Richard

“Go get em tiger,” Rick said mockingly to his reflection, wondering for the hundredth time what the fuck he was letting himself in for. He pushed back the wave of chestnut hair that had fallen across his eyes and thought back to the lunch date he’d had with Tony, that afternoon. The lunch date that had brought about his reason for standing there in front of the mirror, checking his appearance to see if he was first date ready.

Tony had been Rick’s best friend since they were in school together. They had met in detention in seventh grade and whilst Rick had cleaned up his act considerably since then, Tony was still known for being a joker. Lunchtime today was a case in point. He’d called out of the blue and asked to meet for lunch at Maxim’s which was a Tony Euphemism for ‘I haven’t had an acting job in weeks and I need you to buy me lunch.’ Not that Rick minded. Tony had been a true friend to him, getting him through a tough time a couple of years ago when Alice died. Buying the guy a hot meal and a couple of beers every so often was the least he could do.

Maxim’s was one of those old Hollywood joints that was way past its prime. It was the kind of place that starlets would flock to in the fifties and sixties and be picked up by some important studio exec or producer. Today, it retained all of the nostalgia of Old Hollywood with none of the hustling. It also served the best beer and the biggest burgers in the whole town.

Rick had pulled up outside Maxim’s to find Tony already waiting for him. You could fault him on many things but his timekeeping wasn’t one of them, especially when there was free beer involved. Tall, dirty blond and good looking, like every other out of work actor in LA, he could be mistaken for any one of the up and coming stars and when people asked him if he was famous, he flashed his widest smile and told them he was currently filming a blockbuster with Tom Cruise. He’d been telling women that for at least five years and to give him credit, it usually got him what he wanted. Two women checked him out as Rick got out of the car to meet him. He winked at them before bounding over.

“Rick, my man. Good to see you!” He shook Rick’s hand warmly before dropping his gaze to watch a young, barely covered ass belonging to a petite and well shaped blonde woman totter by in heels that defied gravity.

“Come on,” Rick said, dragging him into the restaurant. “I’ve got a meeting in an hour and a half and I don’t want to be late.”

“Is it an important one?” Tony asked, sliding onto a well worn bar stool and waving to attract the attention of Marnie the barmaid.

“Of course it is. All my meetings are important.”

“More important than that ass?” he asked pointing through the window where the blonde girl had stopped to read the menu board outside.

Rick swivelled Tony’s chair around towards the bar so he was no longer ogling the poor girl and passed his credit card over to Marnie who passed back a couple of beers in return.

That was the one problem with Tony. He was a great conversationalist as long as it was just the two of them, but if there was a pretty young girl within twenty feet, it was impossible to get anything more articulate out of him than a grunt. Tony hadn’t quite got the memo that it was not 1970 anymore and that openly ogling women with his tongue out was not a valid hobby.

“Are you gentlemen eating today?” Marnie asked, wiping the bar in front of them. They’d been coming here as long as Rick could remember and Marnie had tended bar right from the start. She knew them both well and was one of the few women that knew how to deal with Tony.

“We’ll have a couple of your finest burgers Marnie if you please and how about I let you have a taste of my sausage in return?” He wiggled his eyebrows in a comedic fashion to which Marnie rolled her eyes.

“If I wanted a chipolata, I’d have ordered one from the menu,” she threw back at him.

“Let’s find a seat and you can tell me what’s up,” Rick said, dragging Tony away from the long-suffering Marnie. There was always something up with Tony and it usually cost Rick money.

“So,” Rick said, sipping his beer. “Are you going to tell me what you need now?”

“Hey, man, don’t break my heart. Can’t an old friend meet for a catch up without it being about me wanting something?”

“Old friends, yes, you no!” Rick reached down to bring out his wallet.

“Put it away! I mean it this time. Actually I called you because I’m going to do you a favour to say thanks for all the times you’ve got me out of trouble. I’m even going to pay for this meal.”

“That’s very generous of you, Tony,” replied Rick dryly, “especially when you’ve already seen me hand my credit card over to Marnie!”

“Fuck, really?” He adopted a fake look of contrition. “Next one’s on me then.”

