Warm Bodies, Cold Hearts
By
Rachel E. Rice
Published 2012 by Rachel E. Rice
Cover art by Jimmy Thomas
Copyright 2012 Rachel E. Rice
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations to books and critical reviews. This story is a work of fiction. Characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Prologue
I confess. I’m a gambler. No bet is too high or too low. No game is out of reach. My friends tell me that I live on the edge, yet I continue to gamble. My biggest gamble to date is on men; and I love every thrill, every beat, and every rhythm that my heart can stand!
I know what you want to tell me, but I’m not listening, and before you judge me, hear me.
Life imitates art.
The room swirls from the smoke and the heat of bodies. It’s well past midnight and into Saturday morning. I’m sitting at a poker table pretending I’m a worldly woman, while peering at the outside world. I glance at the dealer’s animated face; the look on his face is that of a stripper giving a lap dance to her three hundredth customer.
I turn to my right, and there is a young woman sliding in from an early morning tryst with a boyish round face lover. The young man’s hands are tethered to the belt on her jeans encircling her waist, symbolizing his ownership of all she possessed dear—her virginity. I can still see the waning of this young woman’s patience; she cannot catch that rich available man to add to her trophy case, to display beside all the sorry bums accumulated in her short life.
I see a matured woman pulling at her dress as if it’s covered with mud; she totters like a drunken sailor trying to hide the spoils of her life, an older woman with a younger man clinging to her purse. I see all the men, young, old, and in between, strolling with their trophies and thinking they are immune to the ambushes and emotions that befell Samson (Samson and Delilah).
Saturday morning is wild in Las Vegas, and I am playing a game of chance –No Limit Texas Hold’um. I’m the only woman at my table. I’m surrounded by a posse of beautiful men from different corners of the world, and I’m enjoying every minute of their attention. I know their faces well—not a joker among them. I’ve seen them before and now I get to see behind their facades.
There are secrets buried in their closets like bodies in shallow crypts, waiting for a good rain—the eyes told the story. You know it’s said somewhere that the eyes tell it all.
I hold the two cards they all need. The wager is huge, and the winner keeps everything. It is life or death for me, and any lost at this point would signal the end. I could never recover. So, to win, I have to peer into the hearts, minds, and souls of these outrageously handsome men.
How do you get so many good-looking men at one table I wondered? I glanced at the cool calm executive with the steel gray eyes. He appeared to be a pushover. I knew I could take him. His name is Robert. Next to Robert sat Phillip—rich, tough, and a good-looking actor who could spend me under the table and probably fuck me there too.
Sitting to the right of Phillip are two bountiful breathtaking brothers; I would have fallen to my knees and given them both a perfect blow job, married them, and gladly gone to jail for bigamy had they looked in my direction.
Next to the twins sat a distinguished professor named Michael. He focused his eyes on the prize—the money and me. I knew I had him when he smiled at me. The dealer bet last; his card sailed out as if it had wings. My nerves came unhinged, and my hands shook. We were coming to The Showdown; then a phone began to ring—“Who the hell left their phone on? Can’t they put it on pulse or something?!” I shouted, “I won! I won!”
Mike stood, put his hands inside his pockets, turned, winked, and strode in the direction of the pool. Robert nervously put his hands on the table, pushed his seat back, stood, looked at everyone, and then sat.
Phillip, so handsome, so self-assured, fiddled with his expensive watch, turning it around his wrist twice, with his eyes never escaping mine he placed his hands to his collar, flicked it up, shuttled a wicked grin across his face, asked for more chips, then said, “When you’re in the rain and you’re soaked, what’s another raindrop?”
Jeremy adjusted his aviator glasses, showed no emotion as he exited the room. His twin brother, Danny, “Oh Danny.” What a young, sensual, handsome, and impetuous child-like-man of twenty. He eased out of his chair. My eyes followed his long legs as he strode to where I sat. He took my hand, kissed it, and flashed a pair of green eyes only a painter’s canvas could capture in full sun light. Then he smiled, and I fell in love when he led me from the table.
I turned around like Lot’s wife. There stood specters, ghost of men coming and going, populating my life.
Yet I have just begun to live!
Chapter 1
Leaving Las Vegas
Some phones ring with a pulse, and some ring with chimes. I hear the peal of a bell and I stumble into reality. Then I realize it’s the sound of the phone in my bedroom blaring through the rain and thunder.
It’s another early agonizing Saturday morning, and I’m wishing Danny would call. He’s working his ass off in Hollywood. I’m now the writer for an influential women’s magazine, W.O.W., which stands for Women of the World. There I meet and interview eligible bachelors on their thoughts of what men really want from women. I haven’t discovered that yet, and I doubt that any man knows or will ever tell.
The men I interview command the attention of women the world over, because they are successful, rich, and are able to demand pleasure. These men are attractive and shrewd, belonging to an exclusive club. Nevertheless, none could turn me on like Danny. I wouldn’t let any man into my soul, my body—only Danny. I could not think or concentrate on anyone. I wanted him.
