Lena McGuire, who was also dressed in evening attire and not nearly as appetizing as Catherine, hung out at the bar by the pool conversing with a group of barflies. I journeyed toward Catherine and that other guy, watching their body language, their flickering chemistry. The man’s pearly whites, incisors included, were the kind most rock stars flashed when posing for photo ops or when feeding off the adoration of a beautiful woman.
I revealed myself tactfully.
“Jack!” Catherine blurted out in a silly laugh.
I turned and saw firelight captured in her eyes. Her strapless, low cut dress exposed her sun-bronzed shoulders and nicely rounded cleavage.
“Sit down,” she said. “I want you to meet this great lead vocalist. You’ve heard of Robert Price, haven’t you?”
“Sure. Mr. Price.” The man’s handshake felt soft and squishy.
“The name’s Bobby,” the man said. Unlike his handshake, he had a strong, Scottish timbre to his voice. He also had the Bohemian eyes of a stoned artiste, currently spellbound by the sea nymph Catherine. Robert Price, I began to recall, was actually the lead vocalist for a world-famous British rock band, circa 1990s, and, according to the latest Rolling Stone standings, Bobby’s band has slipped in recent years from the A list to somewhere currently between a C and D rating. And from what I could see up close, Bobby was showing his drugs, sex, and rock-n-roll age.
“Bobby’s on tour in Southern California,” Catherine said. “He was just telling me about how he came tonight to get away from all the groupies. You’re all sexed out, wasn’t that it, Bobby?” Catherine wrapped her arm around him.
The man’s face blushed a natural tint of arrogance. “That’s right, love,” he said.
“Jack here is a gigolo,” she said. “He claims this area of the world his own, like territory, isn’t that right, Jack?””
Numbed by the outing of my wily dysfunction, I simply gaped at my accuser; but I didn’t blush. Bobby’s rosy, inebriated face twisted in amusement. Catherine continued hanging on the man like a drunken prom date.
“Aren’t these parties wonderful?” she said. “You can be honest here because no one really cares.”
“And what is it that you do, love?” Bobby asked her. He put his arm around her.
“I’m a dancer, aren’t I, Jack?”
“Last I saw.”
“But Jack thinks I’m a bad girl, don’t you, Jack?”
I continued my gape.
“How bad are you, Princess?” Bobby asked.
“Bad enough to kill.” Catherine's jade-green eyes, bathed in firelight, aimed straight at me.
“A real femme fatale, are you sweet?” Bobby said with crooning voice.
“Do it, Bobby,” Catherine said. “Do it like on stage, for me. Sing a lyric—strum a riff like a man possessed by the blues. Come on, Bobby—Mr. Robert Price—I’m bored, this party desperately needs some life.”
“No guitar, love, and I’m off stage...”
She began to sing one of Bobby’s songs. He joined in and finished the verse with her. Bobby’s mood lifted. It was easy to see why he made millions on the voice, the act, the white man mimicking the bluesy cadence of James Brown or Buddy Guy.
Catherine stood and danced to the music that struck from the nearby band. She pulled Bobby from his seat. He bristled, then segued like the pro he was into Catherine’s impromptu dance. They danced all the way to the dance floor. Her eyes caught me watching, completely mesmerized, as Bobby was, by her magic.
She then peered straight at me, as if to convey, watch this. So I did, noticing her fingers along Bobby’s lower back, where she lowered his pants, exposing a good-sized portion of his buttocks. She then slapped his cheek and trailed her fingernails sharply along his backside, causing him to arch into a sudden pantomime of intense pain and suffering. She reared back into a boisterous laugh, leaving him ass naked. The crowd of onlookers roared in laughter, as if her scratch across Bobby’s ass was nothing more than a playful, drunken act of revelry. But the gaze I saw in Catherine’s eyes revealed something little more sinister.
After a moment of watching sharp-handed Catherine and grimacing Robert literally trip around the light fantastic, several of the guests began to crowd the floor. Bobby broke away and stood at the edge of the floor, no doubt tender by the scratches across his bum and ego.
