TURN ME ON

by Kristin Hardy

  The kiss was soft and light as a whisper of wind, warm against the evening air. His closed eyelids glowed red with the setting sun.

  They still stood in place, Stef knew that, but it felt as though the fence had fallen away and they'd gone with it, spinning down through the air. He smelled the salt tang of the sea and felt Sabrina slide in against him.

  "You can feel this coming as much as I can," he murmured.

  Abruptly, Sabrina stiffened and pulled away. "But I don't want it to," she said, sudden panic in her voice. She wrapped her arms around herself, blocking him out.

  The jab of hurt came as a surprise. "It's past, Sabrina. Leave it where it belongs."

  She shook her head. "Easy for you to say."

  "No. It's not. But I don't think we have a choice."

  * * *

  13

  « ^ »

  "So there I was," Delaney said, "walking down the aisle trying to read the colors on the paint cans and—bam! This guy runs right into me."

  "Literally?"

  "No lie. I drop my little basket and all the paintbrushes and masking tape and knobs and dealies go flying. So I'm turning around ready to just blast him for not watching where he's going, and what do I see but this totally, absolutely, completely beautiful man looking back at me."

  "Only you," said Trish, "could find a man in Home Depot."

  They sat in Monsoon, among the bamboo and dangling beads, sniffing some of the best Asian food in Santa Monica.

  "So what did he look like?" Sabrina asked, pulling her chopsticks out of the paper wrapper and splitting them apart.

  "Redhead."

  "That's unfortunate." Paige made a little moue as she adjusted the strap on her cream silk tank. "Redheads are the worst, with all that pink skin and those invisible eyelashes."

  "As a redhead, I protest that remark," Trish broke in.

  "Oh, you know I don't mean you, Trish," Paige said dismissively. "You're gorgeous. It's the guys. They can't use makeup and they won't use sunblock, so most of them just look parboiled."

  "Not this guy," Delaney said with relish. "Dark red, more like mahogany, with these blue, blue eyes and a mouth that makes you just want to eat him up. And arms…" She sighed. "So he's falling all over himself to apologize, picking my stuff up and everything."

  "Now see, how do you do that?" Trish tucked a stray lock of hair back into her clip. "If it had been me, I'd have been the one picking things up and apologizing and he'd have been gone to the next aisle."

  "It's that helpless, what-would-I-know-from-running-a-marketing-department look," Cilla said dryly.

  "Not at all," Thea disagreed. "I'd say it's marketing, period. She knows her clientele and she knows how to reach them."

  "You're so cynical, Thea. It's not marketing, it's philosophy. Like the spiritual leader says, don't push the universe," Delaney grinned. "I just sit back and let the universe—"

  "The man," Sabrina put in.

  "—the man, follow his bliss. I don't force a reaction. It's amazing what happens when you let it," Delaney added as the waiter stopped at their table.

  "Okay, let's see," he said, "we've got chicken satay, ahi tuna, seaweed salad and veggie gyoza." He set their appetizers on the table. "Here's a bunch of plates."

  "So are you guys going out?" Kelly asked as the waiter departed.

  "Let me get to the end of my story," Delaney said, picking up a skewer of satay. "So anyway, he helps me find my paint and asks me what kind of project I'm working on, and we're walking down the aisle to the end when this other guy rolls up with one of those things they carry wood on. I'm backing out of his way to let him go by when he says to the redhead, 'I got all the wood, babe. Are you ready to go?'"

  A chorus of groans erupted around the table.

  "You're kidding," Trish said.

  Delaney shook her head ruefully. "I wish."

  "They should have signs or something to warn us so we don't get our hopes up," Kelly said, picking up a gyoza with her chopsticks.

  "Actually, they're a really nice couple of guys." Delaney bit into her chicken and chewed thoughtfully. "We wound up going out to lunch. They do custom furniture and they're going to help me with my refinishing project."

