(no subject)
Hum-de-hum-hum, more Vecchio in Vegas. (The piece of jewelry in question can be viewed here.)
BOISE
The guy was a gentleman, give him that. She'd learned not to trust Ms. Wartchow's assurances on that score, because to La Warthog "gentleman" just meant the guy was loaded and paying not only the usual rates but a nice extra commission, and it didn't have anything to do with how likely he was to slap her around or talk shit to her. ("Bitch. You like it, don't you? Yeah, you like it.")
The limo had surprised her, and she'd been even more surprised when the driver had turned away from the Strip and the hotels. A tourist was what she'd assumed, some porky executive on furlough from the wife, but apparently not. She'd gotten more nervous as the limo glided towards the outskirts of town, and she fumbled in her purse for the little pepper-fog jobber she kept in there, the one that looked like a lipstick. Then the car turned down a driveway, paused while a pair of iron gates swung open, pulled forward, and then -- holy shit, screw the Bellagio, that was a mansion there, like the places she'd seen pictures of in magazines, with the pillars, and the fountain out in front, and the whole thing lit up with soft yellow light.
She fluffed her hair nervously, wishing she'd had a chance to redo her makeup, as the car pulled around the circular drive and stopped at the broad front steps. The driver didn't move or say anything, so she got out as gracefully as she could, holding her head up and gripping her purse, and when she got to the enormous front door it swung open, and there was an honest-to-god butler waiting inside, giving her the dead-fish eye. He didn't say a thing either, as she followed him down the hall, trying not to gawk (oh my god, the chandelier! and the paintings, which looked like real museum paintings, not that abstract crap in the hotels!). They went past a--dining room?--some room with a big dark wood table, and there were two guys sitting there talking low-voiced, and they at least were familiar to her. Hard guys, like you see standing around the edges of the casino crowds, the kind you steer clear of. They barely glanced at her, kept on talking, so apparently whatever this party was going to be, they weren't part of it, which was a relief.
At the end of the hall were big double doors, and the butler guy pushed them open, stood aside while she walked through (trying really, really hard not to teeter on the thick carpeting), and pulled them shut. She took it all in--this one room bigger than her whole apartment, with a wet bar in the corner, and a Persian rug on top of the carpeting, and a huge-screen TV, and a king-sized bed with a silky-looking dark-green spread on it.
The client was standing with his back to her, staring out the window, but after a minute he turned around and said, "Hi. Come on in." And she almost had to giggle, because--god, after all that build-up? The guy so did not fit here, which granted you'd have to be like Antonio Banderas to live up to this place, but this guy was more like--Dustin Hoffman, maybe, except with a receding hairline. And wearing a silk dressing gown, which just looked totally wrong on him.
But he came over and took her wrap, which was nice of him, hung it on the back of a gilt chair, and then he said, "Champagne? You want some?" He had a glass already poured for her, so she took it and pretended to sip at it, as she settled onto the loveseat next to him.
"So." He angled his head at her, with a smile. "What's your name?"
"Sydnee." She dropped her chin, fluttered her lashes, took another fake sip.
"What, Sydnee? You're kidding me, right?" The smile changed to a grin, like she'd just said something really funny. "That's a guy's name, and--what is it, can you tell me what it is with this thing that beautiful women think having a guy's name makes them more sexy?" And even though he was giving her shit, it was--in a nice way, like he was teasing a friend, not putting her down.
"But I'm betting that's not your real name, right?" He was kind of slurring his words a little, and she cut her eyes quick over to the champagne bottle. Almost empty, right. "So c'mon, tell me, what's your real--" And then he stopped, just--stopped all over, suddenly, and the grin went away, and after a minute he picked up his glass and took a swallow. "Nah, that's OK." He set the glass down again, rattling it against the marble tabletop. "I get it. You be whoever you like."
She wasn't sure what the hell that was about, but figured it was time to get the show on the road. "So--what do you like?" She put a little purr into her voice. "What can I do for you, baby?"
What he wanted, as it turned out, was just a straight blowjob, right there on the sofa, with his silk dressing gown pushed aside and his head tipped onto the backrest, eyes shut. No problem. He was drunk enough to have a hard time getting it up, but she was good enough to take care of that with no trouble, just drawing it out enough so he'd feel like he got his money's worth.
