Soul Siren (13 page)

S
ummer, and Erica and I had our first flight in a private jet, visiting Steven’s ranch home on the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico, on a long weekend. It was the four of us, really, Odell coming down as my “date.” Steven and Erica had so casually invited him down without asking me first, believing that he and I were on a parallel track of relationship. I said before that Erica told me everything, but by now you must have figured out I never told Erica everything.

Steven plunged thoroughly into his role of playing host, offering nuggets of local history and pointing out the city’s various art galleries. “Here you go,” he said. “The place they once said looked more like a prairie dog village than a capital.” He used his celebrity son status to get us all a tour of the Bonanza Creek Ranch, where Western films were shot. There was Erica and me, two city girls who grew up near rolling green Ontario hills and lakeside skyscrapers, standing around and gazing at white adobe houses and a desert horizon. As we strolled past saloon doors and hitching rails for mounts, Steven remarked, “Hey, I thought every little girl went through a horse-loving phase.” We told him that would be true if we were a couple of white kids who could hit the Bridle Path in Toronto’s very exclusive mansion district.

When we arrived at his gigantic house, he led us in a rapid march past a gaudy lounge, suggesting, “Okay, close your eyes.” The room had the décor of a Tex-Mex restaurant: bull antlers in a plaque, framed “Wanted” posters on the wall, and one of those L-shaped combo couches in a tan colour aimed towards a giant television, plus there was a wet bar with colonial period stools. Ugh. Odell asked if Buffalo Bill threw up in here or something. “I know, it’s awful,” admitted Steven, “but I keep it for photographers from
InStyle
and other mags.”

Image. The irony was that Steven, the kid with two gallery-showing artists for parents out in New Mexico, really was an American Civil War and Wild West buff. Talking up a storm to us about that great Ken Burns mini-series, and how it was “staggering, man” the ineptitude of the Union generals in the early years and how Crazy Horse was one cool dude. But he kept his interests mostly on his bookshelves and on the racks of his DVD collection. Steven didn’t like the idea of fans knowing exactly what his home looked like, so he had created this showpiece, furnishing it with bric-a-brac of ordinary people’s misconceptions of the Old West.

His
real
taste in furniture leaned towards the plush but modular, tans and black tones with track lighting and framed artsy photos of Spain on the walls. He had sculptures on glass tables that looked like scale models of Gaudi architecture, all seashells and pebbled stone and curves. There were chairs and stools that picked up on his love of the West, but they were clever designs with period fabrics. Steven always had to be clever.

“Whoa,” I said. “No IKEA chairs or Klimt posters for you, I see.” I thought of my fellow dorm residents at Yale with their wannabe bohemian tastes.

“Please!” laughed Steven. “I don’t do that Swedish particleboard shit. So what are we going to do?”

“It’s your ranch, Hoss,” joked Odell.

“You’re right, it is! Okay. Simon says we get drunk. And then we all get laid.”

Erica flashed a look at me, smiling away, her eyes shining with half-anticipation, half mild apprehension over what he could have in mind. She had always been uninhibited, but Steven was turning her into his special breed of daredevil. I had flown down, rehearsing in my head a careful speech that would keep Odell from sharing my bed, but our host had just dropped a big hint that he had group sports in mind….

L
ate. Post-pizza. Post-Tequila, Scotch, gin, vodka and a case of the inexhaustible Drambuie supply Steven was still working on from the catered party. All of us drunk, only two of us—the professional singers, Erica and Steven—able to hold a note in this state, Odell and I butchering the Santana and Rob Thomas hit on the stereo:
And it’s just like the ocean under the moon, well, it’s the same as the emotion that I get from you…

Steven declared this our “Wretched Excess Weekend.” With a burst of energy like a kid off his Ritalin, he led us into the pantry. He tossed a big jar of olives like a football to a wide-eyed Odell, a tin of caviar to Erica and a spray can of whipped cream to me. From a cabinet, he brought out a serving tray like a cheese platter of drugs du jour—mushrooms, pot, ’ludes, Ecstasy. Erica set the tone for all of us. “We don’t really need that, honey,” she suggested. “Just light us a couple of joints. Let’s keep it soft.”

It was Odell who scooped up a handful of drugs and stuffed them in his pocket, muttering if not now, later. He pissed me off doing that. “What? You hit a buffet and you stuff rolls and lamb chops down your pants, too?”

