Eric Shaw Quinn

Cat ignored her Blackberry.  It was the only way she could get anything done.

She knew who it would be.

Her life as a personal assistant meant two things.  First, the pay was pretty good.  Second, she had no life of her own.  Her time with Ric, when she could get it, was the only part of her life that was still her own.

When she’d first started, being an assistant seemed like such a great head start on her own career aspirations.  She got to spend her days and her nights in the company of the rich and famous in the VIP lounges and velvet-roped preserves to which only wealth and/or stardom earned access.  It was a charmed life for a few months and a long way from her life as Catherine Novotny of the Nobody’s-Ever-Heard-of-Them, Pittsburgh Novotnys.  But after a while in the lounge-of-enchantment, she began to long for life on the right ride of the looking glass.

It was a delicious trap.  On the one hand she lived the life of her famous employer, but on the other she no longer had a life of her own.  It had advantages.  Ric’s career as a painter was exploding.  He not only had time on his own to paint, but his paintings were finally selling.  He was paying his share of the rent and more.  Ric wasn’t caught up on back rent yet, but if he kept selling the way he had been, they’d be equal partners for the first time since they had moved in together.

Cat didn’t care all that much.  She loved Ric and believed in his work.  Still, it was some consolation for spending so much time apart.

She hadn’t seen him conscious in days.  Ric had been out at some gallery opening the night before.  She’d gone to bed, following her grueling sober club crawl fetching drinks and fending off bad publicity for her self-indulgent boss.  He came in even after her.  She left without waking him so she could get an early start on her errands before Troll-a-rina emerged from her crypt.

It had been a very productive, boss-free morning.  She was taking Lil’Me-Me to the nail salon, the last errand on her list from the day before.  Technically, it was Lil’Me-Me the second as Lil’Me-Me the former had fallen victim to an unfortunate coyote incident.

The fashionable Hollywood Hills, where both Lil’Me-Me’s had resided with Le Terrible and many of her rich and famous peers, were actually a part of the Santa Monica Mountain range.  The wilderness area stretched right through the heart of much of the city, bounded West Hollywood on the north and offered a home to a surprising amount of wildlife in the midst of such a decidedly urban setting.  Coyote, deer, raccoons, possums and skunks were commonly seen amidst the tony shops and residences along Sunset Boulevard.  Even the odd mountain lion sighting was reported, tough they were greatly outnumbered by the two legged cougars more common to the region.

She exchanged a look with Lil’Me-Me who sat on the seat beside hers.  Dripping with diamonds, the two year old Chihuahua, sighed wearily as she glittered in the sun.  Me-me’s life as fashion accessory offered her little in the way of canine pleasures.

“Sorry, Lil,” Cat said.  “Your nails don’t match the dress your mommy’s wearing tonight.  You have to go to the salon.”

Me-me sighed in answer and looked longing out the window of the lime green bug.

As Cat followed her gaze, she realized where they were.

An evil grin split her face.

“Nooner,” she shouted, punching a triumphant fist through the open sun roof.

The woman in the yellow Corniche convertible beside Cat at the light gave her a shocked look and then a conspiratorial grin.

They exchanged thumbs up as the light changed and Cat sped toward home.

Once Me-Me was left at the Bark/Williams dog spa with a fabric swatch and strict instructions that her nails match Mommie’s outfit, Cat was on her way to surprise Ric with a little afternoon delight.  She slipped on the faux-fur-full-length her boss would be wearing on the red carpet that night and slipped off everything else.  The clothes came off one red light at a time and she was down to skin and satin lining by the time she pulled into the motor courtyard at Sweetzer Court.

She could see Ric’s outline in the turret windows of his studio as she crossed the garden court.  The grin returned as she sneaked up the stairs.  She held a finger to her lips in answer to Dolph who waved when he spotted her through his front windows.  He replied with a knowing wink.  The only sounds were the splashing of the fountain and a door creaking open a crack to allow the resident opposite to spy on her before slamming it shut.  The city noises were somehow so remote.

Turning her key carefully in the lock, she was able to get inside with hardly a sound.  She left the door ajar to avoid the creak and the click but needn’t have bothered.  Ric had on his iPod and was pleasantly oblivious, sitting in the sun in paint spattered t-shirt and boxers.  She stole forward.  He was irresistible, singing off key, unable to hear himself as he painted in big violent strokes.  Two naked men sprawled across the canvas, either in classical wrestling pose or one sodomizing the other – she couldn’t tell which, given Ric’s style.  Whichever, it was also, much to Cat’s surprise, a life study.  So, when she dropped the fur coat and sprang through the archway with a shout to pounce on her lover, she terrified the two nude models, crouched on the platform opposite.

