Once Upon a Time

by Luna Doerr

  A large, curtainless window looks out onto the night and I am disoriented for a moment, not knowing whether the window opens onto the front or the back of the house. Alaric walks over to a smaller desk in the corner.

  “This is yours,” he says.

  My desk is not empty. A silver laptop lies closed on the gleaming surface, along with pencils, yellow legal pads and a well-worn red dictionary.

  “So I sit here while you write?” I ask.

  “Yes. That way, I can shout over any questions or research requests.”

  He leads me to an open door on the far side of the room. “This is my secondary office, you might say.”

  I follow him inside. In the center of the room stands a large, plain bed clad only in a dark grey sheet. Despite wood walls that match the office, this room looks stark, spare. The bed is institutional-looking, almost, with its headboard of metal spindles and thin pillows. I am shocked to see wide leather cuffs hanging from two of the center spindles. Alaric’s gaze follows mine and he chuckles.

  “I don’t think we’ll be using those this time around.”

  The purpose of the room dawns on me and I suck in a breath. What had seemed more abstract—acting out sex scenes for a writer—is suddenly very, very real. And it occurs to me that I haven’t really asked—

  “How real does this—” I gesture at the bed, the chairs positioned around it as if for an audience. “—get?”

  “As real as I need it to get.”

  13

  Alaric

  We eat the pizza on the back porch of the house. Sim picked up a bottle of red wine, too. With the sun down, the air is chilly. A breeze whistles through the treetops and somewhere off in the dark, waves splash lazily—hypnotically—against the rocks. I stare into the distance, quiet and brooding while Sim gamely tries to spur conversation.

  “You ever hear from Annabeth, dude?”

  “No.” I don’t want to discuss Annabeth in front of Caterine. Or any of the past muses, for that matter. They are done. It’s only Caterine who matters now.

  “Me either.”

  I do not, for one instant, believe that. But I let it go. Really, I am so over Annabeth. Couldn’t care less if she bails on every single book signing from here on out. More money in my bank account if I don’t have to make her last payment.

  “We working tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Ten-ish. Does that work for everyone?”

  Sim nods, then we both look at Caterine. She hasn’t said ten words since Sim came back with the pizza.

  “Yes. Ten is fine,” she answers.

  In a mere thirteen hours, they will begin work on the book. I am elated. And apprehensive. I still worry that Sim will end up scaring away Caterine. What if he proves to be just too … Sim?

  “I’m going to turn in, then.” Sim stands and stretches his legs, then dumps his paper plate in the nearly empty pizza box.

  “I guess I should too,” Caterine adds.

  Sim holds out his hand to her and pulls her to her feet. “Come then. I’ll show you to the peasants’ quarters.”

  “She’s staying in the main house.”

  “Oh? Oh. Okay then.” Sim gives me a curious look.

  No assistant has ever stayed in the main house, but I want Caterine—want Erica—nearby. And nowhere near Sim. Not until it’s absolutely necessary, which is thirteen hours from now.

  “Well then. I’ll see you two in the morning. First one up makes coffee.”

  Caterine watches Sim’s muscled form disappear along the path to the carriage house. The silence between us stretches out like boardwalk taffy, sickly sweet and wholly unsatisfying. I hate this awkwardness even as I need it for her to inhabit the character of Erica. Erica is uncomfortable around men, and Caterine has clearly been uncomfortable about me and Sim tonight.

  She turns back toward the house, and me. I remain seated, drain my wine.

  “What should I wear in the morning? Anything in particular?” she asks.

  “There are costumes. I have to move them from the carriage house. I’ll bring tomorrow’s up in a bit, okay?”

  “Normally your assistants stay in the carriage house?” She leans over to pick up the pizza box.

  “Yes.”

  “Why not me?” She picks up the empty wine bottle, too.

  I’m quiet for a minute. Why not her?

  I don’t trust my best friend to leave you alone.

  I’ll feel better with you down the hall from me.

  I might want to sneak into your room tonight.

  “Erica is different. That’s all.”

