Fortune Is a Woman

by Francine Saint Marie

  The earring tickled Venus’ face. “You’re keeping them, I presume–my earrings?”

  “I might.”

  “What does it depend on?”

  “You, Venus.”

  “What about me?”

  “You followed me to Cicero’s? You were trying to trump me somehow?”

  “No, Lydia. That was an absolute fluke.”

  Venus wore a wide black belt tonight. Lydia hooked her finger in it and pulled on it. The buckle popped open. “A fluke and some merriment, son?”

  “I…uh…actually, had just stopped in when you and Del showed–”

  “On your way to where, Venus, dressed like that, like this? Not to meet me, you weren’t.”

  Lydia was hot to the touch. “No.” Hot all over. “Do you want the earrings?”

  “Hmmph. What did you tell me? Soo-neev–that’s Arabic, right? How do you say seduction in Arabic, please? I’d like to know some Arabic.”

  Sunev is not Arabic. It’s Venus spelled backwards. Venus smiled guiltily and pulled Lydia’s blouse from out of her skirt. “Mrs. Kristenson…?”

  Mrs. Kristenson was not at home.

  He reached into Lydia’s blouse. “Consider this your first warning.”

  Lydia unfastened the catch of Venus’ trousers and unzipped them. “Consider this your last–uh-oh, and what’s that, young man? More fun and games?”

  “Lydia, I have a…a meet…I mean I might have a...”

  “Mmmm.” Lydia withdrew her hand. “Which is it?”

  “C’mon, Lydia.”

  “Come on what? Which is it, might or have?”

  “Keep it there.”

  “No–do I know this one, Venus? Is she married, too?”

  “Is she mar–what’s going to happen here, Lydia?”

  “Nothing. You’re going to answer my questions and I’m going to send you on your way.”

  “You’re leading me on? Why, because you’re mad?”

  “Why did you come here? You’re asking for it.”

  Venus laughed. “Why did you dance with me?”

  “You know why. Were you disappointed, pretty boy, to get me that easy?”

  “I didn’t get you, did I?”

  Horseshoes and hand grenades. And phalluses. She reached over and zipped him up. “Tell me who that’s for, Venus. Who’s your baby-sitter, tonight?”

  “Baby–damnit, Lydia. DAMN.”

  “You’re cursing me? Now that does take balls.”

  “You’re an awful fucking tease.”

  “Well, but you knew that before you came–I despise you, you should know.”

  “For the women?”

  “For all of it. Every inch.”

  “This, too?”

  Lydia flipped his coat collar up and stroked his forehead. “That, too.”

  The bra hooked in the front. Venus unhooked it.

  Lydia leaned backward.

  It was a dare, he thought, shifting his weight to the other knee. He pinned her arms to her sides and sucked her through the blouse.

  “Let me–!”

  “Oh, that’s right,” he said, releasing her. “You’re being good and I’m being bad.”

  “No, it’s…a lot simpler than that, Angelo. You’re going away…I’m going to bed.”

  “Does it have to necessarily be in that order?”

  “Why? You want to put me to bed first?”

  “If you like. I’ll watch you sleep.”

  “Yah–if you’re lucky.”

  “Ah, Lydia. Dear Lydia. I can’t understand why you’re so angry with me,” he said, sliding his arm around her waist and reaching into her skirt.

  “Don’t,” she warned.

  He didn’t. “But I love you, despite your mad self.”

  “I…do somehow believe that.”

  “Good. Then be a real sweet tramp and lie down for me.”

  “I’m–you must be confusing me for the others.”

  “Now isn’t that interesting? They claim I’m confusing them for you.”

  The slap he was cruising for was near at last. “Lydia,” he said, intercepting it.

  “Let me go,” she answered.

  “No.”

  “Ve–what do you need from me?”

  “I need you to lie down.”

  “Sex?”

  “If that’s all you want to give me.”

  In the garish light of her parlor his shadow was covering her like a blanket. She wanted to turn the light out. “I couldn’t possibly.”

  He parted her knees and wriggled between them. “I think you can.”

