“Impossible,” says Rosco, taking that moment to hand me a glass of wine. “But who knows, maybe if we both gang up on her . . .”
I take a big breath and a big sip of wine to go with it. I want to come right out with it, tell them why I’m there. But now that the moment of truth has arrived, I find myself hesitating. The Book in my bag . . . it’s a link to my deepest desires about the person I hope to become. To show it to someone else, to risk their laughter . . . it’s a huge step.
I look at Baby, and the sight of her smiling face is comforting. She was once a little girl with big dreams herself — dressing up Barbie for nights out with Ken; sneaking lipstick from her mother’s makeup drawer for midnight makeover disasters. And now, here in this city . . .
She’s become her dream. She’s stepped into a reality of her own making.
She’s made herself her own.
And so I take out my Book, and I show them. It’s a washed-out relic of my past, a sharp contrast to the new and hyper-bright interior of the salon. Still, the Book is like a roadmap. It’s the clearest expression of what I want, who I want to be. I’ve got the pages all marked. I know where I’m going.
As I flip the Book open, a sudden charge of newfound determination courses through me — and when I speak the words, it’s like I’m casting a magic spell:
“Can you give me a makeover?”
* * *
On my way to the restaurant I say a silent prayer that I’ll make it there before Xavier.
I do, fortunately. The waiter shows me to an isolated, candlelit table, and I order an apple pie martini to keep me company as I wait.
I’m wearing an oversized pair of sunglasses. It’s a little ridiculous to be wearing them indoors, of course, but I don’t want to run the risk of Xavier recognizing me and spoiling the surprise I’ve got planned.
I hear a low murmur drift over from the patrons at the nearby tables . . . I can’t make out precisely what they’re saying, but I manage to catch snippets here and there:
Who is she? someone whispers.
I think I know her, says another.
They’re actually talking about me! The post-makeover jitters evaporate. I suddenly feel as good as I look.
It’s then that Xavier walks in, handsome as ever. My heart flutters excitedly as his gaze sweeps past me. I feel like I’ve gotten away with something.
He’s seen me, I’m sure of it. But he doesn’t know.
I see him check his watch, the irritation already beginning to crease his face. He thinks I’m late.
I want to scream, but I don’t . . . I simply wait until his eyes turn once again toward my table, then I stretch my newly-manicured hand above my head.
He sees it. For a moment he just tilts his head to one side in confusion, as his brain tries to put a name to my face. He takes a few steps toward me, and then I can see that he finally understands.
The look on his face is pure frozen shock. For a half-moment I worry that it’s disappointment as well — but then his mouth breaks into a wide smile.
“Miss . . . Veronica . . . Kane, isn’t it?” he asks, as he arrives at the table.
“The very same,” I say, trying to put some breathy sexiness into my voice.
He shakes his head, grinning. “You are full of surprises, aren’t you?” he says. I can tell — he’s impressed. “I mean, just look at you!”
Yes! Look at me!
Baby and Rosco have pampered me head to toe — from the shimmering night-black locks of my hair, all the way down to a floral aromatherapy pedicure that’s still making my calves tingle. The results of their handiwork are fantastic . . . my eyes simmer with the dark heat of a young Dietrich; my lips are the sensuous pillow twist of Bettie Page. I’m wearing the red silk tonight, and while I’ve again needed to fill out my bust with my trusty padded strapless, I can’t be bothered to worry about even that right now.
I look simply and undeniably hot. Tonight I’m the nearest I’ve ever been to Miss Veronica Kane.
I hook the nail of my index finger at the top of my sunglasses and slip them down the bridge of my nose. I fix Xavier with a long hot stare of unimaginable intensity. “Free for dinner, Mr. Black?” I ask.
He lets out a low chuckle. “I think I may have a minute,” he says, slipping into his chair. “Nice sunglasses.”
I take them off and place them next to the candle flickering at our table. “About time you got here,” I say. “When I didn’t order for a while, they actually offered me a Braille menu.”
