Chapter 6
lex was in a black T-shirt and jeans with his white coat, waiting for Marilyn Hodges,
their hostess of the night before, when she arrived at nine the next morning. His office
wasn’t open yet, but he had seen her text on his phone when he and Mickie had finally
gone to his bedroom at four A.M. and he had set his alarm for eight. He took his practice
and his patients seriously.
Marilyn was a slightly overweight, moderately attractive blonde woman. She was
turning sixty and spent a fortune on her appearance and her clothes. She was the wife of
one of the most successful men in Hollywood, the head of an important streaming
platform. Their marriage had been shaky for years, and she was well aware of the
scores of other, younger women in her husband’s life. He was extremely generous with
her as a result. He had no desire for an astronomically expensive divorce, and let her
spend whatever she wanted to keep her happy. She arrived as though meeting her drug
dealer, almost shaking with anticipation. Alex had met her two years before at the
opening of an ultra-luxurious spa in Miami, and she had given him the idea of moving
his practice to L.A. His nonsurgical elite practice in Palm Beach had been a discreet
secret for several years, and had grown exponentially by word of mouth. He had
perfected his new techniques there. It began with a select few clients and had expanded.
His most devoted patients had enlisted their husbands as the first investors in the center
he had just opened in Bel Air. Marilyn looked around the new center for the first time.
Her husband, Roger, had paid for a good part of it. Alex was treating her for free to
thank her for all the patients she had sent him, literally almost all her friends in L.A. He
had recently tried some of his newest procedures on her with excellent results. She said
he had magic hands. She was willing to try anything he suggested. She had total faith in
him and loved the result of the fillers he used and gave her with shots.
He led her into one of the beautiful treatment rooms after she had looked around. She
was proud of the contribution her husband had made to help him set it up. Alex always
did fillers on her lips and face. She never asked him what he used, she didn’t care, she
loved the end result. He was like a sculptor making each patient more beautiful than
she’d been before. She’d already had two facelifts by other doctors before she met him,
but Alex didn’t use a single procedure that required a scalpel. He did it all with
chemicals and injections and his “secret formulas.” The results were remarkable. She
lay expectantly on the table while he worked on her, and sat up and looked at him
adoringly when he had finished. He had heard his assistants arrive while he was
working. He had opened the locked closet in the treatment room and prepared the
injections himself. He preferred it that way. He didn’t like even his assistants observing
the combinations he used.
“Thank you, Alex,” she said, as though relieved of a great burden. The agony of age.
And then she asked him a question. “How old was that girl you had with you last night?”
He smiled when he answered. The treatment he had just performed on Marilyn had gone
well. He had found just the right sequence of procedures for her recently, and was
pleased with the result. He knew she would be happy with it this time too.
“She’s thirty-three, almost thirty-four,” he said simply about Michaela.
“She looks like a teenager. What do you use on her? She’s a beautiful girl.” Marilyn
was in awe of her figure and face and her youthful appearance.
“Yes, she is,” he agreed, looking vague for a moment, thinking of their hours in the
pool the night before, and he forced the images from his mind. “She came to me when
she was very young. We’ve been perfecting her treatments for five years,” he said
quietly. “It’s mostly mesotherapy with a little magic thrown in.” Marilyn was an expert
and knew that mesotherapy meant injections that combined pharmaceuticals with
hormones and enzymes that had been controversial for years and could be dangerous in
the wrong hands. But she trusted Alex totally. Alex was a master at it.
“Do you think we should give that a try?” Marilyn had been more willing to be daring
ever since she was facing sixty. She knew that her husband had been cheating on her for
years, and had a new young mistress in Newport Beach people said he was mad for.
She was twenty-two.
“I think we’re doing fine with the serum we’re using,” Alex said seriously. “We can
try mesotherapy if you like, but everyone responds to it differently. Michaela has had a
particularly good reaction to it, but I really love the effect of what we’re doing on you
right now.” He looked pleased. Many of his clients came to him for simple Botox shots,
and Voluma for their lips, but he had experimented with many other procedures over the
years, depending on the patient’s needs. He tailored each formula precisely to them, and
believed that surgery was never the right answer. Every treatment he gave was
chemical.
