We grabbed champagne off a waiter’s tray, and Suzie said, “Mr Monroe, it is an honor to meet you.”
“Call me Taylor, my brave one.”
Suzie fluttered and dipped into a bow. I put up a hand to stop her, but Taylor nodded like a king receiving a worthy commoner. His beard nearly fluffed itself with self-satisfaction. These two were obviously a match made in heaven.
“I’m so pleased Samantha will be in one of your movies, Taylor,” Suzie said.
My stomach gripped itself, waiting for the other kitten-heeled shoe to drop.
“She’s a wonderful actress, and will be delightful in it.”
Whew. And wow! Mom never said stuff like that about me!
Suzie continued singing my praises— “She got all her talent from me. I would make a great mother in your movie, although it’s hard to believe that I ever gave birth.”
Ow! A heel in the temple, no matter how fuchsia and small, will sting.
“I don’t feature mothers in my films,” replied Taylor smoothly. “I don’t want to commodify the older woman and turn her into a joke.” This was Taylor-speak for ‘Ew, old bitches are gross, and I don’t want to fuck them’. No women above the age of forty ever appeared in his movies, although he cast tons of old guys. He’d told me one time that cavemen preferred younger women to reproduce for them, so misogyny was A-okay, because science and evolution.
I often find that any time some dude explains anything beginning with cavemen, nothing but utter mammoth shit will follow. I dreamed of the day when we’d unfreeze a Neanderthal woman, and she’d tell us, ‘Grok grab me by hair to drag in cave, so I invent wheel to get away from him. Had successful wheel-carving business, until glacier got me. Grok is sabre-tooth tiger anus, and still buried in giant wall of ice. Who make you Pterodactyl sandwich now, stupid head?’
Naturally, I’d play Grakka in the film version of her rolling journey to small-business success.
Good Lord, Taylor made my skin crawl sometimes, but if one only worked for non-assholes in Hollywood, one would never see Sundance. At least he hadn’t told me to lose ten pounds. Yet.
I decided to change the subject, as my director’s grossness was beginning to sour my bubbly. “Several of your paintings are new, right? Since the last time we were here?” That was about a month before, when Taylor and Billie had hosted us for dinner and cleansing. The dinner, roast duck, had been succulent—the cleansing, disgusting tea and chanting, had been difficult not to blarf through.
Speaking of difficult not to blarf through, Billie Monroe floated over to us at that moment, her sheer aqua caftan breezing behind her like a blithe spirit. “Samuel,” saith she in her thin, high-pitched doll voice, to Sam, whose alias was never Samuel, “I delight to see you still amongst the living. The Shadows nearly embraced you into their fold, but you escaped!” She screeched “escaped!” and we both jumped backward.
‘The Shadows’ were who Billie talked to in the spirit realm—she’d written three books about them, the mysterious dark figures that only she saw. I’m not sure what drugs inspired ‘the Shadows’ to come out and play, but they were sure to be pricey. Her book sales more than made up the difference, I’m sure.
Her bedazzled claws sank into Sam’s arm. His eyes took on the round, glassy fright of an animal cornered in cross hairs. “Thank you?” he replied.
“It was not your time,” she intoned, her head vibrating. The pink rhinestone ‘bindi’ she’d glued to her orange-tanned forehead both sparkled and offended. “The Shadows tell me that you have many important missions in this life to carry out. What are they? Tell us!”
Even Suzie winced at that screech, and she could hoot-owl with the best of them.
Sam unleashed the dimple. “Well, my mission right now is to get a Scotch.”
Taylor and I laughed, and I leaned closer to Sam while simultaneously pulling him away from Billie’s clutchings. “That’s not a lie. Doesn’t count.”
“Sure it is,” he breathed into my ear. “I really need two to deal with this shit. What is she on?”
“I wish I knew.”
We could both agree on that.
I yanked Sam toward the bar, figuring I’d leave Taylor to Suzie’s charms. Billie had tons of imaginary people to talk to. Fortifying drink in hand—a double—we wandered the edges of the room to admire the art. Well, he admired, I endured. Me and art had a hate–hate relationship. Despite its beauty, art always seemed to get me in trouble, like the hot quarterback of the football team who won’t use condoms.
