by Julia Dumont
As traffic came to a complete halt near the Getty Center, she thought about how she had been taking these excursions in exclusive neighborhoods much more often lately. Second Acts had been growing in leaps and bounds, but success with Jack Stone could bring the enterprise to a whole new level. She fantasized about Stone dropping her name or mentioning the business on the red carpet or in the Polo Lounge within earshot of just the right group of A-list singles . . . the kind of promotion you cannot buy.
Suddenly, she heard a rattle and whir and looked over just in time to see a handsome young man, probably in his mid-twenties, whiz by on a bike, making every driver in every car feel like a mindless robot for his slavish devotion to the traffic-shackled automobile. Cynthia barely caught the cyclist’s profile, his dark curls in the breeze, and the silhouette of his angular physique, but it was enough to trigger a visceral and deeply sensual recollection. Cynthia was prone to stuck-in-traffic sexual fantasy anyway, but this kid was the spitting image of Pete Blatt.
She instantly felt her face flush. Fever spread through every erogenous zone. This was crazy. Cynthia had gone to high school with Pete and they’d fooled around only once. She had come to think of it as the Pisco Pete Incident. It involved the aforementioned potent Peruvian libation, a large bag of Cheetos, and a fun, drunken swirl of messy sexual exploration. It was a deeply flawed experience, but that was irrelevant now. It was also an intensely potent sense memory that immediately seized her imagination and lit her libido like erotic wildfire.
She imagined herself speeding along on a bike too, following Pete or this Pete-like stranger, down around the bend, flying past the stalled serpent of bored commuters on their way to boring offices…all desperate to get there, but destined to be even more desperate to leave the minute they arrived. Coasting downhill, the wind cooling their flushed faces, they slalomed their way through Westwood and tumbled off their bikes onto soft grass under a sprawling oak somewhere. Their hearts, already pounding from the ride, now pumped with a whole different sort of syncopation as they covered each other with wet kisses and caresses. Their skin tasted of salt and soon they whispered and sighed through trembling lips that their swelling urge to merge was probably best not consummated there in the middle of the U.C.L.A. quad. But this was no obstacle to their overwhelming lust. Running, giggling, and gasping up the stairwell of the first available dorm, they searched for a spot, a secluded alcove, an abandoned couch or bunk or bit of carpet, where they could claw each others’ clothes to shreds, as if their lives depended on it. They were frantic to see, feel, taste, screw, shudder, and scream like it really mattered. Like it was the only thing that mattered. His hands were hot and his lips starving as he lavished her breasts with the kind of profoundly engaged kisses that penetrate deep below the surface. Her alert, swollen, pertness, like tender pink sensors, sent tingling pulses of pleasure through her every molten molecule. His adoring eyes and mouth traveled in slow motion to her belly, then hip, then down, up, and over her supple mound of madly aching love, her mons pubis…deep into the sweet honey-soaked delirium of her thighs, temperature rising, warm mouth breathing gently, whispering sweetly, famished tongue devouring thoroughly, pushing and pleasing to convulsive climax almost instantly. Her back arching, she cried out and shed a delicious tear as she took his head in her hands, clinging to his curls, pulling and pleading with him to bring the game back up, to come back, to please come back to her and come in her. Please. Now. Please. But he insisted on teasing her even more, thoroughly tasting and tantalizing until the tremors became unbearable and she moaned and screamed for him to please, god, stop. And then, finally, rising from the depths like a primordial love revolving to the next stage of sexual transformation, he clamored toward his inevitable, instinctual prize. But then he paused again at her breasts, determined to torment her and himself through maddening, nearly sadistic and masochistic restraint…insisting on delaying what they both desperately desired. Finally he was near enough and she reached out and just barely stroked his throbbing erection with her fingertips, causing twitches of spasmodic anticipation…coaxing, then demanding he bring it and bring it now, goddamn it. Which he did at long last with uncompromising, otherworldly force, surging and thrusting, giving and taking everything, everything, everything. Again and again and again. This time, her legs wrapped tightly around him, she screamed louder and longer than before, writhing in ecstasy beneath him, collapsing with him, he within her, dying what she was quite sure was the most exquisite simultaneous petite mort in all of petite mort history. Actually, nothing petite about it.