I had no more excuses. Catherine moved alone and center to the universe celebrity, and so to continue arousing the hearts and minds of the blood-thirsty crowd, I moved in. And why not? I’ve had lessons. I could salsa, cha, cha, and endure an ass-scratching as easy as the next guy. But before I could swoop in and boogie like the Bronze-1 dance student that I aspired to be, Lena preempted my advance and swayed close to Catherine.
I stood alone on the floor, feeling like any man who’d just had his date stolen by another woman. I then joined Bobby at the edge of the crowd. He chuckled and said in a slurred, Scottish accent, “That kitten put one hell of a rub across my arse. I’m marked territory now.” The chink in the man’s armor was obvious. He didn’t appreciate being pantsed and lanced in front of his contemporaries.
I made a quick scan along his clothed again arse and said, “It was assault. You should sue for damages.”
Bobby grinned, relishing, it seemed, that it was he and not me who’d been lanced by Catherine’s dominatrix two-step.
I said, “I think she was just using you for a scratching post, Bob.”
He didn’t seem to appreciate my remark. He turned his attention back toward the dance floor. We both resumed gaping at the wonder-lust that was Catherine.
Everyone boogied their own drunken, clumsiness for several dances, the orchestrated blend of songs that the bandleader and Catherine had somehow collaborated. She no longer cast her eyes my way, but only accepted the advances of other men and women pulled into short cameos of dance.
I trudged alone to a nearby bar and sat, then thought: at least when I sit my bloody arse doesn’t sting, Bobby boy. I began sucking down assorted amounts of liquor, watching Catherine dance magnificently as the evening turned into night.
13
A long recess had passed. I drank more daiquiris, martinis, scotch and sodas, exotic draft beers, and God knows what else, certainly more than I should have, until I became buzzed, bloated, and sick and tired of gaping at the blonde and the brunette playing their fucking guess-the-ballroom-dance game.
I remained at the bar and conversed with a few of the mannequins who now had faces that could talk. One was a famous actress who appeared anorexic, just as the tabloids had reported. She even queried me about a screenplay that I didn’t write. Another was a pompous, drunk gay man who buzzed around me like a fly on stink until somewhere between my second or third martini I slipped in a fib about me being HIV positive.
Barry stayed away from me. He’d gotten what he wanted and I was now, what they called in the movie business, used up material. And Turner, along with those aforementioned stupid, plaid pants, had disappeared the way a bad odor does when swept away by a breeze. Yet the source of the stench, I knew, would return and haunt somewhere else inside my billion-dollar garden.
I started for the dance floor. A loud sound system played while the band was in intermission. It made Catherine want another partner beyond Lena and the other horn dogs and cats. I knew this by her pose, the act—a femme fatale perched cunningly, searching for the right victim.
Rhythm-and-blues Bobby was now surrounded by a small band of sycophants and was no longer a competing force in the pursuit of Catherine. I could tell, though, that it hurt when he sat down and that he did walk a little stiff legged. Ha, Ha, go change your bloody underwear, Bob.
Anyway, I decided to blitz this thing once and for all. I changed my gape into a predatory stare and headed straight for Catherine. I then thought: you know the act better than she. Or do I? You know damn well why you’re here, Jack—to get your arse scratched.
The music pounded a heavy percussion, coarse and hard, pumpi
ng one’s blood toward things wild and impulsive, which I obliged by shoving my way through the crowded patio. I clutched Catherine’s arm and escorting her, well, more like dragged her, to the dance floor. Then, like a succubus making its rounds, Lena moved in between us where the three of us began dancing some kind of a ménage á trois dry hump. Two’s company, three’s a crowd. Get lost, butch.
Lena began manhandling Catherine, maneuvering my tempest from the center of the floor to the outside grounds, caressing her neck, breasts, and other erotica zones I already had dibs on. And so I moved in and wedged my emboldened back and shoulders between the two dancing phenoms, thus bagging Lady Catherine.
