by Kailin Gow
“Well, you’re alive now,” I say. My voice is so clipped. I feel like a person in a dream, watching this from thousands of miles away. “Good. Now you can assume your role at the Blue Room – now you can deal with all these messes, all these mysteries. And we can finally go home and go to bed!” I am practically shouting now but I don’t care. This is just one blow too many.
“Don’t be a fool, boy,” shouts Gloria. “Your incompetence – it baffles me. First Clarence to go and get himself in a coma. That dumb slut, that bitch, that whore he married – your stepmother couldn’t plan her way down a one way street. She was too selfish, too untrustworthy, she got greedy. Carrying out my plans while double dipping. And the Blue Girls themselves – so careless. Then that bitch Roz – she overstepped her bounds. She didn’t know her own limits. I tolerated his affairs, of course – after all I was one myself. But the father of my son needs to be more careful whom he spills his seed into. If he’d had another child – and she was so careless, trying to trap him, telling him she was on the Pill when she wasn’t. A rival. Another Tannenbaum. I wasn’t about to let that happen. My son is the only royal son out there – he has a real chance to make Tannenbaum so much more. We will be royalty.”
“Not you,” Terrence says. “You’re dead.”
“But my legacy will live on. In death, I can do more than I ever could do in life. Escape the mounting problems of the Tannenbaum estate, the enterprise that has collapsed under the weight of these entitled, over-pampered johns.”
“So, you were the one setting up the camera for blackmail.”
“So easy. Nobody would suspect prim, proper, loyal Mrs. Walters of doing a thing like that. She got away with so much.”
“Until you got away with her, Jaymie says.
“Except Ben…I never suspected he might be disloyal, until he got too friendly with Staci.”
“But when I came in, well, that’s when the mask came down. You really let me have it. You didn’t like me one bit when I first joined…,” Jaymie said.
“You reminded me of someone. That was it, wasn’t it?”
“She reminded you of Marina.” A male voice comes from the living room. Ben.
Marina?? I knew there had been a resemblance, but these are the first times I’m hearing the word out loud. I thought my heart and mind were playing tricks on me – but could it be true after all.
“That’s because she is Marina, Gloria,” Ben says. “She survived that crash you tried to stage for her. Her memory’s beaten up, of course. She doesn’t know who she is. Those initials she found – GT. She thought that’s who she was. Not the bitch who tried to have her killed. But she’s Marina, all right.”
“I knew there was a reason I didn’t like you. That bitch. Stubborn, like her father. Why won’t you just die like the cockroach you are!”
Jaymie slaps her so hard I think it will knock the old woman out.
“How dare you!”
Then it hits her. “Me…Marina?”
Marina? My Marina?
“Marrying her off to Xander didn’t keep her under your control the way you’d hoped, did it, Gloria?” Ben continues.
Gloria scowls. “You were besotted by her, she had you in her clutches. I had to do something to free you over…”
“Jaymie…” I hardly have the words. “Marina…I….”
“Your Marina?” Jaymie is flabbergasted. “But I…I mean, that can’t be…”
“I had no idea.” I say. “I thought – I thought my heart was just toying with my brain. The resemblance…I didn’t let myself think, let myself hope.”
There are tears in Jaymie’s eyes.
Jaymie balls her fists. “You’re responsible then?” She turns on Mrs. Walters. “You’re the reason I lost my past, my memory, everything about who I am.”
“Don’t hurt her,” Skyla holds her back. “We need to get information out of her.”
“So Roz…” Terrence cuts in. “Why shoot her?”
“She wasn’t using protection. With my child’s father. Another child would be ruinous. What’s a smart woman to do?”
She laughs a diabolical laugh.
We all look at one another in disbelief.
