by Q. Zayne
I turned to my host. “It’s Gabriel, isn’t it?”
His cheeks colored. “Yes, parents, you know. Angels and so on. Quite religious. I’m afraid I was something of a disappointment with my flying and music and — personal tastes.” Something haunted in his eyes ducked out of sight with the ease of long practice. “Come, I want you to rest and have something to eat.” He turned and walked briskly, cutting short my glimpse of the unarmored man under all his control.
He led me to a room that was indeed a kitchen, in a universe where a kitchen had every cutting-edge appliance and was the size of oh, three or four MUNI busses side by side. A lovely, pink-cheeked, plump woman presided over it, stirring a big pot at a stove longer than a ping pong table. Tendrils of white hair curled around her face in the steam. Cheerful-looking young women in pastel dresses bustled around, chopping, mixing, kneading, and arranging platters of sumptuous goodies. The dresses had the fitted bodices, nipped waists and full knew length skirts of a 50’s musical.It was like a fantasy of a kitchen, utterly unlike the tense restaurant kitchens I’d labored in before concluding that I could make far more money taking off my clothes.
“Renee, this is Minx. She’s my guest and I’d be grateful to you if you’d fix her a plate.”
She gave me a quick glance up and down as though wondering who I was to Gabe — confirmation that this wasn’t something he usually did with the girls he brought here. Perhaps she wondered as much as I did if he had a personal interest. I didn’t want to hope that, but I couldn’t help it. The whole thing was so much like a fairy tale. He might as well have found me in a cabbage patch or asleep in the forest and brought me to his castle to wed. Such a perfect, pretty story if such things could ever really happen. I got the impression from Renee’s appraisal that Gabe’s lack of a wedding ring really did mean he was single, and maybe her mind was running along a similar track as mine. She smiled at me. “Have a seat in the garden and we’ll bring something out. Here’s an appetizer to start.” She handed me a shrimp cocktail in a fluted glass on a plate with a little doily and lemon wedge. “Any dietary limits?”
I shook my head. “No, thanks.” I hoped she wouldn’t think I was slow. The whole situation was so overwhelming I found it difficult to speak. I suspected by Gabe’s manner that he held her closer than as a member of the staff. I wanted her to like me.
“Please excuse me, Minx. I have a few things to attend to and then I’ll return to you. Let Renee know when you’re finished eating and enjoying the garden. She’ll have someone take you to your room and provide you with anything you need.”
My room. Anything I need. It was a fantasy. A dream. Well, I might as well enjoy it. I nodded to everyone with a shy smile. A pretty redhead in baby blue buoyed by white crinolines rushed to open the French doors for me. I looked back into the kitchen, the huge, clean room flooded with light. Old paintings of fruit and laden tables offered a pleasing contrast between fantastic computerized appliances in brushed pale bronze. Huge wooden tables covered in platters of food linked an ancient fireplace flanked by wood burning ovens with stoves that would have looked at home on a space station. Mom and Dad would have loved it. They’d both been so skilled at cooking and baking.
I turned away from the idyllic scene reluctantly, not wanting the women to see me staring like a puppy at a pet shop hoping for adoption.
I sat down at one of the white wrought iron tables in the garden courtyard. A fountain with a peeing cherub made music at the center of it. More exotic, erotic plants surrounded me, including large carnivorous specimens. I recognized some glorious Nepenthes, the kinds with toilet-seat shaped pit traps for drowning prey. Some species devoured frogs and rodents in addition to insects.
My stomach growled again. I squeezed the lemon, releasing its refreshing tang. Hunger overwhelmed me. I demolished the shrimp cocktail. A brunette in pink materialized with a plate of puff pastries.
“We grow all the vegetables here organically.”
“Wonderful. Thank you.” I tucked into creamed chicken with tender peas, carrots, pearl onion and mushrooms. Elegant comfort food. Perhaps they were thinking of their recently incarcerated guests. I shivered, remembering the former convicts were already on the island. I looked around me, but there were no eyes in the lush tropical foliage or the charming vegetable patch with its homemade scarecrows. Surely nothing horrible could happen in a place where people sewed buttons on the eyes of straw-hatted scarecrows?