  "I've got one that tops that," Paige announced. "I met this guy at a gallery opening last week. Jason. A little on the husky side, but good-looking. He asks me out, and he seems nice enough so I figure what the heck. We go see a flick." She took a bit of seaweed salad in her chopsticks. "Now, you know me, I like to go out afterward, talk about the movie. So we wind up at Rebecca's. The waitress comes by and he tells her he's on the Zone Diet and asks if they have any balanced meals."

  "Only in body-beautiful L.A.," Sabrina said, picking up a piece of ahi with relish.

  "Oh, we've still got plenty of 250-pound Bubbas sucking down pizza and beer and calling any woman who isn't anorexic fat," Delaney reminded her.

  "Of course, it's just that now they're sanctimonious about it," Paige said quickly. "Jason spent the whole rest of the evening talking about how badly American people eat, and how most women don't have a clue about nutrition. He even gave me a bad time about the bread I ordered."

  Trish eyed Paige's willowy figure in horror. "He can't have thought you were overweight."

  "No, but he went on this rant about how women equate thin with health, and understanding metabolism—"

  "And your body is a temple—" Thea added, rolling her eyes.

  "—that he really, really wants to worship," Delaney finished. "That's what it was all about. He just wanted to get in your pants, so he was trying to impress you with how healthy he was."

  Paige shook her head. "Up until dinner, he might have had a tiny chance of stepping foot in my house."

  "But?" Sabrina prompted.

  She fought a smile. "Well, as we were walking back to the car, he started talking about how tense I was, rubbing my shoulders and all. He said he knew a couple of things that might relax me, like sex, for example. That the reason eating was relaxing was because of the sensation of things touching the lips and the tongue, and that there were other ways to mimic that sensation, if I knew what he meant."

  "That has to be the worst line I've ever heard," Kelly said, her expression pained. "What did you tell him?"

  Paige raised an eyebrow. "I told him I was vegetarian and tried to keep meat out of my mouth."

  The waiter stopped by to load more entrées on the table; for a few moments, grabbing food took precedence over conversation.

  "So how's the documentary going, Sabrina?" Thea asked, passing her a bowl of chicken panang.

  Sabrina scooped some of the curry onto her plate and grinned. "Great. You guys would love some of the stuff we've been filming."

  "Like what?"

  "People who do this whole Renaissance role-playing thing."

  "I thought this was a sex documentary," Trish said.

  Sabrina shrugged. "Different strokes. It was actually pretty sexy. They get out there."

  "I'll say. Kev said the couple on the swing was the most out-there thing he'd ever filmed," Kelly observed, picking up some pad thai with her chopsticks.

  "Is there going to be anything for the more, dare I say, pedestrian among us?" Paige asked.

  "Well, we shot a segment at Candy."

  A chorus of questions erupted around the table.

  "How was it?"

  "Did you like it?"

  "Is it as wild as they say?"

  Sabrina tipped her head to one side consideringly. "I don't know. Kelly, what do you think?"

  "More, way more. You guys would love it. Kev said it's like a guy's wet dream of what women do when they let their hair down."

  Paige studied her. "So who's this Kev?"

  Kelly stirred her drink and poked at the olive with the swizzle stick. "Just the cameraman. Nobody important."

  "Oh. I figured since you'd brought him up twice in two minutes that maybe he was your latest. So who is your Mr. Right Now?"

&nb
sp; "Nobody."

  Paige set down her chopsticks "Really? How long has it been?"

  "I don't know, a couple of weeks."

  Five pairs of eyes widened in shock; Sabrina just smiled. Trish spoke first. "You're kidding, right?"

  "No." She took a drink of her martini.

  "What, are you sick?" Cilla asked.

  "No. What is with you guys? Can't I just take a break without it being a federal case?"

  "Kelly's got this problem," Sabrina confided.

  "And let me guess," said Thea. "This problem is named Kev."

  "The guy's crazy for her, but she's playing the game."

  "I'm not playing a game. I just don't want to get involved with him," Kelly set her drink down impatiently.

  "Why not?" Cilla asked. "It's never stopped you before."

  "He's a nice guy. I like him and I don't want to play hit-and-run."

  "Just tell him you're not interested," Thea suggested.

  "I've tried, trust me. He just keeps hanging around, being cute."