“They didn’t.”
“No, they didn’t,” I admit, letting my smirk get the better of me. “But seriously — can we order? Lunch was years ago.”
“We can,” he says, and his eyes fall on the menu for a quick second before they bounce back to me. He can’t take his eyes off me, I realize, and that knowledge touches off something inside of me that goes all the way between my legs. I press my thighs together to steady myself.
I don’t show it on my face, though. I order dinner for myself this time, something interesting — ceviche pasta with an apricot foam, a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Xavier orders a mushroom carbonara.
“Who is this girl?” he asks, waving his hands in front of me in disbelief. “What inspired this whole thing?”
I give him a shrug. “Sometimes you just want to see someone else in the mirror.”
“I love it,” he says, smiling. He leans in for a kiss.
I turn my head to the side a bit and catch his peck in the center of my cheek. I’m not sure why, exactly. It’s just instinctive . . . or maybe I’m subconsciously issuing him yet another challenge.
I’ll let you open the kimono — but not here. Not now.
Xavier leans back — he’s not angry, exactly, but I can tell that he feels a little rebuffed. He’s thrown off just a bit. He turns his attention again back to his wine glass, lapses into silence.
I’ve made quite an impression. This is a victory. I sense that Xavier understands this as well. I can almost hear the wheels turning in his head, weighing implications in his mind . . . but I say nothing, I’m patient, and I just wait for him to speak . . .
“You know,” he says at length, “there’s a place you might like to see. We should go there.”
“Oh?” I say, trying not to sound too terribly interested.
He leans back and shrugs. He’s trying to match my style . . . trying to be cool now, or something like it. He’s attempting to appear as if he doesn’t care — like whatever he’s about to say doesn’t really matter.
I can see through his act, though. Whatever it is, it’s hard for him.
He gives a little cough. “Okay, look: I know that the way I live isn’t the most normal in the world. The hotel. The whole nomad thing,” he says, looking suddenly a tad evasive.
“Is that so?” I ask, giving him just the slightest whisper of a smile. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Please — I do actually go to other people’s homes, you know. I know what normal looks like. And actually . . . actually, I have got a special place where I go. Somewhere more . . . permanent.”
I look at Xavier, hoping that my face is showing him only a fraction of my true interest.
“It’s not a home, really. I don’t think of it like that. It’s just . . . it’s just a place that I go sometimes,” he says. “When I need to be somewhere beautiful — just me. Alone with my thoughts.”
I breathe in sharply. I think I know what he’s going to say, but I don’t want to let myself believe it, and I fight against it, trying to push the hope away . . .
“I think . . . I’d like you there with me,” he says.
Of course, I think. Yes. A million times, yes.
I’m careful not to let my voice betray me, however.
“Are you quite sure?” I ask cooly. “If I’m there, you won’t be alone.”
“I think I’d like to be alone there with you.”
I take a sip of wine, forcing myself to wait a few achingly long second
s.
“Well then . . . if you’re absolutely sure. I’d love to.”
Xavier nods.
“I’ll take you to Sand House.”
Chapter 10
The roar of the Gulfstream’s jets ring deliciously in my ears.
The plane is not technically Xavier’s — but that’s hardly surprising to me now, given his usual preference for all things temporary. He explains to me that it’s something called a “NetJet”. It’s apparently something like a timeshare for aircraft.
“If you’ve got your own jet, you’ve got to keep crew on staff literally all the time,” Xavier tells me, as if the idea offends him somehow. “You feel guilty if you’re not flying around the world every five minutes.”
Timeshare or no, I’ve never flown private before. I’m instantly in love. The experience at security is remarkably smooth, and the plane’s crew makes me feel like royalty. Then again, I actually do feel just a little bit royal.