There was no resisting the apple pie ala mode presented by a freckle-faced redhead as wholesome as a farm girl in a dairy commercial. I devoured it as thoroughly as the carnivorous plants surrounding me digested their victims. I felt wholly a part of Gabe’s fabulous jungle.
Even when the man wasn’t present he continued seducing me. Was he so clever and manipulative, or was I so easy? I wasn’t stupid, even though people liked to treat me as though I was. I wasn’t sure if they were all so dim they operated as though all stereotypes were true — one possible explanation of racism being rife in supposedly liberal California — or if the rudeness stemmed from resentment and was intended as a form of punishment because looking at me made some people feel insecure.
No one here had treated me like that. Renee’s regard had been frank and appraising, not condescending. And the young women seemed open and friendly to a degree I’d never experienced anywhere. Maybe they were clones. God knows, Gabe could afford an army of them. I stared into the kitchen. They looked so individual, so real. What if they were animatronic dolls, programmed to perform this cheerful, efficient act when they weren’t tickling the butt holes of visiting billionaires.
I was being fanciful. My parents called me that often, before coming to accept my passion for illustration and animation. I couldn’t help having an imagination. But my parents considered it a disability. They were practical sorts, an accountant and a nurse. Not the kinds of people inclined to creativity, and they were right in a way. Artists had been leaving San Francisco in droves for years. Artists ended up standing in lines at food banks and living in refrigerator boxes. Not all of them, but too many of them. ‘If you must create things, at least create games, something you could sell,’ Dad said, his caterpillar eyebrows meeting the wrinkles that met his balding scalp. Perhaps I should have taken their advice.
I headed into the kitchen with the pie plate and the redhead rushed to take it to me.
I dreaded interrupting Renee, who was seasoning huge oven trays of hams, but I followed Gabe’s instructions and approached. I stood with my hands clasped, keenly conscious of my super-short dress, and waited for her to notice me.
“There you are, Minx. How was everything?”
“Delicious. The best pastry I’ve ever had!”
She beamed and tucked her head, spoke into a mic discreetly clipped to her collar. “Ralph, please come to the kitchen.” She looked up at me. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”
I felt like a flamingo looking down at a partridge. Being tall was an advantage as a dancer — men liked ogling my long legs. But in other situations, I felt like a freak. Especially when surrounded by normal-height women.
“Oh, yes. Something else to wear. Please. Um, maybe a dress like these,” I glanced at the kitchen women.
Renee chuckled. “I don’t think Gabe would thank me to dress you like the kitchen girls, as lovely as they all look in their uniforms! I’ll have some things sent up so you can take your pick.” She eyed me thoughtfully, no doubt calculating my size.
I felt too warm and I when the door opened behind me I turned in relief, anticipating my escape. Gabe hadn’t said anything about performing with women, but anything was possible. Renee probably was just sizing me up. Years of calculating pounds of meat, nothing else.
Turning around offered no relief. A massive, tattooed white guy filled the space, making me gasp for breath. Lively blue eyes made his strong-jawed face almost friendly. His arms were as big around as my thighs. Snakes coiled around them, fangs bared. They moved with hi
m. The skillful ink made them look alive with glistening eyes and wet fangs. Was the ink moving, or was I losing it?
My heart pounded. Was it one of the ex cons, come to claim me?
“Minx, this is Ralph, our chief security officer, also known as Gabe’s bodyguard.” She smiled in reassurance, as though sensing my anxiety. She probably did. I imagined everyone in the kitchen heard my heart banging as though it was trying to get out through my cleavage. I pictured a cartoon heart shoving my boobs aside with white gloved hands, climbing out in running shoes to dash away.
Ralph’s chest strained a rolled-sleeve white T-shirt tucked into jeans that fit so well I saw the outline of his trouser snake twitching on his thigh. My skin-tight red dress tended to have that effect. And this man was here to take me away. On Gabe’s orders, I reminded myself. He wasn’t going to do anything bad to me. Not yet.
