Pleasure Extraordinaire 1 (PURSUIT)

by Liv Bennett

  The chauffer greets me warmly and opens the door for me. I ask him to drive me to a chic restaurant nearby for lunch so I can christen the credit card I’ve been given.

  He drops me off at a restaurant that serves select international dishes from Peru to Malaysia and tells me he’ll be waiting for me. No hassles with taking a bus or worrying over the taxi fares. This is going to be just fantastic.

  I enter the restaurant, feeling dizzy and happy as if I’m flying over the clouds, and nod at the girl at the front desk. “Hi, I don’t have a reservation, but I’d like to have lunch if you have a table for one.”

  She looks down at the list in front of her, wincing a little. “I’m sorry, we’re fully booked for lunch.”

  “It’s okay.” I hear a man saying behind me. “She can join me.”

  I turn around to see who and am stunned when I realize it’s Zane Hawkins. Michael’s son.

  “Hello, Miss Doheny.” He’s as handsome as I remember him. No, not true. He’s more than his image registered in my poor memory cells, because I hadn’t realized until now how his brown eyes twinkle when he smiles. The dimples on his cheeks, the wind-ruffled mass of beautiful hair, the infinite width of his shoulders.

  “Mr. Hawkins,” I whisper, willing my heart to stop pounding against my chest. “What a nice coincidence.”

  “That’s true.” He offers his hand, and I hold my breath while his fingers are brushing the sensitive flesh in my palm, across the back of my hand, my fingers. Hell, all my skin turns into a ball of sensitive goose bumps at his touch. I hope he won’t notice his effect on me.

  When our server comes, greeting us, I pull my hand back and direct my focus to her. Unsuccessfully, though, because even if I’m not looking at Zane, he has my full attention.

  The girl at the front desk motions for us to go in while talking to the server. “Show Mr. Hawkins and his guest their table. It’s number seven.”

  I sigh between my parted lips. Why does it have to be table number seven? And why do I have to hear it? “I… I think I won’t have lunch.”

  Zane stares at me with curious eyes. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

  “Sorry. I should really go.” I turn on my heels, but before I can take a step, Zane’s hand catches my elbow and twirls me back to him. I have no choice but to explain to him my super-creepy superstition. I wish I had a more functional superstition than my fear of seven, like hand-washing and checking the locks for a dozen times before leaving home. I’d totally be happy if certain disasters in my life depended on the frequency of my hand-washing. At least, it’d keep the germs away.

  “What’s the problem?” Zane asks.

  I glance at the two girls now staring at us and lean in toward Zane to whisper him of my problem. “I’ve a kind of allergy to number seven, and our table number is seven.” My mind spins and my heart leaps as his soapy scent hits my lungs. I tilt my head to look up at him, and it’s a long way up thanks to his tall stature. His eyes are smiling at me, not believing my words. I wouldn’t believe it either. It sounds a lot like an excuse to escape a lunch with the son of my fake boyfriend.

  With a heart-melting grin attached to his lips, he faces the two girls. “Can we get another table, please?” I fear he’ll explain them the reason for changing the tables. “Somewhere by the windows would be nice.”

  “With pleasure,” the girl at the front desk replies, stressing the word pleasure, reminding me of the letter I received from Pleasure Extraordinaire. Has Zane heard anything about that place?

  “Shall we?” The server walks through the tables, and Zane and I follow her toward a table for two by the window.

  “This is nice. Thank you.” Zane pulls the chair for me, and I hang my purse around it and sit.

  After we order our drinks, Zane shoots for the question I was afraid to hear. “What’s your deal with number seven?”

  “Long story.” I try to put on my most neutral face to show him it’s not actually that big of a deal.

  “I was planning to take a long lunch break anyway.”

  “I don’t feel comfortable talking about it.”

  “Would you prefer talking about your relationship with my father?” He grins pointedly. He’s good at the game of locating people’s weaknesses, I guess.