Men became just toys to me, to play with, break, and discard. That’s how I lived my life, and that’s how I wanted it to remain until I met Daniel McCloud.
I’m blinded by love. I’m sick. I can’t seem to see anyone, feel anything when the object of my affection is not with me. I don’t know where emotions materialize. Is it in the mind? Is it physical? Who cares! All I know is I’m possessed, and I need an exorcism.
These feelings kept framing my thoughts, and my mind continued to deceive me—but not my body. I’m hot for him, and I love him. His voice is intoxicating, where I become drunk with passion. My days are spent stumbling around not eating or hearing the voices of others.
I reached for the phone, struggling through pillows that simulate a body to remind me that I’m not alone—knocking over lamps and pictures, hoping the call is from Danny!
Before I could say hello, “Hi Sydney, how’s that beautiful body?” Danny said in an erotic whisper. “I get off just looking at your pretty face, those brown eyes, and those luscious full lips. You’re more than a man could want or hope for, and that body drives me insane. Tell me you’re mine,” he stated, reaching my soul and wringing it dry with his lyrical voice.
“I’m yours and you know it.” I said what he wanted, and my pulse began to race, then my mind took flight.
“Now tell
me what you want when I come to you,” Danny said, sounding excitingly horny.
“I want you to kiss my nipples, caress my body with those hands, and moisten my lips with your tongue.”
“Yes, yes,” he murmured asking for more.
“Devour my body with your kisses, take my body beyond its limits, and drive me to my crisis. Make love to me the way you have dreamed,” I stated.
I taught Danny how to satisfy my sexual cravings and fantasies, and now he enjoyed the ritual as much as I enjoyed him performing it. However, our intense lovemaking created the worse jealousy in both of us the longer he stayed away. When we recovered from phone sex, he remembered why he called.
“Guess what baby?” He stated all excited.
“I don’t want to guess at this hour, just tell me,” I said impatiently hoping he was returning to New York.
“I want you to guess,” he begged.
“Well, have you stop drinking and smoking? You know those things are not good for you,” I said trying mothering.
“I know, I know, no I haven’t stop drinking. I just don’t do it as much. If you were with me, I wouldn’t smoke or drink at all.”
“You don’t love me anymore,” I blurted out.
“No, that’s not it but you are getting close.”
“Don’t say that Danny!”
“Well, you started it baby; you know I don’t mean that.”
“I didn’t start this you started with this stupid guessing game.”
“Okay baby, one more guess,” he said overlooking my impatience.
“You’re standing at my door, and you’re going to rip my clothes off, throw me on the floor and ravish me,” I said half joking, and wishing it were true.
“No baby, but that is a thought for the next time. I’ve been nominated for a Golden Globe award and I’m going to celebrate! I want you to meet me in Las Vegas at the Wynn Hotel.”
“I knew you would get it! You work so hard, but I thought we would go to Venice and have gondolas ferry us through the canals, not go to a hotel in Las Vegas.”
“We could go to the Venetian Hotel instead?” he said laughing.
“I don’t think that’s funny. Las Vegas is not romantic.”
“What do you mean? People go there every day to get married,” he stated. “I know I promised you we would go to Venice together when I started to make some money. I have the money, but not the time.”
“You have already gone to Venice and not with me,” I said pouting.
“I know Sydney, but that was business and besides, you said you weren’t going anywhere with me in Europe on business. I can’t go to Italy now. I have to meet my producers at Caesars in Vegas.”
“I have money and I can pay for the trip.” I continued not hearing anything he said.
“It’s not the money and you’re not paying for anything,” he yelled. “Shit woman, I don’t want you to give me anything. I want to give you something. Why do you think I’m taking every picture that’s offered me? I love you, and I want to marry you woman,” he shouted in his Scottish brogue.
“Marriage? Did I hear you?”
“We’ll talk about marriage when I see you. Ok? I have something for you. I bought it in Italy.” Danny didn’t want to talk about it any further. He made up his mind and that was that.
How could that be Ok? Marriage was the last thing I thought about. I guess I could be content living and loving Danny but not marry him. I wanted to tell him I thought it would be difficult to marry him. I could love him and be a part of his life—I liked our arrangement.
“Well, are you going to meet me?”
“Of course,” I started thinking with my heart.
“I don’t want to be with anyone but you at this moment in my life,” Danny said.
How much life had he lived? He was only twenty. I’ve only known him one year and saw him a few times when he flies in from Los Angeles.
What does that matter? I asked myself. He wants me and I want him in the worst way. What I need to do is pack my bags, and put all questions and idle thoughts away for now, before I ruin everything.
“Yes, I’ll meet you,” I mumbled half dazed
from waking up early from a tired dream laden sleep.
“Alright baby, I’ll send you a ticket and money. Goodbye baby. I love you. Close those sexy brown eyes, and go back to sleep.”