“So what? I’m beaten. I’m miserable. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I’m the mastermind of this place, this fantasy. Now you’re all living my nightmare. See, this is what happens when a woman’s love is spurned. He could have married me. Made me Duchess. Maybe even one day Queen. But no, he had his reputation to think about. But if the world only knew what a cheater, what a liar he really was…”
“My uncle, where is he?” Staci asked.
“In England. He doesn’t know who he is. I wanted to wait to tell him until my plans have come to fruition. I needed to clean up all that garbage the Blue Room clients had placed in the media against me. Use these tapes to restore my reputation, to show the world that they were the true monsters. So now that I have the tapes…”
“The tapes!”
Skyla jumps.
“I left them in the…I have to go!”
She rushes out.
Staci looks around at all of us, her eyes limpid pools of sadness, of confusion. “So what now?” Staci asks. “Now that we know the truth, what do we do with her?”
“As far as the world knows,” Danny murmurs, “she’s already dead.”
“She’s an old woman,” Terrence considers. “What a shame it would be to live the rest of her short life in prison…”
“You don’t mean…” We all look at Terrence with disbelief in our eyes.
“I’m just saying,” Terrence sighs. “Even if she is Staci’s grandmother, she’s still blood. And although I hate being a Blue sometimes – just as you all do – we can’t change the truth of the matter. We are still blood.”
“We’ll deal with it later,” I say. I hug Staci- -- for the last time, the goodbye time. “Now we’re just glad you’re okay, that we’re all okay.”
We’re all okay – and my wife is alive. My Marina is alive. I want to faint, so overwhelmed am I by emotion, by desire, by love.
Even Staci looks different to me now. A few minutes ago I was still obsessed with her, in thrall of her body, her skin, her eyes…
But now? All I can see in front of me is Jaymie. Marina. My wife.
My wife, back from the dead. My beautiful ghost.
“I think we need some time to catch up,” I say.
Chapter 8
Xander
Everybody else leaves. Now she and I are alone.
Jaymie. Marina? I don’t know what to call her. I don’t know who she is, this gorgeous creature standing before me with a slow smile on her face. How can I have known her – twice – made love to her twice, in two different guises, and not known at once? What a fool I am. Have I been so numbed by the loss of her, that I couldn’t even see what was right in front of me? Jaymie was a completely different person from Marina…perhaps the real person Marina would have wanted to be if she wasn’t restricted by her proper upbringing as a southern belle and old money family name. Being this other person…Jaymie, this wild sex vixen, was a part of her that I saw glimpses of when I pushed cool and calm Marina to the brink of sexual ecstasy. But she didn’t completely let go. She wasn’t completely free of who she was. Until she lost her memory. Lost her identity of who she was, how she was supposed to be according to society. Until she became her own person, no matter how uninhibited and outspoken. Jaymie didn’t care a whit what anyone thought of her nor what she did.
Perhaps that was the person Marina truly wanted to be. If only she had the choice…if she had known she was Marina. Yet – she didn’t know either. Our strange connection, our palpable physical desire for one another – it was borne out of a deeper, darker memory, the memory of the love and the passion we had shared in another lifetime, as other selves.
We stand so quietly next to one another. We need time, space, compassion to take all this in. Me and Jaymie – me and Marina.
&nbs
p; I mean – are we even still married?
Technically, she had died. There was a death certificate given to me after I had given her a burial at sea when we couldn’t find her after weeks of searching.
“No wonder,” I say slowly, trying to sound out each and every word as carefully as I can. “It’s true that I felt a spark with you as soon as I saw you. Something – some form of connection.”
There are tears in her eyes. “I guess Ben thought that meeting you would jog my memory of who I was. I – I didn’t know. I wasn’t trying to trick you or anything. Xander, I…”
“I know,” I say. “It’s not your fault.”
“You seemed familiar, I guess. I felt safe around you. But I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me, too. I couldn’t remember anything of my life before I became Jaymie. I still don’t. Marina – I’m sorry, Xander. Maybe she is dead, after all.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t remember anything. The life I’ve heard about her – a socialite daughter, southern belle, arm candy to a young handsome billionaire, married so young, before she even got to live life. They don’t even sound like choices I’d make.”
