Please

by Hazel Hughes

  He plunged in and out of her, kissing and nipping her neck, suddenly and without warning rubbing his thumb across her raw tattoo, his other hand clamping over her mouth to muffle her gasps. It was over almost as suddenly as it began. Sebastian dug his fingers into her hips, moaning and collapsing onto her, pushing her into the sink.

  Elizabeth felt the cold hardness of the porcelain under her, the heavy heat of Sebastian on top of her, the burning ache of her tattoo, and wondered what the hell had just happened.

  With a low groan, Sebastian pulled out of her and, holding her jaw delicately, kissed her softly on the lips, leaning back to look at her with an expression that Elizabeth could only describe as loving. Staring into her eyes, he reached down between her legs and coaxed her to a shuddering orgasm.

  Neither of them said anything as he smoothed antiseptic on her tattoo and wrapped it with the cling-film. While he cleaned himself, Elizabeth leaned against the door, her tattoo and her clitoris throbbing in time with the slowing beat of her pulse, and tried to make sense of what had just happened, of what she was feeling, but she couldn’t. So she just took the hand Sebastian offered and stepped out into the crisp golden-tinged afternoon, waving goodbye to the buxom Holly as they passed her.

  Sebastian wrapped his arm around her shoulder while they walked. He rested his head on top of hers, breathing in deeply. “God, I love you,” he said.

  *

  By the time they got back to the Mercer, Elizabeth felt almost normal again. She credited this to Sebastian’s extraordinarily buoyant spirits. He was like Buddy when they’d take him off his leash at the dog park, practically bouncing with happiness. It was impossible not to be infected.

  They were teasing each other and laughing, their arms around each other’s waists as they walked into the lobby.

  “I think the dedication you wrote in my copy of Habibi Baby needs to be reworked, don’t you?” Sebastian said.

  “What, are you my editor now?” Elizabeth teased.

  “Sebastian!” Naomi Clamp’s squeal carried across the muted hush of the lobby. She came striding toward them, her slim ballerina legs swinging from the hip. In her tight, artfully faded jeans, fawn colored boots, and a scarf that looked like it had been hand-knitted by tiny Tibetan grannies with a weakness for jewel tones, Naomi looked hippie-chic gorgeous. Elizabeth instantly felt old and dowdy.

  Naomi hurled herself into Sebastian’s arms and reached up on tiptoe to give him a loud kiss on the cheek. “Oh my God!” she said, still in his arms. “You’re still here! I thought you left, like, forever ago. What are you still doing here and not telling me, you naughty boy?”

  Elizabeth noted that Sebastian didn’t seem to mind that the blond nymphet was clinging to him like a corn-husk to the cob. Feeling awkward in the extreme, she shoved her hands into her coat pockets and sidled away from them.

  “Well, you know me,” Sebastian said, squeezing Naomi closer, his eyes deliberately seeking Elizabeth’s over the actress’s head. “I am naughty.”

  “Yeah, you are,” Naomi said, looking up at him. Following the direction of his stare she began, “So what are you ...” Her eyes registered Elizabeth standing not a foot away from them. “Liz! Are you ...?” She looked back at Sebastian, who wore a sly grin, his gaze laser-focused on Elizabeth.

  “Oh.” Naomi took a step back, understanding blossoming on her exquisite features. “You two are ...” She giggled and rolled her eyes. “Duh! Naomi!”

  Her bright blue eyes danced between Sebastian and Elizabeth for a moment. She put a delicate French manicured hand on each of their arms and, looking up at Sebastian, said, “Well, if you’re looking for a third, you know where to find me.”

  She squeezed Elizabeth’s arm and winked. Then, with a toss of her messily perfect blond hair, she sashayed across the lobby toward the glass doors.

  Chapter 7

  “Tell me your secret fantasy,” Sebastian whispered, trailing his fingers down Elizabeth’s naked spine, from the nape of her neck to the base of her tailbone, then along the curve of one cheek to rest on her thigh. She was lying face down on the bed with her hips raised slightly so she wasn’t putting any weight on her new tattoo. Sebastian was resting on his side next to her, his head propped up with one arm. “You know,” he continued, leaning in until his lips were just millimeters away from her ear, “the one you’re too embarrassed to tell anyone about because it’s sooo dirty.”