Afterwards, she went to the bathroom to rinse her mouth and fix her makeup, and came back out to see him still lying there, eyes shut, just the way she'd left him. She thought maybe he'd passed out, but as she stole across the room toward her things, he said, "Hey. Don't go."
She turned, and he'd lifted his head and was watching her blearily. "I was just thinking--you're smart, not drinking that--" He waved his hand at her glass of champagne. "Because you don't know what somebody might've put in there--I mean, I didn't, but you got no way of knowing that, so, smart girl, that's a good thing, but ... what I was going to say was, you can get something out of the fridge if you like, open it up yourself, then you'll know it's OK." When she hesitated, he waved more vigorously. "C'mon, get yourself something, don't be racing off here."
The fridge was stocked full with champagne, white wine, bottled water, fruit juice. She took a water, and walked back. He was standing now, robe knotted tightly at his waist, smiling at her, and she did have to admit he had a nice smile, even though it was a little woozy. "There you go, that's good. You hungry? I could get 'em to bring us some snacks, or maybe a nice steak, if you didn't get dinner yet, or--"
"I'm good," she said.
"Yeah, you are." He was still smiling, looking at her. "Y'know, you never even--I haven't gotten to--" He took a step toward her, reached out, and slipped a finger under a strap, sliding it gently down off her shoulder, trailing his finger over her skin.
She could take a hint, and she set her water down, slid the other strap off, turned and slowly unzipped her dress, sliding it down over her hips with a shimmy, smiling over her shoulder. He had dropped back down on the sofa, and watched as she peeled off her stockings one at a time, unhooked her garter belt and her bra and slowly pulled them away and dropped them, and finally pushed down her panties and stepped out of them. She stood naked in front of him then, pivoting in a slow circle, and he watched her with intent hungry eyes.
"You want a show? I could put on a show for you, baby. Show you how hot you get me." She licked one finger slowly, brought it down to rub herself, moving her hips and letting her breath out with a practiced throaty moan.
"No. No, I just--c'mere, sit down." He slid over and patted the spot next to him, and once she was beside him, letting her legs fall open invitingly, he touched her instead on the arm, sliding his hand up and over her shoulder, stroking her back, her neck, her throat. "God, you're beautiful."
Which she'd heard a million times, of course, but still--she could tell he meant it, from the way he was touching her so gently, sliding his palm over her breasts like they were something fragile, not the usual grab-and-maul. (She'd paid good money for those tits, so it was nice to have them treated with some respect.) She draped a leg invitingly over his lap, rubbing, but she couldn't feel anything going on under the robe, so--whatever, he just wanted to feel her up, that was fine. She leaned her head back and decided it was time for another moan, deeper and dirtier-sounding, and a little wiggle.
"Hey." He stopped, and she opened her eyes. "It's OK, you don't have to do that." He dropped his hand to her leg and stroked it in a friendly kind of way, like you might stroke a cat. "So ... where're you from anyway, uh, Sydnee? I take it you're not from around here."
Oh hell, she thought. A talker. "Boise." Which was totally bogus, because she'd grown up in Santa Monica, but she'd always thought Boise sounded funny, kind of cute.
"No kidding! Really?" He looked weirdly delighted. "Boise--that's way up north, right?"
"Sure," she said. (It was, wasn't it? Montana or someplace.)
"Bet you got some cold winters there. Cold, and lotsa snow ..." He was still moving his hand over her leg, but it was like he wasn't feeling her at all, or seeing her, even, like he was a million miles away. "What was it like, back home, growing up there?"
Oh, crap. "Uh ... well, pretty boring. Cold, and--uh, snow, like you said." He seemed to be waiting for more. "We--uh, used to go sledding sometimes. Snowball fights, stuff like that." What the fuck did they do in someplace like that? Hell if she knew.
"Yeah." He sounded far away. "You'd go sledding, and then you'd go home ... and your ma, she'd make you some soup, right? Good soup, get you warmed up ..."
"Sure thing." Yeah, right.
"And you ... I bet you had a best friend, didn't you?" He sounded even fuzzier now, like whatever he'd drunk was catching up with him. "Somebody you could ... talk to, and hang out with ... y'know, tell secrets to ..."
