The first two I approached were duds, but the third seemed attractive enough and not totally brain dead, and the best thing of all was that she seemed to like me, so that one I considered a success. Maybe the mating game was fun after all. I was considering upping the stakes to five broads, when I spotted Liana, the bitch I tried to screw, but who ended up screwing me.
Just the sight of her sent shivers us and down my spine. She was the coolest, most aloof woman, and she didn’t even get nervous around me. I looked at her, sitting at one of the tables, eating food from the buffet, wearing some kind of prim and dull black dress, with boring pearls, and I felt my stomach lurch. How dare that bitch reject me right in the middle of a fuck? I bet she never had an orgasm in her life.
I decided to walk over to her and needle her a while, to see if I could make her as miserable as she had made me that night of our aborted fucking session. Just as I was about to open my mouth and make a wry comment, I spotted the woman sitting at the table with her. She had long platinum hair, and was wearing some kind of tiny little tight-fitting top, a top which displayed the best tits I had even seen, in Nashville or anywhere else. She looked like the kind of broad who never wore underwear of any kind, and I approved of her immediately. This was the sexiest woman I had ever seen. It kind of made me wonder what she was doing with Liana, that dyke. Hey—I bet that’s it—Liana must be a dyke and I bet she was creaming after this chickadee just as much as I was. But would a woman really go to all the trouble to disguise her sexual preferences by attending heterosexual singles events and dating men? It seemed unlikely, but who gives a shit anyway.
I had to walk over to them and start a conversation, because I planned to snake away Ms. Dolly Tits before anyone else got a glimpse of her. It was the least I could do to rescue her from the designs of that dyke. “Hello, Liana,” I said in an almost friendly way.
“Lou, hello, how are you,” she answered, just as though she thought we were on friendly terms. “Do you know Fauna?” Liana smiled at me while I looked deep into the eyes of the other girl, Fauna. And the amazing thing was that Fauna looked back with interest equal to my own and she smiled at me with a genuinely friendly grin. I was on a roll.
I stood talking to them casually, never letting my eyes leave Fauna’s face. Eventually a jumpy tune began to play and I saw Fauna move in time to the rhythm. This gave me my chance, and surprisingly she responded to my dance invitation with a brilliant grin and happy acquiescence. I watched her rise from the table, taking inventory in my best Kevin Samson technique and I gave her all A’s.
She was wearing that skin-tight, skimpy little top and the smallest leather mini skirt I had even seen. You could have put it on a Barbie doll with very few alterations. I looked her over and felt the heat rise from my crotch like steam from a subway grating in winter. We walked toward the dance floor, with her a pace in front of me so I could observe the rhythmic undulations of her glorious ass. She was so sexy she should have been the entertainment rather than a guest.
And then it hit me. Fauna was tiny, smaller than me, smaller even than me without my lifts, maybe even without my shoes. I took her into my arms and whispered in her ear, “You are the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen and I’m going to marry you.”
She responded by curving even closer against my body, so that we gave even the stars of Dirty Dancing a run for their money. We ground ourselves across the dance floor, pelvis to pelvis, and I felt a hard on so big that it threatened to choke me. She felt it too, and it seemed she even liked it, because as I reached my hand down to feel her ass and to press her even closer against me, she took her tongue and tickled the side of my neck. Fucking heaven.
This woman, this hot piece of ass. I thought about my life and all I had been missing. Yeah, I was a big shot doctor, and I lived in a house worth a bundle. I drove a Rolls. But what did it all mean? Now look at this girl who was pressing against my hard on like I was the answer to her dreams. Maybe I could be the answer to her dreams. I bet she was some kind of beautician or salesgirl or something. I knew she found me sexy, because what broad would act like that in public with a dork? And I figured once she got a load of my house or took a ride in my car—I bet she’d never even been in a Rolls—I could get her to fall in love with me. Then I would marry her. Why the fuck not? I could rescue her from her dismal lifestyle and she’d see me as her hero forever.
