Flavor of the Month (94 page)

“Achilles’ heel, Crystal.”

“Whatever!”

Her two camp followers, Crystal’s constant companions—her “people,” for chrissakes—hovered before and behind her, as they made tracks to the exit. Sy watched as Crystal stopped occasionally, air-kissed somebody while her “people” stood waiting, then, finally, made it to the door.

Sy let out a sigh of relief as the door shut behind Crystal. There were two kinds of lunches: the hard and the soft. Sy found the soft ones more difficult. This lunch, a soft, had no purpose—no immediate purpose, that is—except to keep Crystal warm, tell her how beautiful and talented she still was, and what great properties he was looking over for her. All lies, as it happened. A sort of aborted jerkoff: a lot of stroking but no climax. Ass-kissing, it would be called in any other line of business. The part Sy hated most about the way he made money. These stroking parties left him feeling more like the puppet than the puppeteer.

Crystal was sinking, and both she and Sy knew it. Since
Jack and Jill
, there had not been a decent lead offered her. Of course, there were never many leading parts for women approaching thirty-five, but she’d been big box office up till
Jack and Jill
. That film had changed the public’s perception of her. Now she couldn’t play young anymore.

Sy sipped the last of his coffee, and didn’t have to beckon to a waiter for a refill. It appeared before him, before even
he
knew he wanted a second cup. But, then, this
is
the Polo Lounge, and I
am
known here, he thought. If I can’t get it here, where would I get it?

He was startled for a moment by the presence of a small, impeccably dressed man, standing at his table. It took him a minute. “Ara Sagarian,” Sy finally said, and just looked at him. Ara was obviously on his way to his own table. “Mind if I join you?” Ara asked. The waiter hovered, waiting for Sy’s decision.

“Well, I’m on my way out. Just had lunch with Crystal. My last espresso,” he added.

Ara sat down opposite Sy, not accepting the brush-off, and the waiter hurried to set his place. Sy grimaced, not giving a shit whether Ara noticed or not. Sy could see that Ara obviously had something on his mind, but at Ara’s age, and with a stroke, it would probably take a little time for him to get it out. Sy wasn’t in a very patient mood.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard,” Ara said, coming surprisingly quickly to the point, “but I wanted you to hear it from me.” Sy watched Ara meticulously wipe the corner of his mouth. “I’ve signed Michael McLain. I didn’t solicit him, I want you to know. He came to me.”

So that was it. The old Armenian
maricón
wanted to lord it over him. Sy leaned over toward Ara. “
You
know who I got in my stable. And, the way I see it, three queens beat a pair. Michael McLain for Lila Kyle isn’t exactly the trade of the century. I wouldn’t brag about it if I were you.”

“I’m not telling you to brag. I’m simply extending you the courtesy of hearing it from me.”

“I think you confuse me with someone who gives a shit,” Sy snapped. He stared into Ara’s rheumy eyes.

“Let me tell you something, son,” Ara began. “In this town, in this Industry, it’s best to be nice to everyone. On your way up especially, because you might need them to be nice to
you
on the way down.”

Sy watched Ara as he ministered to the drool on his mouth, then picked up a fork to begin to eat his salad. Sy’s lunch was now grinding away at his intestines. How dare this old
maricón
give him advice! All the bile from his lunch with Crystal, from all the ass-kissing he’d had to do, rose into his throat. “You fucking old has-been. Who the fuck are you?”

Sy saw Ara blink. Then the old man struggled visibly for control. “Let me tell you a story, Sy.”

Sy held up one hand to hold off Ara for a moment, beckoning for a waiter at the same time with his other. The waiter was at the table in a second. “Do something for me,” Sy said to the waiter. “Listen to this pathetic old guy’s story, will you? I have something more important to do.”

Sy stood up, walked passed the maître d’s desk, stopped to sign his tab, then went through the open door out to the parking valet.

With all his aggravation that afternoon, it was just as well that he didn’t see Neil Morelli lurking near the entrance to the car park, his hand in his jacket pocket, holding an ominous bulge.

