Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 3 - Venus Besieged (14 page)

"Martinis
and high rollers seem to go together," she said, referencing her married
life, and as I headed to the kitchen for a tray of cheese and crackers I wondered
if I'd ever stop hating her ex-husband Robert Isaacs.

Over
my shoulder Barrett, having unleashed all her venom, was now socially relaxed
and inquiring where Ramona was staying. Ramona said only that she lived a mile
down the road and had stopped by to visit.

"I
met you on the drive to Waterston Evers's estate with Frank Anthony."
Ramona's eyes became languid pools of longing as she addressed Barrett. "I
made a mental note to contact you after that, and I honestly can't recall why I
didn't."

"I
suspect you're very busy and move in rather elevated circles," Barrett
remarked, and for the first time I realized that Barrett Silvers was admitting
she was outranked. Barrett Silvers, who'd had every hot writer and many a
starlet, was actually deferring to whom—
a woman who had to be rocketing
toward her late sixties? A woman with a shock of silver hair, a trim figure, a
funny wit, and okay, great tits, but come on.

"Not
that elevated, I assure you," Ramona said, sipping her martini but keeping
her eyes lifted and locked on Barrett. Even I could feel the heat and I made
eye contact with Callie, indicating with a nod that she should check out what
was going on and perhaps join me in the kitchen and give them some space.

There
was a pause as Barrett and Ramona appeared to be analyzing why their earlier
meeting hadn't produced the chemistry currently in the air. I mused on that
mystery—how a place, a time, an instant coalesces to create a magical,
inescapable energy that can be felt across the room, can sear through clothing,
can create sleepless nights and lustful longings.

"Do
you spend much time in L.A.?" Barrett asked almost softly.

"When
it's needed." Ramona's penetrating stare invited Barrett to express a
need.

"Good
to know," Barrett said and I felt my own heartbeat.
Is Barrett really
going to put a move on Ramona? She’s not even a writer.

Ramona
must have caught us watching them out of the corner of her eye, because she
suddenly turned to include us in the conversation.

"Teague
and I are old friends. We met in Tulsa, during the Anthony murder that
ultimately had studio ties, as you know. In fact, I recall now that you were
heavily involved in that case and were injured and hospitalized."

Barrett
said she was, and for the next fifteen minutes they reminisced about Frank
Anthony's being shot in the gym by people who wanted to cover up the graft and
corruption taking place at the studio. The conversation wasn't about poor dead
Frank Anthony at all; it was sexual foreplay as two women who had cruised half
the planet let one another know they shared language skills, quick wits, and
healthy libidos.

Barrett
had pulled her battered leather chair up close to the couch where Ramona
lounged like a stately silver cat, her arm, as long as Barrett's, reaching out
toward the coffee table in front of her, the quarter-sized diamond on her
finger signaling she was a woman accustomed to comfort. She leaned in to grasp
the drink glass, never taking her Dresden blue eyes off Barrett, who seemed
caught in their experienced net.

"So
do you live alone?" Ramona repeated, seeming to survey her present
opportunity.

It
was the phrase that put a lesbian on the path to a quick close or possible
complications. The moment in which, like an archaeologist, she unearthed
husbands, live-in girlfriends, underage children, or the fact that the admired
lived in her car under a viaduct. Barrett paused, no doubt a tingling sensation
rippling from her pelvis to her throat, for the answer was also a moment—one in
which she could surrender to her passion or rid herself of an unwanted suitor
by pleading anything from herpes to heterosexuality.

A
smile played around Barrett's lips. "I live alone."

"We
have to make up for that," Ramona said lightly, as if that meant they
might meet for lunch sometime as opposed to devour one another across the
coffee table. They didn't seem to notice our absence as Callie and I watched
from the kitchen, our lesbian children playing in the living room.

