by Lisa Ferrari
The house is fully furnished, which is great, especially because I love the décor. If I were going to buy furniture and décor, it’s exactly what I would pick out. The house is totally move-in ready. It even has a gym. And a swimming pool and Jacuzzi.
Once Carla has led us all through the house (fireplace in the master bedroom!), Kellan asks me if I think we should go ahead and rent it.
“We should freakin’ buy it. How much money am I going to make from the movie? Do you think it will be enough for me to buy this place?”
Kellan says, “You like it that much?”
“It’s perfect. It reminds me of your place, but with a view. Look, you can see the Hollywood sign. And what’s that up there?” There’s a white building with a brown dome on the top of the mountain.
Carla says, “That’s the Griffith Observatory.”
“Oh, let’s go up there.”
“Okay.” Kellan turns to Carla. “Month to month work for you?”
Carla says, “Certainly.” Carla opens her briefcase and pulls out the paperwork. Kellan and I sign it, and he uses his phone to transfer $14,000, which is the first month’s rent plus one month’s worth for a security deposit.
Carla hands two sets of house keys to me, plus two black key fobs which open and close the garage doors and the big security gate. She thanks us and departs.
Kellan and I stand in the living room, looking at one another.
“Holy merdre!” I exclaim, “We just rented a house! So what do we do, fly home, pack a couple of suitcases, and drive back down? I’ll drive my Solstice and you’ll drive… what?”
“I think we should drive together; choose one car to bring down on a truck, and leave the other ones at home. At least for now. I’ll have my assistant drive a rental truck down. You can throw your clothes in a suitcase and box up your books and movies and whatever else you’d like to have close to you.”
“Our sex toys.”
Kellan laughs. I love hearing him laugh.
“Yes, definitely those, too.”
Kellan and I hug and look out at the view. We can see all the way to downtown.
“Wow,” I say. “I think we’re going to love it here.”
Kellan says, “Yes. I can’t wait to bend you over the edge of that Jacuzzi.”
“That makes two of us.”
I step behind Kellan and seize him by the hips and press my pelvis against his perfect, round, muscular bubble butt.
Kellan moans. “You’re making me hard.”
“Good.”
I reach around and grab the front of his pants and squeeze his enormous erection.
“That was fast.”
“See what you do to me?”
I look around. “Is this place secluded? Can anyone see us?”
“Maybe if they use binoculars or a telescope. There are fifteen-foot walls with hedges on either side of the lot, so no one can peek into our yard.”
“Good.”
I take Kellan by the hand and lead him out to the pool, to a wooden bench under the patio cover. I’m not sure what’s gotten into me, but all of sudden I’m very, very horny. And I want to do stuff to Kellan, to thank him somehow or to show him how appreciative I am, because without him I simply wouldn’t be here.
I stand behind Kellan, with my hips pressed against his sexy ass, pushing him against the bench. I reach around, undo his belt, his pants, and his fly, and pull his pants and underwear down to his knees.
I take his penis in my hand, stroking the length of him, while I use my other hand to squeeze his perfect butt. I slap it and smack it a few times. Kellan cries out each time.
“You like that?”
“Yes.”
I use both hands to squeeze his buttocks hard, pulling them apart. Each time I do, Kellan gasps.
I wet my fingers with saliva and massage Kellan’s anus.
Kellan gasps again, louder.
I wet my fingers again and slide my middle finger inside him.
“Oh, Claire…” he moans.
I stroke his erection and press my hips against his perfect, naked rear end, pushing my finger into him each time. I work the head of his penis. “I want to make you come like this.”
“Oh, Claire…”
I stroke him faster, bumping my hips against him, working my finger in and out of him. He exclaims several times, building up, up, up, and then he explodes.
I stroke his long, hard shaft, careful not to touch the head, careful not to tickle him. Kellan’s anus contracts hard around my finger rhythmically as he orgasms.
God, I love it.
I just made this big, strong, sexy man come his brains out.
AFTER KELLAN COMES down, I ease my finger out and turn him around to face me. His eyes are half-lidded.
“You look sleepy.”
Kellan yawns. “That was so, so good.”
Kellan leads me inside, shuffling with his pants around his knees. It’s very cute. We collapse on the massive sectional sofa.
Kellan says, “I want you to come, too. But do you mind if maybe I take a little nap first?” He curls up on his side, his head on a blue-and-brown throw pillow, his pants around his knees. His penis is still somewhat engorged. A little white drop of semen clings to the tip. I lean down and lick it. Kellan’s eyes widen as he watches me do so. “God, you’re sexy.” He yawns again.
“So are you. Sleep. I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?
“I need to use the ladies’ room, and maybe explore the house a bit more.”
“Don’t get locked in the wine cellar.”
“There’s a wine cellar?”
“Yeah. The agent said the door handle inside is…”
I wait to hear more about the door handle but I hear only Kellan’s snore. He’s asleep.
I quickly wash my hands in the kitchen, which is like something out of a magazine. It’s all warm, chocolate wood with copper-and-gold inlay on the backsplash. It’s warm and elegant and looks very classy and expensive. But it’s also surprisingly cozy. The whole house is. I think that’s why I like it as much as I do. I feel oddly at home here.
