Marbella Cool

by Oster, Camille

  She’d been gone a month or so since that night on the beach when she’d pretty brutally told him to fuck off. It still smarted; it had felt crushing at the time, although he knew he had no right to be angry about it. Actually, that wasn’t true; he’d gone through periods when he’d been furious. He’d been serious at the time, intent on doing the boyfriend/girlfriend thing and she hadn’t listened. He was finally coming to the party, ready to step up and she’d just refused to believe him.

  And now she was back, shaking her tight arse on the dance floor. She was a few drinks in and enjoying the evening, dancing with Hannah and Amber. Her body was amazing and the red hair gave her this ethereal quality. It made her skin tawny and dewy.

  “You alright?” Lachlan asked, sitting down next to him. “Girls are on form tonight.” From being virtual strangers a few months back, their group seemed to have merged and these were now their girls. Chrissy had been the catalyst, but it had moved beyond that, maybe even to the point where the ties in the group would survive a break up between Chrissy and Nathan. Cory wished that didn’t happen because there would be no end of drama, and drama was the one thing he hated above all else. Most were more like little sisters, except Trish. He’d always have a thing for Trish, he guessed.

  Her tension and dislike for him had been palpable. She still wanted nothing to do with him and Cory didn’t know if his total hard on was related to her dislike, or maybe it was that tight, short red dress. The problem with her return was that he wasn’t turning his attention elsewhere. He didn’t feel right getting with someone if she was there watching, which might turn into a problem if it went on.

  “Yeah,” he said belatedly to Lachlan’s statement. “The girls look good.”

  “Shots?”

  “Why not?”

  Lachlan rose to go to the bar and Cory followed. He could use a few moments away from watching the girls gyrating.

  The tequila shots went down, the fumes going up his nose as he rode out the flash of burn taking over his senses. It was so good. He followed with the next, then ordered a beer. He felt warmer already, although that might be imagined.

  “Dion’s been thinking about buying a jet ski,” Lachlan said.

  “That would be good,” Cory smiled, imagining them out on the water.

  “We could all go in and have it between us. There is room in the yard for it if we get a stand. You’ve got a towbar on your car, haven’t you?”

  “Naw,” Cory said. The Toyota Celica he’d been given by one of the ladies at the club lent itself more to show than practicality.

  “Shit,” Lachlan said. “Maybe we need to pick up some old bunger, as long as it has a tow bar.” Lachlan turned his back to the bar and stared back towards their group. “I think Hannah would be into it if I went for it,” he finally said.

  “Yeah?” Cory said. He’d had no idea Lachlan had an eye on Hannah, being a bit different from the porn star chic girls he normally lusted after.

  “You think I should ask her out?”

  Cory felt it was a loaded question. Did they really need more drama in the group? But then Lachlan had never really expressed interest in a real girl before. Hannah was cool, a medical receptionist, who lived with the other girls, but in truth, Cory couldn’t say he knew her well, even if they’d hung out for a couple of months now.

  Should Lachlan ask Hannah out? The question turned over in his mind. On one hand, they were both single and it was cool that Lachlan was into her. Better her than Trish, a thought snuck in. Then on the other hand, Lachlan was a grubby guy with an admirable porn collection, an obsession with rugby, shit dress sense and at times questionable hygiene. Cory wasn’t sure Hannah would overlook all of Lachlan’s more dubious qualities. Girls tended to be fussy. Cory had felt the brunt of not measuring up to girl’s exacting standards. Trish had certainly slammed him after she’d learned enough about him. It was all fine at first, then they didn’t like this or that, and it was all rejection from there.

  “Sure, mate. Why not?” Cory said. Who was he to cast cold water on Lachlan’s quest to get laid, because Cory so understood the call of it. Even now, he burned to get with Trish, probably more now that she was forbidding him going anywhere near her lovely arse.

  Cory turned to watch the girls. They certainly had them enthrall, didn’t they? Hoping, waiting to be let close, be given access to the sweetness and heat.

