Hooked Up: Book 2 (39 page)

If I’d remembered the course of events at the time I could have defended myself, and Brad would have seen me in a different light, not as some complete slut with no morals at all. Not that having a threesome is wrong, no. But I had been going steady with him. The fact that he’d admitted he had slept with Alicia didn’t let me off the hook. I broke his heart. Broke his trust in me. We would have gotten married if he’d been able to forgive me. Maybe we would have stayed together.

I took a deep breath and tried to stop the self-blame flooding over me. It was true what Alexandre had said, that you have to accept your mistakes, the good and bad, because they define who you are as a person. Perhaps if that had never happened with the football players I wouldn’t have met Alexandre. Maybe I would have had children. Who knew which path would have been the “right” one?
Are our lives destined by fate or does every single choice we make offer a gamut of possibilities like a CD with several different tracks?
I chose that song, “All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun” . . . and that’s where it had led me that night.

I was mulling all this over and thinking about a light dinner in at the hotel restaurant, when my cell rang. It was Alessandra.

Her smoky voice sounded languid and rich. She didn’t even say ‘Hi, Pearl,’ but began, “All we ever do is work, you and I. I think we should just hang out this evening together.”

I was taken aback. “Well, I—”

Her voice was almost a whisper. “Actually, I’m cheating. I’m already here—down in the lobby—thought I’d take a chance.”

“Wow, Alessandra, what if I’d been busy?”

“I figured you’d be free. I’m on my way up to your room.”

When I opened the door a few minutes later, I was stunned. It was like action replay, except the seductive person standing before me uninvited was not Alexandre, but Alessandra. She stood there dressed in a clingy, silky dress—almost see-through—her nipples erect, her cascading, dark hair wild and untamed about her shoulders. She was holding a chilled bottle of Dom Pérignon, and some pink roses. Déjà-vu. Except, she also held a glass vase for the flowers.

It plopped out of my mouth, “You look pretty,” I said. My eyes fell on the roses. “These are for me?”

“No, they’re for your alter ego, the Pearl who takes work way too seriously, the Pearl who needs a little sweetening up.”

I tried to stifle a grin. It was true: we’d been working non-stop on the script and not spoken about anything else. “Come in, Alessandra . . . sorry, it’s a little messy, I was just choosing something to wear. I always end up rooting through every piece of clothing I have, never knowing what to put on. I thought I’d go downstairs and eat in the hotel restaurant—the food’s great here—join me if you like.”

“I love this place,” she said in her husky Italian accent –“so romantic. Let’s open the champagne while it’s still cold. Oh look, you have a balcony, how lovely.” She stepped onto the balcony and surveyed the ocean view. The breeze blew her dress revealing the outline of her thighs and ass. No underwear. Another thing she and Alexandre had in common. Oops, maybe we wouldn’t be dining downstairs after all; her dress was no better than a negligee. Unless I lent her a pair of my panties.
No, far too intimate, perhaps room service is a better idea.

I filled up the vase Alessandra brought with water and placed the flowers inside and then grabbed a couple of flute glasses by the mini-bar. “Thanks so much for the roses, they’re beautiful.”

“The rule is, this evening we won’t mention the film, is that a deal?”

“It’s a deal,” I agreed. I looked at her, my eye like a camera, and knew that this woman was on her way to movie stardom. It was obvious. Her beauty was breathtaking. Her skin olive-colored but flawless—an advantage with high definition cameras showing up every blemish. Her eyes flicked up at the corners, and her dark lashes were like frames making the green even greener, the flecks of gold more pronounced.

She popped open the cork and some of the champagne bubbled over. She licked her fingers, her tongue slowly rimming her top lip. It was as if she and Alexandre were twins; their mannerisms were similar. Was I in the middle of a soap opera? First the retrograde amnesia business, and now this? Was I about to discover that Alexandre’s mother gave up one of her babies for adoption, and Alexandre and Alessandra were long-lost brother and sister? She and I had been working so hard on the script, I hadn’t had a moment to really observe the woman, but everything about her fascinated me, mostly because she reminded me of him.