  “It’s not just one thing, but a combination of several events leading up to my reluctance to like that number.”

  “Okay, I’m all ears to learn about the events making you hate a lovely number.”

  “Right.” I roll my eyes, grinning. “In math, seven is both odd and prime. Actually, it’s one of the worst of the prime numbers because it’s double Mersenne Prime, and I always had issues with Mersenne Primes while studying. Those are minor issues however, compared to my personal problems with seven. Where to begin? My mother died on the seventh of June.”

  He nods, prompting me to explain. Isn’t that a reason enough for him?

  “She died while giving birth to me.” A response, something resembling empathy would be due at this point, but he just keeps staring at me.

  “I find out about the reason of my mother’s death when I was seven years old. I broke my leg on June 7, a few years ago. I came close to being raped on February 7. The street number of the house I killed Macey Williams in ended with seven. The exact hour I killed her was seven oh seven.”

  “All look like simple coincidence to me. If you fixate on any number, you’ll always find something to complain about it.”

  I shake my head in disagreement. “I don’t believe it. None of the things that happened to me related to seven were coincidence. I’m cursed with it. That’s why I try to avoid that number as much as I can.”

  “Seven isn’t all as bad as you might think. How about seven Heavens?” he asks.

  “If I believed in Heaven and Hell, that might have been a valid argument, but I don’t.”

  “Seven days of the week?”

  “Which goes to show seven is simply wrong for everyone. I’m sure you’ll also agree that we’d be all better off if Monday didn’t exist.”

  He laughs. “The movie Seven with Brad Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow? That’s one of my all-time favorites.”

  “Are you kidding me? I had nightmares for a full week straight after watching that movie.”

  The server brings our orders and asks if we need anything else. I simply shake my head and thank her, watching Zane mirroring my behavior. I can’t believe I’ve just spilled out my most private, uber-personal secret to a man who’s not just the son of my boss—yes, Michael is my boss—but also working in the same company where I want to gain hands-on experience.

  Good job, Lindsay. I couldn’t have found a better way to embarrass myself if I’d put on a skimpy bunny costume.

  He starts eating his dish, which I think has no meat in it.

  “Are you a vegetarian?” A safer topic than my fear of seven.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “For the love of animals?”

  He nods, smiling.

  “I hope you won’t try to convert me, because I love meat.” I fork a piece of beef and pop it into my mouth, awkwardly aware of Zane staring at my lips. “You can try my meat if you long for it. I promise I won’t tell anyone.” Wait, that came out wrong.

  His smile widens. He’s clearly noticed my unintended pun. Talking about seven doesn’t sound so bad right now.

  “I read a report on Macey Williams,” he says. “Her doctors at the clinic diagnosed her as paranoid schizophrenia and manic depression. She killed a nurse assistant and a doctor the night of her escape, and the police believe she’d been involved with five other murders before she came after your sister. Allegedly, she killed her biological father and his wife.”

  “Yeah, I know all that.” I shiver, as always I do when the topic is Macey Williams. Only someone with mental issues can shed so much blood without blinking an eye.

  “You know that, yet still you continue with your irrational belief that being kidnapped by her was something
to do with bad luck.”

  I frown and tilt my head to the side, gazing at him while trying to understand his logic. “You just said she was a serial murderer, and I was kidnapped by her. I can’t think of any scenario with worse luck than that.”

  He lifts his hands, waving his index finger at me. “I agree to disagree. You see, I watched the video of the kidnapping, so you know I have an idea what went on in there. The fact that Macey Williams kidnapped you, among all people she could have kidnapped to lure your sister in, was in fact a very fortunate event. Imagine if she’d kidnapped your brother-in-law instead of you. Because, he’s a man and so physically superior, Macey wouldn’t let him stay without securely tying him up. Your sister and your brother-in-law wouldn’t have had much chance to escape. But, you. She let you be without ropes. She underestimated your physical capacity, didn’t see you as an actual threat. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

  He doesn’t wait for my response to continue. “The simple conclusion is that you got rid of a murderer, spared tax-payers’ hard-earned money that’d have been spent on her and saved lives she could have taken if you hadn’t killed her. Here’s another point to my argument; you killed her in the easiest possible way. It wasn’t even your intention to kill her; otherwise you wouldn’t have just slapped her. But, it was indeed your slap that pushed her against that hook, which killed her. You killed a blood-thirsty maniac and a potential mass murderer without intending to do so, and so your conscious must be cleaner than if you had to shoot her with a gun.”

