The Dimple of Doom (Samantha Lytton)

by Lucy Woodhull

  “What part of the South are you from?” I asked softly.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Because Los Angelinos don’t sing Randy Travis. Plus, you square dance.”

  He let out a “Huh” and turned his head to me. “Well, your mom, at least, is from North Carolina.”

  I pushed myself onto my elbow. “How did you know?”

  “The accent.”

  “I grew up just outside of Raleigh,” I agreed. With sudden realisation, I continued excitedly, “You’re a North Carolinian, too, or else how could you decipher that accent in particular? Ah ha! By Jove, I’ve got you!” I jammed a finger into his chest.

  “I gave it to you,” he sniffed smugly. I refused to devalue my victory and expressed such by sticking my out tongue.

  “So, did you live with your grandparents there? Where?” I asked.

  “Troy. They—we lived in Troy.”

  “Shut up!” I punched him. “Troy, North Carolina?” I twanged it.

  Nate laughed. “Oh, jeez. How did you lose the accent?”

  “One hundred acting teachers beat it out of me.” I smiled and settled back down on his chest, playing in the hair there. “How’d you get rid of yours?”

  “Force of will. I hated it, and it sticks out.” He frowned. I kneaded his pecs until his expression softened.

  “That’s not very nice,” I whispered conspiratorially, “Admit it. You have a closet iPod full of Randy Travis, don’t you?”

  “No, but every damn dance or wedding I ever attended through high school played it ad infinitum, amen.”

  Laughing, I said, “We obviously went to the same high school. I miss it sometimes. North Carolina. Since Mom and Dad divorced and moved I have no particular reason to visit.”

  “You mean Diego is not your father? There’s such a family resemblance, you two being the same age and all.”

  I hit him with a pillow. How could I not? It was justifiable pillowcide.

  “Watch it. I’m a lot bigger than you.”

  I squealed as a pillow landed square on my face. I snapped back, with accent, “You wouldn’t hurt me, you’re a nice boy from North Carolina.”

  He flipped me over and licked my nipple, peeking through the lace of my bra. Deft fingers peeled the cup back so he could take me in his mouth. I whimpered and held his head there. “I’m a boy from North Carolina who went bad, and don’t you forget it.”

  Twisting half-heartedly as he tickled my waist, I laughed and twitched, wrestling with him until he turned his tickles into caresses and fervent kisses and teased his way down my body to settle between my legs. He paused, mouth a breath away from my cleft. My belly tensed, suddenly awake with aching desire.

  His eyes, shining and dark in the moonlight, skimmed across my recumbent curves. “Tell me, Samantha…do you want a nice boy, or a bad one?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Romance Novels Lead to Tragedy

  “You are forever licking my breasts.”

  “You’re forever dribbling and rendering them delicious.”

  Nate continued collecting the bits of pastry littering my chest—typical breakfast time at this point in our dynamic.

  “Can you splash me some coffee?” he asked.

  “I am not pouring hot beverages on my tits.” Giggling, I pushed his face away.

  “So what shall we do today?” The look in Nate’s eyes gave a clear indication of what he’d like to do today.

  I furrowed my brow. “Is sex all you think about?”

  “It’s all I think about around you. Is that a bad thing?”

  I shook my head and smiled. “No. No! I just—I’m restless. My life is on hold. As much as I would like to pretend this can go on indefinitely, it can’t.”

  “This…what?” He dropped his eyes to the bed.

  This dream. This non-couplehood. This never-ending room service. “This being on the run.”

  He got up and grabbed a pair of jeans. “I’ll scan the news online and see if there’s anything about the arrest of Oliver. I forgot to do that yesterday.” He opened his mouth to say more, but turned away.

  I hugged my knees to my chest, and watched him take out his laptop and sit at the desk. My jangling nerves made every movement seem as slow as possible. Murmuring “Ugh,” I fell over and lolled about on the soft sheets.

  “Are you going to just lie there ‘ugh’-ing at me? Go away. Take a bath or something,” Nate snapped waspishly. “If he’s arrested, and you’re free of me, I’ll let you know post haste.”

  Brushing the last bits of breakfast off my skin, I did as he’d bidden, staring at the back of his head and wondering how we’d gone from passionate to petulant so quickly. It was more fun the other way around.

