I can still feel Raven’s stare on me as I finally break through the crowd at the door and emerge into the hallway, my pulse pounding as if I just witnessed a grisly murder.  As if I just came face to face with my own personal super-villain.

I walk numbly down the hallway, my mind racing.  She must have known I’d be here tonight.  And she wanted me to see her there, fucking in the raw, and I played right into her hands.  

I grab an open bottle of scotch without even really looking at it, moving through the living room without seeing it, and going straight outside, un-stoppering my bottle as I do.

Though the pool is off the main floor, Vida’s mansion is built on a steep slope, meaning that the pool terrace can extend into a ledge overlooking the city. I walk across the wide, white terrace with its sparkling water and curtained cabana—all of it currently devoid of party guests—and make my way to the chest-high wall rimming the edge of the balcony.  I take a swig from the bottle as I survey the city—my city—and then wince.

“Fuck,” I wheeze.  It’s Laphroaig.  

I fucking hate Laphroaig.  

I take another drink, a longer one this time.  I don’t deserve a scotch I like to drink right now—or maybe it’s not that I don’t deserve it, but it’s more like I can’t imagine any part of this night being pleasant or enjoyable. Not with my ex-girlfriend fucking just yards away from me right now.  

No, I want my drink to taste like shit.  I want my mouth to taste like old ashtrays, and I want to get dizzily, pukingly, disgustingly drunk.  Because if I’m drunk, then I don’t have to process Raven and her fucking mind games.  I won’t be tempted to scroll through her Instagram to find out when she got back to L.A., if she’s still with Italian Guy, and I certainly won’t be tempted to text her.

I pull out my phone, taking another long drink of the smoky liquor and open up my messages.  I deleted her number long ago, but I still have it memorized, and maybe I could just send her one text.  Just one.  I could call her a bitch and tell her to go to hell.  Tell her I knew exactly what she was up to.  

Or I could beg her to come over to my house and just fucking talk to me.  We haven’t exchanged a word since the day she left, and all I’ve wanted these past three months is an explanation or an apology maybe, or even some fucking closure.

I tap in her number and open up a new message.  My thumb hovers over the keyboard, the first golden glow of the scotch beginning to dull my anger.  Maybe I would invite her to talk—that’s what grown-ups did, right?  Talk?  And if it led to me fucking all the lies and deceit right out of her skinny body...

Jesus.  I’m like the werewolf who needs to be chained to a radiator during the full moon.  Of course I can’t text her.  Eliciting that kind of reaction is probably exactly what she wants, and fuck me if I’m going to do anything that she wants me to do.

I spin around and throw my phone as hard as I can into the pool.

It lands with a small splash, sinking like a brushed-aluminum stone straight to the bottom.  My momentary satisfaction is eclipsed by immense regret, because I just got that phone a few weeks ago.  Fuck it, I can get a new one tomorrow.  If that’s the price I have to pay to keep myself separate from Raven, then so be it.

I take a few healthy chugs of the Laphroaig.  

“I hope you’ve got a good warranty,” a cheerful voice says from next to me.  Even over the smoky scent of the whisky, I smell her.  Cinnamon and sunshine.

I inelegantly swallow the scotch still in my mouth, turning to face the person next to me.  “Devi.”

She flashes me her sunny grin, and then returns the greeting by playfully bumping her shoulder against my arm.  Heat flares across my bicep, emanating from the place where our bare skin touched, and the heat slowly migrates towards my chest, independent of the blood now pumping to my groin.  

I am suddenly very aware of the fact that Devi and I have never been alone.  Strange, given that we’ve given each other orgasms, but Raven’s Real Playdates was the only time we’ve worked together, and there are so many people on a porn set that it’s impossible to feel any sense of alone-ness, even when you’re staring someone in the eyes while they suck you off. And even though we’ve seen each other at parties and events since then, we’ve only ever said hi or how are you or where’s the bar?  Not exactly the basis for a deep understanding of one another.

So I should probably explain to her why I just chucked a brand new phone into the water, and also maybe not reveal the fact that I have a massive crush on her.

I try to muster the casual, flirty guy I was earlier tonight.  “Devi, I…”  

I jack off to you almost every day.  

“…I, uh, didn’t know anyone else was out here.  Or I wouldn’t have, you know.”  I mime throwing the phone.

She laughs and then bends down to unfasten her leather heel.  “If it’s in a good case, it might still be okay,” she says.   I watch, transfixed, as she kicks off both shoes, shimmies out of her shorts, and then walks to the edge of the pool. She’s wearing what legally might qualify as underwear, but only just barely.

Have I mentioned Devi Dare’s ass?  Because I should.  She has one of the best asses known to mankind.  Plump and thick and juicy, the kind of ass that invites biting and squeezing, and the way it slopes out from her small waist is pure poetry.  And those legs—despite the obvious muscles in her calves and thighs, they still move as she walks, like her ass does, and there’s something so healthy about it, so tantalizing about her body with its wide hips and slightly soft stomach and full breasts.  She’s sexy in such a visceral, biological way, the kind of way that says you want to make babies with me.  My cock lengthens as I watch her, tens of thousands of years of evolution telling me to haul her off and impregnate her.

