Standing On Top

Chapter 18b

For the next eight days, Jake mingled. He rented a car (a modest Toyota Corolla) and drove to various locations in and around the Christchurch area and the towns surrounding it, getting to know the lay of the land and meeting people. For the most part, he found the New Zealanders to be exactly like what his first impression of them had told him they'd be like. They were polite, friendly, and, though curious about his intentions in their country, they were much less likely to be overly intrusive into his business than your typical American. Your typical American tended to feel as if he or she had an intrinsic right to know your business. The typical New Zealanders, when they did decide to pry, at least had the decency to be hesitant and shy about it.

Jake met people from all walks of New Zealand life during his treks. He talked to gas station attendants, grocery store clerks, fishermen down on the Lyttelton docks, furniture makers and plumbers and construction workers who would be working on his house. He had dinner with the mayor of Christchurch and her husband in their modest estate house. He spent a night drinking in a bar with a group of Christchurch police officers he had met during an exploration of one of the local parks. Most of these people, Jake was sure, were left with a good impression of him, or, if not of him exactly, they at least had any worries eased that he was planning to have weeklong Satanic sex and drug orgies up in his hillside mansion once it was built.

"Two days, tops," he told the group of Christchurch police officers. "That's as long as a man can reasonably sustain an average Satanic sex and drug orgy."

Perhaps the most favorable impression he made during the trip was upon a man named Zachary Fields. He met Fields while scoping out airports in the vicinity of Christchurch. Jake planned to have his Cessna 172 — his original, single-engine plane, which didn't see much flight time these days — shipped to New Zealand so he would have something to fly when he was in the country. Christchurch International Airport was just outside of Christchurch itself but Jake did not feel comfortable flying in and out of so large a facility. Though most of the international flights flew into Auckland or Wellington, Christchurch was very busy during the summer months as it was the primary field used by supply and personnel flights to and from Antarctica. Jake wanted to be based out of a small field that catered to general aviation only.

He found such a field in the town of Ashburton, which was a farming town about ninety kilometers (or "klicks", as the local terminology went) south of Christchurch. Ashburton Aerodrome was just outside the town itself, though still under the umbrella of Christchurch ATC. Breckerman had at first tried to talk him out of even considering the field, not because it was somewhat primitive (Breckerman knew next to nothing about aviation) but because of the distance from Christchurch.

"It's almost ninety klicks away from where you'll be living," he told Jake. "It'll take you more than an hour just to drive there when you want to fly."

His attitude about distance was one that Jake had found to be fairly typical among the South Islanders. Breckerman spoke of that ninety-kilometer drive the same way Jake would have spoken of driving from Los Angeles to Heritage. New Zealanders were not big commuters and anything over twenty or thirty kilometers was considered a major trek.

"Ninety klicks?" Jake had responded to him. "That's like sixty miles, right?"

"If you say so," Breckerman told him. He knew even less about American standard measurements than he did about aviation.

"That's nothing," Jake told him. "It's only fifteen miles more than I used to drive to get from my house in LA to the airport in Ventura where I flew from. Hell, I know people who drive further than that twice a day just to get to and from work. And in rush hour traffic, no less."

It was obvious that Breckerman thought he was exaggerating. Nonetheless, he gave Jake basic instructions on how to get to the airfield and Jake made the drive. There were no freeways connecting the towns and cities of New Zealand with each other, but there was State Highway 1, a well-maintained roadway that ran almost perfectly straight between Christchurch and Ashburton. The speed limit on the highway was one hundred kilometers per hour. Jake, not knowing how strict the New Zealand cops were about enforcing that speed limit, did not violate it and was able to make the trip from the site of his future home to the airfield in one hour and eight minutes. He considered that to be well within parameters, as Nerdly would have said.

What did give him some trepidation about the airfield was the fact that the runways were not paved. Though they were lit and marked like any other runways he'd used in his flying days, they were covered with closely mowed grass instead of asphalt or concrete. There was even a warning on the aeronautical chart to "use the mowed runways only".

"Don't knock it until you try it," Fields, who had been given the task of providing Jake with a tour of the airfield, told him. "The smoothest landings you'll ever experience."

