by Toby Neal
I finally let go of his jacket and take off my helmet, shaking out my waist-length tumble of blond curls. “Where are we?”
He hangs his helmet on the handlebar of the bike and puts mine on the seat. “Home.”
“You have horses?”
“My mom does.”
He snaps off the bike’s headlight. Total darkness falls, warm and velvety compared to the chill outside. I hear a soft thump of hooves in the straw and a snort. I love horses. I used to ride on Saint Thomas when I was younger.
“Got any lights in here?”
Magnus must have already been going to turn them on because almost immediately, warm spots of brightness glow into life, bulbs dangling down over a couple of stalls.
“Hello, baby.” I approach and speak to the sleek black horse with a white star on his face, leaning his head over the stall door into the wide aisle. “Aren’t you a handsome beast.” I find a handful of dropped hay and hold it out to the horse, who nibbles it off my palm with velvety lips.
“Oh, what a honey you are,” I say, leaning close to stroke the horse’s neck, breathing in that horsy smell that has always made me happy.
“I like the way you say that.” Magnus’s deep voice stirs the hair beside my ear, sending a shiver sizzling down my nerves. “This is Onyx.”
I am still stroking the horse but now I turn, lean into Magnus, and for once he doesn’t move away. I tip my face up to look at him. The light bulb behind his head lights his shoulder-length hair in a dark halo that makes me think of fallen angels. But then, he’s always reminded me of a fallen angel, with his black-olive eyes and brooding mysterious presence that is somehow reassuring and always, always makes me feel good.
“I saw your billboard,” he says.
“I did too.” I bite my lip now, and glance up, but he’s backlit and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. “I never expected that. Kind of a shock to have that be my first modeling job.”
“Good God, woman. You’re a twenty-foot billboard in black panties!”
“And a bra,” I add. “I did have a bra on, too.”
“Not much of one.” He seems to be clenching his teeth. “I’ve been trying to be good, but that...” Words apparently fail. He grabs me, hauling me against him. Onyx jerks away with a little neigh. Magnus folds me close and kisses me hard.
Oh, so hard.
Our teeth click as our mouths collide, clumsy with too much wanting. I dive into the kiss and it suffuses my body with delicious feeling that uncoils from the center of me and shimmers out to my extremities and back again, rippling waves of sensation.
I don’t remember ever being this hungry, this desperate, for either Connor or Keenan, previous boyfriends who took me down a dark road.
But Magnus has been on my mind since I first caught sight of his long muscled legs protruding into the circle of the twelve-step meeting where we met. I’ve been trying to get him to this moment ever since.
The kiss has the quality of a motorcycle ride—all consuming, too much to process. Thinking isn’t possible, only feeling. Mouths hungry on each other, tongues tangling, I run my hands all over his big, hard body, feeling through his clothes what I’ve only imagined. His heavy shoulders. The broad solid chest, whose nipples tighten as I slide a hand under his shirt. A long ripple of washboard abs that shiver and clench under my hands. His back, a vast wall of muscle—and that’s when I feel something that stops me cold.
Tucked into a leather holster under his arm is a gun. I feel its chill, boxy shape lightly to make sure, scared I’ll accidentally set it off.
I tear my mouth from his, arching back. “You’re carrying a gun!”
He hasn’t let go of me. My hips are pressed to his. One big hand is spread over my breast, kneading and circling, the other is on my ass, doing the same. It feels glorious. The only thing that would be better than what he’s doing right now is if he had four hands, and was touching both breasts and both ass cheeks at the same time.
And we were naked.
“Yep. Gun. I’ll get rid of it in a minute.” He leans in for my mouth again.
“Magnus?”
There’s a voice calling his name. A woman’s voice.
Chapter 14
Now I push back and get some distance, and Magnus finally responds, but he doesn’t turn. I realize it’s because his erection was pressed against my belly.
“Hi Mom,” he says, perfectly calm and collected. “I brought home a friend.” He shrugs out of his jacket, and I think I see him wink at me as he folds it over his waist and turns to face his mother. “This is Pearl. Pearl, this is my mother, Raven.”