“I’d like to try laser lipo or body contouring one of these days,” Marilyn said, always
desperate for a better result in the ongoing fight against weight and age.
“I’m liking cryolipolysis or cool sculpting these days. Michaela, whom you met last
night, has done quite a lot of it,” he said confidently. “You saw the result.” He had no
problem attributing Michaela’s naturally perfect beauty of body and face to treatments
she’d never had.
“Let’s do that then.” Marilyn had total faith in Alex, as all of his patients did. His
Harvard diplomas were proudly displayed on his office wall and inspired confidence.
Most of his patients tried anything he suggested. The less adventuresome ones stuck
with the tried-and-true procedures they had used for years before they met him. But
some, like Marilyn, were desperate enough to try anything, as long as Dr. Alex gave it
his blessing or had suggested it.
She picked up her large pink alligator Birkin and gave him a hug as they left the
treatment room. He had spent an hour with her, and his office was in full swing when
she left. She was delighted with the look of his new offices that her husband had paid
for a good part of. Roger did it willingly in order to keep Marilyn happy and off his
back. He didn’t ask questions, he just wrote the checks.
“How many patients do I have today?” Alex asked his assistant, Wendy. She was
Korean, in her mid-thirties, and had a delicately beautiful face and exquisite skin. She’d
had extensive work done on her face in Korea and he helped her maintain it as a perk of
her job. He loved having beauty all around him.
“You have nine patients today,” Wendy said, consulting a list. He liked to see ten or
twelve. It gave him time to give special attention to those who needed it. Some were
confident and experienced enough to come and go in a few minutes. Others needed to be
hand-carried psychologically through the procedures. Each of his patients was special
to him and got the support they needed. He had spent a year in another house in Beverly
Hills adding to his client list, while he got his new center ready, after he moved from
Florida. He had the solid, steady, regular local clientele to support it now. Some women
flew in, from Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma. He had opened Bellissima with infinitely
careful planning and forethought. He was well aware too that many of his patients came
to him to fix ills and sorrows in their lives that even his treatments and procedures
couldn’t touch. The psychologically unstable frequently sought the services of plastic
surgeons to change things they couldn’t cure, unfaithful or lost husbands, disappointing
lives, ungrateful children, financial reversals and lost fortunes, and the final cruelties
past a certain age or the tragedy of terminal illness. He spent time with his patients
before they began their treatments to make sure he didn’t miss a loose cannon among
them, or someone seriously disturbed. He was extremely vigilant about that, as most
plastic surgeons were. And in some cases he asked for a psychiatric evaluation before
he would treat them.
Wendy lowered her voice to say something to him the other two women in the office
couldn’t hear. “I believe you still have a guest upstairs.” He smiled.
“I believe you’re right. How long until my next patient?” She glanced at her watch.
“Forty minutes. Elizabeth Marcus. She usually comes late.” All she did was lips and
Botox. He nodded and left the room where they were working on billing. He was
making a fortune and had been for the last two years. Before that, he had made a very
handsome living in Palm Beach, but it was out in the stratosphere in L.A., mostly by
word of mouth thanks to other satisfied patients. And after his ad campaign, it would be
at an even higher level. He headed for the white marble staircase to his apartment, and
used the code to let himself in. His patients didn’t know that he also lived there, nor did
his investors. He had designed the upper floor himself with the developer. It had
everything he needed and provided him a huge, very elegant apartment.
Michaela was standing naked in his snow-white living room when he walked in. She
looked like a goddess. She turned and looked at him with a smile. She had a bold
cheekiness to her that he loved. She wasn’t vulgar or arrogant. She was daring and
afraid of nothing. She was unusually confident for a girl her age. “Want to go for a
swim?” she suggested. He laughed, remembering the erotic delights of the night before.
