The Hinky Velvet Chair (10 page)

“Seaweed?”

“Dehydrated marine flora,” Jewel’s attendant corrected. “Let
that soak in.” She turned the lights down and dialed up the Muzak. “I’ll leave
the door ajar in case you need something.” She left.

“How about a quart margarita and a straw?” Jewel muttered.

Griffy giggled. “I can’t move my lips.”

“I can’t move anything. What’s this you’re having again?”

“Some kind of ultimate soul tranquilizer.”

“Man, I should have asked for that. My nose itches.”

They lay there companionably, listening to drony-moany music
with tinkles. Jewel could see out the sliver of open door, across the hall,
into the waiting room. A familiar-looking, dark-clad shoulder was visible. The
chauffeur maybe? His back was to the doorway.

“You do this kind of thing often?” she said.

“Mm-hm,” Griffy said. “Usually I go to Giorgio lo Gigolo.”

“It would drive me scatty. I guess I bore easily.”

“Oh, but you have such interesting work!”

What was her cover? Randy’s flimflam debunker. “Lord
Darner’s not up on American culture. Not that he’ll admit it.”

“Men are so fragile. Inside, I mean,” Griffy said. This
didn’t sound much like Virgil, but Jewel didn’t say so. “They’re easily fooled
by appearances.”

“Huh,” Jewel said, thinking of Sovay.

“And yet here we are, improving our appearance for them!
That Venus Machine really works. Maybe I should try it.”

“I didn’t need it. A switch to turn guys off, maybe, yeah.”

Griffy gave a sad laugh. “Well, I’d like to try it.”

Jewel said, “Girlfriend, have you ever thought that you are
a fabulous woman, and Virgil is lucky to have someone like you to love him? You
don’t need to change. He does.”

“Maybe.” Griffy said forlornly. “But men don’t change. Do
you like Clay? I think he likes you. Of course, he won’t change, either.”

Great, everybody knew she had slept in Clay's bed last night.

Jewel admitted, “He’s nice enough after the weirdos I’ve
dated. Like the guy who ties you up, and the guy who wants to play
pretend-stalker, and—”
Whoa, dial back
the girl talk.
“I had way too much fun in college,” she finished.

“College!” Griffy sighed. “Clay must be a breath of fresh
air.”

Ah-hah! Clay must have blown their cover to Griffy. Jewel supposed that made sense, since Griffy had filed the complaint to the city. She wished Clay would wait for instructions before doing stuff like that. “So far, yes,” she admitted. “He’s been attentive and
generous and patient and nonjudgmental.”

There was a smile in Griffy’s voice. “Love is wonderful.”

Jewel bridled. “Has Clay told you he’s in love with me?”

“Clay doesn’t tell anyone anything. He talks a lot and he
seems to be telling you stuff, but when you think about it later, you didn’t
learn anything. Have you noticed that?”

“Hell, yes.” Something was odd about this conversation.
Griffy seemed to assume that Jewel and Clay knew each other well. She’d sounded
like that yesterday, too. As if Clay had blabbed to her. But why would he do
that?

“He’s like his father that way. I gave up trying to figure
Virgil out years ago.”

“His
father?”
Jewel put the clues together. “Clay is — he isn’t
Virgil’s
son?” she blurted. “That sneaky, lying weasel—”

“Oops,” Griffy said in a small voice.

Jewel lied, “I guessed anyway.” But her head was exploding.
No wonder Clay wanted to handle this case on his own!

Never in a million years would she have guessed. She would
kill Clay. So this was how Griffy knew all about Clay’s job, and Jewel being
his partner. She felt like a fool.

If Virgil was his father, then Clay had known it when they
took the case. And since he went to Virgil’s house before Jewel and Randy got
there, he must have lied to Virgil about them somehow. But how? What lies did
he tell? And why?

On the other hand, if Virgil knew who Clay was, what the
heck was he up to, pretending they were investigating Clay?

Complex, too complex!

“So you complained to the city?” Jewel said.

“Clay was annoyed with me about that. He said the city can’t
stop Sovay from taking Virgil from me.”

