My cell is off. He’ll be frantically phoning now. I feel cruel. But then I remember Jenny again slithering into our lives in her oh-so-subtle way.
I watch one of the trapeze students, a little girl who can’t be more than eight-years-old – swinging back and forth high above me, and I’m tempted to give it a go myself. Anything to clear my mind of its present turmoil.
I ask the young woman standing there, “I guess all the classes must be booked up way in advance?”
“Well actually, someone just cancelled. Lost his nerve.”
“Could I take his place?”
“Sure. Have you ever done this before?”
“Only in my dreams.”
She laughs. “Well, now you can know what it’s like to fly for real. You wanna try?”
“I sure do.”
I whip out my credit card, pay and sign a waiver agreeing to take full responsibility for my own risk.
She instructs me, “Okay, you’ll need to tie up your hair in a ponytail, and have you got anything other than jeans to wear? Something more comfortable that gives you room to move better?”
“I have some yoga pants in my handbag.”
“Perfect. You can put them on behind here.” She leads me around to the side where there is a makeshift changing room.
This is crazy. Here I am in the middle of some existential crisis and I’m about to risk my life on a trapeze. Actually, that’s a wild exaggeration – there’s a safety net to catch my fall, but I guess anything could happen or they wouldn’t have asked me to sign that waiver. I’ll be upside down, hooked onto the bar with my knees, swinging back and forth until the ‘catcher’ can get me, our hands linking. It’ll take a few goes, but let’s see if I can be as good as that child up there.
When it comes to my turn, I climb the ladder in my harness and stand on the platform about twenty-three feet up. I feel vertigo but am determined to go ahead with it. I look out over the dark blue ocean and the streaky sky. It’s cooler up here, a light breeze catches me and the nervy heat I’m feeling inside is momentarily at bay. My heart is thumping – I feel so high up.
A topless man wearing what look like white pajama bottoms hooks the trapeze with a pole and brings it towards me. He connects another rope to my front. Uh, oh, here we go. I launch out into the air pushing my legs forward horizontally with great momentum and then hook them above my head, under and around the bar. This is scary. I have the choice to stay doubled up or let go. Will my legs be strong enough to hold me? After a few seconds, I do let go and feel my arms and torso drop like a big lead weight. I am completely upside down. I haven’t done this sort of thing since fourth grade! The woman below me is screaming instructions, “forward, backwards, forward, backwards,” and I swing my legs like a pendulum. Then I drop myself into the net. End of go one.
I wait my next turn, adrenaline pumping, and wish Max were here to share this experience with me. It reminds me of our first date together when we went rock climbing. He’d be proud of me now. My cell is in my purse in the trapeze school’s office. I can’t call him now. Should I later? Or just leave it? I need him to know I’m serious about Jenny. I must remain strong or the next forty years of marriage or as long as we all live, will be one frustrating-as-hell compromise.
After a few more turns on the trapeze, taking my turn between the eight year-old girl, a couple of surfer dudes and another woman around my age, I manage to do the swinging circus ‘catch.’ Hooray!
This whole experience has given me a sense of strength.
I walk back to my car. The sun has set for the evening leaving the sky a deep cobalt blue. A lone star is flickering on the horizon, and I make a wish.
Star light star bright, first star I see tonight... I wish that Jenny would get the hell out of our lives for good. Then I ask myself, am I using Jenny as an excuse for everything wrong with me right now?
An overriding feeling of emotion hits me and I start crying again.
Max said he’s on his way to get me. But the only man I can bear spending time with right now is my father.
I need my dad. I make a snap decision.
Costa Rica here I come.
10
I DECIDE IT’S ONLY fair to swing by Valentina’s to say goodbye and explain the situation. She’s going to get wind of it one way or another so I might as well inform her that I won’t be returning to LA for meetings – that I’ll be emailing and Skyping, if need be, but distancing myself emotionally from the movie project. What I thought was ‘my baby’ now has a surrogate mother:
Jenny Beaumont.