We clinked glasses and made a toast to the success of the film but burst out laughing simultaneously when it occurred to us that we’d both broken our rule to not mention it this evening. She told me about her hybrid upbringing, that she was born in Chicago but then moved to Italy when she was six, raised in Florence by her single mom, who had at that point divorced her father, an American. She’d spent her summer vacations with her grandparents in Sicily. She returned to the States when she was sixteen and modeled in New York before landing a commercial and an agent. Little by little, she’d found her way into the theatre, although it was a slow progression. Finally, she’d gotten the part that won her the Tony Award, and things had been going skyward from there.

She took another sip of champagne. “The problem is I still have my Italian accent—it’s hard to shake off one hundred percent.”

“But it hasn’t harmed your career up until now, has it? I mean, people love an accent, it makes you exotic.”

“So far I’ve been lucky, but I want to be in the same league as Charlize.”

Tough, I thought. Trying to compete with the best of the best. “Well, you can have elocution lessons. There must be so many voice coaches in LA. I like your accent, though. I think it would be a shame to lose it completely.”

She put her hand on my thigh. “You do?”

“Yes, I think European accents are sexy.”

“Well, I suppose you would, Pearl. Tell me about your husband-to-be. Is he really as hot as he looks?”

“I thought you were gay,” I replied with suspicion.
Keep away from him, femme fatale!

“I am. But you know what turns me on? Lying in bed with my girlfriend and watching a man fuck a woman in a porno movie. Seeing a big, hard, thick cock stretch open up a sweet tender pussy and fuck her. Or even two guys together making out.”

I was feeling the effects of the champagne and I laughed.

“Why is that funny? Didn’t you know that that’s a lesbian fantasy? A lot of us still love to imagine big cocks, but we want to be once-removed from them, if you see what I mean.” Alessandra picked up the hotel phone and nonchalantly dialed room service. “Hi, can you bring us an ice-cold bottle of Dom Pérignon and some sandwiches? A mixture of snacks, I don’t care, a mixture of vegetarian and whatever. Thanks.”

My eyes widened.
So cocky! She didn’t even ask me.

“It’s on me,” she let me know. “Now, where were we? Yes, big, huge, throbbing cocks—”

Cock . . . the word brought unwelcome images to my brain, and I felt my eyes well with tears. The needle-dick memories flashed back, and a recollection of that third guy who came into the room enveloped me like a blanket smothering me to suffocation. He was fat, sweaty, his penis repulsive; I remember him struggling with a condom. I covered my face with my hands in disgust . . . the twisting agony of what happened wrenching memories out of my body . . . I started hyperventilating again, my breath short. I tried to suck in a lungful of air.

Alessandra steadied my shaking shoulders. “Pearl, what the hell is wrong?”

And it all came gushing out; the whole story from beginning to end. I revealed everything to her. I was in tears, the memories of what happened to me thick with sordid details. The faces of the guys, how they held me down, how their repulsive penises poked and prodded as if I were nothing more than a bunch of orifices.

“The one with the fat, flaccid walnut of a penis couldn’t even get it up . . . it made him angry,” I wailed in between sobs. “I remember him shaking me, pushing me around.”

Alessandra held me in her arms. “That’s right, Pearl, let it all out.”

“He felt humiliated in front of his friends. There were more. I can’t remember how many . . . but there were more. I puked—that’s when they finally left me alone. They left me there covered in vomit and semen and—”

She hugged my trembling body close against her. “Now, now, my beautiful Pearl, they can’t hurt you anymore.”

Room service arrived and I picked at the food, hardly being able to swallow. Telling Alessandra all this had been the last thing I wanted to do. So unprofessional, mixing my private life with a work situation.
I should never have agreed to allow her into my hotel room, letting her look into my heart and soul. I’ve been an idiot.

I sat up straight and tried to compose myself, but I felt exhausted, spent, all my energy sucked out of me.

I didn’t protest when she took control and said, “I’m going to run you a bath, Pearl, and you can just lie back and relax. Think of lovely things. Any time you have a nasty image in your mind, replace it with this bunch of pink roses.”

The bath was just what I needed. I reclined my head back, unwinding in the hot bubbly water and did as Alessandra suggested. I pictured the pink roses climbing up the stone walls at Alexandre’s house in Provence, and the scent of lavender, the intense purple-blue of the fields, the white butterflies fluttering about like confetti. I remembered the buttery croissant I ate for breakfast, the taste of homemade cherry preserve from the cherry trees in his garden.