“He’s right.”
Although
we may bust her for the Venus Machine scam, if we can figure out the scam part.
“I can’t believe Clay didn’t tell me that he told you about us. Doesn’t that
bother you? To be lied to and shut out?”

“I don’t know,” Griffy said. “Should it? Maybe I’m not that
interested in something a person doesn’t want me to know. I pretty much take
people as they come. It’s not very complicated, but then I’m not very smart,”
she said humbly.

“You’re plenty smart, Griffy. At least you’re not screwing
two men at once,” Jewel blurted.

“Two? Oh, of course. You’re with Lord Darner.”

Jewel groaned.
The
girl-talking mouth got away that time.
“Now I’m wondering if I should tell
you.”

“No teasing! Lord Darner is your other partner?”

“Clay told you way too much.”

“Oh, no, I figured out who you were right away. So you — you
work with both of them?”

“Randy is my siamese twin. My bodyguard. He’s glued to me
for life.”

Griffy gasped. “You’re
married?”

“No, that’s what’s so unfair about it.”
Relationships, ugh.

“Uh, Jewel, I don’t think Clay is the marrying kind,” Griffy
said.

“I don’t want to marry Clay!” she burst out. “I don’t want
to marry Randy either. What would be the point? He already haunts my pussy!”

Griffy snorted. “For real?”

Jewel yearned to pour it all into a female ear. “I spoke
figuratively.”

“How does that work, then?”

“You want the long version or the short version?”

“I want to hear the part you want to tell me,” Griffy said,
which brought Jewel up with a start.
I so
suck at undercover.

She frowned. The mummy-wrap around her forehead crinkled.

“He lives with me. He sleeps with me. Whenever he’s in a bed
with me, he, like, disappears into my — I don’t even know if this is true — but
it feels like he’s inside my mind and my body at the same time. It weirds me
out. What’s sick is, I love that. But the weirdest thing is I’m getting used to
it. It’s like, you reach out in the night, and you feel that warm lump under
the covers, and you think, ‘He’s still here!’ And it feels good, it feels safe,
because he hasn’t left you.”

Griffy said softly, “Sometimes I wonder if Virgil is going
to leave me.”

Jewel pulled herself together. “Virgil? He’s a hundred and
one!”

“I wonder. He’s had a lot of girlfriends, you know. He won’t
marry. He was married a long time ago to Clay’s mother and it was awful. She
took him for everything, I’m guessing.”

“Well, he’s not gonna leave you. He wouldn’t dare.”

“Why wouldn’t he dare leave me?” Griffy sounded terribly
vulnerable.

Jewel felt guilty for trying to comfort her. What if she was
wrong? “Because he’ll never get a deal this good. You’re gorgeous, you’re the
kindest thing in nature, and you love him. You love his kid. Why on earth would
he leave that?”

“I guess I know all that. But I feel dumb around him.”

“I bet he loves that, too.”

“Gosh.” Jewel could almost hear the light bulb click on for
Griffy. “I bet you’re right! Tell me about Randy.”

All Jewel’s grievances came up in her throat. “Have you ever
had a boyfriend who had to get laid,
all
night,
every single night?
Whether
you were drunk or asleep, or had the flu, or you’re just mad at him? No matter
how you feel when you go to bed, there he is with his permanent erection.”

“Been there,” Griffy said, yawning. “That was Virgil, once.”
She gave a sleepy sigh.

“And this is the part that sucks.
He can always make me come.
Every single time. It’s like an
obsession with him.”

Griffy laughed. “Oh, now I’m playing my violin for you.”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“Well, think about it. If I’m drunk, if I pass out, if I’m
just asleep? He can—”
Keep Randy’s
secret, Jewel.
“I don’t even know what he does to me when I’m asleep. It’s
like he gets inside my dreams. I have horny dreams until I’m creaming. And
then,
wham!”

“He must love sex.”

“I wonder. Sometimes I don’t know if he’s loving it or not.
At first I thought so. But we’ve been inseparable, twenty-four-seven, for
weeks. I know him better now. I think he’s afraid to miss a chance.”
Because of the curse.
The sting in the
curse’s tail came back to her at that.
You
must love her, Randall,
his magician-mistress had written.