Fields was not an employee of the aerodrome but he was a significant fixture there. A rugged, masculine man who sported an unruly mustache and a scraggly mop of brown hair, Fields owned Fields Air Tours, a small business that provided sightseeing flights over the coast and the Southern Alps for visiting tourists. Fields was the primary pilot of the business. He took people up for one-hour tours for the equivalent of sixty American dollars apiece. The plane he used was a Piper Cherokee that had been built in 1968 and required almost constant maintenance to keep flying. He offered to take Jake up for one of his tours, "on the house, as you Americans say" and, though Jake did go up with him, he refused to not pay his way.

"I think I like you, Jake," Fields told him as he finished up his pre-flight. "Now why don't you do the honors and take us up so you can see how sweet these runways are."

"I've never been checked out on a Cherokee," Jake told him.

"It's not much different than a 172," Fields told him. "And if you do anything wrong, I'll tell you. Come on, grab the throttle and get us moving."

And so Jake did. Fields was right on all counts. The Cherokee was not much different than the 172 as far as controls and instruments went (though it did have significantly less power), and the take-off roll down the grass runway was about the smoothest Jake had ever experienced.

"What do you think?" Fields asked him once they were in the air and climbing.

"So far, so good," Jake said, banking to the compass heading Fields had told him to bank to. "What about when it rains though? Don't the runways become unusable?"

"During heavy rainstorms, it does get too soggy to use," Fields said. "But then you don't generally go out flying during heavy rainstorms anyway, do you?"

"Good point," Jake allowed. "How long after the rain stops does the runway become usable again?"

"They have a good drainage system down there," Fields said. "Usually within six hours of a heavy rain the field can open for business again. Didn't you tell me that you're only planning on living here during the summer?"

"Yes," Jake said. "That is my plan."

"Then you don't have to worry too much about it," Fields said. "We get most of our rain in the winter and early spring. If it does rain in the summer, it's usually brief and light. I don't recall any extended closures here because of rain between November and late March."

"Well all right then," Jake said. "It looks like I found myself a field."

Fields then expressed his one concern with Jake's plan. "Glad to have you, of course, but don't you think we're an awful long way from Christchurch?"

That night, Jake went out drinking with Fields and "the guys". The guys turned out to be a group of six men who had all served with Fields in the Royal New Zealand Air Force in the early 1980s. Fields and two of the others had been pilots of C-130 maritime patrol aircraft. The other three had been members of their support crew. They invaded a bar near the airport and spent the better part of six hours putting away pints of Steinlager, smoking cigarettes, and telling tales of their flying experiences (Jake, obviously, had the least amount and most boring tales to tell, though they were interested in some of his ATC and landing stories from his flight from Chicago to Los Angeles). The subject of Jake's celebrity status or the fact that he was one of the most famous rock musicians on the planet never came up. It was this aspect of the encounter more than any other that Jake enjoyed the most. He liked being treated like he was just another pilot, just another one of the guys.

Fields took Jake home with him to his modest three-bedroom house and let him crash in the guest bedroom. The next morning Jake met Fields' wife — a chubby though pleasant natured woman — and his daughter — eight-year-old Kayla Lynn Fields, a cute as a button third grader. Naomi Fields — the wife — cooked a huge breakfast for the two men and then cleaned up everything afterward. It was on the drive back to the aerodrome to get Jake's rental car that Jake made Fields an offer he couldn't refuse.

"I'm going to be shipping my 172 here in the next month or so," he told Fields.

"Yes," Fields said. "I assumed that was your plan. I'll talk to Kyle — the airport manager — about getting you some hangar space."

"Actually," Jake said, "I'm a little concerned about my plane just sitting for six months at a time when I'm not in the country."

"Understandable," Fields allowed.

"I'd like to make a deal with you."

"What sort of deal?"

"You store my plane for me in your hangar, take care of its maintenance and upkeep, and it's yours to use for your business while I'm not in the country."

Fields gave him a shrewd look. "And how much would this cost me?" he asked.

"Nothing," Jake said. "You pay for maintenance and the insurance increase involved in it being used as a commercial aircraft, take care of whatever paperwork is needed to register it in this country, and, of course, whatever fuel you use when it's in your possession, and nothing else. The only stipulation is that no one who isn't rated commercial and hasn't been officially checked out on a 172 be allowed to fly it, and that whenever I'm in town and want to use it, it's mine. If you agree to all that, no charge whatsoever."

Fields' mouth dropped open. "No charge?" he asked. "Is there a catch here, Jake?"

"No catch," Jake said. "I really love that plane and I'd prefer it be put to use when I don't need it instead of rotting in a hangar somewhere. Hell, you can even paint it with your logo like you did your Cherokee. That way it'll serve as an advertisement for you when I'm out cruising the country."