Catherine laid her hand on my shoulder, drawing only the two of us toward darker, more obscure playgrounds. Surprisingly, Butch backed off and began to twist and shout with the crowd to an old Beatle’s tune. Catherine laughed, then giggled, demonstrating yet another version of my alluring siren as her lips, hair, and fingernails caressed my own erotica zones. She wanted it right here, it seemed, on cool Bermuda grass beneath moonlit palms with mocking birds chanting above and the smell of jasmine wafting fragrances of lust and nature.
I began peeling off her pretty chiffon, then she pushed me away, running and laughing across the dark grounds—her dress tousled up one leg, showing her moon-white panties, her back twisting around a smiling statuette. She took my hand and lured this dream to my parked car out front.
We laughed and played with the valet attendant until I retrieved my car keys and the two doors of my silver coupe opened and then closed. I started the engine and revved it like two wild horses: one for me, one for her.
I drove to an offbeat club several miles south; the kind of dive one drives by with curious trepidation but never dares go into. We swaggered recklessly into the seedy place. Inside, barflies, bikers, and surf bums, all clad in sandals, dungarees, and ragged T-shirts, not to mention a few leather jackets with whips and chains. They all gawked at our not-from-around-these-parts entrance. Catherine and I bellied up to the bar, ordered a round of drinks, and threw back two shots each. We dropped coins into the nearby jukebox and slid onto the loud and nasty dance floor. A disco classic turned in the box, a groove song.
Performing in white chiffon, sleeveless summer dress with gilded hair was Lady Catherine the Magnificent. And next to her in tailored garden-party clothes with brown hair and well-groomed, sweaty face was stumbling Jack the gigolo. The mangy crowd gathered around the floor, watching me, worshiping her.
My rapt eyes and single-minded purpose followed her every lead as we played through each dance. Both my shoulders and mojo had swelled, and I was now the horse that Lady Catherine wanted to ride.
Sensing that the mange in the room was getting too close for comfort, Catherine and I segued our bar-hop adventure outside, then fell into my coupe and resumed our dark-road journey one turn at a time.
We finally arrived to city lights and the streaming neon colors of beach-front boulevards. Balboa Island is where we touched down. My quiet village lay asleep as my raging stallions throttled down. I pulled into my driveway and parked, to which Lady Catherine jumped from my steed and raced across the front yard toward my house...and I chased her, pawing at her hair, her buttery-soft arms, legs, and buttocks—I then tore at her dress—this chaste, beguiling shroud. Trails of clothes lay scattered behind us.
I planted the ravenous of all kisses upon her tequila-sweet, nicotine-sour lips, and with each tongue-probing caress, I plunged deeper into her snare.
We slammed against my front door where I ripped the remaining pretty chiffon from her hot, supple body. I punched in the lock combination on the keypad, causing the door to spring open and our entangled embrace to drop onto cool, terracotta floor tiles.
14
Bright morning sunlight began to warm my kitchen; the aroma of cooked breakfast and brewed coffee filled the air. Water cascaded over my hands as I stood at the sink. Catherine entered the room; a look of contentment peeked from her sleepy face.
“I rose early to stir the house and brew some coffee,” I said. “Hopefully I didn’t burn it.”
“And how does one burn coffee?”
“Not sure, but I do it every time. I think it’s genetic. As of this morning, though, I’m brewing just for the smell of it. How’d you sleep?”
“Quite well, actually.”
She moved into the breakfast nook and stood at the French doors and gazed toward my yacht in the slip. She wore one of my bathrobes. “With a house such as this, you should have a servant or two minding your needs, as well as preparing unburned coffee.”
“I enjoy lounging in the buff too much. I also enjoy the challenge of mastering a simple cup of Joe. But to make it easy on myself and to impress you, I ordered out.” I poured two cups of the catered coffee.
“With the way your home is tastefully decorated, I’d say you may have closeted, gay tendencies,” she said.
“Only my interior designer knows for sure.” I winked, then smiled.”
