Make Me Sin

44

She tries on a tentative smile, and flits away to refill Grace’s champagne glass.

Kat’s half Irish, half Japanese, and Kenji is half Japanese, half Thai. They’re always lovingly calling each other random ethnic slurs, trying to one-up each other with originality.

Kenji struts to the middle of the room. The dress drags behind him like the train of a wedding gown. At four foot nine, he’s going to need a lot of help from the seamstress if he’s really going to wear that thing, as he’s repeatedly insisted he will. Even his signature zebra-print platform boots aren’t much help.

He announces, “In light of current events, Kenji must reevaluate his wardrobe selection.” He lifts the dress over his head, and flings it dramatically to the floor.

Aside from the platform boots, he’s wearing nothing but a pair of Spider-Man briefs. His body is nut brown, slender as a young boy’s, and entirely hairless. I wonder if he shaves it, like he does his head.

Hands on hips, he executes a perfect catwalk turn, then sashays off to the dressing room, where he slams the door.

Kat yells after him, “You left an eyelash out here, Chinker Bell!”

She’s right. One of his big fake eyelashes is stuck to the neckline of the dress. Kat, Grace, and I look at each other, and laugh.

The salesgirl is in the corner, chugging champagne.

“You girls sound like you’re havin’ fun. We interruptin’?”

The amused voice comes from the doorway. We turn to find Nico leaning against a mirrored armoire near the entry, arms crossed over his chest, grinning.

“Baby!” Kat leaps from the dais and flies into his open arms. I should have known he’d be here; he can’t let her out of his sight for more than thirty minutes at a time.

Then I freeze. We. He said “we.”

My heart turns somersaults. I slowly turn to look into the main room of the salon behind them, and my mouth goes dry.

Unmoving beside a display of white wedding gowns in the other room, A.J. stands watching me. He’s in a battered leather bomber jacket instead of a hoodie, and no sunglasses cover his eyes. His hair is loose around his shoulders, a golden lion’s mane, and he’s freshly shaven. He looks rested.

His eyes are the color of warmed whiskey. His stare is fierce.

He’s so beautiful, I can’t look away.

Silently, he lifts his hand and makes a “turn” motion with one finger. So I lift the delicate material slightly away from my legs, rise onto my toes and pirouette, a ballerina en pointe, an ice skater in a spin. I feel weightless. I feel breathless. The dress whispers around my bare legs, billowing, airy. When I come to a stop, my hair cascades over my right shoulder, the dress sighs and falls still.

And everyone is staring at me.

“Very pretty,” says Grace. “And will you be playing the jazz flute for the talent portion of the pageant, Miss California?”

I flush and look away.

Then A.J.’s in the room, standing next to Kat and Nico. “Sorry for barging in like this. You know how twitchy my boy here gets if he’s away from his woman too long.” Smiling, he claps his hand on Nico’s shoulder.

I wonder who this cheerful stranger could possibly be.

Flustered, I hurry across the room, take a glass of champagne from AINE, and pretend to examine the dress in the mirror. My face is the color of a beet. Grace steps down from the dais, stops beside me and murmurs, “Not the jazz flute then. The skin flute, perhaps?”

I don’t respond. I can’t; I’m too busy being mortified. Or hornified, not that that’s even a word. But dear lord, what’s happening to my body? I feel like I might spontaneously combust, like all the drummers in the movie Spinal Tap.

Grace can tell. She kisses me on the cheek. “I love you so much right now it hurts.”

“You’ll be hurting a lot more when I kill you,” I hiss under my breath. “Behave!”

She beams at me, pretending to get misty eyed. “My little girl is finally growing up.”

I growl, “You’re an evil, twisted harpy!”

“And you give the best compliments. Now stop pretending your panties aren’t melting, and go over and talk to him. I promise I’ll be quiet.”

“Not quiet,” I warn. “Mute.”

She makes a zipper motion across her mouth, then floats away into the dressing room. I hear her call out to Kenji, “I have an idea for you, sweetheart. Let’s abandon the dress altogether and start with something fresh. I’m thinking peacock feathers.”

There’s a beat of silence, then Kenji answers, “Oooooooo.”

I chance a look in the mirror in A.J.’s general direction. He’s looking at me. His gaze hungrily roves up and down my body. He’s undressing me with his eyes.

You want to f**k me?

More than I want my next breath. But I won’t. I never will, you understand? Never.

Kat says, “This is a nice surprise, A.J. How are you?”

He nods, a hint of a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. “Good.”

He’s still staring at me.

Nico says, “We finished up the session earlier than scheduled, so we thought we’d stop by and see how it was goin’.”

“It’s going great! I mean, Kenji isn’t happy, but we’ll figure something out. How did the session go?”

“Actually . . .” Nico slides A.J. a look. “My man here came up with a pretty fuckin’ ambitious new track. Very ‘Stairway to Heaven’–esque. Not sure if my pipes can handle all the upper extensions, but it’s a hell of a song.”

“Yeah? What’s it called A.J.?”

“Shipwrecked Soul.”