  As I dropped myself into the dreamy bath water, I suddenly remembered the dream I’d had last night. It had started at a school dance in the gym—me in a circle of awkward teenage girls bopping to ‘Achy Breaky Heart’. The lingering smell of adolescent sneakers had puckered my nostrils. Nate had approached me and asked me to dance. He’d looked gorgeous and his current age, even though dream me had been thirteen and dotted with enough pimples to grease a twelve-cylinder engine. I had been OMG dying to boogie with him, but I’d had to go to the bathroom in the worst way. I had freaked out, running around the school to find an open restroom—they had all been locked. Finally, I had sprinted back to the gym to tell Nate to please wait for a slow dance with me—my only jam at that moment had been the Pee Pee Dance. Nate had pointed to a spot under the basketball hoop where a long row of toilets sat in the open. He had expected me to go do my business in front of everyone.

  That was when I had woken up.

  This dream was surely no more than an icky combination of oestrogen, the chemicals in red hair dye and terror over my dubious future. Nate likely didn’t have a secret hard-on for public urination. But then again, he was a man, and it was probably a rule in Testosteroneville to pee in public at least once in their lives, preferably with a bear in the vicinity. Likely the frustration part of the dream meant that I was frustrated in real life. Well, duh.

  I hoped the toilet part wasn’t a forecast of my future.

  He slumped into the bathroom. I frowned at him for his dream misdeeds. No, it wasn’t fair. No, I didn’t care.

  I couldn’t stay mad for long, however. He’d put on those tight square dance jeans again. They were a menace. Out, out damn jeans! Or, better yet, off, off damn jeans!

  “Nothing today.” Nate sat on the counter and looked me over in the water. He was grumpy at first, but soon softened in the steam of the room. His bare chest rose with mine as I watched him watch me. That man did the best staring of anyone I’d ever met. Those damnable green eyes seemed to have a tether straight to the core of me.

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  Swinging his long legs and banging them on the cabinet like a grouchy kid, he said, “I have a couple of friends in the media. I’ll poke around a bit, put a flea in an ear or two. We’ll smoke him out.”

  I nodded again.

  “My people are fairly unhappy with me.”

  I held my breath and tried to appear only mildly interested. Nate saying something substantial that wasn’t

  a) “Can I see your boobs?”

  b) “Your singing causes kittens to cry.”

  Or c) “Crime, ahoy!”

  was unusual, and I didn’t want him to stop. “Are you in danger?”

  “No. You watch too many movies.” He scowled ineffectually as he stared at my breasts. It seemed he didn’t have the heart to frown at them for real.

  I threw a bar of soap at him. I hit him in the chest. “Well, El Escorpión sure came shooting after me! I didn’t make that up.”

  Nate threw the soap back at me. He missed. “I work for a more mellow kind of group.”

  “So yours is the Willie Nelson of international art theft organisations?”

  Nate laughed, head falling back against the mirror. “Yeah. Our health plan enco
urages smoking, if you know what I mean.” He winked, just in case I didn’t. “Sam, I—” His phone rang. He stopped speaking and snapped his jaws together.

  “Is that Willie?”

  The dimple kissed me from across the room as he walked out of the door. I smiled, enjoying the now-familiar sensation spreading through my stomach—the shivery, achy oh, Nate flutter. Making him laugh was a singular joy, one that made me feel like Wonder Woman and Lucille Ball all rolled into one short person.

  “Sam, I—” he’d begun. Hmmmmmm. What had been the end of that sentence?

  “Sam, I have a secret fear of monkeys.”

  “Sam, I think you need a nipple piercing.”

  “Sam, I am the illegitimate son of Don Rickles.”

  Stupid, interrupting cellphone.

  I dived under the water and washed my hair. “Sam, I know you’re the most amazing woman in the world. Let’s get married and move to Greece.” I got soap in my eye. Stinging pain exploded through my socket.

  Oh, hell.

  Nate’s form shadowed the water. “Ey neetogo ut.”

  I emerged in a tidal wave. “What?”

  “I need to go out. Will you make any surprise visits to your mother?” He looked wry, lifting one impudent eyebrow.