  “No,” she insisted, smoothing his rumpled collar. “I can’t and I mean it.”

  He scoffed, half his face hidden in darkness. “Then I think you’d better stop teasing. Don’t you?”

  She leaned forward to see if he was sneering. He was. “Then I think you’d better go.”

  He pushed her back into the cushions and held her there with one hand. The blouse was moist, her nipples showing through it like medallions. Down her front there was a row of delicate buttons. Mother of pearl. He yanked at them and the blouse came open.

  “Venus, it’s gone–”

  “Too far?”

  She heaved upward in an attempt to escape him. “Yes.”

  “Too late,” he said, tonguing her till she was hard, sucking her slowly until she was once again soft in his mouth, a hundred percent more malleable. “I’m going to take you to bed,” he whispered, trying to get up. “We’re going to bed now.”

  “Jesus, Venus. We–” she brought her hands down on his shoulders so he couldn’t rise. “We can’t.”

  “We can.”

  “I can’t. I just–”

  “You just hate me?” he finished. “That’s why?”

  She turned her head away. “No,” she answered, pulling at her skirt and searching in the divan for lost buttons. “Regrettably, no.”

  He leaned against her and pushed her skirt up.

  She dropped the buttons. “Please, Venus, just go. Just tell me that you’re going!”

  “I’m going,” he said, putting his head in her lap.

  “Oh…god.”

  There were fingers through his hair, hands on his shoulders and on the back of his neck. “Lydia,” he said softly.

  A string of unintelligible protests descended on him.

  “Lydia,” he called again and she gently bent her legs for him.

  “Venus.”

  She was beneath him. He was maneuvering her and trying in vain to make sense of the things that she said.

  She was ordering him to stop as she was reaching for the front of his pants.

  “This is wrong,” he heard over the roar of blood rushing in his head.

  “Lydia, you’re so we–”

  “Oh, no, no. Don’t you talk. Don’t–”

  “I’ll just…and then I’ll go.”

  “You’re–we’ve already–what’s the point of–”

  “Because I love you, Lydia. I love you.”

  She was dripping in his jewels. She covered her face with her hands and tensed her legs. “Aren’t you making someone wait?” she whispered.

  He hung her arms over his shoulders and grasped her by the hips. “Yes.”

  “Oh, Venus, you–you–then why don’t you go to her, goddamnit?”

  “I will,” he said, thrusting himself between her legs. “Can you feel that?”

  She sure could.

  Chapter 45

  Cruelty and Clemency

  You wouldn’t notice it unless you were used to kissing her. Indeed, you had to be kissing her or about to kiss her for it to become apparent.

  “No kiss hello? Why are you late?”

  “Anna, I’m sor–”

  “What is that?” Anna interrupted, taking hold of Venus’ chin and examining what appeared to be a fat lip. “What happened to you?”

  “Believe me, my dear Ms. Grisholm, I have no intention of discussing it. Do you want me here or n
ot? Otherwise I’m going home.”

  “Do I want you here? Give me your coat.”

  Venus took her coat off. “Why do you laugh?”

  “Well, sport, I want you, but she obviously didn’t.” She hung up the coat and came back with an ice pack. “Sit there.”

  Venus put it gingerly to her mouth and sat on Anna’s favorite chair. “Ow,” she exclaimed, cursing the gods and, coincidentally, Anna, who was in her lap already.

  “Ah,” Anna said, evaluating the suit and its contents. “You’re packing.”

  Venus flinched at the contact. Anna was so uninhibited and so fast on the draw. She could get floor burns just talking to her.

  “Hold me, Venus, or I’ll throw you back to your chilly amazon.”

  “She’s not an amazon,” Venus muttered. “Chilly, perhaps.” She passed the ice to her other hand and embraced her. “You know, it’s such a consolation to me, Anna, to see you so overwrought about my welfare.”

  Anna did an inventory of the inside of the suit coat. “You’ll live, I think. A little hubris never killed anyone.”

  Venus scowled. The ice was only making the lip hurt more. She threw it behind her.