  "It makes sense that he might not want to date anybody else while he's still hung up on you, but I'm not sure I get why that should stop you," Trish said, reaching out for her water.

  "I think she's got a thing for him and doesn't want to admit it," Sabrina said calmly.

  "Oh, come on," Kelly snapped, "I hardly know the guy."

  "Outside of being practically inseparable from him during every shoot we've had for the last week and a half."

  "So? I had to do something while you're off with Stef."

  Now, five heads snapped around to stare at Sabrina.

  "Well, that didn't take long, did it?" Paige observed calmly.

  "'Off with Stef'?" Thea repeated. "What exactly does that mean? Off as in getting off?"

  Sabrina huffed out an impatient breath. "I've had about all the lectures I can take on this, okay? It's not like we're back into it, hot and heavy. So we've had sex, we're talking. It's harmless," she insisted. "We finish the film and when it's done, we're done."

  "Oh, yeah, there's an original one," Cilla said.

  "Stop it." This time, Sabrina's temper showed. "I have to do this. You think it's just coincidence that all of my relationships have sucked since college? They've all been stand-ins for Stef. Well, maybe now I can finally break free of it."

  "Hey guys," Kelly broke in, "she's right, okay?"

  In the silence that followed, Sabrina shot her a grateful look.

  "She knows better than us what she needs to do," Kelly went on.

  "But—"

  "But nothing. We've all done stuff the others haven't agreed with. Why should Sabrina be any different? It's her life. Let her live it." Kelly's voice softened. "I shouldn't have brought it up, Sabrina. I'm sorry."

  Sabrina moved her shoulders. "It's all right."

  "Well, it wasn't like she wouldn't have told us eventually, right?" Delaney said, adjusting the edge of her red bandeau top. "I mean, she owes us a before-and-after comparison of his performance."

  Sabrina couldn't stop the smile. They went back too many years to not care what happened in each other's lives. "The earth moved. It changed my life," she said dryly.

  "So, let's see, is this going to be like the end of Shrek, with the breaking of the curse?" asked Cilla.

  "Yeah, but the princess turned into a full-time ogre then," Kelly pointed out.

  Cilla raised an eyebrow. "Which means you might turn into a serial breakup specialist."

  "Or maybe I'll just turn into someone who can have a normal, committed relationship. Look, I just need to do this. Are you guys going to stand behind me or are you going to keep giving me shit?"

  There was a short silence. Thea cleared her throat. "Can't we do both?"

  * * *

  14

  « ^ »

  "Do I make noise?" The woman gave a ripe laugh and shook her head until the beads in her braids rattled. "Kiddo, this man gets to work on me and I don't stop."

  "I like it," her partner grinned, wrapping his arms around her from behind. "She starts making those little whimpering noises and I know I'm in the right place."

  She gave him an affronted look. "I don't make whimpering noises."

  "Uh-huh," he said into her ear. "You do like that oh, oh and ooh, och and mmmm and when you get real close, it's just a squeak."

  She slapped him on the arm, blushing furiously.

  "Oh, you know I be telling the truth, babe."

  "Good thing you remember so well, because you're never gonna hear them again."

  "Oh, I think I will," he crooned and whispered something in her ear that had her giggling. "We gotta go now, y'all," he said with a genial wave.

  Sabrina looked over at Stef, who fought a grin as the couple walked out of camera range.

  "That one's a keeper," he said.

  She watched the quirk of humor in his beautiful mouth and thought about the sounds that he drew out of her.

  They stood on Melrose Avenue on a sweltering Saturday night. The daytime temperature had hit the triple digits, and nightfall hadn't done much to temper it. Down in Venice, it might be cool, but up in the city the heat was definitely on. Still, it made for good visuals—everything hemmed high, cut low and generally showing lots of glowing skin. The interviews would not only be fun to listen to, they'd be sexy to watch.

  Still, she couldn't help staring longingly at the ice cream shop across the street. Her sleeveless linen shirt and mini did nothing to help her escape the heat. She glanced over to find Stef's eyes on her.

  "Need a fan?" he offered, handing her a folded sheet of paper.

