Shell Shocked

Prologue

SHELBY

July 1991

The cacophony of chaos hit me as soon as I walked into the kitchen. The clattering of plates, the hiss of something fat laden hitting hot cast iron, the loud, low hum of the dishwasher. The laughter of the servers intermixed with the cursing of the cooks. A night and day difference in atmosphere from the quiet din of the dining room at Angie’s Bistro. It was my first day as a server, and my trainer, Naomi was giving me the tour.

I’d decided I needed a better serving job than my casual breakfast and lunch gig at the Sunshine Cafe if I wanted to move out of my parents’ house and be less dependent on student loans. It was the summer before my sophomore year at UW Milwaukee where I was chasing an English Lit degree.

Angie’s had seemed upscale enough to make decent money, but not too stuffy. I didn’t love the idea of having to figure out parking downtown, but at least it was close to school.

Naomi pointed to the dish pit. “That’s Andy over there. And Miguel. We all do our best to scrape our plates and get rid of trash to make their job easier. They have us trained well.” She winked at Andy, and as he smiled and blushed, I was willing to bet he liked her for more than just her courtesy. She turned my attention to the prep tables. “That’s Steph, and our pastry chef, Gina.” Swinging back around to the line I caught sight of a head towering above the pass-through expo shelves. A figure well over six feet tall, topped with waves of dark hair and a black bandana used as a headband.

Naomi pointed to a large, bearded ginger and his thinner counterpart. “That’s Chef Grant, and his sous chef, Juan.” Finally, she pointed to the tall, dark haired line cook, “And last but not least, Ari.”

When she said his name, Ari turned his head, gave me a quick glance, then turned his attention back to his pan. Suddenly he spun toward me again—a full on double take. I had not been expecting the full lips and a jawline as sharp as the knives on the wall. My mouth went dry. Naomi gestured to me, “This is Shelby.”

I waved awkwardly at everyone and we headed off for the next part of the tour.

“Ari?” I tried to come off as casually curious about his name while at the same time hoping Naomi would tell me every single thing she knew about him.

“I know, cute right? His name is Aristotle. Something about his mom being obsessed with Greek philosophy. I don’t know why he works here, though, His dad is David Ristow.

“David Ristow, as in ‘it’s your money, honey’ David Ristow?” The owner of the largest investment firm in the Milwaukee area, his face was plastered on billboards and on TV, both in commercials and as frequent fixture front and center at most home Bucks’ and Brewers’ games. It was weird that his son was working as a line cook.

“He must still get some money from Daddy, though. He has a really nice car and a huge apartment on Lake Drive. He has parties all the time, so you’ll probably get to see it.

“Cool.” I said, as I was trying desperately to appear as such.

About a week later it was just one of those shifts. Awful, cranky, demanding guests, a bad case of the dropsies, and I couldn’t engage the server’s multi-tasking function in my brain for the life of me.

“Hey!” I shouted in a full panic in the general direction of the kitchen line. “Can you put a rush on table fourteen? I completely forgot to put in their order!”

Ari turned around and bent down to peer at me through the pass. “It’s always best to address one of us by name and wait for ‘heard.’”

His tone was condescending, and I bristled at being corrected.

“Now, what’s the magic word?” Ari asked, his eyes boring into me. I never noticed how vividly green they were, offset by thick, dark lashes. My stomach flipped.

“What? Oh, sorry. Please.”

The edges of his mouth turned upwards into a subtle, mischievous grin. He put his hand to his ear. “What was that?”

“Please.”

“One more time?”

I sighed exasperatedly. “Please, Ari!”

He grabbed the ticket giving me a full closeup view of his fully tattooed, sinewy forearms. He stared me dead in the eyes and cooed, “Damn, baby. I love it when you beg.” No one else had heard him—it wasn’t a joke for the masses. It was meant just for me.

I froze. I had no idea how to respond to that. He’d barely ever said two words to me before and now what? Teasing? Flirting? Just being plain creepy? In any case, my rattled server brain would certainly not be recovering that night, and I felt sorry for my poor tables.

“I’ll put a rush on this for you, Shelby. Don’t worry.” He winked, and my knees nearly buckled at the sound of my name from his mouth.

That night we both finished up around the same time. He had a healthy head start out to his car, a black, sporty BMW he’d parked all the way toward the back of the lot. I caught him turning back to look at me twice, once even making a complete three-sixty as he was walking. He got into his car and sat still. I was parked close enough to see that he was staring at me, watching me get into my car. It wasn’t until I started it and began to pull out of the space that he finally started his engine.