  “Now I wonder whose that is,” Anna chided, spying a lipstick smear.

  “What?” Venus asked in a muffled voice. “Who’s what?”

  Anna looked at her shrewdly and, minus the specifics, accurately sized up the situation. Women were, after all, her specialty. Once she used to make a pretty good living dressing them, now she had a pretty good time undressing them, an activity which was more than just a hobby for her. She had in her lifetime dressed and undressed so many beautiful women that she was by now considered a connoisseur of the female sex. Romancing women was, she bragged to her friends, her life’s calling, her sole passion, and over the decade or more that she had run the Lavender Lane Hotel, she had dedicated herself to hundreds of them, sometimes two or three at a time, a passion that expanded considerably the definition of “hospitality industry.”

  As a result, she was quite knowledgeable about their private matters, expert at the subtle things they did that individualized them, their fashion tastes, their distinctive colors, their perfumes. If she thought it was Lydia Beaumont-Kristenson’s lipstick blend smeared across her truant lover’s collar, most likely it was. This was the second time she had seen it there, the first time she would say so.

  “That’s twice, Venus,” she said, dropping the suit coat and vest to the floor and never missing a beat as she undid the buttons of the ruffled silk shirt.

  “Twice what? Is there some kind of problem here? Because I really need to get–”

  “Laid. I’ll bet. You have Ms. Beaumont’s lipstick all over your collar, my love. It’s bad rock and roll.”

  Venus glanced at the shirt as it drifted past her. Mmhmm. She was right. “So?”

  “She’s the one who punched you?”

  “Anna, what makes you think it’s Lydia’s?”

  “Sweetie, she’s too faithful for a woman like you,” Anna said, passing on the opportunity to expound upon the benefits of age and experience. She admired naked Venus and her perfect breasts. “You’ll never get her,” she added, blowing across her nipples.

  Venus threw her head back. “You’re jealous?”

  Anna took her hand and led her to the bedroom. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, with a good-natured laugh. “The only woman I’ve ever been jealous of is Helaine Kristenson. And that for almost the very same reason you are, Ms. Angelo.”

  “Almost?”

  “Almost–lay down if you need me.”

  “And what lies in that distinction?” Venus asked, falling into the middle of the bed. “Almost?”

  “Obviously the fact that you’re in love with Lydia whereas I just want to sleep with her,” Anna replied, kissing the bruised mouth tenderly. “Now you tell me, Venus,” she said, just before entering her. “How do you think I know this?”

  Chapter 46

  If You Wish to Master Her

  He was going to have to be a great deal more assertive if he ever hoped to make her his wife. At the rate it was going now that wasn’t going to happen unless Edward Beaumont keeled over and died, a blessing Roy wouldn’t permit himself to wish for because of his fears concerning bad karma.

  He stood tonight stoking a roaring fire he had built in the old fireplace at the lake house, sipping hot toddies with Marilyn and her pretty daughter, opening presents with them, waiting for the wild turkey to ding in the oven, faking complacency.

  Lydia was finally warming up to him. She’s always been aloof with strangers, ever since she was a young girl, Marilyn had tried to reassure him, but once she gets to know you. He wasn’t certain if that’s what caused it, clearly she still didn’t approve of their relationship, but it seemed at last that the ice was beginning to melt. She could at least make eye contact with him when they spoke and once tonight she had even called him by his first name. Of course, he told himself, erring on the side of caution, it could just be the alcohol. He poured her another drink for good measure and went to the kitchen to check on the potatoes.

  “Are you sleeping with him?”

  “Lydia, you sound just like your father. The answer is no. This is exactly what I wanted,” her mother said, switching the subject and fawning over her new lingerie.

  Lydia smiled patiently. I don’t believe you, Marilyn, she thought, but really, she forced herself to accept in her heart, it’s none of my business. The sky wouldn’t fall if her mother was leg wrestling with Roy Mann and lying about it. “Enjoy,” she said, in her good little soldier voice. “You deserve it, Mom.”

  “You are such a good little soldier,” Marilyn said, “to indulge me so. Thank you sweetheart.”