Baby had been so impressed I was going to Xavier’s hideaway that she’d given me a celebratory palette of maintenance items for my new look: compacts, powders, skin lotions, haircare. It’s all stuffed into a new oversized Vuitton bag, along with my chosen outfits for the journey. Xavier claims that we’re not exactly camping, but I’ve decided to hedge my bets anyway: I can pull off either Casual Beach, or a look I’ve decided to call Tomb Raider Action Barbie.
The island’s airport isn’t much more than a landing strip and a control tower. When we land, our things are unloaded into a red Ford pickup operated by a caramel-skinned gentleman who calls himself Mr. John. It’s far from a limo, but it doesn’t matter — it’s clean and comfortable, and it underscores how we’re away from Los Angeles and on an entirely new adventure.
Soon we arrive. Sand House is actually a little group of small houses, connected through a dense swatch of green jungle by a crisscrossing network of carefully-tended trails.
“You’re all alone here, usually?” I ask. “It’s so neat.”
“I have people who tend to it, of course,” says Xavier. “Mr. John and some others. They come every couple of weeks to hack back the new growth. They stock the kitchen, make sure the generator is running. Speaking of which, let me get that on. You can have a shower.”
In another minute the generator is purring, and the electricity comes on in the main house. Five minutes later I’m purring in the shower — the pressure is strong, and the warmth of the water washes away all weariness from my body.
There’s a knock at the door. “Occupied,” I shout playfully, though I’m pretty sure I know who it is and what he’s looking for. Xavier had been after me the whole flight — his lips on my neck, his hand keeping an insistent pressure at my thigh. I had wanted to give him what he was after, of course, and I very nearly did, but the presence of the NetJets flight attendant kept us from actually joining the Mile High Club at any point. Instead, I’d just played coy for the entire trip, looking out the window as I let my fingernails gently tease their way across the fabric covering Xavier’s crotch. It had nearly driven him crazy, of course, but he certainly didn’t stop me. Instead, he let me play with him there, his cock tenting his pants, until he’d finally had to cover himself with a blanket and pretend to get some sleep.
Now he is back for what he’d been denied.
The shower door slides open. I give him a look over my shoulder. “Still occupied,” I say, smiling. He’s already disrobed. He steps inside and closes the door. He leans in for a kiss. I try to turn my head away a bit, but this time there’s no more teasing him . . . his hand finds the side of my face and he pulls my lips toward his own. The kiss is deep, so deep, and I am soon lost in it.
His hand flies between my legs. “Is this occupied as well?” he asks, and though I’m not quite sure if he expects an answer there isn’t time to think. I’m already wet from more than just the shower; he can feel my rising need for him there.
Xavier pushes me back against the smooth white tile wall of the shower, and the next moment he has me, his strong and powerful hands cupping the white flesh of my ass with a remarkably firm control. Then he’s lifting me, actually lifting . . . my legs are in the air, and a sharp gasp escapes me —
“Stop! We’ll fall,” I say.
“We won’t,” he says. “Not if you’ll be still.”
He grinds his hips forward into me, supporting me there, as he pins my wrists behind my back. I’m caught completely now by his body — and by the knowledge that even if I wanted to, there’s nowhere I can go. I feel Xavier’s cock enter me, the rough pleasures of it sending a shockwave of pure heat through me. My climax comes fast enough to surprise me, and I scream with pleasure, but he doesn’t stop, nothing can stop him, he puts a hand over my mouth to muffle my cries as he pushes into me, again and again.
His own orgasm approaches, and he begins to shudder, pulling out just before he comes.
He takes his hand away from my mouth then, kissing me, over and over and over.
“Good girl,” he says. “Oh, my sweet girl . . . ”
At last he places me steadily on the wet floor of the shower. It takes me a moment, but I manage to find my legs again.
Xavier breathes hard for a long minute after that . . . and then, without a word, he reaches for a sponge and the shower gel, and he begins to gently wash the contours of my body.
* * *
We stay at Sand House for a nearly a week, just the two of us.
