by S. Tamanaha
On Christmas Eve, they joined Richard and Damien for dinner at Richard’s penthouse. Unlike Damien’s birthday party, the dinner was a more intimate gathering, which Susan found enjoyable. She was tired of large, crowded parties. Everyone there had seen Johnny’s performance on the Christmas special and raved about it. She brought the dessert—multiple layers of shortbread, chocolate pudding, chocolate candies, and whipped topping attractively displayed in a huge parfait shaped bowl.
“Oh, my God!” Damien exclaimed when he tasted her concoction. “This is just decadent. What do you call it?”
“Well, my sister gave me the recipe,” she said. “It’s called, believe it or not, ‘Sex in a Bowl’.”
“I believe it!” he said, helping himself to more and everyone laughed.
Finally, it was Christmas and, as he promised, all phones and computers were turned off. They ate her Christmas breakfast, waited until Angel found her present, a new chew toy, and then began opening the gifts that they had received from their family and friends. They had agreed not to buy each other presents but she had asked Johnny for one favor—that he request that his mother send him some of his childhood pictures.
“Why would you want to see those pictures?” he had asked.
“I just want to see who I fell in love with,” she had replied.
Her words had touched his heart. But he said he would do it only if she showed him some of her old pictures. She agreed and emailed his request to her sister, Vanessa, who had possession of most of the family’s photo albums.
On Christmas morning, when Johnny opened the package from his mother, it contained rich, homemade butter cookies and crisp ginger cookies and, beneath the goodies, wrapped in plastic, an old photo album.
“She remembered,” Susan said happily. “Let me see.”
“Not so fast,” he said. “Where’s yours?”
She searched for the box from her sister, opened it, and pulled out a photo album from beneath a stack of tee shirts for Johnny and tank tops for her. She handed it to him at the same time he gave her his.
“I want to look at yours first,” she said.
They sat cuddled up on the sofa as she began looking through the album.
“So, didn’t I tell you that I was goofy looking?” he asked, almost embarrassed by some of the photos.
“I don’t think that at all,” she said as she looked through the photos. “You have different hairstyles and body shapes but your eyes ... you’ve always had beautiful, soulful eyes. I think I like this one of you the best.” She pointed to a picture of him on a bicycle when he was about twelve.
“Why’s that?”
“Because you’re out there playing with your friends but that look that’s on your face ... I don’t know what you were thinking at the time, but you look intense and you seem to be far away, dreaming of something. When I had those dreams, sometimes I would catch a glimpse of you when there was no one around you and you’d have that same look on your face and in your eyes. It made me a little sad, but it also made me know that you weren’t that image that you projected.”
He smiled a little. “I was far away. Not so much dreaming of something but feeling that I wanted something, needed something. I wasn’t sure what it was until I met you.”
She looked up at him with love in her eyes. “You are my soul,” she said softly.
He kissed her tenderly. “Okay, your turn,” he said.
They began looking through her album. There were photos of her parents on the day that they were married and of their store in Hilo. In one photo she was sitting cross-legged on the counter of the store smiling and clutching a stuffed dog.
He smiled. “That’s the doll you told me about—that collie with a vinyl face,” he said, remembering their conversation in the pool.
She nodded.
“How old were you?”
“About three I guess.”
“God, you were beautiful even then,” he said. “And look at those dimples. I love your dimples.”
“You have them too when you really smile,” she said. “You know my sister, the one that I don’t speak to, she used to call them missing muscles and tell me that I had a birth deformity.”
That angered him. “Your sister’s lucky that I don’t believe in smacking women around.”
“I told my father about it once. He said that she was just jealous.”
Johnny smiled. “Now I know that I would have liked him,” he said.
He flipped through the pages. “Where was this one taken?” he asked pointing to a picture of her seated on a stone wall and dressed in jeans and a blouse with her hair pinned up. “That doesn’t look like Hawaii.”
“In Japan. Remember I told you that after my mother got injured, she wanted to go to Japan so badly that my father borrowed the money to send her, my sister, and me there for the summer?”
“I remember. But you said that you were eleven.”
“I was eleven.”
“No way. You look like you’re in high school. And who are those guys?” He pointed to a picture of her and her sister, Vanessa, and two Asian men.
“They used to work at a small market in the town where we stayed. We didn’t know it at the time but they were sort of the local ‘bad boys’. They were nice enough to us though. We found out later that this guy,” she pointed to the one standing behind her, “went to prison.”
“He looks as though he likes you,” Johnny said. “He’s got his hand on your shoulder.”
“Johnny, I was eleven.”
“Well, you didn’t look it, that’s for sure. What about here?” He pointed to a photo of her in shorts and a sweater.
“Eighth grade, so I was about thirteen.”
“And here?”
“About fifteen. That was taken when I was visiting my sister in Chicago.”
“You haven’t had an awkward period in your life,” he said. “You’ve always been beautiful.”