  He didn’t know why it felt so different with these girls than it did with the women in the club. The club ladies were just fucks—good fucks. They didn’t have the complications, or the sweetness of their own girls. They were two completely different things, but Trish refused to understand that. What he’d offered her was monumental in his existence, but she saw it as nothing, dismissing him as something grubby and unclean. It had fucking hurt. Not that he would admit that.

  Now Lachlan was faced with the problem of moving in, honing down on the prey, and how to mesmerise her enough to get her into a cab. It was so easy when you had nothing riding on it. Girls just dropped in your lap, nothing more than squirming, warm bodies, but when you wanted it, really wanted it, it was hard.

  Chapter 11

  Tierry stood waiting for her when Shania got out of Shine after her shift. After a night of dancing, she was aching to do all the things she’d imagined up on that pedestal. She was lusting hard for him and pressed herself to him as she hopped on the back of the bike. “We going home?” she said hopefully, because all she wanted was a nice soapy session in the shower.

  “Not yet,” Tierry said. “Blanca Beach,” he said and pulled away from the curb.

  “Oh, okay,” she said with a tinge of disappointment. Blanca was a cool place, but she’d just danced for seven hours. The last thing she wanted was a hard beat—well, musically anyway. Granted, Blanca was a little more laid back, so it was okay, she guessed.

  They tore down the highway heading south. She was starting to find her way around Marbella better now. It didn’t hurt having a boyfriend with wheels. She actually needed a car, but she hadn’t saved up enough money yet. There was always that question of if it was worth it.

  Tierry parked and they got off. He looked awesome in his thin leather jacket and black skinny jeans. The jeans showed the curves of his thighs. Tierry wasn’t built, but he was hot in a young, lean way. And when it came down to it, he knew what to do with what he had, which made him so incredibly sexy, complemented with the messy, light brown hair and blue eyes, rimmed by dark lashes.

  Shania contemplated how hot he was while he took her hand and led her down the path to the club. It was busy that night, full of people. The dress standard was high here and she felt a bit underdressed in her jeans and t-shirt. The girls typically wore dresses she couldn’t afford if she ever wanted to eat. They looked awesome though. Their clothes weren’t exactly her style, but they often had something quirky and fun that she appreciated.

  They walked over to a group of people and Shania remembered some from before. “You want a drink?” Tierry asked.

  “Okay, a vodka redbull thing,” she said and he left her to go to the bar. She smiled as she sat down. That girl from last time was there, Esme. She wore a tan-coloured dress with a golden band sown around the waist. The girl looked up, her brown hair turning golden as it flowed down over her shoulders. She was young—younger than Shania. Maybe even still in high school.

  “I like your dress,” Shania said.

  “Thanks. I stole it out of my mother’s closet.”

  “I like your mother’s closet. I wish there was something worth stealing in my mom’s closet.” She accepted the drink from Tierry, who then moved off to talk to people and to discreetly pass those small packets.

  “Did I hear that you’re a dancer at Shine? I recall you saying so last time you were here.”

  “I am,” Shania said. She was actually too exhausted to feel nervous about being here. At this moment, she just didn’t give a shit that she had nothing in common with these people. It didn’t escape her that
she was here as the add-on to a service provider. Maybe Tierry wasn’t really part of this crowd; he was the provider of the treats. But right now, Shania didn’t care.

  “I’m sorry my brother was a shit last time. I’d say he isn’t really like that when you get to know him, but that would be inaccurate. He’s a total bastard most of the time. I get left to do the apologising for him.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I don’t fall apart because some prep school a-hole gets a bug up his ass.”

  “He took a distinct dislike to you, though. It’s nothing personal. It’s just that this dancer from Shine stole his best friend away, and there are so few people who can tolerate Felix’s joyful personality.”

  “Has he got any other friends I can steal away?” Shania asked, smiling maliciously.

