An Accidental Affair (19 page)

“Just found her on Facebook. Sending her a message as we talk.”

“Keep me posted, Flaco. Anything Bergs, keep me posted.”

“You okay, boss?”

“I’m as good as I’m going to be until it gets worse.”

“She told me not to tell you, but I feel as if I have to. I mean, I like her as a person and all that, but you’re the boss. I work for you. So she’s put me in a bad spot by having me involved.”

“What, Flaco?”

“Regina Baptiste came here. She stayed in your suite two days. She was here right after that incident at the airport. She came in the private entrance, came after hours. Locked the door, broke down, never went out. No one knew that she was in there but me and her assistant.”

“Where is she now?”

“Then she left. When the Bergs came by and caused a little noise, she panicked and left. She barely got out ahead of the paparazzi. She left and never came back.”

I hung up, then lowered my head. It felt as if I was dreaming. As if I had gone crazy. As if I was outside of my body watching me. I had met wrong with wrong and beaten a man to settle a score that couldn’t be settled. When I saw Bergs again I’d beat the little handsome that was left in his ass into the asphalt. I had been cuckold then committed adultery and shed no tears and felt no shame. My soul didn’t understand this convoluted world, but my heart understood revenge. The world understood revenge. Revenge was the water that doused the fires of pain.

From what I had heard and seen, I was sure that the Bergs understood revenge as well.

The world laughed. Part of me wanted to scream. Every action created a reaction. Each reaction created another reaction. Violence begets violence. It was an endless loop.

Isabel called out, “Tea is ready.”

I pulled on my pants and headed toward Isabel’s kitchen. Anger pulled at me and I was thinking about leaving right then, was ready to leave this world behind and go on the hunt, go face my problems head-on, but I looked at Sweet Isabel, took in her schoolgirl smile.

I said, “You’re blushing.”

“I am. Like I’m twenty-one.”

I watched her a while, my anger diminishing, Varg Veum taking control with every breath.

She said, “And how are you feeling? Thought that you might have nodded off.”

“Mind if I put some music on?”

“Blimey. That’s how we got started the first time.”

“Are we done?”

“Are you waving the white flag of surrender?”

“I’m a Brit. We never surrender.”

Moments later Gladys Knight sang and the scent of Earl Grey tea filled the air. We sat at the table, words few, music low, our fingers intertwined as we sipped our tea from plain white teacups. Mine was sweetened with honey. She took hers with milk. A Brit to the bone. When I was living in the UK, my mum and father both took their tea the same way. That made me smile.

Isabel put her foot in my chair, between my legs, slid her toes up and down my penis.

“I could be your mother.”

“But you’re not. Not with the things that we’ve done.”

“Should I feel horrible for allowing such a thing?”

“You should feel wonderful. You should feel very naughty and wonderful.”

“How cruel the gods can be. You at that age, and me this age.”

“Very cruel. Or simply very smart. Smarter than the both of us.”

This was how it had been with Regina and me at the start. She had come to me, had found peace inside of my home, had escaped all that had troubled her and found tranquility and freedom.

Regina Baptiste had run away from Bobby Holland, had come to me in pain, had wanted to escape for just one night, cocaine and sex the drugs she used to make it though the night.

And now I had run away from the world.

Sweet Isabel came to me, pulled my pants away, and then took me inside her mouth again. I sat back, sipped Earl Grey tea and released inarticulate sounds while she tortured me. She did things that I couldn’t imagine Sweet Isabel would ever do, her skills surprising, made me moan and slide out of the chair until I was on the floor. I squirmed and she followed me, controlled me as if she had invented fellatio and forgotten to patent her creation. Then she held my butt and encouraged me to thrust. Her oral sex was intelligent. She handled me perfectly. She squeezed my ass, wanted me to feed her, wanted me to thrust. In slow motion I moved in and out of that warmth. A while later, as I stood firm, as I tingled, we headed back toward the bedroom. Along the way, when we were in her hallway, I took her against the wall, took her from behind with water from her wet hair draining down her back, with her soft cries rising, then with her facing me, her strong legs wrapped around my waist. Just like that, with us connected, I held her buttocks and carried her, took her, eased her down on the bed and reciprocated the oral torture that she had given me in the kitchen. The skin across her lower back shivered and soon she pulled me up to her face.

We kissed and kissed and moved as if time was on our side.

It was as if every nerve ending was awake. My moan was so joyous. She reacted as if she felt the same. She held my back and I felt ten fingernails drag across my skin, ready to dig in deep and brand me
like I was her property and this was her plantation. I grabbed her wrists and held her hands at her side. Then I let her hands go. Stroked her until she grabbed me again. I didn’t care if she took fire and iron and branded her name across my back and chest.

While I was here, there wasn’t an endless tape playing inside of my head—no Johnny Bergs, no more Regina Baptiste, no threats from Bobby Holland, no Mapona, no Hollywood.

Finally, I could no longer hear the applause. Finally, there was a moment of peace.

Sweet Isabel moaned and moved with me and showed a young man who was the boss.

I kissed Sweet Isabel and moved deeper inside. I was safe inside these walls.

Right or wrong, I felt safe and at home inside the walls of Sweet Isabel.

The next morning I ran with Isabel again. I stopped by her apartment and we had a quickie. She had an appointment and I had things to do as well. Back inside my apartment I installed my magicJack and called producer Hazel Tamana Bijou’s cellular.