  “No, the last one’ll suffice for a while.”

  “Do you have any other secret relations in Vegas, or friends, Internet acquaintances, favourite pets, cherished farm animals—?”

  “No one else. I’ll stay here. In the hotel. Inside the room.” I flicked red-dye-tinged bath water at him, but he stepped nimbly out of the way.

  “Swear on Xanadu.”

  “Xanadu? Swear on the divine Xanadu?” I put my hand to my head in my best overwrought-thespian fashion.

  “The very same,” he intoned gravely, crossing his arms over his chest.

  I bit my knuckle and sighed, loudly. “I swear on the roller skates of Olivia Newton-John that I shall not leave the room during your excursion. Barring a fire or some other natural or unnatural disaster.”

  “You’re an unnatural disaster.” Nate smiled, apparently satisfied. Crouching beside the tub, he leaned over and gave me a lingering, sucking, biting, amazing kiss. Then he splashed water up my nose and walked away.

  “Ow!” He’d put more soap in my eye.

  * * * *

  Beep!

  “Hello, Kira, this is Sandy calling from Dr Zuko’s office. We’d like to confirm your appointment for tomorrow at ten a.m., suite seven-two-eight. Thank you.” I hung up and hoped the caller ID from the hotel phone would work on Ellen’s cell—and that she’d get that the suite number was supposed to be my room.

  Munching on fifteen-dollar mini bar cashews in my Bellagio bathrobe, I turned on the television and switched it to a perpetual news channel. Nothing about Oliver the Scorpion.

  I decided I should begin concocting a plan in case Oliver was never arrested. The idea made me shudder.

  I could—

  a) Go back to my life and live it to the fullest until The Scorpion hunted me down and shot me.

  b) Go to the police and tell them about the stolen painting, then get a restraining order against Oliver, then he would hunt me down and shoot me anyway.

  c) Quickly learn expert ninja moves and battle The Scorpion in hand-to-hand combat, then, while I roundhouse kicked his head, one of his minions would shoot me.

  Every scenario ended with me getting shot. Either I was a shitty plan-maker or I was just plain doomed.

  Maybe both.

  I swallowed, despite the golf ball made of terror now lodged in my windpipe. Calm down, I begged myself.

  The room phone rang. Ellen?

  “Hola?” I inquired in my best Spanish accent.

  “Your Spanish is not good.”

  Thank God for Ellen. “Sé que bueno. How are you?” I asked.

  “I’ve been better. Vegas, eh?”

  “It’s so shiny!”

  Ellen groaned. “Did you visit your mother? Are you fatter, uglier and less talented than you used to be?”

  “I used to be talented?”

  Laughter rang through the phone line. How I missed my Ellen. No one understood you like a friend who knew how old you really are.

  “What’s going on, Sam?”

  “I’m lying low.”

  “You need to come back and face real life!” Ellen ended her true statement with a loud growl of frustration.

  “Why? Because it was so damn great working at Steak on a Stick? And not acting? And having no decent boyfriend since college? Real life can bite my ass.” My tirade over, I waited. “Hello?”

  Ellen sighed. “Yeah, real life can suck. But it will never go away, Sam.”

  I began walking the room as far as the phone cord would allow, like a dog pacing on a leash. All the guilt I’d spent days suppressing whiplashed to hit me in the face. “I know! I must return soon, I get it, okay? I’m not stupid.”

  She snorted. “Really?”

  “It’s easy to armchair quarterback when you’re not the one getting shot at.” I planted my forehead against the wall. “I have to go.”

  “Stop! Don’t you dare hang up this phone!” I pulled the receiver away from my ear to avoid the brunt of Ellen’s powerful set of lungs.

  With a razor edge, Ellen continued, “I still don’t really understand the shooting part.”

  “Oliver sent a man to my house to kill me. I told you a guy broke in,” I replied, my own voice made of Ginsu knives.

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You don’t believe me? Why the hell have I run away then?” I threw a croissant across the room.

  “Why do you think it’s some kind of Steak conspiracy?”

  “Because it is! There’s more to it than that, but I really can’t elaborate, except to say that I’ve come to know something I shouldn’t. Look, either you’re my friend and you accept what I say is true, or you’re not.”