And that’s when Cynthia realized that half of Los Angeles was honking behind her, a cacophony of frustration that she’d caused them to miss the traffic light, now nearly as red as her face. She was seriously flustered from her excursion into ecstasy.
Hell, they’re just jealous. I mean, who wouldn’t want to experience that kind of fully realized sexual fantasy in the time it takes for a light to change?
She finally turned onto Sunset, the traffic breaking up, and wound her way east, to the west gate of Bel Air at Bellagio Road. She’d been to Bel Air many times before and had almost always gotten lost. A couple of years ago, she was on the way to a meeting with a starlet and came to a dead end at the massive gate of the Aaron Spelling mansion. She recognized it from the photos that had been plastered all over the news when it had been up for sale a few years earlier. She’d gotten out of her car and peered through the fence, but couldn’t see much of the $150 million abode’s 57,000 square feet. She had calculated that she could fit her apartment inside it thirty-eight times.
Thirty seconds up the hill from heavy Sunset traffic she found and then lost herself in a maze of wooded, winding roads lined with stone walls and high gates guarding old-world mansions, modern architectural masterpieces, and a few gaudy monstrosities too. Immense wealth is not necessarily an indicator of taste. Rain was still coming down in buckets and each twist and turn through these well-appointed foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains brought a new torrent of ocean-bound rainwater. Cynthia imagined she was driving against the current of an ultra-exclusive river. Address after elite address: Roscomare Road, Chalton Road, Chantilly, Somera.
Finally, as she rounded the turn onto Portofino Place, the rain let up and a blast of sunshine broke through the clouds, causing a small patch of red clay tile roof to glow through the glistening foliage, as if illuminated from within. In a city full of astonishingly diverse microclimates, it was like Jack Stone lived in a magical kingdom all his own, unaffected by the whims of the weather gods that torment mere mortals——even apparently rich ones residing in his neighborhood.
Cynthia slid out of the car and was reaching for the button on the stone-gray intercom, tastefully overgrown with ivy, when she heard the crunch of running shoes on gravel.
“Cynthia, I presume?” asked Jack Stone, out of breath, pushing his drenched hair from his forehead, looking exactly like he did in the movies, except soaking wet. Some people caught in the rain resemble wet rats, but not him.
Cynthia said nothing for a moment. She stared at the soaked and comfortably worn-out t-shirt clinging to his biceps, chest, and abdomen. Feeling a tad nonplussed, as if she’d wandered into a private, informal wet t-shirt contest, she averted her eyes downward, only to focus briefly at the equally drenched jersey running shorts that delineated his powerful thighs. His legs. God I love strong legs with just the right amount of hair. Manly, not gorilla-y. I can’t believe I’m evaluating the leg hair of Jack Stone. Pinch me. No, don’t pinch me . . . that will send me over the edge. She, of course, thought of Lolita’s question and quickly scanned for answers that she did not get. But she found herself flashing to one of those short sexual fantasies that begins and ends before you know it. Wow, I got there fast. Did I just visibly shudder? Did he notice? Hold on, snap out of it. This is more than a little inappropriate since I’m here to discuss how to match him with somebody else, not myself.
“Right,” she finally said with a smile, “I’m Cynth
ia. And you are? . . .” Oh, God, I did not really pretend to not recognize him. I meant to be playful in the same way his assistant had been, but if I’ve learned anything about movie stars, they’re all pretty sensitive and they really do hate if they’re not recognized, despite their protests to the contrary.
“Me?” he asked incredulously.
Oh, god . . . he is that sensitive.
“Name’s Justin Bieber,” he announced with a deadly serious expression.
Cynthia blurted out a huge guffaw. It was one of those absurdly masculine laughs that occasionally escapes from the mouth of an attractive woman suddenly channeling a cigar-chomping mayor of a Midwestern city. Not exactly what you’re hoping for while attempting to flirt with an international film sensation.
But Stone laughed just as loudly and put his hand on her shoulder like they were old friends and Cynthia instantly felt comfortable. If any meeting could simultaneously dispose of a movie star’s hermetically sealed image and replace it with something even better—much better—this was it.
