The Fetish Queen, Part One: Reborn

by Camden, Nicole

  “Max was living here when I moved in,” Mary commented, sitting on the bed, which had a new mattress.

  “Really?” Lille raised one eyebrow as she carefully draped her favorite Hermès scarf over a special hanger with little hooks, next to the scarf she’d removed from her hair.

  “He was here the first time I walked through the door. I came in and he was sitting in my living room smoking a cigarette.” Mary grinned at her best friend. “I didn’t know whether to be scared or jump him.”

  “If you were smart, you’d have called the cops, but he is gorgeous. I probably would have hesitated, too,” Lille lied. She’d have thrown something at him and run, or stabbed him, but Mary had always been more trusting than she was. She did seem different now, though, less like a girl and more like a woman, all in the space of the few months since Lille had last seen her, at dinner a few weeks before Mary had gotten the call from her mother’s attorney.

  “Getting laid has been good for you.” Lille paused in her organization efforts to smile at her friend. “Or is it being in love?”

  Mary looked away and petted Atticus, who was sitting next to her on the bed, but her lips twitched at the corners. “Probably both,” she said, and a slight blush tinted her pale skin.

  Lille shook her head; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d blushed. Probably before she’d become Lille, when she was still Sarah Wells, but she doubted that she had even then. Blushing wasn’t really in her repertoire. It was nice to know that Mary hadn’t changed that much, though; there had always been an innocent, dreamy quality about her, even when she was painting a scene so sexually explicit that it shocked even Lille.

  “So how are you?” Lille hesitated to bring it up, but it hadn’t been that long since Mary had been attacked. Lille didn’t like to think about it, about her delicate friend facing an ex-cop, about his hitting her.

  “I’m fine. My knees still hurt a little.” Mary shrugged. “I don’t like thinking about it.”

  Lille frowned. She knew that physically Mary was probably fine, but she was sure there were deeper psychological hurts. A few weeks ago, a jealous maniac had attacked Mary at a party and tried to rape her. Lille knew firsthand what that did to someone, what it felt like to be so helpless, but she nodded. She understood; she didn’t like thinking about what had happened to her when she was younger, either.

  Lille reached the bottom of her Louis Vuitton suitcase and pulled out a satiny tangerine-colored zipper bag. It contained her bikinis, cover-ups, and a pair of flip-flops.

  “Enough unpacking,” Lille decided, shaking off the pall that her questions had cast. She held up the bag in one hand while flipping the lid of her suitcase closed with the other. “The sun is up, the beach is beautiful, and I have a ton of ideas already drawn up on my iPad. What do you say we go to the beach? Based on your color, you haven’t been spending nearly enough time enjoying yourself.”

  “I’ve been a little busy,” Mary argued dryly, not even deigning to acknowledge the dig about her color, or lack thereof, “and I promised John I’d come by the Box.”

  Lille waved a hand, disregarding everything Mary had to say with one manicured sweep. “Oh, please, he didn’t look like an idiot to me. I’m your best friend. It’s my first day in town. You’re practically required to sit on the beach with me.”

  Mary considered that for a moment, her fingers curled in Atticus’s soft white fur. “I think we have champagne and orange juice,” she commented finally, a twinkle in her fog-gray eyes.

  “Mimosas it is,” Lille said, and thought her new life was off to a very fine start.

  A half hour later, after she and Mary had changed and packed a small cooler with a plastic pitcher full of mimosas, cups, and some fresh fruit, they grabbed Lille’s Baggallini and were lying on the beach in lounge chairs that Mary had fetched from the garage. Lille had brought her iPad, Mary a sketchpad, which suited the two of them just fine.

  “I felt bad leaving the dog,” Lille commented. “He seemed really upset.”

  Mary was busy sketching her best friend in a snakeskin print bikini and a wide-brimmed sun hat. Her red sunglasses were oversize, her lips painted cherry red. She was a postcard from the 1950s.

