An Accidental Affair (12 page)

“You pulsated a long time.”

“You know why a woman does that? It’s in order to suck sperm toward the egg. And it massages the man. Makes him want to give a woman his sperm and let them go on a journey.”

“A journey to the Land of Child Support and Misery.”

She laughed. “You and your jokes.”

“I was serious.”

“So true. Bobby Holland pays through the nose. That’s why he calls his kids his ‘regrets.’”

“I heard.”

“No regrets?”

“None that I know of. None that I care to hear about.”

“I meant with sleeping with me.”

“Definitely no regrets. The way I feel right now, if we made a regret, I wouldn’t regret it.”

She laughed harder. “I had no idea that you were this funny.”

I leaned in and kissed her. Licked her breasts. Focused on the nipples.

She whispered, “‘In the end we are all victims, not of each other, but of nature.’”

“I’m giving you titty-head and you’re quoting my screenplay. This is getting scary.”

“Hush. I loved that line. I posted that one on my Facebook page.”

“Really?”

She moaned. “You really know how to suck a breast, you know that?”

A moment later I set her nipple free from my lips and I eased out of the bed, stretched, and staggered to the bathroom.

She whispered. “Is my hour of sexual healing with the legendary James Thicke up?”

“Only if you’re kicking me out in the middle of the night.”

“If someone is expecting you, if you have another appointment, I’ll understand.”

“I don’t have to leave. No one is expecting me.”

“Don’t want to mess up anything you have going on back at your spread in Los Feliz.”

“I live alone. No live-in lover. No dogs. No regrets.”

“Stay, James Thicke. I want you and that thick dick from Brit to stay a few hours.”

“That made no sense.”

“Whatever. I think you rattled my brain when you came in for a landing.”

“Sorry about that. But you kicked up a lot of turbulence yourself.”

“I have to be out of here by nine. I have an audition and a lunch engagement.”

“Then set the alarm for six thirty. I can be out of here before everyone gets up.”

“Okay. I’ll call in a wake-up for six thirty. Wow. I have you for four more hours.”

I ran hot water and grabbed a hand towel. I made it soapy and cleaned myself. My reflection showed a man with a grin. A man who had just been in bed with Regina Baptiste. I wondered if men who had slept with goddesses like Gina Lollobrigida or Dita Von Teese or Mayra Veronica or Monica Bellucci or Diana Dors had felt the same way after. I grabbed another hand towel and made it wet with hot water and wiped myself. Then I made a soapy towel and a wet towel and went back in the bedroom. I stood and watched her in her post-orgasmic nakedness. I took in a view of her body, of her stunning silhouette, of the perfect hourglass figure.

I said, “You said that you posted a quote from my works.”

“Got four hundred likes and about three hundred comments.”

I went to her and said, “Open your legs.”

She did. I used the towels to clean her. She closed her eyes and smiled.

I did too. I was cleaning my come away from Regina Baptiste.

This was a Hallmark moment. It could sell a million
Wish You Were Here
postcards.

I asked, “What do you want, most of all?”

“What do you mean, baby?”

“Most of all, besides fame, besides success, what do you want?”

“An unencumbered life.”

A moment later she turned, faced me, looked in my eyes.

She whispered, “You are extraordinary.”

“So are you.”

“I’m hot, baby. You have me sweating like I’m back in Spanish Wells.”

I adjusted the a/c, made the suite a little cooler to take away the heat.

She said, “You came a lot. Jesus, you came a lot.”

I made more hot towels, cleaned her again. Done, I tossed the towels across the room, made them land near the bathroom, same as I had done with the first set of towels.

“James Thicke, don’t throw stuff on the floor. I know you didn’t grow up in a barn.”

I picked up the towels and took them into the bathroom.

She said, “You have good hygiene. I love that about a man.”

I said, “You said that you had a few hundred likes and a few hundred comments.”

“I love it when they
LIKE
me. I love to know that they are paying attention to me. It’s crazy. I have a hundred thousand people following me on Twitter.”

When I came back out she was on her side, covers pulled back from her naked body, watching me like I was the statue of David.