Marty DiGennaro, famous director, conqueror of the film world, recipient of four Oscars, winner of a contest of wills with Bob LeVine, television’s new prince, the most powerful creative man in Hollywood, lay tied to the four corners of his bed, spread out as flat as a roadmap and naked as a newt. He strained at the silken tasseled cords that wrapped around the mahogany bedposts and doubled back over his wrists. The knots were neat half-hitches, he noticed and, absurdly, he wondered if Lila had been in the Girl Scouts. Back in Queens, he’d made it all the way to Eagle Scout. Classic nerd. He still knew how to tie clove hitches, square knots, and sheepshanks. In the dark, he pulled against the taut restraints and grinned. As an Eagle Scout back in New York, even in his wildest masturbatory fantasies, he’d never imagined this.

The first time Lila had tied him up, roping him to the bed, he’d been shocked, but not because he was a prude. It was just that she was so, so, well,
reluctant
to have sex at all that he assumed her to be, if not the virgin she claimed, then at least inexperienced. Or perhaps damaged in some way.

So, when she raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and slowly began to pull the silk rope out of an Hermès bag, he had been nonplussed. And, to be honest, turned off by the idea. He had, of course, done a little role-playing—his ex-wife had liked spankings from time to time—and he’d had more than any man’s fair share of kinky starlets who demanded everything from golden showers to letting their dogs participate.

But being tied up himself, being vulnerable, immobilized, pinned to the bed, didn’t seem desirable. Still, for Lila to suggest anything, to allow anything, was such a surprise that he had agreed. Without a smile or a giggle, with utmost concentration, she had wrapped his wrists and ankles in businesslike knots. Then she’d lowered the lights and left him alone, tied down.

The strangest thing to Marty was that
that
was when his erection began. There, powerless and naked in the dark, he felt the anticipatory tingling, the excitement that he hadn’t felt since the old days at the Flushing Loew’s movie house. He smiled at the unlikely association. So much in life—well at least in
his
life—had been more exciting in the anticipation than the acquisition. The movies he ran in his head were almost invariably better than the ones he made. He sighed. He supposed that was what made him so successful as a director.

But, once tied to the bed, he was the director of nothing. Lila had re-emerged, her long hair loose and bright as a flame, even in the dimness. She wore a kind of corset or something—Marty didn’t know exactly what to call it—a bronze-colored bustier without cups. Her breasts, so full, so perfect, rode over the top of the thing, her waist even more compressed by the lacing. And she wore a matching lace G-string, a sort of high-cut triangle in the front, but when she turned around, all there was in the back was a silken cord that slid up between her perfect ass cheeks to hook on the bottom of the corset. Marty tried to take a breath, but it was hard; his chest hurt him so. Aside from a few blow jobs, he hadn’t had sex with her, and he’d never seen her naked. Her incredible long legs, her perfect ass, her tits, so swollen, so round, so perfect, all moved him. His penis strained toward her, but it was the only appendage he could move.

“Pretty?” Lila asked.

“Beautiful,” he gasped.

“Want to touch?”

“Yes.” His hands pulled against the rope. “Untie me,” he said.

“Oh, no. Where’s the fun in that?” she asked, her voice husky. She sashayed over to him and bent from the waist until her right breast, her perfect right breast, just barely brushed his outstretched left hand. He tried to close his fingers around her softness, but with a smile she pulled away. “Oh, no,” she said again. Her voice was a throaty whisper. “First you have to kiss it.”

He smiled back at her. “My pleasure,” he whispered. “Untie me. Please.”

“Oh, no,” she demurred. Instead, she moved to the foot of the bed. Then, in a single graceful movement, she stood on the bed, over him, a foot planted on either side of his waist. He could feel her slim ankles against his hips. Looking up, he saw her breasts over him, her cool, perfect face, her hair hanging down like a velvety curtain. She straddled him, careful not to touch his swollen penis, and sat on his chest.

“Kiss it,” she told him, and slowly, ever so slowly, she lowered her breast toward him. Hungrily he strained his head up toward her, but the ropes held him firmly, and she stopped just short of his mouth.

“Say ‘please,’” she told him.

“Please,” he begged.

“Please what?” she asked.

“Please…please, may I kiss your breast?” His voice was a croak. His testicles felt as tight and as hard as summer plums in their skin. He groaned.

Lila smiled. She bent lower, her tiny coppery nipple suspended a half-inch above his pursed and open mouth. “Here,” she said, and let the nipple just brush against his lips. It was hot as a flame against his dry tongue. He groaned again, her weight heavy on his chest. “More,” he pleaded.

