THE APARTMENT door slammed with a crash.
“It’s after one! For God’s sake, you’ll wake the neighbors,” David Parkerson admonished.
Marc’s tone was low and deadly. “I don’t care if I wake the goddamned dead! If you ever do that to me again, David…”
“Is that how you supposedly ‘gather information'?” The instructor’s harsh sarcastic tone brought the scowling young man up short. “Is your intelligence totally located in your…”
In a flash Marc’s powerful grip seized the collar of the older man’s great coat and lifted the wearer to his tiptoes.
“Don’t you ever use that tone talking about Ace, David, or I swear…” He brandished his other fist in front of the stunned face. “Or I swear I’ll show you where my intelligence does lie.”
“Ace?” David Parkerson tried a stumbling attempt at maintaining the upper hand. “The girl’s name is Amanda Emerson. Don’t tell me you’re already into cozy diminutives. What does she call you, her ‘big and brave and handsome Romeo’? You’ve got to stop this thing now.” His voice took on a pleading, mollifying tone. “You know that, don’t you?”
His eyes flicked back and forth between Marc’s still-scowling countenance and the clinched fist. “You… you wouldn’t… really…”
With a sharp exhalation of exasperation, Marc released his powerful hold. “I haven’t in a long time, have I?” He started to turn away and then spun back. “And you deserve being knocked around now the same way you did then, no matter how much older and supposedly smarter you are now.”
He gave an irritated snort and pulled the tangle of dark curls from his head. “Sneaking around in the shadows like some tacky made-for-TV thriller all the way from Columbus Circle. Cheap theatrics.” His scrubbing fingers raised his flattened, neatly-cut, dark-blond hair released from underneath the wig.
“You knew I was following?”
“It’s my job, David. What I normally do for a living.” Marc tossed a baleful look over his shoulder as he carefully pulled the net base of the wig over a head-shaped form. “I do not normally bare my ass and everything else in hopes of routing some self-centered, self-important artist from his million-dollar lair.”
“I didn’t intend to follow you,” David expostulated, shucking his great coat. “I happened to get on the same subway car as you and Emerson. At first it was charming to see how totally taken she was with you, but then I realized you seemed to be just as smitten with her. I had this feeling in class,” he interjected, trying to suppress his accusing tone, “but I couldn’t believe you would…”
Suddenly he stopped. “From Columbus Circle? You knew I was following all along?” There was a surprised hint of additional respect for the young man’s subtle observational abilities.
“From the moment you got on the subway.” Marc’s pinched eyebrows evened out and lifted as he spread his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger and gingerly popped the dark-colored lenses from each eye, revealing clear blue irises.
And from the moment she got on the train, too, he remembered, a moment of pleasure suffusing his tense body.
He blinked, his pupils narrowing at the added light. “At least you could see. I felt like I was stumbling around Washington Square in a blackout. Okay, cards on the table time.” He placed the fragile lenses carefully away in a plastic case and went into the kitchen area off the living room. “You don’t want me getting involved on a personal basis because I haven’t exactly had a great history of handling my women as well as I do my cases.”
Marc pulled two beers from the refrigerator, snapped off the tabs of both cans and returned to place one, along with a glass, in front of the frowning instructor.
“Nothing interferes with a case, David, nothing,” he said, his voice cold. He took a deep swallow of the dark ale, gripping the cold aluminum tightly, feeling the tangy sting sharpen his taste buds and, hopefully, cut through his annoyance with himself. Something had interfered with his concentration. He had let down his guard. He didn’t need David to tell him. Her brown eyes flecked with glints of auburn and gold had shone through the color-dulling tint of the dark contacts and settled deep inside him.
He slumped into a nearby easy chair, legs wide, his finely tuned body collapsed. He remembered the rapt attention she had given to his 50-cent Village tour; the open enjoyment of what must have been his erratic company. She had seemed totally entranced and had even hinted at having a more extensive “tour” later.
He had lapped it up like a hungry dog. He had been taken in, he sharply rebuked himself, because he had wanted to be taken in, because he was so totally taken by her.
Marc sighed. His powerful shoulders sagged.
David pressed his advantage. “It’s important that we keep focused on the enterprise at hand.” His conciliatory professorial tone caused the dejected young man’s angry countenance to soften. “I don’t mean to interfere with your personal life, Marc. Yes, I know you don’t like being reminded, but we have been through this before. If the charming Ms. Emerson turns out to be our evil doer, though of course I don’t think she could possibly be, I don’t want you getting,” he took a contemplative swallow from his glass, “upset.”
