Two more poets perform, and they fare a little better, inching into the nines.
“That’s Gloria,” Blaire says, pointing at the black woman climbing the stairs to the stage, preparing to perform. “She’s really good. She usually wins when she brings something original.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” I ask, then clarify when she gives me a blank stare. “Isn’t every piece performed original poetry?”
She sips her Coke from the straw and nods when she understands what I’m asking. “We all write our own poetry, but most of what you hear is rehashed. Some of them read the same thing over and over for months. That’s when the scores really drop, since it’s generally the same people here listening each time. If you want to score, you have to bring something fresh, which is why I write something new every month.”
“Can’t wait to hear it.” I can’t help but smile at her enthusiasm.
She twirls a tendril of loose hair around her finger and sucks on her straw, her eyes shifting to the woman onstage. My gaze doesn’t follow, even though I will it to. I can’t take my eyes off the smooth line of her jaw and the curve of her mouth, the nose that turns up slightly at the end. Her whiskey eyes are large and wide-set under arching black brows that flatten at the outer ends. She’s exquisite.
Fucking flawless.
“She’s done that one before,” she says with a scrunch of her nose, turning back to me, and I realize I didn’t hear a word the woman onstage uttered.
I reach for my scotch and knock half of it back in one swallow.
Blaire leans her shoulder into mine when I set my glass down and juts her chin at the mousy pubescent boy on the stage, reciting about coming out to his parents. “I’m next. Wish me luck.”
“Does break a leg apply in these situations, or is that just cliché?” I ask with a smile.
She smiles back and pushes up from her seat as the boy finishes and the scores go up. “I’ll take it.”
The MC reads off the scores, all in the mid to high nines, as Blaire waits at the bottom of the stairs. “And last, but certainly not least, we have a crowd favorite,” the MC says as Blaire starts up the stairs. “Our very own, Blaire Leon!”
Something inside me prickles when he catches Blaire by the waist on her way by and whispers something in her ear. She smiles and takes her place under the spotlight behind the mic. She takes a deep breath, then steps closer, lifting her head to the audience. Before she’s even said a word, there’s a whoop from the back of the room, followed by a “You go, girl!” from the poet, Gloria, who’s sitting at a front table with a group of others who have already read.
“They tell you when you’re a baby not to touch yourself,” Blaire starts with consternation on her face and the waggle of a finger. “When you’re a teen, they say: Don’t look. It’s dirty. That website is nasty. And besides, it’s not really like that. No one actually does that. No one sounds like that. It doesn’t feel like they make it look like it feels.”
She lowers her hand and her face softens. “Wait, they say, until you’re older. Wait, they say, until you’re in love.”
Her expression grows into a combination of wary and confused as she lifts a questioning hand, palm up to the audience. “But if sex is dirty, why would I do it with someone I love? If sex is dirty, then didn’t we all come from the dirt? What if I like the dirt?”
She pauses, rolls her head to the side and closes her eyes. Her hands smooth down her sides and splay on her thighs. “What if I want to get dirty?”
Her eyes open and search like a beacon through the dark room, locking on mine. She hooks her fingertips under the hem of her short skirt and I feel my cock respond, swelling at the thought of where she’s going—and where I’m fucking dying to take her.
“What if I want to roll in the mud until I’m so fucking filthy that I’ll never be clean again? Does that make me bad? Nasty? A whore? Does it mean I’ll never find love? A life? A man who respects me?”
She lets go of her skirt and her expression hardens. “And what about that man? How dirty is he? Does anyone even care if he’s caked with mud? Does anyone even notice?”
A strand of long, dark hair springs free when she gives her head an angry shake and cascades down the side of her face, partially covering one eye. “The answer, my friends, is no. He can be filthy and somehow that makes him hotter. It makes all us dirty girls want to get even dirtier with him.”
She’s heaves a few deep breaths, as if calming herself from the rant she was working herself into. When she continues, there’s a rasp of despair in her voice.