*****
He'd been parked outside his brother's house for fifteen minutes, seeking the courage required to get out of the car, when the door of the house had burst open and two young, striking women burst out. A tumble of joy, laughs and handclaps, Lyla bounced towards a 4x4 parked across the avenue with her even bouncier fried -- good God, Michael thought, is that really little Susan Sobotnik? -- who playfully slapped her on the rear as, alarm de-beeping, Lyla clambered into the vehicle. They pulled out and drove off, moments later, some vintage hip hop popping out of the opening windows.
Michael had missed his chance, to put it mildly. But he was glad he hadn't intervened just yet. How could he have punctured that balloon with the terrible news? He'd wait for a better time.
He started his Mercedes, and followed. He'd have to choose his moment. Surely that moment would arise soon.
Wrong.
First, he waited for three hours -- three hours! -- outside some beauty salon. Then, they'd driven out of town to a small winery, presumably for lunch and, no doubt, wine. He'd parked on the far side of the lot, enviously munching a bagel he'd grabbed from a vendor along with the New York Times during his earlier vigil, and waited.
Why was he waiting to find her? Partly, it was because the news had darkened. Partly, it was because he's promised the officials to whom he had spoken that he'd keep her news private for now. So no friends yet.
Matt's disappearance, it seemed, was linked to some kind of improvised device exploding; there were casualties, but his body had not been found in the wreckage of vehicles created by the bomb. The same General, a Greggs, had informed him, with a voice professionally devoid of emotion, that it was suspected Matt had been taken hostage. The request had thus evolved: now Michael had to tell Lyla and drive her to a hotel in Washington to be briefed, and also away from the pack of reporters that would descend on her once the news, if confirmed, went viral in her home town and the wider world. Michael, the General said -- with some distaste creeping through the cool veneer -- knew the ways of the media. They needed to get Lyla safe ad keep her quiet until it suited them to expose her to the press. They needed, Michael knew, to take control of the narrative.
Sitting in his car, anonymous jazz on the radio, he thought about Matt. He regularly received jaunty texts and emails from his young brother, apparently because he was part of a group mailing list to which Matt saw fit to send the latest smutty link or joke he'd heard at work. He rarely liked the jokes, many of which were racist or sexist, or worse; he'd sometimes enjoyed the links, to his slight liberally-guilty shame. They rarely spoke in person nowadays. Yet he felt a profound responsibility towards his kid brother. He always had, after their father's death. He wanted the best for him.
Hence Lyla. He had, at a certain moment, stepped aside, so that a smitten girl could fall instead for an equally smitten Matt, rather than for the strange initial object of her affections -- so obvious when she'd started popping around for "homework", and later for those first "dates" with Matt, later still for real dates as his frostiness did its work -- and once, excruciatingly, for dinner.
He didn't remember much from that night, save for glimpses of a girl so beautiful he'd not dared to look at her in anything but sidelong glances at tiny portions of her body or face, and the disastrous moment her bare leg had brushed against his arm at the dinner table, as he'd reached down beneath it to grab a fumbled napkin. His knee banged up against the table, spilling coke, much to his mother's horror. It had soaked his jeans, so he'd retreated to his room to change. And also, he recalled soberly, to masturbate.
While the merry sounds of dinner continued in his absence -- his mother had so loved it when they had friends around, filling the too often quiet melancholy of the house with something approaching its former brilliance -- he stroked his painfully hard, 18-year-old cock. Long and pale, rigid like porcelain, it gleamed in his hand as he focused on her skin, the soft down of her fine hairs against his arm, the curve of her breasts pushing at the tight fabric of the neat little dress she'd worn, bare armed, ample décolletage, utterly charming. He'd imagined pulling the straps of the dress down, her pale breasts tumbling free to hang before him, her mouth curling into a smile as she pressed them together beneath the rapid blur of his hand... and then he'd done what needed to be done.