Fields literally didn't know how to react to this offer. It was a chance to nearly double his business and upgrade an aircraft at the same time, all at the negligible cost of maintenance, upkeep, insurance, and storage. "I don't know what to say, Jake," he said.

"Say it's a deal," Jake told him. "We'll even put it in writing, if you want."

"It's a deal," Fields told him.

They shook on it and both men left the encounter thinking they'd come away the better for it.

Jake left Auckland International Airport at 7:30 PM on Saturday, December 9, aboard a Pan American Airlines 747. Since it was a weekend, a direct flight was possible. The total flight time was twelve hours and fifty-five minutes, which, when the time zones and the International Date Line were considered, brought the plane down at LAX at 1:25 PM on Saturday afternoon. In a way, the plane landed six hours before it actually took off.

Jake had long since gotten over the chronicological wonders involved in international air travel. He was too seasoned of a flyer for that. He spent the majority of the overnight flight asleep in his first class seat. He exited the plane at LAX refreshed and ready to enjoy the day he'd gotten back after losing it on the outbound leg of his journey. He drank two beers in the limousine on the way home and then mixed a tall rum and coke after dropping his dirty laundry in Elsa's hamper. Elsa herself was not home. She had the weekends off and, while she usually hung out at the house anyway (and even kept things clean to keep from incurring a backlog on Monday morning), a note on Jake's bar refrigerator — someplace she knew he'd find it — informed him that she was spending this weekend with her daughter and grandchildren in San Diego.

It looks like dinner out again, Jake thought as he mixed a fresh rum and coke. He carried it into the living room and found that Elsa had neatly stacked all eleven copies of the LA Times that had been delivered in his absence. For the next two hours he drank drinks and caught up on the news. He was pleasantly buzzed and just starting to think about taking a pre-dinner nap when the doorbell rang.

He ignored it at first. He wasn't expecting anyone, which meant that whoever was standing on his porch pushing the little white button was probably someone he didn't want to talk to. But the doorbell kept ringing and ringing — a double-push every fifteen or twenty seconds, sometimes interspersed with a few knocks on the door itself.

With a sigh, Jake stood, polishing off the last of his latest drink and snuffing out his latest cigarette. He walked slowly into the small room just off the kitchen that served as the nerve center for his security system. In here were switches for all the perimeter lights, a panel to control the alarm system, and a large monitor to display the take from the four security cameras on the property.

He flipped the monitor on, listening to yet another doorbell and knock cycle from the front door while it warmed up. Finally, the display lit up. The screen was divided into four quadrants. The two backyard views were at the bottom. They showed nothing unexpected. The top left view was a lateral shot of the circular driveway. It was showing a nondescript Lexus sedan parked just in front of the garage entrance. The top right view of the display was from the camera that looked over the front door. It showed an attractive woman wearing a pair of blue jeans and a form-fitting angora sweater. Her brunette hair was tied up in an anonymous looking ponytail and her eyes were covered with a pair of dark sunglasses but, as had been the case in Fiji, Jake had no trouble recognizing his mysterious visitor. It was Mindy Snow.

"What the hell is she doing here?" he mumbled, his buzzed mind trying to come to grips with several things, like how she knew where he lived since she'd never been here before, and how she knew he would be home.

He watched as she reached out her left hand, the hand with the four and a half karat diamond ring on the ring finger, and pushed the doorbell two more times. She then stood back, waiting patiently, a neutral expression on her face.

Just keep ignoring her, the rational part of Jake's brain told him. She'll go away soon. This was perfectly valid advice. He was tired, out of sorts, jet-lagged, unshowered, unshaven, half drunk, and most certainly not in the mood for unexpected visitors.

But look at those fucking tits! the other part of his brain — the part that made entirely too many decisions for him — insisted. That's Mindy Snow out there! The woman who knows how to deep-throat without gagging! Who takes it up the ass like a champ! Who can fuck for six hours straight without boring you! Open the goddamn door before she goes away, you moron!

It was this side that won out — again. Jake had not engaged in any sexual activity except masturbation during his entire New Zealand trip (although not for lack of offers). He had only been laid twice since Helen had broken up with him — both times with nameless, faceless women he'd met at the Flamingo Club. He was, to put it mildly, horny as hell and in need of a good round of no-holds-barred sex. And there, on his front porch at this very moment, demanding entry, was a woman who would have no other reason to come over to his house unless she was hoping to provide such a sex session.

