“Fine. I don’t believe in touching someone who doesn’t want to be touched.” She raised both hands in surrender. “I am, as you see, turning my back on you.”
She put one foot over the other and spun neatly around. “Now would you like to hear messages?”
“Not particularly. Do you think I should seduce Lucy Fuller?” Kingsley walked to his closet and dug for clothes. He heard something drop. When he turned around, he saw Sam picking her clipboard off the f loor again.
“Seduce Lucy Fuller?” she asked, looking shocked and slightly disgusted. “Why?”
“It would cause a scandal if it got out she’d cheated on her husband. Might give us some leverage against Fuller.”
“Or make him a sympathetic martyr to his whole congregation. You know people always blame the wife and never the husband.”
“Good point,” he said. “I didn’t want to fuck her anyway.”
“Why not?”
“She had an entire chapter in her book on marriage on why sodomy is such a crime against nature even married couples shouldn’t engage in it.”
“That’s bizarre.”
“Sodomy’s not a crime against nature. Nature invented sodomy. If Mother Nature didn’t want us engaging in it, she wouldn’t have made it so much fun.”
“I can’t argue with your science. Poor Lucy. Her loss.”
“Poor Lucy? She’s richer than I am. Did you know that? Her books and videos fund the WTL empire.”
“They always hit the bestseller list. God only knows why.”
“The WTL empire is built on their perfect marriage.”
“I have parents,” Sam said. “I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a perfect marriage.”
“My parents did. Until they died,” Kingsley said. “Maybe it’s for the best. They would rather have died than fall out of love with each other.”
Sam gave him a long searching look that Kingsley tried to ignore.
“I’d rather fall out of love with someone than die,” Sam said. “You can always love someone else.”
“Easier said than done,” Kingsley said, and his words sounded bitterer than he intended.
“So, who are you in love with you don’t want to be in love with?” Sam asked.
Kingsley glared at her.
“Right,” she said. “Distance. We’re trying to keep some distance.”
“If you please.”
“Sorry. Okay, I’ll get back to work digging around on Reverend Fuller.”
“Let’s divide and conquer. I’ll handle Reverend Fuller. You focus on Lucy Fuller. They’re making a lot of money off her books. Follow the money.”
He pulled his pants on and grabbed a shirt from off the hanger.
“Now, what are my messages?”
“Are you dressed? Is it safe to turn around again? I don’t want my delicate lesbian sensibilities overwhelmed by your incredible manliness. I might get the vapors, whatever those are.”
“It’s safe.”
She turned around.
“Kingsley, you haven’t buttoned up your shirt yet, and I can totally see your chest. You lied to me, and now I have the vapors.”
“Come here,” he ordered. She looked left and then right as if scanning the room for a trap. Maybe hiring Sam had been a mistake. All he could think about right now was getting her into bed and seeing the woman’s body she hid under her men’s clothing.
He took her by the wrist, raised her hand and laid it on the scar on the side of his chest.
“You’re lucky to be alive. Is this why you were wincing in your office?” She pressed her palm gently against the scar.
“The scar tissue is tight. It hurts when I try to take a deep breath.”
“You know you should listen to your body. Pain’s an alarm. It says ‘pay attention to me.’”
“I promise I’m paying attention to it. It’s not getting better.”
“I know what you need. There’s a lady in Midtown who does amazing therapeutic massage.”
“I don’t need a massage.”
“I can see if she gives happy endings.”
“I might need a massage.”
“Thought so. I’ll make you an appointment. She’s good with surgical scars and other wounds.”
“How do you know so much about scars?” he asked, impressed more by her moxie than her knowledge. No one but Søren ever dared to challenge him. He liked it.
Sam let her hand fall from his side.
“You’re not the only one around here with scars,” she said.
“Show me your scars.” He said “scars” but what he meant was “body.”
“My scars? My scars are—” The phone rang. Sam grinned broadly at it. “I’ll get it.”