  Esme smiled back. “How do you feel about total wankers?”

  “There’s the hitch in that plan. I’ve developed an intolerance.”

  “Can’t blame you,” Esme said and leaned back, crossing her legs. “All the guys here are wankers. What’s Tierry like?”

  “Good where it counts,” Shania said conspiratorially and Esme laughed.

  “I always expected so,” she said. “He had that ‘don’t care’ attitude.”

  Tired, Shania leaned over on the cushion, holding her head up with her hand.

  “How do you like Marbella?” Esme asked.

  “It is certainly different. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on most of the time. There’s such a stratified system here and I don’t get it. We don’t have that back home. In the US, money talks and that’s it really. You either have it or you don’t. Here things are more complicated.”

  “It does get tedious. You should have seen things in my school. There is a complete pecking order and money doesn’t necessarily feature in it. I think Felix’s school was worse. Boys like to make things complicated for themselves.”

  “Are you still in school?”

  “No, I’ve just finished. I am considering going to university, but I’m not sure it’s worth it.”

  “Yeah?” Shania said. It sounded so blasé to her. No one in her family had gone to university and it was such a commitment it was scary. Debt for the rest of her life. She’d seen the programmes on 60 Minutes showing pictures of scores of students, drinking and laughing. You could do that just as well without taking on a hundred grand loan. But saying that, you got nowhere without a degree. “I’m not sure my grades were ever good enough to get accepted. I would like to go though, at some point.” Still, it was an outlandish idea, one she didn’t know how to traverse or even what was involved. Trade schools were more common in her neck of the woods. Mostly she didn’t think she could hack it. She wasn’t known for her academic achievements. “So what are you going to do?”

  “See, I don’t know. Four years is such a sizeable commitment and there’s nothing I particularly want to spend four years learning. Besides, my friends are all here and I’m not sure I can be arsed making new ones.”

  “I couldn’t wait to get rid of my ones,” Shania admitted.

  “Your friends?” Esme said incredulously.

  “Yeah. I mean, I love them, but it was just drama after drama, like they lived for it. One would get shitty with the other. Boyfriend crap would get involved, and it was all worse. I felt I was always talking one down, just to have it all blow up again.”

  “Doesn’t sound so different, actually.”

  “Then one got pregnant.”

  “Okay, that’s different. That would be social death here. Something quietly and discreetly taken care of in a clinic.”

  “I just wanted to get out, you know,” Shania said, letting her mouth run. It had actually been a long time since she’d had someone to talk to. Tierry and her did more and talked less. “There’s a whole world out there, and back there, it’s the same old crap, over and over again.”

  “So why did you decide to come here?”

  “Honestly, I’d never even heard of Marbella before I came. People in my family aren’t great travellers, if you know what I mean. I just bought the cheapest ticket and it turned out to be to Madrid. And I can get by on Spanish, so I thought, why not?”

  “You speak Spanish?”

  “Enough to get by. Half of my school was Hispanic.”

  “I’m impressed. I practically grew up here and never managed to say more than hello.”

  “I guess you never really needed to.”

  “No, I suppose not. The Spanish and us, we tend to pretty much keep to ourselves. Saying that, I have friends from everywhere—Lebanon, China, Iran, but they are more part of our society, if you will, than their own. Right schools, right bank accounts, right connections.”

  “See, I never knew any of this stuff before I came here. I never realised that the school you went to made a difference, which was probably just my ignorance.”

  “It makes a huge difference.”

  Shania watched Esme for a moment, happy they were speaking so freely about stuff she had observed, but wasn’t entirely sure she was getting right. “And I’m a girl from nowhere, USA.”

  “You’re a dancer from Shine, which according to my brother is the most deadly form of vixen on earth.”

  “Well, there’s always that,” Shania said with a laugh.

  Chapter 12

  Paul had managed to get her an office at the business school. It came with some conditions. She had to teach a couple of modules on social policy and the impact on the commercial world. It wasn’t exactly what she did, but Rosalie didn’t mind. It would be interesting to see how the students here were different from the bright-eyed and ambitious Oxfordites.