  She makes no reply to that. She heads toward the back door, her arms filled with the detritus of our meal. At the door, she turns back.

  “How did you know my size? For the costumes?”

  “I didn’t. I know Erica’s size.”

  I continue to sit on the porch, staring out into the night, ignoring the insects nibbling at my ankles and knees. I want to follow Caterine into the house, knock on her door, reassure her that everything is going to be fine.

  I’m not sure it will be, though. That’s the problem. Maybe I should have hired someone with more experience, someone I was certain could handle Sim. Maybe I should have delivered my father’s apology and let her go. I’m going to have to do that at some point. There’s no way out of it that I can see.

  My books, my assistants—they are temporary parts of my life. All-consuming for awhile, then I move onto the next one. My sister, on the other hand, is a constant. I can’t screw her over on this.

  So many problems I don’t know how to solve. My books are usually not this complicated. My life is usually not this complicated. I push myself up out of the chair. One thing I am certain of—I have to go retrieve the costumes from the carriage house, now that I’ve decided not to bunk Caterine there.

  The lights are still on at the carriage house and I find Sim in the main living area, watching television and drinking a beer. It isn’t the first time I’ve wished I were Sim. Sim’s life is uncomplicated. He writes the books he wants to, when he wants to, a luxury enabled by me who provides room and board and loans him money, when necessary. Hell, Sim doesn’t even have to leave the estate to pick up women. I deliver those, too.

  Yeah, Sim has the sweet life.

  I bypass Sim on the sofa without saying a word and go straight to the fridge. I get a beer for myself, then wait for Sim to come to me. Sim makes me wait, as I figured he would, but five minutes later he strolls into the kitchen.

  “She’s gorgeous. I see why you picked her,” Sim says, setting his empty bottle on the counter and getting a fresh one from the refrigerator.

  “I knew the minute I saw her.”

  “She seems young, though.”

  “Twenty-four. Two years younger than Annabeth. But she’s not very experienced, which is what I wanted for Erica. You’ll have to keep that in mind.” I give Sim a meaningful stare.

  “You didn’t give her any experience?” Sim laughs.

  I glare at him. “No. Not really.”

  Sim laughs even louder. “Not really, huh. What does ‘not really’ encompass?”

  Normally, Sim and I share details of our interactions with the assistants—with all women, as a matter of fact—but I keep my mouth shut tonight.

  “Okay then.” Sim takes a long drink, his eyes dark. “You’re a little tense tonight. And by a little tense, I mean you have a lumberjack’s log shoved up your ass.” He sets the beer bottle down sharply on the counter. The noise is loud in the kitchen.

  “There’s been a complication.”

  “And it’s not the complication in your shorts?”

  “Fuck off, Sim. It could jeopardize the whole book.”

  Sim holds up his hands in surrender. “So tell me. I don’t want to jeopardize anything but I’m not an idiot. Clearly, things are different with this one.”

  I sigh and get another beer. The temptation to drink myself into a stupor is great but that would take a hell of a lot of
beer or something a hell of a lot stronger. Sim has more serious alcohol in the place but we pretend he doesn’t, and I don’t have the energy to deal with that right now.

  “My father is on his last legs.”

  “Kristin mentioned as much.”

  Nor do I have the energy to get into why Sim was even talking to Kristin.

  “And par for the course, he is trying to fuck us over one last time before he leaves.” I explain the newspaper clippings and my father’s “request.”

  “The girl he tried to drown was Caterine’s mother, who passed away a few months back. Obviously, I didn’t know that when I met her.” I shove my hand through my hair. “Damn it, Sim. What am I going to do? I can’t cheat Kristin out of her inheritance. She’s put up with his shit all these years when I wasn’t willing to. She deserves the estate.”

  Sim leans his forearms on the counter and studies me for a long minute. “Well, you can abandon this book. Write her a severance check, make the apology and be done with it. No one’s going to miss an Alaric White historical novel. I know you want to write it, but everyone would be just as happy with a sequel starring Annabeth. Though I would be sad to see this new one leave so soon.”

