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“What do you mean, you don’t have a dress?  How can anyone pack for six months and not put in a dress?  I swear, Mel, sometimes…”

“Look, Mart.  I’m going on the road with a rock group.  Who knew there’d be a cocktail party?”

“Rafe Ariando knew,” retorted Martha Jane.

“Yes, he did,” said Mel.  “I wonder why he didn’t tell me.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The cocktail party was in New York City.  It was a corporate-benefit kind of thing, but there were going to be lots of musicians there.  The charity that was to benefit was one of those ‘let’s give violins to the underprivileged’ things.  Corporate sponsors paid big bucks to rub elbows with the music stars they imagined themselves to be when they sang in the shower or made love to their  mistresses.

Rafe Ariando invited Melody Jones to attend with him.  Well, actually, he commanded her to.  When Mel got her travel package from Murray, she saw that her arrival date in New York was two days earlier than when Rashad had said he was going.  She didn't think anything of it, just figured that Rashad was trying to squeeze out the last possible minute of family time.

Her first inkling that something was up was when she boarded the plane and was seated in the First Class section.  She was impressed and was wondering if she had somehow got Rafe’s tickets by mistake, when he dropped into the seat next to her.

What the hell?  Melody immediately looked around for others.  But it was only the two of them.  “What’s going on?” she asked bluntly.

Rafe grinned at her.  “Good morning to you too, Melody.”  Then he explained that he needed her to do something for him in New York, and he would have felt silly flying in First Class with her back in Coach.   “And I always fly First Class,” he added.

The thing he wanted her to do was to accompany him to a cocktail party and subtly ‘talk the kid up’ to any of her music cronies she might run across.

“Does Nick know about this?” inquired Melody, when the plane was in the air. 

She found it interesting that would-be corporate baron Rafael Ariando was not a good flyer.  During take-off, he gripped the armrest until his knuckles were white and stared straight ahead.  He watched the video safety instructions as if he were trying to memorize them, and he turned around to check when the video told him where the emergency exits were.  Melody pulled her crossword puzzle book out of her bag and ignored him.  Rafe didn’t like to admit to any weaknesses.  He sure wouldn’t want her witnessing one.

“No, Nick doesn’t know.  He can’t know, you see.  It has to all seem spontaneous.”

“C’mon, Rafe, there’s nothing spontaneous about promoting an album.”

“Trust me,” he said, as the flight attendant offered champagne or orange juice.  They both chose orange juice.

Trust him?  No way.  Rafe had managed to put Melody into a situation, without her knowledge or permission, that separated her from the others and seemed to make her complicit with management.  And he wanted her to keep it a secret!  That was a non-starter, she knew.  Oh, she might be able to keep it a secret from Nick, but the other guys knew the same people she did, and it wouldn’t be long before they found out.

Melody looked down at her puzzle.  36 across.  Horns of a ________.  D-i-l-e-m-m-a, she inked in the squares. 

That was for damn sure, she thought.  Either she did what Rafe said and didn’t tell the others up front, risking their distrust (she remembered Blaine’s theory of a spy in their midst) or she told them right away, thereby going against what were essentially her boss’ orders.  And what would they think if she told them?   That she was bragging?  Complaining?  Reporting in?

Melody didn’t even want to think about Nick’s reaction.  He was mad enough at her as it was.
At least, she guessed he was.  Their last conversation at the Fox and Fiddle had not been a pleasant one.  Having a week go by between that and the next one probably wasn’t a good idea, but it couldn’t be helped. 

‘I don’t have a dress.”

“No problem,” said Rafe.  “There are stores in New York.”

“I hate shopping.”  Melody felt like a stubborn child refusing to eat her broccoli.

Rafe gave a small sigh.  Then he looked her up and down.  “You’d be what – about a size 4?”

“Yes,” Melody replied cautiously.

Rafe looked down at her feet.  “Shoes are…?”

“Size 5,” said Mel.

“Okay, I’ll take care of it.”  Rafe sat back in his seat and pulled the in-flight magazine out of the pocket in front of him.

“Take care of what?” said Melody.

“I’ll have something sent over to the hotel,” he said.  “An outfit…dress…shoes…”

“You’re kidding?” said Melody.

Rafe set the magazine down in his lap.  “Unless you’d prefer to go shopping yourself.”

“I hate shopping…especially by myself.”

“Okay, then,” Rafe said patiently, although his lips were pressed together.  “I will have something sent over.  Trust me.  I have good taste.”

“But…”

“It’s a cocktail party, Mel.  It’s movers and shakers.  It’s my world and yours combined.  I need you to work your half of the room, but I can’t afford to have you reflect badly on me.  So, as fetching as your leather pants and vests are, they are not suitable for this function.  I’ll make sure the shoes aren’t too high.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Rafe.  I know how to walk in heels.  I do have a life outside the studio.”

“I know that,” he said.  And he did.  There was very little about her life he didn’t know.  Rafe Ariando covered all the angles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So what’s it look like?”  Martha Jane wanted details.

Melody looked over at the dress, hanging in plastic in the hotel closet.

“It’s black,” she said.  “Donna Karan.  Short, sleeveless, the skirt is a bit fuller.  But not poufy.”

