Random Acts of Fantasy (21 page)

He chuckled without actual laughter. “But she just ignored what I said. So…”

I got it.

Message received.

Nobody was ready for it yet.

Least of all Darla.

Darla

We got ourselves together, showered, and put on what we were told was “mandatory formal attire” for all dinners. That meant something close to a ball gown for me and tuxedos for the guys.

The resort had called ahead and asked for everyone’s measurements, and just like our luggage magically appeared in our respective suites, full black-tie outfits appeared for Joe and Trevor, and I was given a choice of five extraordinarily amazing ball gowns to choose from.

Guess it was time to shave my legs, huh?

I gave the guys a fashion show, and by gown number three Joe declared, “Can’t you just get Amy in here to choose?”

“She left—remember?”

He winced.

“Poor baby,” I said, caressing his cheek. “Having to watch me in gowns.”

“It’s not that!” But he skedaddled as fast as he could, like a Jets fan who accidentally stumbles, drunk, into a Pats bar after a loss.

I chose on my own, a sleek, sea-green gown that matched my eyes. Five pairs of shoes were delivered in my size, too, and I picked these little silver, shimmery strappy-heeled things that looked more like earrings than footwear, but what the hell do I know? I buy almost everything on color-dot sale day at the Salvation Army.

This was more Tim Gunn than grunge rock, you know?

The phone rang. A woman cleared her throat. A smooth, cultured voice made me shrivel into nothing. “Ms. Jennings? This is Simone, from the spa. Your reservation is in ten minutes.”

“My
what
?”

“Your appointment for your work.”

“My
work
?”

Simone cleared her throat again, her tone of voice nasally to my midwestern ears. “According to the reservation, you’re to have a cut and style, waxing, a mani-pedi, and a facial. See you in ten minutes, and we look forward to working with you.”
Click
.

That was perfunctory.

“Hey, Trev? Joe? You guys schedule me for a bunch of spa stuff?”

Two distinct “no” responses.

Hmmmm. Must be part of the resort deal.

Waxing? What do they wax? Legs and pits, right? Maybe my upper lip and eyebrows. I know some women wax the nibbly bits and the brown starfish, but they wouldn’t do that…here. Right?

My mind flashed back to the naked women I’d seen this week, and there had been plenty of ’em. Hmm.

Waxed clean.

Smooth as a…

Blowfish.

“Who was that?” Trevor came out of the bathroom, clean shaven and smelling of shaving cream and aftershave. Uncle Mike always had that scent exactly once a week, on Sunday, right before he’d go to church. Sometimes. Now that I think about it, he never came back talking about the sermon, but sometimes Mama would ask how Miriam was.

Hmm. The only Miriam in Peters was the woman who ran the florist shop. Two plus two hit me and I realized Uncle Mike had a girlfriend.

Hot damn.

Trevor was watching me as I muttered under my breath, and I looked up to find him wiping his neck and face with a hot, wet cloth. “What are those gears doing in there?” he said, tapping his own head.

“Figuring shit out.”

He kissed me on the cheek. “Go get beautified. Not that you need it.”

I snorted. “You want a hairless taco?”

“Anything but a blowfish.”

Joe

I watched from around the corner at the easy way the two of them talked to each other, a hot, throbbing, jealous zing shooting through me as Darla left.

Talk to her
, my mind told me.

Don’t even try
, said my heart.

I’d tap that, blowfish and all
, my dick added.
And I wonder what she’d be like with a full Brazilian
.

Shut up, cock. You’re not helping.

Trevor and I killed an hour riffing and goofing off with our guitar and bass, just keeping the fingers limber. Finally, he set his instrument down and went to the bedroom area.

“You worried?” Trev asked, starting to dress in the tuxedos the resort provided. He needed help with his cuff links, and I figured what the hell? We were practically each other’s bitches anyhow, and with Darla gone…

As I fiddled with his wrist I said, “About Suzy? No. What could she do?”

His eyebrows shot up. “You really want to be found handcuffed to a bed again with a tunnel butt plug up your ass and a ball gag in your mouth?”

“You promised you wouldn’t talk about—”

“By your mom?”

“Shut
up
!”

“Suzy is fucking scary, man. Darla took out part of her hair. She’s going to rip out Darla’s heart and make it dance at the next VMAs on live TV.”

“But Suzy can’t…the master has a purpose for her.”

“The what?” Trevor froze and yanked his wrist away from me.

“The master.”

“The
master
?”

“The guy who runs this island.”

“And he has a purpose for…Suzy being here?”

I nodded.

“You been dropping acid?”

“It sounds crazy. I know. I was talking to this guy. He told me there’s some guy called the ‘master’ of the island, and all the people here are by invitation only.”

“Even the workers?”

I raised one eyebrow. “We’re here by invitation.”

“And so is Suzy?”

I nodded. None of this made sense. Not one detail. But talking it out with Trevor was helping, even if we couldn’t solve anything.

The phone next to the bed rang. Trevor poked his chin towards it, a silent request for me to answer. I saw him affixing that tiny little patch to his wrist as he finished putting on his shirt, then he went for his socks and pants.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Mr. Ross? Your dinner assignment is in the Nin ballroom.”

“Nin? As in Nine Inch Nails?”

The man cleared his throat and sounded like he was smiling. “As in Anaïs Nin.”

“Oh. Thank you.” I felt like a preschooler in the presence of doctoral students.

We finished dressing and stared at each other. Trevor and I cleaned up nicely, and it felt like prom night all over again. A tap at the door and Liam and Sam appeared, all spiffed up as well.

“We look like a Vegas act,” Liam quipped.

