Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [121]
“Bethany, did you talk to the people at Maurice Villency about that gorgeous sectional?” She threw her arms toward the exposed beams in the ceiling for unnecessary emphasis.
“Not yet. I want to replace all the draperies first,” she said with a gratuitous sweep of her arms.
The word draperies brought to mind the pubic crudity about drapes matching the carpet and I was more acked out than ever.
I slipped off my own clothes and hastily put on my robe, hoping to set a modest example. I had just cinched the terry-cloth tie when the spa attendant came into the room. She, like every other female employee at the Ahhhh . . . Spa, was overly made up in that “natural way” that dictates that no woman should ever, ever leave her house without applying six different shades of brown eye shadow. She was impeccably groomed, almost to a fault, from her flat-ironed hair to her French-pedicured feet.
“Jessica? Is there a Jessica here?” She had a vaguely British accent that I wasn't entirely convinced was real.
I lifted a finger. “That's me.”
“Kayan is ready for you.”
“Kayan?” I asked, sort of panicky. “Is that a man or a woman?”
“A man.” The attendant blinded me with the whites of her teeth.
“Is that a problem?” asked my mom.
“Oh, no,” I said, adopting an airy tone. “Not at all.”
Honestly, I was a little freaked about the idea of a man giving me a massage. I haven't been touched by the opposite sex for a few months and I wasn't sure how my body would react to any tactile stimulation. But when I saw Kayan in the flesh, I nearly fainted.
He was one of the most stunning men I'd ever seen. Well over six feet tall, with flawless mahogany skin stretched shiny and taut over muscles that you usually only get to see on the starting blocks of the hundred-meter final at the Olympics. He was totally not my type. And yet just looking at his huge hands and knowing they were soon going to be all over my oiled-up, naked body, well . . . Whoa.
“Jessica?” It was the creamiest voice I've ever heard.
“Uh,” I said.
“This way,” Kayan said, leading me to a candlelit room. “Is this your first time?”
“Uh, yes,” I said.
He offered a generous smile. “Relax,” he said. “I'll make it easy for you.”
“Okay,” I gulped.
As I lay down under the sheet and put my face through the padded toilet seat thingy, I started to think about how odd it must be to rub naked people for a living. Even though it isn't sexual, it's still pretty intimate. And I'm a clean, fairly attractive woman, but I imagine that not all of Kayan's clients are so inoffensive to the senses.
“How's that feel?” he asked as he spread his hands over the small of my back.
“Good,” I murmured. “It feels good.”
And it did. Kayan knew what he was doing. I tried to let my mind wander as effortlessly as his fingertips skimmed my skin, but I couldn't do it. I kept thinking about how weird it was that this total stranger was touching me in places that have gone untouched and unexplored all summer. Not there, mind you, but near enough to remind me that it will probably be a very, very long time before anyone touches me there again.
As Kayan deftly kneaded his knuckles into my hamstrings, my thoughts drifted to porn. But not in a sexy way. In a clinical way. I was thinking that maybe the indifference that Kayan feels toward his job is similar to that of those who fuck for a living.
Over the course of our sham of an ex-relationship, Kieran and I watched several XXX titles starring the Jessica Darling who isn't me. It was more out of curiosity than kink. At least for me. And I guess I didn't want Kieran to think I was repressed. I was surprised by how quickly I went from novice to critic. Like, I got totally irritated when a film got bogged down by a bad plot. I was, like, “Shut up about the nymphomaniac aliens from outer space