Then Lila slid off the bed and stood beside it. She lit a candle and in the flickering glow she stood, displaying her perfection. She was, he thought, the most exquisite woman ever created. Her flawless skin gleamed. Her hair, so thick, so glossy, so long, was like the tail of the most perfect thoroughbred. Her teeth, her eyes, her lips reflected back the light. Tears filled his eyes.

“Want to touch me?” she asked.

Marty could only nod.

Lila cupped both her long, slim hands under her full breasts. He could see the shapely nails of her perfect manicure sink into the milky flesh near her nipple. “Want to touch me here?” she asked, a little breathless. He nodded again. She smiled, and slowly, ever so slowly, squeezed her breasts harder, lifting them up like offerings. Then, with thumb and forefingers, she pinched each nipple, first the left, then the right. She closed her eyes. “Oooh,” she moaned. “It feels so good. Do you want to do this?”

Marty couldn’t even nod.

Lila ran her hands along her waist, down her thighs, up over her belly, touching, stroking, pinching her own flesh, while Marty lay there, powerless to do anything but watch, his penis engorged and throbbing, throbbing in a way he had never felt before. She turned her back toward him, and he felt a pang at losing sight of her wonderful tits, but Lila again began to run her own hands over her back and then down to her rounded, perfect ass, her fingers kneading her own flesh until he almost cried out that she must be bruising herself.

She turned to him. “Do you want me to touch you?” she asked.

“Oh, yes. Please,” he said. She smiled, and slowly moved her lovely long hands toward him. Lightly as a butterfly, barely touching, she ran her fingers over his bony chest, then down to his flat belly. His penis twitched up at her. He could see a bead of clear liquid at its head. “Yes,” he moaned, but her hands moved up, away, up to his chest, to his own nipples, then over his face, his eyes, across his mouth. He kissed her fingers then, and they stopped for a moment in their movement to explore his burning lips, his mouth, his tongue. Slowly, Lila inserted a finger into his mouth, and hungrily, eagerly, he sucked at it. Then another finger, and another, until his mouth was stuffed full of her hand. Gratefully, he held her in his mouth with his lips, his tongue, even his teeth. He held a part of her, but too soon, too soon, she withdrew and moved her hand again across his hairless chest, over to a nipple, which she idly tweaked with a fingernail, then drew her nails down, down, but once again past his loins, past his aching joint, not touching his straining testicles, down his thighs, raking his calves, not stopping until she was at the foot of the bed, holding his feet. Gently but firmly, she cupped his feet in her hands and then carefully, deliberately, she began to rub her breasts against them.

The heat shot through him like an electrical charge. His feet were connected, directly connected, to his penis. He’d never known that before. Through his bare soles he felt Lila’s hard nipples moving back and forth. He strained again, uselessly, against the ropes that held him. He had never known such heights of sexual frenzy, of utter frustration. Hopelessly, he arched his feet against the heat and softness of her breast. And then he began to cry.

The sobs, small at first, began to rack him. He pulled against the cords and shook as the crying—deep, deep sobbing—welled up from somewhere in the very center of him. Tears ran down from the sides of his eyes, wetting the sheet. He turned his head to one side, his silent sobs continuing.

And then Lila was on him, her face beside his, her hair cascading over his eyes, his nose, his mouth. “Ooh, baby. Oooh, no. No, baby,” she crooned. She wiped his face with her silken hair. “No, baby. No,” she said, gently as a loving mother, and kissed his lips, his eyelids, his still-wet cheeks. “Here, here, baby,” she said, and lifted her heavy breast into Marty’s mouth. “Here. Here,” she told him. He suckled, too crazed, too frenzied to be embarrassed. And then she crouched over him, her back to him, and bent over his cock, her soft, hot, perfect mouth kissing him there, her hands stroking him, her fingers loving his balls, his ass, his cock. Through his tears he could see her move her G-string to the side, watched her as she mounted him, feeling the head of his penis push against her, into her. At last. At last. He was surprised but he was beyond questioning, beyond judgment, beyond words, and she was in control; she pressed her perfect flesh down onto him, impaling herself slowly, so slowly, on his throbbing dick. Moving up and down, using her knees, in an atavistic crouch, she slid up and down on his cock, whimpering.

Marty made no sound. But it felt as if his whole being, the whole universe, was centered in his loins, an inferno of pressure that pushed and throbbed into Lila’s silky flesh. It was agony, and yet it was the best, absolutely the best that Marty had ever had. He came at last, and he sobbed as he did, gasping with each endless spasm, filling her to overflowing, emptying and cleansing himself.