“I’d love to. But I’m working. I have a patient in forty minutes. No time for a swim
now. Later.” He hadn’t thought when he saw the beautiful pool that he would ever have
as much pleasure in it as he had with her. Michaela was an unexpected gift in his life,
and like no one else he had ever met. They were a perfect match. He could sense it.
“What would you like to do then?” she asked with a slow smile as she walked
toward him, tantalizingly. Unable to wait a moment longer, he lunged toward her, and
she ran away from him on light feet, and he chased her through the apartment, while she
laughed at him, eluded him, leaping over furniture, and then let him catch her.
Sometimes she was a child and he loved it. It made him feel like a boy again. But there
was nothing innocent about her. She was knowing and cunning, with a wealth of
experience. He’d had many women in his life, had never married, and had lived with a
few, but had never known a woman like her and so much like him. She fulfilled all his
fantasies as though she read his mind.
She found new ways to fill the next half hour of his time. She said she was going back
to her apartment while he went to work, and she had a go-see that afternoon. She wanted
to keep her hand in her modeling career even though she was his ambassador now. Her
first night out with him had been a huge success. And he wanted her to meet some of his
more important patients, to inspire confidence in him from the way she looked. It was a
strong subliminal message. He was beginning to think he wouldn’t like her going back
and forth to her apartment. He liked having her near at hand for the occasional free time
he had between patients, she seemed to know so well how to fill it. It was a whole new
way of working for him, and he liked it immensely. She was a very creative girl, and a
free spirit. And he was beginning to suspect that he could neither control nor possess
her. It was a first for him and an aphrodisiac like no other.
Billie was just leaving the pathology lab at Cedars at noon to go down to the cafeteria
for lunch when her cellphone rang. It was Jason, she was surprised to see.
“Hi, is this a bad time?” he asked her.
“No, I’m just going to lunch. How are you?” She’d had fun with him the night before
at their Mexican dinner and after.
“I’m great and I happen to be outside. Can I drag you off campus to a deli I know
nearby?” She was startled and didn’t know what to say for a second.
“Are you here?” she asked him. “I mean in the neighborhood somewhere?”
“I am. There was a Mafia killing today I had to cover. Very old-style, in a barbershop
near the hospital. A rival Mafia family killed three of the top guys. It’s all drug-related
nowadays.” He sounded blasé about it. He had seen the same scenario too many times.
“If you go out the main entrance and look to the right, you’ll see me. I’m wearing a red
shirt.” She was almost there and did as he told her. She smiled when she saw him. She
was still wearing a lab coat, and someone had left a stethoscope in the pocket, which
she didn’t need for work.
Jason walked toward her, smiling too, and she looked up into his brown eyes, happy
to see him. “The deli is only a block away, do you want to walk?” He was glad he had
called her on the off chance she’d be free. He was happy she was.
“Sure. It must be upsetting going to crime scenes like that,” she said, walking along
beside him, enjoying the sun and his company for lunch. It was an unexpected treat.
“I’ve gotten used to it, which I don’t like either. You get inured and hardened to the
horrors of the human condition, and the things people do to each other. I’m definitely
ready for a switch to a better department. But I don’t know music, or anything about
gardening or cooking. I could do art or theater reviews, I guess. But I still want
politics,” he explained. “I’ve had all the gang murders I can stomach. How was your
work today?”
“Interesting. I’m learning a lot.” She loved the feeling that she was acquiring
knowledge she could use later.
They had gotten to the deli by then, and it smelled delicious when they walked in. The
smell of wholesome food reminded Billie instantly of her mother.
“My mom used to make great soups, especially in winter.” Billie ordered a cup of
turkey noodle soup, to honor the memory. And a turkey sandwich to go with it, with
cranberry sauce on freshly made whole wheat bread. “My mother was a really good
cook. I’m sorry I never learned how, the year that I took care of my sister and my father.