  I realize I’m not holding the fork anymore, and my mouth is wide open with food still waiting to be swallowed. I haven’t thought that way of the kidnapping that led to Macey’s death. If I hadn’t come to L.A., Macey would have found another way to get to Taylor and most likely succeeded in killing her, considering the physical conditions Taylor was in with the pregnancy.

  I finally remember to close my mouth, swallowing the food, and lean back against the chair. “I don’t know. My niece died that day.”

  He nods. His expression softens. “I know, but I also know that the baby was expected to die at any moment. And, in spite of the low quality of the video recording, it raised awareness among millions of people about that specific type of birth defect. And who knows, it may prompt scientists to focus and research on that area and help researchers get funds easier now that it’s becoming a widely known topic, thanks to the video. It might even influence the national policies regarding organ donations for infants. We just don’t know, but I’m sure your niece’s death caused a domino effect for big things in the future for science.”

  Tears well up in my eyes. “Shut up or I’ll start crying.”

  “I was just trying to show you things aren’t inherently bad. That’d be like judging Van Gogh’s Starry Night by only looking at a corner of it, without seeing how beautiful the whole picture is.”

  “How about my mother’s death? Was that also a chain of lucky events?”

  “I can’t say because I don’t know how sick your mother was. But, I’m sure if she was asked who should have survived that day, she’d have given your name.”

  “Enough already.” I shade my face with my hand, looking away through the window to hide my tears.

  “I’m sorry. People will think you’re crying because I’m dumping you.”

  Unexpectedly, loud waves of laughter take over, accompanying my tears. I dare look up and see he’s laughing with me. He’d managed to pull two strong responses out of me in just a matter of minutes. What does it tell about him? “Just so you know, if you were dumping me in reality, I wouldn’t be just sitting and crying. You’d be the second one tasting the iron slap, and who knows what your head might just land on with the force of it.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” His laughter gets louder, and he throws his head back while his body shakes with it.

  When we both finally calm down, I take a sip from my water, while watching him drinking from his wine, his lips still curled up, ready for another round of laughter.

  I’m not sure what I should make of his words. I’ve hated seven for so long, it’s become a part of who I am. And, even if my perception toward seven changes someday, I’ll never start celebrating my birthday. That’s a fact that’s as permanent as if written in stone. However, no need to dwell deeper on it and make Zane think I’m a complete freak—if he hasn’t already come to that conclusion.

  “So,” I say. “How does it feel to direct only the most successful TV networks across the nation?”

  He frowns, looking confused by my words. “I don’t know. You have to ask that of the CEO’s of the big four.”

  “Come on. Don’t be so modest. HBC airs two of the most-watched shows, and I’m a big fan of both.”

  “Let me guess, Frat House.”

  “You guessed right.” I smile, a little ashamed that he could guess I was a big fan of a sitcom about four overly handsome college hotties and their sexual encounters between classes. “The good looks of the actors aside, the whole idea is simply genius. It’s hilarious, sexy, and engaging. If you pay close attention, you won’t see many females outside at nine p.m. on a Thursday night.”

  “Unfortunately, the ratings don’t agree with your observation. The interest in that show dropped immensely compared to last year. We’re even considering not renewing it for the next year.”

  “What? That’d be like the worst decision one can ever make in terms of making money in show business. I’m telling you, if you cancel it, you’ll have a very angry female audience. It may even jeopardize the future of the entire network, because when women get angry, things get dirty.”