  I stare down the neck of my beer, as if looking for divine guidance, a Chinese fortune spelled out on the bottom of the bottle.

  “Or you could try and finish this book as fast as you can. Your dad’s estate won’t be settled that quick. You have a little time. Write faster than you normally do. It’s not fine literature.”

  This is why I keep Sim around, or one of the reasons anyway. Sim can be a fount of wisdom when he wants to be.

  “I can get some Viagra and we’ll blow through ten scenes a day.” Sim grins from ear to ear.

  Or he can be a complete jackass.

  I don’t dignify the Viagra comment with a response. “Yeah. So don’t get too attached to her. Either way, she may not be here that long.”

  Yeah, don’t get attached to her at all.

  14

  Caterine

  Alaric and Sim’s conversation falls silent when I walk into the garden the next morning. Their eyes go wide as saucers and a little thrill zips up my spine. Here are two men evidently struck dumb by the sight of me.

  That’s a new one for me.

  And if they don’t close those mouths and tuck their tongues back into their heads, they’ll be eating bugs for breakfast.

  “Good morning, guys.”

  Sim is shirtless in the cool morning air, exposing a chest that’s broad and muscular, deeply tanned and completely hairless. He makes Alaric look like a middle schooler in comparison. My eyes drop to his waist, where I find no happy trail of hair. Sim Toro manscapes and a flash of heat hits my body as I ponder what the rest of his grooming looks like.

  “It’s a good morning, all right,” Sim replies.

  Alaric rolls his eyes but a smile dances around his lips. I’m glad to see he isn’t as keyed up as he was yesterday.

  “I see you found the outfit,” he says.

  “Hard to miss, on the bed like that. Thank you.”

  That he had evidently snuck into my room while I slept should bother me more than it does. But when you’re wearing what amounts to a see-through sack, it’s hard to get worked up over strange men standing next to your bed in the middle of the night. I glance down at myself, at the thin cotton of whatever the hell I’m wearing, at my bare legs and feet.

  “It’s a sleeping sheath,” Alaric answers my unspoken question.

  “Is that really what they wore back then?” Sim asks. “Kinda’ … chaste.”

  Chaste? It isn’t a babydoll nightie, but given that you can see right through the fabric it’s as revealing as anything sold by Victoria’s Secret. Or Frederick’s of Hollywood. And Sim is certainly looking right through it at the moment. He hasn’t taken his eyes off me since I walked into the garden, which was okay since I’m staring closely at him too.

  His dark hair shines almost blue in the pale mid-morning sunlight. He’s wearing tan pants, vaguely historical-looking but far tighter than I imagine was historically accurate. Every sinew of his thighs is outlined on the fabric. He looks powerful, virile, effortlessly confident.

  No wonder Alaric’s assistants don’t object to sex with Sim Toro. I’m having trouble remembering what my own objections were.

  I don’t know the guy.

  I’m being paid to sleep with him.

  He’s slept with half the women in the western hemisphere.

  Who the hell cares?

  “Well, Erica is kinda’ chaste. You look lovely.” Alaric looks me up and down, too, then strokes his thumb over my cheek.

  I applied a little blusher and mascara so I wouldn’t look like death warmed over, but in the cool morning air my cheeks are probably pink enough on their own.

  “Nice,” he adds, his eyes dropping to my lips.

  I get the distinct impression he wants to kiss me. I want him to kiss me, too. He’s only kissed me once, in the hotel, and I’ve lain in bed every night since replaying it in my mind. It had been a little wild, that kiss.

  “So I’m dreaming, that’s the scene,” Sim says.

  “He’s a little eager to get started,” Alaric says softly to her.

  “That’s okay,” I answer. “I’m here to work.”

  Alaric steps away from me and takes a seat on a marble garden bench. He picks up his laptop. The sudden loss of his body heat causes my nipples to tighten and bud beneath the sheath. I resist the urge to cross my arms over my chest.

  “So yes, Charles is dreaming. It’s his first night home and he’s sleeping in his room. Erica is asleep in another room. In his dream, Erica is wandering through the garden in her nightshirt.”