“Are these stolen?” I asked Sam conspiratorially.
“Not that I can place.” He stopped in front of a magnificent Degas. “Nothing from a museum that I remember. Jesus—I shudder to think what he pays in insurance.”
“This one wasn’t here a month ago. There was something else—but I don’t remember who…lots of red.”
“Is he a dealer?”
I cocked my head at Sam’s tone, which inspired the ‘uh-ohs’ in my boozy tummy. “No. Just insanely rich from old money.” I downed a gulp of my drink, afraid to ask, “Why?”
“Quick turnover for a collector.”
Shrugging, I smiled at an acquaintance passing by and leaned onto Sam’s shoulder. “For all I know he hadn’t changed the last stuff for ten years.”
“That’s true.”
The next hour was a blur as friends and strangers both began swamping us, seeking gossip fodder about Sam’s injury…um, I mean expressing concern for his health. Sam told everyone a different story about how the accident had happened, ticking off fingers to me as he met this three-lies-to-get-laid quota. Number one— “I saved a baby carriage from an oncoming bus full of homicidal nuns.” Number two— “Two Wall Street types were attempting to suck the blood from a helpless child, so I rushed in with garlic and a binder of banking regulations to stop them.” Number three— “Aliens.” This last story was met with vigorous approval by Billie.
Finally, when my giggles had reached the hysteria level, I yanked him outside to the balcony for some fresh air. Arctic fresh air—my entire body instantly turned into a goose bump. But the fever from the crush of the room eased almost immediately. “I fully expect ‘Aliens’ to be the headline for tomorrow’s New York Post.”
“I’ll be disappointed if it’s not,” he said, coming up behind me and setting his hands on my waist. He smoothed his fingers down the front of my hips, as if searching for a good hand-hold. He found it, pulling me back against his warm pelvis and chest.
The urge to have him bend me over the balcony rail and fuck me right then and there was not only dangerous, but dangerously sexy. His breath washed hot over my ear as he said, “How are you, my impossibly hot wife?”
“Glad you’re here.”
He set his chin against the top of my hair and held me. The moment felt so normal. The Scotch, the night air, his arms around me… The knot of fear deep inside me unwound, and I could enjoy the now in a way I hadn’t since he’d gone missing. We’d deal with the amnesia. I’d deal with anything, so long as he avoided taking up residence with the dreaded Shadow people.
A cacophonous clamor sounded from inside. It sounded like a flamingo trying to mate with a llama to a reggae beat. “What the hell is that?” asked Sam.
“Bby Bodashus, the number one rap star in the country.” He shuffled us around so that we could see through the glass doors.
Sure enough, a diminutive lady wearing blonde dreads and more gold than Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra had begun rapping about the ‘ghetto’ she’d escaped to become a star. For the purposes of our story, ‘ghetto’ means ‘the suburbs of San Diego, California’.
Lighted disco balls on motors rotated over the crowd, making the place look like the most opulent dorm room ever. The crowd began dancing in a circle around Bby’s performance on one of the double staircases… Not dancing so much as swaying goofily. Money can’t buy rhythm.
“Am I having a stroke?” Sam asked me.
“If you are, I
am, too.”
“Damn. How much did we pay for the honor of attending this…?” He lifted his chin, searching for a horrific descriptor that didn’t seem to come to him.
“A grand each. Plus for Mom and Diego. But it’s for a good cause—Bby doesn’t take a salary for fundraisers for her foundation. Plus, I convinced half the folks in this room to be here.”
“Well, there’s a lot fewer Christmas cards we’ll be getting.”
I laughed and held the hands that encircled my waist from behind. “I love you.”
He went stiff.
Oh, no! I’d said the ‘L’ word. L is for ‘loser’. L is for ‘luck, bad’. L is for ‘L’husband has amnesia’. Zut alors, what the hell had I done that for?
He set his head atop mine again, and squeezed me a moment. I expelled my stale breath and urged my heart to stop barfing in my chest. So I’d told my husband that I loved him, but he didn’t remember me enough to return the sentiment. That’s okay. Nothing had changed. Except now I wanted to cry, and not just from Bby’s repeated use of the word ‘ratchet’.
