CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Devin
“Devin, darling,” Genevieve said in her heavily-accented English as I strolled into Ben’s office to find her sitting behind his desk. She was still beautiful in her sixties; thin but not skinny, perfectly-coiffed hair that looked naturally blonde, flawless skin, perfect makeup (her companion Pascal was also her makeup artist and hair stylist, quite convenient), bright blue eyes, pert lips, dazzling white teeth. Other than tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, she didn’t look a day over forty-five.
She was dressed to the nines in a royal blue designer pants suit and white silk blouse. Her ears, fingers, wrists, and neck dripped with expensive jewels that our partnership had afforded her.
Ben was sitting in one of the highbacked visitor’s chairs in front of the desk with his legs crossed and a cup of coffee perched precariously on his knee. He glanced at me when I came in, but didn’t say anything. I could see that his eyes were tight with tension. His lips were pulled back across his teeth in a smile that looked painful to hold. Ben wasn’t a fan of Genevieve and she was not a fan of his. I spent as much time keeping the peace between the two as I did trying to avoid them.
Genevieve held out her hand like the queen she was and turned her cheek to me. I cupped her long fingers in my hand, kissed her jeweled knuckles, then leaned down to kiss her cheeks without actually touching them. She gave me time to pour myself a cup of coffee from the service on the desk and get situated in the chair next to Ben before starting the sermon.
“So, where have you been?” she asked.
I took a careful sip of coffee and gave her a little shrug. “I’ve been good,” I said. I glanced around the room. “Where is Pascal? Will we not be graced with his presence this weekend?”
“Pascal is waiting for me in San Diego,” she said, leaning forward to put her elbows on the desk. She laced her fingers together and rested her chin on them. She gave me a look that walked the line between smugness and condescension. What Ben called, “her resting bitch face.”
“Pity, we will miss seeing him, won’t we, Ben,” I said with a smile. Ben didn’t answer. His focus seemed to be on the coffee cup balancing on his knee rather than the pending conversation. I got the feeling he’d been preached to already and had remained just to watch me squirm.
Genevieve said, “Pascal is waiting in San Diego because I’m speaking there this weekend at a women’s awareness seminar. He is getting everything ready for me.”
“Women’s awareness of what?” I asked.
She blinked at me. “Pardon?”
“You said you were speaking at a women’s awareness seminar,” I said, feigning interest. I looked at Ben, trying to pull him into the game, and pushed my eyebrows up. “I’m just wondering what women need to be aware of. Wouldn’t you like to know that, Ben, so you could be aware of it, too?”
I saw her right eye twitch, which was a sign that she was not amused. She forced a smile and studied me with her eyes. “You’re certainly in a good mood this morning.” She cut her eyes at Ben. “What the fuck’s going on?”
“I’d like to know that, too,” Ben said, lifting the coffee cup from his knee and setting it on the desk. He turned in the chair to face me. “Devin, would you like to tell us what the fuck’s going on with you?”
If they expected to see me squirm they were going to be sorely disappointed. I wasn’t there to squirm. I was there to do something I had lacked the balls to do before rediscovering Cassandra Casey. Actually, it wasn’t a lack of balls. It was a lack of reason. Before Cassandra magically reappeared into my life, I had no reason to do anything other than go through the motions I had perfected to a fine art over so many years. I had stumbled through life blindly. Cassandra had opened my eyes.
“Devin,” Genevieve whispered urgently. “My darling, what is it? Are you ill? Are you in trouble? Have you done something horrible that we should know about?”
I smiled and shook my head, flattered and amused by her alarm for me, or more to the point, for the business we shared.
“It’s really quite simple,” I said, lifting my cup to them. “I’m retiring. Effective right now.”
I wasn’t sure what I expected them to do or say after the words left my lips. I supposed I expected Ben to get angry and break things and Genevieve to faint or perhaps fake a heart attack. But they didn’t say a word. They didn’t move a muscle. They just looked at me, frozen, as if they were waiting for the punchline of a very bad joke.
“Well?” I asked, still smiling but finding it hard to hold.
Genevieve broke the awkward silence. She rested her forehead on her knuckles and sighed. “I was afraid this was coming.” She looked up at Ben and ignored me. “You were right to be concerned, Ben. Forgive me for doubting you.”
“No apology necessary,” Ben said directly to Genevieve without looking at me. “I told you. He’s burning out.” He said it as if he were pronouncing my death. He leaned forward in the chair and put his elbows on his knees and hung his head. “I saw the signs, I knew he wasn’t happy, but I hoped it was temporary. Dammit…”
“Guys, I’m sitting right here,” I said, feeling like a ghost at his own funeral. I punched Ben in the arm. “Fucking cut that shit out. You’re freaking me out.”
“Well, you’re freaking us out a little,” he said, getting out of the chair to stand behind Genevieve, like a little boy hiding behind his mom so she could fight his battles. Their reaction confused me. I had expected shouting and cursing and throwing shit and tears, but this was just weird, almost like a scene from a bad play.
“Why do you want to quit?” Genevieve asked, lifting her elegant chin to stare down her nose at me. “When we spoke on the phone yesterday you were fine. You sounded tired, but fine.” She spread out her hands and tried to frown, though her Botoxed forehead forbade itself to wrinkle. “Now, today, you stroll in here with a smile on your face that would choke a clown and announce your retirement. I’d like to know why.”
