by R. J. Kaiser
“Like what?”
“Your rampant puritanism, for example. Your founding fathers read too much Old and New Testament, in my humble opinion. They would have been far better served to have read the Kama Sutra instead.”
Cala returned with the parasol. Venita opened it as they stepped onto the patio. The sun was fairly low, but Venita acted as though she was allergic to it. She took Troy’s arm and they began walking.
Venita hadn’t been quite so familiar with him in the past, and though she’d touched him, brushing back a lock of hair from his face, this was the most womanlike she’d been with him.
“So, you and Amal met with my parents,” he said as they strolled toward the pool. “Did you discuss me?”
“No, your name hardly came up,” she replied. “Except that you were in our plans for the film. Were you expecting that it would?”
“I thought you might have felt them out about our friendship.”
“Now, why would I do that?”
“You seem worried about the difference in our ages.”
Venita stopped walking and turned to face him. “Don’t waste your time with thoughts of me, my little duck,” she said. “I’m much too old for you.”
“Do you really feel that way, or are you just saying so because you think you have to?”
“My, but aren’t you the brazen one?” They started walking again. “Be direct, love. Are you trying to tell me something, or just making conversation?”
“I’m trying to figure you out,” he said.
“Don’t you know it doesn’t pay to try to figure out a woman? You never shall. The best you can hope for is her cooperation…and perhaps her love.”
“In India aren’t older women ever attracted to younger men?”
Venita arched a brow. “You don’t lack for courage, do you?”
“Well?”
“It’s been the custom in India for centuries, my love.”
“My kind of custom,” he said with a grin.
Troy saw her mouth bend into a smile, but she otherwise ignored his remark.
They’d come to the huge pool and Venita stopped there to gaze about “the garden,” as she and Amal called it. It was a manicured acre of hilltop behind their rented palatial home. Troy and several of his friends had come at Amal’s invitation to swim and enjoy the grounds. Twice they’d frolicked in the buff while Amal looked on approvingly with his bacchanal smile.
The director was a strange guy. Troy hadn’t figured him out yet. Curiously, Venita had shown him less respect than Troy would have figured, considering he was the big-shot director. When he’d mentioned Amal’s seeming deference toward Venita to his mother, Stella had said, “They probably do things very differently in India. Besides, no star is bigger in Indian cinema than Venita. But Amal has no need to put on airs. His body of work speaks for itself.”
“So, what do you think of him?” he’d asked.
Stella told him she was most impressed. In fact, she’d said that she found Amal Kory “exceedingly stimulating, as both a man and an artist.”
Troy had trouble understanding Amal’s appeal, considering he was an old fart and three inches shorter than Stella. “What do you see in him, anyway? Besides his films, I mean?”
“It’s not a physical thing,” she said. “I don’t mean I’m sexually attracted to him. It’s his soul, that artistic spirit. When he talks to me I feel like he’s looking right inside, that I can have no secrets from the man. That’s a worthy quality in a director, don’t you think?”
Troy wasn’t so sure his mother wasn’t playing it down. He even wondered if she wasn’t infatuated. Her love life was something they’d almost never discussed, but Troy had often wondered how she could live alone for so long, never getting involved with anybody. “You’re never getting a divorce, are you?” he’d once said.
“No, and I’m not going to discuss why.”
What Stella didn’t realize was that he already knew why, and he had since he was fifteen. He’d overheard her and Mac arguing once when they weren’t aware he was in the house. For five years now he’d known all about Aubrey St. George. But Troy was smart enough to save the dirt for a time when he could use it to his advantage. Maybe the time was now.
“Look at that sky,” Venita said, noting the color beginning to gather off to the west. “Let’s go out to the pavilion, shall we?”
As they made their way across the lawn, she moved closer to him, pressing her breast against his arm. Troy figured she was teasing him, or she had ideas. Either way he liked the attention.