  The vibration of his breath on her eardrum sent a pleasant shiver down her spine, traveling the same path his fingers had just traced.

  “I can tell you that it does not involve a threesome. Well, not one with Naomi Clamp, if that’s what you were hoping for,” Elizabeth said, wryly. Sebastian laughed.

  When they had returned to the hotel room after encountering Naomi in the lobby, Elizabeth had been moodily silent, wrapped in her own thoughts. She had been disturbed by the event in the tattoo parlor bathroom, both by Sebastian’s evident enjoyment of her pain, and by her own intense arousal. Then there was the chance meeting with Naomi. Brief though it was, it had upset her on many different levels.

  First, there was the fact that now someone knew about their affair. It was almost as if the affair hadn’t been entirely real before. It had seemed to Elizabeth that she and Sebastian were floating around in a bubble of lust that shielded them from the world. But now the bubble had popped. Then there was the way Sebastian had reacted to Naomi, and the way Elizabeth had reacted to his reaction. When Sebastian held Naomi and flirted with her, Elizabeth felt a lancing spear of jealousy and insecurity, feelings she hadn’t experienced since her torturous relationship with Noah, feelings she did not welcome back. And finally, there was Naomi’s off-hand suggestion of a ménage a trois. The way that Sebastian had raised his eyebrows questioningly at Elizabeth as Naomi walked away told her that he would be very happy to take her up on her offer.

  Sebastian had tried to cajole her out of her dark mood, but when that didn’t work, he insisted they go for a run. They hadn’t gone far, but the combination of the endorphins and fresh air seemed to dispel the dark clouds in Elizabeth’s psyche. They had just finished showering and were lying naked on the bed, trying to agree on what kind of takeout to order when, apropos of nothing, Sebastian asked about her fantasy.

  “Come on, forget Naomi,” Sebastian whispered, a smile in his voice, “Tell me what you think about when you’re touching yourself in the shower.”

  “Alright,” Elizabeth countered, raising her head off the pillow a fraction to make eye contact, “but only if you tell me something first.”

  Sebastian smiled and brushed a wisp of hair off Elizabeth’s face. “Anything,” he said. He moved closer to her, kissing her cheek first, then gently biting it.

  “Tell me about your first seduction,” she said.

  Abruptly, Sebastian froze. “The first time I seduced someone?” he asked.

  Elizabeth chuckled. “Has it ever been the other way around?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Sebastian said, rolling onto his back and folding his arms under his head, a mirthless smile on his face.

  “Really.” Elizabeth reached over to run her hand down her favorite stretch of skin, from armpit to hip. “You don’t seem the type to enjoy not being in control.”

  He looked over at her, the smile gone. “I don’t.” He held her eyes for a moment, then returned his gaze to the ceiling. “You don’t want to hear about all the girls in middle and high school,” he said, the smile returning to his face. “I don’t think you can even call those seductions; those girls were gagging for it.”

  All the girls, Elizabeth thought, eyes straying to his tattoo. Sebastian glanced over at her and saw where she was looking. His smile broadened. “That was before this, of course,” he nodded his chin in the direction of his tattoo, lifting his hips a little. “I didn’t think it was fair to add them after the fact. Besides, I didn’t even know all their names.”

  “God, you’re a slut,” she said.

  “Yeah, I wa
s,” he corrected her, rolling on top of her in mock anger. He straddled her, pinning her arms beside her head. “You cured me,” he whispered into her ear.

  “Right,” she said, sarcastically. But she felt a thrill in her chest all the same.

  “You did,” he said. Sebastian got onto his knees and rolled her onto her back beneath him. Elizabeth smiled up at him, but his expression was serious. “You’ve changed me.”

  “Mm-hm,” Elizabeth said, still smiling. “You’re just trying to get out of your side of the deal. Tell me about your first seduction.”

  “Okay,” he said. Amusement glinted in his eyes. He reached over to the strip of condoms on the bedside table and tore one off. “Mrs. Meulleman. My twelfth grade chemistry teacher.”