Marc released a short, harsh laugh.“Upset? David, you do know how to slam a busted heart into the most innocuous cubby hole, don’t you?”
Where it will curl up and heal hopefully, he added to himself. Though there was a good chance it would curl up and atrophy. It had seemed for a brief moment that the golden brown eyes might have been able to bring him to full life again.
He stood, kicked off his shoes and began unbuttoning his jeans. “I do not need protecting, in your best Spanish duenna mode, from the clutches of a sloe-eyed seductress from Pittsburgh.” He smoothly thumbed the well-fitting denim down his muscular thighs, off his legs and onto a nearby chair, followed by his pair of heavy gray work socks. The white cotton jockey shorts remaining on his body contrasted sharply with his deeply-tanned skin.
Before Marc could think to do so, David gathered the strewn clothes, his face set. “You’re right, of course. I have no right to interfere with yourmodus operandi. You’ve made an incredible effort to make this whole scheme work and I’ll never be able to express my gratitude enough.” He tried a mollifying tone. “Did you…did you learn anything?”
Marc walked into the bathroom of the one-bedroom apartment and began to rub cold cream onto his eyebrows. “Nothing you hadn’t already told me. She left Pittsburgh to make something of herself in New York.”
David’s eyebrows arched. “So did Andy Warhol and God knows he created havoc enough. Though I don’t think he ever took up this particular… avocation.”
Marc stared into the mirror, concentrating on wiping the dark color from his own light eyebrows. He closed his eyes and smoothed the cream into his lashes. Behind his lids he remembered the concentration in Amanda’s brown eyes that had responded to his every pose. Those same gorgeous eyes had later reflected back the same light-hearted laughter and deep-seated joy he had felt in her presence. The Village would never be quite the same.
The older man carefully pulled off his shirt, hung it and replaced it with a silk lounging robe. “It’s my nerves.” He kneaded his hands, pulling a deep draft of air into his lungs as he went to stand at the open door of the bathroom. “I’m not used to this.” His tone was slightly petulant. “I especially don’t like the idea there may be danger involved. It seemed so simple at first to come up with a scheme that would attract the attention of our culprit. It seems to get more complicated with each step in the process.”
Marc glanced at the nervous reflection in the mirror. “You’ve got a pro on the job, David. Nobody’s going to get hurt.” He hoped.
Keep your eyes open, keep your senses sharp and the job will get done with the least amount of hassle.His eyes moved back to his totally transformed reflection.Yeah, right. Like the first pretty face that had showed him some understanding…
“The adventurous young investigator can laugh in the face of danger if he wants to,” David strained for a lighter attitude. “But this older, though-not-necessarily-wiser professor would prefer to live out his remaining years in the quiet of the studio with no more excitement than perhaps a toppled easel or a chipped plaster cast. Getting around Manhattan is excitement enough, thank you.” He wandered back into the living room and sat on the fold-out sofa, a pall of worry and distraction on his features.
Marc pulled off his shorts and stepped into the shower. Streaks of dirty, brown color ran down the drain, soon washed away by hot, clear, soapy water.
Those trusting brown eyes… What would she think when she discovered he was nothing he had represented himself to be?
AMANDA hesitated at her apartment door, her heart still racing, the blood throbbing in her temples. Even with the placating, light attitude Mr. Parkerson had attempted in striving to pacify the seething Antonio, the quick coffee they had shared in the Italian restaurant and the cab ride to drop her off at her Chelsea apartment had been a torturous example of conflicting silences and suppressed furies.
Please, please, she silently pleaded to the antic gods that had turned a magical evening into a shattering, embarrassing one, don’t let Cissy be in. Let her still be out having a wonderful time.
All Amanda wanted was to desperately plunge into a hot tub and try to soak away the romantic nonsense that had allowed her vaunted in-charge executive attitude to be totally demolished.
By a nude male model.
How utterly unprofessional of her, she tried to force herself to believe as she fumbled for her keys. But the images of the warm, comforting chocolate of his amazing eyes, lit and shadowed by the magical lights of the Village and the gleam of the mop of lustrous dark curls that framed his strong Italian face-one errant fat tendril spiraling down his forehead- kept interposing themselves between her annoyed, practical self and the warm, internal glow that refused to be diminished.