There was a good deal of screaming before everyone wound up rolling around the studio floor, convulsed with laughter.  Cat managed to recover the coat, if not her dignity.

“Well, looks like that’s lunch everyone,” Ric said when he’d regained his breath at last.

“You must be Ric’s girlfriend,” one of the models giggled, remaining behind as he slipped on a robe and offered his hand.  “That is soooo, cute.  Ric is always talking about you.  We wondered if you were real or just for publicity.  I’m Jack.”

“Cat.  Have you modeled for Ric before?” she asked, trying not to look at the substantial manhood peeking through the gap in the robe Jack had only just bothered to drape over his shoulders.

“Modeled? Yes, that’s it,” he said, batting his eyes at Ric.  Jack’s charming, queeny manner was in pointed contrast to his rather obvious masculinity and well sculpted body.  “I’ve modeled the shit out of Ric any number of times.  Why once, a bunch of us modeled him sooo hard . . .”

“Okay then,” Ric cut him off.  “Why don’t you boys take a long lunch.  You’re home for a long lunch, I’m hoping?” he asked taking Cat’s hand and trying to peek under the coat.

“I might eat something later,” she said, the grin back and then fading.  “What happened to your eye?”

“Oh,” Ric scoffed, dropping her hand and waving her away.  “It’s a funny story.”

“It doesn’t look funny,” Cat pressed as she moved in for a closer look.  “It looks like a black eye.”

“With concealer on it,” Jack put in, folding his arms.

Ric avoided her touch and her gaze.

“What happened?” Cat demanded.

“It’s embarrassing,” Ric said, cornered and shrugging her off.  “Aren’t you going to lunch, Jack?”

“And miss this?”

“What happened?” Cat insisted, turning him to face her.

“I got gay bashed,” Ric said rolling his eyes.  “If you must know.”

“You’re not gay,” Cat said.

Jack shot Ric a look over her shoulder.

“No, no,” Ric said, waving them both off.  “Not like that.  I was talking to a this guy at a bar and his boyfriend got the wrong impression and punched me out.”

“I don’t think getting bashed by a gay man counts as gay bashing,” Cat said laughing.

“Okay, Jack,” Ric said, grabbing Cat and turning her to face him.  “You punch her in the face and we’ll see if she thinks it’s gay bashing or not.”

The three struggled, laughing.  Ric made a half-hearted effort to hold Cat in place.  Jack took playful swings at her.  They lost their balance.  In the tussle Cat’s coat fell open and Jack lost his robe, leaving the two of them in a rather compromising position as they fell at Ric’s feel.

“That doesn’t look like gay bashing to me,” Ric said, laughing too hard to fight off Cat.  She managed to get onto her hands and knees.  Jack was still on her back as she yanked down Ric’s flimsy boxer shorts.

“There,” Cat crowed.  “Now who’s the bigger man?”

Ric fell to his knees as the three wrestled a moment longer, each trying harder to keep the other unclothed than to gain the upper hand.

“So this is why you’re not answering your Blackberry.”

“Milan,” Cat said, trying to conceal the borrowed coat and only making matters worse.  “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I could ask why you’re not at work,” Milan said folding her arms.  “But obviously, you’ve got a hotter lunch date than I do.  Is that my coat?”

“Oh, my god,” Jack said leaping to his feet and closing the distance.  “You’re Milan Carlton!”

“And you’re a naked man,” Milan said, shielding herself with the door.

“I didn’t know you knew where I lived,” Cat said, slipping on Jack’s robe and draping Milan’s coat daintily over an upholstered chair.

“Nice to meet you,” Ric said, pulling up his boxers and heading out.  “I’ll make coffee.  Come on Jack.”

“I didn’t,” Milan said, reluctantly shaking Jack’s hand for fear of what else he might offer.  “I mean I don’t.  I saw you come in here from across the street.  Your name was on the mailbox.”

“Jack, come on,” Ric called from the kitchen.

“Across the street?” Cat said, still confused.

“This will work out perfectly,” Milan said, the earlier scene forgotten.  “That empty condo building where we’re going to shoot the reality show? Turns out its across the street. Perfect, right?”

“Perfect,” Cat said, mentally kissing what remained of her life good-bye.

. . . to be continued.