“Maybe Marina’s not dead,” I say. “Maybe that was Marina all along. The Marina I knew – it’s true we were in love, but we did get married so early, in part because it was expected of both of us. Marina always played the part of the brilliant socialite well. She knew it was important to her family – and she loved her family so much. But there was a fire in her, I know that. Just as there’s a fire in you right now.”
“Did I marry you because I loved you? Or because I was supposed to?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Maybe both. I married you because I loved you, but we were both so young, so foolish. Before you left on your trip, I sensed you weren’t happy. I sensed that maybe you thought we’d rushed into this – we both did. We wanted to be with each other, but this whole world, this society world of parties and charity balls and fundraisers – it wasn’t making us happy. I let you go on your trip because I thought it would make you happy – letting you go do whatever you needed to do. I just never expected to let you go for good. You…I didn’t expect to lose you. Before we could resolve anything. And the pain I felt losing you, I thought it would never end. It was only so recently that I was able to feel something, anything, for someone again, and…well, you know how that turned out…”
“Staci’s young,” Jaymie says. “Too young for you. You’ve always known that. She reminded you of me – or Marina, I guess. But not Marina the grown woman, your equal. The Marina you’d lost. She was so young to get married when she really haven’t grown up and lived on her own. I’m just in my late 20s now, and you’re just about 30. I’m just beginning to know who I am and what I want. I don’t think I did as Marina, where everything was planned out for me since birth. Including who I would marry right after graduating from high school. Sometimes people end up with each other for reasons we can’t see or explain. But believe me, Xander, it wasn’t because you weren’t good enough that she chose Terrence. It’s because Staci needs to be with someone her own age, at her own place in life. And you…you need to be with someone in your place in life. You need to stop living in the past – and look to the future.”
“The future?”
“Yes…” Jaymie smiles, takes my hand in hers. “Oh, Xander, don’t you see? Ben was right! Not about the timing, but about…it finally hit me, Xander. Who I am. See you, confirming my identity – seeing Gloria. I don’t have my memories back, yet. I don’t know a lot. But I feel something. Something strong. I remember only one thing of my life before…how much I loved you. This love is coming back to me now, and Xander, it feels so beautiful. You were my world, once. That’s not something I want to lose again.”
“But how do we go back? You – Marina. How do we pick up where we left off?”
“I don’t know,” Jaymie says. “Maybe we don’t. Maybe we go forward instead. What would you say to a first date with me, Jaymie. The girl I am now. The girl Marina is now.”
“I’d say a first date sounds pretty good right now.”
“My room at the Blue Towers is free,” Jaymie kisses me hungrily, leaning in to whisper into my ears. “And no cameras, either, I checked. Looks like Gloria didn’t get a chance to put one in.” She laughs a little – a melodious light tinkling laugh that reminds me of how she used to laugh as Marina. “Marina didn’t have sex on the first date, Xander. But I do…”
I let my desire overtake me. I let myself give in to my hunger, my need. I reach under her shirt, rubbing her nipples, hard and pert and taut, with my thumb, a circle of pleasure that makes her arch her back and moan.
“Why wait to go to your room. Everyone’s gone here. We have Staci’s room all to ourselves…”
Jaymie grins and growls. “I can’t wait.”
She’s right – and she’s wrong. The woman I kiss, I bite, I lick, isn’t Marina. And yet the memories are still there, just below the surface of her beautiful gold and glowing skin. The Marina that was – and the Jaymie that is. As I lick her, suck her, tease her, as I tear off her clothes and get on my knees so that I can more easily reach between her legs with my lips, with my tongue, as I slip a finger inside her and watch her contort with pleasure, I realize that the woman before me is the best of both worlds. She is the kind, the beautiful, the innocent Marina I loved once. But her time as Jaymie, the strong, powerful, bad girl with a heart and mind for pleasure – it has given her a new edge, a new flavor. I’m more attracted to her than I was even in the days when she was Marina. She’s so uninhibited, the way she screams my name, the way she commands me to do things to her, the way she makes me moan, too. She takes my cock in her hands and drops to her knees, taking all of me inside her, sucking with sheer relish, sheer delight. She wants me --- badly – and I want her.