I’ve been betrayed on so many levels, and it has made me bitter towards Hollywood. It has brought something to light: I want my old job back – I feel the urge to do documentaries again. I don’t care about movie stars and big budgets. I care about those little Nigerian girls who are being sold for sexual slavery. I care about the fourteen year-old girl Malala, shot in the head by a Taliban man for championing education for girls. By some miracle she survived and was strong enough to write a memoir.
These are the things that drive my passion. Not some blockbuster, even if it does have a gay rights message.
I call Valentina, just to make sure she’s going to be in. And on my way, I swing by a Thai restaurant and pick up some Tom Yam soup and other treats. I’m hungry after my trapeze exertion, and I’m sure Valentina will be up for a bit of Thai food.
She is. When I walk into her house I realize that I haven’t been here before when it’s dark. She has lit her wood-burning stove and it smells of firewood and rose incense. She’s delighted that I brought take-out, and we begin to heat up the soup as we stand in the kitchen chatting.
She’s wearing tight jeans and I can’t help my roving eye. Women are always checking out each other’s buns – but I’m not comparing myself to her; I’m admiring her sexy curves. I can’t help it. I myself, though, still look a bit disheveled and truthfully need a shower. I know I look anything but hot.
“You wanna watch a movie or you want to talk about Fighting the Wind? she asks, stirring the Tom Yam.
“You know what? I’m a bit Fought-the-Wind-out.”
I reveal to her the whole Jenny saga, keeping the tale simple and not too dramatic but explaining why I’ll be bowing out gracefully from any more script tweaking and future get-togethers. I tell her about my plan to see my father and that I’m flying to Costa Rica tomorrow morning.
“I’ll miss you,” she says, her eyes mournful. “So it’s your last night at that cool hotel, huh?”
“Actually I checked out. I was in a flustered state, I thought I might be getting on a plane that very second but then I got distracted by the trapeze school on Santa Monica Pier.”
“Oh so that’s what the sweaty look is? I wondered why you were looking so mussed up.”
“Would you mind if I took a shower?”
“Sure, of course. You wanna eat now or wait?”
“I’ll take a quick shower first, why not – I don’t want to stink up the kitchen.”
She gets out some plates from a cupboard. “I like the smell of your sweat. It’s sexy.”
I snigger sarcastically. “Now that has to be a lie.”
“No it’s not. My ex...well she goes crazy for underarms, you know?”
“Well I have to admit, I like the smell of Max’s day-old T-shirts, so I do understand.”
“She likes it when I have hairy armpits, it drives her wild. I mean crazy wild.”
I grimace. “Each to their own, I guess. You’re still seeing her? You refer to her as your ex yet you speak about her in the present.”
She looks uneasy but doesn’t answer directly. “Whenever we have....whenever we had a fight, I’d shave to get her pissed.”
I laugh. “Shaving your armpits was a big punishment?”
“I know, isn’t it crazy?”
“What was she like...what is she like, your ex?”
“Beautiful. A tigress between the sheets.”
“Does sh
e live in LA?”
Valentina looks uncomfortable. “Actually, I don’t really want to talk about her, d’you mind? Let’s talk about you, Arielle. Any more nightmares?”
I’d forgotten that I’d laid bare my soul before our bathtub ‘event.’ “No, no more nightmares, thank God.”
“Arielle, can I ask you a very personal question?”
“You can ask, but I’m not sure I’ll give you an answer.”
Valentina chuckles and tosses her mane. “Do you have multiple orgasms?”
Where did that come from? I remember the shock of when it happened in Cap d’Antibes with Max. “Do you?” I ask boomeranging her question.
“No. Never. And I’ve never had an orgasm with a man. I wanted to...but...I tried...you know, but it just didn’t happen.”