  He bursts into another laugh attack, although I didn’t intent it to be a joke. I seriously love the show to the level of obsession. “You should share your opinion with the board of the shareholders. They have a different opinion about the show.”

  “Oh, I see. Let me guess, the shareholders are all dinosaur-aged and overly conservative men, aren’t they? Of course they won’t see the merit of Frat House.”

  “Correct guess about the age, but unfortunately they have a say in our decisions. They were never content with the show to begin with, and now they’re using the drop in the ratings as a reason to cancel it. This information is confidential, by the way,” Zane says, cutting a piece of mushroom.

  “Of course.” I turn to my plate, seriously let down by the prospect of the cancellation of the only TV show I look forward to watching every week. These people must be delusional if they can’t see how profitable the show is. I hope another TV network will see the truth and snap the show away from those ungrateful pricks’ hands.

  When the lunch is over, to my absolute dismay because I really enjoyed the half-hour therapeutic chat with Zane, we stroll outside. I walk slowly on purpose, enjoying the warmth of his hand at the small of my back. I won’t lie, he’s arousing physical reactions that I shouldn’t have for the son of my boss. And, I feel I won’t have the strength to decline him if he shows even a little interest in me.

  That’s why I shouldn’t fully give up on Pleasure Extraordinaire. If I’m sexually satiated, I will be more resilient against Zane’s advances. If he makes any advance on me, that is. But, I don’t see any harm in being prepared.

  “I’ll see you around,” he says as he takes my hand in his to kiss.

  Oh my.

  I inhale the spicy scent of his cologne—a huge mistake because my head starts spinning with the lust that his scent is awakening in me. All of my body is reacting to him. My hardening nipples, which I hope aren’t showing through my blouse. My sex is getting moister by the second as if his lips were close to them.

  I’ll have to book an afternoon over at Pleasure Extraordinaire so the sexual need growing in me from just the simple touch of this man won’t drive me crazy. Is this why men turn to brothels? How seriously wrong it is to be forced to turn to brothels to be able to function, as if I’m just made to copulate.

  Despite my confusion, as soo
n as I arrive home, I dial Pleasure Extraordinaire and secure Saturday afternoon for a few hours of sweaty and exhausting fun.

  10 - Ice and Fire

  The car pulls up, and the driver nods to me through the rearview window. I look out of the window to see who’s going to walk me into the sensual four-walls of Pleasure Extraordinaire this time and am stunned when I see none other than Mr. Ice leaning down beside the car to get my door.

  “Seven,” he hums with a heart-melting smile that reaches up to his eyes. So unusual of him. I thought being serious was his signature, his natural state. But, I’m not disappointed at all. Particularly because that smile is strong enough to make my heart trumpet and my sex … well, it shouldn’t be about my sex anyway. He’s not an escort. He’s the owner of the establishment.

  I climb out of the car and straighten my beige, mid-thigh sheath dress that’s on the rather sluttier side of the appropriateness scale. “Mr. Ice,” I blurt out and immediately see my mistake. Shit. He’s Ace, not Ice. And definitely not Mr. Ice. When will I learn to think before speaking?

  He blinks at me first, and then the shy smile turns into a full grin once he realizes my nickname for him. “Is there a particular reason why you call me that?” He offers his arm for me to slide my own arm around, while gazing at me with his big ice-blue eyes, curious for my answer.

  “I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean anything. Just a silly joke about your cold attitude the first time we met.”

  “My cold attitude? Well, I apologize for that, and I’m not offended in the least for the alias you picked for me, though.” He moves forward toward the entrance of the Pleasure Extraordinaire building, pulling me with him. He might pretend to be cold, but his body heat is enough to keep me warm in my skimpy dress.

  A different set of young men, again naked except for jeans, are waiting at either side of the hallway, each greeting me with the most gorgeous smiles. I guess they line up here, at the entrance to pump a steady gush of arousal into the clients, right from the start. And, hell it’s working.