First Kiss (20 page)

Kiki looked around, still horrified by the danger of what he wanted her to do, yet fearful that the moment might pass without her taking advantage of it.

It was a simple one, two step. Fab's zipper went down; Fab's cock went up. Fully erect and hot, straining in anticipation, rearing for attention. His eyes were smiling. So were his lips. Both were saying Look what you've done to me .

Kiki eased down onto the third step and reached out to grip him. She used both hands, amazed by his pulsating pride, thrilled by his continued expansion against her fingers. And then her mouth widened in welcome as she took him into it.

Fab let out a low growl of satisfaction.

Kiki thought nothing she'd ever heard could be more reassuring. She locked her lips around him, the desire to please a force all its ownoverpowering, raging, enslaving. Her mind captured the finer points of the seedy scenea decadent public encounter that couldn't wait a few steps or an elevator rideas her mouth captured him, alternately teasing his engorged tip and swallowing his long shaft.

The sudden clatter of feet reverberated all around them. Someone was coming down the stairs.

Kiki's face went hot with alarm. She released him quickly and stood up to compose herself.

"Shit!" Fab cried, laughing as he struggled to force the erection back into his pants. Just in the nick of time, he got the zipper up, but the teeth of the metal were working overtime at the strain.

Kiki giggled uncontrollably. Even fully clothed, Fab's arousal was so apparent that only one word could accurately describe it obscene , at least to the public-at-large.

Fab broke into a casual whistle and turned to face the wall.

And then the mystery woman rounded the last flight, incognito in her scarf and sunglasses, stopping at the very top to survey the situation. The expres-sion on her face indicated that she came to the correct conclusion about what had been going on.

Kiki was swamped by embarrassment.

The woman let out a gasp of disgust and marched back up the stairs.

"Wait!" Kiki yelled. "I want to talk to you!" And she took off after her, leaving Fab to stare at the wall until the tent in his pants subsided enough to brave a public appearance.

"Hey, what about me?" Fab asked.

Kiki halted for a moment, peering down to see the wounds of abandonment on his face. "Think about your parents having sex." And then she lurched up the stairs.

"Oh, God! That's gross!" Fab exclaimed. One beat. Two beats. Three beats. "But I think it's working!"

By now Kiki was long gone, taking the steps two at a time in order to catch up. Finally, just as the woman reached her floor and slipped through the stairwell exit and into the carpeted corridor, Kiki reached out to stop her, gasping, "It's not what you think!"

The mystery woman recoiled from Kiki's touch.

"Okay, maybe it was. But that's the first time. In public, I mean. I've done it before, obviously. Anyway, all that stuff in the Post was a total lie."

"Why are you telling me this?"

Kiki thought about her answer. "Because you think

I'm this horrible woman, and I'm not." She sighed, extending a hand. "Let's start over. I'm Kiki Douglas."

At first, the woman regarded Kiki's hand as if it were a jagged edge. Then she accepted it, shaking firm and fast. "Jackie Dickinson." The voice was troubled, and with it came a shadow of vulnerable entreaty sweeping across what was visible of the woman's face.

Kiki let a few seconds of silence pass. "Are you up for a cup of coffee?"

Jackie seemed almost grateful for the invitation. The sigh that came next was a lonely one. "Why not? I've had it with daytime TV. I just made a fresh pot, too."

Jackie was booked in the Playpen, a suite much larger than Kiki's Mistress Hideaway. It featured a separate Jacuzzi, separate seating area, and better views of the bustling Meat Packing District.

Kiki offered Jackie an awkward half smile as she sipped Java from an Affair mug and wondered where to start. Did she swim the laps of perfunctory small talk or just dive into the deep end? Clearly they were both in hiding at this hotel. So they must have something in common.

"Okay, I know why I'm here," Kiki launched without preamble. "It was a simple case of try-to-get-away-from-the-asshole-photographers, and this happened to be the next door I walked through. I mean, it was completely random. I could've just as easily marched into a T.G.I. Friday's. What about you?"

Jackie gave her a studied glance. "I in recovering from plastic surgery and don't want to be seen. The way I figure it, any friends I might run into here shouldn't want to be seen either."

Kiki suppressed a yelp of delight. The subject door had been opened. Time for the cross-examination. "Face-lift?" she asked in a knowing, clipped, almost surgical tone. She'd seen hours of Extreme Makeover , and The Swan , plus all the footage of Carnie Wilson's gastric bypass surgery. In some circlesall of them Third World, of courseshe might be able to pass herself off as a medical professional of the self-improvement variety. You know, in a pinch.