But she's married, the rational part tried to remind him.

So fucking what? the dark side shot right back. She was married when you boned her in Fiji, wasn't she?

Even the rational side had to admit that this was a valid point.

Jake saw that Mindy was now digging in her purse. She pulled out a notepad and a gold plated pen and wrote something down. She tore off the sheet of paper and took a few steps across the porch until she was just beneath the camera. She held the piece of notepaper up until it was the only thing in Jake's view.

I know you're in there, Jake, the note read. Open the fucking door!

Jake went and opened the fucking door.

"It's about goddamn time," Mindy said, feigning exasperation with him. "I was starting to think that maybe you really weren't here."

He stepped aside and let her in. "What made you think I was here?" he asked.

She smiled. "Because I've been stalking you," she said. "How else?"

"Stalking me?" he asked, visions of Jenny Johansen dancing briefly into his brain.

She closed the door behind her and turned to him, running her finger up and down his bare arm. "Not in a bad way," she said. "I just had a few of my people look into your itinerary for me. The found out you came in on a flight from New Zealand early this afternoon, and, as a bonus, that your housekeeper wasn't home this weekend."

"Pretty good sources," Jake said, still a little uncomfortable with the thought.

"Yeah," she said with a shrug. "They earn their money. Anyway, since I found out you're going to be alone I thought... you know... that maybe I could come by and see how you're doing."

"I'm doing... uh... fine," he said.

"Good," she said. "I figured you probably were. I was sorry to hear about you and what's-her-name breaking up. I do hope our little encounter in Fiji didn't have anything to do with it."

"No," Jake said. "She never knew anything about that. No one does."

"That's a relief," Mindy said. "It really wouldn't do for her to go blabbing something like that to the media. You know how those vultures are always willing to print any rumor they hear, unfounded or not."

"Yes, I know," Jake said, a little testily. "I recall you once used that willingness to your advantage."

"Exactly," Mindy said brightly. "So I should know, right?"

"I suppose," Jake said. "So where's hubby today? Does he know you're over here?"

"Of course not," she said. "He had to fly to San Francisco to oversee some audio overdubs on his last film. He won't be back until Monday afternoon."

"I see," Jake said, finding his eyes drawn to the swelling of her breasts beneath her sweater. They really were a premium set, perhaps the finest natural boobs in Hollywood.

Mindy pretended not to notice his gaze. Instead, she looked around at the living room and the staircase. "Nice looking place you got here," she said. "I like the way you've decorated."

"It's someplace to lay my head when I'm stuck in LA," he said.

"Can I have a tour?"

"Sure," he said. "Let's show you around."

The tour only lasted about three minutes. Like always when showing his house to someone, he started upstairs in the master bedroom. They went in and they didn't come back out for almost two hours. And that was just to get a bottle of wine and some cheese and crackers before commencing with round two.

Mindy stayed at his house until Monday morning. Elsa was due back to work in an hour and Mindy's husband was due back at LAX in four hours. Jake needed to be at the rehearsal warehouse by nine o'clock to start the first day of tour rehearsal. Mindy gave him a wet, sensual kiss just before stepping out the door.

"I'll see you Friday night?" she asked. Her husband was going to be out of town again the following weekend — to Orlando this time for a few editing re-takes — and she had invited Jake to spend that time at her mountain home.

"I'll be there," he assured her.

"You remember how to get there?"

"Oh yes," he said. And he did. Some of the most intense sexual experiences of his life had taken place in and around that house.

She gave him one more kiss, softer but still quite sensual, and then she was gone. Jake stared at the closed door for a few moments, knowing he should feel guilty about sleeping with a married woman, knowing he should feel even guiltier for making plans to do more of it. He did feel some guilt, did know that Mindy was bad news, that every association he'd ever had with her had turned out negatively, but the guilt and the negativity only added to the sheer ecstasy of having sex with her. She was pleasure personified, her every move seemingly custom designed to bring sexual satisfaction and need.

Jake was tired. He was covered from head to toe in sexual musk, old and fresh. He was extremely sore, particularly in his groin muscles, upper thighs, and prostate. He also couldn't wait until Friday so he could do it all over again.

With a contented sigh, he turned away from the door and limped his way upstairs for a much-needed shower.