The pavilion was circled by Greek columns. There was a hundred-and-eighty-degree view of the ocean, with Malibu at one end and Long Beach at the other. The edge of the garden was just beyond the pavilion and dropped a few hundred feet to the ravine below.
Going up the steps, he scanned the hazy Pacific. Santa Catalina Island lay on the horizon, a humped gray mass, seemingly floating on the sea. Venita squeezed his arm harder, allowing her hip to bump against his. Troy’s heart jogged up a notch.
“Don’t you want to know what happened when Amal and I met with your parents?” she asked, smoothing her skirt as she sat on the bench.
Troy dropped down beside her. “Sure, what happened?”
“Your father made a modest investment in the project. Nothing of consequence, but a nice gesture. It was mostly to please your mother, I think.”
“He tries to buy people,” Troy said. “That’s the way he does things.”
“He didn’t seem very interested in the project.”
“My old man has a problem with the whole Hollywood scene.”
Venita lowered her parasol. Troy stared at the color in the sky where the sun was just dropping behind a bank of clouds. Venita seemed like she wanted to say something, but was having trouble finding a way. Troy decided to help her.
“Are you bummed about it?” he asked.
“Well, investors are a necessary evil in this business.”
“Don’t get down yet, Venita.”
She studied him with curiosity. “Why? Do you know something I don’t?”
“Yes,” he said, giving her a quirky smile, “but I’m not quite ready to tell you just what.”
“My, my, a man of mystery.”
“I like having my ducks all lined up before I go public.”
“And you’re going to make me wait along with everyone else.”
Troy grinned. “Let’s just say I have a contingency plan.”
Venita’s brows rose slightly, but she withheld comment. For several minutes they stared out at the Pacific, neither of them speaking. Troy had been vague on purpose. He knew how to be a hero, but he also knew the importance of timing.
After a while, Venita surprised him by taking his hand. She toyed with his fingers. Troy breathed in her perfume again. Something about her got him right in the gut. Maybe it was because he’d never known a woman quite like her before. Not that he was inexperienced; he wasn’t. He’d had his share of girls, but Venita was the first real woman to show this kind of interest in him, not counting his thirty-something drama coach, Irene, who’d seduced him when he was seventeen. In a way, that didn’t count because she was going through a divorce at the time and ended up sleeping with virtually every guy in the class.
Troy liked the coolness of Venita’s skin. And her touch. She’d managed to get him hard, scarcely doing a thing. The way she looked at him through her lashes was enough in itself to bring him off.
“Do you think we could be friends, Troy?” she asked.
“Friends? You mean, like intimate friends?”
“Yes.”
“Sure, why not?”
“The better I get to know you, the more I’m convinced I should like that,” she said, rubbing the back of his hand against her cheek. “You’re a very special young man.”
“I think you’re pretty special, too.”
“If this were India, instead of Puritan America, I would have no qualms whatsoever. It w
ould be entirely natural to teach you the ways of the Kama Sutra.”
Her words made his cock turn rock-hard. “Seriously?”
“Oh, very seriously. But I want to be proper and respectful. This is not my country.”
“Everybody here’s not a Puritan, you know. And besides, this is L.A., not Des Moines.”
“Then you would be interested. You’re not just being polite.”
He gave a little laugh. “I wouldn’t joke about something like that.”
She ran her tongue over the edges of her teeth and pressed her bosom harder against him. “I don’t frighten you, Troy?”
“Frighten? Why would you frighten me?”
“You are ahead of your years, aren’t you?”
Troy touched her lip with his finger. “You know what your trouble is, Venita? You’re too hung up on the age thing.”
“Or, maybe I simply can’t believe my luck.”
The remark made him smile. She glanced toward the house. Troy did, too. He saw Jugnu standing in the window, peering toward them.
“Jugnu’s ready, I see.”
“Ready for what?”
“I’m going inside to have my massage now,” Venita said.
“He gives you a massage?”