We tease one another for hours, getting each other to the brink of orgasm, not letting each other come. Only once dawn has already appeared outside the window do we give into our desires, do I plunge into her, do I thrust inside her and feel her take all of me in.
The pleasure is so great, in that final moment, that I want to cry out. I want to weep. These past few days have messed with my head, made me doubt my own sanity, made me doubt my own self. But now, at last, something is making sense to me again. The world is making sense again. I have my wife back. I am happy for the first time in years.
Maybe there is hope for Xander Blue after all, I think.
Maybe there is hope for us.
For the first time, I’m getting over Staci. I’m falling in love again. With the woman I loved all along.
Epilogue
Staci
We have a new mission, now. There’s no time to lose. After all the craziness that’s happened at the Blue Room over the past few months, all I want to do is relax, to lie with Terrence on a beach somewhere with the Pacific Ocean at our feet and forget about all our problems, all our challenges. Recover from our losses, and from the challenges to our sanity. But alas, our work is never done, and a vacation was not to be. At least, not yet. Soon after we take Gloria Tannenbaum into private custody, holding her something between a captive and a guest in one of the nicer Blue Tower suites, Terrence and I leave her behind to go to England to track down Gloria’s other child, my mysterious uncle.
“After all,” Terrence jokes, “he’ll want to come to our wedding.”
Other than my father and mother, after all, I have no relatives – and I like the idea of tracking down this other Tannenbaum. My other family. I don’t care about the fortune – even if he takes half, I have far more than I’ll ever need.
We barely know where we’re going. We have no idea how to contact my uncle – Thomas Payne, his name is. He grew up in the foster system in the UK, going in and out of juvenile detention for minor crimes like shoplifting and marijuana possession, a bit of mild low-level dealing. We know he went into the army – briefly – then disappear
ed. The PIs that Terrence hired said that he’s reappeared recently, though, as the owner of an nightclub called Elixir in the heart of East London, a dodgy place with potential connections to organized crime. At night, on weekends, it doubled as a fight club: where posh girls from Kensington and Knightsbridge would pay to watch working-class men with tattoos and piercings beat each other to a pulp. It was a hipster place with a punk edge, I’d heard.
“Not quite the Blue Room,” Terrence laughs when we arrive at London’s Heathrow airport. “But it’ll be interesting.”
Our first stop, though, is Clarence’s Hyde Park mansion. Meeting Terrence’s father isn’t something I’m overly looking forward to, but it’s important to Terrence. “After all,” he says. “Family brings us together.”
Despite my misgivings, Clarence turns out to be a kindly, if abrupt, man. “You’re going to have a good wedding,” he says. “The finest wedding of the season. I don’t intend to travel. Besides my doctors’ strict orders not to travel, I don’t like it. Not at my age at least. So you will of course have it in London. At the Mandarin Oriental. I shall have my people arrange it. Don’t screw it up.”
“That means he likes you,” Terrence whispers.
I’m not sure how I feel. It’s all moving so fast – the wedding, a new family, new relatives popping up out of the woodwork. I joke to Terrence that if I get any more living long-lost relatives my side of the aisle won’t be so empty after all.
But I can’t stop thinking about my uncle. Tom Payne. He’s going to go through what I went through in a few short hours – learning that his whole life, his existence, is a lie.
We head to Elixir that night, making our excuses to Clarence. He’d freak out, Terrence says, if he learned we were going all the way out to Dalston. He never leaves London’s poshest areas.