“Thank you,” he whispered in my ear. “Thank you for everything.”
If I couldn’t have love, I’d accept gratitude. I turned around and buried my face in his chest. “I’d do anything I could to help you.”
He raked his hand through my hair and hugged me close, the heat of his body melting the ice of my skin. In that breath, I almost believed that he did love me…somewhere in a place that memory doesn’t control. He pulled back, and so did I. I tucked my envelope purse under my arm and smiled to make light of the situation. He appraised me with dark eyes. “You’ll do anything?”
I grinned. “I thought we’d already established that.”
“Give me your underwear.”
My breath fled in a gasp. His eyes had become pools of dark lava, nearly scorching the clothes right off me.
“I’ll go to the bathroom,” I agreed before thinking too thoroughly. Cogitation was difficult under a stare like that.
“No. Here. Now.”
New Sam made me ache. My pussy lit up with want, and with wanting to do what he so calmly and quietly ordered me to do. He was sick in the brain, after all—removing one’s panties in public in front of millionaires was a properly therapeutic thing to do.
With a hard hand, he grabbed my arm and whispered, close to my ear, “Quit panting at me and do it.”
He backed me up to the railing once again, the wrought iron cold against my ass. His body covered a view of me from behind him, but not that much. I dropped my expensive handbag on the tile. He chuckled. My breasts tingled inside my bra, desperate to rub against the chest just a couple of layers of flimsy clothing from my nipples. I felt up inside my skirt until the thin ridge of my satin panties met the tips of my fingers. I slid them, only catching on one side. Thus, I shimmied them down an inch, two. Already the chilled breeze from the night air blew across my wet cunt, and I shivered. I shivered in every way possible.
His hand, hot against my legs like a branding iron, slid up my dress and found the satin. The music still pounded, thank God, because if anyone came out here now, they’d have quite a show. Slow, teasing fingers abandoned my undies and caressed the swollen flesh between my legs. I whimpered, and he breathed a “shhh” in my ear.
I bit my lip while he played with me, running gentle, maddening fingers between my lips, beckoning. My legs parted, and I sagged. He lifted me against him to brace us, my feet atop his, and slipped a finger inside. Applause broke out.
I squeaked and opened my eyes. The weight of my body became my own to bear again, and my high heels slammed into the ground as he released me and removed his roving hands at the speed of light. After a panicked moment of looking side to side, we figured out simultaneously that the applause was coming from inside—the performance must have ended. He broke into laughter, and I peeked around his arm. The guests began slowly spreading away from the center of the living room, several in our direction. I lifted up my skirt in front, yanked my panties, and had them off in three seconds flat. I hadn’t been this coordinated since I’d carried two buckets of fried chicken with full fixings across the KFC parking lot without dropping anything.
His eyes got wide as I shoved the undies in his hand, bent to retrieve my purse, and sauntered back into the party.
My lady bits seemed to scream, Wheeeee, we’re free! and I fancied that everyone in the room knew that I was hot to trot. This skirt hadn’t seemed nearly so short a few minutes ago. I was a bona fide sex goddess, so much so that Taylor gave me an explicit once-over as he stopped my shameless parade through the room. He didn’t usually look at me like that—he preferred barely-legal playthings. Ugh.
“Samantha,” said Taylor while sniffing his drink—something green. Absinthe, no doubt. Edgy, man. “Is Sam really okay?”
I started, not expecting that line of inquiry. “Well, no, not really. Physically, he’s on the mend. But his memory has…is a bit Swiss cheesey.” My sexy bubble popped, leaving me aching in the chest instead of farther south.
He leaned closer. Every curl in his beard stood out, like a living scouring pad. “So he has no idea what happened to him?”
My body perked like an antenna rising. It was the way he’d said it—casually, disinterested. But Taylor was the ultimate poseur, and he only acted like he cared about a thing if it didn’t matter.
But he cared about this.
The paintings facing me from all sides seemed to zoom in, smothering me in thick peaks of oil and darkness. This man was wrong, his art was wrong… And he’d bashed my husband’s head in.
I swallowed. “Nope. It’s a total mystery. Even the police have no idea what happened.” I shrugged it off, for no matter how talented Taylor was at pretending, I was a professional. “It was probably an accident, you know? He wasn’t robbed. I don’t believe anyone is after him.”
