Belle Pearl (4 page)

The dreaded phone call came the next day.

“How did you get my number?” I asked Claudine. She hadn’t even spoken but I suspected it was Claudine because of the weighty silence that I knew I was expected to fill. Responsible, as I was, for her misery.
Not
.

“Alexandre, I’m so down. My boyfriend and I—”

“I know,” I cut in. “Sophie told me. I’m sorry it didn’t work out but don’t lose hope—there are plenty of other men out there who would be delighted to date you.”
Delighted until enlightened…to the psycho side.

“You’re the only man I’ve ever known who knows how to fuck me properly, Alex.”

Uh, oh.
“You’re being dramatic. Don’t be silly.”

“I’ve been on a binge. I’ve fucked eight men in eight days and not a single one of them has gotten me even close to feeling turned on, let alone having an orgasm.”

“Claudine, that’s not the way to go about things. Men usually don’t care if a woman comes or not. They’re in it for themselves. That’s why you need to develop a
real
relationship with someone. So he cares about your needs.”

“I tried. You think I didn’t try? My last boyfriend. But it was a disaster in the end. Even
he
was crap in bed.”

I sucked in a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry but I can’t help you. What I can do is pay for you to see someone. A psychiatrist or a counselor—someone you can discuss all this with you in depth.”

“All those bloody book boyfriends don’t help.”

“What?”

“I feel so
inadequate.
All the women in those stories come in thousands of different positions as easily as if they were brushing their teeth. They even come on command. On command for fuck’s sake! All the guy has to say is,
‘Come
for me baby,’ and the woman comes, one point zero seconds later. Just like that! As fast as clicking a finger. Is that even possible for a woman? Because it sure as hell isn’t possible for me! I can’t come at all, let alone on bloody command. What’s wrong with me?”

“Claudine, that’s fantasy, not reality. In reality things are more complicated. Don’t believe what you read. I know…my mother’s into that shit. You think if all women were coming on command they’d be reading those books? No, they’d be busy fucking instead.”

“It’s not just the novels but the magazines, too. It’s all about the men. How to please
the man
. How to be a sex goddess. What about
us?
Why aren’t they being taught how to please
us?”

I thought of Sophie. This was her next business plan—to set up a ‘romance spa’ as she described it. Very chic. Expensive, where men would be trained to please women—women would be the only clientele—no male clients allowed. The sex workers cum ‘escorts’ (yes, the word cum is very appropriate here) would be handpicked. Models—really good-looking types who would learn everything from scratch. Have their bad habits wiped clean. Learn how to make a woman come from just a foot massage. How to give her mind-blowing orgasms, even if she’d never experienced one before. There would be sex workers to accommodate gay women too. It would be fantasy haven. But better than fantasy, fantasy made reality.

“Alex? Are you there?” Hell..ooo?”

“Yes, Claudine, I’m still here. I was just thinking about my sister’s business plan, sorry. Listen, I’m serious—I’ll pay for a shrink or someone you can talk to, but I can’t see you myself. I told you I was serious about Pearl. We’re getting married.”

“But you’re not married
yet?”

“As good as. We’re engaged.”

“But you haven’t got a ring on your finger.”

“Claudine—”

“Which means you’re still
technically
single.”

I took another deep breath and looked at my bare left hand. I wanted that wedding band on my finger more than I imagined Rex wanted a big, fat, juicy bone.

And damn it, I wasn’t bloody well going to wait until winter.

4

W
hen Pearl suggested that we go to LA, I jumped at the chance. Her bad dreams had gotten out of control but she wouldn’t discuss them with me, just insisted she couldn’t remember what had happened each time. Yet I could feel her pulling away. Her desire for me was wavering like a flickering candle. Why all of a sudden? As if something had triggered the bad dreams, which in turn were making her jump when I touched her as she slept. What and why?

I wondered if I was somehow responsible; if I’d been too sexual with her—too dominating, too insatiable. She was holding something back but I had no idea what. So I put it down to the documentary she and Natalie were making on child trafficking. The tales she told me of young girls being raped and beaten were pretty horrific. Selfishly, I was glad that Pearl wanted to take a break from making controversial documentaries and move into something less harrowing: feature films. Although, dealing with actors’ egos could also be pretty tough, but at least her day-to-day work would be somewhat more lighthearted.

So LA would be a breath of fresh air, I thought. We’d go, take a vacation and then I’d leave her there if she wanted to stay on as I had a business trip in Canada coming up. I hoped that it would calm her down a bit—a change of scenery would stop those nightmares. She could tinker with the
Stone Trooper
script with the scriptwriter, as Alessandra Demarr had insisted on changes. Being a Tony award-winning actress, Alessandra had some clout and Sam Myers seemed to be bending over backwards to keep her sweet.