  I walk over to an enormous hydrangea bush, and pretend to look at the masses of blue flowers. A moment later, I feel Sim lift up the ends of my loose hair, then hear him inhale deeply. His fingers plunge deep into my locks, his fingertips caressing my scalp. I hold my breath in anticipation of what he might do next.

  Slowly he lets his fingers comb through my long silky hair. I gasp as his fingers graze my neck on their way lower. My eyes drop, watching his hands hover over my breasts. My lungs heave as I try to pull oxygen into them. With each breath, my breasts inch closer to his large hands. In another instant, my breasts disappear beneath his hands, my nipples pebbling hard against his palms. My sex clenches between my legs.

  What would Erica do in this scene? I try to keep my head clear enough to think, but his hands gently kneading my breasts are making that very, very difficult. What would Charles want a woman to do in his dream?

  I turn slowly to face Sim, acquiescing to his touch, letting him know I want more.

  Oh, I want much more.

  Sim caresses my cheek, then runs his thumb along my lower lip. My nostrils flare as I try to keep my breathing even, controlled.

  “Relax,” Sim whispers. He lets me nibble at his thumb. “Just go with it. Respond the way you’d feel.”

  “The way you’d dream it,” I whisper back.

  “Yes. Try to think how a man who’s been at war for a long time would want to see a woman.”

  “Less chit chat over there,” Alaric calls out.

  “We’ll give him a show,” Sim puts in the last word.

  I let my head fall back, arching my back and laying my body open to Sim, open to Charles’ starving imagination. Sim dips down to press his lips to my neck, his hands firmly gripping my arms. Every time he sucks gently at my skin, pulling my flesh into his mouth, I feel a matching tug between my legs.

  He is rather skilled at this.

  His commanding mouth goes lower and his tongue traces a lazy circle around the sensitive dip at the base of my throat. My self consciousness is gone, evaporated into the pale coastal fog.

  “Touch me,” I moan. “Please.”

  His fingers find my nipples beneath the thin cloth. He pinches them lightly at first, then more sharply. I suck in my breath. Every nerve
in my body is focused on just those two small spots as he rolls my nipples between his thumb and finger. My head is still thrown back, my eyes closed to block out all sensation except for his touch, but still I sense his body moving in front of me.

  When an intense heat surrounds my left breast, my head snaps forward. Sim’s warm mouth is covering my breast, his hands on my back, pulling me roughly into him. When I feel the hard flick of his tongue against my nipple, a shudder convulses my body.

  Sim’s groan vibrates against my soft flesh. Any gentleness is gone now as he suckles my breast through the sleep sheath, stopping only to scrape his teeth against my painfully hard nipple. I cry out, which only inflames him more.

  My entire body is on fire, a heat that blazes up from deep within. I try to focus through the storm of sensation raging through my hips, my chest, my brain. I’m acting here, I remind myself. What would happen next in Charles’ dream?

  Blindly I reach for Sim’s hips, run my thumb beneath the rough waistband of his trousers. He swells beneath the fabric.

  “Girl.” His voice is low and guttural, a strained wire vibrating with tension.

  I begin to undo the buttons on the front flap of the pants, waiting for someone to stop me—Sim or Alaric. But no one does. I slip my hand inside and wrap it around his hard length. I feel Sim’s thighs tremble with the effort not to thrust against me.

  Behind us, Alaric growls.

  15

  Alaric

  Sim looks over at me, eyebrows lifted in question. I shake my head.

  “Proceed,” I mouth.

  I just wasn’t able to take it any longer. I’ve been biting my lip throughout the entire scene, trying to stay focused on finding the right words to describe what I’m seeing. But when Caterine touched Sim’s cock, it catapulted me back to the hotel room in Virginia and the soft feel of her hand on my own raging hard on.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath. But when I open them, Sim and Caterine are just standing there, frozen. Caterine’s hand is still in Sim’s pants but it’s no longer moving. Shit. She’d been doing so well—better than I had expected the first time out—and now I’ve broken her stride, snapped her out of the moment. I didn’t intend to do that.