"Uh..." She wasn't sure where he was going with this. "I could--I have a best friend now, you know, Crystal? I could call and have her come over, if you like, we play together really nice, you could watch--"
"No." His voice was sharp, and he gripped her leg hard for a minute before letting go, pushing it off his lap. "No, that's not what I -- just a friend, y'know? From back home? Someone you miss." He was looking at her, and his eyes looked sad and baggy, tired.
"I guess," she said, shrugging. She felt totally confused, and suddenly it seemed so stupid to be sitting here stark naked with some weird stranger in this enormous house, sitting here with these big wobbly tits hanging off of her like balloons, the ones Jenny's mom used to tape on the walls for birthday parties, back when she was a kid... She shivered, feeling the air conditioning prickle her skin, wishing she could just put her clothes back on. "But thinking about that stuff's just going to bring you down, honey. We're here to have a good time, right? Tell me what you want. Tell me what I can do for you."
"You know what you can do? Sydnee?" And there was something harsh in his voice when he said the name, but it didn't seem to be toward her, he wasn't even looking at her, he'd let his head flop back on the sofa. "You can--what you can do is, you can go home." And he didn't sound like all get out, he just sounded sad. "You could do that, you could go home, and you could find your friend ... your best friend, back there in Boise ... in the snow ..."
Suddenly he lurched up, wobbling and flailing, pushing her off when she tried to steady him, and then he lunged off toward the dresser that stood by the wall, a huge thing with curlicues and a zillion drawers, and he pulled open a little top drawer and started digging through it with one hand, propping himself up with the other. He pulled out jewelry boxes, one after another, the velvety kind with the good stuff inside, snapping them open and dropping them on the floor, and finally he found whatever he was apparently looking for, a little plastic bag, and he fumbled it open, dropped something into his hand. Then he turned, leaving the drawer pulled open, and weaved back toward the sofa, having about as hard a time on the carpeting as she had.
"This--" He dropped down onto the loveseat beside her, and then scootched over so he was right up against her, the silk robe rubbing her thigh. "This is something--I want you to take this." He was leaning against her, chin on her shoulder, whispering with his winey-smelling breath in her ear, tickling. "My ... my best friend ... he sent this to me, and I can't ... I can't have it, 'cause it's not something ..." He grabbed her wrist, turned her hand palm-upward, and dropped something into it, a little silvery something. He was still whispering, a blurry boozy rush of words. "--not the kind of thing I would have, it's too dangerous, it's--"
It was--what the hell, a charm or something? She picked it up, examined it. It looked kind of like-- "Is that a snowmobile?" she whispered back, feeling silly and yet like they were sharing a secret, something important.
"It's--sure it is, hell, don't you know?" He took hold of her hand, closing her fingers around it. "It's just--it's not the kind of thing Armando Langoustini would have, I can't have 'em see it, can't--" He stopped, and let his head fall onto her bare shoulder for a moment, and she could feel the sweat on his temples dampening her. She sat, thinking about how much she usually hated guys who talked about themselves in the third person, but this was different somehow, this guy...
After a moment he raised his head again, and said softly, "I can't keep it. But--you take that, you take that and get out of here, get back to Boise, and you give that to your best friend, and you ... you have a decent life, OK? 'Cause that's something you still can do, right?" He grabbed her hand again and squeezed it, hard, so that the charm dug into her palm. "And that'll be our secret. Capice?"
"Sure. Sure thing, honey." She had no fucking idea what was going on here, but there wasn't any time to figure it out, because then he was yelling, "Nero!" and then the butler guy pulled the door open, with her sitting there stark naked, and she got dressed fast while the client was saying, "Take the lady to the airport, Nero, she's got a flight to catch."
The butler led her back down the hall, silently, and it wasn't until they got to the door that she said, "Uh, just take me back to the Strip, OK?" and he rolled his eyes like Bitch, please, and then she was back in the limo, heading back into town.
At a stoplight she opened her hand and looked down at the charm, resting on her palm. Maybe it was a snowmobile, who the hell knew? She could tell it was a cheap little thing, probably not even real silver. But she kept hold of it the whole way, and as they drove through the desert night she thought of Jenny, and she thought about snow, clean and cold and secret.