Fauna
IF the Shoe Fits
When Bart died I thought that I would die too. It was the day after Thanksgiving. We had had a wonderful feast at his house, which his housekeeper Emma had made, and then we sat around in his screening room running movies and relaxing together on the enormous leather couch. We talked about my business activities, the new investments I was planning, and as usual Bart guided me in beneficial directions, offering warnings as appropriate. He told me about his plans for the coming year, that he wanted to cut back a little on his activities so that we could spend more time together. He wanted to be free to travel more so that he could visit with his children and grandchildren back East. We were happy and enthusiastic about the future, and I was especially pleased that he wanted more time with me.
The evening moved along that way in a peaceful and loving mode and I really felt that Thanksgiving was just for me because of all that Bart had given me during the time we’d been together and how my life had changed for the better. I had never been so happy. Eventually we went upstairs to his bedroom to go to sleep. I loved spending the night with Bart in his home. Usually he came over to my house where there were no servants or business distractions, but there was something about the fine antiques that he had collected and the blue silk comforter on his bed, the Chinese porcelains, and real Picassos that made his home so special, so much an extension of him that it was like a vast cocoon that sheltered me every time I entered the door. Bart’s bedroom was the most peaceful haven, and although the decorators did a wonderful job on my house and I really do love my own bedroom, it’s still not the same. Snuggling under the silk covers, smelling the fragrant flowers in vases and the Jasmine that was planted outside the window, always soothed me and helped me slide into a comforted and restful sleep.
That night Bart was in bed waiting for me while I brushed my teeth and hair. He lay there peacefully, cheerfully, enthusiastically ready for me to slip into that big bed next to him and rest my head on his shoulder the way I always did. As I walked over to the bed, I stopped for a moment to look at him, to take stock of this man who had rescued me from my loveless reality and who had helped me achieve whatever measure of success as a human being that I have managed so far.
There he lay all shining and beautiful, his strong, angular face filled with character and intelligence, his blue eyes looking even bluer because of the periwinkle silk walls and comforter, and twinkling merrily with anticipation as he watched me walk toward him in the white silk teddy I brought along to tantalize him. His hair was silver as the moonlight that flowed in from the opened French door leading to the terrace where we sometimes made love on warm night. His broad shoulders were strong and solid and he looked so healthy you would have bet he’d live forever. I looked at him and thought about how much I loved him and how grateful I was to have him.
Bart opened his arms for me and I crawled into my usual spot along his side and snuggled down against him. He was everything in the world to me, and so before we began, I reached up gently to touch his face, that beautiful, weathered face that I loved and I said, “Thank you, Bart.”
“For what?” he asked me, smiling and warm as ever.
“Oh for everything. For everything.” And I hugged him with the arm that reached across his chest.
“Well, Fauna, you’re welcome. In fact, the pleasure is mine. Definitely mine,” he chuckled then, burrowing his face into my breast and pulling the teddy down so that he could begin making love to me. So I relaxed and let myself warm up to the rhythm of his lovemaking. I let go and tried to ride the wave of passion that was building between Bart and me
, tried to reach that crest that would begin the waves of orgasm that I crave. I thought to myself, I’m going to come, over and over, I’m going to come. And I almost made it. But something happened that broke my concentration, something always happened it seemed, and as usual, I didn’t come.
I felt frustrated and annoyed at myself for being such a sexual failure. Here I look like some kind of hot, sexy creature who can drive men insane. They see me and get turned on from six feet away. I bet they think that I can come by just looking in the mirror. Maybe that’s the answer—the one thing I never tried—since I can’t come from fucking, not even fucking, but being made love to by a master, by a man I adore.
