9. Kendall
Chapter 9
Kendall
I wake up enveloped in strong arms.
What?
Oh, right. The X-rated events of the past evening—particularly all the toe-curling orgasms—flood my brain with NSFW images.
And holy crap. Despite the soreness that I feel from the epic encounter, I’m getting hot and bothered, again.
Oh, no. I wriggle out of the yummy arms and, careful not to jostle the bed too much, check my phone.
Shit. Tierre has sent everyone a bat emoji, followed by a police car light emoji, followed by SOS. He calls this “the bat signal,” but we call it “the batshit signal” behind his back. When this text arrives, everyone who works for Tierre is expected to drop everything and report to the shoot posthaste, or seek other employment.
What kind of emergency can there be at five-twenty in the morning?
The answer comes immediately.
Tony ate Milk.
If I were alone, I’d groan. Tony is the name of the white tiger, and Milk is—was—the name of the giant albino iguana. Everyone but Tierre saw this “emergency” coming a mile away, but Tierre claimed, and I quote: “Tony is a sweetheart. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Besides, he’s lactose intolerant.”
Yeah. Try to argue with that level of logic. Also—and most importantly—what can I do to help in this situation? I’m not an animal trainer, nor an animal funeral director, nor a medium who speaks to the ghosts of iguanas.
Still, I don’t really have a choice, so I furtively get up—because I see no reason to wake up Ash at this ungodly hour.
Yep. By sneaking out, I’m being considerate, and not cowardly… at all.
I’ll write him a note saying I had to go.
No. Better. A text later today.
Collecting the clothes I borrowed, I tiptoe all the way to the front door—only to bump into Sir Ems, who wags his tail at me with too much enthusiasm considering he’s not had his morning coffee yet.
“It was nice to meet you,” I whisper. “You’re officially my second favorite Ems in the whole wide world.”
He trots over and pokes my shin with his nose.
“Yeah.” I pat his head. “I’ll miss you too.”
With that, I sneak out, closing the door softly behind me, and rush to deal with the SOS.
When I reach the shoot, I’m tempted to rub my eyes.
Even if this were South Florida, I’d still say this is an obscene number of iguanas. There are green iguanas, brown iguanas, gray iguanas, pale yellow iguanas, eating iguanas, humping iguanas, but notably, not a single white one with pink eyes, like the late Milk, which is what Mr. Boss is screaming about.
“The noun for a collection of iguanas is a ‘mess,’” Catherine whispers to me conspiratorially. “I think it’s apropos to our current situation.”
Yep. It’s a mess. Everyone does their best not to look Tierre in the eye, except maybe the tiger, who’s eyeing the mess of iguanas like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
“You!” Tierre’s bejeweled finger jabs pointedly in my direction. “Is that a fashion statement?”
Shit. I’m dressed in Ash’s hoodie and sweatpants. “This is what I sleep in,” I say sheepishly. “When I got your text, I didn’t think there was time to change.”
He nods, as if what I said was in any way reasonable. “Do you have a solution?”
My throat is drier than the desert, which works out because when my heart jumps into it, it stays put in my body. “I’d use that one.” I point at the palest yellow iguana in the mess. “Then you can ‘pale it up’ in post-production.”
He wrinkles his nose.
“Or,” I quickly say, “if editing photos is unthinkable, we could cover the iguana in foundation and give it some sort of vampire contacts.”
Tierre’s eyes light up. “We’ll give him a makeover. The models too.”
“There you go.” I really hope he doesn’t make the models look like vampiric iguanas, but he probably will—and the fashion world will eat that up just as eagerly as everything else he excretes.
“Keep this up,” he says. “I knew you’d be useful if you got rid of the mopey juju, and I was right, as usual.”
“Thank you.” It takes a lot of effort not to put a question mark at the end of that sentence.
He approaches me—as in, advances way into my personal space—then takes my chin and twists my head left and right.
“You haven’t just lost the mope,” he says, and for some reason, his breath smells exactly like the citrus notes of Chanel Coco Mademoiselle. “You’ve done a three-sixty. You’re glowing now.”
If I’d done a three-sixty, I’d be back in mope land. Obviously, I don’t inform Mr. Boss of this. I just mutter “thank you” instead.
“You’re welcome,” he says imperiously and leaves my personal space in order to shout commands at his other minions.
A slender hand lands on my shoulder. “I think it is me everyone should be thanking,” Catherine murmurs.
I turn her way. “I agree, but… why this time?”
She pulls me aside. “You saw Ash, didn’t you?”
I nod.
“And now you’re glowing.” She looks at me like “connect the dots already.”
I stare at her. How could she know why I’m glowing? Does she smell sex on me, like a dog? For that matter, is that what her husband picked up on as well—my orgasms?
“I know exactly how you feel,” she says. “Ash is so amazing. He left me equally speechless and glowing… countless times.”
“What?” The question comes out angrier than appropriate for work.
Catherine cocks her head. “I told you: Tierre and I are in an open marriage, so you don’t need to be so indignant. In fact, he likes it when I?—”
“But… are you saying Ash sleeps with all his clients?” I hold my breath as I wait for her answer, but I already know what she’s going to say.
“Not all. Just the female ones,” she clarifies. “When Tierre took a session, he got an actual workout.”
I feel like I’ve been sucker punched. In my ovaries. And then had them extracted without anesthesia.
“He’s… a gigolo?”
Catherine giggles. “Don’t be silly. That’s such an outdated term. He’s a personal trainer with benefits. Have you never heard of such a thing?”
I shake my head, and she tells me about her tennis coach, who goes down on her, and her pool boy, who’s a great foot masseuse, and her plumber, who services all sorts of openings that aren’t pipes.
With every word she speaks, I feel more and more nauseated.
Catherine’s phone rings just as she was about to tell me what she does with her accountant. Apologizing, she picks up, and when the call is over, she says, “It’s about to start. Let’s go.”
“What’s about to start?”
A porn film where Ash is the lead? An orgy where he fucks every female that I work with?
Nothing would surprise me at this point.
“Milk’s funeral,” she says. “Or wake. Or repass. I’m not sure what the terminology should be, given that there’s no body to bury.”
Did I say nothing would surprise me? I should know better than to even think such a thing when Tierre is involved.
So, yeah, the whole crew celebrates the life and the ultimate sacrifice of Milk the Iguana, and if Tierre were to give such a genuinely heartfelt speech at my funeral, it would almost make getting eaten by a tiger worth it in the end.
“You’ve impressed me twice in one day,” Tierre says to me when the service is over. “You’re the only person besides myself who’s truly grieving for dear Milk.”
I nod solemnly, not about to tell him that I’m not. What he saw was my being upset that yet another guy turned out to be a dog. A manwhore. A clever one too, because he somehow made me feel like I was special. Like maybe the two of us might have?—
“Okay, the service is over,” Tierre says. “And the shoot is about to start, so…”
I channel all my acting prowess into a semi-human smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
Grunting with approval, Tierre turns on his heel and flits away on a cloud of perfume.
Hey. I didn’t lie. I will be fine. Eventually.
Taking out my phone, I find Ash’s number, and without hesitation, I block and delete it.
There.
The path to being fine has already begun.