by Scott, Ada
“I’ll leave a fresh bathrobe and bottle of water outside the door if you want to just reach out and grab it,” said Sonia.
“Thank you so much!”
“My pleasure.”
Once I’d had my fill of that room, I reached out and pulled the fresh water and bathrobe in, changing before heading towards a door labelled “Meditation Room.” Sonia took my old bathrobe away before I entered.
Inside was a row of five contoured loungers, their surface made up of tiles less than an inch across. Soft music played over speakers as invisible as the ones in the hub, combined with birdsong. As I listened the track faded out and something that I assumed was whale song gradually faded in seamlessly.
Lights slowly changed colors, illuminating the mosaic art on every wall and breathing a new kind of life into it with every new shade. I couldn’t fathom how much painstaking effort it must have taken to create this room alone.
I had my doubts about how comfortable the loungers would be though, being made of hard tiles and all, but as I gingerly positioned myself, those doubts were dispelled. It was almost as if every contour was made for me, and the tiles were heated too. I was comfort personified.
My thoughts drifted randomly until I heard something in the music that wasn’t so relaxing. After a few moments I realized it was my own light snoring. My eyelids fluttered open and I glanced from side to side, relieved to find that I was still alone.
I slid my feet off the side of the lounger and hopped to the floor, surprised at how incredibly refreshed I was. Now I could understand what Thomas meant when he said people could spend a lifetime here.
Considering how wide-awake I felt, I worried that when I opened the door I’d find that it was already night time and I’d missed another interview with Jace, but everything looked the same when I squinted out at the brighter light of the hub again.
Everything except one detail. There was a woman who looked to be in her late twenties helping herself to some of the food on the table, and talking a mile a minute to the man there. Her face lit up when she saw me.
“There she is! Hi, Kendall!”
“Uh… hi. Do I know you?”
The woman put down her plate and glass of Champagne before quickly walking towards me with her high-heels tock-tocking on the ground.
“No, but you will! I’m Beth!” She grasped my hand and pumped it up and down enthusiastically.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Do you work here too?”
“Me? Nooooo. I’m your assistant for this afternoon, we’re going to have so much fun!”
“Assistant? What… what would I need an assistant for?”
Beth’s smile grew to a point where I thought I might have to call the Guinness Book of World Records. She held her hands out to each side as she twinkled her fingers and leaned back a bit, as if what she was about to say needed that little bit more room between us to fit it.
”Shopping!” she squealed.
Chapter 12
Kendall
After a massage from a woman who looked like she could lift me over her head and tear me into two pieces, my ears were almost ringing from all the cracks and pops she managed to stretch and pull out of my joints. Combined with the various saunas, I was feeling more limber and alert, yet relaxed, than I had in, well, ever, actually.
I needed it, because spending time with Beth was like being driven around with a tornado. She had something to say about everything, and opened the fresh bottle of Champagne in the back of Thomas’ limo within seconds of entering it. To my amazement, the dome light I’d shot with the cork earlier had either been fixed, or we were in an entirely new car now.
“You’ve really never heard of me?” asked Beth, pouring me a glass.
“Really, no. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. You will next year, I’m getting my own show. ‘Beth Knows Best,’ has a nice ring to it, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s great. What’s the show about?”
“This.” She gestured at me, herself, the car, everything in general. “It’ll be about me taking the rich and/or famous out shopping and finding all the best stuff. We’ve got three episodes in the can already. I can’t tell you who’s in those episodes, but like omigod it’s so fantastic!”
“Congratulations.” I clinked glasses and took a sip while she downed half of hers. “What are we doing? This isn’t on TV, is it? Like… you don’t pay for things as part of the show, do you?”
“Me? No, are you crazy? Haha! I almost forgot. This is safer in your hands than in mine.”
Beth reached inside her purse and, with an introduction like that, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she pulled out a gun or something. Instead, it was a credit card of some kind. She handed over the little piece of black plastic.
“The limit on this card is so high that, for all intents and purposes, there is no limit. I mean, if we hit a million dollars then I’ve let the bubbly go to my head, know what I mean?”
“A… a million dollars?”
“Yeah, but we can do everything I’ve got planned and have blast for six figures,” said Beth.
“S-six figures?” I shook my head before I transformed into a parrot completely.
“Oh yeah. When Mr. Barlow contacted me and said you seemed like you hadn’t been in Port Magnus very long, but he wanted you to have the works, I knew just what to do. We’re going to a beauty salon that a friend of mine owns. Honestly, she’s a goddess with make-up, what she can’t do can’t be done. She’s got the best, the best, team in the country for everything else too.”
It wasn’t long before I was sitting in a chair, staring at myself in a mirror surrounded by lightbulbs, being poked and prodded by a woman named Becky who spoke almost as quickly as Beth. I could only follow about half of what they were talking about, with all the beauty-jargon they used.
My heart was racing with nerves, and a fair amount of excitement too. I’d never done much with my hair, just tidied it up a bit every now and then, and I’d never used much make-up.
