“How’s this for next?” Brody pretended to apply a finger’s worth of frosting to his own zipper. So gross. Did he really enjoy all this vulgarity, or was this just the Doctor Nite act?
Relieved to leave Brody comparing notes on white chocolate versus dark chocolate penises on a stick, Jillian ducked into the kitchen to film the bakers squirting nipples onto breast-shaped layer cakes. When they left the shop, Brody was munching on a sugar cookie frosted with vulva. She sighed. This was all so strange.
They moved on to SenSations Emporium, a famous San Francisco sex toy shop, where the grandfatherly owner discussed the top sellers of various sexual accoutrements. “Now, for the ladies, your dildos are your biggest movers,” he said in a monotone worthy of describing gardening tools. “Most go for the mid-range models, but you’ll get your handful who want the deluxe with all the bells and whistles.”
A group of women after bachelorette party favors were giggling in the vibrator aisle. The owner smiled indulgently in their direction. Jillian kept her camera on him. “What’s funny?” she asked.
“Oh, they titter at first, the girls,” he said, “but once they see what the new vibrators can do, they get real quiet.”
Standing behind the man, Brody shot her an OK to indicate Jillian had nabbed a gem. She turned off the camera and smiled, pleased once more at what a good team they made.
Eve hurried over. “I’ll get the cue cards for the Top Ten Tips on Sex Toys. Go ahead and set up for the segment.”
Jillian chose the vibrator aisle and Brian and Bob got set, then departed, along with the owner, who was handling a sale, leaving Brody and her alone surrounded by sex toys.
“So, what do you think of this place?” Brody asked. “Lots of fun stuff, huh?”
She looked around. “I think sex is pretty good all on its own.” The optional equipment and toy choices were dizzying.
“Come on. You don’t have a vibrator?”
“Of course I do.”
“Uh, would that be your basic dildo, the mid-range EZone 2000 or the Pleasure Master X, the deluxe model of self-pleasure devices?” He was imitating the owner’s monotone litany as he picked up each in turn.
“That’s a pretty personal question,” she said.
“I think we’ve been pretty personal, don’t you?”
She remembered instantly his mouth on her and felt a wave of desire that almost made her gasp. “I have the basic dildo. Simple to use. Batteries last forever. Dishwasher safe.” She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. Somehow, Brody made it seem not only normal, but fun.
“How about an upgrade?” he said, holding up the mid-range model. “We’ll buy it for you. How’s that?”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Sure I would. You could evaluate it for us. It would be research.” He picked up the deluxe model, studied it, then set it back. The thought of trying it out with Brody had her trembling, and he noticed. “You okay?”
“How do you think I am?”
“Pretty damn shaky if you’re thinking anything close to what I am.” He grinned. “What do you say? I’ll put it on our tab.”
“Put what on our tab?” Eve asked. She held out the stack of cue cards, a Red Bull in her other hand.
“Energy drinks,” Jillian blurted, needing to keep Eve off the trail. “I’m curious about brands. You like Red Bull best?”
“It’s good. Sure.” She gave her a strange look, but Jillian turned away to get on with the taping.
Soon they’d packed up to go and were waiting for Brody, who was supposedly thanking the owner. He returned to the van with a sack. A vibrator, no doubt. “Samples,” he said to Eve, but he grinned at Jillian, clearly enjoying making her squirm.
They were headed to a bachelorette party, where Brody was to interview the women about Valentine’s Day, when Eve got a call that canceled the event. “Shit. What do we do now?” Eve said.
Out the window, Jillian noticed a bridal shop. “How about there?” she said. “There will be bridesmaids getting fittings in there and they’ll have plenty of opinions.”
“Not bad,” Eve said, signaling for the driver to turn around. She gave Jillian another look. Maybe I underestimated you.
An urgent phone call had Eve waving them on without her, so Brody schmoozed the shop owners and Jillian not only convinced several bridesmaids to sign releases and be interviewed, but she talked them into meeting the crew at one of the nightclubs for the planned segment on Valentine’s Day pickup lines.