“I see those acting classes I paid for have finally paid off,” Rick said, rolling his eyes and barely hiding the sarcasm.

“Actually they have. I’ve got a part in a new sitcom. It’s one of those groups of friends’ things and I play the idiot!”

“Great casting!” Rick replied.

“Haha, very funny. Anyway, I thought it was about time I pay my old buddy back.”

Rick took a swig of his beer, feeling the cold amber fluid flow down his throat. Tony didn’t owe him anything. Ok, he’d spent a good amount of money on his adventures and mishaps in the past, but in times of trouble when no one else was there, Tony could be relied upon and when Alice died, it was Tony that got him through those horrific months afterwards.

“What did you have in mind?” Rick asked nervously. Tony’s idea for paying him back could literally be anything; a trip to the Bahamas, a dodgy investment scheme where he could get in on the ground floor, a tip for the stock market. Whatever it was, Rick knew for certain it wasn’t going to be literally paying him back in cash.

“I’ve hooked you up with a date.”

Rick spit his beer clear across the room, narrowly missing Tony in the process.

“You’ve got me a what?” Visions of aging porn stars or fake women with even faker tits sprang into Rick’s mind. Tony only knew one kind of woman and it was the kind of woman Rick didn’t care to know.

“Calm your horses. It’s a real date. I signed you up with one of those dating agencies for old losers that can’t get laid.”

“You did what?”

“I know you’ve been lonely since Alice and I thought it was about time you dated again. You’re still a looker even if you are over the hill.”

“I’m thirty two,” Rick remind him, not that it mattered. Men could get away with being any age in Hollywood and it wasn’t uncommon to see a seventy year old man out with a twenty year old woman.

The mention of Alice hit Rick like a knife in the chest as it always did when he heard her name. He pushed it down to where he didn’t have to think about it but to where it would surface in his dreams later on.

“I’m not interested!”

“Why?” Tony asked, genuine confusion on his face. Mind you, there was always genuine confusion on his face so this was nothing new.

Rick had his reasons, the main one being that if Tony was involved, he’d probably end up on a date with a seventy year old arthritic ex porn star with a wooden leg and raging syphilis. That and Alice. Rick hadn’t dated since she died, despite the multitude of Hollywood gold diggers after him who knew the size of his bank balance before they even bothered to find out his name.

“I just don’t want to date,” Rick replied defensively. He didn’t like where this conversation was going. If anyone knew how hard he found it after Alice, Tony did.

“Well, I’m sorry man, I’ve already paid the thousand bucks to the dating agency. You are meeting her at seven tonight right here.”

“You paid a thousand dollars to a dating agency?” Rick asked incredulously as Marnie served up their burgers.

“Even I’d have dated you for that much money,” said Marnie, cheekily giving him a wink.

“Aw. I thought you were saving yourself for me Marnie,” said Tony, grabbing his chest theatrically as though his heart was breaking. Marnie swiped him with a cloth playfully before leaving them alone again.

“You paid a thousand dollars for a date?” I repeated, this time at a much quieter level.

“The dating agency is meant to be the best in LA,” he replied shrugging his shoulders and digging into his burger. “All the famous movie stars use Sacha at the Hollywood Dating Agency. It’s very discrete. I only found out about it because the director of the sit com met his wife through them last year. Let me tell you buddy. His wife is hot with a capital H!”

Which is why Rick was looking at himself in the mirror and wondering what to wear for his first, first date in over ten years.

An aggressive beeping outside told him that the taxi he’d ordered was waiting for him. Rick usually didn’t like to get taxis, preferring to drive himself, but he suspected he’d need a drink or two tonight.

The taxi pulled up outside Maxim’s twenty minutes later and it was only then that he realised how unsuited to a blind date it was. Surely any woman that paid a thousand dollars to a dating agency would expect somewhere classier. Sure, he liked the place but then again, he wasn’t the kind of guy to spend a thousand dollars on a date.

He stepped out onto the sidewalk hesitantly, almost deciding to just walk away right now and pretend that none of this was happening. Even if it wasn’t some elaborate joke of Tony’s and she turned out to be a real woman and not a transvestite or hooker or both, then what? The screeching of tyres behind him told him that the taxi driver wasn’t going to hang around to find out.