“Mmmm, that’s divine, what are you wearing?” asked Becky.
“Uh… a shirt and…”
“No, your perfume.”
“Oh, that’s from AquaVell, the masseuse used some kind of aromatic oils.”
“Ah, AquaVell, of course. Their own stuff, nobody knows where they get it from. Smell her, Beth, you know what I’m thinking would go with this?”
Beth leaned in and they both inhaled me like I was a flower before looking at each other in agreement.
“Grand Extrait!” they chorused.
Becky knelt by the side of my chair and tilted my head every which way with gentle pressure on my chin, inspecting how I looked with light coming from different angles I guessed.
“Wow, honey, your skin is flawless. Look at her bone structure, Beth, you see? Why are you hiding under this mop?”
I shrugged. There wasn’t enough time in the day to go through all the reasons. Because I didn’t know what to do with it for one, because hiding had always been the path of least pain for another. Becky stood and moved behind me, running her fingers through my hair, draping some over her hand like a bolt of cloth for a project she was considering, and inspecting the tips.
“Well, it’s healthy, thick, and long at least. That’s more than you can say for most people. We can work miracles with that. Do you trust me, Kendall?”
I looked at all the pictures on the wall of celebrities and random beautiful women posing with Becky along with notes thanking her. Then I looked back at myself, the same scared small-town girl I’d always seen in every mirror my whole life. I gulped.
“OK. I trust you.”
That trust was immediately shaken when Becky took me to a private room and the first item she unveiled from her grand plan was for me to have a Brazilian wax. I almost ran for the hills, but she did a remarkable job of lying about how much it would hurt, and how it was all part of her head-to-toe service.
“It’s all part of the atti
tude, honey,” she said. “It puts a special kind of look in your eye in a way that nothing else can. Confidence.”
When Becky’s girl was finished with the lower half of my body, legs too, I was left alone for a moment to get dressed again. I ran my fingers over my pubic mound, marveling at how incredibly smooth it was under my fingertips and the heightened sensation on my skin.
Every move I made drew my attention between my legs, I had to believe her when she said it put a special kind of look in your eye. My jeans slid up as if they were made of silk, I’d never managed to get my legs this smooth before.
Over the next hour or two an army of women swarmed around me, led by General Becky, doing things with scissors and make-up brushes that I couldn’t begin to understand. At last, Becky held out her hands, told everybody to step back, and pulled a sheet off the mirror.
With all the time they took, I was almost expecting to look like a painted clown, but what I saw was like an alternate-reality version of myself. It was a version of myself where I’d moved to Hollywood as a child, found my fame and fortune on the big screen, and now I was the country’s darling.
If I didn’t know I had make-up on, I wouldn’t have been sure of it from looking at my reflection. Everything Becky had done was subtly perfect. I looked healthy and glowing, my hair had a slick sheen to it and flowed like a wavy liquid off my shoulders as I turned my head slowly from side to side.
“There, Beth, see? That’s what I’m in this business for. Moments like these. That look on her face. I’m going to cry.”
The front door opened and a man with a clipboard entered. He talked with the girl at the front desk and my attention was torn from the mirror when I heard him say he had a delivery for Kendall Brookes.
“Over here, come through,” said Becky.
The man was holding a small gift-wrapped package, and I slipped my hand out from under the hairdresser’s poncho thing to accept it.
“Sign here, please,” he said.
I put my mark on the line he indicated and he thanked me and went on his way. Beth and Becky crowded around. Even Becky’s small army, now busy with other customers, were looking out the sides of their eyes.
The wrapping paper came off and joined my hair clippings on the ground to reveal a little jewelry box. When I opened it, my eyes widened.
“Are… are these real?” I asked the two of them.
In the box was a pair of earrings with, to my eyes, huge diamonds set in platinum, silver, or white gold. Beth and Becky crowded in for an even closer look.
“Tiffany doesn’t do cubic zirconia, doll,” said Beth.
Inside the lid was a small note folded in half. I pulled it out and read it.
“You deserve this – J.B.”
“May I?” asked Becky, gesturing at the earrings.
“Yeah, sure,” I said.
Becky picked the earrings out of the box and held them up against my ears with the diamonds dangling below. They seemed to catch every last bit of light, magnify it, and shine out in every direction like crazy little disco lighthouses.
“Wow…” I breathed.
“Suits you,” said Beth. “I know where we can get the perfect outfit to go with them. We should get going too. Give the nice lady at the front desk our yay-card and we’ll be on our way. Thanks, Becky, still on for tonight?”
Beth put the diamonds back in the box and I closed it. Becky swept the poncho away to reveal my regular clothes underneath, which spoiled the movie starlet illusion. My eyes watered when the girl on the front desk showed me the bill, which was many times what was left of my life savings, but it was no match for the “yay-card.”
There was a large part of me that said all this doesn’t come for free, that I should run home before I found out what the real cost was, but I still needed that interview. Besides, feeling good about myself was addictive.