Alessandra put on some music:
Woman
by Neneh Cherry—a powerful song. I closed my eyes. It was healthy that all the bad memories had resurfaced, but now they could go right back to where they came from, six feet under, where they belonged. It had been done. It was over now. I didn’t want the past taking over my perfect world, screwing up my life.

My lids were shut tight when I felt the bath water ripple. I opened my eyes and saw two smooth golden legs in the tub. Alessandra was joining me.
This is not what I planned!

“Scoot over,” she said, slipping herself behind me before I had a chance to object. She eased her slim body to the back of the tub and maneuvered around me so I had no choice but to lean on her, my back pressed against her breasts, her legs splayed open on either side of me.
Double
déjà-vu!
But this time with her, not Alexandre.

“Use me as a cushion. Just relax,” she said soothingly, pulling my shoulders back.

I was too tired to disagree. I leaned against her. She began to lather my back with a delicious-smelling body wash as she sang along to the song about being a woman’s world. Her hands were firm but soft as she massaged my shoulders with her fingertips, kneading out the knots . . . the stress.

“This feels good,” I told her, realizing it was past the point of protesting. Anyway, who cared? What was the worst that could happen? Alexandre had said himself he wouldn’t mind. She was a woman—she couldn’t hurt me. A little rubdown wouldn’t be a bad thing.

She continued with this wonderful massage for a good ten minutes. I was like putty in her agile hands. Then her fingers ran themselves from my shoulders to my front and tantalizingly across my breasts. She wasn’t touching the nipples, just circling around and around—all part of her skillful massage. But my body was doing things my conscience couldn’t control: my nipples puckered and, to my surprise, I was silently begging for her to tweak them . . . the massage had gotten me really turned on. I didn’t want her to know, but she sensed something as her hands grazed across each nipple. I felt a shooting desire connect the pulse with my core, and my clit started to throb. She began to flutter her fingers on my nipples and I couldn’t help it, a little moan escaped my lips and I leant back closer against her. Uh oh, that had done it.

“I thought you’d like that,” she whispered, her lips grazing my ear. I shuddered with secret, quiet desire. “Your tits are beautiful, Pearl. People pay thousands to get their breasts to look just like yours.”

“They’re real,” I told her, trying to feign a normal conversation.

She flickered her pinkie seductively on one erect, rosy nipple. “Yes, I know, I can always tell.”

Her hands had moved back to my shoulders and neck as she continued her soft touch. She ran the very tips of her fingers along the base of my hairline—my hair was pinned up in a messy bun. Shivers tingled through my entire body.

“I’m not gay you know, Alessandra,” I blurted out, trying to convince myself that this had nothing to do with me.
I am an innocent bystander in all this!

“No,” she murmured, “course not, but who’s going to arrest you, huh? Just relax, I’m just giving you a little massage, that’s all. You’re holding in a lot of tension.”

She brushed my neck with her lips—whispery kisses—and then her fingers were back on my nipples again. I felt the need build up inside me. Being with Alexandre had awoken my sexual appetite, a yearning for orgasms, and now was no exception. She was getting me worked up. Her hand moved under the water, searching between my thighs. My breath gasped in anticipation.
I don’t want her to stop . . . yet this is . . . wrong!

My conscious mind wanted to tell her to leave me be, but I couldn’t, I was simply too turned-on. Her finger tapped my clit gently, making me flex my hips. I wanted more and she could sense that. Oh yes, she could sense it alright. She pressed her palm flat on my pussy and the pressure of it had me moving up against her hand. She made circular motions almost imperceptibly, but it was just enough to feel myself throb, as if my heartbeat were right down there. With the other hand she tugged at my nipple, kneading it softly between her fingers. She slipped her index finger from her right hand inside my slick opening, continuing with the pressure on my clit.

“I’m not gay,” I repeated, sensations unspooling, my hips grinding on her hand in a ripple of carnal desire, “but this does . . . aah . . . oh yeah . . . feel . . . so . . . good.”

“Doesn’t it? Your pussy’s so sweet, Pearl, I’d like to flicker my tongue against your clit.” She pressed her hand harder, and I felt myself come in a thunderous pound. My back arched as I rocked my hips forward pushing on her hand. The orgasm pulsated deep inside me, her finger still there exploring my G-spot, making the double-sensation linger and flutter in waves of orgasmic bliss.