She laughed. “Of course I had awkward periods. No front teeth. Bad hair. It’s just that someone had the good sense not to take pictures during those periods, I guess.” She saw a small photo and pulled it from the album. “This is the one that I told you about—that day at the zoo. There’s the guy in the background. See the look on my face? ”
“You did know,” Johnny said.
She nodded and put the picture back. “I knew.”
“And this one?” He pointed to a photo of her with leis around her neck and sitting cross-legged on the floor with a group of about ten boys. They were all laughing.
“My high school graduation party. Those are all of the guys that I grew up with.”
He studied the picture and then looked at her and smiled gently. “You know, I knew that you loved the real me from the start, but I used to wonder once in a while whether you’d have really liked me back then when I looked like such a nerd and now I know. It wouldn’t have mattered to you, would it? I mean, you were beautiful and all of your guy friends—they weren’t jocks or anything. They were just ordinary guys like I was ... sort of geeky.”
“They were very geeky,” she said, “and I didn’t like jocks. Most of them were much too full of themselves.” She leaned against him. “I never felt beautiful, you know. I grew up as one of the guys. And maybe a part of me didn’t really want to be beautiful because of my mother. Now, with you ... you make me feel beautiful, Johnny, with your love. You make me want to be beautiful ... for you.”
He lifted her face and kissed her tenderly. “You are beautiful, baby,” he said, “inside and out.” He kissed her again, deeply, passionately. “Listen, why don’t we finish looking at these albums later and exchange our presents now right here next to the tree, just like last Christmas.”
She smiled and nodded. “But you have to get some blankets. This isn’t Hawaii. It’s cold.”
He got quilts and blankets and a couple of pillows from the linen closet and made them a warm nest beside the tree. She closed the curtains and the twinkling tree li
ghts in the darkened room created a romantic atmosphere. She took a blanket and made Angel her own warm nest on the sofa where the little dog could play with her new toy and sleep. Then she climbed under the blankets quickly.
“You have to undress me under here,” she said. “It’s too cold.”
He laughed as he removed his clothes and got under the covers with her. “You can’t be that cold, can you? I run in shorts in this kind of temperature.”
She reached out and put her hands on his face. Her fingers were as cold as ice.
He laughed again and took her hands in his and blew on them as he rubbed them. “You Hawaii people aren’t going to do too well if there really is an ice age. I need to toughen you up.”
“Just warm me up,” she said. “Because my feet are freezing too.” She pulled one leg up and planted her foot on him. She was aiming for his bare backside; she landed instead on the sensitive area near his lower back. He jumped. Her feet were as cold as her fingers.
She laughed a little. “I thought the cold didn’t bother you,” she teased.
“Cold—not ice,” he said. He felt her pulling her leg up again. “Susan,” he said warningly, “you do that again and I’m going to spank you. I mean it.”
She knew that he wasn’t really angry so she put her freezing foot down on him again.
“Okay, now you’ve done it.” He grabbed her and held her securely in one arm while he stripped off her slacks and underwear with his free hand.
“No, Johnny!” She was laughing and pleading. “I’m sorry.”
“Nope. I gave you fair warning,” he said unsympathetically. Then he rolled her so that she was on top of him. He folded both of his legs over hers and held down the top of her body with one arm. She was pinned. He delivered a smack to her backside. It wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t soft either.
“No, Johnny, please. I was just playing,” she pleaded, trying to sound sincere but she was still laughing a little. She tried to free herself but she was really pinned although he didn’t seem to be exerting much force at all. She realized then that if he ever wanted to, he could really hurt her and it made her appreciate even more the gentleness that he showed towards her.
“Are you going to behave?” he asked. His voice was stern but his eyes were smiling.
“Yes, I promise.”
He released the top part of her body but kept her legs pinned. He used both hands and pulled off her sweater. It was all that she was wearing on top. “Now, if I let you go, what are you going to do?” he asked.
“Whatever you want me to do,” she replied obediently, smiling as she kissed his chest gently.
He smiled and released her then. He pulled her up to him and kissed her deeply. Then he rolled her on her back and placed a soft pillow beneath her head. He rested on one arm and looked down at her. “Beautiful baby,” he said lovingly. “A beautiful baby that grew up into a beautiful woman.”
His words touched her heart and soul. “I’m glad that I didn’t know you back then,” she said softly.
“Why’s that?”
“Because I think that you would have been that one friend that I would have been hopelessly in love with and I wouldn’t have wanted to watch you transform into this and run around with all those women. It would have hurt too much. I think the Universe was right in keeping us apart until now. Now is the perfect time for us. Now we’re ready for forever.”
He smiled. He always loved her but sometimes, like right at that moment, the feelings that he had for her were so strong that he almost ached inside. “This really is forever, you know,” he said as he leaned down and kissed her.
“Yes, Johnny,” she said in that soft, sultry voice that he loved. “Forever.”