“If Vegas had naked croquet. You see those bruised shins? No thanks,” Sam said dryly.

“We ready?” Liam asked.

“Where’s Darla?” Sam asked, looking mopey. His chick was gone. Too bad. I had to live without mine for three and a half months. Boo fucking hoo for a couple of days.

“Getting,” Trev said, jazz hands around his face, “a bunch of spa treatments and hair and makeup stuff.”

“Amy would have loved that,” Sam said.

“She’s having Christmas with her family, Sam, not joining a convent.” Liam’s comment stung and Sam shut up.

“Ready?”

We were.

Naked crotch shots on the hallway walls aside, the walk through the labyrinth of hallways was uneventful, until we reached the grand ballroom and navigated to the doorway marked
Nin
. A tall marble staircase, the kind with two sides that curled inward, was across from the ballroom’s entrance, and crystal chandeliers that weighed more than the building hung in the foyer, making everything glittery and diamond-like.

But that wasn’t the shiniest object in the room.

I saw her bare shoulder first, then the sweep of hair across her back, the blond locks coiffed into perfect, silken waves that were half up, half down, the glamour making my breath catch in my throat, my exhale a ragged stretch of amazement.

Her dress was the color of her eyes, a sea green only found in nature, with a shimmery effect that made her curves stand out, her body lush and welcoming. Beckoning. The cloth looked molded onto her, from neckline to ankles, as if the finest designer in Italy had hand-stitched it just for her.

Darla rarely wore makeup, and normally I wouldn’t have liked it, but the look was one of a 1950s glamour girl, like a movie stunner who graced posters. Her face was porcelain smooth, lips lush and red like cherries. Ripe, round, sweet ones. Cheeks pink with excitement, her eyes stood out, clever and promising.

Long lashes fringed those sea-foam irises, eyeshadow bringing out the planes of her face, giving her an ethereal, solid beauty. An old Norse goddess come to life, in Hollywood form. I half expected her to reach out for a cigarette and slide it into one of those long holders from the old black-and-white movies, and for twelve men to rush over with gold-plated lighters, flints at the ready to spark up and light her fire. In more ways than one.

Darla looked like an earlier generation’s version of Marilyn Monroe in a pin-up poster, minus the nudity. There was a sensual grace to her as she walked to us with small steps in high heels I wanted to feel digging into my back, legs wrapped around my waist as I made love to her with Trevor eliciting cries of pleasure from her, the three of us—

Stunning. Elegant and ideal, she pierced my heart and made it grow.

She caught my eye, then Trevor’s, and looked us up and down twice, her eyes taking us in and clearly liking what she saw. We were a dapper pair, and this time, wearing a tux made me feel like the man I am, and not the man I wanted to be.

Like this, I saw a part of Darla that I wanted to cleave to, a future we could share with her graceful beauty and grounded reality blending with my own sense of self and path for the life I could live if I were with her. The synergy between who she was, who she could be, and who we wanted to be together was complete and waiting.

Those ruby-red lips parted slowly, showing me the tip of her pink tongue. A wave of possession ripped through me, my hands itching to wrap around her waist, to bury themselves in her coiffed hair, to kiss her until her knees went weak and she clung to me.

But, instead, I listened as she leaned forward, the scent of something timeless and heady overwhelming me, making me want her even more.

“They waxed my hole,” she whispered when I got close enough.

She really knew how to make an entrance.

Chapter Eleven

Darla

I…it takes a lot to make me speechless.
A lot
. As in, it mostly takes ripping out my vocal cords or watching naked high school boys pushing against the back of a cow they were trying to get on a Ford F-150 to take to school as a homecoming dance date back in Peters.

Like that.

The sight of Liam, Trevor, Sam, and Joe walking to dinner made me feel like I was in a fairytale. An offbeat, unconventional fairytale, but a delightful one. My eyes were only for Trevor and Joe as they surveyed me, and I knew that all the treatment at Simone’s spa (a.k.a. Torture Monkey) had been worth it. Simone had been an interesting woman, with the kind of bleached-blonde hair and dark tan plenty of women back home adopted, but with a kind of not-quite-male, not-quite-female sophistication that left me in awe.  

Unaccustomed to spa services, I’d deferred to her. The eyebrow threading, the lip waxing, and getting naked on all fours for purposes that did not involve sticking a penis inside me, but instead involved hot wax and a scream that peeled paint…

Was worth it.

Their eyes roamed over my face, my hair, my body, and my heart as if they were painters memorizing me in fine details, forever holding this image inside. Love and lust blossomed in their eyes. Trevor’s broad shoulders and fine hands made the cut of his tuxedo serve him well, the tan he’d acquired from a handful of hours these past few days outside a lovely contrast to the crisp whiteness of his shirt. I wanted to slowly unwind the bow tie, unbutton his shirt with a lingering anticipation, and run my French-tipped fingernails down the delightful groove between his pecs, lower and lower until he inhaled sharply and I knew I had him.

Joe looked like a model from
GQ
, the same Greek-god looks that caught me unaware and by storm in Ohio now on triumphant display. His strong jaw and cheekbones with sun-darkened skin stretched across under eyes that glittered like dark gemstones made butterflies take off
en masse
in my chest. The cut of his tuxedo nipped at the waist, leading up to compact shoulders, the tie under a chin stretched by a small, intimate smile. Aimed at me.

When he showed teeth, he looked like a wolf. I wanted to be prey. Hunted. Those animal eyes certainly took me in. A whirlwind of sophistication took all the air in the large foyer and made time stand still. I felt worldly. Polished. Elegant and, as Mama would say, “All done up nice.”