Milo...Contract

              By Pattie Lawler

 

           

            Before Albany could reclaim him, Milo was thrice accosted about her contract renewal. Now that he knew what the thinly veiled hostility was over, he was better prepared to let her extended ‘family’ know to mind their own business.

All the while trying to keep a short leash on his singing heart.

One might have nothing to do with the other, he told himself repeatedly. He knew nothing of her contractual obligations; she might have already been on the fence the day he unceremoniously threw her to the floor of an antique shop. But that meant nothing to his soul, and he gazed at those around him through a haze of stupefaction. His eyes were full of a dazzling Albany as she and the other principals submitted to their peers repeated command to perform.

And watching her, so many things suddenly fell into place.

The revelation explained the theater’s allowance of her time when he whisked her off to France with no thought as to the repercussions. He boggled at his cavalier disregard for her desires and lifestyle. In what ways had he jeopardized her future with his pompous need to impress her?

His research into her history had told him nothing about Albany Wendel.

He puzzled over her underselling her talents the night they slept together before the fireplace in the penthouse. She had been bitter, he remembered it clearly. Had he been mistaken? Had he heard what he wanted to hear, creating a smooth road where he wanted one?

Their entire courtship was taking on an unsavory tone, and he was to blame.

He had met her with a degree of foreknowledge that overrode eight years of self-pity. She couldn’t know that she was promised to him by a nameless gypsy; couldn’t know that, in the manner of a true collector, he had set his eye on her, and damn the competition. How many times had he looked at her and silently declared she was his property? It occurred to him that while his self-image had suffered from Joanne’s stinging reproof, his ego had surged to the fore and engulfed poor Albany Wendel.

Her acceptance humbled him.

The need to question her and Joe…and his lawyer, was like electricity along his spine. He felt out of his depth and wanted to know what choices were before her. What demands would be made if she did become a free agent?

He was desperate to get her alone and apologize. How could he make amends? Did she hold any of his decisions against him? How could she not?

Mortification pulled him under, and he dropped onto the nearest chair.

And was immediately sensible of a conversation about Albany.

The speakers had their backs to him, unaware of his eavesdropping.

“There she goes again. She’s like a tenor in a woman’s body,” a foppish voice complained. “Go for a Canadian cut, girlie, and get some real plumbing! Your boy-toy will thank me!”

Amidst the following laughter, another speaker added, “But isn’t it that whole cross-dressing thing that appeals to rich men? I mean, she could pass if she wanted.”

“She probably has.”

“So maybe that guy she’s dating isn’t totally into women.”

“Best of all worlds!” another speaker interjected.

Milo snorted and reached for Albany as she drew closer. He held up a finger, silencing her, and pointed to the speakers and then his ear with a mouthed, Listen.

“So now that she’s getting laid, do you think she’ll re-up?”

Albany’s eyes grew, and she swallowed a laugh.

“Depends on how good he is, I imagine.” Albany mouthed, Very good. “If she ends up knocked up, she’d be better off with the troupe than breaking contract.”

“From principal to super for a nine month stint,” the first speaker crowed, twisting to punch his companion’s arm. His gaze fell on Albany and then Milo. His color drained away, but he had the grace to greet her. “Look who it is, boys. Our own capital!”

“Did I interrupt a good dish?” she asked, her eyes sparkling.

“You’re always the main course, Widdle Wendel.”

Albany’s broadside attack of Margo flashed through Milo’s mind, and he rose to avoid more of the same. Pulling her through the crowd, he grinned at her over his shoulder. “I had no idea I should have been questioning my masculinity while sleeping with you.”

“Oh?”

“Are trouser roles known for attracting men more in touch with their maleness?”

“Ah,” she breathed, nodding knowingly.

 “Your boyish figure and shoulder-length hair makes you half boy, I’ve discovered.”

She laughed. “Do I need implants?”

He threw his arms around her and bent to her ear. “Never.”

Her smile was radiant and Milo plunged further into hopelessly lost.

“Thank you for coming.” She slipped from his embrace and began leading him toward the exit. “It meant a lot to me.”

“Me too. I feel like I know you better now.”

She glanced up at him, an eyebrow arched. “Oh? Who’s been spreading rumors?”

“Just about everyone!” He checked his watch as she made for the cloakroom in the lobby. “Let’s get a cab.”

The tag for their coats was in her hand. “Penthouse?”

“Whichever. But getting back, everyone! Tonight I learned that you’re actually a frustrated tenor, an opera purest of the snobbiest level and rumored to be a cold fish in bed.” He grinned at her affected affront. “I set them straight on that last one.”

“Thank you for defending my libido.” They were silent while he helped her with her coat and then moved to the doors to order a taxi. “And speaking of which,” she breathed in the cold air, “do you know what I want to do for the rest of the evening?”