She smiled back, the kind I enjoyed on a woman who appreciated witty, small talk.
On the table sat a small spread: eggs, poached and scrambled, toasted bread, pastries, and grilled potatoes. A pitcher of homegrown orange juice sat on the table against a backdrop of morning sunlight.
“And this is all catered?” she asked.
I nodded. “Except for the OJ.
“Only in America,” she said, lifting her cup.
I sat at the table across from her. I had a hard time keeping my eyes off her. I truly liked what I saw and especially what I saw last night without the chiffon dress and that haughty air of a Broadway dancer. She drank the coffee until her face revived.
“The coffee is quite good,” she said. “Almost as good as one can get on a street in Paris.”
“It’s the best imitation money can buy. There’re several gourmet restaurants across the channel here in Disneyland.” I spread jam on the toast and served her some of the grilled potatoes and scrambled eggs.
She looked out at the yacht and asked, “Do you sail often?”
“As often as I can. More in the summer months when the westerlies blow. I’d love to take you out, maybe this afternoon.”
“It is Sunday, and it is summer.” She took a small bite of the toast and glanced at the yacht. “My guess is there’s feminine hygiene products stowed aboard along with standby women’s wardrobe and even a supply of tampons and prophylactics, depending on how lucky you are.”
“You forgot the gossip magazines.”
“I only read literature.”
“So do I, but I promise not to show off my comic book collection.”
“Comic books? I took you more for a connoisseur of noir, lust novels.” She drank more coffee.
“I do enjoy a juicy yarn from time to time.”
“Yes, I remember that morning on the ferry when you proved that. Are you trying to live out this juicy yarn now, Jack?”
“How’s that?”
“I know everything there is to know about you, Mr. Kidd. So it doesn’t help things along when you pretend to be coy.” She began to eat as if I wasn’t sitting at the same table. I continued eating, alone now, it seemed, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t being coy.
She finished her food and coffee and said, “I want to freshen up for the day. Excuse me,” She stood and exited the kitchen.
I stayed at the table and ate the remainder of my breakfast. I felt the building heat of the sun through the window. I thought about her sleepy gaze when she entered the room, and also her abrupt left turn regarding our juicy yarn; it seemed that itch of hers needed tending, to which I was more than happy to scratch. I cleared the table and followed the sound of footsteps roving through the house. I found her in my office.
“Why no wife or children?” she asked, examining a gallery of pictures on the wall.
I shrugged. “It never happened.”
“It’s just your friends, associates, and that yacht of yours and
this enormous fruit tree plantation.”
“We call them ranches in California.”
“Are these your parents?” She looked down at a photograph inside an album binder.
“Yes.”
“It must have been hard at such a tender age to have the world as you knew it torn asunder. You were only fifteen, weren’t you?”
A trespasser had invaded my house, one who knew about certain skeletons hanging in musty closets. “How do you know about that?”
“I do my homework.”
“I didn’t realize my life was worthy of inspection.”
“Guilty of inspection, I dear say. You have a graduate degree in English literature and a master’s degree in political science yet you chose real estate as a profession. Why?”
“It’s a good way to find choice properties.”
“Like women?”
“It does have it perks.”
“No brothers or sisters?”
“You don’t know?”
She examined a photograph on the wall. “That old farm house, that’s where you grew up, isn’t it?” She glanced back at my silence. “Your father’s brother ran the plantation, or, pardon me, the ranch, while you were away at Tulane. He did rather well, too, made it much more productive than your father ever did. After your uncle’s death, you resumed your place at the homestead. It’s rather ironic, a house like that standing so Victorian and upright with its dark, lonely rooms full of cobwebs and nightmares. Just a historical landmark now, quite infamously too, I might add.”
“I think you need to mind your own business.”
“I am minding my own business.” We locked eyes for a moment until she said, “You would never turn your lovely trees into housing tracts, would you, John Albert?”
I cocked my head, not answering.
The Irresistible Muse of Jack Kidd Page 10