He'd done what he'd always done, throughout his life, for the good of his mother, his brother, his college roommates, his girlfriends, his non-profit organizations, and now, he sometimes permitted himself to imagine, for the whole damned world.
Sublimation.
His cock, he noticed, was hard in his pants. And sore, from the exertions of the night before. He shifted a little uncomfortably, willing it away. He had will power to spare, and it obeyed.
Arms around each other's shoulders, the two friends suddenly emerged through the woven willow of the gates.
The years had been kind to Suze, Lyla's old friend, Michael acknowledged. A lean, beautiful face with cheek bones, pert breasts, long brown legs. Lyla -- well, she was much more lovely now than the night she'd made him spill his coke. Yet her face bore the bruises of worrying, and perhaps something more.
Was it the image he knew from his own reflection, the hairline cracks of disappointment? Or even of repression? If so, my God, of what? She'd won her man, the life she wanted, the career.
A slide show of Lyla images spun through his mind as he saw them totter into the 4x4 and drive off a little too carefully, Suze and her passenger clearly well on the way to being pleasantly drunk: Lyla at her wedding, Lyla at that first family Christmas and cooking for the first time in his mother's house, Lyla sitting on Matt's lap at Thanksgiving the next year beerily swearing at the football on the TV, Lyla avoiding eye contact with him once, a thousand times.
Or was that just his imagination?
Whatever it was, he was enjoying watching her now, under the oddest, the worst possible, circumstances.
The tires spun as he lurched out of the gravel parking lot and onto the road behind them. They wove slowly back into town, ending up at what appeared to be a C&W themed restaurant with some kind meets bar meets club appended to it-- revelry of various kinds, in full swing even at 4pm, was audible from every open window. The neon of the signs -- an electric blue cowgirl, riding a pink stallion -- played across the glass of his windscreen, gaudy against the reddening sky as he parked and watched them scamper inside.
Three hours later, desperately hungry, he followed them.
*****
Lyla was buzzing! And that was a good thing otherwise she wouldn't have had the nerve to make it out all that way to drink some more, eat and dance...only the eating was taking a back seat to all the 'fun' that Susan was throwing her way. This certainly wasn't her usual thing and she felt a little out of her element, but with Susan on her arm, she was braving it and taking everything as it came with surprising ease.
She was dressed to impress, although not quite as boldly as Susan. Her dark wash jeans and heeled boots lent her a little extra height which most women craved. Plus, they were darn sexy! There was nothing like a pair of sexy shoes to make a gal feel good and she was feeling it. Even through the fatigue she fought off, Lyla tugged shimmer green top she wore and was flooded with the warmth of her co-workers as Susan zipped her into the club.
Cheers went around, as if the part had just arrived. And in a sense, it had. Susan was the usually the life of the party and Lyla the tag along, but she didn't mind. Their friendship had never suffered from it and Susan was loyal to a fault. So much so she was determined to get her best friend out of her funk.
"Okay girly, lets dance!"
Slightly off kilter, she laughed and swayed against Susan as they hit the floor which was lit up with all kinds of colors. "Holy shit, I feel like we're at a disco." Lyla grinned and let her friend spin her around. Personal space were not words that occupied Susan's vocabulary and her hands slid against Lyla's curving hips as she began to playfully bump and grind from behind. Giggles bubbled up from Lyla's throat and filled the air as the dance floor came to life around them. She let the music fill her and lost herself in the beat, pausing only long enough to grab a shot from wandering trays. The body shot ladies were about in force, but the girls tossed theirs back with wicked little smiles.
Before long, Susan had attracted one particularly tall blond man who reminded Lyla of sunshine and surf. His blond streaked hair could only be real or the man spent more time than both of them at the salon achieving such a natural look. Without bothering to ask, manly hands slid over her friends more narrow hips and the two began going at it. Lyla quirked a brow, but Susan was loving the attention. She glanced up and moved her lithe body again surfer dudes lean frame. Figuring this was time for a small breather, Lyla spun around to make her get-away only to smack straight into another man.