“It’s after three, Albany.”

“Is it? Well, regardless.”

He wrapped his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. “What would you like to do?”

“I want desperately to make love to you, Milo.”

His grip tightened and he kissed her again. “Anything for you, my love.”

“I’m serious.”

He handed her into the cab and gave the driver the address as he crossed to the street-side door to join her. “Why serious? It’s not like we haven’t made love before.”

She looked at him in the dim city lights. Her voice was deep, but very soft as she replied. “Everyone’s opinion is different.”

Nothing more was said until the elevator door opened on the penthouse. As he helped her remove her coat, he asked, “I have to know, Albany. Have we made love yet?”

She watched him hang the coats before strolling toward their bedroom.

“Come help me undress,” she begged, her hand out for his.

Bemused, he drew her into the room and when she presented her back to him, he began loosening the satin ribbon that laced the dress closed.

“This is very pretty,” he murmured, kissing her shoulder. “And you still haven’t answered my question.”

            Her eyes met his, her look appraising as she considered her reply. “Honestly? By my standard, no.” She felt him stiffen so she hurried on. “We’ve had plenty of earthshaking sex, thank you very much. But no, we have yet to make love.”

            He looked away, his voice softer. “This begs the question, what is your definition of making love?”

            “Sharing.” She said without hesitation, met his dubious expression and nodded. “Sharing what’s in our hearts and minds as well as our bodies. Making love has to happen on all levels to count.” Her eyes were intent upon his face, and she said nothing more while he processed her assertion.       

            Finally, he smiled. “Will you teach me?”

            Her relief was palpable, and her smile as warm. “It will be my great pleasure.” She helped him undress and then led him to bed. “So now, think,” she said, placing him in the center of the bed and crawling onto his lap. She sat facing him, her skirt a lake of scarlet around them “Where would I like to start?”

            His smile was lopsided and his tone ironic. “A test before we even begin?”

            She leaned forward, kissing his chin, and as she rocked back, he was holding up his gloved hands.        

            “Excellent!” she cried, bestowing kisses on both palms. She took his right hand, peeling the glove back and kissing his skin. “Where can’t you feel?”

            He was about to point when she ran the tip of her tongue across his upturned wrist. The world dimmed for a second, and he drew in a hissing breath. “Ah. I see.”

            But she hadn’t paused. Her tongue was forcing itself between his middle and ring fingers. The warm sensation caused parts of his body to tense while others relaxed. Where it caressed him, her breath made his skin tingle.

            He needed room.

            Unconsciously he leaned back, sliding his hips forward while she sucked a finger into her mouth and swirled her tongue around it.

            On the third repetition of her name he realized the moaning was coming from him.

            “Tell me,” Albany commanded, “what you’re feeling. Share with me, Milo.” Her mouth closed on another finger.

            “I feel...hot. I feel...” He laughed at himself. “I feel it’s hard to think when you do that.”

            “Good. What else?”

            “Your tongue, your mouth.”

            “How does it feel?”

            “Hot...soft.” Her teeth nipped the flesh where the finger met the palm. He watched her for a moment. “I love to see the top of your head from this angle.” He felt her chuckle and joined her. “Yes, yes. I have a dirty mind.”

            “And that’s a good thing. It’s what I wanna hear.”

            “But this is too one-sided.”

            “Then tell me what you want. Share, Milo.”

            “I want to touch you.”

            “Where?”

            The ready answer was everywhere, but his burgeoning understanding told him that this answer wouldn’t do. “Much as I would love to maul your magnificent mammary glands,” he felt her chuckling again, “I can comfortably reach this shoulder,” he placed a kiss on the place.

            “That leaves my hands free. Suggestions?”

            But he was engrossed with pushing the dress down to her waist. “Hmm?”

            She paused to help him and sat back, affording him a chance to admire the champagne lace of her bra.

            “I like that.”

            “I knew you would,” she smiled. “And do you want to know what I’d like you to dress in?” She leaned her head away as he chewed on her shoulder.

            “Hmm?”

            “Leather.”

            Milo jerked back. “Should I get my coat?”

            “I was thinking of pants.” She pushed him back, laying him down. “So I can feel you...” She took his hand and reached between them, placing it high on her thigh, under her skirt. “Here.”

            The satin of her skin made his eyes close and he growlingly predicted, “Very soon I will be in pain.”

            “I’m right here, Milo. Tell me what you want.”

            “Aside from the obvious?”

            “Nothing is obvious. That’s exactly my point. It’s obvious to me I wanted you in leather.”          

            His hand made its own way higher, and she pushed herself into his palm as his finger slipped into her panties. He sank in deeply as she smoothed herself against him. Distracted, he could only feel for the moment.

