11. SUSPICIONS
Frieda isn’t the still water of my friends. She’s been supportive of Ciro so far, but I briefed her too much on our trip to the Santa Barbara Castello. Now she’s being Frieda, digging in more and airing questions and opinions.
“What if he’s a mafia lord? Or in a drug cartel?” She rolls a lock of hair so black it’s blue around a finger and tugs at it. “Does he have any weapons at that house of his? What would you do if he did? I mean, would you stay with him and be his mafia first lady?” Excitement flashes through her gaze for a moment.
“You read too much romance.” Charlotte nudges Frieda’s shoulder with her own. Calm and good natured, she specifies, “I doubt that it would be fun to be the woman of some capo. And I think I know what Ciro does for a living.”
My heart picks up speed. I’m just back from my weekend, brain woozy with happiness and body limp from his workouts. The last morning there, I woke up with Ciro stirring my body to life. Our session ended outside on the balcony, with me pressed against the wall and him invading me from behind. Facing the ocean, I barely noticed the sunrise while he silenced my orgasm with his mouth.
“What? He’s an actor.”
“Sure. It’s what I believe too.” Charlotte nods, copper strands bobbing around her slender throat. It sounds eerie the way she says it.
“Okay then. So we agree.”
Frieda’s eyes narrow as they hop between Charlotte and me. “What am I missing?”
“I have no idea,” I say. “But Ciro’ll share some of his movies with me in a week. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Charlotte?” Frieda’s squint is thin, piercing Charlotte with her stare. “So, you think he’s an actor too.”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of actor?”
“What are you talking about?” I feel my brow bunch.
Frieda leans over the kitchen island, grabbing our hands, sister-style. “Okay. Let’s sum up what we know about Ciro: the man is handsome as hell. Sexy as they come, maybe sexier.”
Charlotte nods slowly, while I look away.
“His body is super-toned, like he spends most of his day at the gym,” Frieda continues. Which actors often do, get the muscle tone of a bodybuilder. Only Ciro’s body is lean, mouthwatering and just. Perfect.
“He’s man-scaped, correct?” Frieda again.
“Yeah, but he’s not bald down there,” I defend, which makes Frieda snicker. Charlotte’s amusement sticks to her eyes.
“Okay, moving on.” Frieda tilts her head at me. “Hung like a horse?”
“Well.” I did admit to this the other night, only in more tactful words.
“Why are you blushing? You should be in Heaven,” Frieda says.
“She wouldn’t be if it’s painful to be with him,” Charlotte murmurs, stare a deep, compassionate brown. “You’d tell us, right, honey? I’d hate if the guy made you suffer.”
Yeah, this subject is too private. I’m okay with sharing on my own terms, but now I’m being shanghaied. “Gah, no, it’s not painful. Anything but.”
“I’ve seen you limp...”
“Seriously, it’s nothing.”
“Of course it’s not painful. Look at her! She comes home looking like that?” Frieda points at my face. “Which brings me to exhibit five.”
“There were four before?” I cut in to derail the investigation.
“He’s an animal in bed.”
“No, he’s not!” I throw my arms up at her. “That’s not what I said at all. You’re twisting my words.”
“Is he or is he not a god in bed?”
“Well, yeah. That’s different.”
“Hmm, I think I want to be you.” Charlotte’s still-water-deeps twinkle as she sets her face into her hands against the tabletop.
“Would you if he were in the adult industry?” Frieda’s expression has grown absolutely serious.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s not a...” I can’t even say it.
“Porn star,” Charlotte says for me.
“He wouldn’t need a girlfriend if he were in that industry,” I mumble. “Plus, we’ve all Googled him, and nothing.”
“Which is weird anyway. If he did regular films, why would he hide his name? His artist name is probably something like Big Ben. Rubber Dick Johnson. Schlong-Master Jack.”
“Adam Climax,” Charlotte mumbles, side-eying me, gaze glittering with humor.
“Stop it! Ah.” Despite myself, I can’t help laughing. “This is silly. Okay, let’s look him up on the internet. Again.”
“Won’t work. He’s hidden himself. He probably has family he wants to shield from the biz,” Frieda says.
“Like you. He doesn’t want you to know what he does.”
“He’s going to show me! In a week.” I tip my chin up and stomp off to get my Mac.
“Why’s he waiting so long? You’ve been together for a while now.”