On December 11^th, the same day Intemperance started tour rehearsal (although they spent much of that first day arguing about the opening song), and nine days before the United States invasion of Panama known as Operation Just Cause, copies of the new Intemperance studio album, titled Lines On The Map, and the album's first single, She Cut Me Loose, arrived at radio stations across the country for advance airplay and review by the critics.

She Cut Me Loose immediately started receiving heavy airplay on both rock and pop stations and was well-received by both the hardcore Jake-leaning Intemperance fans and the more fickle mainstream pop fans. This popularity was given a significant boost by the subject matter of the song. Since Jake and Helen's break-up had been headline entertainment news only six weeks before (complete with news conferences and a brief flurry of paparazzi stalking of both of them), it was assumed that the "she" Jake was singing about was Helen. Neither Jake nor Helen bothered correcting this misconception, mostly because to do so was more trouble than it was worth. The song was given an additional boost when the PMRC and the Family Values Coalition both condemned it because it contained the lyrics "I'll just have another drink and those feelings go away" and therefore glorified underage drinking (since many Intemperance fans were under twenty-one) and alcohol abuse in general.

By December 14^th, there were a flurry of advance reviews of the album printed in newspapers, entertainment magazines, and music magazines. Generally the more mainstream publications, as they always had in the past, crucified the band's latest effort, calling Lines On The Map their worst effort yet. The more left-leaning music magazines and entertainment publications, which had always tended to like Intemperance's work, called it a genuine maturation of musical style. Both camps agreed on one thing, however: the album was a marked difference from their earlier style of music.

On December 22, both the album and the single went on sale to the general public. The single sales were strong and steady, but not record-breaking by any means. Album sales, on the other hand, took off like a shot. In the first forty-eight hours, before the Christmas holiday closed all the stores, Lines On The Map sold ninety-four thousand copies — not as many as It's In The Book sold in its first forty-eight hours, but not all that far behind.

Meanwhile, in the rehearsal studio, the disagreements and animosity were renewed as Jake, Matt, and Nerdly argued constantly over the song selection and the song order for the tour. Matt wanted to open with Grandstand, his hard-rock rap tune.

"It's fucking perfect for the opening piece," he argued again and again. "It has the fast-tempo power riff at the beginning that can start playing as soon as the lights go up. Then it transitions into the machine-gun rap-style to get the audience pumped up."

Neither Jake nor Nerdly agreed with this logic.

"It's a non-traditional piece," Jake always countered. "We need to open with a classic Intemperance sound and then put the non-traditional stuff mid-show, or maybe as one of the encores."

"I think we should open with a true Intemperance classic," Nerdly said. "Either Descent Into Nothing or The Thrill Of Doing Business."

And both Matt and Jake were against this idea.

"You're out of your fucking mind, Nerdly!" Matt yelled when this was suggested. "We always open a show with material from the latest album. You fucking know that."

"Where does it say that?" Nerdly demanded. "We're enough of an icon now that we can open with whatever we want."

"No, I have to agree with Matt here, Nerdly," Jake would say. "It's traditional to open with new material. I'm thinking that Lines On The Map is a good bet. It's traditional Intemperance sound and it's new."

"You just want it first because it's your fucking song!" Matt would then accuse. "Isn't it fucking enough that I caved and let you name the goddamn album after that tune? Now you want to open the fucking show with it?"

And round and round they went, just like always on any subject these days. Finally, after returning from their brief Christmas break on December 27^th, did they come to a compromise of sorts and agree to open the show with My Life — Matt's song about the life of a rock star. It wasn't exactly traditional Intemperance sound, but it was not quite as non-traditional as Grandstand.

The next argument came ten minutes after deciding what to open with. It had to do with Jake's song I See You. Jake wanted to put it in as the fourth song of the set, the first slow song they would perform. Nerdly agreed it would make a good transition after Who Needs Love? to start a three-song string of mellow pieces. Matt, however, didn't want I See You in the lineup at all.

"I'm not even playing my fucking guitar through most of that song," Matt complained. "What am I supposed to do? Just stand there with my cock in my hand while you're finger picking your way through the goddamn verses?"

"It doesn't seem to bother you that Nerdly is sitting there with his cock in his hand through most of Faces At Dawn, does it? Do I need to remind you that there is less than forty seconds of piano in the whole fucking song?"

"Nerdly's behind a piano for Faces," Matt would counter. "Nobody's gonna notice that he ain't doing anything, but they'll sure as shit notice that I'm standing there looking like a fucking piece of furniture while you're crooning out you mellow crap to the audience!"

