Chapter 18

My drive down to Malibu was fine, just beating the Friday exodus rush.

Fine, not pleasant; the sheer volume of traffic in Los Angeles County has pretty much killed any joy of being behind the wheel on most highways – it’s only when you get onto the less-traveled roads that you can get to appreciate them. Some of the canyon runs can be awesome at the right time of day. In the urban areas, though, there never is a right time of day. And don’t forget the tourists, in rental cars, who don’t have the local knowledge and can – and do – do almost anything. I once had a family screech to a complete halt in front of me, phones and cameras out of the window, as if one of them thought they’d spotted some big movie star. I came this close to rear-ending them.

The route through Woodland Hills, Topanga Canyon Blvd. to Mulholland Dr. was okay, but then came the Mulholland Highway, and I got held up in a line of vehicles following a dump truck, unable to overtake because of oncoming traffic. There’s been a lot of real estate development, and ‘Highway’ is kind of a misnomer on this section – it’s not a restricted-access road. There are a whole lot of turnings and junctions, not all of them obvious. My opposite number at Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills had her Lexus SUV almost totaled on this road a couple of years back; some dumb tourist came out of one of those side trails from a scenic viewing point and just rejoined the road at low speed without looking to see who was coming up behind. Ouch. She’s a huge fan of airbags now. Lucky she was driving a tank; it could have been much worse for her. Oh, and she’s also VERY happy that she’d installed a dash cam. The car rental company’s insurer couldn’t wriggle out of that one.

The dump truck turned right at Las Virgenes Road, much to my relief. I waited for a gap in the traffic, made a left and headed for the coast.

The twenty-five miles took more than forty-five minutes to cover. Two hours later, I’d probably have had to allow double that time to start my weekend. Two hours after that, say eight o’clock, when rush is over, it’s often quiet enough to enjoy such a scenic route.

The satnav found my destination easy enough, a trio of houses in a small bay, the narrow track down from the coast road inconspicuous. I was moving in uncharted territory here; even by Southern California standards, these ocean-front places were very expensive real estate.

Okay, you need to know I was close to betraying my principles a little. I have an issue with the recent explosion in rich assholes shutting off public access points to the shore; up to the high tide mark is common property and should remain so. There are sections of beautiful coast where the old ways down to the beach have been blocked off, and the said assholes have enough money and conscience-free lawyers to delay the remedial legal proceedings forever. I’m therefore instantly suspicious of the owners of beach-front properties, but, this weekend, the most important thing was to have Mel all to myself without some crass outsider coming too close as we shared our souls. I’d be able to live with my little expedition into exclusivity. Sometimes it’s good to be a little selfish...

The track wasn’t secured with a gate, so I guessed that it wasn’t private property, just working on the ‘security through obscurity‘ principle. I wondered again just how much this place was worth. More than I’d ever afford, I was certain.

SoCal has had a MAJOR problem with crazy property prices for decades; it’s always been one of the main issues with getting good people to move to LA to work at our hospital, where they were going to live, and how they would afford it. I’d even read one study where it said that people pulling in a quarter of a million a year were now struggling to get mortgages. While I took that statement with a little pinch of salt, I did know that if you wanted a nice family home with decent back yard and in-ground pool in a good school district, the place was likely going to cost you upwards of two million. The way my own home had already appreciated in value made me thankful that I’d taken the step of buying a place when I did; at least my level of debt was locked in. Back home in Atlanta, I could probably have bought myself a mansion for the same amount of money, with enough left over to fix the roof.

Mel’s little SUV was already parked up in the driveway of the right hand beach-house, the front door open and inviting us in. Max and I found her busy in the kitchen, Tara and Kara lying at her feet. Once again she was the girl next door, minimal (if any) makeup, hair neat and tidy in a simple pony-tail.

I gave her the roses and was kissed in return; then she put them down on the counter and moved in for a proper full-body hug and lip-lock. I could get used to this kind of welcome home, even if this wasn’t our home. Max didn’t seem to mind the sniffing he was getting – and giving – I guess that’s the dog world way of catching up on recent events.

I’d picked up a bottle of Californian Chardonnay from the grocery store chilled cabinet on the way down; I poured us both a glass, placed the bottle in the fridge to stay cool, and we toasted one another. I thought about ‘To Our First Time’, but decided that was way too corny, and just touched glasses and said ‘Cheers!”

She told me she was fixing a very simple chicken caesar salad with croutons; laughingly admitting that she’d bought the makings ready-prepared, and the hardest part had been finding the bowls and glasses in a strange kitchen.

We put our glasses down on the counter, and she came into my arms again. “Mike, will you tell me something? Exactly how scared are you right now?”

I chuckled at the honesty of her question. “If we hadn’t cuddled the last two nights, Mel, honey, I’d be utterly terrified. As it is, I’m merely petrified!”

She giggled. “Baby, I’m not sure you’ve gotten those two the correct way around. Which one is worse? Are they higher on the scale than scared shitless? You know something? I want this to work out for us SO bad that my knees are shaking! Me, the porn star with hundreds of guys behind me, shivering with fright that I won’t be good enough for you.”

I hugged her tighter. “You and me both. I’m going to give it my very best shot, and if that doesn’t work, then we’ll just keep trying until it does.”

She moved her hands up to cup my face. “I seem to remember that you kiss goodnight okay. How are you at making out?”

“Willing to learn? Maybe trainable?”

She laughed. “Oh, YOU! My guess is that you’ll score an ‘A’.”

We tried it out. Good, but not incredible. No brass bands or fireworks this time around.

She sighed, “Honey, we’ve both got far too much riding on this weekend to be comfortable. Once we can stop being quite so wooden around each other, we’ll probably improve on that.”

She was totally correct. It did take a couple of goes before we were quite at ease; it was too important to both of us for us to be truly relaxed about kissing, but, with practice ... it got pretty damn good. She eventually pulled her head away; like me, she was no longer breathing normally. “Mind if we take a break? I know it’s a very simple supper, but much more of that and we won’t be eating it at all. Sit with me and talk while I finish off.”

I picked up our wine glasses and handed hers over. She showed her white teeth over the rim of the glass as she sipped. “Honey, I hope we’ll be doing a lot more of that kissing stuff. I haven’t done a whole bunch of that, and I liked it. I liked it a lot.”

That wasn’t a total surprise, but I still had a couple of questions on that topic that I wanted to ask. Now seemed as good a time as any. “You mind if we talk a little more about that? I, uh, I don’t think I’ve ever had sex without a whole lot of foreplay first, well, maybe the odd quickie when both Marsha and I were fired up, and a couple of the parties at college were a little wild, but, uh, surely it can’t have been enjoyable for you?”

There was a wistful expression on her face, “Making porn? Yeah, it was fun, but not enjoyable, if I can put it like that? The sex was okay, but with the director constantly making signs about where my hands should be, or what expression I should have on my face; the camera people moving about, the flashes as they took the stills, the sound guy trying to keep the microphone out of shot, there were always a whole load of distractions, before you count changing positions, having to suck the guy to get him hard enough, the shots that got fouled up and had to be redone. Most of the time I didn’t even get naturally wet.”

I grimaced, that didn’t sound good, “Yeah, I spotted that. Saw you spitting on your fingers or the guy’s cock a lot of the time. Did you have to stop to fill up on lube as well?”

“Most times. It just wasn’t a real turn-on, not with all the interruptions and palaver. Even if we had made out a little and I’d already had my pussy eaten, I was generally dry further up, and it quickly got uncomfortable. At least there were the breaks so I could get some more lube.”