“Because it’s better this way. He wants me to know him better first, plus he’s renting a boat this weekend, and we’re going on it.”
“Right, because you need a boat trip before he shows you his work.” Frieda nods slowly. “Or is the plan to watch his films on the boat with no escape out there on the ocean, and he’ll replicate all-the-things with you?”
“Jesus Christ. Can you stop your dirty mind even for a second? Look, I’ve got the laptop here. What’s our search words, ‘handsome male porn stars?’”
We end up searching for first name. There are very few people named Ciro. None of them are him. Like I knew, my Ciro doesn’t even have a Facebook page. We search for his last name. We search for both together. We also search for it adding his middle name, Anthony, just in case. Nothing, nothing. It’s like he doesn’t even exist.
“It’s a bad sign. You know that, right? You’re supposed to be able to find stuff about people on the internet. Like, if I search for you”—I instantly appear with my social media accounts and a ton of photos—“bam, here you are.”
Charlotte bobs her head, agreeing with Frieda. I’ve got two suspicious girlfriends, but really, Ciro isn’t the first media-shy artist I’ve heard of.
Pending doom—
I owe it to my boyfriend to give him the week he asked for.
This week feels like a regular work week. Ciro and I are just another couple trying to fit love into our busy days. He’s better at it than me. I work six shifts at Mintrer’s because one of the other girls has the flu, and at the end of every shift my heart jumps at the sight of him coming in the door.
Our hostess, Carmen, has taken to opening the door for him when he comes. She’s always been a hair-flicker, but with Ciro she flicks it constantly as she flutters him inside with a hand.
“I can find my way up the hill on my own, you know,” I say tonight, although happiness makes it hard to sound chiding.
“Yeah?” He leans down, eyes tender as he finds my mouth. A small peck only. He’s respectful about my workplace, and I appreciate that he doesn’t get me in trouble. A light nudge of his fist under my jaw and a thumb caressing my cheek. I melt. “Princess missed you. She said we should pick you up.”
“She’s here?” Ah I’m in love with that fat, white, heavy ball of delish.
“Outside. Waiting in the car.” He tips his head toward a white pickup truck.
I squint to see better. A window is rolled partly down, and I see Princess’ long pink tongue almost before I see her.
“Whose car is that?”
“Princess’.”
I bite my lip from bursting into laughter and pull his hips toward me. Ciro laces his arms around me, accepting my embrace with a grin on his face.
“Il Signoooore is on his way,” Charlotte warns on her way past. I drop out of Ciro’s embrace, and he secretly entwines our fingers behind his back. It makes my heart do another little bounce. Sneaking around: there’s something to be said for that. Like I need more to be said for anything when it comes to Ciro.
“So you bought a car specifically for Princess.”
“Of course I did. My girl isn’t a sedan girl. I wouldn’t want to offend her by driving her around in the Bentley, now, would I?” Furtively, he scans the back area where Il Signore would be appearing from the kitchen. Then he leans in and licks my mouth.
“Stop. You’re making me—”
“I know.”
I let out a phew. It doesn’t make him laugh. He’s never surprised by my physical reactions to him. I guess fifty girlfriends and counting has a guy pretty sure about his skills. I bet no one else complained either. Red. Is what I see sometimes when I think of the other girls. And fuck, we’ve only been seeing each other for three months. How will my jealousy look in a few years?
I watch my car disappear from view, a small, faded lemon in the empty parking lot behind Mintrer’s, as we drive off. I ommph under Princess’ weight. She believes she’s Chihuahua-sized so why should she have to sit on the floor in front of me?
“I think your former girlfriends, ex-wife included, left you because they were jealous and couldn’t deal with you.”
In the dim shine from the dashboard, a muscle ticks in his jaw. “And I think you’re right.” He sends me a glance.
“Was it because of all of the traveling?” I can handle traveling. My father traveled a lot for work.
He pulls the truck over before we reach his house. It’s a gravel road that leads into a small parking lot with cacti and wooden benches facing the Valley below. A handful of cars are here, families and couples standing in different stages of surveying their homes from above, I’m sure.
Ciro walks around the car. Opens my door, helps me out, and takes Princess’ leash. She whimpers excitedly and bounces next to us, but my boyfriend’s eyes are cast down as he walks me toward a free bench.