“Yes, and has done virtually nightly for years. Jugnu has the best hands in the world.”
Troy could only blink.
“I know Amal would like to talk to you, but afterward perhaps you’d care to come visit me in my bath?”
“Really?”
“Yes, of course. We’ve decided to be friends, haven’t we?” Venita pulled his face over to her and kissed him on the cheek. “Do try to forget your Puritan origins, my little duck. My way’s so much easier and more enjoyable.”
“You say it so casually. You aren’t like this with just every guy, are you?”
Venita threw back her head and laughed. “Do you know how many people live in India, Troy?” she asked him.
He shook his head.
“A billion,” she said. “That means about five hundred million of them are men. And you know what? Ninety percent of them would give an arm to be in Troy Hampton’s shoes right now.”
He grinned.
“How does that make you feel, love?” she asked.
Troy continued to grin.
She tweaked his nose. “I’ll see you in an hour.”
Beverly Hills
Mac had been waiting for Stella the better part of an hour, having ordered a second vodka tonic, his impatience growing more quickly than the relaxing effect of the alcohol. She’d talked him into having dinner with her at Dominick’s, their favorite place to eat when they were still together, but he could see it had been a bad idea. He should have insisted on having their conversation as soon as the Indians had gotten out the door, as she’d promised.
“How long will this take?” she’d asked at her house when he pulled the note from his jacket pocket.
“That’s hard to say. It’s about Aubrey.”
Stella’s shoulders slumped. “In that case, let me freshen up and then, as a small token of appreciation, I want to take you to dinner. We can discuss whatever you want over cocktails. I still can’t handle Aubrey without a good stiff belt.”
“Stella…”
She’d pooched out her lip the way she did when she was unhappy and said, “Please, Mac.”
“Oh, all right. But this can’t be put off forever.”
“It’s not that. I just have to get myself in the right frame of mind. You know how I am.”
He did, indeed.
“Why don’t you run on down to the restaurant and get us a table?” she said. “I have a quick call to make and then I’ll be right there.” She started for the stairs, then stopped. “Oh, and order me a glass of chilled Chardonnay, would you, dear?”
The Chardonnay now sat at her empty place, no longer chilled. She hadn’t come “right there,” which shouldn’t have been a surprise. The rhythms of Stella Hampton’s life were unique unto her. Still, Mac was beginning to worry that she’d stood him up, that she’d run off to Palm Springs or someplace again. Maybe it was a mistake to have mentioned Aubrey’s name.
Downing the last of his drink, Mac took out his cell phone to call her. If she did duck out on him, he’d never forgive her. Bonny had just answered when Mac glanced up and saw Stella making her way to the table. She had changed into a knit tank top and matching skirt. He hung up, then got to his feet.
“I’m sorry, Mac,” Stella said as he helped her with her chair. “I spilled on myself. Two people called. It was one thing after another.”
The glass of wine sitting before her was dewy with sweat. “That’s probably warm,” he said. “Let me order you another.”
“No, this is fine.” She picked it up. “Cheers.” She took a healthy slug, put the glass down and glanced around the sparsely filled restaurant. Mac read her displeasure. She sighed. “It’s lost some of its luster over the years, hasn’t it?” she said wistfully.
“Yeah, it has.”
“But then, so have we.” Stella’s eyes shone luminously, shimmering with regret.
The waiter came with menus, which they both ignored.
“Thank you for meeting with Amal and Venita,” she said. “I didn’t properly thank you for your time.”
“It was important to you,” he said, fiddling with his empty drink glass.
His wife looked at him wistfully. “You haven’t lost your good heart, have you, Mac? I don’t suppose you ever will.”