And on and on that one went as well. Jake stuck to his ground and Matt eventually agreed to put the song in where Jake wanted it. He absolutely balked, however, at Nerdly's suggestion that they spotlight Jake and Charlie during the verses of I See You and dim down the lights on the rest of the band.

"We keep the fucking lights up on everyone at all times," Matt said. "We ain't choregraphing our lighting. It ain't what we're about."

And again, now that he had his way, Jake agreed with Matt on this issue and Nerdly was overruled, against his very stern objections. They then moved onto the next argument, which had to do with which of their classic tunes they weren't going to play since they were time restricted to a ninety-minute show and there wasn't room to play seven songs from the new album and all of the previous live classics from the first four studio albums and the three original songs from In Action. The basis of this argument fell upon predictable lines. Jake wanted to not play two of Matt's songs and Matt wanted to not play two of Jake's. The obvious solution — that they each pick one of their own not to play, thus making things even — did not occur to either of them for more than two hours and one near-physical confrontation.

It was Saturday, December 30, before they were able to finalize an actual play list for the tour and start to think about actually plugging in their instruments and doing some rehearsals. Fortunately, except for Nerdly, they all agreed to maintain a minimal amount of choreography, visual effects, and stage design. Except for the new wireless microphones that Nerdly had finally gotten Crow to get National Records to help finance, there was little that was different from the previous tours. Intemperance was all about simplicity in their live performances. They had a basic stage, basic lighting gear, no fancy lasers or pyrotechnics or video screens or costumes. They would take the stage, play their set, and then do two encores. Jake and Matt's philosophy on this remained united and unchanged. People came to see Intemperance for the music and for the energy the band was known for, not for the special effects.

New Year's Eve fell on a Sunday, the one day of the week the band traditionally took off no matter what. They made no exception for this particular Sunday. All of them had plans for the ultimate in party nights and none of their plans included each other. Coop was throwing a party at his house. Nerdly and Sharon were spending the night on a luxury yacht in San Diego Harbor where they would watch the fireworks show planned to bring in the new decade. Matt planned to hit the clubs with Kim and engage in a drinking and drug fueled night of sexual bliss with whatever women they happened to pick up. Charlie did not share his plans with the rest of them, although he assured them that he had some.

Jake, very much against his better judgement, attended a formal New Year's Eve party at the Malibu mansion that belonged to Mindy Snow and her husband, film director Scott Adams Winslow. In the three weeks since she'd showed up unexpectedly and unannounced at his front door, Jake had gotten together with Mindy four times, three at her generally unused mountain house outside LA, and once at the Hollywood Hilton Hotel where he'd paid two thousand dollars for a suite they only used for three hours. His guilt at carrying on a sexual affair with a married woman was easily overridden by the black desire he felt for Mindy and her body and by the sheer thrill of engaging in a forbidden affair. She was like a powerful drug he couldn't seem to stay away from. He experienced intense pleasure when indulging in her charms, and stark, naked craving when he had to do without her. So far, however, all of their rendezvous had been when Scott Adams Winslow — Scotty, as Mindy referred to him — was away. Now, on New Year's Eve, Mindy wanted Jake to be present in the man's house with him, to be a guest at his party.

"How are you going to explain this to him?" Jake asked her when she first brought it up. "The man knows we used to be involved with each other, doesn't he?"

"Of course he does," she said. "I told him you were crappy in bed."

"You told him what?" Jake asked.

"That you were a horrible lover," she said. "That I was just using you to enhance my reputation. A little white lie on my part." She giggled. "I certainly wouldn't want him knowing that you're the best there is, right?"

"Well... I suppose," Jake said, still stinging from the knowledge that someone was walking around thinking he was a crappy lay.

"Anyway, I told him we ran into each other in Fiji, and..."

"You told him that?" Jake asked, appalled.

She rolled her eyes at him. "I didn't tell him everything about Fiji," she said. "I just told him that we ran into each other and had dinner. He thinks I'm taking pity on you by inviting you to our party. You don't have a girlfriend or a date, do you?"

"No, but..."

"Don't worry," she said. "Everything is cool. You'll have a great time."