  “He’s fine,” Mary replied finally, sketching rapidly while she spoke. “He’s never happy when we leave, so usually John either brings him to the store or he stays with me at the house.”

  “So, is he living with you now?” Lille smoothed sunblock on her arms and legs.

  Mary nodded, her tongue tucked between her teeth as it always was when she was working.

  “Really? That was fast.” Lille frowned a little.

  Pausing, Mary lifted her head and rubbed two fingers under her sunglasses, over the bridge of her nose. “Well, he’s not officially living with me, but he’s still freaked out about what happened, so he stays with me most nights. We hired someone to guard the Box at night so he wouldn’t always have to be there.”

  “That makes sense,” Lille said. One part of her plan to expand the business included increasing security measures such as cameras and locks on display cases; she didn’t want to take any chances with another break-in within the year, or any loss for that matter, though she hadn’t really taken a look at the books yet.

  Lille lay back for a moment, letting her iPad in its designer case rest against her thighs. The sun felt marvelous; it was steamy and bright even though it was October.

  She thought of Max, the jerk. She rather wished he were here. There was nothing like the attention of a man to make a girl feel alive, especially an attractive one. He deserved to drool over her in this bikini and then get nothing from her but a disdainful look.

  “So,” Lille continued, “Max owns part of the pub, but not the Box, right? He doesn’t have any say in what goes on there?”

  Mary paused her sketching and looked up; her sunglasses had slid to the tip of her nose. Her eyes were squinted against the sun.

  “I wish you would push up your sunglasses,” Lille chided. “You’re going to get wrinkles.”

  Mary shrugged off that bit of helpful advice and studied her best friend. “That’s right, but why would it matter if he did? It’s still my shop.”

  Rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses, Lille sat up a little. “Sweetie, please, he may not own any part of your shop, but I can tell just by hanging out with the three of you for an hour that he considers you family. And that man doesn’t like—or trust—me at all.”

  Mary’s lips twitched. “He may not trust you, but he sure does want you.”

  Lille snorted. “Well, I can work with that, but I don’t want him to cause any trouble for you.”

  “Oh, you’re worried about me?” Mary sounded doubtful.

  “Of course.” Lille lifted her chin.

  “You’re not just the teeniest, tiniest bit worried that he may not fall for your charm?”

  “When has a man not fallen for my charm?”

  “There’s a first time for everything.”

  “Darling, have a little faith. It’s me.”

  Lille reached out and squeezed Mary’s arm before turning her gaze to the water, not realizing that her smile had turned down at the corners. She looked frozen almost, quiet and alone as she stared out at the water. Mary wondered what she was thinking about.

  Gulls called in the distance and the fierce wind blew off the tips of the waves. For a moment, it was as if time froze and there was nothing but this moment. Mary could see it coming before it happened, the wind turning until it was coming more from the south, a strong breeze that pushed her forward a little. It caught the edge of Lille’s hat and gleefully pulled it free, sending tendrils of blond hair swirling wildly. Lille exclaimed and leapt up, long legs and golden skin flashing as she dashed after it, cursing. Mary flipped to a new blank page and sketched quickly—the beautiful woman, alone on an island, snakes adornin
g her head, twisting and writhing of their own volition. Lille was Medusa, cursed for her beauty, lonely and powerful.

  Mary had always considered Lille to be fearless and powerful and confident. Maybe it was her own change in circumstances, finding John, taking charge of her life, that allowed her to see more deeply into the heart of her best friend. Lille suddenly seemed afraid and angry. Which only makes her more beautiful, Mary mused, at least from an artist’s perspective.

  Lille came rushing back, red-faced and sandy, shaking out her hat. “Help would have been nice,” she began, but stopped when she saw the sketchpad.

  Mary couldn’t see Lille’s expression, but the way her body stilled was telling. It wasn’t long, just a moment, but it was enough.

  “I hardly think I’m that bad, darling,” she argued mildly, replacing her hat and her composure before returning to her seat.