The crew loaded up the equipment van and she and Brody joined Eve in the other vehicle. “We okay?” Eve asked.
“Perfect,” Brody said. “JJ talked the bridesmaids into coming to the bar for the V-Day lines bit. Isn’t that great? You love when a shoot does double duty.”
“Yeah,” Eve said thoughtfully. “It is great.”
At five o’clock, on the way to the hotel, they stopped for food at a jam-packed deli and when Eve came to the table, she had three different cans of energy drinks, which she set in front of Jillian. “Thought you’d maybe do a taste test,” she said.
“Thanks,” she said, aware this was Eve’s way of making peace. The three of them tried each flavor, taking turns guessing at brands, using a necktie from Eve’s bag—why was it even there?—as a blindfold. After the relaxed moment, Eve declared it time to check in to the hotel.
Jillian sank into the van seat, sweaty and weary, though pleased with her work and the progress she’d made with Eve. The lack of sleep had taken its toll, and they’d done a lot of shooting.
She leaned forward to rub her neck, then felt Brody’s warm fingers dig in. Mmm. He was as good with her neck as he’d been—well, elsewhere.
In the seat ahead of them, Eve flipped through her folders frantically, talking on the phone again. Abruptly she stopped dead. “What do you mean you didn’t get permission? I asked specifically for the head gigolo. We have to have a one-on-one with Brody. No. Okay…I’ll come out. I have to talk to them.”
Meanwhile, Brody was dissolving Jillian from the shoulders down, hitting all her trigger points, turning her muscles to ribbons, so light and loose they would fly in the lightest breeze. “That is so good,” she murmured.
“You’re easy.”
“You’re ruining my reputation.”
“It’s a compliment, believe me,” he said, which was exactly the right way to put it. The man had a gift for making people feel special. It was just the Brody Treatment, she reminded herself, but a girl could do far worse.
“Dammit!” Eve said from the front seat, then turned toward them. Brody dropped his hands just in time.
“I’ve got to go early to San Diego,” Eve said. “The scout screwed up. I’ve got to meet with people and fix it. I knew I should have done it myself.”
“You can’t be everywhere every time, Eve,” Brody said.
“We’ll drop you off at the hotel, then I’ll head to the airport,” Eve said. “I guess you’re on your own tonight and tomorrow.” She huffed a breath, frowning. “Tonight’s all arranged. Tomorrow’s the florist, then the bachelor auction. They should be cool, but…” She bit her lip, worried.
“We’ll be good,” Brody said. “JJ’s been a producer, too, remember. She can handle the details.”
“You set everything up so well that I’m sure it will be effortless,” Jillian added. She’d just made some headway with the bristly producer. No way did she want it to seem she could do the woman’s job for her.
“Stay in contact,” Eve said on a sigh. “Any questions, call. I’ll track you.” She said it like a mother threatening to spot-check teens being left alone for a weekend.
“You worry too much,” Brody said.
“Let me see what else you’ll need.” She flipped through her folder, scribbling things down.
“She can’t help herself,” Brody whispered to Jillian.
They would be alone for most of tonight and all of tomorrow. The thought made her stomach jump and her heart
flutter in her chest. She felt exactly like those teens planning a kegger while their parents were out of town.
Which was wrong. They’d agreed to forget what happened, not do it again. But when Brody squeezed her knee, warm and firm, she knew he felt a similar thrill.
When the driver pulled up to the Phoenix Hotel, Eve handed her folder to Jillian. “All the details are there. Call me if anything comes up. The envelope has your tickets and itinerary with confirmation numbers for the hotel. The flight’s at two tomorrow. I’ll meet you in the lobby at the hotel.”
“We’ll be fine. You don’t need to meet us. Just take it easy,” Brody said. “You’ll need to after torturing San Diego.”
Eve leveled a look at him.