He took a deep breath and headed into Maxim’s, ready to let the girl down gently. He wasn’t ready to date and there was no pretending that he was. Quiet classical music was being piped out of the speakers as he walked through the door, a complete contrast to the tinny pop music that usually played when he came in at lunchtimes. It was also much busier than he was used to. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the tables filled with people, no doubt tourists or those looking for a little Hollywood nostalgia.

He deliberately didn’t look too hard and instead headed to the bar to see Marnie. That way, if his date turned out to be some kind of joke, he could pretend he was just some guy having a beer alone.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on a date?” asked Marnie as she dropped a beer down on the bar in front of him. “Only I think she’s already here.”

She cocked her eye towards the tables behind him, but he didn’t follow suit. He didn’t want to look.

“What is she?” he asked, feeling the impending punch line of Tony’s joke was just about to reveal itself.

“What is she?” Marnie repeated quizzically. “Don’t you mean who is she?”

“You know. Is she...” He couldn’t even think how to end the sentence without seeming tactless.

“She’s very attractive, why don’t you see for yourself?”

“Does she have an adam’s apple?” he asked, only half jokingly, the unwillingness to turn around increasing with each passing second. He was known for running an architect firm with a rod of steel but somehow, every time Tony was involved, he felt like he was walking three steps behind everyone else. Especially if women were involved.

“Excuse me, are you Richard?” a voice came from behind him. At least it was a nice voice and it definitely belonged to a woman.

So much for pretending he wasn’t here on a blind date. Marnie gave him a sly wink then turned to serve a customer at the other side of the bar.

He already had an excuse on his lips as he turned but the second he saw her, it stuck in his throat. Stood before him was Alice! In the beat of a heart, his stopped just as the world around him did. The music became silent and everything disappeared except for her.

Except it wasn’t her. Of course it wasn’t. Alice had been dead for two years and now that he looked a little closer, he could see differences. This woman’s features were softer, her eyes just a shade warmer, like melted chocolate to Alice’s mahogany irises. Her lips were fuller and she wore a hint of lipstick in a warm pink colour, just a hint of a shade above nude. Her hair cascaded in soft chestnut waves around her shoulders although she’d used one of those small hairclips to keep it from falling over her face. He could feel the thump, thump, thump of his heart pounding as he took in this vision that couldn’t be real.

“Are you?” she asked again, a furrow appearing between her eyes betraying how nervous she was.

‘You and me both!’ thought Rick although he was yet to actually string two words together to speak to her.

“I’m sorry, I think I’ve got the wrong person.” She made as if to turn, flicking him out of his spellbound state.

“I’m Richard,” he heard himself say although he was past the point of knowing anything. Tony was either playing the cruellest trick or was a genius. At this point it was hard to tell.

“I hope you don’t mind, I got us a table but if you don’t want to, we could say our goodbyes now.” She bit her lip in anticipation. It was a gesture that would have looked wrong on Alice’s face and yet looked beautiful on this woman’s. Saying goodbye was the last thing he wanted to do but if he didn’t manage to figure out how to formulate words into sentences pretty soon she was going to think he was an idiot.

“I’ve heard the food is nice here,” he said, which brought about a smile to her face. It was at that point he knew he was gone, taking any semblance of normality with him. As he followed her to the table, he watched her walk in a way that Alice never would, moving her hips as she put one foot in front of another, her pert ass almost wiggling with each movement. She also dressed very differently from his dead wife. Alice never left the house without a business suit and red lipstick whereas this woman was wearing a pale pink summer dress that hugged her slender frame perfectly showing her delicate curves off to perfection before floating out and coming to rest around her ankles. In a city of miniskirts and hot pants, it was refreshing to see someone dressing so modestly. It also, Rick noted, made him curious to know what was underneath. When she turned and sat, he could see that the front of the dress was equally modest, covering her right to her neck, but the outline of her ample breasts covered by the pale pink gauzy fabric, emulated the actual colour of her bare skin, almost making her appear as though she wasn’t wearing anything at all.

As he took his place at the other side of the table, he realised that he didn’t even know her name.

“You know my name but I don’t know yours.”

A look of surprise came over her features.

