Was it evening?
“Devon, what time is it?”
“Night time.”
“Smartass.”
“Always. But as you yourself might say, if you find that answer to be unsatisfactory, you may bite me – it would be only fair, as I plan on nibbling certain strategic areas of you later on.”
Yep, my Devon was back with bells on.
“So where can a girl find a shower and some clothes around here?”
“The master bedroom just next door has quite the palatial master bath attached to it – you’ll find everything you need there, and I shall see you in the theater shortly. Do call me, though, if you find you need help with showering your magnificent body.”
“I think I can manage, big fella.”
“Are you quite sure? If you wish, I could pay particular attention to lathering your ripe, full breasts.”
“Promises, promises – so once I’m washed up, where do I find this theater of yours?”
“Now if I told you where it was, what sort of adventure would that be?”
The cryptic bastard flashed me his best heart-melting grin. Then he sauntered out of the room and off down the hall, leaving me alone, aroused, and all kinds of confused.
Once I’d finished steaming up a shower stall big enough to hold a dozen of me, I discovered that the promised clothes in the dresser drawers of the master bedroom were all his clothes – well, duh, Ashley.
They fit about as well as a giraffe’s clothes might fit a hippo, but after lots of rummaging around and swearing, I found a t-shirt that only came down to my knees. I matched that up with a pair of grey sweatpants that were sort of wearable, once I rolled the legs halfway up and stopped thinking too hard about how ridiculous they looked. I topped off the ensemble with a thick white robe that matched the one he was wearing, except that I had to tuck mine way the hell up and tie it off with the matching belt to keep it from dragging on the hardwood floor.
Now what time was it, and where was his alleged theater?
My iPhone informed me that it was now 7:20 in the evening. I called Mrs. Hadfield and spent several minutes reassuring her that the boss was okay – she then told me that his private theater took up a considerable chunk of the mansion’s seventh floor, and could I please persuade him to not play that godawful screaming death metal crap over the theater’s speakers this time? I told her that German Expressionism was on tap for tonight and that the staff’s hearing should be safe, and then I set out for whatever awaited me in Devon’s private screening room.
One short elevator ride later, I stepped out onto the seventh floor to discover it was dressed up as a theater lobby.
Velvet ropes mounted on gold stands led me from the elevator doors to an antique ticket booth pillaged from a real theater. I waved at the mannequin dressed in thirties-era finery behind the ticket booth’s window, assured her I was Mr. Killane’s guest, and wandered past into the vast open space beyond.
My bare feet sank into rich pile carpeting as I walked around checking out the scenery, which included art deco couches, palms potted in Ming vases, vintage brass cigar stands, and more mannequins dressed as movie-goers and ushers.
I would have gaped in jealousy at the original one-sheet film posters lining the walls – they were a collector’s dream of rare and obscure titles – but the posters were overshadowed by the theater marquees mounted alongside them. These were full-sized classic theater marquees complete with chrome trim, working neon lights, and authentic battered plastic lettering advertising everything from period hits like “Ben-Hur” and “It Happened One Night” to films even a movie addict like me had never heard of – seriously, “Vivre Sa Vie”? “The Seventh Continent”?
Man, I could live in this place and watch movies day and night until the popcorn and soda ran out, and be one happy girl.
I wandered around gawking until I came up against the room’s far wall, a wall that divided the seventh floor in half. The rest of the room was all silk and gold and posters and antiques, but the wall looming before me was plain dark wood, polished and reserved and far too cool for mere decoration.
The wall hosted a door.
This single narrow door was framed in the same dark wood as the wall. A small bronze plaque was mounted on the door, and it displayed a single word: “Theater.” Above the door, a red light flashed with the steady rhythm of a beating heart.
I decided the glaring obviousness of the light’s ‘keep the hell out’ message didn’t apply to anybody who was doing triple duty as girlfriend, personal assistant, and amateur therapist, so I marched right in.
“Ah, there you are. I fear you’ve missed the coming attractions and the better part of the cartoons, but our feature presentation is still a few minutes away. Will you join me?”
The house lights were already down, and I could just make out the silhouette of Devon’s head over the back of what looked like a sprawling behemoth of a couch that occupied prime viewing territory at the front of the theater.
“On my way, big guy, and you better save me some popcorn.”
My eyes took their time adjusting to the darkness – but once I could see my hand in front of my face, I could also make out a dozen tiered rows of seats banking down to the open area in front of the screen, and I headed straight down the center aisle. I watched for the dim amber footlights marking the edge of each step, I grabbed the back of a seat now and then to steady myself, I noticed but didn’t think about some odd shadows off to either side, and I made it down to Devon undamaged.
I walked around one end of the couch to join my irresistible and exasperating boyfriend, I got a good look at his Imperial Throne of Sinful Cinema Decadence, and … oh, my.
Red leather, gold fringes, brass fittings, lacquered feet carved in the shape of a lion’s paws – that couch would have been right at home in a high-end New Orleans brothel, circa 1920 or so.
