Unabridged

by Melinda De Ross

  “Angie, we can’t,” he whispered hoarsely. “I want you so much, but you’re still recovering. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Sssssh.” I put a finger across his lips, then rose above him and straddled him. “Love me, Blade. Make me forget everything bad, and let me help you forget. Tonight I want us to start over.”

  He drew me down to him, kissing me gently at first, then harder, kneading the muscles of my back as he sent his tongue deep inside my mouth. He caressed my body through the fine black lace, rapidly building up my passion, as well as his own.

  “God, you’re killing me, Angelina,” he growled when he discovered I had no panties on.

  I giggled and trailed hot kisses down his jaw, neck and chest. I tasted each of his nipples, flicking them with my tongue until they were hard and aroused, like every other part of him. I applied the same treatment to his abdomen, taking my time with the sexy dent that was his navel. Then I slid lower, grazing my nails up over his chest as I took him into my mouth, making him gasp and moan, while my hair coiled over his belly and through his fingers.

  He was close to begging when I finally let myself slide up his body. I let him grip my hips and pull me down over his rigid sex. I was more than ready, and shivers of supreme pleasure were already gathering into my lower body, making me vibrate with satisfaction when I felt his hardness inside me. We moved together, fingers linked and gazes locked, forming an almost palpable electric arc, until I let my head fall back and closed my eyes, shaken by a long, intense climax, just a moment before I felt his own shivers of completion.

  Twenty-Three

  The next morning I woke up feeling better than I had in days. Blade was already showered and dressed, fastening the buttons of his white shirt.

  “Morning, lover,” I said smiling and stretching thoroughly.

  “Morning, patient. How do you feel?”

  He came toward the bed, then sat on the edge of it and kissed my forehead.

  “Great. I even think I could go to the office with you.”

  “Ha! Don’t even think about it. You heard the doctor. For one whole week you’re on vacation.”

  “But I’m already bored to death,” I whined, sounding like a petulant child. “I want to work.”

  He looked down at me, gnawing the inside of his cheek.

  “I’ll make you a bargain,” he said finally. “I’ll see what articles and features the others have ready for this week’s edition, and I’ll send Isabelle to bring them to you. If,” he emphasized with his index finger raised, “if you’re up to it, you can play in Photoshop and see if you come up with any ideas for some illustrations. Deal?”

  “Deal!” I said eagerly and levered myself up to give him a noisy kiss. “Thank you!”

  After he left, I sat up and went straight to the shower. When I entered the bathroom I changed my mind and decided to spoil myself with a hot, scented bath. I turned on the water and undressed, then pinned my hair up so as not to get it wet. I looked in the steamy mirror carefully. I wasn’t pale anymore. The shadows from under my eyes were only vague traces. I looked and felt rested. I touched the bandage on my temple gently, fighting the urge to peel it off and look under it. A slight scar, the doctor had said. Strange, but it didn’t bother me. It was one more thing I would have in common with Blade. We both wore the scars of our love now.

  I shook off the melancholic mood and went into the living room. I’d filled an entire bookshelf with cheap romance novels, and now I chose one to take into the bath with me. I loved quality literature, but every now and then my brain felt the need to relax and read something trashy and predictable, with hunky heroes and silly heroines, on which I didn’t have to focus much.

  I lay back in the hot water for almost an hour, reading a cheap paperback novel. Talk about lack of imagination! Okay, so the plot could be worse and I didn’t dislike the idea of a tall, muscled, blue-eyed butler who cooked like a French chef, kept the house clean and completed the service with full bed privileges. The dream of every woman, right? But the cliché-ish, juvenile writing style made me throw the book away after valiantly reading almost half of it. Enough was enough.

  I dragged myself out of the tub, pulled on a white cotton T-shirt and matching shorts, then padded to the kitchen and gazed into the fridge. There was some leftover steak from last night, a small portion of mashed potatoes and some tomatoes. Somebody would have to go shopping today. I hoped I would convince Blade to take me too.