In the mornings I make breakfast for Xavier. Nothing too elaborate, though the ingredients in the kitchen are top-notch, and they make managing an omelette a simple enough affair. I throw together something different each morning — salmon and portobello, artichoke and gouda.
Xavier takes his turn at the stove one day as well. We go out on the schooner he keeps at Sand House, and he manages to struggle a large fish aboard — which much to my surprise he is also able to clean and cut into pieces. That night we celebrate his successful hunt with fried strips of battered fish and a nicely chilled bottle of wine.
He has to work a bit too, of course. Even Sand House isn’t immune to the curse of the Internet, and Xavier spends a fair amount of time attending to the various crises that invariably spring up. Even these times are wonderful, and I go for walks along the pristine strip of beach in front of the bungalows, taking in big crisp lungfuls of the delightful ocean air.
It’s on one of these walks that my feet take me to the dock. There are actually two at Sand House: one a shortish jetty with an attached boathouse, built purely for function. It is here that Xavier keeps the schooner docked, and I watch it for a moment as I pass, the motion of the waves flowing beneath it making it bump against its mooring.
The other dock is infinitely more interesting. It gives a person a place to walk, far out along the surface of the blue and right into the sea, if you wish. It’s on this dock that I soon find myself — my feet carry me there by some invisible magnetic pull, seemingly of their own accord.
I look down at my bare feet as I take my first steps on the dock’s wide sun-bleached slats, at the dusting of white sand sticking between my toes and across my nails. It’s no doubt reducing my polish to a mess of scuffs, which immediately summons an image of a chastising Rosco filling up the foot bath at Beauty World. The thought of those scented bubbles swirling around my legs makes me sigh just a bit — I’ve been wearing heels every day since coming to Los Angeles. The trip to Sand House has been a welcome break for my ankles.
I look up at the sky, trying to focus myself on the here and the now, on the beauty of this place. It’s late afternoon, and the sky has taken on that particular shade of very rich blue that appears just before the first pinks of sunset begin to fade in to take their place. I tilt my head back and stretch out my arms from my sides, my feet taking me forward step after step after step. All I can see is sky and water.
It’s hypnotic — so much so that I just barely keep myself from tumbling off the edge of the dock in front of me. I look down and see
my toes hanging over the edge. I’ve gone as far as I can go.
So I sit, lowering my legs into the warm and astonishingly blue water. I can see all the way down to the sand below, the dappled pattern of the waves casting a crisscross of shadows on the bottom. It is so perfect that I just want to let it all hold me, and I do my best to stay motionless, to not move, to just become a part of it . . .
Minutes pass, and as they do I suddenly see shapes moving through the water. They’re fish, some kind I can’t identify. Dark, small — perhaps a few inches long, swimming in lazy arcs around my feet. I try not to disturb them, just let them be, let them go about their little fishy lives while I try to keep myself in this place, this moment, this tropical dreamworld as long as I —
“Ouch!” I cry, feeling a sharp sting. I pull my leg out of the water, quick as I can.
I look at the source of the pain. There’s a tiny mark there, red — a drop of blood, mixing with the trickle of sea water creeping downward across my skin. I rub at the mark with my hand for a moment.
I’ve been bitten.
I’m not in the mood for a sunset anymore. I turn away from the edge of the dock and make my way back, across the beach, toward the bungalows of Sand House.
I return to find Xavier in a decidedly un-vacationy mood. “More bullshit,” he says, rapping in irritation at the flood of messages clogging his xPhone. “Randall says somebody found prior art on one of our patents for the auto-drive.”
“How bad is that?” I ask.
Xavier runs a hand through his hair, then pinches the bridge of his nose. “Could be pretty bad, down the road. Worst-case scenario, they could end up invalidating our whole design. Or I might have to go to Chicago and figure out how to re-engineer the system around whatever Randall’s found. Anyway . . . I’m afraid we’re going to have to wrap things up here and head back early. I’m sorry.”
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