“Thanks for everything,” Jillian added. She climbed out the door the driver held, crossing Brody’s body. He brushed her butt, as if to help her, but with an extra caress, as if he couldn’t resist, and she felt so weak she had to grab the side of the van for support.
They stood together in front of the hotel and watched the van take Eve away, then turned to each other, intimacy rising between them like hot smoke. They took a ragged breath in sync, then laughed like guilty children.
“So, we have a few hours of free time,” she said.
“Yeah. We do. Just us.” He paused. “Want to see what we got?”
He shook the paper sack that held the vibrator he’d bought, and her knees turned to water.
“What do you mean?”
“The footage, of course,” he said with fake innocence. “What did you think I meant?”
She rolled her eyes. “Leave that in your room and we’ll be fine.” She nodded at the sack.
Brody sighed. “It’s possible to be too sensible for your own good, you know.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said, but a tiny voice inside said, Prove it, Brody. Pretty please?
9
THE PHOENIX was a Fifties motor hotel that had been refurbished as retro hip and was known for its art gallery, sculpture garden and rock star guests—definitely a Doctor Nite kind of place. Best of all, Jillian thought, because so many celebrities stayed here, even the fans who’d come to see Brody greeted him without grabbing at him or shrieking, and no one asked for an autograph.
Jillian’s room overlooked the fantasy pool that had a tile mural by a famous artist. From the open window, laughter punctuated the jungle sounds piped into the courtyard from the terrace cabana. Beyond that she could pick up the sounds of San Francisco. Somehow the rush of traffic, the sirens, the clack of tires over bumps, those normal city sounds, seemed more romantic here. San Francisco made her feel as if something exciting was about to happen any minute.
Her room was colorful—burnt orange and avocado with tiki influences and big tropical flowers—but she barely had time to soak up the ambience before Brody was at her door. He seemed uncannily able to appear out of thin air, just like her sexual thoughts about the man.
She figured they’d sit at the bamboo table, but Brody stretched out on one of the beds, lying on his side. “Table’s too small,” he said, patting a space for her, wearing a predator’s grin she’d swear meant, I double dog dare you.
Now that she’d carved out her role as the sensible one, he seemed to feel free to tempt her. She couldn’t let on how difficult this was for her, so she joined him, head braced in her palm, mirroring his position, the laptop between them.
It was difficult to focus, being so close to him. She was aware of his cologne, the smell of his skin, his long body, bare toes, his big smile and sensual lips. She’d tasted those lips and they’d tasted her body, a memory that thrilled through her like electricity.
“So, let’s see what we got,” she said, starting the footage. She forced herself to watch the video and found she was startled by how different Brody seemed on the monitor than he’d acted when she was shooting. The crude talk, the frosted penises, the sex-toy banter, the leers and hints no longer seemed gross and crass. Instead, they were fun. Endearing. And Brody was clearly trying to amuse her behind the camera.
She did like his attitude toward the show. For all his casual style, he worked hard, demanded quality and knew exactly what he wanted: edgy and sexy and crude—but only so crude and no more. He knew what his viewers wanted and delivered it. She couldn’t help but admire him for that.
She’d obviously begun to accept the ambience of the show, to become part of it. That was her gift in her documentary work—she was empathetic with everyone she interviewed, no matter how unsavory their actions or opinions. She managed, for those minutes, to see the world through their eyes. It made for powerful interviews, but it made her uncomfortable, too.
She preferred things to be clear-cut, simple to interpret, not sliding around, shifting in meaning and value. She liked to know where she stood at all times.
With Brody, things were murky now. It didn’t help that their bodies brushed, forearms touching every few seconds. Fingers, too, and, now and then, legs and feet, and Brody was looking at her as if he wanted to eat her up. His gaze roved her body, her breasts, her hips, her face, her mouth.
They were in a hotel room lying on a bed together, for God’s sake, jungle music drifting in the window, the drumbeat urging them to succumb to the desire pulsing between them.
She was nuts to allow this. Except after what they’d already done, any room could seem romantic, any moment intimate, any surface sexual. At least she didn’t have any condoms.