Handsome, strong, funny, clever, and with a depth that ignited her fascination. He was too perfect. Too wondrous to be believed. And yet… he was all too real.
Her fingers curled over the hard metal in the depths of her pocket. Instead of the impersonal cold of her keys, she could almost feel the silken stroke of his lustrous curling hair sliding through her threading fingers.
Suddenly her body stiffened at the memory of the senior instructor swooping down on them, shattering their beautiful cocoon, clucking his disapproval.
Even her father, in his most annoying moments, had never been as devastating in his disapproval of her dates. Her brothers, yes, but she knew how to handle them, how to retaliate.
She shoved the key into the lock with a sharp rasp of raising tumblers and gave a final silent plea.
The model’s odd response when they had passed the Village church came back to her. It had referred to his praying- how had he put it?-sometimes very hard.
The night was filled with more questions and more memories than she could deal with. Even the thought of facing her overly-solicitous roommate became almost comforting.
Cissy meant well, and was probably as good a roommate as one could hope for in this very expensive city, but the young woman’s insistent helpfulness could sometimes be difficult to fend off, especially when Amanda didn’t feel like sharing her every intimate thought.
Amanda slipped as quietly as she could through the door and instantly realized her luck for the evening had obviously been trammeled underfoot beginning with the intrusive instructor at the Italian restaurant.
“Oh myGod, honey lamb, where have youbeen!? I have been worriedsick! I couldn’timagine what might have happened to you! Of course, I could imagine what might have happened tome, but that would be nothing to worry about at all!” She giggled girlishly.
Ugh.
Cissy collected Amanda’s portfolio, coat and hat. “Honey, you are never out this late, at least not on a school night.”
How Cissy could make her attendance at a professional level art class sound like a high-school elective taken in the desperate hope of meeting boys always amazed Amanda. But then meeting “boys” was Cissy’sraison d’etre; that and driving her simple-minded, exhausted roommate right up the wall with her well-meaning, unctuous instructions on how to live her life.
Oh dear, Amanda reprimanded herself, Cissy wasn’t really so bad. Shallow and insensitive and meddling, maybe, but basically a heart of gold who only wanted the best for her supposedly lacking-in-experience roommate.
“Well, honey,” Cissy kissed her on the cheek, “my Mandy is obviously fine and dandy, or is she?” She peered at Amanda’s face with exaggerated concern.
“Honey, you are looking absolutelytrod upon.” Her face a mask of tragic concern, she shook her head in benevolent exasperation, turned and trotted away, tossing Amanda’s things onto a nearby chair. “No, I think it’s just that awful make-up. One of these days we havegot to do something about your face!”
Cissy bounced behind the L of the kitchen counter off the living room. “I’m going to fix you a nice cup of tea. Or,” she asked, in an attempt to entice, “are you going to finally join me in a glass of sherry?”
Cissy did love her sherry. Amanda assumed it was in the genes, like the accent and the body.
“As a matter of fact, Cissy, honey lamb, I think I could use one.”
In an instant her roommate was beside Amanda with the two glasses, her eyes wide. “Somethingdid happen! Ithought I detected a piquant flush flooding those sallow, executive cheeks. Don’t tell me Mandy had an adventure? Oh Lord,” she gasped in horror, “I hope it wasn’t just some awful thing with one of those foreign cab drivers.”
Amanda could imagine Cissy perched on the back seat of a cab in her skin-tight mini-skirt earnestly attempting to explain where she wanted to go, and could more than understand why some poor bug-eyed, dry-mouthed cab driver might have trouble concentrating on mere directions.
And Amanda remembered ruefully that Cissy, for all her complaints about awful cabdrivers, had certainly managed to turn the occasion to her advantage more than once.
The mind-numbing sweetness of the sherry flooded her taste buds and she envied Cissy with simple, green-eyed envy.
Cissy would certainly have turned this night to her advantage. She would more than likely be in bed with Antonio right now instead of glumly wondering what she would say to him if she ever saw him again.
That was a shocking thought. Not the part about being in bed. That part ignited Amanda’s senses more than the sherry ever could.The part about never seeing him again. Amanda felt an overwhelming tangle of conflicting emotions swell to threaten to drown her again.
What if David decided not to continue to use Antonio as a model because the chance of him getting involved with a student was too great.
Well, why should David care who Antonio got involved with?
She downed her sherry which her hovering roommate instantly refilled. Cissy bored in for the kill.
