TITAN (3 page)

“Well, the world says you are good with
words, but besides them?” She smiled again and this time she noticed him suck
in a breath and stare right at her lips, then her eyes then her lips again.
Surly this man, this man who can have any woman in the world, did not pick her
up at a K-Stop because he thought she was pretty.

“Pretty…um…pretty late,” he
whispered.

“Yeah, thank God I am off
tomorrow.”

“Yeah, pushing a mouse around all
day must be tough,” he played.

“It’s not the mouse, it’s the
general public. You should know all about that.”

Elsa burst in again with the food.
“If I can get you anything else,
anything
, let me know.”

She winks at Tite and then
disappears again.

How the hell am I supposed to
eat?
Jordy thinks, as she picks up her fork. Why didn’t I just get a bagel
and pick at it? I had to order the usual and look like a total fat ass in front
of
him
! Her head still racing, but the night catching up with her, she
threw caution to the wind and took a bite.

He was staring at her again, he
wanted to hurt that mouth, he was sure of that.
A
perfect mouth, her top teeth were perfect and straight and her bottom teeth
were a little crooked, with a little bit of the jagged bottom showing when she
smiled. It didn’t hurt her, not at all.

She was beautiful, with long black
hair, a perfect nose, long eyelashes, large grey eyes, or green or blue, they
were blue. Fuck, he couldn’t tell.

He definitely wanted her. He was
uncomfortable with how attracted he was to her. He had been with far more
beautiful women.

He wanted nothing but sex from her,
he was sure of that too.

Nothing more than to just get in,
get out.

But looking at her was fun, and it
wouldn’t be tonight, it was too late. He could tell she wouldn’t last much
longer. This would have to wait, which was fine, he was game. But was she? She
acted like it.

These women, you can never tell
what the fuck they are thinking. He wasn’t about to go after her,
hell no
,
she will either make this easy or she won’t. Either way, this was better than
snack food at home, reruns and an empty bed.

“Excuse me,” Jordy pipes up, “my
phone is going crazy. I just need to let my friends know I am okay.” She
paused.

”Not that I would tell them who I
am with, and my boyfriend is probably wondering where I am.”

“Boyfriend?” It was a question from
him but he already knew the answer.

He could still get what he wanted
from her and it would actually be easier this way, but as he was thinking that,
he could feel a little rumble in his gut.

He didn’t like it.

He had learned to ignore that over
the years. It didn’t matter. She didn’t matter. This was all getting boring
really quick.

She stuck her hand up a distance
away from the table to indicate she would just be a just a second. She
returned, carefully scooting her chair back up to the table.

“So, Jordy, how long have you been
with your boyfriend?”

“Two and half years.”

What the fuck was I thinking? He
smirked and looked down at his watch. Almost 4 a.m. He started to finish his
plate.

“When we met at the K- Stop I
didn’t have time to tell…”

He cut her off.

 “No big deal, and for the
record, this is just breakfast,” he pauses, “but, if you were single...”

“If I was? You would chew me up and
spit me out.” She smiled like it was an invitation.

 Tite leaned in and said,
“Something like that.”

“Well, he is a good guy, he loves
your music and I would never cheat on him” she taunted.

As if you have something to play
with, Jordy!

Damn, she thought, he keeps looking
at his watch.

 
Just tell him you’re tired
and thank him for breakfast
.

“I can see you need to go, thank you
for breakfast.” She grabs her purse, stands and faces him.

“Fucking awesome meeting you,
really.”

She is stopped short by his hand
grabbing her wrist.

Her heart leapt into her throat,
she almost went to her knees.

She was on fire for him and it wasn’t
because of who he was, being in the same room with him was too much. He was
stroking her wrist now. Her heart was racing.

“Alright, you have a boyfriend, I
don’t know why I wasn’t expecting that, I should have, there’s an elephant in
the room, what’s his name?”

“Tony.”

“Well, Tony is lucky,” he stroked
her wrist, knowing the effect it would have. She parted her lips slightly and
he started spinning his web. She would give in, they all do.

She yanked her arm from him and leaned
down inches from his face, “I am drunk so this gives me the ability to tell you
this. You are probably the only cheat exception I would ever fucking make, but
you see, I would be too tired and drunk to remember it, and while it might be
another walk in the park for you, it would mean a lot more to me, so why throw
away two and a half good years for a memory I will barely have. I want to, but
it’s pointless, it’s late. You’re obviously bored because you have looked at
your watch a few times, fuck; I was really hoping this would end differently.”