He never missed a chance to make her come. But did he love
her?

Hell, did she
want
him to love her?

This is why I don’t do
relationships.
“All I know is, it’s driving me out of my mind.”

“I’ve known guys like that,” Griffy said wistfully. “Only
they weren’t desperate to make me enjoy it.”

“He may be holding onto the kennel door,” Jewel mused.

“What kennel door?”

“My grandparents hated dogs, which was odd, since we had a
farm. They made my dogs stay in a kennel at night. Not one of those dogs liked
going into his kennel at bedtime. And yet, if a dog got in trouble, he’d run
for his kennel and curl up inside.”

Griffy sounded fuddled. “So Randy—”

“Sees my pussy as his kennel.” Over Griffy’s laughter, she
said, “He could be sick of sex by now — you would think so — I bet I would be,
in his shoes. But if we ever have a fight he, like, uh, runs away, and then I
don’t see him again until I go to bed. And there he is, like a bad, horny
penny.”

“That’s normal,” Griffy said. “Some men want a relationship,
and they think they know about sex, and they think that should be enough for
us. Really they’re desperate, ’cause they don’t have us figured out, and they
don’t understand themselves, and sex is easier than love. They’re praying that
sex is enough. And it never is.”

And you just described
how screwed up I am,
Jewel thought. For a dumb blonde, Griffy had a grip on
important things.

Griffy’s mummy-wrapping rustled. “The whole secret is—”

The masseuse came in. “Ready for our exfoliation?” She
wheeled Griffy out, leaving Jewel still in the dark about the whole secret.

Jewel drowsed, wondering how come people who seemed dumber
than she was always had longer-lasting relationships.

There was a muffled shriek. The door opened again.

“—Put them in lost and found,” said a woman at the door.

“But his wallet and everything,” someone said in the hall.

“Trust me, he’ll notice if his wallet is missing. And his
shoes. Hello,” the woman said, closing the door and advancing on Jewel, carrying
a lighted candle and a wicker basket. “Have you ever had your chakras cleansed
before?”

“Uh, no. Don’t I get out of this stuff first?” Jewel said.
The seaweed mummy-wrap was making her sweat.

“Your chakras lie parallel to your endocrine glands.” The
woman lightly touched Jewel’s wrappings in a line from her pubic bone up to the
crown of her head, dip-dip-dip, little touches that felt odd. “This is energy
work.”

Jewel felt like she was about to have a mammogram. Her
nipples tightened.

“Should I be memorizing any of this?”

“No need.” The chakra-cleanser lit more candles around the
massage table. “Relax and allow it to happen.”

Jewel lay still. She felt antsy. She thought about
wriggling. She wanted to rip off the mummy-wrap. The green gunk they’d
schmeared her with made her skin tingle. The candlelight dazzled her eyes. She
thought about shifting her hand under the wrappings into her crotch and jerking
off, a thought which shocked her.

I wish she hadn’t said
“energy.” Now I have some.

“Om mane padme hummmm,”
said her chakra cleanser.

Jewel realized she was horny. Good thing she was a
girl. If she was a guy she’d have a hellacious boner.

“Ommmmm. Ommmmm.”

“So what is my chakra?” Jewel said. Her chin itched.

“You have seven chakras.” The attendant did that tapping
thing again and Jewel spasmed like a hooked fish. “Relax. Close your eyes and
go into the music.”

There was music, Jewel realized, a mealy-mouthed tinkly
sound. It made her think of ice in a glass of Long Island iced tea. She closed
her eyes. Maybe a mint julep. She pictured making a julep, picking the mint,
grinding it in a pestle with a swivel-hipped motion, her nostrils filling with
peppermint scent. Now the woman was touching her brow with minty stuff.
Nice.

Jewel’s julep-making fantasy popped away. “The thing is, I’m
not very relaxed,” she blurted, squirming.

“Listen to the music. Wait for the low tones.”