  “You seduced your chemistry teacher?” Elizabeth laughed, a shocked bark. She recalled her own chemistry teacher, a bald, mustachioed caricature of man who wore t-shirts with bad science puns printed on them – H 2 Eau sprang to mind – stretched over his beach-ball belly.

  Sebastian ripped open the wrapper and let it drop to the floor, smoothing the condom on with practiced ease.

  “She was pretty sexy, for a chemistry teacher. Wore leather skirts under her lab coat.” Still kneeling, Sebastian eased first one of his knees then the other between Elizabeth’s thighs, spreading them. “She used to stay after school grading papers or whatever. So one day, I knocked on the door to her classroom.” He widened his eyes, his face the picture of earnest innocence. “Mrs. Meulleman, sorry to bother you, but I didn’t get what you said about reverse osmosis in class today.” A slow, sly smile spread over his face.

  Elizabeth gasped as he, still kneeling, lifted her hips up to meet him and slid into her.

  “It took about a month,” he said, rocking in and out of her, slowly. “The compliments. The accidental touch of a hand on a knee. Standing too close. Warming her up.” Sebastian licked his thumb and began rubbing her clit as he eased in and out, in and out.

  “Finally,” he said, breathing harder as he moved his hips faster, “I came up behind her in the closet where she kept all the Bunsen burners and shit and kissed her on the back of her neck. She was all, ‘Oh God, this is so wrong, we shouldn’t be doing this,’ but that leather skirt came off pretty damn fast and she wasn’t wearing anything underneath.”

  Elizabeth moaned, lifting her hips higher, feeling herself starting to climax.

  “I bombed my chemistry final. I didn’t know shit, despite all my extra tutoring,” Sebastian panted, gripping her hips hard, thrusting faster. His eyes were closed now, his brows furrowed in concentration.

  Elizabeth gasped, her back arching as she came. Sebastian came seconds later, grunting as he collapsed on top of her. Her tattoo throbbed under its dressing.

  He kissed her eyelids, peeling himself off her. “Yeah, I failed the exam,” he said, and though her eyes were closed, she could tell that he was smiling, “but I got an A on my report card.”

  *

  “Elizabeth! You’re alive!” Abbie’s voice squealed over the room phone.

  “Oh, God. Hi Ab,” Elizabeth answered, her voice still groggy with sleep. Sebastian wasn’t in the room, but she could hear the hiss of the shower. “Of course I’m alive.”

  “Well, your phone isn’t,” Abbie said. “I’ve sent you about a hundred texts and left you a ton of voice messages.”

  “Oh,” Elizabeth groaned. She vaguely remembered turning her cell phone off sometime during her first night with Sebastian. Clearly, she had forgotten to turn it back on.

  “I haven’t had a chance to look at your edits yet, Ab,” Elizabeth said, lifting off the duvet and rolling out of bed.

  “Oh, sure, because you’ve been so busy with Cullen and everyone on set, right?” Abbie said, sweetly.

  “Mm-hm,” Elizabeth answered, distracted, looking at herself in the mirror. Her hair was its usual morning haystack and she had a fan of creases on her cheek from where she had been lying face down on the pillow. She rubbed at them vainly with one hand.

  “Except I called Cullen. He said he hasn’t seen you in days.”

  “Oh,” Elizabeth said. Her eyes looked puffy, too. She flopped back down on the bed. Hadn’t she read somewhere that standing on your head was good for de-puffing eye-bags? Well, she couldn’t do that, but maybe hanging upside down would have the same effect.

  “Don’t tell me he’s missing me,” Elizabeth said, lying on her back and inching her upper body off the bed. “I sat in my special chair in the corner for twelve hours straight,” she exaggerated, “and he didn’t consult me once.” She tucked the phone between her shoulder and her ear, putting both hands on the floor for balance. “And you did say to treat this like a holiday, didn’t you?”

  “So you’ve been sightseeing?” Abbie asked, all sweet innocence.

  “That’s right.”

  “Statue of Liberty, that sort of thing?”

  Elizabeth gulped, trying to remember what she had done in the past few days, other than Sebastian. “No, but we went to MOMA,” she said, triumphantly, latching onto the memory. Had it really only been two days since then?

  “We?” Abbie asked.