  Her office overlooked a lush garden. How was it even possible to get on with research, thought, in such a bright environment? She dropped the journal she’d been reading down on her new desk. Her room was small, but she was glad to have it. This would all have been much more difficult if she had to do this in her bedroom. Paul’s office was now down the corridor and they would go to lunch together in a minute. As of yet, she was still dependent on Paul for transport and for knowledge, but over time that would change.

  Her thoughts turned back to the other night.

  Alexi.

  It had been the strangest thing in the world running into him. Honestly, she hadn’t thought of him in a long time. Of course she’d seen the odd article about him, but she’d never allowed herself to read them. He’d moved on and she had too. Now here he was, in Marbella. It looked like he’d achieved everything he wanted. The ridiculous woman he was with showed that, the ‘blond goddess’ Rosalie had started calling her. That woman was definitely one of these rare creatures that generally had nothing to do with normal womanhood. Legs stretched to the sky and the face of an angel. She hoped Alexi was happy. She’d learned that these things mattered to him.

  Back when, he’d made a lame effort to make her come with him, to drop every one of her ambitions to go serve his. It had been a mad proposition at the time and it still was. She was glad he had been successful and hoped he’d finally fulfilled that drive he had that made him so unhappy in his own skin, and at Oxford. He’d been brilliant; he was brilliant. Brilliant for its own sake hadn’t been enough for him. For Alexi, it was a vehicle to take him somewhere and it had been where they fundamentally didn’t suit each other. It had become more clear as their relationship continued. She’d known for a while that it was doomed and when he’d proposed to go back to Russia, she hadn’t been surprised. The transitioning Russia had been the wild frontier and it had sought every gold digger who could hack it. Alexi had more than hacked it, it seemed; he’d thrived.

  “You ready to go?” Paul asked.

  “Of course,” she said and stood. “I’ve been thinking that maybe I need to buy my own car,” she said as she locked her door.

  “You’re always welcome to use the MG.”

  “I know and I appreciate the gesture, but I’ll never be independent unless I can get myself about on my o
wn. Who are we meeting today?”

  “Professor Cortega. He’s visiting from Madrid. A brilliant man. He’s an economic advisor to the Spanish Government.”

  “Got his work cut out for him, then.”

  “The Spanish never really embrace reform.”

  The heat pummelled her as she stepped outside. She still wasn’t used to it and tended to forget within the cool offices of the business school. “Where are we going?”

  “There’s a restaurant not far from here,” Paul smiled and got in the driver’s seat. The white leather was hot from the sun and Rosalie had to pull her skirt down to protect her skin. Paul drove, headed in the direction away from the route she knew.

  They stopped in a small enclave of shops and restaurants. There was an expensive chocolatier and a hair salon. Rosalie reminded herself to pick up some treats before they went. It had been a while since she’d had good chocolate, because if it was worth eating, it was worth eating the superior kind.

  They passed a woman with stiffly coiffed hair, walking her tiny dog in high heels. The dog wore a sparkling collar and Rosalie hoped it wasn’t real stones in there, but she wasn’t sure she could depend on that. There was another standard here and that which seemed ridiculous elsewhere could be perfectly acceptable here.

  Paul walked ahead of her onto a wooden bridge that led to a restaurant with a similar wooden deck, filled with shaded tables. They headed toward the woman she remembered, Margo Rollinger, the dean of the school and a darker man—Professor Cortega, she presumed.

  The introductions were made and they took their seats as a bread basket appeared on the table. Rosalie spent a while listening to Professor Cortega’s accent. He made a point of saying he was Catalonian, not Spanish. The idea of exploring Spain crept into her mind as the professor continued speaking. A colleague had walked the old pilgrimage route to San Sebastian the previous year and it had sounded romantic, following in the steps of their medieval ancestors.