“Didn’t the dating agency tell you?”

The dating agency! Rick had almost forgotten that Tony had essentially paid for this date. Not that he could let her know that. It was bad enough that she knew he’d paid for a date at all. It would be ten times worse if she found out that his friend had done it for him.

“I’m afraid not. They must have forgotten.” It sounded lame and he knew it, but she seemed not to notice.

“I’m Juliette,” she said holding her hand across the table.

He held his hand out to her, feeling the softness of her touch, sending sensations up his arm that he’d long forgotten he could feel.

Marnie came over to them with an iPad to take their order. Rick remembered the days when she only had a notepad and pencil to take orders and she never used it then, preferring to remember the order rather than write it down. She permanently had a small pencil behind her ear. When had this new iPad thing come in?

“I’ll have the Summer squash ravioli please,” Juliette replied handing her the menu.

Shit! He’d not even looked at it. He’d been too busy looking at Juliette.

“I’ll have the steak,” he said, hoping it was on the menu. He’d only ever ordered burgers here. “Medium rare and can you bring us a bottle of wine please. Whatever you think will complement our meals.”

Marnie took the menus and gave him a grin. She knew he wasn’t a wine drinker, preferring his beer.

“I think red goes with steak and white goes with pasta, but I could be wrong. I can never tell. We should have got a couple of beers instead.” Juliette laughed. She had a rich laugh, not one of those phony ones and she liked beer!

Marnie came back almost immediately with two beers. Either she had been listening to the conversation or more than likely, knowing Marnie, she had known this would happen.

She gave him a wink as she handed them over, quickly disappearing back behind the bar.

“Marnie is a saint!” he said, seeing Juliette’s confused expression. “She knew I wouldn’t be able to stomach the wine.”

“Me either. I always found wine a pretentious drink and what’s with those people who sit there and sniff it before pouring?”

“A hint of huckleberry with underlying tones of sandalwood and Airwick,” he said, holding an imaginary wine glass to his nose. She copied him, but held her beer up.

“Hmm, an aroma of hops with a barley and yeast bouquet,” she put the bottle to her mouth and drunk it down.

He was going to marry this woman!

He took in her perfect lips and watched them move as she talked. Her manner and dress were all Sandra Dee, but there was something underlying that. She was sensual without knowing it. The way she ran her tongue over her lips, wetting them was not a practiced act of sexuality – for goodness sake, she was just mopping up a drop of sauce, and yet, it conjured up images of her lips upon him, doing the same thing to him. The way she tossed her hair back from her face casually, like those girls faking orgasms in shampoo commercials, and yet she was doing nothing more than getting her hair out of her face. She was an enigma to him. A beautiful sultry, sexy woman, wrapped up in the demeanour of an innocent girl. He found himself wanting to explore her layers in more ways than one.

He’d never been able to take Alice home to his mother. She’d thought of her business attire and direct manner as trashy and unwomanly, and yet he was imagining introducing Juliette to her. What the fuck was wrong with him? He’d not even seen his mother himself for six months. And yet Juliette was the feminine, demure girl she’d always dreamed of having in a daughter in law. If she was so demure, why was he imagining her lips around his cock?

“Are you ok?” asked Juliette, snapping him back to reality.

“Yes, sorry. I was just thinking about my mother. It’s about time I went back home for a visit.”

By god that was lame! And yet she smiled. Of course she did. She was the type of girl who would love to meet any prospective boyfriend’s mother.

“Tell me about your family,” she said spearing a piece of squash into her mouth and wrapping her lips around it.

He purposely tore his eyes away and looked into hers instead. She was making it difficult to concentrate and yet she had no idea of the effect she had on him.

By the time the meal had arrived, he knew all about her. She was originally from LA but had studied in San Diego. She was an only child and both her parents had passed away, and her favourite thing in the world was to read. Rick was not used to talking about himself, but he found himself telling her everything. She listened intently as he described how he’d always wanted to be an architect and how he’d set the business up twenty years ago. She genuinely didn’t know that his little business was now was one of the biggest money earners in California. Money didn’t seem to interest her in the slightest. It made a pleasant change from all the money diggers he’d encountered in the past. Still, if she could afford a thousand dollars to go on a blind date, she couldn’t be short of a pretty penny herself.

