, that is. Even though Greg ... well ... you know what he did ... even though he did that, I don’t think I could bring myself to do it while we’re married.”