“He’s met someone,” Ben said, folding his arms over his chest, assessing me with his eyes. “It’s that woman you were with last night. Cassandra Casey. I knew something was up the moment you asked me about her. And then you chose her to be The One at the orientation dinner. The entire thing seemed very contrived to me. I knew something was up. I also know she spent the entire night in your villa. Who is she? What is she to you?”
I forced myself not to react at the mention of Cassandra’s name. I stared at Ben for a moment, then lowered my gaze to Genevieve and locked it there. “As I said, I’m just very tired,” I said with a heavy sigh, rubbing my eyes for effect. “I’ve been going hard at this for a decade now and, as Ben said, I am burnt out. If I have to put my hands on one more flabby socialite or horny soccer mom I will scream. It’s as simple as that.”
“What about the guests we have booked who expect a session with the Yoni Master?” Ben asked, obviously more concerned about the business than me, which was his job, after all. “If we have to refund deposits because you’re all of a sudden too fucking tired to do your job!“
“Careful, Ben,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him, harsh words nipping at the back of my tongue. “You’re my best friend, but you’re also an employee. You do not want to blur those lines by being an asshole.”
“Fuck you,” Ben snapped, spitting the words back in my face. “I helped build this place. I introduced the two of you. I have a stake here whether you’ve ever seen fit to make me a partner or not.” He threw up his hands and shook his head. “My god, man, you’re really willing to throw all this away over a fucking woman?”
“Who is this woman you keep talking about?” Genevieve asked, again trying to frown though her face resisted the command from her brain.
“It’s not about a woman,” I said quickly, although the crack in my voice hinted otherwise. Genevieve stared at me, calmly, coldly, like a jungle cat watching a baby deer munch on grass, waiting for just the right moment to pounce and rip out its tender throat. “It’s not about a woman. I’m just tired.”
Genevieve gave a long sigh and held out her hands. “All right then, you’re tired. You’re burnt out. I understand. I suppose there is nothing left to do but figure out how to ease you out of the operational side of things without disrupting our clientele and having to refund a million dollars in Paradiso deposits.”
“What do you have in mind?” I asked warily, suspecting that something was percolating in her brain. Genevieve was not the type to be caught off guard without a plan.
“You simply can’t just abandon ship and disappear. You have too many people relying on you. Not just Ben and I, but the employees and clients of Paradiso, and those who work in our spas and manufacture and distribute our products, and the women who use them. Your departure will affect thousands of lives, my darling. Surely you are not so selfish that you would just turn your back on those who have not only helped build your empire, but also rely on it for their livelihood and well-being. You can’t… what is it they say here in America… go cold turkey?”
“So, what do you have in mind?” Ben asked, moving back to the chair.
Genevieve looked at me for the answer. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Fine. I’ll attend the next four sessions over the next two months,” I said, formulating the plan in my head as the words came from my mouth. “During that time, I’ll personally train several of our top masseuses on Yoni and certify them to be Masters just as the Maharishi did for me.”
Ben chimed in, speaking directly to Genevieve. “We can force them to sign a non-compete agreement so they can’t leave and setup their own Yoni Massage spa for at least five years.”
Genevieve held a long finger in the air and added, “And the more Yoni Masters on staff, the more Yoni Massages we can sell.”
I suddenly got the idea that they had already played all this out, that up until that moment I had been the cork in the dam. Perhaps they had wanted me to loosen the reins all along and this was their opportunity to do so with me thinking that it was my idea. Before, I would have refused to even consider adding more Yoni Masters to the fold. Now, it seemed like their idea was coming out of my lips.
“Yes, that’s right,” I said. “They will take over the Yoni Massages here at Paradiso and can offer them in the spas in L.A. and San Diego.”
“So, we’ll increase revenue there, as well,” Genevieve said, dollars dancing in her eyes. “We’d never offered Yoni in the spas before because you were dead set against it, Devin. Perfect time to offer it now.”
“What about the idea we bounced around a while back about doing a series of training DVDs for home use?” Ben asked, still speaking directly to Genevieve, as if I was not even there. He glanced at me with devious eyes. “You’ve always been against the idea of teaching Yoni for couples and personal use. Are you willing to do those DVDs now that you’re not going to be performing Yoni yourself? They would sell in the millions.”
I could almost hear the cash registers ringing in their heads. I gave them a suspicious look. “Why do I get the feeling that this is what you guys have wanted all along?” I asked. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No, Devin, we do not want you to leave,” Ben said. “But we’ve known this moment was coming. It’s been clear for a while now that your head and heart was no longer in the game. For the sake of the business we had to be ready.”
“Devin, are you sure this is what you want?” Genevieve asked. “As Ben said, we would prefer that things continue on as they are, but your health and happiness are important, as is the health of the business and the happiness of our clientele.”
“Is this really what you want, Dev?” Ben echoed, looking at me with soft eyes, the anger all gone. “Can you really leave all this behind?”
I blinked at him for a moment, then glanced at Genevieve. Their faces were awash with compassion and doubt, as if they were witnessing a loved one make a terrible decision they could not talk him out of. It was like a failed intervention and I was the one who would ultimately suffer from my own addictions.
“No… I mean… yes… this is what I want,” I said.
Genevieve asked once more. “Are you’re sure?”
“Yes,” I said, giving her a definite nod, even though the sharp teeth of doubt were already biting at my soul. “I’m sure.”