I lay silently in Bart’s arms, breathing quietly as he regained his own breath after his very excellent orgasm, which I could witness and share but not duplicate. And for a moment I didn’t care. So what if I couldn’t come. Think of all the people who could come but who couldn’t love or who had nobody to love. I was lucky in comparison to them. And so, with my mind on some kind of sexual equivalent to the think of all the starving children in China cliché, I fell asleep, safe and warm in Bart’s arms.
The hours passed peacefully, each of us sleeping well, flowing together and apart as our limbs moved beneath the covers during the course of the night. Now and then I would reach up toward consciousness and feel my back nestled spoon style against his front, or I’d turn and rest my ass check to cheek against his ass, or his leg would brush against my leg, and both of us would sink back down into our own slumber, and I’d feel safe and happy and warm with Bart next to me.
It must have been some time during the course of that night that he died, because I woke up the next morning, and moved over to find my place against his shoulder once again, and he was cold and unyielding. I touched him and tried to wake him but he lay there unmoving on his back, eyes closed and his dream permanent. I shook him and called his name with increasing hysteria until I realized that it was hopeless. Hastily wrapping myself in his robe, I went screaming out into the hallway, calling “Gus! Emma!”
They both heard me and understood the terror in my voice. These people, this couple who had served Bart for more than twenty years, came running at my call, and we three stood over Bart, Emma and me tearful and distraught, Gus trying to do CPR and failing. Emma and I stood there watching his efforts and we both knew that it was too late. Eventually Gus stopped too and we gazed into each other’s eyes with sadness and pain. Bart was dead and nothing we could do would change that fact.
Gus phoned 911 and eventually they came and confirmed what we already knew—that Bart had died peacefully in his sleep. They took his body with them while Gus set abut calling Bart’s assistant Harold, who said he’d take care of everything. I had met Harold numerous times and he and I spoke for a while, both of us in shock and intermittently weeping.
I remained at the house for part of the day, waiting for Harold’s arrival and then conferring with him over the plans for Bart’s funeral, waiting while he contacted Bart’s children and his lawyer. It was all arranged. The family would fly in later that day and the funeral would be soon afterward.
I was in shock. Eventually Gus drove me home in Bart’s Rolls and I sat alone in the back remembering all the times I had shared that seat with Bart, who would never sit there again. He would never hold my hand, or hug me, or help me with a tough decision. He would never make love to me or tell me another joke or applaud my success. Bart was gone and I was alone.
My house was quiet and empty like a huge cave where I sat alone in the dark for a long, long time. Eventually the phone rang, so that meant it was morning. Harold was calling to inform me of the funeral plans and that there would be a reading of Bart’s will afterward. I wrote everything down but I had a terrible sense of fear. Bart’s children would be there, and I had never met them. Imagine what they would think of me—a cheap little nobody who had been their beloved father’s plaything. They probably thought I was some kind of hustler who was out to get his money. And look at all the money he had given me already—the trust that he set up so that I could buy my house—all that was part of the will, and now they would probably come along and contest it and try to take it all away from me. But it wasn’t the money that mattered, because I was solid financially. I could always keep my house by selling a few investments and changing my finances around a little. It was the humiliation of seeing myself through their eyes. Surely there was no place for me at either the funeral or the reading of the will, and it was kinder to have a private farewell at Bart’s grave in Forest Lawn after the whole thing was officially over. But Harold called again and told me that he would be sending Gus to pick me up, that he knew that Bart would have wanted that and so I realized that there was nothing to do but to go and be scorned by the respectable people in Bart’s life.
We sat in the huge chapel, filled with people I mostly had never seen and listed to Bart’s life being summed up. My mind floated in and out of focus as I remembered the times we’d shared, which never again would we do, and I submerged myself in grief. Harold sat with me, his hand holding my arm. Across the way were two people who obviously were Bart’s children—they looked too much like him to be anything else.