“That’s my private line. You don’t have to answer my private line,” he said.
“The private line’s the one I want to answer.”
She jumped onto his bed and crawled across the red sheets. With a f lourish she grabbed the receiver, held it to her ear and rolled f lat on to her back.
“Kingsley Edge’s Bed, Sam speaking.”
With the phone at her ear and her legs dancing playfully in the air, she looked almost like a teenage girl in her bedroom. Kingsley took a deep steadying breath. Lesbian, he reminded himself.
“I’ll see if he’s in,” she said. “Hold, please.”
She sat the phone on the bedside table, pulled the covers back, and stuck her head between the sheets.
“King? You in there?”
“Who is it?” he whispered.
“He says he’s your father,” she said in a stage whisper of her own. “But that can’t be, because you said your father was dead.”
“Did he say he was my father or a father?”
Sam looked up at him.
“I’ll ask.” She grabbed the phone again. “Are you a father or are you Kingsley’s father? Kingsley’s father’s dead, and Kingsley is not at home to ghosts. And if you are a ghost, are you like a Hamlet ghost or a Ghostbusters ghost?”
Kingsley sighed. He shouldn’t be having this much fun with his secretary. He never had fun with his other secretaries. He just fucked them.
“You’re not a father, you’re a Father. Oh, so you’re the priest King told me about. Hey, can you explain transubstantiation to me in twenty-five words or less?”
Sam tucked the phone under her chin and held two hands up in the air. She ticked off numbers on her fingers. Kingsley counted twenty-one.
“Wow,” she said after a few seconds. “You’re good.”
“Give me that.” He took the phone from Sam. “What do you want?” he asked Søren in French. Whatever Søren was calling about, he didn’t want Sam to be privy to it.
“This is your first of fourteen nightly reminders to not have sex with anyone until you get your test results back,” Søren replied, also in French.
“Go fuck a fifteen-year-old.”
“Her birthday was in March. She’s sixteen now.”
“I’m hanging up on you.”
“I like the new secretary,” Søren said. “Keep this one.”
Kingsley hung up on him.
“Well, that was rude,” Sam said.
“I hung up on him because he deserved it.”
“No, I mean it’s rude to talk to him in French. I couldn’t keep up.”
“He said he liked you,” Kingsley said. Sam’s eyes sparkled like a child’s on Christmas morning.
“Then I like him. I’ve never met a kinky priest before. He has a nice voice. Stern but soothing. I want to call him ‘sir’ and serve him tea and crumpets and listen to him read The Hobbit to me.”
“Everyone he meets wants to call him ‘sir.’ And his father’s English, so he’d probably appreciate the tea. I have no idea if he eats crumpets.”
“Do you think he’d read The Hobbit out loud to me?”
“Ask him that when you meet him. And make sure I’m there for the answer. Now, can you please give me my messages so I can
kick you out of my bedroom?”
“I like your bedroom. It’s cozy in a Gothic nightmare kind of way. Was V. C. Andrews your interior decorator? Your bed has bed curtains. I’ve never seen that in real life before.”
“Messages?”
“Fine.” She grabbed her clipboard, rolled over on the bed and read.
“Message number one—Signore Vitale will see you on June tenth at two for a fitting.” She read the entire message in a cartoonish Italian accent.
“I don’t know who that is. And what am I getting a fitting for? Please, tell me I didn’t agree to go to a wedding.”
“Vitale is my tailor, and you’re getting fitted for a new wardrobe. You want to be a kingly king, right? Not just a king?”
“Right.”
“Then you need a better wardrobe. Trust me on this. Vitale is a genius. Message number two—Officer Cooper said Irina’s out on bail, and he gave me her phone number.”
“Good. She’s our new dominatrix in training. Call her and tell her she can move in this weekend. She’s staying with us until her divorce is finalized.”
“Is she nice?”
“She tried to poison her husband.”
“Nice. Message number three—Luka says she’ll be by tonight at nine.”