  Mary glanced down. “Oh . . . Medusa. No, I think she was misunderstood.”

  “Of course she was,” Lille agreed. “You should give that to Max. I like the idea of me as Medusa tattooed across that marvelous back.”

  Mary nodded absently, picturing it. “That’s a good idea . . . if he has room.”

  Lille shook her head. “Darling, I was beyond kidding.”

  “You were?”

  Lille reconsidered it. She was kidding, sort of. She didn’t want to be immortalized on that muscled flesh; she’d rather leave more temporary marks. He’d clearly been the pick of the hotties in this ridiculous town. Lille had an almost irresistible urge to take him down a peg or two. She also itched from being so well behaved during her engagement.

  She was in a new state, a new town, far away from her old life, from Paul, from her horrid past, and Max was physically convenient, emotionally distant, and hotter than Colin Farrell in Miami Vice. If he weren’t co-owners in a business with Mary, he’d be perfect.

  “So . . . about Max. Would you mind if I fucked him?”

  Mary’s eyes widened. “Why would I mind?”

  “He’s your friend. You’ve slept with him.” Mary had experimented with Max, for lack of a better word. Lille had thought it completely out of character when Mary had told her about it, but if Mary was anything, she was curious.

  “So?” Mary shrugged. “You’re my friend.”

  Lille conceded that point with a tilt of her head. “Still, if things don’t go well, it could cause problems.”

  Mary rolled her eyes. “You mean when you break his heart and leave him pathetically begging?”

  “Of course.” Lille fluttered her lashes beneath her glasses.

  “You might be surprised. Max has broken a few hearts. He can take care of himself.”

  Lille nodded, satisfied. “Then he can take his chances.”

  “And you yours?” Mary pressed.

  Lille settled back in her lawn chair and lifted her iPad. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”

  Mary tapped the drawing of Medusa. “She probably thought she didn’t have anything to lose, either, and look what happened to her.”

  Lille sniffed. “She lost her head, not her heart, and her face still turned that monster to stone.”

  Mary chuckled. “Can’t argue with that.”

  CHAPTER Three

  There were few things Max enjoyed more than being in his pub: sex was one, and reading was another, though few people knew he could read, much less make a hobby of it. He liked nineteenth-century Irish literature mostly, some plays, but he also liked a good horror story by Dean Koontz or Stephen King. Books had been his familiar friends all his life. He’d mostly been alone after his father left Ireland to find work with Max’s uncle in America. His grandmother ran the farm they lived on and his mother rarely left her room after his father left. She’d retreated into herself and didn’t bother to take an interest in Max’s comings and goings.

  He’d spent a lot of time walking around the hills near his family home and reading his grandfather’s books, which grew dustier and dustier in the room that had once served as his grandfather’s library and now contained the growing piles of junk his grandmother insisted would one day be useful on the farm. Piles of junk that included rats, old newspapers, broken cars, and stacks and stacks of trash that she’d picked up off the road. He’d rescued the books a stack at a time, moving them to his room until his small bed was surrounded by teetering towers of literature. He created his own little castle of words to insulate himself from the slow-brewing madness of the women in his life.

  When Max was twelve, after his mother died and his grandmother was institutionalized, his uncle had sent for him to come to America, where he met with the result of his father’s second marriage to a Cuban émigré—a stepbrother named Carl. When Max had arrived in Miami, his uncle Bryan and Carl had met him at the airport. Apparently Carl’s mother, Lira, had disappeared at the same time as Max’s father—both of them were wanted for robbery by the Miami PD. Max hadn’t been terribly shocked by the news. By that time, very little surprised him.

  Max tapped the pencil on his desk and sat back in the old-fashioned leather office chair that had been his uncle’s. Bambi lifted her massive shepherd head from her bed when she heard the squeak of his chair. When he didn’t do anything else, her head went back down.