I haven’t been here before. How have I not been here before? It’s so beautiful, the scent of sage flaring my nostrils, the dry dust of the mountain teasing my skin. And the Valley. The Valley is so gorgeous from Hillside. Ciro has an incredible view from his own balcony, but I suddenly find it magical to have kids playing around us, knocking balls over the edge and being berated by their parents. To have other couples lean into each other and kiss languidly because the dark night makes it okay to love brightly.
“The traveling didn’t help.” He says it when I’ve almost forgotten our topic. “My exes thought I always needed someone to keep me warm at night. Not even Silk trusted me. She said she knew how sexual I was—but so was she, and why should that make me doubt her heart?”
Princess jerks on her leash, and he lets her pull him to the last post of the rickety little fence keeping us from pummeling down the hill. She sits down next to it in a surprisingly dainty pee session. Ciro and I share a smile.
“Anyway. It’s bad form to talk about former relationships, and I shouldn’t now that I have you. I’ve known for years that Silk wasn’t right for me.”
“What about her? Does she feel the same way about you?”
“In what way?” A side-glance before he stares out over the Valley.
I feel myself frown at that. “As in, is she completely over you?”
He sits down and hoists Princess up on her hind legs so that she has her paws on his hips. She’s loving it, pit-bull-kissing his arm. “Silk works in Europe, now. She’s originally Ukrainian and moved after we separated. She’s been working in Western Europe ever since.”
“She needed an ocean between you, huh?”
“Guess so.”
“Did it work?”
“For the most part.”
“Oh. She’s not over you.”
He removes Princess’ paws from his shoulders and stands slowly. Pushing wayward strands of hair from my face, he shakes his head. “I don’t hear from her often. We’ve seen each other at conferences a few times since she left, and I’ve been summoned to a couple of films she stars in. Lately, I’ve rejected those offers, because it’s not good for her that I’m in them, especially when we’re supposed to be love interests.”
“What does she look like?” Jealousy might not be red after all. It could be black. “Jesus. Never mind.”
He shrugs and wraps me into him. My man is warm in the cool California summer night. I shiver. “It’s just history now. There’s nothing besides history that keeps Silk in my memories. She was sweet. She taught me about loving another person in a way I didn’t know before. That love is for you now, only bigger.”
Puddles are nice, I think. At least the one he leaves me in now, which is pink and liquid and consists of most of me.
“You know, Savannah...” He nudges my face against his throat, and I inhale him. “You can spend however much time you want trying to sway people’s opinions or feelings about you, but really, it comes down to them. People have a right to love you. To hate you. Feel however the hell they want about you. But when it comes down to it, it’s all about you and how you react to them.
“Silk is an ocean away and can’t intrude on us, and even if she lived next door, she and I, we had our time and it’s over.”
I’m so sensitive around him. He says these things, such beautiful, big things.
“Don’t cry, baby girl. You’re so beautiful. I love you.”
“No, you don’t,” I say, because it’s too early. People don’t love-love each other at this stage.
“Yes, I do. Deal with it.” His tongue opens my mouth. Penetrates and strokes. My breathing trembles. Ciro tugs me closer, just a little bit, a whisper of what he does when we make love. It still sends my body into flames. “I love you.”
“No!” I puff. “You barely know me.”
“I know enough. You think love has a schedule? I love everything about you. That first time I saw you, I knew you’d be the death of me.” He kisses me, a quick, succulent peck on the lips before he continues. “It was your eyes that did me in.”
“Oh no, not the eyes again.” So annoying. So sweet. My smile feels lopsided with delight.
“Shh, I’m trying to tell you something here.” Another kiss softens my mouth. “Eyes that are big and round and honest and innocent and scared. I’ve tried to describe you to my buddies—”
“Whom I’ve yet to meet,” I play-grumble out.
“You will soon. But yes, it’s like you kept genuine fear of the world in them and let it blare out at me.”
“Omigod, you fell for me because I looked scared. You’re so twisted.”
“I did.” He laughs now. “Because there was nothing I wanted more than to make this gorgeous girl brave. That’s how it started. And now here we are, in a place where I can’t even smell you without getting hard and want to fuck you on the spot.”
“Shhh, Ciro,” I hiss and jerk my head toward the others. There’s no way the dad a foot away from us didn’t hear that.
“Relax. You don’t think he’s wanted to fuck his wife on the spot before?” Ciro whispers against my ear, and for no reason I want to head back to his house.
“Oh baby,” he hums, leading me to the car. “You make me want to haul the moon down for you.”
Oh baby, you are so much.