Jackie shook her head. "Brow lift."

Kiki studied her carefully. The skin was baby pink. "Chemical peel?"

"Microdermabr asion.''

Hmm. She concentrated on the area under the eyes. No dramatically visible lines there. "CosmoPlast?"

"Thermage."

Well, her eyeliner was way too cover-girl perfect. This was a no-brainer. "Permanent makeup?"

"Just Bobbi Brown."

Okay, she had the next one. A total bull's-eye. Those nice, plump lips. The woman was practically Lisa Rinna, Meg Ryan, Barbara Hershey, and Lara Flynn Boyle all rolled into one. And she seemed to take the less invasive approach when choosing her procedures. "Collagen?"

"Fat infusions."

Wrong again! Ugh. That trim waistline. Hardly anyone Jackie's age had one that enviable. They all had the dreaded little paunch. "Tummy tuck?"

"Liposculpting."

Wow. Her last chance. Think hard. Think shrewd. Think Joan Rivers. Ah. The smooth neck. So many women showed their age there. "Neck lift?"

"South Beach Diet."

Kiki grimaced. Shit! Zero for eight. Obviously, she needed to pay closer attention to those makeover shows. She made an instant personal pact: No more babbling with Suzi-Suzi while doing high-tech medical research.

Jackie's almost grin was all knowing. "Don't worry. Your turn is coming. I didn't look like you when I was your age, but that doesn't mean you won't need everything I did. Maybe more. You'll probably start earlier, though." She zeroed in on Kiki's perfect C-cup breasts. "Looks like you already have."

"Oh, I went to Brazil for these," Kiki admitted easily. "Dr. Mendez did them. He used a special teardrop implant that has natural give. It's very realistic, not like a rock at all." She pushed her chest forward. "Do you want to feel?"

Jackie drew back stiffly. "No thanks."

Kiki was mystified. Usually, everybody wanted to feel her breasts. In fact, Bill, the sweet UPS driver in her building, was thisclose to giving them as a present to his wife. He asked to touch them practically every time he delivered a package.

All of a sudden, Kiki regarded Jackie carefully. "May I ask you something?"

Jackie sipped her coffee. "Go ahead."

"The other day you said to me, 'Women like you make me sick.' What did you mean by that?"

"Well, just look at you," Jackie vented with mild disgust. "You walk around half naked with your pouty breasts and your perfect size two body and your fat-free ass. You're not a woman. You're a candy counter. It's bad enough that men compare every woman they're with to strippers and porn queens. But at least that's fantasy. You're live and in person. You make it harder for real women."

Kiki beamed brightly. She was still somewhere at the beginning. "I'm actually a size four. But you said twol That's one of the best things I've heard all week." Kiki nodded thoughtfully, considering the rest while she drank her coffee. "Now I must say, I resent the implication that I make things harder for real women. I am a real woman. When I won runner-up in the 1995 Miss America Pageant, our opening number that year was a routine to 'Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves.' Get this straightit doesn't get any more real than that!" Kiki sang a few bars of the funky feminine force anthem by Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox. " 'Standing on their own two feet ringing on their own bells'"

Jackie seemed to be grooving just a bit, no doubt remembering the indelible hook of the song. Then, quite abruptly, she stopped herself. "I suppose you're going to tell me that you consider yourself to be a feminist." Her voice was mocking.

"Of course !" Kiki enthused, embracing the loaded term with all the comfort of a warm cashmere blanket on a chilly winter night. "I'm a feminist from my waxed eyebrows to my Jimmy Choos!" She tilted her head. "Where did it all go so wrong for feminism?" Her voice went up an octave as the ponderous thought entered the Playpen ether. Kiki nodded seriously, lips pursed in professorial assessment. "Personally, I think it was the underarm and leg hair. That was a tough sell."

Jackie, having just taken in some coffee, almost did a perfect spit take. "You're trivializing the entire feminist movement down to body hair ?" The impression lingered that Jackie Dickinson had just heard the words of a complete simpleton failing miserably in an attempt to pass herself off as a public intellectual.