“Well, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Lots of women go through that,” I say carefully, not wanting to reveal anything too personal. “You know what? I’m going to grab that shower and then we can eat. I hope you like cold sesame noodles. I got puffed rice cakes, vegetable spring rolls, and there’s some spicy prawn curry as well.”
“I’ll heat up the oven.”
“I won’t be long.”
I feel her eyes on my back as I saunter to the bathroom, and she shouts after me, “Do you want to borrow a robe? Hey, Arielle, if you already checked out of your hotel, why don’t you stay here tonight?”
I turn around. “No. Thank you for the offer, but I can check into an airport hotel. I’m flying out at the squawk of dawn.”
“As you please. Grab a terrycloth robe from the bathroom. You know, you can chill out comfortably while we watch the movie. Have you seen All About Eve?”
“One of my favorite Bette Davis films – ‘Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night,’ ” I say, quoting my favorite line.
“Oh dear, well, we can put on something else.”
“No, that’s perfect, I haven’t seen it for years.”
I shower and then we eat watching the movie. Eve Harrington – what an insidious character – and Bette Davis’s Margo Channing who’s just turned forty. Eve Harrington – a seemingly sweet-as-candy actress usurping her idol’s position in such a scheming, clever way. The whole scenario reminds me of Jenny. The story is different, but the intention is there: to slowly silently take over, to push out your rival with a smile on your face. Buying me my wedding gown, telling Max she loves me, yet plotting behind my back. Yet she hasn’t actually done anything actively bad, so it looks as if I’m paranoid. Sure, she called me a ‘gold-digger’ and a ‘stalker’ a few months back, but I shouldn’t hold that against her forever. She did apologize, too. But I know she’s up to no good.
So far, Jenny’s winning. Getting her way with Max, pushing me away from him.
We’ll see if she succeeds.
Valentina has been plying us both with champagne and because of the spiciness of the Thai food, I’ve been glugging it down without really noticing. Uh oh, I have an early plane to catch and now I’m feeling woozy. But I’m so relaxed by the cozy log fire, and she has a way of making me laugh with her ironic and direct sense of humor that I’m reluctant to leave – just yet.
All About Eve ends, and I’m sprawled out on the couch in Valentina’s terrycloth robe, my hair still damp. She’s gazing at me, her lips slightly parted.
“Arielle, this is our last ever moment together. Probably.”
“Yeah, it is. I don’t think I’ll be returning to LA.”
She pouts. “Why?”
“It’s too tough here. I mean, New Yorkers can be rough around the edges but at least what you see is what you get. Here things are subtly sinister – I can’t explain it, but I feel this place is a little Machiavellian – sugar-coated with a seductive sheen, which makes it all the more dangerous. Los Angeles is a magnetic place and you can get sucked in all too easily.”
Valentina temples her hands to her chin as if digesting my opinion and then says softly, “I sense you have a dark side to you, Arielle. And I think you need to be punished for being a little slutty in the past.”
I stare at her in amazement. At first I want to slap her – what she has just said is way too close to the bone and I feel hurt, betrayed even. She’s a woman, she should understand – know how tortured I am by my own guilt and self-blame about what happened to me. I think of the MeToo movement and know I’m not the only woman who kept silent, blaming herself, or like me, blocked it out completely. But then I’m overcome by...I can’t even explain it...a sort of morbid intrigue. There’s something fiendish and sinful about Valentina, and it draws me in.
She continues, “Before you leave this wicked town for good would you like to experience one last thrill?” She runs her fingers through her wavy hair. “You like living on the edge, don’t you, Arielle? Experimenting? Today on the trapeze, for instance, and at college, putting yourself in danger with those horny, out-of-control footballers. What were you expecting? You knew it would end in tears, didn’t you? You knew, yet you did it anyway.”
My heart is pumping with both irritation and curiosity. I narrow my eyes. “Where’s this leading?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Not really,” I reply coolly.
“And that makes it all the more titillating, doesn’t it? I know you want your fiancé to spank you, to flick a whip on your wet little pussy.”