I thought I saw a question in his gaze, but I didn’t know what to say to him. I was too scared.
He ducked his head, and turned away. What was it like inside such an intimidating body? I followed him. I couldn’t help looking back over my shoulder at Renee in her immaculate kitchen surrounded by her coterie of smiling helpers. I expected them to break into a dance number and belt out a show tune. Or freeze in place as soon as the outsider left the room. Instead, they continued the bustle of cooking and baking, preparing the feast for the men newly freed from some of the most barbaric prisons in the world. I shuddered and hurried to keep up with the bodyguard.
Ralph led me up the curving staircase to a suite with the kind of luxury I’d seen only in movies. The bed had a filmy white canopy; gauze curtains blew in the warm breeze through the balcony doors. The hardwood floor had a fine Persian rug in a traditional medallion pattern in jewel colors. The space and sunlight, and the fine quality of everything in the room won me over. If this was only for one day, if just for now, a mysterious gentleman wanted to wow me by treating me like a princess, so be it.
I turned to Ralph, who stood in silence by the door. I grinned, I couldn’t help it, the whole luxurious fantasy won me over. His eyes looked past me out the picture windows that took in the sea and the long horizon line. A pulse beat in a big vein on his throat. Other than that and blinking, he stood immobile. I felt sorry for judging him on his looks. All my life I’d hated being treated like a bimbo for being busty with long, wavy gold hair. What made it all right to treat a big, tattooed man like a thug? For all I knew, he’d read more Shakespeare than I had!
“If you see Gabe, tell him wow. Just wow. Um, and I’m sorry if I seemed unfriendly. I’m pretty overwhelmed.”
A slow smile transformed Ralph’s face. “No problem. This is a beautiful place, but it can be kind of scary. And lots of girls look at me like I’m trouble. I tell you though, you need anything, just call my name. I can be real scary. But not at you, Minx, for you.” He gave me a meaningful look and I could see him knocking heads together on my behalf.
“I’m sorry. And thanks. That means a lot right now.” I was so moved, tears brimmed in my eyes.
Ralph hurried out and shut the door.
I rushed to it and turned the handle. It wasn’t locked. I felt silly, but I kept fearing everything would change and I’d find out I was a captive after all. All of Mom’s scare stories would come to fruition. She told me horrible things about kidnappings and rapes in some weird attempt to keep me safe, things that convinced me she was mean and crazy, as if her choice of a husband after Dad died hadn’t been enough.
I turned in a slow circle in the center of the round rug. The medallion with its keyhole doors seemed to symbolize a new world. I looked in all directions with greedy eyes. Vintage nudes gorgeous as sculpture adorned the walls, as far from porn as you could get, pure beauty, art.
Gabe seemed to look at me like that, as though he treasured me. Given his tastes in art, his appreciative gaze was a compliment. But I could be wrong. And if I was wrong about anything, I was in the middle of the ocean and no one knew where I was, or cared.
I can be real scary. But not at you, Minx, for you. I held onto Ralph’s words like a meditation mantra. His earnest face inspired trust. But he wouldn’t protect me against his boss, would he? I hoped I was right to trust Gabe. I went out onto the balcony and gripped the rail, leaned out over the ocean. No sign of land in any direction as far as I could see. No ships, no planes.
What had I done?
I chose an elegant white sheathe dress and matching satin lingerie from the array of gorgeous choices. I treated myself to a massaging shower, toweled off with a plush towel and dressed with care, finishing off with a soft peach lipstick for a kiss-me look that was more inviting and less slutty than my dancer’s face. I looked forward to seeing Gabe, Gabriel. The angel man who brought me to paradise.
He joined me on the balcony with a tray of mineral water and lime he bought up himself. We raised our glasses and watched the sunset. The spritz of lime added to the enlivening sensation of the fizzy water in my mouth.