She turns, hands on her hips.  “Are you going to join me?”

“I was just enjoying the view,” I say, and it comes out a little too raspy, a little too honest, but then I follow it up with a weak grin, and then she laughs and jumps into the pool.  With a final gulp of whisky, I put the cork in the bottle and then fling myself in after her, clothes, shoes and all.

The water is cool and it’s the best kind of contrast to the dry heat of the July night and the warmth of the scotch in my stomach—and to the new kind of warmth that’s agitating in my chest, something frictive and thrilling pressing up against my anger and my broken heart.  Something that started the moment Devi brushed against my arm.

I jumped into the deep end, so it’s a few beats before my feet press flat against the bottom and I can push myself back up.  I break the surface, sputtering, and awkwardly try to swim over to Devi with one hand still clenched around my scotch bottle.  She treads water as steadily and gracefully as a water nymph, her long hair floating around her shoulders and her gold top drifting away from her skin, giving me just the barest glimpse of one nipple, dark rose and peaked into a tight furl.  Water droplets cling to the thick fringe of her eyelashes.

“You’re not very good at swimming,” she points out as I make my way closer.

“Never liked it much,” I say, swimming past her and moving to where my feet can touch.  With a sigh of relief, I set my feet down, examine the scotch bottle to make sure no pool water leaked in, and then take a long drink.  I’m on my way to being drunk, and I’m intent on sealing the deal.  What can I say?  I’m a finisher.

Devi drifts up next to me, holding something in her hand.  It takes me a minute to realize that it’s my phone, the entire reason we spontaneously jumped into the pool in the first place.  And somehow, miraculously, the pricey case the Apple Store girl talked me into buying has saved the phone.  The screen still glows with my unwritten text message.

Somehow, between the pool and the scotch and Devi Dare with no pants on, I’ve lost the urge to talk to Raven.  I take the phone and toss it carelessly onto the concrete and then turn back to Devi.

“You, on the other hand, seem like quite the swimmer,” I say with a smile, offering her the scotch.  She takes it and raises the bottle to her lips.

“I was raised in California, you know,” she says and then takes a drink.

“Well, so was I.  But my parents are Boston transplants, so I guess they never saw swimming as a priority for me.”

She hands the bottle back to me.  “I think I had floaties before I had a bicycle.  My parents are very, uh…”  She searches for the right words.  “Natural people.  They think it’s important to be periodically cleansed of negative energy, and flowing water is one of the best ways to do that.  So we went swimming at least once a week.”  

I can see the faintest blush coloring the apples of her cheeks, as if she’s embarrassed by what her parents believe.  And then I wonder if she’s embarrassed because she believes it a little too.

God, that blush is so sexy.  I want to lick it right off her face.  And then pin her down and lick her everywhere.

She tilts her head to the sky.  “You can see Cassiopeia tonight.”

I look up, following her gaze, but I see nothing other than the golden glow hovering above the city and a smattering of faint, twinkling stars.  “Is Cassiopeia a constellation?” I venture.

She laughs and nods, and then she reaches over and takes my head in her hands.  My pulse thrums, that warmth in my chest explodes into flames, and I want her to kiss me kiss me kiss me, but before I can turn my head to her, she trains my face to the sky, facing the right direction this time.

“Do you see it?” she asks.  Her mouth is close to my neck, and I wonder what it would feel like if she bit me there.  “It looks like a letter M.”  She traces the shape of it with her fingers, until finally I see it—an underwhelming handful of tired stars.

“You can’t see it this far into the city sometimes,” she continues.

“Cassiopeia sounds like a porn name,” I say frankly and she laughs again.

“Ptolemy named it.”

I give her a blank look.  I got pretty good grades in school, but it’s been more than ten years since graduation, and anything not intimately related to film or the kind of math I need to run my business has been filtered out of my brain.

“Ptolemy was a Greek astronomer,” she explains, giving me an amused glance.  “He named it after a famous queen in Greek mythology.  She was so beautiful and vain and boastful that she brought the wrath of Poseidon down on her kingdom.”

Beautiful, vain, boastful.  My mind swerves back to Raven, possibly still in this very house, possibly still being screwed with that evil smile on her face.  Where is Poseidon when you need him?

No.  

No, I won’t let Raven crowd into my happy, drunk moment with Devi and the scotch.  I speak as much to drive away thoughts of my ex as to comment on Devi’s astronomy knowledge.  “You know a lot about this shit,” I tell her, turning my eyes back to her face completely.

And now she really blushes.  “I really like astronomy.  Stars and galaxies and stuff.  It makes life feel so...big...you know?”

The thing is, I do know.  That big feeling, I mean.  I get it every time I watch an amazing film, every time I imagine my own films with just the right setting and just the right cinematography and just the right score.