  Meanwhile, I made some sandwiches with butter and jam, arranged them on a plate, poured a glass of milk and took everything into the living room. I ate browsing through television channels, feeling my boredom and desperation growing. Being a very active person, I was used to be up and about every day at this time, not laze on the couch in my jammies at noon. I was desperate enough to actually watch The Young and The Restless, when the sweet sound of the doorbell got me out of my stupor.

  I rushed to the door and, after peering through the peephole, opened it wide to greet Belle.

  “Oh, thank God you’re here!” I blabbered, throwing my arms around her neck. “I’m going out of my mind with all this inactivity.”

  “Hey, calm down! I brought you work,” she said, dangling a file enticingly under my nose. I snatched it from her, feeling like Gollum holding his precious ring.

  “Thank God,” I repeated, then remembered my manners and invited her in the living room. “Make yourself at home. Did Blade give you the address?”

  “Yes, he sent me to rescue you. Wow, this is awesome!” she exclaimed, browsing around the apartment. “Elegant, classy and sexy. And just a bit sober. Fits the owner to a tee,” she concluded, plopping down on the sofa.

  “Yep. I love it. What do you want to drink?”

  “What do I always want to drink?”

  “Mineral water?”

  “Bingo!” she confirmed.

  I went to get her a glass from the kitchen, shouting over my shoulder, “Do you want to eat something?”

  “No. I’m having lunch with Henri.”

  “This thing is becoming really serious with the two of you, isn’t it?” I asked when I returned with her drink, which I put on the coffee table in front of her.

  She took a sip and sighed, closing her eyes. “Well, I figure I might as well stick with him for a while, than hunt alone for fresh meat. Now that you’re hooked, I won’t have anyone to cruise the bars with, so... I’m sticking with Henri for now,” she repeated smiling. However, the sparkle in her eyes told me she cared about her current boyfriend more than she wanted to admit.

  “So how about you? How do you feel?”

  “Restless,” I replied grimly. “I desperately need something to keep me occupied.”

  “How long before you can come back to work?”

  “A few days,” I said, sitting on the couch next to her.

  Suddenly, she turned to me and asked, “Did they catch the driver?”

  I hesitated a second or two, chewing at my bottom lip, but then decided. She was my best friend after all, and unlike Mom, she had a heart as strong as a horse’s.

  “Belle, there’s something I have to tell you,” I began, then proceeded to tell her the whole story about Allison Conwell.

  By the time I’d finished, she was shaking her head incredulously, the glass of mineral water forgotten in her hands.

  “My God, Angie, I can’t believe it! That woman is insane. She should be confined.”

  “Oh, no. That’s what she’d like, but she’s perfectly sane. She belongs in jail, not in a mental hospital,” I said, taking a swallow of milk. “Blade says he’ll make sure she stays in prison for a long, long time.”

  “He’s right. That’s what she deserves. Freaking crazy bitch!” she swore viciously.

  We sat in silence for several minutes, letting the air clear after the entire ugly story had come out. Then Belle said with forced cheerfulness, “I might have something that will brighten your mood.”

  She reached for her handba
g and got out an envelope, which she handed to me.

  “This came into the mail for you. Blade said I should bring it to you now, because it’s from a special fan.”

  Puzzled, I took the envelope and chuckled when I saw who had sent it: my hilarious friend, Zorro Kalashnikov from New Zealand.

  “Do you know what it contains?” Belle asked, surprised at my laugh.

  “No,” I said, tearing off the edges. “But I’m dying to find out.”

  This letter was slightly longer than the first one he’d sent me. I scanned the printed sheets, then sat more cozily with my feet tucked under me and started reading aloud.

  “Dear Miss Jameson,

  I hope you enjoyed my first letter, and found it interesting and informative. I write again to tell you that I came upon some new information in my investigation. Several days ago I met a fellow who claims to be a descendent of one of the survivors on The Titanic. The individual is a veritable Argus, permanently up to date with all the gossip and backstage games from the literary world and beyond. He approached me by telling me he knew about my investigation and he could offer me some additional information, accompanied by a copious dose of spiciness.

