The Angel
Carol had spotted me at the Ritz, they both had. My attempts to be inconspicuous had failed miserably. She'd seen me at Bloomingdale's as well scrambling to get back on my feet behind the miniature train display. Then at Scully's and finally outside her lawyer's office. I really, really suck at this. For a little while she'd thought about shaking me off her tail right there and then, she said.
"Why didn't you?" I asked quietly. "I was curious to find why anyone would put a waif-like creature such as you to follow me around." Waif-like's good, right? She didn't have a flat tyre either, she just wanted to establish a contact to figure me out. "The rest was easy," she summed up dryly. I could hardly argue for I had flown right into the trap she'd set up for me as if I were Icarus with a serious death wish and she the scorching sun.
We couldn't very well be seen in public together if I were still to spy on her for Harge, she said. I agreed. She gave me an address where I should meet her later that same evening. I didn't recognize the name of the place but promised to be there at the given time. During the remaining hours between now and then I would come up with a fool proof plan as how to throw her snake of a husband off her case. She didn't look too convinced. Maybe the fool part was too much, I don't know. I couldn't blame her.
I returned to my apartment various scenarios sprouting out of my head already. How could we pull this one off? Preferably in a way that would drain even more money out of Harge and leave my friendship with Cantrell intact. I couldn’t really turn my back on Genevieve who’d been my best pal forever. I had to come up with something she could both live with and earn dough in the process.
I thought about calling her and spilling the beans right away but decided against it. Another bad decision on my part though I didn’t know it at the time. Instead I took my notebook and started scribbling down some preliminary thoughts on the subject. Yeah, this could work.
The address she'd given me turned out to be a motor lodge along the highway leading out of the Metropolitan area. It looked like a real sleaze joint and I couldn't for the life of me understand why Carol wanted us to meet in a place like this. There was a hashtag and a number below the address and it took me a while to realize it referred to a room number. She has a room in this motel?
Hesitantly, I knocked on the door number 13. For a minute I was quite sure I had somehow misunderstood and would be greeted by some angry stranger whose private business needed no second-hand validation. The door opened and I found myself face to face with the now familiar gray eyes. She looked around to see if anyone had followed me and then pulled me inside. Walking by her, I smelled the luscious aroma of her sweet perfume. I wanted nothing more than to bury my nose in the lush cloud of her fair hair.
The room matched the exterior of the place. It was positively depressing. This was a room where people came to have illicit carnal affairs in, a room where all hope died and illusions of life well lived leapt straight out of the window. The paint was peeling off from the sides of an ugly bureau in front of a speckled mirror. The huge bed in the middle had a dreary mauve spread over it, its tassels drooping down to the beige wall-to-wall carpet. I could hear nondescript noises coming from a room right next to it and felt really disturbed by the entire setting.
There was a bottle of wine and two glasses ready on the small table by the bed. Hardly the compliments from the management, I thought suppressing a nervous smile before it reached my face. "Would you like a glass of wine?" she asked gesturing me to sit down right across her. "Depends on what's in it this time." I couldn't help myself. She seemed to find my remark funny since for the first time after yesterday evening I saw her crack a smile. "Just Cabernet," she replied flashing a perfect set of pearly teeth, "I thought I had better keep you conscious tonight." Was she flirting with me?
"Quite a place you've come up with. Couldn't find anything more appealing - like Bates Motel?" She shot a sharp glance at me. "Some of us actually know how to be discreet. I didn't want to take any chances with you." With me? Something was definitely off with this set-up.
Ignoring my uneasy feeling I decided to tell her what I had come up with. Carol listened to me with growing interest, seeing clearly where I was aiming at with my tentative plan. I couldn't help but stare at her left hand playing with her hair from time to time. The way it brushed her neck send lovely shivers down my spine.
After several uncomfortable pauses in conversation she emptied what was left in the bottle to our glasses. “Do you live alone?” she asked putting the bottle away. “I do”, I replied catching my breath. “An attractive young woman such as you must have suitors lined up, I’m sure”, she added as if it were a question instead of a simple statement. Attractive? She thinks I’m attractive? “No, I don’t think so”, I hastened to answer, “I can hardly decide what to order for lunch let alone whom to date.” I was rambling, and she seemed to ponder my words carefully.