We ate a lot of hamburgers and frozen pizza. My sister can’t cook either. But she never
eats so she doesn’t care. The last time I looked there was half a lemon and three Coke
Zeros in our fridge. I buy takeout on the way home.”
“I actually like to cook,” Jason said. “My mom’s not much of a cook either. I learned
in self-defense. I’ll cook dinner for you some night when we both have time. I make
great spaghetti and meatballs, and steak.” He had ordered a pastrami sandwich, which
was one of the deli’s specialties, and a big slab of cheesecake for dessert. He looked
very athletic and had a hearty appetite, and he ate all of it while they were talking. He
was curious about her sister, the model, and the relationship they shared. Billie seemed
like a whole different kind of woman, honest, smart, and straightforward. There was no
artifice about her, and he liked her small, delicate, feminine appearance.
“She’s off and running with her new guy, the one I told you about,” she said about
Mickie. “He’s a big-deal plastic surgeon, who isn’t a surgeon, in Beverly Hills.” She
laughed. “He only does noninvasive treatments. She’s very excited about it, and about
him. I don’t know anything about plastic surgery. It always seems kind of narcissistic to
me.”
“As long as she’s not involved with a drug dealer, that’s good. There are a lot of bad
guys in L.A. who prey on pretty, innocent young women, actresses and models. I see the
end result sometimes.” He was serious as he said it, and Billie nodded. The plastic
surgeon sounded showy to her, but at least he was a serious professional man.
“My sister is pretty and young, but I wouldn’t call her innocent. She was a grown-up
when she was twelve, or acted like one. I used to worry about her, especially after my
mom died, but she can take care of herself. And she goes nuts about a guy for a while,
but then she gets bored, and drops him and moves on. And the plastic surgeon is too old
for her. He’s forty-two. He won’t last long either. She’s nineteen and very adult for her
age. She’s still young, but pretty jaded.” It surprised Jason, because there was a natural
quality and an innocence about Billie that he found very attractive, and made him want
to protect her. The two women sounded very different.
“It’s weird how different siblings can be,” Billie said as she ate her sandwich. She
loved the food at the deli where Jason had taken her. He liked to eat well. “My sister
used to joke and say she’d been switched at the hospital at birth and didn’t belong in our
family. But she and our father have a lot in common.” She didn’t add that they were both
only interested in themselves. She hadn’t spoken to her father in months. She didn’t call
him anymore. He never sounded pleased to hear from her, and didn’t care about what
she said, or what she was doing. She’d sent him a text when she got to L.A., just so he’d
know where she was, and said she was staying with Mickie. There had been no
response. He had felt no responsibility for her whatsoever as soon as she turned
eighteen and left for college. He considered his job done, even though she had no other
parent, with her mother gone. She knew that Mickie called him once in a while, and he
was happy to hear from her. They were kindred spirits, and neither of them expected
much from the other, which made it easy for him. He had his dairy and his bottle of
bourbon at night, and that was all he needed. An occasional call from Mickie was icing
on the cake, but he didn’t need anyone in his life, not even her. And Mickie was much
the same. She had never mourned their mother as Billie had, and never talked about her.
Billie still missed her five years later.
“My sister and I are somewhat different, but not that much,” Jason said. “She loves
country life, I prefer the city. But we both write, she her novels, and I for the paper. Our
parents instilled a love of writing and books in us all our lives.”
“My mom used to read voraciously. I don’t think my father and sister have read a
book in their lives. She says she’s too busy living life to want to read about it. I guess
that’s one way to look at it. All my mom wanted was for me to get a good education.
She would have been thrilled that I went to MIT. I couldn’t believe it when I got in, with
a full scholarship. My school counselor really went to bat for me.” Listening to her,
Jason felt faintly guilty, as he always did, for the easy childhood and youth he had had,
going to the best private schools and great colleges, with enthusiastic and unfailing
support from his parents. He was always deeply grateful to them now that he realized
how terrific they had been, and he enjoyed spending time with them when he went back
to New York. He tried to get back a few times a year. It was harder to get to Vermont to
see his sister, in the small town where she lived. They spent holidays together in
Connecticut with their parents since neither of them was married or had kids.