“Well, Beebs,” she said, “pleased to meet you.” She was happy to have something to call him.
“C’mon,” he said, punching in the combination on the gate, causing it to open slowly and silently, “let’s get something hot to drink.”
She parked her car over to the side, got out, and they descended the long driveway, the expanse of property unfolding before them. Cynthia was always amazed that these kinds of massive park-like parcels existed all over Los Angeles. Lush forest, deep moss, ferns, flowers, stone walls, babbling brook . . . you name it. Except for the occasional palm and a sweet blend of jasmine and orange blossom in her nostrils, this was pure English countryside. She was fully aware of the vast urban sprawl somewhere beyond all this, the real world hidden by an exotic façade.
Cynthia heard a loud thwack and turned to see a curly-coated mocha-brown terrier bounding toward them. She’d emerged from a large doggy door set in the lower half of the massive, ornately carved front door of the residence. Scarlett O’Hara, coming at you. This was one happy dog. She galloped and bounded, apparently half thoroughbred and half kangaroo, and vaulted——extended like a genuine super dog, for the last ten or twelve feet——into Stone’s arms, who received her like a gigantic furry football.
“Scarlett, Scarlett, Scarlett,” he said, laughing again—laughter obviously came easily to him—as the dog slobbered every square inch of his face and neck. “Hold it, hold it, hold it . . . not the eyeball, not the eyeball . . . Scarlett, not the eyeball!” He hugged her like a woman . . . turning and waltzing circuitously toward the house, and then turned her loose to lead the way.
The house. Cynthia guessed eight or ten thousand square feet of old-world elegance. It was the kind of Spanish revival built in the 1920’s that looked authentically, romantically, heartbreakingly old-old, like from-the-eighteenth-century old. The ivy, the distressed shutters, the aged and mottled surfaces—if you didn’t know better, you’d think it was abandoned and in a state of arrested decay, having naturally reached this state of glorious, glamorous deterioration on its own, with help from only Father Time and Mother Nature. But Cynthia knew that its imperfections had been intentionally, meticulously rendered this way, that the high-priced decorator——no doubt on permanent retainer, stopping by for regular trompe l’oeil touch-ups——had an eye for delicious decrepitude. They entered the foyer, which was somehow gloriously understated, despite the magnificent staircase and vaulted ceiling. The colors were muted, again as if time had taken a beautiful toll upon them . . . but of course it was recently painted this way. The entire assignment had been handled more like a Hollywood set than a personal residence. But it was unbelievably beautiful.
They entered the kitchen, which rambled downward with the contour of the hill, into a large common area, opening to a patio and sprawling yard. Scarlett O’Hara was already lounging poolside. The far wall was all multi-paned windows——creating a breathtaking grid of the Los Angeles panorama below——from West Hollywood on the left, to Westwood Village below, to the south beaches, Catalina Island, and the gleaming Pacific. She could see other islands that she couldn’t identify . . . the Channel Islands, maybe? It felt like she could see Hawaii, even though she wasn’t so bad at geography to believe that could be true. It was just that the view was so impossibly intoxicating, it was easy to believe impossible things. Maybe God had a better view than this . . . maybe not.
“So,” Jack said, taking two white coffee mugs from a cupboard, “is coffee good? I have other options if you want. Tea? Anything but cappuccino. I’ve never used that damn machine. I’d ask Mariana, but she’s on break.”
“That damn machine” was a restaurant-style cappuccino machine that looked more expensive than most houses. Cynthia actually knew how to use one. She had worked in coffee shops during college and considered offering, but then thought seeming like a know-it-all at this stage would probably be a mistake.
“Coffee is perfect,” she said, sliding onto a stool at the long black-stone-topped counter. Was it onyx? Do they even make counters out of onyx? It’s not that pricey as a stone in a necklace, but what could an onyx countertop cost? Whatever it was, it was no doubt negligible in this neighborhood.
“You know what,” he said, looking at his goose bump-covered arm and shivering slightly. “I think I’d better slip into something more . . . umm . . . dry. So help yourself. There’s milk in the fridge, plus maybe a few other semi-edibles. I am a single man, after all, so you never know what you’ll encounter in there.” He disappeared around a corner.