Gabe raised his glass, saluting me. He smiled and lines radiated around his eyes. I bet he captained a boat as well as he flew a jet. The broad expanse of the ocean wasn’t scary with him at my side. I caught a whiff of his light, forest-scent aftershave and masculine aroma over the fresh ocean breeze. Was it only because my life was so adrift that I wanted to go where this man led, or was it something else? Something I thought I’d stopped believing in.
“This has been amazing, Gabe. Thank you for bringing me here.”
“Have you had time to decide?” Those wondrous blue-green eyes looking right into me.
His question snapped me out of schoolgirl musings and back to reality. He brought me here for a reason. His proposition. Now I had to answer. I had to say it out loud. I squirmed in my chair, crossing my ankles and pressing my knees together. I squeezed my leg to focus. My fingers were chilled from my glass and a shiver went up my back.
His eyes had me.
He knew, he most have known at first sight. Probably he had the gift, the thing I had myself, more than intuition, the psychic knowing, the thing about me Mom considered as much a curse as my imagination, and taught me to ignore and be ashamed about.
“Yes, Gabriel. I’ll do the show.” I dared to call him by his full name because I wanted the feel of it in my mouth.
He let out a breath and beamed at me. “You’ve made my day, Minx.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek. Felt in his jacket, pulled out a thick mass of paper.
He unfolded the contract and put it in front of me with a pen so expensive looking I expected it to levitate and write my signature for me. On Gabriel’s island, the future had already arrived.
“Take your time and feel free to ask any questions. Excellent dress choice, by the way. So sophisticated. It suits you.”
I read through the contract, mastering my panic at the long passages of waivers. As he’d said, a lot of it was a detailed non-disclosure agreement. It essentially swore me to silence about The Billionaires Club, its members, its location, its activities and specified that I was not to communicate about it in any form, including with changed names, in works of fiction, art, so on and so forth.
“So no making a Billionaires Club gang bang cartoon?” I looked up to find him watching me intently.
“Absolutely not.” He didn’t smile.
“Got it.” The contract also required my obedience during the performance, my full consent to perform an erotic BDSM show with multiple men.
I signed, the weight of the pen substantial in my hand. One night of sexual submission for months of living in paradise and having all my academic expenses covered. Whatever it took, I’d do it. Is this what it felt like to make a deal with the devil? Again, I suspected there was something not right. But it was Lucifer who fell from heaven, not Gabriel.
I pushed the contract across the table to the sea-eyed angel, demon or earthly benefactor. He folded it and put it away next to his heart. His open shirt exposed a dark tuft of chest hair. I wondered how it would f
eel against my cheek.
His eyes shown as he looked at me in the last blush of light from the sun dipping into the sea.
“You’re perfect,” he whispered. His eyes searched my face, as though looking for someone he hoped to see.
He kissed me. His lips took my mouth so hard I felt bruised but I responded to his passion.
He gripped me in his arms as the breeze turned to a whipping wind.
Without warning, he released me and pushed back his chair. “I have to go. Thank you, Minx. Ralph will come for you soon. Come as you are.”
He rushed from the balcony and out of the room as though racing away from the fires of Hell. He didn’t look back.
I put my fingers to my lips. They felt swollen, hot, too sensitive. So did my heart.
I thought he wanted me. Whatever he intended, whether it was seduction and betrayal just to get me to do the show, or if he’d needed something from me, something from kissing me, that I didn’t give him, I was in for it now. Come as you are. I trembled. The sun turned fiery as it disappeared into the sea.
Ralph escorted me to the basement. I quaked inside, but did my best to look calm. I’d agreed to do this. As scary and insane as it was, whatever Gabe’s actions meant, I’d signed a contract. I was confused about him, but one thing I believed: he was a man of his word. I’d keep my agreement, and he’d keep his. I’d live here and finish my degree. Nothing else mattered. He hadn’t invited me here to fall in love with me and have me be his princess. That was a storybook tale. This was real life. And in real life, I was about to get banged bare by a bunch of sex-starved ex-cons. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. I felt clammy all over. My breasts rose and fell like surfer’s waves with my panicked breathing.