  “I am! I am. I do.”

  Silence.

  “I do!” Ellen cried petulantly. “I only harass out of love.”

  I softened. I couldn’t stay mad at my fake lesbian lover for long. “Okay. Have the police talked to you anymore?”

  “Not really. Scumbag Scott is still not at work. No one’s heard from him. Do you suppose he’s following you?” Finally, Ellen sounded concerned.

  Letting out the breath I hadn’t realised I was holding, I murmured, “I don’t know. But you cannot let on to anyone where I am.”

  “I understand the drill by now.”

  I sat down on the bed, head pounding. “Tell me something fun, Ellen. Something from your life.”

  “Well…” She sounded crafty. “I have a date with the cop who’s looking for you.”

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Nicolette. She’s gorgeous and serious and smart.”

  “She sounds like me.” I tossed my hair at the empty room. It did not appear to be impressed.

  “We’re talking about me. Me and Nicolette. I listened to you talk about the fake FBI agent.”

  “Okay, sorry.”

  “Yeah, so she’s five-ten, adorable—and funny, in a wry sort of way.” She sounded wistful. “I hope the date goes well.”

  “Me, too. Tell her I said hi. Oh! Wait, no, don’t!” I paused and frowned. “It’s not a fortuitous start if you have to lie to her, is it?”

  “I’m just sort of hoping it’ll magically work out and she’ll never know. If it goes south you owe me a hot girlfriend.” I could hear her wagging her finger.

  “Yes! Yes. Happy writing, my sister.”

  “Good luck, Sam. I mean Kira. Kiiiiiiira.”

  “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree.” I replaced the receiver and smiled.

  Wow, we were super dorky. I had to pee.

  I was still laughing and humming ‘Magic’ when the phone rang again. Hitching up my undies in a semi-dignified manner, I
thrust my hands under the tap water to wash, then ran to answer the jangling.

  “Hello?”

  “Are you still there?” Nate asked.

  I rolled my eyes. I could hear the dimple smarming at me. “No, there’s no one by the name of Samantha here.”

  “Have I told you how funny you are? Because you are. So funny. You’re the Will Ferrell of annoying secretaries.”

  “Annoying actresses.”

  “At least we can agree on annoying.”

  I blew a sigh into the receiver. “Yes, I’m here. I answered the phone, which is in the hotel room, which is, in fact, here.”

  “Good. Stay there.”

  “Didn’t we already have this conversation? It wasn’t that riveting the first time.”

  “Maybe you could put on your new little blue bra thing?” Nate’s voice lifted hopefully.

  “Hmmmm. Blue thing. Blue thing. I’m afraid I don’t recall—”

  “You’re such a pain in the ass.”

  “I’m not a—”

  He hung up.

  “You’re a pain in the ass,” I said to the dial tone. “And I’m not putting on the blue thing.”

  I traipsed over to the lingerie bag and ran my hands through the goodies therein until I found the blue bra and panty set. “I really shouldn’t put you on. He doesn’t deserve you.” I held the bra to my breasts and pouted in the mirror seductively. “But you’re just so cute. As is he, when he shuts up.”

  Donning said sexy, sexy underwear, I added a new, trendy red tee, courtesy of Samuel, and my old jeans, courtesy of my closet. Having decided that a bit of hair-doing and makeup-ing would not go amiss, I was attempting to disguise a zit as Nate walked in the room, causing me to jump and cover-stick my eyebrow. “What the hell? Did you call from the lobby?”

  “You have something on your eyebrow.”

  I turned to repair the damage. Blotting the goop away, I asked, “So, what’s new?”

  “Nothing.”

  He was back to being cagey. He stalked to his laptop and sat down, grimacing at it. Nothing, my ass.

  Finishing my toilette, I busied myself with cleaning up my clothes and such, unsure of what else to do. I wished I had a lovely, sexy novel to read. Something in which the heroine had hot sex with a lusty ne’er-do-well. He’d rip off her gown and… Why did they never get mad when the dude destroyed their clothes? Back in olden times, she probably only owned two dresses. Oh, duh! That was why romance novel heroines always needed to marry an earl or a duke—to have the moolah to get their clothes replaced.