Every day after that, I started to get butterflies on the way to work. Or as my friend Kendra and I would call them, “butter flutters.” This was the way we’d describe the way thinking about kissing a boy made our stomachs feel. We’d been best friends since fourth grade, and being immersed in Christian education, we were sheltered and awkwardly naive for most of our adolescence. We’d have made Sweet Valley High look tawdry.

I would go out of my way to ask favors of Ari as sweetly and politely as I could, every chance I got. “Ari, may I please have an extra au jus?” Heavy emphasis on the ‘please.’

He would deliver what I’d ask for with a wicked smile and whisper, “That’s my good girl.”

And I’d roll my eyes at him, but only because I needed to deflect how unhinged it made me when he’d said that. Like that.

There were other nights I’d see his car in the parking lot on my way out. Even when I was sure his shift had ended hours before. Even if I hadn’t seen him in the kitchen at all. And always, when I would get in my car and start it, I’d pull out of the parking lot and see his headlights come on in my rearview mirror.

Weeks later, Naomi and I were headed to Ari’s house for a party. He would be seeing me out of uniform for the first time and I desperately wanted to make an impression. I decided to wear a yellow and black hippie sundress with spaghetti straps and my Doc Marten combat boots.

Ari’s duplex was indeed on Lake Drive complete with a view of Lake Michigan from his front porch. This was most definitely not something he’d be able to swing on a line cook salary.

As we walked in, I was surprised at the casualness of the event—there were only about eight people in the living room milling about with EMF’s “Unbelievable” playing at a perfectly reasonable decibel level in the background. Ari walked into the room, saw me, and stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes were dialed into me, onto my face, and then raked up and down my body. I might as well have been naked, exposed and vulnerable, yet wielding a strange and unfamiliar power at the same time.

Besides hours long make out sessions with plenty of groping and a bit of dry humping, I’d had sex exactly once. My high school boyfriend and I decided to take the plunge one day in our senior year when his parents were out of town. We were both so nervous, but when we started kissing on his bed, things just progressed organically, like they always had. We just didn’t have to stop this time. Or be afraid of someone walking in.

He was bending over backwards being so gentle and precious with me, but I didn’t want that. I was more than ready, and I wanted him to just pour himself into me without restraint. We didn’t have that pesky hymen to deal with after all––my cherry had already been popped during an unfortunate encounter with a set of monkey bars when I was in third grade.

It ended up being clumsy “insert Tab A into Slot B”, lasting approximately thirty seconds, but I was enthralled with how he’d lost all sense of himself while inside me. It made me feel strong and powerful. I didn’t get near the friction I needed, and I didn’t orgasm, but I wasn’t too worried. I held out hope that the next time would be better. I could show him what I liked.

But I never got the chance. The next day he was acting strangely distant.

It turned out he’d had an attack of conscience, specifically the kind baked in by religion. He’d felt what we had done was a sin of the highest degree, and we must never do it again. In my mind, it was only a minor transgression, already made by most of our friends on a regular basis, and easily forgiven. No need to be expecting the fire and brimstone.

I felt spurned. Rejected. I’d desperately wanted him to want me, to crave me, his desireoverriding his conscience at every turn. For weeks I would try and seduce him, to win over his indoctrinated righteousness, but it was no use. We broke up shortly after, and I found myself questioning my faith and pulling away from the church as a result of my bruised ego. By the time I started college, I was well on my way to being a full-fledged free thinker.

The way Ari was looking at me then, there was no doubt he’d be up for sin. Of any kind, at any time. And I doubted it would take much to tempt him.

He smiled and shook his head, willing himself back to reality.

“Hey, you made it!” he said, completely ignoring Naomi. Unfazed, she went to the kitchen to help herself. “Can I get you something to drink? I’ve got beer, tequila, vodka, gin, mixers.” His lips curled into a lopsided grin, eyes twinkling. “What’s your poison?”

Your mouth.

I looked at the Rolling Rock in his hand and pointed to it. “Beer’s fine.” I hadn’t experimented much in high school and didn’t have much experience with drinking, but Naomi was driving, and I needed a little liquid courage if I wanted to talk to Ari.

“I really like your place.” It was the lower flat, and not at all your typical twenty something guy apartment. No leather sectional, giant TV, or video game consoles in sight. He had a nice fabric matching sofa and loveseat, tasteful lamps, throw pillows, rugs, even a console table near the front door. I thought maybe Daddy owned the whole duplex.

“Thanks. My mom likes decorating our places. It makes her happy and I really don’t care either way, so I let her do her thing.”

I took a sip of my beer, and I could feel Ari’s eyes on my mouth. Being alone with him was so much more intense than I could have imagined.