Long enough to hold at least ten people side by side, it curved from one end to the other in a semi-circle, and I could tell just by gawking that once I sat down in the clutches of its leather luxury, not only would my feet not hit the floor, but they’d barely make it to the front edge of the cushions. Devon’s legs hung over the front, seeing as how he was leaning back and sprawling his disgusting tallness all over the place, but even his feet didn’t touch down on the hardwood boards of the theater’s floor.
“My Ashley, you are a vision of loveliness, as always. Join me, and together we shall explore the mysteries of early German cinema. Or if you like, we can instead explore the heights of bliss attainable by two human bodies interlocking in passionate sexual union – although if you choose that route, be aware that your popcorn will grow cold and soggy as it marinates in a grotesque stew of salt and rancid artificial butter.”
He held aloft a paper bag of popcorn and brandished it in my direction with his left hand, while with his right he patted the red leather upholstery next to his hip.
I knew only too well that I was a portly vision of roundness in baggy sweatpants and a giant’s t-shirt, but if he wanted to see me with his testosterone and not his eyes, that was fine by me. I clambered up onto the couch, snatched my popcorn from his grasp – mmm, my favorite white cheddar salt, he remembered – and settled in at his side.
On the screen looming above us, cartoon pigs and mice were doing something incomprehensible at breakneck speed, hazed on by a soundtrack of tootling organ music. Then a black-and-white explosion brought all that to an end, and the feature presentation flickered to life.
Now, I’m as big a fan of obscure German movies as the next girl, but it so happens that I do not in fact speak German. So when I noticed that the murky action and cryptic symbolism were not accompanied by one single English subtitle, I complained to the management.
“Boss, I’m kind of language-impaired here. Are you going to translate this, or do I have to make up my own dialogue?”
“I suggest we do both, and see whose version is more appealing.”
So
for one hour and twenty minutes, Devon provided a flawless translation on the fly, while I countered with one invented line after another. His honest version was a murder investigation serving as a metaphor for the rise of a totalitarian state, while mine turned all the moody introspection into vicious territorial infighting between rival traveling dildo salesmen.
Every time a gun appeared and Devon translated the character’s inevitable lengthy speech on all the philosophical underpinnings of why the opposing character needed to be shot, I responded with the gunman explaining how the magnificent dildo he was holding was the pinnacle of fake penis technology, and would surely rule the market as soon as he used it to bludgeon his rival senseless.
When someone gasped in horror upon discovering a body in an alley, I added helpful commentary explaining how the victim had in fact collapsed in exhaustion after an extended session of pleasuring himself with a vibrating, solar-powered, glow-in-the-dark, twenty-four-inch dildo that also whistled show tunes and displayed the local time in all major world capitals.
Devon objected that as this was a German film, I was obligated to give this mega-dildo’s length in centimeters; I responded that the metric system was a tool of the devil, and then I threw popcorn at him.
By the time the end credits rolled, my sides ached from laughing and Devon wore a considerable amount of greasy popcorn in his hair – although being Devon, he managed to pull off the look with a certain wounded dignity.
“My beautiful but ever so naughty Ashley, I trust you realize that you now have a moral duty to join me in the shower and shampoo my hair back into its previous grease-free state – although if you show the proper degree of remorse for bedecking my scalp with popcorn, I may permit you to shampoo certain other areas of my body as well.”
“Stop trying to cut the shower line, big fella; you already promised me an extensive lathering of my extensive breasts, remember? You and your certain areas can just wait your turn until the proper amount of soapy respect is paid to me and my girls here.”
He plucked a piece of popcorn from his hair and threw it at me. I snatched it out of the air, popped it in my mouth, and then stuck out my tongue and waggled it at him, right before we both fell apart laughing.
Popcorn and all, he was beautiful in that moment. With his head lolling against the back of the couch, eyes squeezed shut as tears of laughter ran down his face, he was the finest thing I’d ever seen – and even though all those instincts of mine warned me it was a terrible idea, in that moment I knew I loved him.
Did he love me?
He’d never said the words, and I almost didn’t want him to – after all, every guy who’d ever said he loved me, from Dad right down to that loser Greg, had left me in the end, left me alone and heartbroken and feeling like a sap.
I knew in my bones that Devon wouldn’t do that to me. But I also knew in some irrational corner of my brain that if he said out loud in actual English words that he loved me, it would somehow break the spell and he’d vanish from my life, just like all the others.
I couldn’t bear to be broken again.
Speaking of being broken, Ashley, remember how this guy was a shivering wreck a few hours ago? Sure, it might be all kinds of fun to pretend that never happened and just giggle your way through old movies all night – but if you love this disaster waiting to happen, how can you let him slide by without explaining that shit? How do you expect to fix him if you have no idea how or where he’s broken?
While I debated with myself, Devon’s laughter eased down to muffled snorts as he opened his eyes.
“That was a grander spectacle than any I’ve seen at Cannes or Sundance. No one grasps the dildo-esque quality of German Expressionism like my Ashley –” And with that, he broke off into another fit of unmanly but adorable giggles, hugging his sides and shaking like a hopeless laughter junkie.
A minute or two later, he regained the power to speak.