“Would you like dessert?” she asked once they had finished. He never ordered dessert as a rule, he just didn’t have a sweet tooth, but he didn’t want the date to end so he found himself ordering key lime pie while she opted for the cheesecake.

By the time the meal was finished, he knew two things. One, that he would buy Tony lunch for the rest of eternity and pay for whatever the hell he needed for his acting career and two, he’d found someone who saying goodbye to was not an option.

“Can I walk you home?” he asked, completely forgetting where he was. Nobody walked in LA. Not unless you counted the tourists that hiked up and down Hollywood Boulevard every day. He couldn’t even offer to drive her home.

“I drove here,” she gave a grin and he kicked himself for showing his small town roots where walking a girl home after a date was considered normal. “Can I drive you home?”

He considered his options. Saying yes felt extremely unchivalrous but saying no meant that his date had come to an end and he wasn’t anywhere near ready for that to happen. He wanted her so bad that he could almost taste it. It wasn’t helping him any that her dress was almost the same delicate pink of her skin and that now they were outside he could smell the cinnamon and honey scent of her shampoo. If he wasn’t a gentleman he’d have taken her right then and there in the parking lot.

She took him to a small blue car and unlocked the doors with her key fob. It was vastly understated for a woman who’d thrown a thousand dollars on a blind date but somehow it suited her. Nothing about her was flashy.

“You know,” she began as he eased himself into the passenger seat. “I wasn’t expecting to find a date at all. Sacha at the dating agency promised me she would find me someone but after all this time, I was surprised that you were interested. There aren’t many people like us around.”

He couldn’t understand what she was telling him. She was utterly the most stunningly beautiful woman he’d ever met and that said a lot in a town known for beautiful women. Unlike them, she wasn’t fake. He’d been around Hollywood long enough to know fake breasts when he saw them and the hidden gems under her dress were anything but fake. He told her his address as they pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street.

“You weren’t exactly what I was expecting either,” he replied honestly, picturing all the scenarios that had run through his mind before he’d met her.

He could see the shape of her legs below the folds of pink material and it was with extreme difficulty he kept his hands to himself. Before Alice, he’d had no trouble falling into bed with women without even bothering to find out their names first, but something told him that Juliette was a rarity in this town. She didn’t come across like anyone he’d met since moving here in his late teens when forward women seemed exotic. He’d soon realised that pretty much every woman in Hollywood was forward and the whole thing became boring to him, until Alice that was. Not that she was backwards in coming forwards either. Juliette was a different bird entirely and he sensed that he needed to play it cool with her. There was hesitancy and an innocence about her despite her body being ripe for sin. It was because of this he decided to be gentlemanly and courteous and not to ask her up to his penthouse apartment. Not this time. He’d save it for the next date but he’d make sure the next date was as soon as he could possibly make it.

She got out of the car and walked with him to the apartment block entrance, the complete opposite of what he had been brought up to expect.

“I had a great date, thank you.”

She kissed him lightly on the cheek and just that small action made him go hard. God, what was happening? He’d never not been able to control himself before. Who was he? A sixteen year old virgin on a first date?

“Come up...I mean, would you like to come up for coffee?” He asked her, completely forgetting the plan he had made with himself in the car. Screw gentlemanly and considerate, he needed to find out what lay underneath those clothes.

“Isn’t that a euphemism for sex?” she asked coyly, her cheeks colouring as she said it.

Her blush only increased his need for her, to taste those lips and the rest of her. The scent of cinnamon and honey was driving him wild.

“It can be.” It was the only answer he could think of that didn’t sound too needy. God, he thought he might die on the spot if she turned him down.

She laughed lightly and kissed him again on the cheek.

“How about we go for a date to my favourite restaurant next Tuesday? I can pick you up here at seven.”

He nodded weakly and she was already gone leaving the lingering scent of cinnamon and honey in her wake.

It was only when he got into the elevator for the penthouse that he replayed the conversation they’d had back in his head.

There aren’t many of people like us around, she had said. It only occurred to him now that he should have asked what she meant because the way he saw it. If anything looked too good to be true, it usually was.