  “So…I could actually sleep here tonight if I wanted to?” Lydia asked, following her mother’s lead and dropping the topic of illicit sex. It was a muddy subject anyway.

  “You could actually move in if you wanted to! If you didn’t mind the contractors coming and going.”

  She would mind contractors coming and going. “What’s the status here? I see new plaster and woodwork. They’re nearly done inside?”

  “Practically. Except for sanding and painting and staining and tiling. That stuff. Which reminds me, we’ve got to go over those color chips before you leave for Madrid.”

  Lydia was leaving next week, Christmas Eve in the morning. These last few days before the much-anticipated departure were dragging by in slow motion and the late night phone conversations with her wife were simply not enough to get her through them cheerfully. Moreover she was troubled with herself, too troubled to tell anyone about it. She had behaved badly in the parlor–there were other words she could use to describe her conduct, but badly would suffice–and the episode there with Venus had left her feeling hollow inside. There was a bevy of apologies for it on the tip of her tongue, but she hadn’t the courage to deliver any of them. She needed a fix, to be filled with Helaine Kristenson again, and the TV and newspaper features of the Love Doc, a nickname that had always made her cringe, were poor substitutes for the real thing. The same for the sex videos Delilah gave her as a prank for Christmas. Dumb, hokey, and uninspiring, a reaction which Delilah subsequently denounced as “downright un-American”.

  “You could really use a therapist, Liddy,” she joked.

  True.

  Her Love Doc was homesick and showing the strain of her foreign tour. With every passing week she saw her audiences growing larger, louder and more demanding. This was going beyond anyone’s expectations, auditoriums and theaters choked with raucous fans and celebrity hounds, sidewalks, streets and entrances congested with rancorous crowds of supporters and protesters clashing with each other every chance they could get. Helaine was spooked by it all, and security, though Lydia could see that she was hesitant to discuss it, was becoming a number one issue for her and her entourage. Yesterday she had called earlier than usual sounding dead on her feet and Lydia wondered aloud how
she was going to make it through Christmas in that condition. She had even heard herself offering to cancel their rendezvous so she might rest up for the next leg of the journey. Happily she received strenuous objections to that proposal.

  “Carlos has the logistics all figured out and he promises to have me completely restored by your arrival. He’s my lifesaver.”

  Carlos this, Carlos that. And now Carlos was her lifesaver. What flavor, she wanted to retort. “Okay.”

  She was frequently finding herself jealous of the incredible Mr. Montague. Not only because he had the privilege of being with her wife everyday, but because he was so proficient at providing for her needs. “Tell him I’m delighted,” she said, biting her lip and flipping him the bird across the Atlantic. “It gives me such a sense of security to have him there.”

  “Darling? You’re jealous of Carlos?”

  “No, no. It’s good you have him.”

  “You needn’t be, you know?”

  “I’m not really. I’m being sincere. I’m truly grateful to him. Really I–”

  “Sweetheart?”

  “Oh, I…what was the question, Mom?”

  “The color chips?”

  “Right. I want us to pick out the colors before I leave for Spain. Did I already say that?”

  Marilyn shook her head and smiled empathetically. Her daughter always acted dazed when Helaine wasn’t with her, lost somewhere in a foggy love spell that no one else could possibly lift. Until recently, she had forgotten what it was like to feel that way, but it was something they both had in common now, leaving the planet at the wave of someone’s wand. Or at the mere idea of it.

  “Getting there,” Roy announced, returning to them with a broad smile on his swarthy face, a kitchen towel tucked into his belt. “They fit perfectly,” he said, casting a shy glance Marilyn’s way. “Thank you, Lydia.”

  “Oh, good,” she said, gift perfect fits. So now, thanks to Delilah and her keen eye, Mom would be dating a man who wears leather pants. “You’re welcome.” (Wait till Daddy finds out.)

  “Eddie called,” Marilyn said hastily, sensing her daughter’s ambivalence.

  “Oh?” The prodigal son’s annual phone call home. “From where this time?” Lydia asked.