And so he went. He put on one of his custom-tailored tuxedos and had a limo drop him off at the Winslow mansion at 8:30 that night. He did not have a great time — not initially anyway. The experience reminded him of everything he hated about Hollywood parties. There were actors, actresses, producers, directors, and a multitude of Hollywood insiders there, all dressed in formal clothes, all sipping expensive champagne or wine and snorting cocaine from jeweled mirrors provided by the host. Almost everyone he met was a complete and total phony. He was assaulted with condescension from nearly every person he talked to, particularly from Scott Adams Winslow (who insisted upon being called by all three names when addressed by anyone but Mindy, who was allowed to call him Scotty).

Winslow — an impeccably groomed man in his mid-forties — started off the evening by apologizing for Mindy's "using him" all those years ago.

"She told me how she took advantage of your naiveté and led you to believe she actually enjoyed being in a sexual relationship with you," he told Jake.

"Yes," Jake said. "She's quite the actress, isn't she?"

"One of the best in the world," Winslow agreed. "In any case, her behavior was reprehensible, and, although I didn't know her back then, I can assure you that she's repentant for her misuse of your tender emotions and, as I'm sure you found out when you encountered her in Fiji, is a different person these days."

"Oh yes," Jake said, hiding a smile. "I got to know the real Mindy very well back in Fiji."

"I'm glad to hear that," Winslow told him, giving him a clap on the back. "And I'm sure your earlier experiences with her probably helped you wise up a bit to the ways of the conniving woman, didn't they?"

"Indeed they did," Jake said.

"And I'm sure you've gotten better at... you know... keeping a woman satisfied since then?"

Jake clapped him on the back. "You'd be astonished to know what I can do these days," he told him. "Now then, where can I get a drink around this place?"

He got drunk early and the scathing condescension didn't bother him as much. He even let Mindy and Winslow talk him into an impromptu performance with a Fender twelve-string that Winslow owned, but did not know how to play. After spending fifteen minutes tuning the guitar the best he could with the old strings, and even though it was technically in violation of his contract, he spent thirty-five minutes strumming and singing a variety of songs — a few Intemperance songs, a few of his original, unrecorded songs, but mostly old classics — for the entertainment of the guests. They applauded politely when he was done and a few of them actually tried to put hundred dollar bills in his pocket as if he were a common street performer.

"No thanks," he grumbled at each of these people. "This one was on the house."

Mindy, for the most part, ignored his presence completely. From the time of his arrival until her midnight kiss with her husband, she played the gracious host to everyone else and didn't say more than a few dozen words to him. As soon as it was officially 1990, Jake called for his limo and began saying his goodbyes.

It was then that Mindy suddenly appeared by his side. Winslow was playing a game of pool with a few of the other guests (Jake hadn't been invited to play, which was a pity because he would've easily annihilated anyone else at the party) and the majority of the others were watching the game and cheering.

"Come with me," Mindy whispered in his ear.

"Where?" Jake asked. "Why?"

"Upstairs," she said. "Because my pussy is soaking wet right now and I want your cock inside of it."

Jake was drunk, but his judgment was not so impaired that he didn't realize how dangerous of an idea this was. "I don't think we'd better do that right now," he told her.

"I do," she said simply, and grabbed his hand.

Two minutes later they were on the second floor in the huge master suite that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. Mindy was wearing a cranberry red cocktail gown. She lifted the hem of it, revealing the fact that she was wearing a garter belt beneath it. It seemed she had forgotten to put on panties this evening. Her smoothly shaved slit was swollen and wet, the light glinting off her lips. She lay back on the bed and spread her legs widely.

"Fuck me right here," she said. "Fuck me on his bed!"

He wanted to refuse, but, like always when dealing with Mindy Snow, his little head quickly and efficiently took charge. It swelled up in a matter of seconds and before he even realized how it had happened, his custom-tailored trousers were down around his ankles and he was buried balls-deep within her tight body. They rutted forcefully, furiously, their bodies slamming together, their breath tearing in and out of their throats. Jake held off until he felt the familiar sensation of Mindy's body tensing as she came and then he let himself go as well.

"Happy New Year," she told him as he pulled his dripping manhood from her cavern.

"Yeah," he said breathlessly. "Happy New Year."

He left a few minutes later. Mindy walked him to the door, gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek, and then whispered in his ear, "I'm gonna walk around with your come dripping out of me for the rest of the night. And when Scotty and I go to bed, I'm gonna make him eat me. Think about it. He'll be eating your come out of my pussy and he won't even realize it."

Her proclamation actually made Jake a little sick to his stomach. But that did not stop him from getting together with her three days later when Scotty had to fly to New York for a promotional shoot.