  "Thanks. Next up," she called to Laeticia.

  A group of middle-aged women walked up to the camera, one a zaftig blonde, one with a brunette bob and the other with a mousy brown shag.

  "Okay, are you ready for some questions?"

  "Ask away," said the blonde, wearing a stretchy red dress that looked surprisingly good on her. "We're all past being embarrassed."

  "I'll see what I can do about that," Sabrina grinned. "So have you ever been caught in the act?"

  The question provoked a chorus of laughter. The brunette found her voice first. "Oh yeah. I was about nineteen and I took my boyfriend home for Christmas, you know, meet the parents and all that. I'm sleeping in my bed and he's down on the couch. So I sneak downstairs to find him and we start making out. Well, he's got my nightshirt up around my shoulders and I kneel by the couch and start going down on him, and then I move up to kiss him. You know, following all that Cosmo advice."

  She started to giggle and had to stop. "I guess our cat, Snowball, had jumped on the back of the couch. The way my boyfriend's cock was bobbling around when I was kissing him, Snowball thought it was a toy, so she jumped on him." The brunette stopped to get control of herself. "It didn't hurt him, but you should have heard him yell. And then when my mom came down … we broke up pretty soon after that," she added, then fell back into a fit of giggles.

  "Mine is better," said the blonde. "Three words—mile high club."

  "I'm almost afraid to ask," said the woman with the brown shag.

  "I think we would have been okay if we hadn't hit turbulence right around the time we were both coming," the blonde said thoughtfully. "I was sitting up on the little counter with my legs wrapped around his waist, but when we bounced, I lost my grip."

  "That sounds noisy."

  "Oh yeah. Next thing we knew, the stewardess was tapping on the door and asking if we were all right. That wouldn't have been so bad, but then she said, 'I know there are two of you in there. I want you out of there, now. There are children on this plane.' I felt like we'd gotten caught by the teacher."

  "Bet they didn't give you any peanuts during the next drinks run."

  "Well, I'd already had my nuts, if you know what I mean," she said with a wink.

  Sabrina paused a moment and fanned herself, then swigged from her bottle of water. Sex in an airplane lavatory. An intriguing idea. So far, she'd never been
on a flight with someone she'd wanted that badly, but maybe someday. What would it be like, she wondered. Hot, hurried and desperate, probably. The very fear of discovery would make it all the more exciting. She touched her fingertips to her lips.

  "Break," Stef said from behind her.

  She jumped. "What?"

  "We need to take a breather. It might be nighttime, but it's baking."

  Sabrina checked her watch. "We need to get this footage in. The permit's only good for tonight."

  "And fifteen minutes isn't going to break us. Come on?"

  She looked at him dubiously.

  "Do I need to start a mutiny?"

  "Okay, everyone, take a break." Sabrina announced and walked over to her chair. "I'll see you back here in fifteen."

  "Nope." Stef took her arm before she could sit. "Come with me." He walked her over to the corner and they crossed with the light.

  She matched strides with him without thinking about it. Their fingers tangled together. "Where are we going?"

  "I think you could use a cooldown." He steered her to the gelato parlor and opened the door. "You've been looking over here all night, like a kid with her nose pressed up against the candy store window. I'm going to buy you a cone."

  Sabrina stared at him.

  "Come on," he chivied her. "You're letting out all the cold air."

  She walked past him into the blessed air-conditioning. "I was debating over whether to go get the camera and get it on tape—Stef Costas taking a break from work to do something totally frivolous."

  "I told you, I've changed."

  The floor of the shop was a mosaic of colored tile that flowed up over the sweeping rounded counter, as though the whole thing had grown organically rather than being built. Ceramic tea sets in vermilion, cobalt, kelly green and pumpkin orange were glued to the walls. In the corner sat a giant, gaily decorated teacup, with a table sprouting in the center and a bench encircling the inside.

  They got their cones—chocolate chocolate chip for Stef and raspberry sorbet for Sabrina—and walked over to sit in the teacup.

  "Nice decor," Sabrina observed, taking a lick of her cone.