“Oh, chill out, Michelle,” he whispered as Steven and Erica danced to the music. “You know our boy gets choice stuff. If you two don’t want to party, fine, but
I got other friends,
you know.”

I shook my head in disbelief. It never ceased to amaze me how when you get into the circles of the famous or the so-called elite, people could behave out of raw, shameless Id. They acted like they walked out of a cartoon. I got other friends, he said. Translation: And won’t they be impressed when I bring them Steven Swann’s dope. I wanted to tell him: Look, you’ve made it. You’re the head dancer on his tour. And now you’re not content with name-dropping, you need to offer drug samples? He put a couple of things back to mollify me and kissed me on the cheek. I gave him a noncommittal rub on his shoulder.

With the way he behaved, I was surprised he hadn’t hit on Erica yet. “Oh, he has,” she told me when I asked her. It was a while back and he was so obvious, she’d have nothing to do with him. But he’d left her alone after his single attempt, which also baffled me.

“Mish, there’s nothing I can do for his career that Steven hasn’t done for him already, so I’m not
useful
to him. If a guy wants sex, he’ll stick it anywhere he can.”

“Oh, thank you very much,” I said.

“Oh, sweetie, don’t be like that. Didn’t we both have guys who treated us like that in school? And I can see the boy’s just a stopgap for you, too. It’s so obvious there’s no heat between you.”

Yes, she and Steven had invited Odell, but she claimed it was Steven’s idea, and she couldn’t find a way to cut his good friend out. Guys don’t always pick up on these things as well as women, she said.

“Okay, we’re fed, we’re watered!” Steven was shouting now, holding up a bottle of Tequila. “To the armoury!”

To the
what
? We followed him into a room of dark wood panelling and display cases. It gave the three of us a sobering jolt. Guns. Lots and lots of guns. Our host was the all-American boy all right.

“These are my babies,” he declared, setting the Tequila bottle down on a small end table. He casually opened the door to one of the cases, and Erica and I traded looks. Shit, shouldn’t he keep these things
locked up
?

“We got the whole Wal-Mart collection in here,” said Steven, his words only a bit slurred. “Plus, check this out, check this out! These are Iraqi issue—confiscated in the war, man. Plus the best street shit converted to full automatic. And look at this, a
plastic
M16 gun, only the barrel is metal. They got agents that use this!”

The pop star who wanted to play spy. He was waving the things around, scaring the shit out of us, Odell saying in a voice that got higher and higher, more insistent: “Steve…Steve.
Steve.
”

Steven, oblivious: “I got Civil War rifles around here someplace.”

“Put the fucking gun down, will ya, man?”

And Steven replied, “Will you relax, Odell? You guys want me to show you my place, I’ll show you my place. Jesus, I’d expect this from the girls, but you’re a guy for fuck’s sake—”

Which was a telling comment, I think.

I watched Erica. She was as rattled as the rest of us but trying to sound calm because she thought this would get through to him. “Please, Stevie, you’re making everyone nervous, babe.”

“Sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry.” And he placed the weapon back on its display rack.

“Thank you,” snapped Odell.

“Okay, it’s over,” I cautioned him. “Let’s just get out of this room and have another drink.”

“I’m fine, I’m cool,” he assured me, his voice still betraying his adrenaline.

We went back into the living room and all had another couple of shots. I felt the lift again, a silly weightless freedom.

“Here, different toys,” said Steven, and he picked up these white balls we hadn’t noticed before and began juggling with them.

“What are those?” I asked.

But he was giggling away, running into the second lounge back near the kitchen. Odell made a smartass crack that just our luck, they’d be grenades, but Erica and I obediently followed our host. We asked again, what are those things? Steven had that laugh you get because you find your own joke hysterical first.

In a Vegas lounge lizard voice, he announced, “These are
luuuuuv
eggs!”

And in mid-juggle, he tossed one to me, one to Erica. They were indeed eggs, small plastic ones.

“What are you supposed to do with those, man?” asked Odell.

Once again, the maturity level dropped another ten points to primary school age. Steven’s eyes flicked from Erica to me, and the three of us burst out laughing. Steven pulled out a remote. Erica gave a mild shriek and then laughed again as the egg in her palm vibrated.

“You’ve heard of immobilisers, well, this thing mobilises!” said Steven.