He kissed her again, tenderly and then more passionately, and soon they were giving themselves to each other, touching each other’s soul once again. It was a wonderful day—a day that belonged only to them. She made them hot chocolate and grilled cheese sandwiches and they went through the photo albums again, sharing with each other the stories behind the pictures. When it was time to take Angel out, they went together, strolling around the neighborhood hand in hand.
“Not exactly like strolling along the beach, is it?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, smiling and giving his hand a squeeze.
“We’ll go back soon, okay? I promise.”
She hugged his arm tightly. “Johnny, it doesn’t matter to me. I’m where I belong ... with you. That’s all that matters. And I’m happy. I never thought that I could be so happy.”
He stopped walking. He cupped her face with a strong but gentle hand and bent down to kiss her. “Me either,” he said softly.
Angel noticed that they had stopped walking and she came trotting back to them, tail wagging. Susan picked her up and kissed her. “She’s happy too,” she said. “That makes it unanimous.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The quiet of Christmas took a completely different turn when New Year’s Eve rolled around. Johnny had to perform at a party that was being held on the rooftop of a hotel in downtown L.A. with at least four hundred people in attendance. He wanted Susan with him so she agreed to go, without complaint, even though she disliked large gatherings of this type, especially when she knew that everyone would be intent on ushering in the New Year drunk. She was grateful, though, that the party was being held in an open air setting and that it wouldn’t be as large as some of the other Hollywood parties that were being advertised, several of which were boasting an attendance of a thousand people or more. This party was a more upscale event than those taking place in clubs around the city and geared towards a more affluent crowd who could afford the five hundred dollar VIP ticket.
Johnny wasn’t scheduled to take the stage until eleven-thirty when he would play some of his swing music to get the crowd dancing and in the mood to ring in the New Year. They arrived as late as possible and did the necessary mingling, the necessary meet and greet. Susan didn’t see anyone that she knew very well but she hadn’t expected to. Isabel was in New York visiting friends and Damien, Richard, and Samuel Taylor were attending a gala affair for the gay community. Even Daniel Stevens would have been a welcome sight, but she knew that he didn’t care much for these events either and attended only those that were related to his business. When it was finally time for Johnny to take the stage, she said that she would wait for him at the closest of the three bars that had been set up for the event so that he could see her from the stage.
When the master of ceremonies introduced him to the crowd, many of the women screamed loudly. Then Johnny began playing his boogie-woogie swing music and the audience began cheering and whistling and many of them started dancing. As Susan sat smiling and enjoying Johnny’s performance, a woman approached her. She was tall, slim, with flawless makeup and wearing a glittering dress that showed ample cleavage. She was also obviously drunk or high on something. She set her glass of red wine on the bar.
“You’re Jack’s wife, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yes,” Susan replied. Her instincts gave her an uneasy feeling about this woman.
“I’m Denise, a friend of Jack’s. In fact, Jack and I go way back. I don’t suppose he’s ever mentioned me.”
“No, I’m sorry, he hasn’t.”
“That’s understandable, I suppose. You see, I was his girlfriend a few years ago when he just started to make it in the business. Then, of course, the other women began swarming and, well, how could he resist? He’s a stallion, that one.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Susan asked, trying to control her anger. “I don’t care what he did before he met me.”
“I’m sure you don’t. I just wanted to meet the woman who actually managed to snag the prize. And I guess I was feeling nostalgic because I met Jack on New Year’s Eve. That’s one night that I’ll never forget.”
“Look, I don’t want to hear this. If you want to get nostalgic, why don’t you just wait until ‘Jack’ gets here. See
if he’s interested in reminiscing.”
“Well, it would be nice to reminisce with Jack, that’s for sure, but what I have is information that you should be interested in. I mean, I know you got him to the altar. No small feat. But if you want to keep a man like Jack, you should take some advice from someone who lost him. You see, I know now that I lost him because I didn’t fully understand his ... appetites.”
She continued on and Susan had to fight the urge to slap the women. Her rational lawyer mind told her that Denise was the kind of woman who wouldn’t hesitate to sue her and Johnny in an attempt to extort money and gain some notoriety. Her Scorpio mind noted that there were too many witnesses. She could have walked away but she didn’t. .
When Johnny completed his performance, there was thunderous applause from the crowd and the master of ceremonies walked over to him, raved about his musical talent, and engaged him in some planned conversation. It was then that Johnny glanced over to the bar to check on Susan. When he saw Denise talking to her, he felt sick—and angry. He had to finish his appearance, but as soon as he was done, he made his way to the bar as quickly as possible through the maze of people, many of whom attempted to stop him and engage him in conversation. He tried to be polite as he declined, but he couldn’t be concerned about his audience right then. The only thing on his mind was getting to Susan.
“Well, there he is.” Denise smiled when Johnny finally reached the bar. “We were just talking about you.”
“Your ex-girlfriend was telling me how she met you on New Year’s Eve,” Susan said flatly.
“She’s not my ex-girlfriend,” Johnny said irritably. “What the hell do you want Denise?”