“Do you like sports?” Jason asked Billie, wanting to get to know her better.
“You mean playing them, or as a spectator?” she asked him with a mischievous look.
“Both. I play a lot of squash and tennis, and was crazy about basketball and baseball
as a kid, and football too. I wanted to be a professional basketball or baseball player
when I was in school. I play on a baseball team at the paper, and I love going to games.
Do you like baseball?” He looked hopeful when he asked. He was a rabid Dodgers fan.
And he went to Lakers games whenever he could.
“I like it a lot,” she said. “I like football too. I went to the Harvard games a few
times. It was really fun.” She was enjoying him too. He just seemed like a happy, wellbalanced person. He hadn’t had a tormented childhood and didn’t hate his parents,
which seemed rare. The result was a happy guy who didn’t have a chip on his shoulder
or a grudge against the world. It made him fun to be around. She hadn’t had an easy
childhood, but she wasn’t angry about it, and she had had unconditional love from her
mother until she was seventeen, which had given her a good start, even if she had been
alone ever since. The early years had counted for a lot.
“I’ve got season tickets to the Dodgers. If you like, you can come with me sometime.”
He usually took one of the reporters he worked with, who were happy to get a free seat
at the game.
The hour she had for lunch went by quickly, and he walked her back to the hospital.
He had gotten several texts during lunch, and had to go to a trial that afternoon. There
was a hostage situation in progress in East L.A. The paper had sent him a text about it,
to make him aware, but they had sent others to cover the story who were in the area at
the time and could get there faster. There was always a story breaking somewhere.
There was no lack of crime in L.A.
“Thanks for the nice lunch,” she said to him when they got to the hospital. “It was an
unexpected treat.”
“I’m all over the city. I’ll text you when I’m in the neighborhood next time and we can
do it again.” He smiled at her. “And I’ll see you at the apartment. Maybe we can go for
a swim one night after work. I’ll call you for the next Dodgers game,” he promised.
There was a lot to look forward to. She waved as she disappeared into the building, and
he walked to where he had left his car, looking pleased. Their lunch together had been
even better than he’d hoped. And he couldn’t wait to take her to a Dodgers game.
Alex had three patients for simple Botox shots that day, two of them with Voluma for
their lips, which was his preferred brand. The treatments were easy to administer and
the patients were young and starting early. All three of them were under thirty and
wanting to stop the signs of age before they started.
He had a patient for Thermage that afternoon, which used radiofrequency energy and
had longer-lasting results than some of the other treatments. He was using it on a patient
for the third time, and she loved it, although it was more painful than most of his
protocols. He did a collagen thread lift after that, which required steady hands to inject
the tiny threads loaded with collagen under the skin along the jawline. As the collagen
was released over time, it appeared to lift the patient’s face almost like a facelift, and
you could see the results within days.
He finished the afternoon with a laser liposuction patient to dissolve fat around the
patient’s face and neck. It was one of the more expensive treatments he administered
and like all of them required skill and experience. It was less invasive than normal
liposuction, which required the removal of fat with a tube and could be dangerous and
cause life-threatening infections. With laser lipo the body naturally eliminated the fat, so
there was less risk of complications or infection. All of his patients that afternoon were
back for repeat treatments, and had been ecstatic with their results the first time. Alex
loved working on the women he knew well, who were well versed in what to expect.
The fearful, anxious first-timers were sweet but it took a lot longer to deal with them, to
allay their fears. He was wonderful with his patients. They all loved him and trusted
him completely.
The proofs of the photographs for his ad campaign came in that afternoon. He was
using them for a brochure too, listing and explaining all the different services he
offered, like a menu for patients to choose from, to make it simpler for them by
explaining the procedures.