She said, “Stand right there.”

“Why?”

“I want to look at your fabulous body, James. You look good to me. So damn good.”

“You look pretty good yourself, Baptiste.”

She said, “Whoever you were waiting on tonight, booty call or you love her?”

I put on a smile. “Why do you ask?”

“I guess I ask you things so I can understand the man I’ve admired for so long.”

“What are you trying to understand?”

“Me. You. This moment. We know each other now. Biblically. That can’t be erased.”

The conversation was getting too deep. I felt her pain now. And she felt mine.

She said, “So, you said that people want to drink what I drink and eat what I eat.”

“That’s why endorsements are so amazingly profitable. Brings in the lost sheep.”

“Fame attracts nothing but fools. They go to a church because I go there.”

“Yeah. The shallow follow the celebrities, not the preacher.”

A moment passed with her regaining her composure. “Your lips are so sexy.”

“Yours too. Both pair.”

“Come here. Come here and touch me again.”

When I joined her on the bed, she turned over on her side and faced me.

She whispered, “So they flock to church simply because a celebrity is there.”

We kept the conversation thin, moved away from truths and emotions.

She put her hand on my head. I kissed her thighs. She guided my head and I licked her for a while. Her fingers touched my face, and she looked down, watched me savor her. Guttural hums. I tasted desire and all conversation ended.

I made her get on her knees, put her coveted ass in the air, and I slid inside. We moved around the bed. Positions changed, morphed from one into the next, and at some point she ended riding me sideways. I held her waist and let her move against my length. As she moved and rocked into me, I moaned and squeezed her butt, moved and rocked with her, my curt breathing and primal sounds like words of praise that let her know how good she made me feel.

Regina Baptiste moaned, “I’m coming baby I’m coming shit baby I can’t stop coming.”

The faces that she made, the intense and vulgar moans, that was what Regina Baptiste looked like in the throes of passion, how she behaved and made love and fucked and set her primal side free and freed her sexuality and expressed herself behind closed doors, this was her real face, not the pretend orgasmic faces she had made in many films. It was the same face that I’d see when Johnny Handsome fucked her and that tape made it out to the rest of the world.

I slapped her ass, and my orgasm held me captive a short while. As I came down from that high, I slapped her coveted backside again and again and again, each slap exhausted and without power, but she trembled when I smacked her ass. Trembled like she was coming again.

She did. And not long after, I did the same.

Six thirty was only an hour away. I wanted her to never forget this one-night stand.

She cuddled up next to me and said, “You’re a beast, James. You’re a fucking beast.”

“You’re wide awake.”

“I’m wired. Close your eyes if you want. I’ll watch you sleep.”

I sat up. “I didn’t come here to sleep. Like I said, you’re too attractive to sleep with.”

But I did close my eyes. I did fall asleep. And as soon as I did the phone rang. I jumped up alert. Wake-up call. Six thirty. The party was over. She sat up, then went to the bathroom. When she came back she had on a robe. Paradise was closed and hidden from my eyes. Another fresh hint of happy powder was on the tip of her nose. I wiped the blow away.

I dressed and at the door she said, “I did it with the legendary James Thicke. Wow.”

“I was with Regina Baptiste. Might have to rent a blimp and tell the world.”

She whispered, “You were really good, James. I should bake you a cake.”

“I had a good time, Miss Baptiste. Wish we could meet again. But I know we can’t.”

“It was both fun and worth it.”

I stepped out into the hallway. She closed and locked the door behind me.

As I took my lethargic Walk of Shame, I yawned and checked my cellular. No text messages. When I made it to the lobby, Driver was already waiting, crossword puzzle in hand.

The next night, I sat at a red light in the turning lane at North Vermont Avenue and Los Feliz Boulevard, hands gripping my steering wheel, cars behind me blowing their horns. I closed my eyes like I was praying. Then I grunted. I put my hand down on top of her head, felt her swallowing. She finished and slowed down the passionate sucking and stroking action.

A moment later, Regina Baptiste raised her head from my lap.

She pulled her seatbelt back on, wiped the sides of her lips and smiled.