There was a distant splash and Cynthia looked out to see a beautiful woman standing poolside. Her bikini almost matched her skin color. Cynthia had to squint to confirm that she was indeed wearing anything at all. The girl dove in, causing the tiniest splash. Mariana maybe?
She opened the Sub-Zero and Stone was right. It had single dude written all over it. But single dude with taste: three Bass Ales, seven Pink Lady apples, a gigantic tub of homemade peanut butter, one large bowl containing countless varieties of Mediterranean olives, several bottles of extremely expensive champagne, a very large block of sharp Vermont cheddar cheese——a knife plunged deep, dramatically, into its top like Excalibur, and the biggest can of gourmet chocolate syrup she’d ever seen. In the freezer: three brands of vodka and nine flavors of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, one of which was named after him.
She added milk to her coffee, stirring with her finger, and gazed at the girl in the pool . . . swimming a languid backstroke.
“Yeah,” said Stone, returning to the kitchen, now dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt. Devastating in a sophisticated cowboy sort of way. “Mariana likes to swim.”
“She seems great,” said Cynthia, adding milk and stirring. “I mean she’s funny on the phone.”
“Yeah, she is great,” he replied. “But I fired her. Yesterday.”
“Really, why? Too much swimming on the job?” Cynthia realized this was none of her business, but she was genuinely curious. He may have fired her, but as of this morning she was still working for him. Mariana seemed like a fantastic employee and if she hadn’t worked out, Cynthia wondered just how judgmental Stone would be toward her and her matchmaking efforts. “Never mind, I don’t know why I even asked that.”
“Oh, it’s no problem,” he said, taking a slow, deliberate sip from his cup. “She’s great at her job. And the swimming is a perk I’m totally fine with. It wasn’t a good fit for other reasons.”
“Oh, okay,” she said. It was obvious that these reasons were more personal in nature and she wasn’t about to pry.
“But I should probably tell you,” he continued, “because it’s relevant to what we’re meeting about.”
Okay, here we go.
“This is weird,” he continued, “I’m not boasting or anything. I’m really not like that. There is no way in hell I’d be telling you this except that you’re here to help with my love life. This whole celebrity thing is a curse.
I’m not being coy. I adore being adored. It’s why I got into this racket. I don’t whine about paparazzi or autographs or any of that. It comes with the territory and, look around, the territory is pretty nice. But the thing is, women fall in love with me. Almost all of them.”
“C’mon, really?” asked Cynthia, “Almost all of them?” She actually totally believed this. She was feeling something for him already. But she was not about to say so.
“I know, it’s crazy,” he said. “I try to avoid it, but it’s literally unavoidable. If I try to discourage them, even if I get kind of mean to them, it only makes it worse. Mariana has been working for me for a month. Like you said, she’s great. Intelligent, talented . . . she went to Brown for god’s sake. She has an amazing boyfriend. Well . . . had. She dropped him a week ago. Yesterday I went out to a meeting and came back early. I found her lying on her back on top of my covers, dressed only in my briefs . . . fast asleep. An empty bottle of Dom Perignon lay next to her like a tiny sleeping companion. She was holding an autographed photo of me to her bare breasts. Two of the most perfect breasts I have ever seen, by the way. I mean, works of art. Breathtaking. They literally took my breath away for a moment there. I covered her up and let her sleep. I had done nothing to encourage this behavior. I truly believe she was completely sane when I hired her. This is the terrible power of celebrity. Cynthia, you need to help me find someone who is immune to that. Someone who hasn’t seen my movies, who hasn’t been brainwashed into thinking I’m some kind of perfect man or something, because, let me tell you, I’m not.”
“Wow,” said Cynthia, wondering what he thought his imperfections were, because, frankly, she wasn’t seeing any. She also had doubts that she could find someone like that, someone impervious to his public persona. I mean, where would she find her, on Mars? Jack Stone couldn’t walk down the street anywhere in the world without being mobbed and adored by women and men. Maybe Antarctica, but she could totally see penguins having the hots for him. “Well,” she continued, “maybe you should list these imperfections, just to get them out in the open. That way, prospective women would have to accept you warts and all, you know? So, what do you say? Show me some warts. Why do I have a feeling even your warts are handsome?”