BOISE
The guy was a gentleman, give him that. She'd learned not to trust Ms. Wartchow's assurances on that score, because to La Warthog "gentleman" just meant the guy was loaded and paying not only the usual rates but a nice extra commission, and it didn't have anything to do with how likely he was to slap her around or talk shit to her. ("Bitch. You like it, don't you? Yeah, you like it.")
The limo had surprised her, and she'd been even more surprised when the driver had turned away from the Strip and the hotels. A tourist was what she'd assumed, some porky executive on furlough from the wife, but apparently not. She'd gotten more nervous as the limo glided towards the outskirts of town, and she fumbled in her purse for the little pepper-fog jobber she kept in there, the one that looked like a lipstick. Then the car turned down a driveway, paused while a pair of iron gates swung open, pulled forward, and then -- holy shit, screw the Bellagio, that was a mansion there, like the places she'd seen pictures of in magazines, with the pillars, and the fountain out in front, and the whole thing lit up with soft yellow light.
She fluffed her hair nervously, wishing she'd had a chance to redo her makeup, as the car pulled around the circular drive and stopped at the broad front steps. The driver didn't move or say anything, so she got out as gracefully as she could, holding her head up and gripping her purse, and when she got to the enormous front door it swung open, and there was an honest-to-god butler waiting inside, giving her the dead-fish eye. He didn't say a thing either, as she followed him down the hall, trying not to gawk (oh my god, the chandelier! and the paintings, which looked like real museum paintings, not that abstract crap in the hotels!). They went past a--dining room?--some room with a big dark wood table, and there were two guys sitting there talking low-voiced, and they at least were familiar to her. Hard guys, like you see standing around the edges of the casino crowds, the kind you steer clear of. They barely glanced at her, kept on talking, so apparently whatever this party was going to be, they weren't part of it, which was a relief.
At the end of the hall were big double doors, and the butler guy pushed them open, stood aside while she walked through (trying really, really hard not to teeter on the thick carpeting), and pulled them shut. She took it all in--this one room bigger than her whole apartment, with a wet bar in the corner, and a Persian rug on top of the carpeting, and a huge-screen TV, and a king-sized bed with a silky-looking dark-green spread on it.
The client was standing with his back to her, staring out the window, but after a minute he turned around and said, "Hi. Come on in." And she almost had to giggle, because--god, after all that build-up? The guy so did not fit here, which granted you'd have to be like Antonio Banderas to live up to this place, but this guy was more like--Dustin Hoffman, maybe, except with a receding hairline. And wearing a silk dressing gown, which just looked totally wrong on him.
But he came over and took her wrap, which was nice of him, hung it on the back of a gilt chair, and then he said, "Champagne? You want some?" He had a glass already poured for her, so she took it and pretended to sip at it, as she settled onto the loveseat next to him.
"So." He angled his head at her, with a smile. "What's your name?"
"Sydnee." She dropped her chin, fluttered her lashes, took another fake sip.
"What, Sydnee? You're kidding me, right?" The smile changed to a grin, like she'd just said something really funny. "That's a guy's name, and--what is it, can you tell me what it is with this thing that beautiful women think having a guy's name makes them more sexy?" And even though he was giving her shit, it was--in a nice way, like he was teasing a friend, not putting her down.
"But I'm betting that's not your real name, right?" He was kind of slurring his words a little, and she cut her eyes quick over to the champagne bottle. Almost empty, right. "So c'mon, tell me, what's your real--" And then he stopped, just--stopped all over, suddenly, and the grin went away, and after a minute he picked up his glass and took a swallow. "Nah, that's OK." He set the glass down again, rattling it against the marble tabletop. "I get it. You be whoever you like."
She wasn't sure what the hell that was about, but figured it was time to get the show on the road. "So--what do you like?" She put a little purr into her voice. "What can I do for you, baby?"
What he wanted, as it turned out, was just a straight blowjob, right there on the sofa, with his silk dressing gown pushed aside and his head tipped onto the backrest, eyes shut. No problem. He was drunk enough to have a hard time getting it up, but she was good enough to take care of that with no trouble, just drawing it out enough so he'd feel like he got his money's worth.