  “I didn’t say we,” Elizabeth floundered, “I said me.”

  Abbie laughed, a sweet trill. “Oh, right. Me went to MOMA? Lizzie, honey, you are no good at the dissembling thing. But I’m sure he can give you lessons. From what I’ve heard, that’s his forte.”

  “Um,” Elizabeth stalled, at a loss for words.

  “Lizzie, you’ve been gorging yourself at the 7th Street Bakery, haven’t you?” Abbie asked coyly.

  Elizabeth was silent for a moment, considering her best course of action. Denial didn’t seem to be working for her, and part of her wanted to confess, to talk to someone about what she was going through. “Yessss,” she said, softly, letting the s hiss out. “Oh, Abbie,” she began in a pained voice, but Abbie interrupted her.

  “Ah-ah,” she tutted, “Lizzie, I don’t want to hear all the sordid details. I already gave you my advice on the matter as your friend, which you duly ignored, and I have nothing more to add to that. Now, as your agent, it’s none of my business what you do in your personal life, that is until it starts affecting your professional life, which, from how pathetic you are at lying, I can pretty much guarantee that it’s going to. So honey, as your agent, I need you to do two things for me. One, I need you to at least make an appearance on set. Cullen is footing the bill, and you might have noticed that he’s a bit of a diva. Massage his ego a bit. Kiss a little butt. And two, meet me for lunch tomorrow at Canteen. I’ll text you the directions.”

  “Okay,” Elizabeth said, meekly, pulling herself up to a sitting position and reaching for the pen and notepad on the bedside table. She scribbled down the name of the restaurant. “But I probably won’t have had time to look at your notes.” She didn’t hear the shower anymore. Sebastian would be coming out of the bathroom soon. Elizabeth’s heart quickened in anticipation.

  “Oh, that can wait,” Abbie said, breezily. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  *

  Elizabeth sat sullenly in her canvas chair near the craft-services table, sipping a low fat coconut milk chai latte and waiting for her opportunity to approach Cullen. She wasn’t sure if he had even noticed that she was there. He’d been deeply involved in a series of discussions with the actors and the cameramen between takes, and she knew better than to dare approach him during a take. She’d seen one Fed-Ex guy attempt it only to be met with complete silence. Cullen hadn’t even turned his head to acknowledge the poor guy until he called cut.

  But Elizabeth figured he had to eat sometime, and when he came in search of an almond cutlet burger with wasabi mayonnaise, she’d sidle up to him and say ... something. She still hadn’t figured that part out.

  Elizabeth wasn’t sure why she felt so edgy and out of sorts. Maybe it was because she was being strong-armed into doing something she didn’t want to do. She had disliked Cullen from the mo
ment she laid eyes on him, and her feelings hadn’t changed with repeated exposure. Or maybe it was because she was out of her routine, eating and sleeping intermittently and at odd times. Her days in Fairfield were predictable, if nothing else, revolving around the kids’ school and bed times and a solid eight hours every night. Or, she mused, perhaps it was because she hadn’t seen Sebastian in almost three hours. She checked her watch. Two hours and forty-five minutes. It felt longer.

  When he had come out of the bathroom, naked, skin still warm and damp from his shower, Elizabeth told him that she had to spend a few hours on set. His reaction had been disturbingly blasé.

  “Great. That’ll give us some time to work on the whole delayed gratification thing,” he had said with a smirk, rummaging through his bag for some clean clothes.

  When she emerged from the shower, he was gone. He had left a note with directions to somewhere called Good Stuff. The note said: Meet me at one for lunch. Wear a skirt. Nothing underneath.

  “Hi,” a voice said, interrupting her thoughts. Elizabeth looked up. It was Susan Solstein, the red-headed actress who played the second female lead. Elizabeth had seen her on set before, but Susan hadn’t bothered to introduce herself, and Elizabeth felt too star-struck to approach. Susan wasn’t an up-and-coming actor like Naomi or Sebastian. She was the real deal. She had a career spanning decades and dozens of films to her credit, never mind the Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. In real life, she looked older, the fine lines usually disguised by lighting and camera angles clearly visible. But she still radiated a strong sensual confidence. At close to fifty, she was still hot.