Identity Crisis

by Grace Marshall

  What’s in a name? he wondered. Do names ever fit the people who wear them? How could they, when parents choose the name they think is cute for an infant. And when people choose their own name, they can hardly be objective in their choices, can they? He pushed the chair away from the laptop, then stood to pace the floor in front of the make-shift desk. Each time he turned, his eyes caught the images flashing on the monitor. He’d turned the volume down until the sounds of sex were nothing more than background noise. He was way too excited to pay any real attention to the sex acts being performed by the two generic actors going through the motions. He was bored with them anyway. They rarely made him hard any more. But thoughts of her did. Thoughts of her always made him hard.

  He ran a hand over the new growth of stubble on his head. He’d kept his head shaved all this time. But he’d let it grow now, for her. She’d like that, he was sure. He was sure she liked men with hair she could run her fingers through, and he would let her do at least that when the time came.

  Everything was about to begin now. He felt it in his bones. He could be anyone he wanted to be now. She wasn’t the only one who could hide away from the world until she wanted to show herself. He tilted his head from side to side and felt the pop in his neck. Lots of tension there to be released, he thought. And she was the cause of it; she was always the cause of it, the way she kept herself hidden, the way she toyed with him and teased him. Well, she wasn’t the only one who could tease and toy, was she? He made his way to the refrigerator and pulled out the half empty carton of milk. On the bottom shelf, he found the last four hard-boiled eggs. He peeled them into the sink and ate them mechanically, ate them without tasting them. Outside he could hear the city just waking up. Had he really been up all night? Well, he didn’t need much sleep these days. Not now when he was so close, not now when he knew it would happen soon. He could feel it in his gut, the burning, the impatience that never left him now, never let go of him, like it would gnaw him in two if he didn’t have her soon. And he would have her soon. He’d spent most of the day in the cabin, their cabin, preparing it just for her. It was so perfect, so isolated. He hoped she liked nature, but then again it didn’t really matter if she didn’t

  When he finished the eggs, he emptied the milk carton in long, thirsty gulps, dribbling milk down his chin and onto his T-shirt. He wiped a hand across his mouth and tossed the carton into the avalanching trash bag.

  He paced the kitchen floor, back and forth, back and forth. He peeked out the window at the traffic just beginning to move on the freeway, then he pulled the curtain shut. He’d already been to the gym. He’d found a seedy 24-hour place a few blocks from his apartment. It had what he needed, without the reek of perfume on made-up doxies in designer spandex. And there were no crowds in the wee hours. Not that he minded crowds, not really. He just didn’t want them in his space when he was pumping iron. He’d worked out until he was exhausted, but he still couldn’t sleep. He spent the darkest hours on the computer, surfing, just surfing, flipping intermittently to porn sites, searching for something, anything to hold his attention. But ultimately nothing could, nothing except her and his fantasies of what it would be like when he had her here with him.

  So much information. So much. There at his fingertips, all ready and waiting for him, just like always. And every day there was more, and every day he grew closer and closer to her. He wondered if she felt it in her gut the way he did. He hoped so. He really hoped so. How could she keep from it? Whether she understood it or not, they were connected, deeply, almost spiritually, connected. If she knew, if she really understood that connection, she would be searching for him too, she would never be satisfied until she found him. Never mind, once he had her, once they were together, he could make her understand. He knew he could. That’s all he’d ever wanted. To make her understand.

  It seemed like he’d dreamed about their coming together for an eternity. Maybe he’d even dreamed about her in a previous life. He’d always known the time would come and he just had to wait for the right moment. It was so close now. It was so very close. And soon he could take exactly what he wanted, what he’d been waiting for so patiently.

  He paced the hall a couple of times, then stripped. The T-shirt and the back of his sweat bottoms were white with the dried salt of his sweat from the gym, and his body felt sticky and damp as he stretched out on the bed on top of the tangle of blankets. Everything in him was restless, unspent, wound to the breaking point, ready to explode. Every thought, every dream, every breath was about her, about what he’d do to her when he had her. It amazed him how she could still be with him every single second, even when he couldn’t touch her, even when he couldn’t yet have her. There was no lying still with her on his mind, no calming down for the rest that he knew he needed, no distracting himself even for a minute with thoughts of anything else. She never, ever left him, she constantly tormented him, taunted him, tortured him. It was exquisite agony companioned by rage patiently endured, finely honed. But not for much longer, he promised himself. Not for much longer. She would be his. And soon. He felt it in the gnawing burn of his gut.

  He twisted and writhed in the knotted bedding. Every cell of him ached with the want of her. He was painfully hard, feeling as though he would burst with the weight of his need. He seldom masturbated. He preferred to sublimate all that sexual energy, to save it up for her, to save it up until he could make her take it all back, until he could fill her and hammer her and break her with every single bit of lust and anger and desire that she had forced him to hold, every endless unsatisfied moment he’d had at her expense. He would make her take it all back. Again, and again, and again. Yes, he seldom masturbated, but this morning, he couldn’t help himself. This morning, he could almost feel her in his arms, almost feel the silk of her skin against him, almost feel the heat of her breath against his mouth begging for it, even as she tried to deny herself what he knew she really wanted, what only he could give her.