Afterwards, she went to the bathroom to rinse her mouth and fix her makeup, and came back out to see him still lying there, eyes shut, just the way she'd left him. She thought maybe he'd passed out, but as she stole across the room toward her things, he said, "Hey. Don't go."
She turned, and he'd lifted his head and was watching her blearily. "I was just thinking--you're smart, not drinking that--" He waved his hand at her glass of champagne. "Because you don't know what somebody might've put in there--I mean, I didn't, but you got no way of knowing that, so, smart girl, that's a good thing, but ... what I was going to say was, you can get something out of the fridge if you like, open it up yourself, then you'll know it's OK." When she hesitated, he waved more vigorously. "C'mon, get yourself something, don't be racing off here."
The fridge was stocked full with champagne, white wine, bottled water, fruit juice. She took a water, and walked back. He was standing now, robe knotted tightly at his waist, smiling at her, and she did have to admit he had a nice smile, even though it was a little woozy. "There you go, that's good. You hungry? I could get 'em to bring us some snacks, or maybe a nice steak, if you didn't get dinner yet, or--"
"I'm good," she said.
"Yeah, you are." He was still smiling, looking at her. "Y'know, you never even--I haven't gotten to--" He took a step toward her, reached out, and slipped a finger under a strap, sliding it gently down off her shoulder, trailing his finger over her skin.
She could take a hint, and she set her water down, slid the other strap off, turned and slowly unzipped her dress, sliding it down over her hips with a shimmy, smiling over her shoulder. He had dropped back down on the sofa, and watched as she peeled off her stockings one at a time, unhooked her garter belt and her bra and slowly pulled them away and dropped them, and finally pushed down her panties and stepped out of them. She stood naked in front of him then, pivoting in a slow circle, and he watched her with intent hungry eyes.
"You want a show? I could put on a show for you, baby. Show you how hot you get me." She licked one finger slowly, brought it down to rub herself, moving her hips and letting her breath out with a practiced throaty moan.
"No. No, I just--c'mere, sit down." He slid over and patted the spot next to him, and once she was beside him, letting her legs fall open invitingly, he touched her instead on the arm, sliding his hand up and over her shoulder, stroking her back, her neck, her throat. "God, you're beautiful."
Which she'd heard a million times, of course, but still--she could tell he meant it, from the way he was touching her so gently, sliding his palm over her breasts like they were something fragile, not the usual grab-and-maul. (She'd paid good money for those tits, so it was nice to have them treated with some respect.) She draped a leg invitingly over his lap, rubbing, but she couldn't feel anything going on under the robe, so--whatever, he just wanted to feel her up, that was fine. She leaned her head back and decided it was time for another moan, deeper and dirtier-sounding, and a little wiggle.
"Hey." He stopped, and she opened her eyes. "It's OK, you don't have to do that." He dropped his hand to her leg and stroked it in a friendly kind of way, like you might stroke a cat. "So ... where're you from anyway, uh, Sydnee? I take it you're not from around here."
Oh hell, she thought. A talker. "Boise." Which was totally bogus, because she'd grown up in Santa Monica, but she'd always thought Boise sounded funny, kind of cute.
"No kidding! Really?" He looked weirdly delighted. "Boise--that's way up north, right?"
"Sure," she said. (It was, wasn't it? Montana or someplace.)
"Bet you got some cold winters there. Cold, and lotsa snow ..." He was still moving his hand over her leg, but it was like he wasn't feeling her at all, or seeing her, even, like he was a million miles away. "What was it like, back home, growing up there?"
Oh, crap. "Uh ... well, pretty boring. Cold, and--uh, snow, like you said." He seemed to be waiting for more. "We--uh, used to go sledding sometimes. Snowball fights, stuff like that." What the fuck did they do in someplace like that? Hell if she knew.
"Yeah." He sounded far away. "You'd go sledding, and then you'd go home ... and your ma, she'd make you some soup, right? Good soup, get you warmed up ..."
"Sure thing." Yeah, right.
"And you ... I bet you had a best friend, didn't you?" He sounded even fuzzier now, like whatever he'd drunk was catching up with him. "Somebody you could ... talk to, and hang out with ... y'know, tell secrets to ..."