“C’mon, honey, tell Aunt Cissy everything.” Cissy sat entranced, hardly able to get the questions out fast enough. “Did something happen in that art class? You said there was supposed to be a new model…was that it?” She squealed at the brightened expression on her roommate’s face. “Tell me, tell me!”
“Well,” the sherry sharpened Amanda’s delineation of the model’s many physical assets, “Greek god would be a good description, though it was more like classical Roman…shoulders this wide; hips this narrow…” Her palms moistened at the thought of what her spread hands represented. “Magnificent gluts-oh, Cissy, a butt to die for,” she giggled. Yep, giggled-the sherry was getting to her. “Hard, flat pectoral muscles. Absolutely smooth, like living marble.”
The descriptions rippled over her tongue. She lavished praise on his powerful thighs, the shapely calves, the finely arched feet, the large strong hands.
“Ooooh, honey,” Cissy sat forward on the edge of her seat. “You know what they say about big hands and big feet. What about…?”
“Well, of course he was well-endowed,” Amanda airily gestured, slugging down another swallow of the bottomless glass. Although she wasn’t really that sure what well-endowed meant. Certainly compared to Maurice, the other 50-something, not-in-the-greatest-shape, male nude model that David had provided for the class, Antonio was more than adequately proportioned.
Amanda’s experience with real, live, totally naked males was somewhat limited and the examples that had presented themselves to her so far could hardly be construed as perfect. But, that’s exactly what Antonio was, she remembered morosely, her center warming to join the radiating heat of her slightly buzzing brain.
Perfect. From head to toe. Beautifully proportioned. All over. Muscles not too big, limbs not too small… just right… for Auburnlocks, she thought dreamily. With a brain. Concerned. Witty. Amusing. He seemed delighted to be in her company. The touch of his hand had been gentle, caring. The look in his melting, dark eyes straight-forward. Sincere.
And yet moody, too. Darkly intriguing. Like a black-and-white Olivier movie.
“Honey, don’t worry about it. He’s probably gay!”
Well. Cissy certainly did have a way of slapping a pleasant fairy tale back to cold reality.
Her worldly roommate expounded on a series of possibilities of the model’s sexual orientation as Amanda woozily brushed and flossed, staggered into her flannel nightgown and threw herself into bed.
She supposed it was possible that Antonio was being kept by the instructor. She had long ago given up trying to figure out who was what these days. At least David would know how to truly appreciate such a fine work of art, she decided, her lolling head nodded sagely as she attempted a sophisticated attitude.
She battered her pillow into submission and flopped groggily onto it. She remembered Antonio’s touch, his looks that plunged deep into her soul, his concern, the sexual heat that he battled with gentlemanly manliness to suppress.
Your cup maybe ain’t gonna be runneth-ing over anytime soon, Ace, ole girl, but it won’t be because the guy is gay.
Somewhere in the distance Cissy chatted on, commiserating all the while, and then there was a final pat on her head and an, “I’ll just have one more little one,” before she turned out the light and left Amanda to her own morose dreams.
David Parkerson’s bearded head topped Cissy’s sleek, little, half-naked body. Cissy’s head was on a burly Spanish duenna’s. They were both fighting to keep Amanda and Antonio apart, who were stamping and desperately trying to gore each other in a scalding hot Greek arena with a group of male art students cheering them on.
Which dissolved into them being on separate ice floes and he was desperately trying to reach her. Black and white. “Help me, Ace, save me… You can do it… Believe in us- things are not what they seem.” Curlicued title cards. She sat pondering on the broken ice, chin in hand, as he called to her in the misty distance.
And overhead Christine floated, drawing pad in hand, busily sketching his crotch, urging Amanda to leap to the handsome Italian’s rescue. “A quickie’s better than slow death.” And on her other side Cissy hovered above. “We could whip him into shape, honey lamb. He would make a very nice addition to the household.”
She didn’t want a quickie. She didn’t want whips.
What did she want?
Antonio called from the mists, “Believe in us. Save us…”
How had she suddenly become the one to save anyone? He was supposed to be her Prince Charming. She, his Auburnlocks. The blazing Athens sun began to melt the ice floes. It was too much to deal with. Too many wonderful feelings had surfaced. Too many unanswered questions had swelled to overwhelm them. Too many emotions she hadn’t intended dealing with at this stage in her life had suddenly forced themselves into the harsh light of now.
She woke in a cold sweat, gasping, exhausted-feeling truly trod upon.