“Would you like a tour?”

My mind conjured a scene where we’d be alone in his bedroom. He’d close the door. Look at me with those fiery green eyes. Pace and stalk me like an animal with his prey. The things that would happen next were things I’d begun to imagine when I was alone at night in my bed. I was grateful to have my beer at that moment; my mouth suddenly bone dry. It seemed every drop of moisture in my body got the message to migrate south, converging in the valley between my legs. Being an only child had blessed me with a spectacularly vivid imagination.

I followed him to a spare room with a leather couch, a giant flat screen TV, and at least three video game consoles. Ah, there it is.

“Yeah, I’d have a nicer place if I went back to school. My dad tried to cut me off when I dropped out but thank God my mom fought for me. He compromised and let me keep half my monthly allowance.”

“What were you going to school for?” It was the most he’d ever spoken to me that wasn’t laced with flirtation, but the blatant entitlement woven through everything he was saying was turning me off a little.

“I was going to Marquette majoring in finance. My dad wants me to get into the family business. Take it over someday. But I want to be a chef and open my own restaurant. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to make it happen.”

“Wow. That’s cool. But your parents aren’t supportive, I take it.”

“Not at all. My older brother, Dave, got into medicine. Became a surgeon. Obviously, my dad loved that, couldn’t find fault with that, and he knew he had two other kids to groom into good little soldiers for the Ristow Investment Group. My older sister Andrea works for him, but he’s always thinking maybe she’d get married, have babies and leave. Like he wouldn’t be able to count on her. She keeps saying she doesn’t want a family, but I’m not sure he believes her. And my mom is hoping it’s not true either, having grandkids is all she ever talks about. Dave and his wife Rebecca, who is also a surgeon, aren’t having kids.”

“Are you thinking you want to go to culinary school?”

“Yeah. I’m saving up, but I want to study in Europe or even Asia. I want to bring something unique to the table.”

“Literally. To the table.” I quipped. Ari’s face lit up with a wide, luminous smile of appreciation. I could tell he liked having someone on his side.

“It would be nice to have my parents’ help to open a restaurant too. At least some connections for investors; I mean my dad knows everyone. But he doesn’t believe in what I’m doing. I’m out here on my own.”

“But this way it will mean so much more when you make it, don’t you think? When you have a successful restaurant that you built on your own, not only will that show them, but think of how proud you’ll feel.”

“Hmm, I guess.” Ari smiled and lowered his eyes. When he raised them again to look at me, the fire was back, and I stiffened a little. He pointed a thumb toward the living room. “I…I should mingle. Help yourself to food or whatever.”

I watched him walk away feeling a little disappointed that our time alone was over. I sighed and went to go find Naomi.

A little while later she asked if I wanted to join her outside for a smoke. Ari and two others, Didi and Josh, were in the already in the backyard sitting around a defunct firepit passing a blunt.

“Smells of the Devil’s lettuce out here,” snarked Naomi. “Oh, by the way, Ari, Larry and Cindy are fooling around in your bedroom.”

“Jesus Christ. Guess I’ll be burning the sheets.” He turned to me holding out the joint. “Do you smoke?”

“Sometimes.” Kendra and I had gotten high a few times recently with her new boyfriend, Craig. I’d jumped at any chance I could get to see her since she’d been so wrapped up in him in the weeks since they’d started dating.

I took the joint and took a cautious hit. The last thing I’d wanted was to start coughing uncontrollably and make a fool of myself in front of Ari. Especially since his eyes were on my every move.

It was a hot and unbearably sticky July Sunday with more and more clouds gathering as the afternoon went on. While we were outside the sky had turned a dark gray, and I could smell and feel the heaviness of an impending storm. I looked up and felt a fat raindrop land on my face.

“Oh shit. It’s raining.” Naomi and Didi started walking back towards the house. Josh shrugged and followed them leaving me once again alone with Ari.

“Are you going to head in, too?” I asked him.

“Nah, I like the rain.”

“Me too.” I took a hit of the joint I had forgotten was in my hand. “Can I ask you a question?”

Ari held out his hand and curled his fingers twice, silently asking me to pass it back. “Shoot.”

“How come I always see your car in the parking lot? Like, long after your shift is done, or even on your days off?”

He sat still. A raindrop hit the joint and extinguished it. Ari tore off the wet part, twisted what remained of the end and re-lit it. “Well, some nights I was waiting for Larry or Juan ‘cause we had plans to go out after they got done.”

His explanation was thin, clearly not the whole story. I pressed, “And the other nights?”

He paused. “The other nights… the other nights.” It was as if he was reciting a poem. He looked down at his feet. “The other nights I want to make sure you get to your car safely.” He looked up at me from his chair and shrugged as if to play it off as a casual thing. “Sometimes I hear the guys in the dish pit or the bartenders talking about you. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. I grabbed my left thumb tightly with my right hand. It was a self-soothing mechanism I’d had since I was little, I’d often spend an entire dental visit or a whole parental lecture white knuckled. “Can I ask you another question?”

He tilted his head down and looked up at me through his long lashes. “Yes.”

Why was that the sexiest sound I’d ever heard? It was more than a simple yes. It was an invitation. Or a dare.

“Have you ever dated anyone at work?”

Ari put the joint to his lips and took a couple of deep, short burst draws. With his inhale held he croaked, “Dated?” He exhaled the plume of smoke and locked his eyes onto mine. “Or fucked?”

Even with my sheltered upbringing I’d heard the word hundreds of times. But it had never before sounded so loaded. And this was not only loaded but cocked and aimed directly at me. It was as if tendrils of ether, midnight black and laced with sin, had followed the word out of Ari’s mouth. Invading my ears and winding their way down, twisting around my insides and tying them into knots before diving deeper and deeper until they finally reached their intended, forbidden target.

More fat raindrops were falling now. “Either,” I said, the word barely audible.

“Actually neither. You’ve heard the expression ‘Don’t shit where you eat?’ Well, I keep it plain and simple. Don’t fuck where you work.” His eyebrows pinched. “Everyone is so fucking gossipy all the time. I just wouldn’t want to deal with all that.”

I bowed my head a little trying to hide my disappointment. He was telling me there wasn’t a chance, when I’d been so sure something was starting.

Just then, the heavens opened.

Ari and I looked at each other with a shocked amusement as sheets of rain soaked us in seconds. The mood and our expressions immediately shifted as we watched each other’s clothes cling scandalously to our bodies leaving nothing at all to the imagination. His white T-shirt molding to his muscular chest and abdomen, the thin fabric on my sundress affirming I wasn’t wearing a bra. Electricity that had nothing to do with the storm crackled wildly between us.

We stood for what seemed like a lifetime of devouring each other with our eyes. The rain felt warm and had a heady summer smell that added to the intoxication of the moment. I took a deep breath of resignation, since he had told me in no uncertain terms that nothing was going to happen, and I began to walk past Ari toward the house.

As I brushed past him, he grabbed my wrist. He spun me around and I crashed into him, our bodies pressed together, impossibly close.

He put his large hands on my face and brushed the wet hair out of my eyes with his long fingers. His eyes locked and loaded, fiery and frantic.

Holding my face firmly, his commanding mouth laid claim to mine. Lapping the rain off my lips before breaching them with his tongue. Pulling my bottom lip in between his teeth. I was convinced if he’d pulled away from my mouth and let the rain in, I would just let myself drown. I’d never been kissed like that before, like he was trying to consume me, and I was instantly all in. I silently proclaimed myself his new religion, my body the altar on which he would worship. I grabbed and pulled at his shirt, clawed at his shoulders trying to draw him closer. He was so impossibly tall, like a tree begging to be climbed.

He pulled away and smiled, taking my hand and leading me back toward the house. We had just walked under the covered deck where it was dry when, in two steps, he had me pressed up against the back side of the house. Kissing me again, moving my wet dress up and down my body, cupping my breasts. I could feel his erection through his thin wet khaki shorts pressing up against my belly, and I felt like I might spontaneously combust at any second. He pulled away from me and smiled again, tenderly brushing another piece of hair from my cheek. My eyes bounced around every raindrop on his epically beautiful face.

“First you beg. Now look at you. So fucking wet for me,” he said, his voice thick and dripping with wicked innuendo.

He chuckled at his own joke. I looked down nervously and giggled too. Was the Devil asking me to dance? I was terrified and enthralled at the same time. Before I knew it his expression transformed. His smile disappeared and his eyes burned with an intensity that made me shiver. In seconds he was pressed against me again, his fingers tangled in my hair, his mouth at my ear whispering his lusty inquisition. “Well, are you? Are you so fucking wet for me, Shelby?”

Oh my God. Was I ever. It was all breath and heat and magic.

Sex and sin.

I nodded against his shoulder.

“Show me.” He licked the rain off my neck, and I felt his hands make their way south. I spread my legs. I’d never needed anything more than I needed him to touch me just then, but I also needed to know. I screwed up my courage and asked, “What about don’t fuck where you work?”

He moaned as he pushed aside my panties, and his middle finger slowly began to infiltrate. “I’ll quit.”