The photos of Mickie were fabulous. He picked one for his first ad immediately, and
for the front of the brochure, and he loved the before and after. He was going to put them
in the brochure. He ordered all of it, and showed the proofs to Mickie when she came to
his apartment that night. She sat staring at the before and after for a long time.
“Shit, I hope I don’t look like that at forty. Can you do anything to prevent that,
starting now?”
“Not at nineteen, my love. We can talk about it in ten or fifteen years, depending on
how your face holds up.” It didn’t bother her for a minute that the photographs they were
using were dishonest, that the photograph of her as she looked now was not an “after,”
but very much a “before.” And the fact that the before photo was a total lie no longer
even occurred to her as she studied how her hair looked. She didn’t confront Alex about
it. He was fine with it too. As far as he was concerned, the ads were a form of art, and
whatever he and Mickie did was part of the artistic process. It would make his patients
happy in the end and reassure them that they would get fabulous results too, just like
Mickie. The pure dishonesty of it didn’t bother either of them. The end justified the
means in their minds. They were reassuring patients of the quality of service, and
promising great results that Alex was sure he could deliver.
He told her they were going to a film premiere on Friday night, and asked her to buy
another fabulous dress, and gave her his credit card to do so. He felt comfortable doing
that now. Several times that week, she came to the office and met his patients. She was
warm and fun and lively, and helped the new patients relax before they went in for their
treatments. Seeing Mickie and believing she was thirty-three made them ready to leap
onto the treatment table if they would wind up with results like hers. She played the part
of ambassador well, and Alex was proud of her and happy he had hired her. So was
Mickie. She loved being around him, and when he had a break between patients, he
would open one of the supply closets with his code, and they would have sex between
the shelves, being mindful not to break any bottles or do any damage.
Mickie had never had as much fun in her life as she was having with Alex. She was
on top of the world with him. The movie premiere on Friday exceeded her wildest
expectations. They walked the red carpet, and were photographed continuously, Alex in
one of his designer tuxedos and Mickie in a black sequined dress that molded her body
like shimmering lava. They were in the Style section of the paper the next day. They
were becoming the it couple, and had broken the sound barrier into the Hollywood set
that Alex wanted access to.
He had placed ads in People, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, and
Entertainment Weekly, online and on all the newsstands. Mickie’s face was everywhere
and she looked incredible. She was as ecstatic as Alex about the press they were
getting. And her modeling agency liked it too.
Jason asked Billie about it on Saturday, as they lay on deck chairs at the pool at their
building. Mickie hadn’t been home all week. She was staying at Alex’s apartment, and
texted Billie that she was fine.
Jason showed Billie a photo of her at the movie premiere, and asked about it. The
caption said “Renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Alex Addison with model Michaela Banks,
the iconic face of his new nonsurgical esthetic center Bellissima,” and the photograph
showed them on the red carpet with Mickie in the black sequined skintight gown. She
looked like a black mermaid in it.
“Is that your sister, Mickie?” Jason asked her. Billie glanced at the photograph and
nodded.
“Yeah, that’s her.” She read the caption and could see why her sister hadn’t been to
the apartment all week. She was obviously having fun with her super doctor.
“She’s a knockout,” Jason said clinically, but Mickie wasn’t the kind of woman who
appealed to him at all. Physical perfection, but she looked like she had no soul. All
beauty and no heart. He thought her expression was ice cold, unlike Billie, who was
warm, bubbly, and fun, and pretty too, in a natural way. She wasn’t a stunner like
Mickie, but she was real. He knew Michaela’s type and had dated a few of them, but not
for long. He much preferred Billie sitting next to him, with her hair piled up in a banana
clip, in her faded blue bathing suit from high school, and her almost adolescent body.
She looked like a little elf to him sometimes, and she had the innocence of youth and
honesty in her eyes. Her sister was all woman, and there wasn’t a shred of innocence
about her. She looked like she knew exactly what she was doing at all times. There was
no naivete there. She was a pro. Her flawless beauty held no lure for him.