"So what are you, Therese?" It was the first time she said my name in twenty-four hours. I looked puzzled. "Are you a stalker..?" Stalker with a hard-on, you mean? flashed through my brain. I looked at her intently almost but not quite smiling. "What do you think?" Two can play this game. My eyes never left hers.
She got up, her hands fondling her pearl necklace. "Maybe you are," she said sitting down on the edge of the bed. She kicked her heels away and leisurely removed her jewellery as if I weren't even in the room anymore. Pulling her blouse out from under her skirt and opening its top buttons she looked at me in a way which made my chest heave of desire. "In that case you are a very beautiful stalker, Miss Belivet." Now that was a come-on, wasn't it?
I got up very slowly, uncertain if I were even able to make the short distance to her. I felt clumsy, out of touch with myself, with my body which seemed to be speeding on its own, to be getting ready for a lift off more fabulous than anything it had ever experienced. There was a multitude of things going on inside me which my conscious self was not aware of – it hadn't yet been invited to take part in any of it.
When I got to a mere feet from her, she took my hand and pulled me closer. Her fingers touched the fabric of my jeans right in front of her face, the brass button and the vacant belt loops, the golden stitching of the side pockets. Swallowing hard, I just stood there and let her light strokes burn me in the most magnificent way.
She moved her hands softly on my hips and gradually let her palms slide down on my buttocks. "Is this what you want, Miss Belivet?" she murmured watching me pant under her detailed scrutiny. "Yes..." I whispered struggling to get the word out. She got up never removing her hands from my butt making us stand really close together. It felt like stepping straight into the tropics from a glacier formerly known as my life, experiencing heat and humidity for the first time as they really were – relentless, inescapable and ever present.
Though the moment before our lips touched lasted a lifetime, the kiss itself started already before the actual contact, before the languid brushing of our pillowy mouths together. It started as electricity, as vivid buzzing of our bodies seeking a common frequency, a vibration teaching us all the right moves at all the right times.
Mine was a terrifying need to fulfill but I didn’t know it until then, until the minute I pushed her on the bed and went for the jawline, the collarbone, the enticing, willing curves of her naked body. Only then did I really know who I was, what I was made of. If our ability to deal with adversity speaks for our strength of character, our ability to let ourselves go, to disappear in want and desire is a witness to our incomparable will to live and thrive on it.
Maybe it was love or maybe just lust at first sight, at first touch and caress, but when the irresistible, sweet abandon finally opened my fluttering eyes to hers I found in them the long awaited match for my uncompromising, overwhelming need to suck the marrow of life and leave no trace of its wonders undetected, inexperienced.
"Hmm..." she said when we finally lounged on the bed all burned up and exhausted. "Did I just make you hum?" I murmured kissing the smile forming on the side of her mouth. "You sure did..." she replied moving her forefinger over my lower lip in rapt motion. I could taste the essence it printed on its surface, the essence of me still retained on her fingertips.
I wanted to ask what would happen now, if I had understood her unspoken eloquence correctly, if this was indeed what I hoped it would be, but the timing just wasn’t right and the questions lacked grace and splendor. I cradled her in my arms and fell asleep her blonde locks pressed against my cheek, her generous body intertwined with mine bringing about dreams of gorgeous synchroneity, of pale white flowers on ever spreading green vines everywhere.
Next morning I went to see Cantrell in her office. To my utmost surprise she was in a great mood cracking jokes with the folks of the neighboring accounting firm. "Isn't it my hapless photographer who’s come to spruce up my day?" She was beaming. "You look different this morning, Belivet. What on earth has happened to you?" I tried to suppress the goofy grin I had been having on since my "good-morning-did-you-sleep-well-oh my-don't-you-look-delicious..." moment I'd shared with Carol just before we parted our ways.
"Never mind, never mind," she enthused, "I have great news, absolutely marvelous news..." I guess this was one fabulous morning then. "We're finally getting somewhere with this case," she explained hastily. "Since you couldn't get the job done, I asked Meg to fill in and she sure did..."
Astonished by a set of digital photos she laid in front of me on her lap top, I found myself looking at a picture of Carol in flagrante, in full flagrante, with another female figure whose face I couldn't quite make out. I did, however, recognize the lilywhite ass flaring the camera lens. It had a small angel tattooed on it. The pleasure it depicted was literally all mine.