After the burial, we walked back from the gravesite and Harold steered me over toward Brandon and Shelley, Bart’s children, saying, “The children wanted to meet you.” I knew it. I gasped in fear and wanted to sink a thousand feet into the earth before they could say to me the things I’d already said to myself. What was there to do but get it over with, the nasty confrontation and the ensuing legal battle? The money didn’t matter, they could have it all, and in fact, I’d tell them that when they accused me of being a gold digger. I might look like a cheap whore from Vegas, and maybe I am nothing at all that special, but Bart was and even I knew it. I braced myself and walked with Harold toward Bart’s son and daughter.
Brandon had Bart’s blue eye, and as I gazed into them with apprehension, I noticed something. There was no hate there at all, only pain akin to what was in my own eyes just then. Brandon reached out his hands and took one of mine, holding it between his own warmly while Shelley smiled at me. “Fauna, it’s so nice to meet you at last. Dad talked about you all the time.” Brandon was warm and open, just like Bart.
“We were so glad that Dad had someone here to make him happy,” Shelley said.
My heart fell to my knees and I thought that I would die right then and there. Bart’s children were wonderful, just like their father and I had nothing to fear or worry about. They accepted me as a positive part of their father’s life. As someone special. Bart had talked to them about me. I wasn’t some kind of dirty little secret after all.
So it all worked out. Nobody challenged anything about the will. My trust fund remained in tact and so did my ego, whatever of it there was. Bart had set up a separate trust for Gus and Emma, asking that the money be used to pay their salaries and maintain his limo, if I would agree to have them come to work for me. That way, even if I couldn’t take care of them properly, the trust would pay their wages and also for their retirement in ten years. And most of all, they could take care of me. That was what Bart wanted, and I was more than happy to oblige. The children were to get the house, to sell it and the furnishings or keep it as they chose. And the various details of the rest of his estate were laid out just as fairly and logically. It was all finished and tied up in a neat little package with only my sorrow to remain as a loose end left behind.
Within a week, Gus and Emma were settled into the servant’s quarters above my garage, quarters I had never filled because it seemed pointless to have a staff to take care of only me. The house had always been maintained by an outside service who sent a team of people in twice a week. I cooked for myself or ate out when Bart wasn’t with me. It was simple enough. But now I had Emma to plan meals and make them if I wanted and Bart would oversee the running of the house and the care of the cars.
I looked in my garage, and it was almost a comical si
ght. There was my VW Beetle, the car I owned in Vegas and drove here to L.A.. Next to it was the Lamborghini that Bart had given me for my birthday in March. And beyond that was the Rolls Limo. It looked like an illustration for good, better, best. I laughed at the sight and enjoyed an instant’s release from the grief in which I was suffused like a shroud of doom. Then I crawled into the backseat of the limo and just sat there remembering everything and feeling safer than I did anywhere else. Bart’s car wasn’t all that I had left of him, but in it I felt closer to him than I did anywhere else.
Sometimes I would just sit in there thinking about everything and other times I’d bring my laptop and work on business or make calls on my cellular phone. It became like an extension of my office, like an extension of my relationship with Bart, a safe cocoon where I could feel protected.
Ace stopped by every day, even offering to have me come and stay at his house, but he had recently started living with someone and besides he had his sister and her kid there, so it seemed too much of a burden. Besides, I wanted to be alone. Ace tried to invite me to all the holiday festivities at his house, but it seemed like too much work to try to fit in with his family, something that clearly would be awkward. Eventually Christmas was over and the strain of the holidays seemed to be passing. I was numb with grief but no longer in a state of shock.
By December thirtieth, Ace had persuaded me to go out to lunch with him, at least to get me out of the house. We went to Cutters in Santa Monica, a cute little place with an outside terrace, where Ace and I sat eating our salads. He hesitated to tell me about Delilah, the girl he was in love with, because he knew I was suffering over Bart’s death, but he had that glow all new lovers have and the inability to put her out of his mind for more than a few minutes at a time. I was glad to hear about his romance and his girl, glad he was happy, glad someone was happy.
The Sportin' Life Page 15