LA was perfect. Sunny, blue sky, palm trees, people smiling incessantly as if they were taking some sort of happy pill. Our trip was made all the more enjoyable by our choice of rental car: a powder blue, 1960 Eldorado Biarritz convertible Cadillac. It had fins and glistening chrome that shone silver in the sunlight. I felt as if Pearl and I were riding on a giant shark, cruising the wide avenues, spotting other vintage cars and California girls as we sped by, the wind catching our hair, the music blasting through the speakers. Pearl looked like a true California Girl herself—tanned and lithe, golden and sun-kissed, so I played the song,
California Girls
by The Beach Boys, and we sang along.

We were on our way to Alessandra Demarr’s house in Topanga Canyon and when we arrived, my eyes strayed, not to Alessandra in her black negligee outfit, but to her classic car, a 1962 Porsche 356B, also black. As Alessandra eye-fucked Pearl, roaming her saucy gaze lasciviously all over Pearl’s body and suggesting Bloody Marys of all bloody things (yes, I know), I was only too glad to take Alessandra up on her offer of taking her car for a spin.

“She’s all yours, Alexandre, the keys are under the mat.”

“I can see you can’t get rid of me fast enough,” I said with a wink.

“Come back in half an hour,” she said in her lilting Italian accent, taking Pearl’s arm and guiding her away.

Pearl looked like a lamb being led to slaughter. Sophie had been right; beautiful seductress Alessandra was all over her. Funny, we could have been siblings, Alessandra and I. She had eyes my color: fiery green. I guess I was used to looking at myself in the mirror and didn’t think about my eyes, one way or another, but on Alessandra they looked predatorily unnerving, as if she were about to literally devour Pearl. I wondered if I looked the same. Like a wolf. Or a panther. Because before Alessandra began her feast, I imagined that she’d lick Pearl all over first and taste every inch of her body. It turned me on, actually, to envision this, and I felt rather wicked for leaving my fiancée in her clutches, but it also amused me.

At first.

The drive was beautiful. I took the car along Pacific Coast Highway, speeding, seeing how the old Porsche could handle corners, as the ocean shimmered on one side and scrubby mountains rose above on the other. I figured that if I got stopped, I’d just show the cops my French license—it usually did the trick. No points off because the paperwork was too much hassle.

When I returned, I found the two women snacking, and drinking their Bloody Marys. I wondered for a second if Alessandra had done a Laura on her, as Pearl was innocently sipping her drink through a straw. Alessandra was wet, had obviously gone for a swim; her pert breasts clinging to her see-through dress, her hand on Pearl’s thigh. A vision of them kissing flashed through my head. I closed my eyes to think of something else so my hard-on would go away.

Alessandra looked up. “Hi Frenchie.”

“Hi, baby,” Pearl said. “How was your drive?”

“Beautiful.” I stood there, legs astride, watching the two of them.

“I was just trying to persuade your fiancée to stay on as we need to work on the script.”

I knew it. She was going to get her smooth, gay fingers all over Pearl. For a second, I felt a frisson of jealousy tingle through my spine. I stared Alessandra down.
She’s mine, bitch-on-heat.
I walked over to stake my claim. I put my hands on Pearl’s shoulders and kissed the nape of her neck.

I’d test Pearl, I decided. If she wanted to stay…well then…she’d get seduced and she damn well knew it. She’d have to battle with her inner-gay-goddess all on her own. If she came home with me, then she really was my girl. I couldn’t make that choice for her.

“Stay, chérie, enjoy the weather, have some
fun
with Alessandra,” I said with a wry grin. “Anyway, I have to go to Montreal for a meeting so you might as well hang out here for a bit.”

“I don’t know,” she wavered, looking at Alessandra and then at me. “I should really get home, but it
is
so beautiful here; so nice to feel the sunshine on my back.”

“You’re staying, Pearl,” Alessandra barked like the alpha female she was. “I won’t allow you to leave yet. We have important work to get done here with the script.”

I almost wanted to take the two women at once and fuck them both, there and then. Show Alessandra who was boss. I was also extremely turned on thinking about them together. My heart raced just imagining our threesome, but I knew it would be a very bad idea. Pearl would go wild with jealousy, and anyway, it would feel like incest; Alessandra was too similar to me.

What would happen, I wondered, if Pearl was truly gay, though? If she played around with Alessandra and got converted? The woman was every inch a movie star. She had the X factor, that
je ne sais quoi
that set her apart from the crowd. And she wanted Pearl. I almost felt like calling Ellen DeGeneres to break up the happy party… distract Alessandra, get her away from
my
woman. Insanely, I felt threatened by her. Ridiculous! Being threatened by a she-wolf when I was the alpha male?

I guess that’s why I toyed with the idea of Pearl staying on. To prove to myself I could handle it. So paradoxically, by not stopping her and being so blasé about it all, I actively encouraged Pearl to remain in LA for a few days.

The next morning, while Pearl and I were making love—and I say ‘making love’ because it was far more than just a fuck—she pushed me off her, saying she felt sick. It was sudden. A click-of-a-finger sudden. One second she was squirming beneath me in ecstasy, and the next she was repulsed, looking as if she really
was
about to throw up. Was I going crazy? Was this Alessandra Demarr thing for real?
Jesus. Is my woman a fucking full-on lesbian?