“How?” He was standing directly in
front of her, his shoulders squared as if ready to battle, a little smile
playing on his lips, his eyes serious.

She was now more aware than ever of
her breath, hair, the way she looked, felt.  

He was TITAN.

She was so attracted to him, she
keep replaying how many endless hours she had watched him, listened to him. She
had watched his life unfold in the media.

But this?

This was entirely different. This
was an attraction to the man, not the myth. He was looking at her eyes, her
lips.

“I… I have to go right now…,” she
fumbled with her purse for money.

“Are you fucking serious?”

He was sure she was kidding.

Who the fuck was she kidding?

He wanted to grab her and shut her up,
but he just stood there staring at her.

“I have to get some sleep, this has
been so cool and I want to h… h… hang out with you, but I have to use my head
here.”

She was stammering and scared of
the way she felt, she didn’t want to lose her cool anymore than she already
had.

“Alright, alright, Jordy. Where do
you work?”

“Schaffer’s Insurance off of
Broad
and Fifth
^.
”

“I will walk you out, I need to get
home.”

He throws an obscene amount of
money at the table just as Elsa breezes in, and is immediately saddened that he
is leaving.

He is a legend, a fucking living
legend, and you are cutting your time with him short because you are what,
Jordy?

Scared?

Jordy was kicking herself. Her face
was suddenly on fire and she knew her cheeks were turning red.

She was starting to lose her grip.

They walked out to their trucks and
to her surprise, he walks to her driver side.

“Well, thank you, er… it’s been
really great and I am sorry to be so jumpy, I am just drunk and tired and I
will never forget this… really.”

She said the words so fast she had
to recall the sentence in her mind to make sure it made sense. Tequila? Never
again.

She would never sleep again after
this.

“Jordy,” he whispered, and gently
grazed her bottom lip with his finger.

“You’re welcome. For breakfast, and
f…f… for everything,” he teased.

He moved in swiftly and opened her
door. “I am no gentlemen, I promise you, and if we both weren’t so tired, I
wouldn’t let you get away so easy.”

“I wouldn’t try.”

She could barely breathe.

She sat into her car quickly her
mind racing. She gripped the steering wheel feeling faint as she watched him
climb into his truck.

He touched my lip! Her head
screamed.

And just like that, he was gone.

She watched his truck pull away.

Gone.

“Soooo instead of going home, you
stopped at K-Stop? Titan followed you there and picked you up and took you out
to breakfast?”

“Angie, I am telling you the
truth.” Jordy says, exasperated and too tired to think straight.

“He touched your lip with his
finger and made it clear he wanted your
ass
and you ran like a scared
little girl because of Tony?”

“YES, YES, I totally fucked it up
in that respect. I cut off our time together and I ran away.”

“Well, good job, Jordy, at least if
you had gone home with him we would have something to talk about! Still, this
was fucking
Titan
. Oh, I hate you.
Me
and half
of the world’s women
hate you
!”

“I would have been a one nighter
and that’s all she wrote. I would have lost Tony and then what? Had a foggy
memory of screwing him and no Tony? Not worth it. Oh, but so worth it. I don’t
know.” She put her hands in her head and sat there. She hadn’t touched the pile
of junk she had gotten for them to eat last night. That was all she had left of
him. Nothing else.

Just a 30 minute conversation in a
diner.

“So, will he call you? Do you
think? Will you see him again?” She sounded almost desperate, the way Jordy
felt, desperate for another chance at seeing him.

“Hmm… Angie, let’s think about it.
Um no, he won’t call me. He never asked for my number and it could never happen
again and how the fuck
am
I supposed to act now? Tony
wants to see me and I keep blowing him off.  This is so stupid.”

Jordy had pretty much cried and
screamed the whole way home.

Once she woke up from her hangover
coma, she called Angie over and spilled the whole story. Just hoping someone
could help her shed some light, or at least tell her she wasn’t an idiot for
passing up a chance to be with him.

“You’re an idiot,” Angie said,
condemning her.

“Angie!” Jordy said, in her ‘you’re
not helping’ tone of voice.

“No, really, you are a total
fucking idiot,” Angie said, laughing at her, but helping to cushion the blow
once she saw Jordy’s face fall. “Okay, so you acted like a grown up. You didn’t
jump into bed with the hottest, most emotionally unavailable man in the world.
You acted a little nervous, but you didn’t lose your head. He obviously thought
you were hot, which you are, Jordy, everyone knows it. It’s a big fucking
compliment coming from
him
! You just have to get over it and move on. My
head is pounding, do you have anything?” she said as she rummaged through the
cabinets.

She grabs two Tylenol and pops them
immediately.

She moved toward the fridge.

 “SCORE!”

Jordy knows immediately that it’s the
chocolate milk and it will be her only smile of the day.

“I am going to pretend this one is
his and I am drinking Titans’ milk, damn it. You lucky bitch!”

But she didn’t feel lucky, she knew
the hangover wasn’t helping, but she felt lost. She had so much love for Tony,
but this was something else entirely. She had to get a grip. She had to think
of it as what
was,
a memory.

She told Angie the story one
hundred more times and then dosed herself with Tylenol PM to help her sleep it
off.

Sleep off the excitement, the anger
at
herself
for acting like a fumbling idiot, the
chance to sleep with him, the… everything.

She drifted off, dreaming of a
superstar grazing a finger over her lip remembering her words, “I wouldn’t
try.”

“Alright clowns, this shit isn’t
funny, who the fuck dreamed this one up?”

Tite can’t help but smiling at the
newest prank at K.I.T. studios.

There were blow up dolls and sexual
lotions and toys everywhere, except the equipment. There was blow up doll mouth
open giving the mic a faux blow job.

“You fuckers ain’t got shit on me,”
he brags as his last prank is still talked about at every meeting.

He loves the way they play but
today he was distracted, as he spat out orders.

“Clean these bitches up, but
Jessie, save yourself one, we know your wife is a bitch and you’re lonely.” He
chuckles, seeing Jessie take offense.

His mind drifted back to that face.

He immediately decided to call her,
but then remembered her words, “I wouldn’t try.”

He had her already, he knew it, but
he wanted to see her and he didn’t want to admit it. Trouble, this bitch is
trouble.

She has a boyfriend…
Tite,
let it go!

Get a little touch from one of your
regulars and forget her.

“Jordy.” Tite whispers, smiling. He
liked everything about her. Her raspy voice, her name. Yeah, he would call her.

“Who’s Jordy?” Jessie asked,
puzzled. Tite winced like he had been hit. Now you’re fucked.  Jessie
heard you and everybody heard him.

Fuck.

“Track three,” he orders Jessie,
dismissing his question.

“Tite,” Jessie whispers, “who is
Jordy?”

Tite’s look scares him into
submission and Jessie takes his place at the soundboard. Tite knows he wants to
know who Jordy is.

This is not good.

“We on three, or what?” he snaps.

3:30 p.m., Jordy, only and an hour and
a half to go, you can do it, you have almost faked your way through today, and
you can do it again tomorrow. She looks at the clock on her desk again.

3:31 p.m.

“Fuck,” she mutters under her
breath.

Tony is texting her again.

Tonight, babe?

What the fuck is going on with you? Did
something happen at the Red Room?

She answered him:

No babe, really, I am fine.

I just feel terrible.

Give me today and I promise I will make
it up to you tomorrow. Love you.

Call you tonight

His message read

Alright but I know something’s fucked up

Something is fucked up, Tony. I had
breakfast with one of the most famous men on the planet, a dream come true, a
crazy dream that’s completely fucked me for work, home, friends, and ever
eating breakfast again.

Dramatic, Jordy. Stop being so
dramatic.

This shit will pass.

God, please let it pass.

Her intercom interrupts her self
torment.

“Jordy, line 2, a quote, they asked
for you”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,
fuck.

I am just here to role play.

Damn it. The last thing she wanted
to do today was work.

Well, at least it will keep her
mind off of
him
.

“Afternoon, Schaffer Insurance,
this is Jordy, how can I help you?”

Jordy can barely sound like a
human, let alone a cheerful one.

“Yessss… My name is Ahab
Barroworsniager and I need a quote on insurance.”

Jordy can barely understand this
guy, the accent is so thick and terrible and how the hell do you spell
that
name?

“Okay,
sir, what
type of insurance are
you looking for?  Home or auto?”

“Yes”

“Yes? Yes, home or yes, auto?”

“Yes”

“Okay, let’s start with your name.
How do you spell it?”

She cued up her quote page, ready
to type.

“T-I-T-A-N, but you can call me
Tite or Phillip, but no Phil, I hate that shit.”

She heard him crack up in the
background, that menacing laugh.

She felt the terror race through
her whole body.

It was even worse sober than it was
when she was drunk.

There was an unbelievably long
pause and Jordy starts to laugh uncontrollably as her co-worker gives her an
awkward stare. She is beside herself with excitement. How did he find her?

She told him
!

He had asked her where she worked.

She forgot she had told him where
she worked. She had spent so many hours going over that night in her head, but
she had forgotten the most important part.

Damn it, this guy already had the
advantage of being, well,
him
.

She had to give it to him though,
he was good. Getting up to shut her door, she stubbed her toe and yelled, “FUCK
YOU!”

“Uh, ok, Jordy you were just
laughing, I was ju...”

She cut him off.

“No, Tite. Not you. I stubbed my
toe; I was closing the door to my office.”

“Potty mouth, eh?”

“Takes one to know one.”

His lyrics would make her grandpa
roll over in his grave.

Her mother couldn’t stand his
music. But she could listen to him for hours without stopping. He seemed to put
her in a trance with every single song.

She once crossed the country on a
road trip, listening to one CD, over and over, and it never got old.

“Yeah, yeah, listen, I am sending a
car to pick you up after work. Be ready and leave your truck there, I will make
sure your shit stays safe,” he orders, as if off of a menu.

“Uh, where am I going?”

She was terrified and her voice
gave it away.

Was he going to take her up on the
sex she so blatantly said she would have with him? He had to know she was
drunk. He had to know she just couldn’t go somewhere and screw him!

“Don’t, Jordy. I’ll let you keep
your angel wings. For now,” he teased, as if he already knew what she was
thinking.

“Okay, I will see you then,” she rasped,
she could barely breathe.

Fuck. This man was ruining her
life.

It wasn’t enough that he was the
biggest rap star in the world, the most successful, and the most sought after,
too, by women who worshipped him, just like her. In this dangerous situation
she was really all his.

She knew it already. Because of
who
he was first, but then she couldn’t imagine feeling this
way if she hadn’t looked into his eyes, felt his hand on her wrist, felt his
touch on her lips.

“And, Jordy?” Still a little
teasing in his voice.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Please don’t listen to P.M. Dawn
when my boy picks you up, it’s just embarrassing really, for you, that is.” He
did his psycho laugh now, the one that he does on his CD’s. Her eyes widen.

That laugh is real.

It is real, and this is the real
him
.

“I’ll think about it,” she says, in
an almost normal voice.

“See ya,” and he hung up.

SLOOOOOW down clock, SLOOOOOW
down.

Please, Dear God, let time go by
slowly.

She had spent the better part of
the past hour staring at
herself
in the bathroom
mirror. She looked like a professional, working woman, with a little sexy on
the top with cleavage poking but still professional.

She had on a long black ankle
length form fitting skirt, it fit her well and she looked slimmer in it. Her
hair was in a long sleek black ponytail. She had carefully reapplied her make
up to make her eyes look like smoke and her lips a pale pink. She smelled good.
She had shaved her legs twice this morning in an all-out fit, to try to forget
him. She couldn’t think of one thing in her closet that was suitable for
something like this. She was so engrossed in him
already
!

4:51 p.m.

Damn it!  Nine minutes.

Where the hell is he going to take
me?

Not his house, surely not his
house. I can’t outlive that memory.

4:52 p.m.

She had to get a hold of herself.

Suddenly, she remembered the two
Xanax she got from a girlfriend last week.

Thank you, God
.

She popped both under her tongue
and let them melt away.

“That’s how you do it.” Jenny said
when she gave her the first one. “That way, it works quicker.” Jenny the junkie
now seemed like Jenny the genius.

The pills were already working.

Ahh…the faux feeling that
everything was right with the world.

Don’t let the adrenaline win,
Jordy
.

By the time the black truck pulled
up, she was perfectly calm. She knew she was going to see him again, and be
fucked up
again
, but she couldn’t deal with this completely sober. This
was too much.

She slipped inside and barely
greeted the driver. She gave him a brief smile and let her imagination go as
they pulled out of the parking lot.