Every passing moment of this day fed some secret hope long-buried inside of me. The hope that I was somebody special, that I wasn’t the invisible nothing-girl. I… deserved to leave my worries behind, even if it was just for one day.
“Let’s do this!” said Beth, leading the way out the door.
Chapter 13
Jace
Much like the high-rise where my office was located, the building that accommodated my penthouse was an absolute fortress, and Kendall was now through the security downstairs. As I stood at my door, I could see the numbers counting up on the elevator at the other end of the corridor, flanked by the last two security guards.
With a soft tone, the elevator announced her arrival and the doors slid open. Kendall glanced at the two men as she stepped out, but they stood as motionless as statues so instead she fixed her eyes on me as she closed the last twenty feet between us.
There was no telling exactly what that crazy bitch Beth had done with Kendall today. I’d get the gist of it when I saw the bill, but whatever it was I could see that it was worth it.
To me, the physical changes were negligible. Sure, her hair was styled a little different and she was wearing six figures of clothes and jewelry, but she was still Kendall.
She still had everything that made me hard as a rock when I first set eyes on her. She still had that sexy little body, that deer-in-the-headlights innocence and sweet mother of fuck was her face a work of art.
No, the real difference today had made was inside her. I could see it in the way she walked, just a faint, tentative, hint of I-know-you’re-checking-me-out swagger. A dull haze of clouds had pulled back to reveal a depth in her brown eyes that was captivating.
She was still Kendall alright, but she was glowing. Whatever was going on inside that sexy little package was like the difference between the girl who had done her best to not be noticed, and the highest-paid supermodels the world had ever seen. She had natural beauty they only had in their wildest fucking dreams, though.
Speaking of whatever was going on inside that sexy little package, my cock twitched as I remembered what that felt like. That sweet virginal tightness, so snug I had to push hard just to get balls-deep and only made possible by how wet she was. Mmmm.
Then I fucked that virgin as if she’d done it a million times and she came, hard, and I was going to have my way with her again. It was going to be a close call as to whether I could restrain myself from forcing her to her knees the instant the door was closed behind her and fucking her face for an appetizer before dinner.
From the moment I set eyes on her I… wait, no, no. That’s romantic bullshit. From the moment I fucked her I knew I had to have more. That was more like it. What the fuck was I talking about? Her captivating eyes?
I could have fucked her again without organizing everything that I had today. I couldn’t even explain to myself exactly why I’d done it. There was just something about the way that cunt of a boss had spoken to her, or about her, right there in front of her like she was nothing that fucked me off.
Normally, in the so-called real world, I didn’t lose my cool like that, but the way he was talking just rubbed me the wrong way. I was a few seconds away from reaching out and snapping his neck. Good riddance, motherfucker.
Anyway, Kendall’s boss had survived another day and now she was here with me. For her interview. I smirked.
“Hi, Jace.”
Kendall looked up at me with hopeful eyes and a healthy dose of that fear she’d first walked into my office with. She still had no idea what to expect from me, but I could see what she wanted.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that a lot of people had paid her compliments today, but the way she was standing, clutching her bag, breathing shallow, and yet standing as tall as she could, I knew she wanted me to like what I saw. It was her lucky day, because I was about to unload a home truth on her.
I reached down and pulled her hand to my lips before leaning down to whisper in her ear. She shivered when she felt my breath on her neck as if her body remembered what it had felt the last time we were this close.
She sme
lled the way I did after a massage at AquaVell, plus the scent of new clothes. There was something else there too, something that smelled expensive.
“You are the sexiest woman on the planet.”
When I leaned back again, I could see her struggling to contain herself, that happy glow went up a couple levels and made her almost too hot to look at. That slinky black dress really accentuated all her many positives and I could feel the ache in my cock already, the kind of ache that only an all-encompassing pussy massage could relieve.
“Th-thank you for giving me another chance at this interview,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow and then shrugged internally.
OK, you want to run with that for now?
“Yeah. Of course. Come in, I’ve made chicken cordon bleu and a fresh garden salad for dinner, I hope you like it. We can talk while we eat.”
“You made dinner? I would have thought you’d have a chef for that. Was cooking something you enjoyed doing before you won the lottery?”
Kendall pulled out a notebook and pen as she stepped inside, before putting her bag down against the wall. I closed the door and turned to her. I liked cooking dinner about as much as I liked art, but I had big plans for dessert.
*****
Kendall dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “Did you ever track down your parents after you left the group home?”
I took a deep breath and tented my fingers in front of me, wishing she’d leave that topic the fuck alone. After fighting my whole life to move forward, the last thing I wanted to do was look back, but this whole meal was peppered with these questions.
“Why is this so important, Kendall? There’s other things I’d much rather be doing with you. To you. You’re trying to hide it, for some reason, but I know you’re thinking about them too.”
The shy teen, caught between reality and my blunt assessment of it, blushed. She was so fucking cute that it was almost offensive she wasn’t bouncing on my cock yet.
When she was able to look me in the eye again, it was like some of that weight had gone back on her shoulders. She took a deep breath of her own and pursed her lips for a second.