Ramona
Mathers, whose relaxed and sensual presence clearly indicated she was still
interested in anything life had to offer, and her body amazingly offered more
than could realistically be expected, was sophisticated sexy, feline sexy,
available sexy. When I overheard Ramona say she once wanted to be a writer and
had published several short stories, I smiled at Callie, trying to conceal a
snicker.

"This
is so going to clinch the deal," I whispered.

Barrett
perked up, saying she'd love to read what Ramona had written.

"Is
it warm in here or am I getting drunk?" Ramona asked, giving Barrett her
entree, and Barrett quickly suggested they step out on the porch with their
drinks.

As
the door clicked shut behind them, Callie said, "So, it appears we have a
match."

Elmo
let out a large bored moan.

"I'm
with you, Elmo. Good grief, Ramona is twenty years older than Barrett."

"So
what?" Callie smiled. "If she were a man, people would say, 'Good for
her.'"

"Well,
then—good for her," I said and almost meant it.

Barrett
and Ramona stayed outside longer than you would think comfortable in light of
the cold night air, and I wondered if they'd gone off into the woods and curled
up in a knothole.

Turning
the lights off in the cabin, I pulled back the curtain so I could peek onto the
porch.

"What
are you doing?" Callie giggled.

"I
want to know if they're out there porking each other in the pines or
what," I whispered. My eyes adjusted and I could see them facing each
other, their drinks deserted on the porch railing. Barrett slowly stroked
Ramona's long arm and then slid hers around Ramona's waist, pulling her in and
gently putting her lips to Ramona's, shifting slightly and then kissing her
deeply.
Barrett can't kiss, this is going to ruin the deal,
I thought.

Barrett
finally took her lips from Ramona's. A pause. And then Ramona took Barrett's
face in her hands lovingly, gently, and slowly kissed her as if she'd
discovered something she hadn't known the world contained. Her pelvis lodged
against Barrett's generated so much heat I could feel it through the plate
glass.

"Omigod,
Ramona Mathers must think Barrett can kiss spectacularly and she can't get
enough of it," I stage-whispered.

"What
are you doing?" Callie asked, shocked, I was certain, over my voyeurism.
"Does that bother you?"

"No,"
I said, somewhat confused over my reaction. "Actually, yes. A couple of
days ago I was fending off Barrett, who was practically packing a porpoise in
her panties, throwing me on the floor, and talking to me like I was a hooker,
and now she's treating old Ramona like she's Cinder-fuckin'-rella. What's up
with that?"

"Love,
darling." She laughed and singed me with a sensual kiss, her mouth so hot
and soft it sucked me into the depths of her, conveying that everything past
the surface of her skin was equally wet and warm.

The
door opened and our visitors caught the two of us buried in one another,
causing Ramona to announce, "The evening is picking up in every
corner."

Barrett,
like a schoolgirl, held the door for Ramona and guided her toward the couch.

"Sedona
is a romantic place," Barrett said as if she really meant it, behaving
like a charm-school graduate trying out her newly acquired social graces and
causing my mouth to go slack in wonderment.

"Romance
is merely energy, transferable—and contagious." Callie smiled at them but
her voice held no specific nuance.

The
air in the room had shifted the way air does when sex and romance are wafting
through it. The pauses were heavy, the unspoken words laced with meaning. The
electricity leapt out of the walls and into the room and swirled around us, but
this time in the most exhilarating way and, as if to accentuate the obvious, a
moan emanated from the corner of the living room where Elmo was engaged. At
first glance I refused to believe what I was seeing—the stuffed basset hound
wedged under him, Elmo clutching it with his front paws—a bizarre act of pooch
porno.

"Elmo!"
I shouted in shock, and everyone turned to watch Elmo humping the stuffed toy.
"Quit it!"

The
four of us couldn't suppress ongoing giggles and I felt a twinge of sadness for
Elmo, normally distinguished and well behaved, frozen mid-hump, eyes rolled up
at us, caught mashing the girl basset and wondering no doubt why we'd all
turned into voyeurs.