  Recently, at a literary reunion, an obscure writer of serious literature mockingly suggested to the author of one of the more trendy BDSM romances to stop boring her readership with the cold, tasteless soup of the worn out erotic routine of the protagonists, and to orient herself toward something more exciting. The more or less acid exchange among the two is not important. What matters is that the pseudonymal lady took seriously the idea of reorienting her future series, so she thought about heading her hero toward Guinness Book. To accomplish this, she had two choices: the dimension of his cock, or the hardness of his erection. She found the latter to be more attractive, so she decided that her young protagonist should train by breaking coconuts with the organ of his endowment.”

  At this, both Belle and I collapsed into peals of laughter, unable to contain our amusement any longer.

  “Who the hell is this guy?” she asked when she managed to suck in a breath.

  “Oh, just a talented reader,” I said through giggles. “Okay, let’s get back to it,” I prompted and resumed reading. “After a meditative pause, my interlocutor confessed to me something much more shocking. He told me that, no matter how much imagination the author might use, neither her hero nor anyone else would ever surpass the record of erection hardness established a century before. Unfortunately, this record resulted in a terrible tragedy—the sinking of the Titanic! Because of the uncontrollable reactions the truth would have triggered, the official version accredited the idea of a collision with an iceberg.

  In reality, the gruesome event occurred quite differently. We know that, silent as Death itself, the iceberg had appeared from somewhere beyond the impenetrable darkness, and the route of the ship intersected with that of the floating mountain. In the control cabin, one of the officers reported to Captain Smith that there were less than five minutes left until the imminent collision. Keeping calm, Captain Smith ordered the machinist to go at full speed, and the coxswain to make everything possible to change the course of the ship. Then he said he would create a diversion to avoid the panic from the moment of impact.

  In the sumptuous hall from the 1st class, the party was in full swing. Men and women danced, ate, drank and chatted. The captain signaled the orchestra to stop singing, attracted everyone’s attention and announced he was there to offer the guests the surprise of the evening. He declared he was the man with the hardest erection in the world, and that he was ready to prove it by betting $100 against anybody who didn’t think he could break the massive table in the middle of the hall with a single cock blow. This happened on April 14th 1912 at 23:36 p.m.

  After several moments of confusion and embarrassment—especially from the men—the excited curiosity of the ladies beat any hesitation. Immediately, the men formed a betting committee and the women formed a committee for stimulating the prodigious sexual organ of the captain. When there were only ten seconds left until 23:40, the band was quiet, leaving only the drums to underline the emotional charge of the moment. Using both hands, Captain Smith slowly raised his ‘mast’, then used it to give the oak table a mighty blow. There was a horrible crackle, the gigantic ship snapped from all sides, women started screaming hysterically (either from fear or ecstasy), the table crumbled, the floor gave way breaking the lower decks, and so it went on until the ship was breaking in half.

  In the middle of this chaos, the coxswain appeared in the doorway of the ruined hall, yelling, ‘What the hell is going on here, Captain, precisely now when I managed to avoid the iceberg?’”

  When I finished reading this, Belle was on the floor, red-faced and hooting hilariously. I was nearly in the same condition and had to hold my stomach, as I was doubled-up with laughter.

  “God, this cracks me up!” I said through hiccups. “I’m going to tell Blade to offer this guy a job.”

  Twenty-Four

  A couple of weeks passed and we moved toward the end of July. The days were hot, and the nights were even hotter, at least for me and Blade. We had decided to be married on August 17th, on his birthday, which gave me little time to make wedding preparations. Allison’s trial was on a roll. Even though her lawyer exerted every trick in the book to delay things, she was pinned. We didn’t think about her anymore.

  Today was Friday and I was staring at the clock on the wall opposite my desk, looking forward to a quiet dinner with Blade, and maybe a movie, when Mom phoned.