Bye baby, I love to hear him call me baby. Those words were so sweet that I would play them in my mind over and over. I fell deliriously back to sleep like a kitten that just corralled her first bird and didn’t know whether to eat it or make it a best friend.
The next morning I called my friend Heather who lives in Houston, Texas—I needed advice.
“Heather this is Sydney, guess what? Danny called,” I announced, not allowing Heather to answer and sounding like a girl with her first boyfriend.
“I told you he would, see, and you were afraid he wasn’t thinking about you. How could he not think of you? You’re beautiful, and he knows it. You have to stop thinking about all the issues of age, older women with younger men. You’re only twenty-five. You make it sound like he’s a teenager. He’s twenty and you know how those actors are. They grow up early. Times they are a changing my dear; women out live men—so you two can die together,” she said laughing at her own words.
“I don’t think that’s funny,” I said, feeling depressed.
“I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was trying to be practical. What is wrong with you? I remember when you use to have a sense of humor,” Heather stated, showing concern for my behavior.
“I don’t need that kind of talk. I need advice Heather. Danny wants to marry me. He’s lost his mind. He’s too young.”
“Well it’s up to you to provide his education and broaden his horizons if you know what I mean,” Heather said with a chuckle. “He hasn’t lost his mind you have lost yours.
“I don’t want to hear that,” I stated angrily.
“You don’t want to hear the truth? The truth will set you free kiddo. You want to suffer, you want to feel a little pain, well, and don’t you think you experienced enough of that with your marriage to that pervert… Mike. You’re not happy unless you are suffering, then suffer on; you’ll have a lot of time for that. Danny has been loving and kind, and you can’t believe it. You can’t believe that a man as young as he would know what he wants. He wanted a career as an actor and he did it; now he wants you and that’s what he’s going after. He knows what he wants girlie, you don’t!”
I tried to interrupt and Heather talked over me as if hearing only her own words. So, I let her finish.
“Why do you want to think about the past, the most important thing in life is happening now and in the future? You don’t want to give him a chance because of your past. You want to let age be a factor in your life. Well let me tell you, age has never been a factor in a man’s life.”
“Men go after the prettiest and youngest women they can put their hands on and it doesn’t bother them in the least that the women are ten years or twenty years older or younger. Here you are a vibrant, beautiful young woman with money, a young man loves you, and trying to give you his riches, and you are saying, what if. What if the world ends? The way things are going, we all might not live past tomorrow. What if he decides never to see you; are you going to be happy in your pain? Think about these questions. Does Danny satisfy you sexually?”
“Yes.”
“Does he show you how much he loves you?”
“Yes.”
“Does he put anyone before you?”
“No.”
“Does he have money, and does he give it to you?”
“Yes, yes, yes.”
“Then what the hell is wrong with you? Besides, you’re not the first “cougar,” that actress what’s her name married her young man.”
“Yeah where are they now?” I said with bitter strength.
“You are wasting my time.” She paused but I knew there was more to come
. Heather gave me an earful, and then hung up the phone. I guess she was tired of my complaints, and I probably exhausted her with my stories. Then maybe she just didn’t want to hear what I called problems. Maybe she was having problems in her own life, and my problems didn’t amount to a hill of beans.
The next day, a large amount of money was wired into my checking account. Surprised by how much Danny sent, I didn’t want to accept it—but I did. I remembered what Heather said about money. If a man gives you money, don’t take it unless you love him. Because when a man parts with his money, he’s parting with his heart and soul. If he gives you all he has, he loves you, and you should never play with a man’s heart, mind, and money, in that order.
I should have remembered that.
* * * *
I decided to buy new clothes and visit my friend Steven’s salon. I met Steven at Tracy’s apartment last year when I first moved to New York. Steven said he would accompany me on my shopping trip and give me pointers on my quest for the, “Illusion of beauty.”
Steven was a man denying his sexuality. He enjoyed the attention and company of women but wanted and craved men. He’s handsome, tall, dark, and a beautiful spirit. His mysterious light brown eyes saw plenty in his thirty years.
He wore the most expensive clothes, because he said he owed it to his public to look like a million dollars. And he did. I knew he owned a salon on Fifth Avenue, but I didn’t think he made enough to afford his life style—until I visited his salon last year to get a bikini wax, a manicure, the works. I then became aware of how he could afford the apartment overlooking Central Park and the little gray Porsche roadster setting in the garage for weekend rides out of the city.
Steven’s traits are that of a salesman who could charm a rattle snake out of his rattle. He convinced me to submit my body to the removal of all my pubic hair. I heard of a Brazilian wax, but never understood what it entailed. I sat exposed, as a total stranger peered into my private area surveying, and no doubt, achieving pleasure from the excruciating pain that I endured. That experience at his salon cemented our friendship.
Obsession: Warm Bodies, Cold Hearts Page 1