"He
knows how a nice evening should end." Ramona smiled at Barrett and
suddenly Elmo gave it up in one big thrust, falling over exhausted. I was no
longer empathetic but simply mortified, having never seen him do anything
remotely that obscene and certainly not in public.

"It's
the energy, don't blame him." Callie laughed harder.

I
glanced over and caught Barrett's eyes lingering on Ramona's cleavage, and then
she leaned ever so slightly against her—close enough to make Ramona breathe in
noticeably.

"What
are you wearing?" Barrett asked, and Ramona must have fielded that
question often because she answered without missing a beat.

"Bulgari."

"I
don't think I've ever known anyone who wore that." Barrett's voice was
nearly sedated.

"You
may be wearing some yourself." Her gaze, both intimate and teasing,
riveted Barrett, who appeared about to fall to her knees in sexual
supplication.

Ramona's
tone shifted to business. "Well, I'll look into our little venture
regarding the vortex site," she said, speaking in code to Callie and
obviously referring to our enlisting her help in the exhumation of Nizhoni's
body. "Meanwhile, I think I'll head back to my cabin."

Barrett
asked if Ramona had a view of the creek from her cabin and Ramona said she did,
and then Barrett launched into an impromptu commercial about how buying her own
cabin on Oak Creek was the right investment and offering to let Ramona have a
look at the view from hers. I wanted to shout that they were too old for all
this toying around and they should go get it on, but love seemed to reduce them
to teenage hormone levels. Moments later, both cars pulled out of the driveway,
heading in the same direction.

"I
can't envision it," I said.
"Ramona Mathers humping Barrett."

"They
both deserve happiness, don't you think?"

"But
they're not.. .a pair."

"Not
by your standards, but we don't want the entire world thinking and behaving
like you." She smiled and kissed me, letting me know that despite my
obvious faults, she loved me.

"What
do I smell?" I sniffed the air like Elmo.

"Turkey.
I started cooking it tonight. Tomorrow's Thanksgiving and I thought I'd get it
ready ahead of time and then all we'd have to do is..." She reached
between my legs. ".. .warm it up."

I
would forever view turkey as an aphrodisiac.

Sunlight
broke through the slits between the rows of cafe curtains that hung from
tarnished gold metal rods above the battered old wood-frame windows in the
cabin's bedroom. I lay across the bed watching the golden slivers crisscross
our bodies, finally realizing my dream of Thanksgiving alone with the woman I
most loved in all the world. Callie Rivers lying next to me in bed, her body
warm and naked and gorgeous, was a lotto win.

Knowing
I should be kind enough to let her sleep, I still couldn't resist stroking her
shoulders that tapered down to absolutely exquisite hips and, once there,
sliding my hand between her legs. She moaned, but it was more in light protest
at my waking her.

"Happy
Thanksgiving, and I have so much to be thankful for," I said.

She
rolled over, causing the bed sheets to rustle, wafting her scent over me as she
wrapped her arms around me and graced me with those fabulous blue eyes.
"Hello, my darling love," she whispered, and my entire being melted;
what more could I ask? Burrowed down in clean sheets and her fragrant breasts,
in a Sedona cabin on the creek, the wind wafting the smell of pine through the
bedroom windows and across the room, nowhere to go but into one another,
nothing to see beyond each other's eyes, nothing to do but make love endlessly,
I kissed her passionately...before she rose on an elbow and twisted out of my
grasp.

"Oh,
I had a dream. It was about the chart. This long thread connected all these
women like Maypole ribbons. And this duck had the end of the ribbon in his
mouth and was flying from one to the other."

Callie
suddenly leapt to her feet, leaving me alone in our bunk feeling stunned that
apparently I was the only one having a sexy morning, as she deserted me for her
computer.

"I
think my dream is trying to tell me that whatever happened to Nizhoni is tied
to other women as well."