Exploring the house takes a few minutes. There are four bedrooms, a formal dining room which houses a pool table instead of a dining table, an office, and the gym. The living room where Kellan is curled up half naked has a huge television on the wall and I can see speakers lurking in the corners. It looks like a nice home theater.
The gym is well appointed with a stepmill, a bike, a treadmill, and lots of iron. Whoever owns this place is serious about their fitness because the dumbbells go up to 150. Kellan has 150s at home. He uses them all the time. I have yet to be able to do more than roll them across the floor. The gym also has a bench press, an incline bench, a decline bench, and a Universal machine for cable crossovers, pushdowns, curls, and lat pulldowns. There’s a squat rack and even a leg press. Kellan has been talking about getting a leg press at home, but there’s not enough room for one. In this house, I can load up the leg press and stare out the window, across the pool, and out at the L.A. basin while I work my legs.
Caught in a moment of inspiration, I quickly throw two 45s on each side and sit down in the machine. I put my feet on the rubber plate, press it up, and release the handle lock beside my hip. I lower it down slowly, then press it back up again. It’s far too light. I thought 180 pounds would be heavier. But then I remember Kellan telling me one night at Iron Palace some months ago that a squat represents real weight; whatever is on the bar is what’s on your shoulders and you have no choice but to lift it. But on a leg press, the weight is sliding on rollers up and down a track raked at 45 degrees, and there’s a mathematical formula for figuring out the actual weight you’re lifting. Geometry or trigonometry, I don’t recall which. The sin or cosin of the weight on the machine. So my 180 is probably more like 150.
I get up, throw another wheel on each side, and try again. The 270 is proba
bly more like 240, but it feels good. It’s a challenge. I bang out fifteen smooth reps. Each time I straighten my legs, being careful not to lock out my knees entirely, the foot rest goes up and I can see through the machine and out the window, where Los Angeles and, apparently, stardom (or unprecedented humiliation) await.
I climb out of the leg press and wander into the master bedroom. It’s masterful in every way. It’s dominated by a huge bed. There’s a fireplace with a love seat and two ottomans in front of it.
I walk into the bathroom, which is all swirled marble and silver accents. The shower is big, with a shower head on each end, one for each of us, I muse, and I imagine the fun we’re going to have in there together. There is a window in the bathroom, too, above the big Jacuzzi tub, that looks out at the city. It’ll be breathtaking at night.
Then I notice the fireplace. A fireplace in the bathroom. You know you’ve made it when there’s a friggin fireplace in the friggin bathroom. (Sharks, with friggin laserbeams on their heads!)
I realize that the fireplace shares a wall. I go back into the bedroom and find the switch on the wall. Big yellow and orange flames leap up after a couple of seconds, and I feel their warmth. I return to the bathroom to view the fireplace from the other side. I’ve never had a romantic shower beside a fireplace before.
The love seat in the bedroom will be a wonderful place to snuggle this winter. Or I can bend Kellan over one of the ottomans, or have him bend me over one of them, especially when it’s cold and raining out. Assuming L.A. ever gets cold and rainy. I’m sure it does, but I’ve never experienced it.
It will be so sexy in the dark, like the fireside sex scene from Conan we reenacted last Halloween.
There are three other bedrooms, each with its own bathroom and fireplace, though only the master has the dual shower-fireplace. The office has two desks, side by side, perfect for Kellan and me to work simultaneously.
I finally find the wine cellar at the bottom of a flight of stone steps. Racks line the walls, though there is no wine. Pity. Neither of us are big drinkers anyway. But this might be a good place to keep our pot. Our one tiny little plastic bag of pot. But then I recall that Roger and Hera gifted us a nice assorted basket variety sampler of cannabis, along with a bunch of edibles. They’re stashed in the back of our refrigerator back home; out of sight, out of mind. But perhaps now that the audition is over and we got the job, we can experiment with them. I’m not sure if Kellan has ever tried such a thing; I never have. I wonder if eating it is different from smoking it. Or vaping. Vaping has become such a thing; I don’t really understand it. Nicotine, I guess? I’ve smoked a few cigarettes in my life. But I never thought much of it. They were stinky, the smoke burned my nose, it tasted awful, it made my fingers stink and it was almost impossible to get the smell off, and the chemicals and nicotine made me want to throw up. Like when Rachel smoked with her boss and the other assistant at Ralph Lauren. I never got to the part Chandler talked about, when it gets “so good”. But what about vaping, somewhat douchey as it is, and e-cigarettes? (Is there a difference? Why am I so square that I don’t know this stuff??? Triple question marks!!!) If vaping can take carcinogens and tar and weird chemicals out of the smoking equation, it should help millions of people not get cancer. And that’s a good thing.
It’s surprisingly but appropriately chilly down here in the wine cellar. I go to leave but the door doesn’t open. The black wrought-iron handle flops in my hand, failing to activate the latch inside the frame.
Shit.
Um…
Shit.
I PUSH ON the door.
It doesn’t move.
Not even a little.
I bang on it hard but succeed only in hurting my hand. It’s a heavy wooden door like something out of an old castle, like the Red Keep of King’s Landing.