“And who the hell is Luka?”
“Old friend of mine,” Sam said. “Incredibly sexy. Her dad’s Jamaican and her mom’s Canadian. Weirdest accent ever. And she’s a pain-slut.”
“And I’m meeting her because…?”
“I think she could be our pro-sub. She’s never done it for money before, but she said she was up for a meeting.”
“A meeting or a beating?”
“That’s between you two. And now, I’m out of here. Good night, King Kingsley. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She salaamed at him on her way out of his bedroom.
“Sam?”
She paused in the doorway and turned around.
“The meeting with Luka—you take it. If she’s good, offer her the job.”
“You don’t want to meet her? Beat her? All that jizz?”
“I’ll let you take this one. Meet her. Talk to her. If you think she’s right for the job, hire her.”
Kingsley did want to meet her and probably beat her, too. He’d also probably fuck her, and he’d promised Søren and Dr. Sutton he’d be a good boy for two weeks.
“Sure,” Sam said with a shrug. “You busy tonight?”
“Very busy,” he said. “I’ll leave Luka to your good judgment.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Nice to be trusted. I won’t let you down.”
“I know you won’t. Anything else?”
“No. Yes. I forgot. One more message. A woman named Phoebe called. She said nine o’clock tomorrow. Which I assume means someone named Phoebe wants you to fuck her tomorrow night. Am I wrong?”
“You’re not wrong.”
“Should I call her back?”
Phoebe Dixon. He hadn’t seen her or fucked her in months. He assumed her husband had hinted that her extracurricular activities were no longer to be tolerated. Maybe Mister Dixon was out of town.
Out of town sounded like a very good idea right now.
“I’ll handle it,” Kingsley said. “Toss the message.”
“You got it.” She crumbled up the message and tossed it into his trash can on her way out of his door.
“Sam?”
“What?” she asked, her hand on the doorknob.
“You didn’t show me your scars,” he reminded her.
She smiled, but the smile looked both forced and faked. “I don’t show anybody my scars.”
Sam walked out of his bedroom without another word. Kingsley stood alone by his closet and tried to focus on getting dressed. But the message from Phoebe Dixon couldn’t be ignored. He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to think of a good enough excuse to get out of seeing her again. She only wanted him for one thing, and he was under orders from a doctor and a priest not to give that one thing to anyone for two weeks. Not that he was going to tell Phoebe or anyone else that. Telling her the truth wasn’t an option. Telling her no wasn’t an option. And pissing her off wasn’t an option.
But if he was out of town…
Kingsley strode from his bedroom and found Sam in his office.
“Three things,” he said. “First, call Phoebe. Tell her I’m out of town.”
“Check.”
“Second. There’s a number in my desk for a man named The Barber—”
“Are you getting a hair cut? Please, say no. I love the long hair.”
“He’s not a barber. It’s his nickname. He’s a Mafia numbers guy. He combs through files,” Kingsley said, wiggling his fingers like a comb at work.
“If he combs through the files, why don’t they call him The Comb?”
“Have you met anyone in the mob? They aren’t known for being brain trusts.”
“Fine. I’ll call The Barber. What do I ask him?”
“Tell him to dig through the Fullers’ finances—church and personal.”
“Can do. Anything else?”
“Third. I need you to book a f light for me.”
“Where are you going?”
I’m not the teacher. Magdalena is. She could have you flipping quarters in midair with a single-tail in two weeks.
“Rome.”
18
June
TODAY KINGSLEY FELT WHAT HE WOULD CLASSIFY AS a “new” pain. And considering how much and how many types of pain he’d experienced in his life, this was saying something.
He lay naked on his side, a warm white blanket pulled up to his hip. Soothing music played in the background. And a masseuse named Anita talked to him as she kneaded the tough scar tissue in his chest. She worked against the grain, she explained, breaking up the tightness, opening up the tissue, forcing blood into the inert cells. Not even in the hospital had he experienced this level of