Undaunted, Kiki charged on, a fiery one-woman march. "You're editorializing. I didn't mean it that way exactly . Well, maybe a little. You see, every girl out there supports the idea of feminism. I think it's only a slim minority that dress butch, hate men, look down on girls who dress sexy, and sue whenever a guy at the office says, 'What kind of perfume is that?' But they're a loud minority, and they polarize the whole movement. Take my friend, Suzi-Suzi. She's a total feminist. But she's afraid of the label because of that fat pill-popper Rush Limbaugh. Didn't he come up with feminazi ? Well, Suzi-Suzi loves the movie Schindler's List . She bawls her eyes out every time she sees it, and she doesn't want to have anything to do with the Nazis, so she says she's not a feminist. But deep down, she really is. And there's my new friend, Tiffany Lynn. You'd love her. She's a stripper but sweet as's'mores and smart as a whip. A complete feminist. Totally radical. She's flashing the goods because the pay is so amazing. She only has to work one week a month and can spend the rest of the time studying at NYU. All because men turn into ATM machines when they see a pair of boobs. Now if you ask me, that's an example of asserting your female power. Anyway, it all comes down to owning your sexuality. And girls helping one another. That's key, too. Everybody thinks Miss America girls are catty, that we're constantly scratching each other's eyes out. But we're really^very supportive. Okay, there's the occasional bad apple. I remember a Miss Missouri who stole my tit tape. But she had a horseface and nobody knew how on earth she got in. I think her kleptomania was a direct result of her insecurity. And, I must admit, I still hate that bitch Miss California for winning the title. But that's just human nature. Everybody wants to win. I mean, I still hate Barry Waltman for beating me in the seventh grade spelling bee. I missed 'annul.' Spelled it with two 'Ls'. Can you believe that? If only Britney had been screwing up back then, I would've nailed it." Kiki drew in a deep breath and launched back in to more speed-talking. "I don't know. I guess the point is thisat the end of the day, we're all just girls the good, the bad, the young, the old, the pretty, the ugly, the virtuous, the slutty, the rich, the poor. You know? We're all just girls . By the way, I think you look fantastic. And I hope you went through all this agony for yourself and not for some jerky husband. I mean, too many girls out there waste energy fighting each other and not fighting against the age-old double standard. But, hey, I'm guilty of the same. I run around like crazy, killing myself on the treadmill, starving myself on the Leek Soup Diet, which, just as a quick aside, is amazing . You can drop five pounds in a single weekend." Kiki's voice slipped to a whisper. "Not to be gross, but if you go on it, don't make any special plans because you'll definitely need your bathroom time." She winked confidentially and charged back to make her point, sighing dramatically. "Where was I? Oh, the double standard. So here we are, just trying to keep up. You're trying to keep up with girls younger than you. I'm trying to keep up with girls younger than me. And for what? The fight can't be won! There will always be someone younger, prettier, thinner, whatever. Yet we still drive ourselves insane. Look at you. Tucked away in here like you're in the witness protection program, dealing with the recovery miseries of being nipped and tucked, hissing at me in the hallway like an alley cat. Meanwhileand I bet all the money left in my friend Danni's Gucci boot box on thisyour husband's probably out of shape, bald, and has hair growing out of his nose. Well, we don't see him frantically searching to his left, to his right, behind his back, and everyplace else to see what other men look like. To him, Richard Gere is Richard Gere. It's got nothing to do with him. But with us? We all think we have to be Cindy fucking Crawford." Kiki sank back, practically exhausted from the rant. "You know, the weight of the body image world is crushing. It's like that fifty-ton block the Road Runner drops on Wile E. Coyote."

In a sudden and surprisingly affectionate gesture, Jackie reached out to squeeze Kiki's hand. "I take it all back. I like you."

Kiki was flooded with relief. "Oh, thank God! I've been going crazy thinking you thought I was awful. I don't know why it mattered to me so much. There's just something about you that makes me yearn for your approval. Isn't that strange? You have a certain regal quality. Maybe that's it. If you ask me, your husband's a total idiot for not worshiping you."

Jackie smiled warmly. "You're right, dear. About everything ."

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Cinderella's Castle!

Kiki,

Okay, doll, can we stop and take a deep breath? You've got me researching New York weddings, yacht weddings, winter weddings, and Disney World weddings. I'm basically running in every direction but the one these nuptials seem to be firmly planted in, cupcake, which is and fix yourself a nice strong drink before you read this TEXAS! That's right. Your brother is having a FREAKING TEXAS WEDDING! I'm telling you this for these reasons: