“Come again?”
“You heard me.” She shoots me a challenging look. “Planning another one-night stand if we go out?”
“I thought you didn’t judge me.”
“I don’t. Be cool enough to return the favor.”
“What I’m doing isn’t judging, it’s friending.”
She rolls her eyes, but she laughs, too. “Fine. I’ll ask Gabi to come along. Will that make you happy?”
I tap my lips as if deep in thought. “I suppose. For now.”
“Cool. And in return, you keep your eyes open for someone you might want to sleep with more than once. Like a guy with a fuckable brain, not just a fuckable body. Deal?”
“A fuckable brain? That sounds grotesque.”
“You know what I mean. We’re leaving at seven. Dress cute.” Meg shakes a finger at me, then flounces off.
Work ends at five thirty, and then I take a quick shower. I’d planned to do laundry last night, but my lesson with the Angel ran long. We were working on a piece fromRent, and time got away from us. I think he would have gone on all night if I let him. Anyway, my failure to do laundry for two weeks means that after my shower, I discover I have no clean underwear. Not even my scratchy emergency thong or a threadbare pair of the granny panties I sometimes use when I’m on my period. The panties bin in my drawer is completely empty. And everything in the laundry bagsmellsbecause it’s been sitting there getting infused with the sweat stench from my dance clothes. I have no option but to go commando in a short skirt and hope for the best.
I pull on the clothes and do my makeup more hastily than I normally would for a night out. Maybe I should take more time getting ready, but I’m desperate to squeeze in a lesson with the Angel before I meet up with Meg and the others. For some reason, I can’t bear to go a single day without hearing the Angel’s voice. He speaks in my dreams sometimes, with the smooth, sexy tones of a 1920s crooner, and I’m always sorry when I wake up to silence.
“Today, we’ll work on strengthening your pelvic floor,” the Angel tells me. “You must learn to use your entire body to support the resonance of your voice. Engaging your abdominal muscles and exerting light downward pressure on your pelvic floor will help you extend and enrich the sound you produce without making you run out of breath too quickly.”
“Oh. And how do I strengthen my pelvic floor?”
“There are a number of methods. We’ll try an exercise first. Lie down, spread your legs slightly, and bend your knees.”
A simple enough request, and yet his voice is so decadently sinful that my mind immediately goes to some very naughty places. I arrange myself in the position he requested, on my back, knees bent. I can feel the chilly air of the stairway like a ghostly breath between my legs. Of all the days to run out of underwear…
Can the Angel observe me while in his spirit form? What if he likes what he sees? Can ghosts get turned on? And why amIaroused by this? God, I need sex. When I go out tonight, I might actually have to sleep with the guy I choose before I drug him, just so I can stop fantasizing about my spiritual voice coach.
“Now what?” I say faintly.
“Arms at your sides. Palms down.”
Is it my imagination, or does his voice sound nearer, more corporeal? More distinct?
“Inhale,” he instructs. “Lift your hips for me.”
Oh fuck.
I inhale, but it’s more of a gasp.
“That wasn’t a good breath,” the Angel reproaches me. “Try again. Engage the muscles of your pelvic floor. Lift, and hold that position while I count to fifteen. Breathe steadily. Here we go.”
Taking a full, deep breath, I lift my hips and maintain the pressure while he counts, but the delicate trickle of arousal between my legs makes it difficult to concentrate.
About halfway through my third attempt at the pose, my gaze locks on the door leading from the second-floor stairs to the hall. The narrow window in the door has been broken ever since I started coming here. But there’s something different about it today.
I lift my head, staring between my bent knees at the window. In the darkness beyond, I can almost make out the deeper black of a shape—maybe a head and shoulders. But I can’t tell if I’m imagining it.
Until the blackness moves.
With a startled gasp, I scramble to my feet, tugging down the hem of my skirt. “Angel?”
A few beats of silence, and then his cool voice echoes through the stairway, distant and reproachful. “You seem distracted. Perhaps we should end our lesson here.”