My last couple of words rang with incredulous laughter, and Taylor’s shoulders settled in relief.
Mother.
Fucker.
Was Taylor an old client of Sam’s, and Sam hadn’t told me? This cheesy asshole was exactly the type to buy stolen shit and show it off. It wouldn’t be the first time Sam had…well, not lied to me, but withheld pertinent facts in order to protect me. I thanked Taylor for co-chairing the fundraiser and pumped his clammy hand. His guilty, clammy hand.
Citing Sam’s health as an excuse, I said my good evenings. Bby Bodashus asked me to be in her next video. So alarmed and horrified was I at this prospect that I actually said, “Have your people call my people.” My people would all be fired if I ended up on camera next to a person with such a tenuous grasp of vowel usage.
I gave the limo to Mom to use for the rest of the night
“I’ll keep it for the next week!” she replied.
I beat feet out of there while guarding over my husband like a panty-less pit bull.
Sam’s strong, warm arm around my shoulders in the back of the cab reminded me of the lovely things that had happened before I’d suspected my movie director was a psychotic hipster killer. Taylor’s uggo beard had nearly killed my lady boner, but Sam put in the efforts of a champion to resuscitate it. As his fingers hitched up the hem of my skirt and went spelunking, I decided not to share my doubts about Taylor until tomorrow. That jerky director might have hit my husband on the head, but he would not prevent the therapeutic sexings I would administer in response. If fantastic sex could shake time and space and the cervix, then I would shake Sam’s memory loose, so help my boobs!
This was perhaps not my catchiest battle cry.
I sucked in a breath as Sam breached between my thighs with a shivery, beautiful touch. He pulled my flat purse over his hand to hide the goings-on and smiled. Yeah—that shit-eating grin wasn’t fooling anyone. I’d have to double tip the poor cab driver. I soon forgot about shame, about the cab, about my own name as Sam nimbly played a Marvin Gaye song on my clit. When I couldn’t keep my head up anymore, I just closed my eyes
and leaned back against the seat, my legs spreading. Sirens wailed past, cars honked in the urgent calamity of the New York street, and I bit my lip not to moan aloud while my man finger-fucked me.
He settled me into the crook of his arm and nuzzled my ear. “When we get upstairs, I’m going to do the same thing I’m doing here with my mouth.”
I did whimper then. He stopped it with a kiss, a long, deep kiss that broke off when the cabbie cleared his throat. Sam backed away. We’d arrived. We were home.
We doubled the fare as an apology to the now-smiling driver and nearly ran upstairs. No sooner had I stepped in the door than Sam slammed it behind us and grabbed my wrist to pull me to him. After his confusion, injuries, and all the doubt that had rushed between us like a flooding river, this Sam—this powerful, demanding Sam—was real. This was my man. My husband.
He picked me up and carried me into the bedroom, my hands around his neck, like out of a romantic movie. And I should know. He set me on the bed and pressed passionate lips to mine. He’d shaved, and I knew full well that the smoothness of his face would be heaven between my thighs. He pulled and sucked with his mouth, and his arms wrapped around, our bodies rising and falling together. When I nearly couldn’t breathe anymore, and damn well didn’t care, he ripped his mouth from mine. “The dress. Off.”
In a flash, he was on his feet and tearing off his coat, his tie. I reached to pull the skirt up over my butt, but it had already bunched around my waist. Whoops. I grappled behind me to pull the zipper down, but he stepped between my legs at the edge of the bed and yanked the whole thing straight off me. He threw it on the pile of his own clothes and smoldered in dark red boxer briefs—unf—and fly-open gorgeous dress pants—uunnnnffff. This was like every billionaire slash virgin stable girl romance ever written. Except for the head bandages. And the lack of virgins.
I leaned back on my elbows and strived to look alluring in my bra, garter belt and stockings. I always put my panties on over my garter belt, because he liked to rip off the one and fuck me in the other. His eyes had gone hazy in the soft yellow light of the room. Our only illumination came from the dazzling city through the giant windows across one wall. His skin seemed to glow as he climbed atop me.
The Wrath of Dimple Page 8