“I’ve never met a performer who’s told me anything like that,” I say.  And it’s true.  Not once have I been around another adult film star and had them confess a purely impractical fascination.  A call toward something that makes them feel like life is magical.

She blinks, and the way her long, thick eyelashes brush against her wet cheeks is arresting.  “Really?”

“Really.  Devi Dare, I do believe you are my first.”

“I don’t think any guy has ever said that to me before,” she teases, as I take a step closer to her.  I’m not sure why I do it; we’re already so close.  But the water is so pretty and clear, and the world is so soft from the scotch, and all I want on this earth right now is to count the water drops on her eyelashes.

Devi moves a little and her shirt pulls almost completely open, exposing those sweet breasts and even sweeter nipples.  I’m suddenly very grateful for the pool, which hides my aching erection.  It does not, however, hide the way I’m now staring at her tits, nor the way I bite my lip to keep from leaning forward and sucking one perfect tip into my mouth.

Her lips part, and she doesn’t bother pulling her shirt closed.  We are so close now, and I feel her bare toes brush against the front of my shoes.  Her eyes are pure amber, liquid gold and warm, and they search mine now.  Something has shifted with my step closer, and I feel like I’m going to combust, a pillar of flame in the middle of this sparkling pool.

I want to kiss her.

I want it like I’ve wanted nothing else in my life.

See, here’s the problem.  I know how soft and wet her tongue is, how warm and plush her lips feel, and I can recall every breathy pant she gave me when we kissed on set all those years ago.  I know precisely how delicious and rewarding kissing her will be.  And now her face is tilted completely towards mine, and her expression is open and inviting, and her hands slide up my chest, fisting in my soaking wet T-shirt. I let the corked, mostly empty scotch bottle bob away from us in the water.

“Logan,” she whispers, eyes still searching, fingers clenched tight in my shirt.

Kiss her, you asshole! What are you waiting for?

But everything is smashed together inside of me—my anger at Raven, my determination to move on, my desire for Devi, Vida’s offer—all of it is tangled and twisting, and I can’t get my thoughts straight, I can’t peel apart where my urge for revenge against Raven ends and my need to kiss Devi begins.  Business is mixing with pleasure, pleasure is mingling with pain, and for just an instant, I wish Raven were right here, right now.  I wish she were watching us.  I wish she could see Devi and me and feel even a tithe of the jealousy and rage I felt when I found her. And God, I want to see her fucking face when she sees us…

I’m such a dickhead.  How can I kiss this girl that I’ve liked for years, this girl I’ve idolized and fantasized about, how can I touch her with even a hint of Raven in my mind?  More so, do I really want Raven to taint something I have wanted for so long?  Give her ownership of the first off-screen kiss Devi and I will ever share?  

No.  When—or if, I think glumly—I kiss Devi, it will be without the ghost of Raven’s betrayal hovering over us.  And besides, if I kiss Devi now, everything will change.  We might fool around or we might fuck, and then this won’t be the night I stood in a pool and she showed me the stars, it will be the night that we did what everyone else does at these parties.  It will be the night we turned the chemistry between us into something merely physical, and even the thought of that transformation is enough to wound me.

I want this to be our star night.  And maybe, if I’m lucky and if I can get a fucking handle on myself, there will be a kissing night later.  

Soon, my dick demands.

“Logan?” Devi repeats, and it’s more naked now, pleading almost, and I reach up and cradle her elbows in my hands. I don’t want to tell her about the Raven stuff—I don’t want her to feel used or think that I’ve been mentally comparing her all night.  And I can’t articulate my fear about kissing without revealing my giant, epic crush on her and sounding like a creepy stalker.

So I say, “I think I should go now.”

Her forehead wrinkles adorably.  “You should?”

“Yeah,” I mumble, pulling away and making for the edge of the pool.  The loss of her skin, of those wide gold-brown eyes, makes me feel emptier than anything else that’s happened tonight, and I almost turn back and do it.  I almost turn and grab her and slant my mouth over hers and let all of the dark, tangled shit in my heart go.

But I don’t.

I rescue the scotch from the water and hoist myself out of the pool, and then I turn and offer my hand to her, which she ignores, the lithe muscles in her arms easily working to pull her body onto the concrete.  Her cheeks are red again, and she won’t meet my eyes, and then when I say, “Devi…” not knowing what I mean or what I want or how to explain anything, she shakes her head.  But I blunder on.  “I—can I have your number?”

Fuck.  Now, where did that come from?

She hesitates, still not meeting my eyes.  After a moment, she bends down and grabs my phone from the side of the pool, and sends a blank text message to herself.

“There,” she says, and there’s so much in her voice that claws at my conscience; I hear her pride and thwarted lust and confusion.  But how can I explain it all to her when I can’t even explain it to myself?

God, I’m such a fucking mess.

“Thanks,” I say awkwardly, and she gives me a curt nod, again without looking at me.

“Goodnight, Logan,” she says and scoops up her shoes and shorts.  Without bothering to tug them back on, she walks wet-footed and visibly upset into the house.

Shit.