  He reached out one foot and for a moment scratched behind her ear before his attention wandered. There was a photograph on the corner of the desk. Mandy—his uncle’s one and only wife—had taken the photo when Max and Carl were still getting to know each other, the two of them sitting on the bumper of a 1953 Cadillac Coupe in serious need of repair.

  A knock on the door interrupted his thought. “Come in,” he called, thinking it was probably Kyle, who was scheduled to handle the lunch crowd, which was usually pretty steady.

  Instead, it was Cherry, his head waitress and occasional fuck. “Max, honey, you got a sec?”

  “Aye.” He gestured for her to come in.

  She tapped her way over in four-inch heels that he never let her wear to work and took a seat next to him on the corner of his desk.

  “What ’tis it, Cherry, love?”

  She squirmed a little on his desk, which did absolutely nothing for him, he was sorry to realize. Two months ago he would have already had her bent over the desk, taking his throbbing dick. Instead a picture of the queen bitch popped in his head, her green eyes flashing at him, and he scowled.

  “Max, if this is a bad time, I can come back a little later.” Cherry was frowning at him, her small, turned-up nose wrinkling in distress.

  “No, it’s all right, lass.” He patted her on one bare knee. “What’s the problem?”

  Cherry pursed her lips, never a good sign in Max’s experience.

  “Well, the thing is I got this new man, and he says he don’t like me working so late on Saturday nights.”

  “Is that right?” Max muttered flatly.

  “Yep.” She nodded and shrugged.

  Max knew she wasn’t as dumb as she pretended to be, but Max figured that if you pretended long enough, eventually it became reality.

  “So what, for fuck’s sake? Are ye saying you quit, or that you can’t work tonight?”

  She frowned at him. “What’s got you so bitchy?”

  He sighed and opened a drawer on the right side of his desk. It was full of various flotsam, but he always kept an extra pack of cigarettes in case of an emergency. He tapped one out of the pack and used a match from a book he’d gotten at the Hard Rock casino to light it.

  “Since when do you smoke in the office?”

  Since before it was illegal to smoke in bars. “Since now,” he snapped. “Listen, Cherry, you need to take a night off, that’s fine. Check with Kyle to see if he’ll switch. If he won’t, I’ll call Mary and ask if she can take a shift.”

  “I already asked Kyle.” Cherry pouted. “He said he had a meeting with his invest
ors.”

  Kyle designed apps when he wasn’t working at the bar, and Max had a feeling that if you replaced “investors” with “hooker” you would have something closer to the truth.

  “Fine, I’ll call Mary, then.”

  “She’s not very good at the bar when it’s busy,” Cherry told him helpfully.

  “Thanks, lass, I’m aware of that.”

  She gave a one-shoulder shrug and looked at him through her lashes. “Well, she isn’t.”

  “It’s not your worry, is it.” He was tempted to blow smoke in her direction for making his life more difficult, but he refrained with some difficulty and blew the opposite way, toward the framed picture on the corner of his desk. The car in the photograph reminded him of the car Lille had been driving when she drove up that morning, and he had an unwelcome thought.

  “She’ll have a friend with her.” He voiced the thought aloud.

  “Oh, yeah.” Cherry licked her lips. “Is he cute?”

  Max thought of Lille and the chest that strained the front of her blouse. He’d bet anything that she was an excellent bartender, though where his certainty came from he didn’t know. “Not that kind of friend,” he said finally, and sent Cherry on her way.

  “I’m telling you, darling, we need to expand the online store and change the website. It’s boring and doesn’t do the inventory justice.”

  As Mary opened the front gate, a herd of cats burst through the opening and into the messy landscaping that made up the front walkway of the house.

  Lille stopped talking to take in the scene, surprised there were so many cats, though Mary had mentioned the creatures in a phone call a few weeks ago. They reminded Lille of the apartment where she’d grown up in Vegas; she felt her stomach muscles tighten in reflexive terror, though it wasn’t the cats that frightened her.