            And she let him.

<0> 

           

            Albany opened her eyes and started with surprise.

            Milo, showered and dressed to go out, had drawn one of the sitting room chairs next to the bed, level with her head. He sat, his chin resting on his gloved fist, regarding her. His expression was as close to rage as she had seen since her first tangle with Raul.

            Pushing herself up, she was about to ask him what was wrong when she saw a battered manila folder in his hand. Its import stole the question from her lips.

            His tone was murderous. “Why—?”

            “For Fanny.”

            “No!” he thundered, but so quietly. “Why did you involve Joe?” He thrust himself from the chair and strode across the room. “This was no one’s business but yours and mine!”

            “I wanted you to know! I wanted you to know for Fanny’s sake.” She sat up, tucking her feet beneath herself, drawing her nightgown tight across herself. “I thought that if you heard it from Joe…from a friend—”

            “Joe is my secretary, not my confidant! I had mistakenly thought you fit that role!”

            Stinging, she paused, studying him. “I wanted you to have the facts, Milo. Not opinions or stories. The truth. But you’re right; I assumed. I’m very sorry.”

            His hand clenched, the folder curling further to the sound of protesting leather. “You knew I researched your past.”

            “But how extensively? You knew my name and where to find me, certainly, but how far back you went—”

            “I looked as far back as I felt I needed to…for Fanny. Anything beyond that was for me and me alone!”

            Albany was acutely aware of the warmth of the room, though her limbs felt numb. Her gaze fell to her hands, limp in her lap. “I’m sorry.”

            Still clutching the folder, Milo spun on his heel and left the room. Straining, Albany heard the chime of the elevator, and she willed her muscles to relax. Scooting to the edge of the bed, she rose and drew off the nightgown, dropping it on the bed as she made for the bathroom.

<0>  

            From the taxi, she called Joe, eager to make her apologies. Milo’s secretary was warmer in her gratitude than Albany expected.

            “I don’t think I’ve ever heard him so…shocked,” Joe admitted. “But I know why you’re calling, and I’ll tell you what I told Milo. I will never say anything. You have nothing to fear from me, ever.”

            Albany desperately wanted to ask about Simon and Lawrence, but that would be calling Joe a liar to her face. Two monstrous mistakes in one day would be too much.

            She had to trust.

            “He left, didn’t he?” she murmured, looking up at the gray sky beyond the theater as the cab slowed.

            “He called from Newark. He’s taking a commercial flight.” There was a pause before Joe went on more softly. “He’ll be fine. He just needs to think things through.”

            Albany nodded, sniffing back bitter tears.

            “Albany,” Joe whispered into the silence. “Knowing what I do…knowing the woman you’ve become, I think you’re amazing. Milo couldn’t do better, and when he realizes it, he’ll be back. Trust me.”

            Unable to maintain her control, Albany curled over, silently screaming, nodding, weak with relief. She managed to croak out her thanks before Joe released her. Closing the phone, she hugged her knees.

            The cabby twisted toward her, a box of tissues in hand. “I turned the meter off. You take your time, okay?”

            It only took a handful of seconds before she unfurled, plucked a pair of tissues from the box and began drying her face. “Thank you.” She forced herself to smile and he replied in kind.

            “The show goes on, right?”

            Her smile grew. “Yes. Yes, it does.”

<0>  

            Three hours later she was in costume, make-up and under the hands of the house photographer. She smiled, pouted, clung and leaned with each direction and immersed herself in the realm of her choice. Laughing with co-workers, spontaneously singing from the sheer joy of ability, she found a place in her heart to forgive herself.

And Milo.

Joe’s approbation was an unexpected kindness, and the secretary’s confidence in Milo’s recovery did more for Albany than her own thoughts.

Trust was not one of Albany’s gifts. What little she had collected over her lifetime she meted out sparingly. But the desire to learn and grow dominated her soul. She would learn to trust Joe’s opinion, their shared faith in Milo’s love of her and her own love of him to make reparation. What she had done was done with him in mind, no one else. There was no drama, no self-loathing involved. No one knew Fanny better than Milo, in her mind, and his decision as to what level of exposure his niece would be subjected to was of paramount importance. It meant nothing to her that Joe knew or that Fanny would know in time. What mattered was Milo.

Clinical was the tone she envisioned for the retelling of her troubled youth, and what she thought she had presented him with. She didn’t doubt that when he realized this fact, he would indeed come back.

And then she would know if she was free to make the confession he longed to hear, or if she had misjudged him, and her past was too much for him and, by extension, Fanny.

Secure in this conclusion, Albany gave herself a mental hug, promising a happier outcome, and turned her thoughts to what she wanted for dinner. She would treat herself, she decided, to whatever her stomach chose.

 

 

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