“I chose the last film, Ashley, and so I defer to you for the next one – shall we enjoy another dark Teutonic masterpiece, or would you prefer some postwar French neo-modernist symbolism? Or something from the oeuvre of Mr. Welles, perhaps? I might even be persuaded to sit still for an action piece involving epic vehicle crashes and explosions, or …”
His voice trailed off as he noticed me leaning against the back of the couch and just looking at him, looking at him and not saying a thing. Then he sighed, and his eyes sagged shut for a few seconds. When he reopened them, he gave me a weary smile.
“I take it the moment of reckoning has come?”
I curled up next to him, I reached out and ran my hand up and down his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin and the hammering of his heart, and I tried to sound a whole lot braver than I felt.
“You got it, big guy. So, just when were you planning on telling me about your panic attacks?”
He tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling. “You know, my wiser self told me you’d never fall for this: a manic bout of movie-watching, perhaps to be followed by a magnificent and quite intimate shower, and then love-making until dawn … my wiser self insisted you would never allow yourself to be distracted by such a ploy, but my other selves were far too cowardly to face up to the problem at hand, and insisted on trying this maneuver.”
He turned to smile at me. “By now, I should know better than to let them outvote my wiser self, but so they did, and so here we are.”
“And where we are is in a relationship, right? And people in a relationship support each other –at least it’s supposed to work that way, although I’ve sure as hell been burned on that one before. Anyway, that makes your problems my problems, right? Therefore, your panic attack problem is now my problem too, so tell me about it.”
“I know nothing about relationships, Ashley – in fact, I find them utterly confusing and quite frightening.”
“Earth to Devon, everybody finds relationships confusing and scary – now, tell me about our panic attacks, okay?”
“Lovely Ashley, can you at least understand that I want you to see me as someone worthy of you, and therefore a far grander creature than I am? Can you see that I am terrified of displaying any weakness or flaw to you, terrified that you will desert me once you realize what a fraud I am?”
“Panic attacks aren’t weakness.”
“They certainly feel like weakness to me.”
“Devon, do you remember all those months of ‘special project’ meetings that led up to what happened this morning? Do you remember how on edge and trembling with nerves you were for those meetings, how I had to anchor you by keeping right at your side and holding your hand?”
“God, yes. I felt like such a useless –”
“Shush up, your girlfriend’s talking here – relationship rule number one, never interrupt your hot love monkey when she’s babbling on about your relationship, okay?”
Damn, there was that heart melting smile again. How the hell was I supposed to concentrate when he smiled at me like that? “Understood, wise Ashley. Proceed.”
“Anyway, those meetings were private, with only your own people around you, so you could afford to be all jittery – but this morning? This morning was the real thing, with the real enemy right in front of you and everything on the line – and you know what?”
“I know I felt truly dreadful.”
“I know you that this morning when it counted, you were a rock. You were the steel at the heart of the universe, your control was perfect, you owned the room, you looked and acted like every penny of your umpteen bazillion dollars – Uncle Sheridan and I knew what was going on underneath, but all the bad guys saw in you was a humongous boot heel coming down to stomp them flat. That was not weakness, Devon, not one bit of it – that was as much strength concentrated in one person as I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“And a few hours ago, when I barely recognized you?” His smile turned faint and wistful as he stared down at the floor.
“A few hours ago, when the threat was long past
and the victory most firmly won, that wiser self of yours decided it was safe to let all your other selves indulge in a freak-out, and so the hell what? That was strength too, knowing when to let go.”
I paused to pull my thoughts together, while I glanced around the darkened theater. The screen had gone dim, the vintage popcorn machine supplying the bags of white-cheddary goodness stood in the shadows by one end of the couch, a full service Depression-era soda fountain loomed in the darkness at the other end, and I somehow felt the weight of all those rows of seats rising behind us.
It was quiet, too, without that swirling, creepy soundtrack echoing from the hidden speakers …
“Ashley, your father abandoned you when you were five years old, correct?”
Oh hell, not this, not now.
“I told you that in your office, the day we first met – so what does that have to do with your panic attacks?”
“He played the part of a father for as long as it amused him, and then he deserted you and your lovely and brave mother, never to be seen again – was that the way of it?”
I felt the tears starting, forced them back, forced myself to stay on point. “Yes, it was just like that – I woke up the morning after my fifth birthday, I wandered into the kitchen looking for breakfast, and I found Mom sitting at the table crying her eyes out. I didn’t know what was going on, so I climbed into her lap and started crying too. She hugged me to her so hard I could barely breathe, and then she started talking. I was too young to understand much of it, I just got the fact that Daddy was gone and he wasn’t coming back.”
“And you never saw him again?”
“Not a visit, not a phone call, not so much as a lousy card now and then – he just vanished off the face of the earth without a shred of an explanation.”
I sniffled, fought hard to keep the sniffles from developing into full-blown crying, and plowed onward. “I found out the explanation when I was a little older – surprise, surprise, it turned out he’d been a tomcatting bastard for years before he met Mom, and when he got bored with settling down, he left us and went right back to fucking his way through life, just as if nothing had happened, as if we’d never existed …”
Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance Page 25