Stop. Right. Now.
“Let’s talk about the shoot tonight,” she said, just to do something besides notice that their feet had overlapped and neither was moving away.
They went over some interview questions, their voices soft and low, intimate as lovers, laughter bubbling up over and over, the ideas bubbling out, too, clever and fun.
“Do you want to write some of this down?” she asked him.
“It’s all up here.” He tapped his skull. “This is how I work best.”
“You do this with Kirk?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Lie on a bed and talk it all over?”
“You’re forgetting the hair problem again.” He winked. “Actually, Kirk’s not so much on planning.”
“How about you? What’s your preference?”
“I like to plan, but I’m flexible. Kirk and I have a system that works for us. He’s not all that…ambitious.”
“You mean he’s lazy?”
“Laid-back is how I’d put it. He’s got good instincts. He thinks on his feet. And he’s always there for me. I’m not the easiest guy to work with, as you already know.”
“You want the job done right. I have no problem with that. A retake is a chance to improve. How did you come to hire Kirk anyway?”
“We were drinking buddies. He needed a job.”
“Did you know he was good?”
“I asked around.”
“But after you’d hired him, right?”
He shot her a look, as if surprised that she’d guessed correctly. “I guess, yeah.”
“And you cut him slack because he’s your friend?”
“Don’t you give your friends a break?”
“Not if they’re working for me. I expect the best.”
“You’re one tough cookie, Ms. James.”
“So are you, Brody. You’d never have gotten this far if you weren’t. You pretend not to care, but you don’t miss a thing and you push yourself, too.” From the moment they started shooting, she’d felt his urgency, his restless need for the best. “You owe it to yourself, to the show and to Kirk to ask more of him.”
“It’s not that simple. There are trade-offs. If I push Kirk too hard, he’ll shut down and follow orders instead of coming up with his own ideas. When you’re in a crew, you learn to work around quirks and idiosyncrasies.”
“So Eve’s being a bulldozer and Kirk’s laziness are just quirks?”
“They’re not that bad. I rein them in when they go too far. You know how it is. You hire crew, right?”
“When I can afford to, sure. But that’s not often.”
“Yeah. The money’s shit in documentaries. Why did you choose that, anyway? With your eye and need for a plan, I’d think you’d want more control. Real life is pretty messy.”
“I’m into pain?” she joked. “It’s tough, no question.”
“Not to mention the fact that every Joe with a digicam thinks he’s a filmmaker these days.”
“Very true. The festivals are clogged with lame stuff.”
“So why you? Why this?” He watched her, waiting, as impossible to resist as she tried to be when she did interviews.
“I guess it’s that documentaries are these incredible living puzzles, you know? A mix of reality and story and always with secrets to uncover.”
“You started out in broadcast news, right?”
“I thought I wanted to work for a newspaper at first. But in college we had a class in electronic media and the minute I had that camera to my eye, I knew this was where I belonged. I worked news in Fresno, then San Diego, but I loved the investigative pieces, so I started on my own stories on the side. I sold a couple of ideas to my station—one on beauty pageant scams, another on smugglers ripping off undocumented workers’ families. I saved my money and three years ago, I quit the station to do documentaries full-time.”
“No regrets?”
“None. This is what I love. Things get clear behind the lens. Distractions disappear and I really see.”
“I get that about you,” he said.
“Of course I want to change the world, too.”
“Don’t we all?”
“You want to change the world?” She hesitated, realizing she might have hurt his feelings, but Brody chuckled.
“Sure. ‘Sponsor a wet T-shirt contest, save the world.’ Doesn’t sound like me, I know. Don’t laugh, but I started out in journalism, too. Except that meant I had to attend class, actually study, which seriously cut into party time.”
Brody covered his true feelings with self-mockery, she could see. She wished, suddenly, that he felt safe enough with her to stop that. She was also glad she hadn’t turned on her camera. This conversation was personal.
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