The four of us were really gone now, that giddy I-drink-because-I-think-I’m-thirsty, feelin’-no-pain drunken state. Everybody was talking at once, everybody talking over each other. And Erica, with a coy mischievous glance from me to Odell, unbuttoned her trousers and shrugged them off, ditching her panties as well. There she was with her well-endowed backside and her pussy fur on display, and Odell was gasping, “I don’t believe this shit.” We all watched as she deftly inserted the egg into her vagina. Steven, his eyes coy as well, hit the button. Another squeal from Erica.

“Gimme that thing,” she said, pretending to reach for the remote. “I don’t need you guys anymore!”

All of us were laughing hysterically. And Erica pretended to walk with great difficulty into the living room, asking what’s the range of this thing? Fifty feet, said Steven chasing after her, two triple-A batteries of heaven. Kissing and nuzzling her, stripping the rest of her clothes off as she collapsed onto a scoop-like chair, a mod design with a decorated buffalo-hide cover.
You have got to try this, Mish, it is something.
Steven tossed the other remote to Odell, but I caught it before he did, trying to make it look like I was teasing. Oh, no, you don’t. And, no, I didn’t. I didn’t want him having that control.

Still hovering in the kitchen as our host and hostess got it on. He tried to kiss me, and I brushed cheeks with him and pointed. There was Steven, stripping off now and on top of Erica. Odell and I both hypnotised but for different reasons, my date for the weekend scarcely believing that Steven would take her right there in front of us. Odell calling out:
We having a dogging party here or what?
And Steven muttered something about guess so, man, “Wretched Excess Weekend! Whooo-hoooo!” and I saw the star unbutton his Calvin Kleins, his white cock impressively thick and flush with blood as Erica lay under him, that lovely layer of baby fat around her belly, bringing her knees up with not an ounce of shame. Steven was rubbing himself against her, the tip of his penis running over her clit, timing his amateur electroshock therapy with his strokes. “Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm—”

He looked over at me with mild astonishment, and I didn’t understand this until I felt the slightest pressure of Odell’s dick against my pussy lips. I was barely conscious that he had opened my blouse. I didn’t recall him unzipping my skirt. My small tits were hanging down, swaying slightly as Odell filled me up from behind, and he was so big he couldn’t get himself all the way in. I was gripping the edge of the counter top already, and I felt pleasure and a twinge of discomfort over his girth. Steven still watching me, hungry over
me,
and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed him seeing me naked. Odell was nothing, my “beard” who didn’t have a clue, but Steven…This was a change, feeling turned on by a man’s attention. It had been a while. And beyond Steven’s wolf eyes, beyond whatever Odell could do for me was the stimulation of my girl on that buffalo-hide scoop chair. My beautiful love was in her glory, head rolling like a doll’s as the alcohol and the pot lifted her. She didn’t notice us until Steven whispered she should look.

“Fuck, Michelle,” she said, her words slurring, “it’s like a goddamn tree trunk, girl!” And she cackled away, sheer delight at being vulgar. This was Erica. Politically brave and brilliant, caring and generous, with a mouth sometimes like a sailor.
“Make ’im bigger, hon.”

None of her attention on me, just on Odell, ramming himself faster and faster inside me to show off while her eyes grew wider, and I looked over my shoulder to see why. I don’t think it was so much that throbbing brown pole, and I admit I’m biased because the sight of it didn’t interest me much, but she liked the pattern of his abs glowing and perfectly defined, the way the sweat rolled down his chest in a cascade of a single line like a tiny waterfall. He was pulling out of me, wanting to turn me around and set me on the counter. Make ’im bigger, hon. And I decided to give my girl a thrill.

I pressed the love egg against his testicles and hit the remote.

The vibration made Odell’s cock harden even more and thrust at a higher angle, and he let out an almost feminine gasp. A fountain of cum shot out of him like shaken-up champagne, slapping across my tits and up to my neck. Steven and Erica thought this was hilarious, Erica turned on but still laughing at my prank. But Odell had a face like thunder. He looked at me as if I’d betrayed him somehow, cheated him out of something. I wished I could have come out and said,
No, you may not come inside me. No, you should
give a damn about what pleases me.
I didn’t. I muttered something like, “Oh, calm down. You got off. And you look like you enjoyed it.”