“Hi.” My voice comes out squeaky. “I was just meeting Onyx. What a beauty he is!”
She’s approaching and one of the dangling bulbs catches her in its spotlight. She looks amazing and way too young to be his mother. She’s dressed in a full denim prairie skirt, cowboy boots and a plaid lumberjack shirt hung with a heavy silver-and-turquoise squash blossom necklace. Black hair as long as mine streams over her shoulders and past her waist, but a dramatic streak of silver frames her face. Her eyes are deep-set, fringed by thick lashes, and the same color as Magnus’s.
“Hello.” She takes my hand, sandwiches it between both of hers. Those penetrating eyes look into mine and I have the distinct feeling I’m being probed somehow. “Where did you meet my son?”
I open my mouth. We’re supposed to have anonymity and not talk about the program, so I don’t know what to say.
“Met her at a park in Boston, Mom,” Magnus says easily. “We’ve been spending time together and I wanted her to see where I live. What are you doing out here?”
“I saw the lights. Wanted to make sure it was you.” She hasn’t let go of my hand and I don’t know what to do as her gaze seems to chisel into my brain.
“Well, now you’ve seen it was me and you’ve met Pearl. She’s cold from the ride on the bike.” Magnus slings an arm over my shoulders and pulls me to him. “We’re going in, Mom. See you in the morning.”
He hauls me beside him through the barn.
“Nice to meet you,” I call over my shoulder. She’s not looking at us any more, all her attention on Onyx as she strokes and pats the horse, her voice a low, hypnotic crooning.
She makes me shiver. Not in a good way.
Magnus feels that and squeezes me tighter as he opens the door of the barn. We trudge down a cleared path, patchy with the thin blowing of snow that’s begun.
“I can’t stay long without calling Rafe and Ruby,” I say reluctantly, wondering if his mother is coming in behind us. But then I spot another cabin, and that one has light coming from the windows and smoke from the chimney. His is lit dimly by an overhead porch light and there’s no fire going inside.
“Brace yourself,” he says, but too late as a big golden retriever hurtles out of a back room and heaves itself against me in enthusiastic greeting, emitting a loud bark.
“Oh, hello,” I say, dropping to my knees. The dog swipes my face with his tongue, and I’m fending him off, laughing, as Magnus turns on the overhead light and kneels beside a black potbellied wood stove.
“Meet Whiskey,” he says. “Whiskey, this is Pearl. Pearl, would you mind letting him out while I get the fire going? He should do his business.”
“Sure.” I open the door, and the dog bounds out onto the porch, barking joyfully. I see the dark shape of Magnus’s mother leaving the darkened barn. The retriever bounds across the patchy snow to greet her and she puts a hand on his head. I can feel her eyes on me even from this distance, and I lift a hand in a halfhearted wave.
Raven doesn’t wave back, and Whiskey bounds away to tinkle against a tree as she disappears into her cabin. I get the feeling Magnus doesn’t bring friends, female or male, out here very often.
“Hey.” He’s come up behind me, crossing his arms over me from behind in a cozy gesture that makes me lean back against the wall of his warmth. “Come inside. The fire’s going.”
“You have to tell me how you
’re a guy in recovery with a golden retriever named Whiskey.”
He squeezes my shoulder briefly, steps away from me into the kitchen. “One of the last things that I did before I got sober was almost hitting this stray pup wandering in the road. Swerving to avoid him, I wrecked my truck and hit a tree. I was shitfaced, but I got out and found the pup to see if he was okay. He’d been abandoned—skinny, matted, no collar—so I took him home. Named him Whiskey, to remind me that for me, drink is deadly.”
“Wow. Good story. Do you have anything to eat? Anything—low calorie?”
He laughs as Whiskey pushes past me into the cabin. “I can feed you, yes. We need to talk. I’d offer you a drink, but… we don’t do that, even if you were legal.”
He takes the gun out of the shoulder holster, sets it on a shelf above the stove. It’s the kind of gesture that appears habitual. Apparently he’s often carrying the weapon. I frown at it, at the matte blackness of it that seems to soak up light.
“Why do you carry a gun?”
“For protection.”
“Why do you need protection?”
He shrugs, going into the kitchen and opening cupboards. “How about hot chocolate?”
“Yes, please.” I’ve been so deprived lately, my mouth immediately waters thinking of the taste of chocolate. I can tell he’s not going to say anything more about the weapon on the shelf.
“I have some bean soup and cornbread I can heat up.” He begins preparing the food as I sit at the counter that doubles as a table, looking around. The cabin is very small, consisting of a front room, a back bedroom, a bathroom, and the kitchen off to the side. I like the feel of the place. It’s decorated with rustic wooden hand-hewn furniture and bright Native American blankets.
I suddenly know Magnus and his mother are Native American. At least, partly. I’m filled with curiosity.
“Tell me about yourself, Magnus.”
“Why don’t you start, and tell me about the billboard,” Magnus says. He’s trying to divert me, but I let it go.
“I was as surprised as you were. I did an awful photo shoot in the Museum of Modern Art sculpture garden a week or two ago. It was like, thirty degrees, and they had me in that bra and panties set. Didn’t need a fan to blow my hair. That breeze was pure freezing-ass nature.” I shiver in memory. “Here’s my career in modeling so far. I go to the shoot or location site. I let them fix me how they want. I wear what they tell me and pose how they tell me, act and express the feeling they tell me they want. I get paid eventually, though I haven’t seen any money yet. I’m shooting most days of the week since they did my portfolio.”
Magnus hands me a plate of celery sticks. “Appetizer.”
“You are too kind.” I grimace but take the snack and crunch away. “So that’s it. They like me in underwear, mostly.”
“God is testing me.” Magnus’s gaze is hot as he looks up at me from the stove where he’s stirring a pan that emits delicious smells.
“Why not give in?” I say, and bat my eyes. “I’m far from a virgin and I’m over eighteen. I’m a consenting adult. And I’m telling you, I hereby give consent.”
“No.” He shakes his head, taps the spoon on the edge of the pan. “I’m six years too old for you, and you’re new in the program. One of the cardinal rules: don’t sleep with hot young chicks trying to get clean.”
I am trying to get clean, but it’s a little scary how I keep trying to score every time the going gets rough.
“So why don’t you ever share in the meeting, Magnus? I feel like you know everything about me, and other than giving me motorcycle therapy and kissing me a few times—not enough, by the way—I don’t know anything about you.”
“What do you need to know? I’m in recovery too, even if I choose not to share, I go and I remember I’m an addict and I work my program, part of which is helping others in recovery. I can’t help it if you glommed onto me like gum on my shoe.”
“Gum on your shoe!” I sit up indignantly. “I resent that! If I remember correctly, the first time we talked it was because you manhandled me up against a bathroom wall and kissed me.”
He serves the heated soup into bowls, puts a pile of cornbread on a plate, and puts all of it on a tray and carries it over to the stove, now crackling warmly. He sets it on the hearth.
“I was distracting you from making a buy, and well you know it. We might as well eat over next to the heat source.”
I pick up the mugs of hot chocolate and follow him, breathing in the sweet steam. “Mmm. Smells heavenly.” I sip, roll my eyes in delight. “Tastes heavenly. But we aren’t done talking about how I’m gum on your shoe.”
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” Magnus says, handing me one of the bowls. Our fingers touch and it’s hotter than the ceramic. “I know it. And yet, I can’t seem to help myself. So you may be gum but I’m letting you stick, and that’s my fault. No more talking. Eat.” His mood seems to have darkened, and now I know the score.
He’s my program big brother, at least in his mind, and it’s not appropriate to have a relationship with me.
I mull this over, spooning up the bean soup rapidly but foregoing the corn bread with difficulty. I pick up my mug and wrap my fingers around it, sitting cross-legged and gazing into the flickering fire behind the closed grate.
“I like you,” I finally say. “A lot. I haven’t had good relationships with men so far. I wish I could have one with you, because I trust you.” I gaze at him over my mug. I know the feelings I’m projecting. That trust I told him I felt. Attraction. Desire.
I can feel those feelings vibrating through me, and I know my face, so reflective, is showing them to him. I know, because the camera is teaching me that this is my special superpower.
He looks away, his eyes hooded. He opens the door of the stove, stirs the coals with a poker unnecessarily. He hasn’t eaten much of the soup, nor any of the cornbread. His chocolate is untouched.
“I need to take you home. I never should have brought you here.”
And just like that, he piles the bowls, stands up with the tray, plucks my empty mug from my hand, and heads for the kitchen. “Get your coat on. It’s getting late.”
I almost hate his mother for interrupting us in the barn, or I’m pretty sure this evening would have a whole different ending. Even as I reluctantly get my coat on, I realize I don’t know much more about Magnus than I did when he picked me up.
But I’ve seen his cabin, and met his mother and his dog. That has to mean something.
Chapter 15
Mercifully, no one from school recognizes me as the giant porn queen over Mass Avenue. It must be hard to imagine it could be me, which reminds me of the Cindy Crawford thing. It’s not me. It’s the idea of me. I stay really covered up at school, even keep my hair on lockdown in a braid inside my hoodie most of the time. I’m thrilled when Ruby, who commutes Mass Avenue every day under the billboard, tells me I’ve been replaced by a Stolichnaya vodka ad.
Melissa calls me at home after school a few days later. “I have a big job for you, but it’s in Europe.”
“Europe?” I squeak. “What?”
“Magazine work. I told you that’s how we’re marketing you. There’s an Italian lingerie company, La Dolce Vita, who wants to use you for a whole campaign. It’s on-site work. In Venice.”
She pauses to let this sink in, and I squeal again. “Venice! I’m all over it, even if I have to let it all hang out in the Grand Canal in thirty degrees!”
“That’s probably exactly what it will be,” she says. “Do you have a passport?”
“Yes. But what about school?”
“I anticipate you’re going to be doing more traveling from here on in,” Melissa says briskly. “You should plan to drop out or get a GED.”
Her words are so bald, so matter-of-fact. While I’ve never been passionate about school like Ruby was, being a drop-out doesn’t sound good either.
“That will never fly with my sister,” I say.
; “Put her on the phone,” Melissa says.
I go get Ruby, who’s resting before dinner listlessly, having lost her appetite with the morning sickness that seems to ambush her at random times.
“Melissa has big news and needs to speak to you.”
I hover in the background as Ruby gets all hard-nosed on the phone, throwing around legal terms like “coercion” and “null and void” as she haggles with Melissa. Finally, she hangs up the phone, bright red spots of battle on her cheeks.
“The agency is going to pay for a home schooling program for you if you want it,” she says. “So you can do your work on the trip. Melissa says the Europeans really like your look, so you’re going to have a lot of shoots over there and she thinks you should take this chance. Do you want to go?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “Yes, I do.”
Who wouldn’t want to travel everywhere, baring it all and freezing her titties in front of the world?
Chapter 16
Venice in winter is mysterious. Fog creeps along the narrow stone alleys, drifting like smoke up from the pea-green water of the canals. Sound has a muffled quality. The only things I hear clearly are the peals of the church bells, the rumble of boat engines on the waterways, and the rush of the pigeons’ wings as they scatter before me on the cobblestone streets.
I love the city with an instant passion. Around every corner is some new vista or tiny vignette. Even the doorways and windowsills are ancient and picturesque, the stone colorful and pitted with age, flowers growing in the cracks and every building filled with secret frescoes.
I love how stylish the women are, how friendly the men. They say “Belissima!” when I pass and blow kisses—not raunchy, like catcalls in America. The people are warm, happy in a way I haven’t seen outside of Saint Thomas.
Initial days of shooting are so long that I fall into bed at night too exhausted to sightsee even a little bit. Three days in, they hold the campaign kickoff party with the Italian ad agency handling the Dolce Vita account, and I’m the main event. The creative team is a tight-knit group of young, hip professionals who chatter in Italian around me as I stand, smiling bravely, in a slim silver gown. The hairstylist has done my hair up on my head in an elaborate pile of curls that are studded with tiny, battery-operated Christmas lights.