Regina Baptiste said, “The secret is to use the Listerine strips. Better than Altoids.”

I drove away and blended with traffic that always moved at a madman’s pace. We’d had dinner at the Vermont. I had on jeans, jacket, and another colorful T-shirt.
THE CLITORIS IS THE MOST AMAZING PART OF A WOMAN’S BODY.
She wore a little black dress. High heels.

Regina Baptiste’s BMW 650i was parked back at my estate, the home that, once we had married and she had broken both faith and my spirits, I would leave behind.

That night. Calm breeze. Carmageddon at midnight. In a city surrounded by mountains.

She whispered, “You’re good company. That road head was my saying thank you for another great evening. You could make me forget my sins and turn me into a saint.”

“Do saints give road head?”

She laughed. “I could suck you all night.”

I held her hand as I drove, my finger tracing her palm.

I asked, “How much time do you have?”

“I need to get back home.” Her smile vanished. “Bobby’s going to Skype me from Oslo.”

“I wanted to show you around my property.”

“Sorry. He’s calling me in two hours. I have to be there.”

“I can have you out of here in about an hour.”

She looked stressed, suddenly anxious, had worry lines appear across her forehead as she bit her lip and looked at her watch. “I guess that I can squeeze in about thirty minutes.”

Right then her cellular rang. She looked at the number and answered.

It was her publicity team. It was a short conversation that sounded like bad news.

She said, “I haven’t seen it on the Internet as of yet. Google it. Text me. No, I won’t get to talk to him for about two hours. There is a nine-hour time difference. He’s on the frickin’ set. What the hell do you want me to do, fly to Oslo and shut down his movie? Be real. Yeah. Bye.”

As soon as the gates to my home opened, Regina Baptiste took it all in. I rolled into the two-thousand-square-foot garage; a garage that looked like it was part of the Louvre or Musée d’Orsay. Engine humming, I jockeyed past my fleet and her BMW. When I parked the Maybach, we sat there and held hands. The satellite radio was on a pop station, the music down low.

“Your screenplays have been very profitable, Mister Thicke.”

“I have other investments, Miss Baptiste.”

“You’re killing Hollywood. I tracked the bottom line for your projects online.”

“You’ve been following the money.”

“Everyone follows the money. Cruise gets sixty and Sandler makes
twenty million a film. We all follow the money. The people who forget the business part of show business die broke.”

“You get six mil a picture.”

“You’re following my money.”

“Googled you this afternoon.”

“And half goes to the IRS. Twenty percent to management. Ten percent to agent. Accountant gets her cut. I have an assistant. I pay my parents’ bills and mortgage. I have to feed my retirement accounts and maintain my investments as well, which have disappointed me.”

“Still, six mil a picture is pretty good.”

“Kidman gets sixteen a project. Witherspoon, Diaz, and Zellweger get fifteen. Theron gets ten. Compared to them I’m a cheap date. I make two million a picture less than Aniston and I work harder than all of them put together. Each dollar on me makes ten at the box office.”

“Still, better than working at the drive-thru at McDonald’s.”

She smiled. “I have always loved your work.”

“You’re good at what you do too.”

“And you never have any scandals or bullshit going on.”

“Nobody cares about the private life of a writer, not even other writers.”

“Screenwriters and television writers have the advantage of being able to write and no one sees their cute little faces. You can write for Cruise or Roberts or Clooney, and no one has any idea who made them look good. My face is my calling card. My gender is my calling card. You can remain anonymous. You can write male or female characters. You’re not in a box.”

“We’re all in boxes. Some bigger, some smaller, but we’re all in boxes.”

“Your box is an eight-thousand-square-foot estate behind gates and brick walls.”

“Throw in a warden and it’s a prison.”

She was solemn. “I’m learning what really hard work is. I used to watch television and imagine the easy time the screen stars must be having in Hollywood, but the last few years have taught me quite another story. You can work hard, and then you have to work harder. Your main job in Hollywood is looking for a job and looking for job is a full-time job that doesn’t pay. I’m in a business where the average woman retires involuntarily by the age of twenty-nine.”

“They have women older than that working at Burger King.”