“She must be having fun. That’s the doctor. She works for him now, as an
ambassador,” Billie said without a hint of jealousy. She was happy for her sister.
“That’s the life she’s always wanted, ever since she was a kid. I’m glad if she’s getting
what she wants.” It wasn’t the life she wanted, but she wished her sister well. Billie
had a generous spirit.
“I probably have a missing chromosome or something, but I don’t find women like
that sexy at all. There’s no softness there, no heart. Is she like that in person? So perfect
and sophisticated, I mean?”
“Totally,” Billie said without criticism. “Mickie knows exactly what she wants, and
she goes for it, and always gets it. She’s been like that since she was five. She had my
father totally under her spell from the minute she could talk, and everyone else. She was
a rotten little kid and I got blamed for everything she did, as I told you, but she’s a lot
nicer now.” Jason doubted it, but didn’t say so. The look on Michaela’s face wasn’t
nice, in his opinion. There was no sweetness there at all.
“Is she in love with the doctor?” He was curious.
“I don’t know. I doubt it. She never is. And she only met him recently. But he’s a way
to get where she wants to go. He’s awfully old for her to fall in love with. I don’t think
Mickie’s ever been in love, except maybe with herself.” It was an astute observation,
and accurate. She was a classic narcissist. And Jason was much happier with the other
sister. He doubted that he would like Mickie if he ever met her. Billie hadn’t suggested
it since the night of their first date and didn’t intend to again. She instinctively sensed
that they wouldn’t like each other. And Mickie would never make the effort to meet a
friend of her sister’s. Billie was curious about the doctor and would have liked to meet
him, but she knew Mickie would never let that happen.
They both swam for a while, and went to their respective apartments to dress for the
Dodgers game Jason was taking her to that night. She was looking forward to it, and
they had a ball when they got there. He had very good seats, behind home plate, with an
unobstructed view. Jason bought hot dogs, popcorn, sodas, fries, and eventually ice
cream, and it was a good game against the San Francisco Giants. The Dodgers had been
on a winning streak and Jason was ecstatic when they won. Billie had loved it, and they
wound up back at the pool at the apartment for a late-night swim. She was lying on the
deck chair, drying off afterward, looking up at a starry sky, when he sat down on the
edge of her chair, leaned down and gently kissed her, and she responded and pulled him
closer. He lay on the chair next to her, overwhelmed with desire for her. It had been a
perfect day for both of them. They hadn’t known each other for long, but he already had
the feeling that he knew her well, and he liked everything about her, and he found her
petite, graceful body incredibly sexy. He was constantly aware that he wanted to protect
her, but he didn’t know from what. There were no evils lurking, but she brought out the
best in him. His life was pleasant before, but he had been happier ever since he met her.
They kissed for a long time, cautiously exploring each other’s bodies, and he
whispered to her. “Do you want to come to my place?” he asked her. She didn’t want to
suggest hers, it was so starkly furnished, and everything in it was battered and ugly.
Mickie had wasted neither time nor money decorating it, and his place would inevitably
be better.
They walked up the stairs to his apartment, not rushing, savoring the moment, hand in
hand. He opened the door with his key, and she immediately saw the warm atmosphere
he had created, with vintage furniture, a big brown leather couch, comfortable
overstuffed chairs, and cozy fabrics. It had the feel of a western country home, with a
touch of Santa Fe. It looked like a Ralph Lauren ad, which suited him, casual but made
up of elements of quality, and his bedroom was masculine but inviting, in beige and
navy, with a big cozy plaid blanket on the bed. He carefully laid her on it as they peeled
off their wet bathing suits and dropped them on the floor, and he gently made love to her
with mounting passion. He reached a crescendo more rapidly than he intended, but he
wanted her so badly and found her so irresistibly feminine and appealing that he
couldn’t hold back for long, although he was an artful lover. She’d never made love
feeling that way before, compared to her loveless, fumbling, beer-driven college
experiences that had never stirred any emotion in her other than embarrassment
afterward. Making love with Jason was entirely different, and although they had only
met recently, she already knew she was falling in love with him, and so was he with her.