“Cleavage?”

Mel sighed.  “Oh yeah, it’s pretty low-cut.  Anyone over 5’2” is going to get a good look at my chest tonight.”

“What about the shoes?”

“Strappy, sandal-things.  Heels.”  Melody was certainly going to get her chance to prove she could walk in high heels.

Some kind of domestic crisis intervened, and Martha Jane had to ring off.  Melody figured she’d save the rest of the description for their next conversation.  Because she knew that Mart was going to want to know that, along with the dress and shoes, Rafe had sent stockings, very sheer (he’d sent three pair, almost as if he knew she’d wreck the first pair before she had them on) and underwear – a black satin thong and black lace bikinis.  Mel had decided that if he asked her which pair she was wearing tonight, she was going to deck him.

But no bra.  No push-up, strapless, wonder-shaper contraption to go with the dress.  Mel didn’t assume for a moment that Rafe thought she had her own.  He had sent panties, after all.  No, Rafe wanted Mel’s chest right out there tonight.  She glanced again at the sleeveless dress.  He’d probably have the air conditioning turned up, so that his corporate buddies could get a flash of nipples as well.

Melody was no stranger to this kind of behavior.  Behind every person who actually did something musical in the music world was a host of ‘businessmen’ who called the shots and wrote the cheques.  And thought they could buy anyone.

Gary Madison had been the first to proposition Mel, but he had certainly not been the last.  She remembered with gratitude the lecture Stevie Ray had given her on the ride home from the studio that day. 

It had been embarrassing for both of them.  They stared out the window ahead of them and didn’t make eye contact.  Once Stevie Ray ascertained, to his infinite relief, that Melody was already aware of the basic facts of biology, he talked to her about life in the music world – how there were way more men than women, how almost everyone in a position of power was a man, how every man would want to have sex with her and how she should stay away from all of them.  They would promise her things, but they wouldn’t deliver, and they wouldn’t respect her when they were done with her.

“You have a huge talent, Mel, and you will make it in this business. You will, I promise you that, so don’t go selling yourself to some guy.”

Melody was hotly indignant.  “I’d never do that!” 

“I know,” said Stevie Ray, “but I felt it was my responsibility to tell you…to let you know what’s out there.”

“Okay, that’s cool.”

They drove in silence for awhile.  Then Melody spoke.  “But what if…you know…what if I want to…not with someone who wanted something from me, like you were saying, but what if I just liked someone and…wanted to.”

Stevie Ray was way out of his element on this one, but he tried his best and just hoped he didn’t do any harm.  “Well, first of all, you’re only fifteen, so don’t even think about it for at least three years!”

“I’m not!” said Melody, “I’m just asking, that’s all.”

“Okay.  Well…um…okay, there’s birth control.  You want to see your music career go up in flames, just get yourself pregnant!  And don’t rely on the guy – guys lie!  They’ll say anything to get laid.”

“Okay,” said Mel.

“And…um…safe sex…condoms.  That’s not a birth control thing, that’s a disease thing.  Promise me, Mel, that you’ll never have unprotected sex.  Promise me!”

“No glove, no love.”  Mel held up her hand and made a solemn vow.

There was another period of silence while both digested his remarks.  Stevie Ray prayed he was putting her on the right track.  He also prayed that she would never mention this conversation to anyone.

Melody sounded sad when she spoke again. “So then, how will I know?” 

“How will you know what?”

“Well, you said that guys will say anything to get laid…”

“Yes, I did.”  He wasn’t going to lie to her about that.

“So I’m guessing they’ll say that they love me.”

“Yeah, they’ll say they love you; they’ll say they respect you; they’ll say they’ve never done it before either; they’ll say it’s a way to prove your love, that if you love them, you’ll do it…”

“Have you said all those things, Stevie Ray?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Then how will I know…who the right one is?”

Stevie Ray took a deep breath and chose his words carefully.  “You won’t know for sure about them, so decide for yourself – what you want, how you’re feeling.  If you’re going to do it for him, because you think you’ll be pleasing him or because he wants you to, don’t do it.  Do it for yourself, because you want to, because it’s right for you.  Does that make sense?”

Melody nodded.  “Yeah it does.  Thanks, Stevie Ray.”

“But not for at least three more years!”

“Right.  Okay.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence and never mentioned the subject again.

Stevie Ray could see that Melody had listened to his advice.  As she matured, she got a lot of propositions from guys around the studio, who listened to her work magic out of her guitar and just assumed she was older than she was.  She turned them all down, usually with good-natured humor that got the message across clearly but left no hard feelings.

And every guy she turned down, along with those who hadn’t even asked, became her big brother, watching out for her.  So the occasional jerk who didn’t want to take ‘no’ for an answer got the word from more than just Mel.

She dated in high school.  Every guy there wanted to gets his hands inside her blouse.  For some of them, that’s all they wanted.  Mel had her own personal rule.  If a guy tried to feel her up on the first date, he didn’t get a second.  And if he couldn’t talk about anything but himself, if he had no interest in music, then forget it.