  His breathing was thick and heavy in the tiny room, roaring in his ears, drowning out the freeway sounds as he tugged and cupped at himself, as he wondered what she’d look like after all this time, wondered what she’d feel like when he entered her the first time, when he claimed his prize after all his waiting, after all her teasing. It would be so good, so very good. He convulsed into the T-shirt he’d just removed, then relaxed back against the pillow, settling into dreams of all the things he’d do to her when he had her with him at last, dreaming that it would be very, very soon.

  Kendra spent the better part of the next three weeks doing her homework, calling up all of her resources, researching every possibility online. It would be a total coup to work with the elusive Tess Delaney, to actually get to meet the woman behind the romance. If she hadn’t been hell-bent on offering her services before her nasty encounter with Garrett Thorne at Harris’s bar-B-Q, she certainly was now. Who did he think he was anyway to tell her that she wasn’t right to work for Tess Delaney? He didn’t know anything about her. He didn’t know that she was the best in her field. But then again, he wouldn’t, would he? How would he know who ran the Ryde Agency? There were less than a handful of people who’d ever seen her face to face. She had worked her miracles through the magic of IT and a kick-ass staff that was great at keeping secrets. No one knew that the head of the Ryde Agency, K. Ryde, was Kendra Ryde Davis. She had her own reasons for keeping secrets, reasons she tried not to think about these days, but nonetheless, she knew better than most how important a little anonymity could be, and she was sure someone like Tess Delaney would really appreciate her skills in discretion. Discretion was something she doubted that blabbermouth Garrett Thorne would ever understand.

  There was no denying the tight squirm of pleasure she felt below her belly as she thought about him grabbing her around the waist and pulling her off the end of the dock into the lake with him. What an asshole, she thought. And yet he was a cheeky asshole with a great body, one the wet summer shorts and polo shirt revealed quite nicely
. Didn’t make him any less of an asshole, though. How did he get to be brothers with someone as amazing as Ellison Thorne? More significantly, how had Ellis kept from murdering him when they were kids? She was pretty sure she would have if he’d been her brother.

  She returned her attention to her online attempts to connect with Tess Delaney. The woman had covered her tracks better than anyone she’d ever known – even better than she had. Not one of her substantial connections seemed to know anything about the woman or how to get in touch with her people. Still, the harder it was to find out what she needed to know, the deeper she dug. K. Ryde never gave up. She just hoped some lesser being didn’t get Tess Delaney’s attention before she did. It would be a pity if the woman ended up with less than the best.

  It was long after midnight at the end of her third week of searching when she finally found what she was looking for, or rather, it found her. It was an email from the Bachman Agency, a PR firm Kendra had quite a bit of contact with when she was in the business. Most often they’d been competitors, though it had been friendly competition for the most part, and on occasion they’d actually helped each other out. The email was sent to K. Ryde personally. Not many people knew that address. In fact, it was pretty much an inactive account now, and yet there it was, a message from Donald P. Bachman.

  Dear Mr. Ryde,

  Everyone always assumed K. Ryde was a man.

  I’m emailing on behalf of Ms. Tess Delaney, who would like to employ a PR person for a special project, one of a sensitive nature. Ms. Delaney requires a woman in her early to mid-30s, one comfortable with making public appearances and speaking in public, should the need arise. Ms. Delaney is looking for someone who can represent her publically and discreetly. She would need this person as soon as possible. Please send résumés on to me or contact me personally.

  Sincerely yours,

  Donald P. Bachman

  Did she actually whoop out loud? She looked around the room to make sure no one had heard her, which was totally ridiculous, since she was all alone. She was exactly what Tess Delaney needed. Though the woman didn’t know it yet, Kendra was totally certain of it. With a few short email exchanges, Kendra made sure that Donald P. Bachman knew it as well. Just before she shut down for the night she gave Mr. Bachman a call, or rather, Kay Lake gave him a call, Kay Lake with her newly created email address, Facebook page and Twitter account. Kay Lake who had studied PR at university as well as acting. Kay Lake who until just a few hours ago didn’t exist. If the Bachman Agency were desperate enough to email her old K. Ryde account, then they would find Kay Lake to be exactly what they were looking for. And by the time she ended their conversation, she had Don Bachman eating out of her hand. She was going to work for Tess Delaney. She was as sure of it as she was her own name.

  She shut down her laptop and headed off to bed. In her mind’s eye, she could imagine rubbing Garrett Thorne’s nose in just how wrong he was about her suitability to represent Tess Delaney. As she brushed her teeth, making her usual faces in front of the bathroom mirror, she berated herself for even considering Garrett’s opinion. The Bachman Agency would take her at her word no matter what Garrett Thorne thought. After all, she was recommended to them by K. Ryde. If she said she could get the job done, then for all practical purposes, they could count it already done. The red Shelby Mustang parked safely in the underground car park of her apartment complex was evidence of that.