I slap the door with my palm several times. “Kellan!”
But I know immediately that it’s useless. There’s no way he can hear me. I could run a chainsaw down here and you couldn’t hear it from upstairs. That’s the thing about really nice, really expensive houses: they’re also really well built. Sound doesn’t travel. This house is not like my little apartment where the guy downstairs farts and I hear it.
I wonder how long Kellan will nap. It’s been an exciting but mentally and emotionally rigorous day. He may sleep for three or four hours and it’s only been about twenty minutes.
There is a wooden chair beside the door (probably for propping open the door!). I sit down and wait.
And I wait.
And I wait.
I have no idea how much time passes. My phone is in my purse and my purse is upstairs. I’m not wearing a watch. But I may begin doing so tomorrow.
My eyes get heavy.
I start yawning.
It’s chilly so I cross my legs at the ankles and fold my arms over my stomach, trying to cover my bare midriff. Superboobs Carla observed how Kellan and I were both dressed, like we stepped off the set of Star Wars, but she didn’t ask why we were dressed this way. She did ask what we do, to which Kellan replied that he was in the fitness industry and that I work in publishing.
I lean my head against the wall and let my eyes close.
I WAKE UP later when I hear my name.
My chin is on my chest and saliva drips from my mouth down my chin and onto my chest.
“Claire!”
It’s Kellan’s voice, amplified and weirdly electronic.
“If you can hear me, find the nearest intercom.”
It’s beside my head. I press the Talk button. “Kellan!”
“Yeah? Where are you?”
“I’m locked in the wine cellar.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just get me out of here.”
“Okay, don’t go anywhere.”
“Funny.”
“Is there any good wine down there?”
“Tons.”
“Any good years?”
“Kellan!”
“Okay, coming. Um, where is the wine cellar?”
“I don’t know! By the kitchen.”
“I’m in the kitchen.”
“By the room with the pool table.”
“There’s a pool table?”
“Kellan! Get me the fuck out of here!”
“Okay!”
Fifteen seconds later, I hear boots coming down the stone steps.
The door opens.
Kellan smiles. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
He looks around. “Where’s all the wine?”
“You took so long getting down here that I drank it to survive, like the Donner Party or those soccer players in the Andes.”
“Funny. So this door really is broken, huh? I’d better not accidentally close it while we’re both in here. We could be in here for days. Maybe weeks. We’d be nothing but bones.”
“Quit screwing around. That could actually happen.”
“I know. You’re right. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Kellan takes me by the hand, kisses me, and leads me up the steps and into the kitchen.
“Are you okay? Were you scared?”
“Not really. Bored, mostly. I fell asleep.”
“Why didn’t you call me on the intercom?”
“I didn’t know there was one down there. Although, it makes sense. You go down there for a bottle of wine and can’t decide what to bring up, so instead of walking back upstairs, because you can’t because the goddamn door is fucked, you call on the intercom and discuss it. It’s kind of dumb, though, that in a house this nice and this frickin expensive, to have a broken door handle left unrepaired.”
“Yeah, and the agent woman said it’s a genuine Italian olive wood door with hand-crafted hasps and handle, so they’re trying to get another one made in Italy and shipped over here. Costs more than a grand, apparently.”
“Okay, tomorrow we’re going to Lowes or Home Depot or we’re
calling a locksmith or a carpenter or the owner or who the fuck ever, and we’re getting that thing fixed. I don’t want to live in a house where I’m afraid to go into the cellar. I have enough on my mind. I need my sleep. I can’t be having nightmares about getting trapped down there while you’re out of town for two weeks doing guest appearances.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll get it fixed. I’ll take the door off the hinges if I have to.”
WE SIT DOWN on the sofa and breathe a sigh of relief.
“Did you have a nice nap?”
“I did, thank you. Thanks to you.”
I scratch an itch on my nose and catch a whiff of Kellan’s musky scent. I take a deeper, fuller sniff.
“What are you doing?”
“What?”
“Did you just smell your finger?”
“No.”
“Is that the finger that was in me?”
“Maybe.”
“Didn’t you wash your hands?”
“Of course I did. But I can still smell you.”
“What does it smell like?”
“Musky.”
“It’s not poopy, is it? Because if it is, we are never doing that again.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s not poopy. It’s musky. I like it.”
I decide to change the subject.
“Did you check out the gym? There’s a leg press.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Come on.”
We go to the gym and I show it to him.
Kellan says, “Whoever used it last forgot to rack their weights. That’s poor gym etiquette.” He spies the three plates on each side. “Not to mention weak. Two-seventy? Are you kidding?”
“That was me. I put those on there.”
“Really? Two-seventy? But it’s not two-seventy, it’s the sin of two-seventy. Which I happen to know from memory is about a hundred and ninety pounds. You can do more than that.”
“I wasn’t going for a personal best. I was just trying it out.”
“Oh. Okay. How was it?”
“Good. Smooth. And each time you press, you can see the city. Oh, that reminds me. Come look at this.”
I take Kellan by the hand and lead him into the master bedroom. I lead him to the fireplace and the love seat. I hit the switch and the flames leap to life.