“James, you saw the news on the movie. Not only that, but a Disney project that Regina was up for has been pulled. And word is that The Powerful Agency is letting Regina Baptiste go.”

A pain ran through my chest. “She’s losing her top-shelf management team.”

I took a breath and shook my head. “Par for the course. Rats leaving a sinking ship.”

“Everyone is melting down. Regina Baptiste is a brand, a business in and of herself.”

“A multimillion-dollar-a-picture business. She makes money and all who work for her in Hollywood can send their kids to private schools and buy winter homes in the Caribbean.”

“First. Bobby Holland. He’s called a dozen times. He wants to meet with you.”

“Forget Bobby Holland. I’m concerned with Johnny Handsome.”

She told me that word on the street was that Johnny Handsome was with his Malibu lawyers and Rodeo Drive plastic surgeons. Johnny Handsome’s injuries had been severe and the humiliation forced him into hiding. And his publicity team was trying to do
damage control, put a spin on the street fight so that their action hero didn’t go from being the next Schwarzenegger to being seen as the next Screech. He didn’t want shots with him looking beaten up surfacing, but the one that did had spoken a million words. Those Web sites had been shut down, but people were forwarding those shots in e-mails, and the tape of them having sex was still out there. It wouldn’t die. It would live on, would move from laptop to laptop the same way the world had passed around the photos of Rihanna after her battle with Chris Brown, same way they had passed around the fourteen-minute sex tape that Colin Farrell had made with Narain in 2003.

Hazel said, “They’re paying people off. They are buying the rights from anyone who videoed anything so that the moment it is posted they can order it removed from the Internet.”

I told Hazel that the paparazzi were in Los Feliz. All of my employees had confidentiality agreements and none could say one word to the press without risking a major lawsuit for breech of confidentiality. Like everyone else in the biz, I was covered on that end.

She said, “But that has never stopped information from being leaked. Workers are people who might be quiet on the job, but each one has friends and intimate relationships. Everyone who holds your secret, pillow talks with someone at the end of the day. There are no secrets. Only truths that have not been revealed and spread across
Page Six
.”

“And you, Hazel? Do you pillow talk?”

“Let’s not go down that road, James. Let’s not.”

At my regular haunts in Los Feliz, the paparazzi had made contact with more than a few waiters, at least one from each shift, and promised cash and their photos posted online as well as a video of them sent to
Entertainment Tonight
if any of them sighted me and called it in.

I asked, “Is Regina Baptiste shacking up with Johnny Bergs now?
If she is, get me his primary home address so I can pack up a U-Haul and throw her belongings on his doorstep.”

“Geesh, James. I have no idea. No photos have been posted. But they have posted photos of you and Regina Baptiste. People are curious about you. You two were in Nassau at Arawak Cay eating at Twin Brothers. They have you at the Starbucks in Cable Beach.”

“They loved her in the Bahamas. The islands claimed her as their own.”

“That they did. They have others of you driving and Regina as your passenger as you left City Market at Lyford Cay. Again they focused on her, so you’re not clear. If I’m not mistaken, they have you in pictures with Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, and Anna Nicole Smith.”

“Anna Nicole Smith? They dug up some very old pictures. Geesh. One site has posted an old article from two years ago. ‘Regina Baptiste has left Bobby Holland and has been spotted holding hands with a man identified as James Thicke. Click here for photos of them having tea and muffins at Abbott’s Habit in Venice, photos of them on the back lot at Universal Studios, having Jamaican dinners at Will’s in Inglewood, and at Borders bookstore at Howard Hughes Center. Regina Baptiste tweeted that she was in love again and she is engaged.’”

“Sounds like an RSS feed. Are you back online?”

“You should read some of the comments that people are leaving. They hide behind their fucking computers and write page after page of mean shit about me. They said mean shit about her. The world is an ugly place.”

“I’m here for you, James. Others, all of your friends, we are on your side, but our roar is not as loud as the roar that comes when a superstar actor and beautiful actress enter the arena. You’re in this, you’re a big part of this triangle, but to many, you’re only an extra on the set.”

“The crew applauded.”

“James, on another note, and I know that you’re stressed, but business is business.”

“The earth will go around the sun no matter what tragedy befalls us.”

“The project that you’re working on for The Powerful Clients is still due. They want me to remind you. I know that I’m not your agent, but they know that we have a working relationship.”

“Business is business and we’re in the business of show.”

“They want that
Boy Meets Girl
script, no matter what is going on in your personal life.”

“Yeah. I’ll need the money for the down payment on the payoff of the fuck-my-wife-on-camera-in-front-of-the-world lawsuit. Nothing like having a man fuck your wife then suing you.”

“James.”

“Come on, Hazel. Laugh. That was funny. Me paying a man for fucking my wife.”

“As a friend, I could have a third party broker a meeting between you and Johnny Bergs.”

“You’re talking mediation and a settlement with a confidentiality clause.”

“Meeting with an arbitrator might be the best route for everyone involved.”

I said, “Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.”

“Costs money for a nation to fight a nation. Let’s not wage a war.”

“Wars are fun. Men get to kill each other and no one goes to jail.”

“Johnny Handsome is a rich, vindictive man, James. He takes after his old man. Everyone knows that. Johnny Bergs can be evil.”