This woman is something else. What a nerve! I want to laugh out loud but what she’s saying is secretly turning me on. The champagne has made me so relaxed that I feel fearless and a shiver of excitement shimmies through me. I tell her, “Like I said, Max would never play S&M games with me even if I begged him. Anyway, I don’t like being hurt.”
She raises an eyebrow. “We would use a safe word.”
I try to suppress a smirk. For some reason this conversation is amusing me, although Valentina has a dead-serious expression on her face. “We?” I ask.
“I’m going to blindfold you, Arielle. We can play a little fantasy game. You pretend in the darkness beneath your blindfold that I’m Max. See if you like it. If you don’t then just shout out the word, Spain.”
“Spain?”
“You wanna choose something else?”
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
“You need to purge your guilt about your past – extricate that feeling of culpability. I’m going to help you do that by punishing you. Then you’ll be free. Call it witchcraft, think of it as a little spell, if you like.”
As she says the word, ‘spell’ Lucifer jumps onto the couch and rubs his soft black fur against me. His tail brushes onto my slightly open robe and it touches my flesh seductively. He purrs loudly as if agreeing with his mistress.
“Pussy,” she spits out.
Does she mean pussycat? Is she talking to Lucifer?
“You’re a coward, Arielle,” she clarifies.
“Valentina, I’m not into being hurt. It’s one thing reading about this kind of stuff in an erotic novel or seeing it in a film, but another doing it in real life. Okay, I admit, I’m curious but...”
She rolls her eyes. “Forget it. I thought it was a good idea – something to ease away your mental anguish – a way of striking out those bad dreams by administering a little light punishment, but if you’re not into the idea...”
My mind is ticking over. Maybe she has a point. Perhaps this could be the answer – the champagne part of my brain thinks so anyway. What harm is there in at least trying? This woman is slight, not as strong as I am – she can’t hurt me. “Okay, Valentina, but on one condition: no handcuffs. If I don’t like it, I want to be able to stop instantly.”
“That’s what the safe word’s for.”
“No restraints, I mean it. And only five minutes, just to see. No kissing. I’m not gay – kissing would be way too intimate.”
She takes another swig of her champagne and grins wickedly – her full lips breaking into a smile that spreads across her whole face. “You’re on.�
�
She glides over to the other side of the room, her bare feet noiseless on the parquet floor. I watch her out of the corner of my eye. She stands on a chair and carefully brings down a long box from the top of a freestanding closet. She blows some dust off the top of it. A treasure trove obviously unused for a long while. Or, more likely, Pandora’s Box. Will evil things fly out when she opens it? My curiosity makes me sit up. What am I doing?
The lights are already dimmed, and Valentina lights several candles and some more rose incense. She puts on some music – Frank Sinatra’s Witchcraft (how fitting) and sways her hips slowly to the rhythm. She’s still in her jeans and I’m still in her robe. Obviously, she wants to play Dom and have me as her Sub.
She’s right, I’m a sucker for adventure. Most women don’t go rock climbing and swing from trapezes. And most women do not decide to experiment with a dose of lesbian bondage. Am I nuts? My sensible side yells at me, ‘yes’ but my curiosity drives me on.
“Okay, Arielle,” she whispers, her lilting Spanish accent catching the R of Arielle, “lie flat on your back.”
The L-shaped sofa is large and there’s plenty of space for me to sprawl out. I do as she bids. The room is blissfully warm and I feel comfortable. The champagne has eased away the fury I felt for Max earlier. I suddenly wonder – is this my way of getting back at him? Yes, he told me that he’d find it sexy for me to be messing about with another woman, but S&M? I don’t think so.
I observe Valentina open up her box of toys and take out a whip. It has tassels at one end.
She stands over me and presses it up to my nose. “Smell this.”
I sniff it in; it smells of perfume. She runs it gently about my face and the tassels tickle.
My Dark Knight Page 13