  “You’ll never guess what happened!” she exclaimed excitedly into my ear as I answered. “I got you an appointment with Natalia Romanova.”

  “Who the hell is Natalia Romanova?”

  She gave a sigh so profound I could almost picture her tearing her hair out at my ignorance.

  “Natalia Romanova is one of the best wedding dress designers in America. She designs gowns for actresses and singers.”

  “So why the hell haven’t I heard of her until now?” I asked peevishly.

  Silence. Then she said, “Are you going to see her or not?”

  “When?”

  “Today at five.”

  “What? Like, in half an hour?” I whined, stretching out the words. When she didn’t say anything, I realized I was acting badly. “Okay, I’ll go. Thanks, Mom. I really appreciate this.”

  “The hell you are,” she replied dryly. “But you’ll thank me when you see the fabulous designs she creates. Note down her address.”

  I took a pen and wrote down the address on an old edition of the magazine, which laid on my desk. When I looked at what I wrote, I said, “Mom, this is at the other end of the city.”

  “Well, you better get going,” she reasoned sweetly, then hung up.

  I muttered under my breath, saying a mental goodbye to my early dinner with Blade. I ripped the piece of paper with the address, grabbed my handbag and got out. I stopped by Blade’s office to tell him about the change of plans, then headed toward the parking lot, cursing the dry, hot air.

  It was going to be a long ride, at least thirty minutes, so I turned on the radio and tuned it on Sky FM, my favorite radio of all times. The music calmed me down and by the time I was approaching my destination, I was my cheerful self again.

  I didn’t know this area of the city. Unlike the crowded business district and our popular neighborhoods, here buildings were rare, properties large, and both sides of the road were mostly sprinkled with deserted old warehouses. I looked up at the darkening sky, where clouds were gathering fast. A low, distant grumble of thunder predicted a much-expected storm.

  I turned my head disinterestedly to look at the depressing landscape, and instinctively pressed my foot hard on the brake. On the right side of the road, contoured against the dramatic sky, stood the house I was looking for. Number thirteen.

  “What the hell?” I said aloud as I stared at the tall building made from gray brick. I couldn’t say it was as sp
ooky as the one in The Adams Family, but it wasn’t far behind. All it lacked were the tiny bats hovering in the background, silhouetted against a full moon. This Natalia Romanova must be a great designer if one wanted a Halloween costume!

  I sighed heavily, cut the engine and climbed out of the car. I walked to the front door and studied the brass knocker that came out of a lion’s snarling mouth. I knocked three times, then waited. After a few moments, the massive door creaked open to reveal a tall, slender woman with olive skin and dark eyes, heavily lined with black. Madame Romanova—I assumed this was her—was dressed identically as Morticia Adams, and she actually wore a turban.

  I was struggling to control my expression and not to gawk, when she spoke in a deep voice with a heavy Russian accent, “You must be Angelina. Come in.”

  I followed her into a dark, sumptuous hallway with lots of artwork scattered around. It was too dark to see if the corners were adorned with huge spider webs, but nevertheless I could almost feel them creeping over my skin. I took a few steps forward, but came up short with a yelp when I encountered the dead, glassy eyes of a stuffed owl. My heart lurched in my chest, pounding like a freight train. I wondered for how long I would stay in prison for matricide.

  “Be careful not to stumble over my pets,” the woman said, signaling me to walk after her down another corridor.

  Pets! Stuffed animals were pets to this weirdo. Okay, I’d had enough of this. Maybe my mom raised me well enough not to turn tail and flee when I’m invited to somebody’s home, but this was just too much. I was seriously debating the possibility of faking a phone call and getting the hell out of there, when we entered a huge room with mirror walls and dozens of plastic mannequins. I came to a halt, staring around, my mouth agape. The gowns were spectacular. All were made of white lace, pearls and diamonds, with miles of veils and trains, making the mannequins resemble an army of fairies and princesses.

  “Oh, my!” I breathed, and Madame Romanova turned to me, her lips twitching as though she knew exactly what I was thinking before she’d brought me to her workshop.