The note in his jacket pocket felt as if it was going to burn right through his side. The guilt was suffocating. Even now, ten years removed from living with this woman, he felt her need like it was his own. Earlier, when she sat listening to Amal Kory, enraptured, he’d very nearly said, “All right, Stella, I’m giving you and Troy a million each to do with as you like.” But he hadn’t. He knew that giving them money to invest in a film would be like giving dope to an addict. As Mac saw it, a man did have a responsibility to do the right thing. Contributing to a person’s misery did them no favors, regardless of how certain they were it was in their best interest.
Money was not the immediate concern, however. The note was. He removed it from his pocket and laid it on the table. “Stella, I’ve got to ask you something. Something important.”
“Regarding Aubrey?”
“Yes.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice even though no one was within easy hearing. “Have you ever told anyone what happened?”
She blinked with surprise, but didn’t seem to be upset by the question. “No, of course not.”
“Are you sure?”
Stella glanced at the nearest table and, lowering her voice, said, “Certainly. Something like that doesn’t slip out accidentally in conversation.”
“What about with your therapist or masseuse or hairdresser?”
“Mac, I’m no idiot. Don’t you think I appreciate how sensitive that information is? I scarcely allow myself to think about it, much less discuss it with anyone. Why?”
“I haven’t said anything, either,” he said. “Which means I’m hard-pressed to explain this note somebody left at my front door a couple of days ago.” He slid the envelope across the table to her.
Stella picked it up, glancing at what had been written on the outside.
“Go ahead, read it.”
She removed the slip of paper, her fingers trembling slightly. Mac watched her eyes. They rounded as she read, her lower lip wilting. “Oh my God,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. There was terror in her eyes. “Who…”
“I have no idea. I thought maybe you could clear up the mystery.”
She read the note over and over. She chewed on her lip. Her hands shook more violently. She quickly folded the paper and put it in the envelope, then slid it back across the table as though she wanted nothing whatsoever to do with it.
“I swear to you, Mac, I haven’t said a word to a soul. Not in twenty years. I have absolutely no ide
a who that could be from.” She turned pale and looked as though she was going to be sick. “What are we going to do?”
“Figure out who’s behind this and what they want. I have one theory, but nothing concrete to go on. I thought that detective, Jaime Caldron, might be behind it.”
“A policeman? Why, Mac?”
“I checked and found out he’s about to retire. Maybe this case has bugged him all these years and he wants to shake things up in hopes that something damning turns up.”
Stella reached across the table and took his hand. “Then we must stick together more closely than ever,” she said. “For Troy’s sake, as well as for our own.” She looked deep into his eyes. “Surely you agree. I mean…well, you were the one who…” Her voice trailed off.
He stared at the woman he’d married twenty years before, but oddly enough he didn’t so much see his own wife as the woman who’d been married to Aubrey St. George. Just as all those years ago, Mac McGowan felt as though he was being sucked into something he knew deep in his heart to be wrong. “Yes,” he said softly. “I know.”
Pacific Palisades
Venita Kumar lay on the massage table as Jugnu Singh expertly worked her muscles with his large, strong hands. She was completely naked. They’d long since abandoned the false modesty of a sheet or towel. After fourteen years of the near-daily ritual—fourteen years that bridged her marriage to Ranjit Govind—Venita saw no point in pretense. While being massaged, her body was the clay and Jugnu the potter. He was to work and shape it as he wished.
Venita felt no modesty around Jugnu. She did not shrink from lying on her back and exposing herself. She had absolute faith in the man—certainly more faith in him than in her own brother, which said less than might be expected, considering the first man to take her was, in fact, her elder brother, Ram, who, for his trouble, was beaten to death by their father.
Jugnu, curiously enough, had been a gift from her father. When she’d disgraced her family by choosing to become a film star, a “celluloid prostitute,” as he called it, rather than accept an arranged marriage—a modest one at that, as was befitting her impure condition—her father told her he would give her one gift and one gift only for life. What he gave was Jugnu, a man, her father told her, she could trust and rely on, a man who would stand by her through lovers and husbands, a man who would bend his life to her will, once and forever.