"Uh..." She wasn't sure where he was going with this. "I could--I have a best friend now, you know, Crystal? I could call and have her come over, if you like, we play together really nice, you could watch--"
"No." His voice was sharp, and he gripped her leg hard for a minute before letting go, pushing it off his lap. "No, that's not what I -- just a friend, y'know? From back home? Someone you miss." He was looking at her, and his eyes looked sad and baggy, tired.
"I guess," she said, shrugging. She felt totally confused, and suddenly it seemed so stupid to be sitting here stark naked with some weird stranger in this enormous house, sitting here with these big wobbly tits hanging off of her like balloons, the ones Jenny's mom used to tape on the walls for birthday parties, back when she was a kid... She shivered, feeling the air conditioning prickle her skin, wishing she could just put her clothes back on. "But thinking about that stuff's just going to bring you down, honey. We're here to have a good time, right? Tell me what you want. Tell me what I can do for you."
"You know what you can do? Sydnee?" And there was something harsh in his voice when he said the name, but it didn't seem to be toward her, he wasn't even looking at her, he'd let his head flop back on the sofa. "You can--what you can do is, you can go home." And he didn't sound like all get out, he just sounded sad. "You could do that, you could go home, and you could find your friend ... your best friend, back there in Boise ... in the snow ..."
Suddenly he lurched up, wobbling and flailing, pushing her off when she tried to steady him, and then he lunged off toward the dresser that stood by the wall, a huge thing with curlicues and a zillion drawers, and he pulled open a little top drawer and started digging through it with one hand, propping himself up with the other. He pulled out jewelry boxes, one after another, the velvety kind with the good stuff inside, snapping them open and dropping them on the floor, and finally he found whatever he was apparently looking for, a little plastic bag, and he fumbled it open, dropped something into his hand. Then he turned, leaving the drawer pulled open, and weaved back toward the sofa, having about as hard a time on the carpeting as she had.
"This--" He dropped down onto the loveseat beside her, and then scootched over so he was right up against her, the silk robe rubbing her thigh. "This is something--I want you to take this." He was leaning against her, chin on her shoulder, whispering with his winey-smelling breath in her ear, tickling. "My ... my best friend ... he sent this to me, and I can't ... I can't have it, 'cause it's not something ..." He grabbed her wrist, turned her hand palm-upward, and dropped something into it, a little silvery something. He was still whispering, a blurry boozy rush of words. "--not the kind of thing I would have, it's too dangerous, it's--"
It was--what the hell, a charm or something? She picked it up, examined it. It looked kind of like-- "Is that a snowmobile?" she whispered back, feeling silly and yet like they were sharing a secret, something important.
"It's--sure it is, hell, don't you know?" He took hold of her hand, closing her fingers around it. "It's just--it's not the kind of thing Armando Langoustini would have, I can't have 'em see it, can't--" He stopped, and let his head fall onto her bare shoulder for a moment, and she could feel the sweat on his temples dampening her. She sat, thinking about how much she usually hated guys who talked about themselves in the third person, but this was different somehow, this guy...
After a moment he raised his head again, and said softly, "I can't keep it. But--you take that, you take that and get out of here, get back to Boise, and you give that to your best friend, and you ... you have a decent life, OK? 'Cause that's something you still can do, right?" He grabbed her hand again and squeezed it, hard, so that the charm dug into her palm. "And that'll be our secret. Capice?"
"Sure. Sure thing, honey." She had no fucking idea what was going on here, but there wasn't any time to figure it out, because then he was yelling, "Nero!" and then the butler guy pulled the door open, with her sitting there stark naked, and she got dressed fast while the client was saying, "Take the lady to the airport, Nero, she's got a flight to catch."
The butler led her back down the hall, silently, and it wasn't until they got to the door that she said, "Uh, just take me back to the Strip, OK?" and he rolled his eyes like Bitch, please, and then she was back in the limo, heading back into town.
At a stoplight she opened her hand and looked down at the charm, resting on her palm. Maybe it was a snowmobile, who the hell knew? She could tell it was a cheap little thing, probably not even real silver. But she kept hold of it the whole way, and as they drove through the desert night she thought of Jenny, and she thought about snow, clean and cold and secret.