Some guys figured it out and lasted for a little while, getting to the point where she would let them play with her breasts, fondle them and suck them.  But that was it.  When they pressed her for more, using the phrases that Stevie Ray had warned her about, she just moved on.  Her response to “if you love me, you’ll do it” was “Well, I guess I don’t love you.”

Not that Melody didn’t want to go further.  She did.  She had urges that she wanted satisfied.  And she wondered how she was ever going to get that satisfaction.  She had a career building in the music world, and she didn’t want to endanger that.  And if she did it with one of the boys from school, well then, she’d be doing it with a high school boy, and she wasn’t sure it would be her satisfaction that would be uppermost in his mind.

Melody wasn’t going to go to college.  There’d been many long battles with her parents over that until Stevie Ray told them how much she was making for studio work now and how she would be able to work full time, as soon as she was available.  There was no point in threatening to kick her out of the house.  She was already planning to move to L.A., as soon as she could afford it.

The whole sex thing was starting to occupy way too much of her thinking time, so Melody decided to get it out of the way.  She celebrated her 18th birthday with a visit to the gynecologist and came away with a clean bill of health and a prescription for birth control pills.  She shoplifted a box of condoms from the pharmacy.  She felt so guilty about it that the next day she went back and slipped an envelope onto the druggist’s counter when he wasn’t looking.  It held the end flap from the box of condoms, complete with price tag and the full amount of money, tax included.

She was ready.  Now all she needed was the guy.  And he showed up in the form of Bradley Duggan.

Bradley Duggan was a college boy, the cousin of Patty Monroe, one of Mel’s school friends.  He and his mother had arrived for a two-week stay with the Monroes.  Bradley’s father had just left his mother, and she was not handling it well.  To tell the truth, Bradley wasn’t handling it all that well either, especially after he met the reason for it, a blonde cupcake only two years older than Bradley himself.

Patty prevailed upon Melody to go on a date with him.  The Monroe household had been turned upside down by Mrs. Duggan’s vacillation between hysterical sobbing and icy threats of revenge.  Patty wanted to get out of the house, to spend some time with her boyfriend David, to have some fun!  But she couldn’t leave Bradley behind.

The four young people drove out to the lake.  They swam and ate sandwiches.  Patty and David spent the first couple of hours with Mel and Bradley, but once they saw that the two weren’t totally incompatible, they disappeared into the bushes to make out.

Bradley Duggan was in his second year of college.  He wasn’t that tall, but he was gangly.  His arms and legs seemed to move independently of his brain’s wishes.  He wore horn-rimmed glasses but still squinted to see things in the distance.  But he had a good sense of humor, and he knew how to listen.

Melody and Bradley sat on a log on the beach and talked.  Since Bradley didn’t really like his life right now, he was more than interested in talking about hers.  Melody talked about music.  Bradley told her that he had no musical aptitude but that he liked to listen.  They talked about genres and groups. 

When he mentioned his favorite group and Melody confessed shyly that she had worked on the album, Bradley didn’t express surprise or doubt.  “You must be very talented,” he said simply and then asked her if she wanted to walk for a bit.  He kissed her goodnight at the end of the evening and said, “Thanks for getting me out of the house.”

Patty called early the next day.  “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, did you have a good time?  Did you like him?”

“Sure,” said Melody.  “He’s a nice guy.”

“Well, I know he’s not much in the looks department…”

“He’s not that bad,” said Melody.  “He just hasn’t grown into his face yet.”  Melody thought Bradley was one of those guys who would get better looking with age.

“Will you go out with him again?” asked Patty.  She sure hoped so.

“Sure,” said Melody.  “If he wants to go out with me.”

“Oh, he does.  He does.”

So Melody and Bradley became a couple for the next week and a half.  The first few dates, they went along with Patty and David, but that got awkward fast.  By the end of the week, Bradley started picking Mel up in his mother’s car.  They explored the surrounding terrain, often finding an out-of-the-way spot to sit and talk. 

The first time he picked her up, Bradley opened the compartment between the seats and pulled out the CD they had discussed on their first date.  He pointed at her name way, way down in the list of credits and said, “You’re a star.”

Melody laughed and said, “No, I’m not.  Maybe some day, but not yet…”

“Well, you’re my star,” replied Bradley, and he proceeded to treat her like one.  He never made a move until he was sure Melody wanted it. 

And she wanted it.  She wanted it bad.

Bradley was a very good kisser.  He used his tongue very well, not just attacking hers with it, like the high school boys did.  And he realized that there was more to the experience than a straight line from mouth to neck to breasts.  He kissed her face, all over it, forehead, eyelids, cheekbones.  He nibbled her earlobes and licked her collarbone.  He made love to her neck like it was a separate person.

In an ironic twist, Melody was left to wonder if he would ever get around to moving lower.  He did, slowly but surely, and each night, they went a little further.  By Tuesday of the second week, they didn’t even bother driving around, just drove out to a secluded spot they had found and spread a blanket on the grass.  Bradley taught Melody a lot, showed her how to receive pleasure and to give it.  And on the final night, he entered her body fully and turned her into a woman.

Bradley Duggan.  Melody smiled to herself.  She hadn’t thought about him in years.