  She stripped out of her yoga bottoms and her tank top and slid naked into the bed. As the sheets grazed the tips of her nipples and the cool cotton embraced her, the memory of Garrett Thorne wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into the lake on top of him made her feel wet in places that had nothing to do with lake water, places that had been tetchy since they’d made their big splash at Harris’s bar-B-Q. She couldn’t say she didn’t like the feeling. But, God, did it really have to be Garrett Thorne who made her wet? Tess Delaney would not have palmed her heroines off on the unemployed bad boy little brother of the hot shot of the business world, she was sure of it. That was not a story the woman would write. Surely Tess would give the brilliant young PR exec a better match than that.

  Damn it, listen to her. Tess Delaney wrote romance novels, for fuck sake! She didn’t write real life because nobody wanted to read about real life. The truth was that if you could give up the stupid fantasies about happy ever after and hearts and flowers, you could have sex. Sex was easy, sex was abundant. You simply had to remember that it was just that. There were no strings and there were no expectations. That way no one got hurt and everyone knew up front what the rules were. She always made certain of that, and she always made certain the rules were her own. It had worked for her all these years. It had kept her satisfied and it had kept her heart safe. And she had always been a firm believer that if you let your heart get broken, well, at the end of the day, you had no one to blame but yourself. No one but yourself.

  For a long time she lay in the darkness listening to the night sounds of Portland, thinking about Garrett Thorne and Tess Delaney. Maybe tomorrow night she’d go back over to the Boiling Point. There were always interesting people to be met there, and how long had it been since she’d actually had sex? Of course, Dee and Harris thought she had it all the time, thought she had it whenever she wanted it. And she did. Didn’t she? For some strange reason, she just hadn’t wanted it all that much lately. She wondered if she should see a doctor. But then the memory of being pressed up close to a very wet, very aroused Garrett Thorne came back with a vengeance, nearly taking her breath away, and she slipped her hand down between her legs. Her breath caught at the feel of herself, the need that she’d usually let someone else take care of, the itch that was somehow never quite scratched even with the thrill of the chase and the buzz of the conquest. Underneath it all was the feel of her; just her, just Kendra Davis alone on her own, and honesty seemed an easier thing in the wee hours. The feel of her coupled with the thoughts that made her need, made her open and soft and achy, were all thoughts that involved being angry and wet and pulled up tight, even for only a moment, against an angry, wet Garrett Thorne. As she replayed the event in her head, she let herself remember the shape of him, then she turned and twisted the memory until, when they burst from the water, no one on shore noticed them there together in the lake. No one noticed that Garrett Thorne was kissing her. And certainly no one could see what their hands were doing under the water, his shoving at her shorts, hers busy with his fly, yanking and tugging until she could feel him hard and warm and pressing anxiously toward her.

  No one could see his tentative exploration with anxious fingers, opening her, spreading her. No one could see her guiding him home, up deep inside her to scratch that itch. And certainly no one could see him cup her bottom and lift her, pull her tight to him, coax her to wrap her legs around him.

  No one could feel the friction and no one could see the rocking and pressing of their bodies, tightening and gripping and forcing the breath from each other. And no one could hear their quiet gasps and cries and groans as they came together, came together just like the lovers in Tess Delaney’s novels, came together nearly drowning each other in power of their orgasms.

  Kendra was alone when her orgasm snaked up her spine and trembled through her nervous system like leaves rustled by a breeze, and she was probably way too far gone to be thinking straight. Maybe she was even already asleep and she only dreamed the calling of Garrett’s name. And anyway, it was just a fantasy, wasn’t it, and everyone had them. She’d had fantasies about her dentist, for God’s sake. Why not have fantasies about Garrett Thorne?

  Chapter Four

  Garrett answered his BlackBerry with a growl. ‘This had better be good news, Don. Time’s running out. And if that happens, things will get very ugly.’

  ‘I’m fine, Garrett. Thanks for asking. How are you?’

  Garrett growled louder.

  Then Don was on his usual spiel about his difficult task, the same spiel Garrett had been hearing for th
ree weeks now. ‘It’s not that easy to find someone who can act and keep your secret and knows enough about Tess and her books to go in front of an audience if need be and speak like Tess Delaney. I mean, this is a tall order.’

  ‘Goddamn it, Don, I don’t want to hear it! We barely have a week. I want to hear that you’ve found someone to be Tess, and I want to hear it now, or I promise you, Romancine can sue my balls off if they want to, but they’ll still wish they’d left well enough alone.’

  He could hear Don shuffling papers and clicking computer keys on the other end of the phone. ‘There’s only one way I could see to deal with this situation, and it’s something I never thought I’d have to do, but I’m going to have to hand you over to the competition.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  Don puffed a sigh into the phone. ‘You ever hear of the Ryde Agency?’

  ‘No. Should I have?’

  ‘Not unless you’re in Hollywood, and even then probably not. The Ryde Agency is the epitome of discretion in the PR world. They were the new kid on the block. We never expected them to be real competition. They came out of nowhere, and the next thing we knew, they were kicking ass – ours, most of the time. They’ve handled all kinds of nasty PR problems for the rich and famous. You remember the accusations against Devon Barnet a few years ago?’