She was the woman he had been waiting for and didn’t know it. And he felt jubilant as
he lay in bed with her, and looked at her afterward with a broad smile.
“You are the most wonderful woman I have ever met,” he said, and kissed her, and
held her tight for a minute and then looked down at her again. She had a dreamy-eyed
expression, still in the after haze of their lovemaking.
“It’s never been like that for me with anyone,” she said, still surprised. But he was a
dozen years older than the inexperienced boys she had slept with, and a practiced lover,
and it made a difference. The feelings he already had for her made it different for him
than it was with the women he had met at bars or parties or at work, where sex was a
weekend activity, like a sport, with no emotion, only physical skill or prowess. He
almost expected to get a score from them when it was over, or ask who won. He never
felt that he did. They were never the right women for him, but this little elf of a woman
from a dairy farm in Iowa was the one he had been looking for.
They talked late into the night, now that they had found each other, made love again,
and she slept in his apartment. She woke up the next morning with the sun streaming into
the room, as he began making love to her to wake her up. He had been watching her
sleep for an hour and couldn’t wait a moment longer to make love to her again. It was an
exquisite way to wake up, and afterward they dozed for a little longer and took a
shower together, and then he made a big country breakfast of fried eggs, sausages, and
bacon. She made toast and burned it and he didn’t care. Sitting in his apartment with
him, over breakfast, talking and laughing and telling him stories about taking care of the
cows, she felt as though she had come home at last. His apartment was twice the size of
hers, and she felt totally at ease. He made her feel comfortable, and safe, which was an
unfamiliar feeling for her. She had been fighting her own battles for years, defending
and protecting herself from her father, her sister, the mean girls at school, and in Jason’s
world there were no dangers, no predators.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” she said when they finished breakfast.
“Your sister?” He wasn’t looking forward to it, but didn’t say so.
“No, you’ll meet her at some point when she comes to pick something up at the
apartment. I want you to meet my friend Tom Carter when he comes back from his
mission in the Middle East. He’s like a brother to me, and you two would love each
other.”
“You two never had a romance?” Jason asked, curious about Tom. She had mentioned
him several times when talking about her childhood.
“Never. He was my family. He and my mom.” Her father had been a disinterested
bystander. And her sister had been the enemy for most of it, even if the war was over
now.
“I look forward to meeting him,” he said warmly. “And I want you to meet my family.
They will love you,” he said with assurance. They had been good about never bugging
him about why he didn’t have a serious woman in his life. At thirty-three, they didn’t
think there was any rush. His sister was thirty-five now, and they hadn’t bothered her
either. They figured it would happen at the right time when the right person came along.
His sister had finally met her man two years before, and was happy living with him,
with no plans for marriage, which was fine with his parents too. Jason had an idea
about when he wanted Billie to meet them but it was too soon to say anything. He was
just enjoying the wonders they had discovered the night before, and looking forward to
more of them as they got to know each other better.
That night, they went back to their own apartments, and lasted about an hour. Jason
called her and she answered, wide awake, lying in the dark in her bed, thinking about
him.
“I can’t sleep without you,” he said in a husky voice, and she smiled.
“Me too. I was thinking about you, and last night.”
“Will you come back now?” he asked her, sounding boyish and sexy, and she laughed.
“See you in two minutes.” She hopped out of bed, slipped her feet into slippers,
locked her door and ran up the stairs to his apartment on the floor above. He was
holding the door open for her in his boxers, and she was wearing an old cotton
nightgown. He smiled as soon as he saw her.
“Welcome home,” he said as he kissed her, swept her into his arms as though she
were weightless, carried her to his bed, and laid her there. The boxers and the old
cotton nightgown lay on the floor seconds later.
