Chapter 18: What Happens in Portland...

Portland, Oregon

December 19, 1993

The Sheraton Presidential Suite was not the most opulent hotel room that Jake or Celia had ever stayed in, but it was still pretty damn nice. It featured a large sitting room with a fold-out couch, several claw-foot sitting chairs, and a fully stocked (but not complimentary) wet bar. The windows were large and looked out to the south, over the downtown area and the bridge over the Willamette River. The bedroom was large and had a King-sized bed, a fireplace, and a master bath with a sunken hot-tub. It was advertised that from the bedroom window, Mount Hood could be seen, although that was not the case currently since the sky was cloudy and gray and spitting a mixture of rain and snow that was blown by the ever-increasing winds.

“Not bad,” Jake commented as he checked the place out.

“Yeah, it’ll do,” Celia agreed. “Do you want the bedroom?”

Jake shook his head. “You paid for the room, you get the bedroom,” he told her.

She smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that. If it’s all right with you, the first thing I’m going to do is catch a nap on that big-ass bed. I’ve been up since five-thirty, I still have a little hangover left from the day before yesterday, and I almost got killed in a plane crash a few hours ago.”

“You did not almost get killed,” Jake told her.

“Let me have almost getting killed,” she insisted. “It makes a better story.”

“All right,” Jake said with a sigh. “You were almost killed. Only my heroic flying skills managed to bring our crippled plane back down in one piece. Sound good?”

“It sounds magnifico,” she told him. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go downstairs and buy some clothes,” he said. “It’s possible I might’ve soiled these a bit when that bird hit the plane.”

“Really?” she asked.

“No, not really, but I’m tired of wearing these jeans and this shirt. And I’m a rich motherfucker, so it’s easier for me to buy new shit instead of washing the old shit when I’m stuck in a strange city I didn’t bring luggage to.”

“Does that happen to you a lot?”

“You’d be surprised,” Jake said.

He took his keycard with him and went down to the lobby, which was fairly crowded with people. He managed to pick up a toothbrush, some toothpaste, and a stick of Old Spice deodorant in the sundries shop without anyone realizing who he was. As soon as he went into the clothing store, however, someone recognized his face and, after Jake confirmed he was indeed the Jake Kingsley, he was quickly mobbed by people asking for autographs, asking what he was doing in Portland, asking if he had any concert tickets, asking when his next album was coming out. He signed pieces of paper and answered inane enquiries for the better part of twenty minutes before he was able to finally pick out a couple pairs of slacks, three new shirts, a few pairs of underwear, and a pair of sweat pants. He tried none of these items on, going strictly by sizes, and paid for it all with his bottomless credit card. As she bagged up his items for him, the clerk—who was rather cute in an exotic way—made a point to let him know that her shift ended at 5:00 PM and she would be happy to join him in his hotel room and “see what develops”.

“Thanks for the offer, hon,” he told her, “but I don’t think my girlfriend would approve.”

“Are you still with that saxophone player?” the clerk asked, distaste and disapproval clearly in her voice. “I heard you and she broke up a few months ago.”

“You heard wrong,” he assured her, grabbing his bag. “Have a nice evening. And drive safe. It’s kind of nasty out there.”

“Okay,” she said, disappointed. “I’m here until five if you change your mind,” she called after him.

He rode the elevator back to the top floor and used his keycard to reenter the suite. The door to the bedroom was closed so he took his purchases into the second bathroom, which had its own tub and shower combo with jacuzzi jets. He had planned to simply take a shower, but seeing the large tub and its jets, he decided a little water therapy was in order instead. He turned on the taps and quickly adjusted the temperature to as hot as he thought he would be able to stand. While it was filling, he walked back into the main room of the suite and quickly fixed himself a potent rum and coke in the largest glass he could find. He looked at his construction thoughtfully for a moment and then mixed another just like it. It wasn’t like he was going to be flying a plane anytime soon. He carried both drinks into the bathroom with him, closed the door, and then stripped off his clothes and settled in for a nice soak. Once he was in the water, he turned on the jacuzzi jets and let them spray on his tense shoulders and neck while he sipped his drinks and pondered the day’s events.

The second drink was almost empty and he had just finished warming the water back up when there was knock on the door.

“Jake,” Celia called. “Are you in there?”

“I am,” he yelled back. “Just having a little soak and drink session.”

“Sounds like fun,” she said. “I’m going to head downstairs and do a little shopping myself. Be back in a bit.”

“Okay,” he said, “but be advised, there’s a lot of people down there and I got mobbed. Keep a low profile.”

“Will do,” she said. “Hopefully nobody will put two and two together when they see me and realize we’re here together.”

“Hopefully,” Jake said, although he thought that was doubtful. How often did two celebrities show up at this hotel on the same day—especially two celebrities it was known had some sort of relationship with each other? The best they could probably hope for was that no one would realize they were sharing a room.

“Enjoy your bath,” she told him.

“I already am,” he replied. “And if the clerk in the clothing store tries to invite herself up here, tell her no. I already turned her down once.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.

Jake finished the rest of his second drink—he was feeling nice and mellow now and had been able to put the day’s events into perspective—and then turned off the jets and released the drain on the tub. He quickly showered, using the complimentary soap and the complimentary shampoo and conditioner and then, after drying off, he brushed his teeth using his new toothbrush and toothpaste and then applied some of his new deodorant to his armpits. He then put on some of his new clothes—a pair of tan slacks and a black button-up shirt. When he emerged from the bathroom, he felt reasonably human again.

He went immediately to the bar and mixed up another rum and coke. When one had to make an emergency landing of one’s plane, that was a good reason for one to indulge a bit. And the bar was stocked with top-shelf shit too. He settled into one of the claw foot chairs and used the remote control to turn on the television. The news was on. There was nothing about his incident at the airport, just a lot of coverage about the storm that was still building in intensity outside.

“Jesus,” Jake muttered. “You’d think it’s never snowed here before.”

He managed to make it through that drink and halfway through the next before he heard the clanking of the door releasing and the opening of the door. Celia came back in, two shopping bags in her hands.

“How was it?” Jake asked her.

She shook her head tiredly. “I barely even made it out of the elevator before they were all over me like vampires. And they definitely connected my presence here with yours.”

“What did you tell them?” Jake asked.

“The truth,” she said. “I said that you and I are working on new albums in Coos Bay, that we had to fly up here to get me a new guitar, and there was an issue with your plane that made us have to stay the night.”

Jake nodded. “I guess sometimes the truth really does set you free,” he said.

“I’m pretty sure the assumption is that we’re staying in different rooms,” she said. “As long as the hotel staff doesn’t blab, we should be good.”

“That’s a big ‘as long as’,” he pointed out, remember a little incident in Omaha a few years back when he and Helen had stayed there—in separate rooms, no less.

She shrugged. “What can you do?” she asked. “In any case, I’m thinking that going down to the restaurant together is probably not such a good idea. How about we order room service?”

“Sounds good to me,” Jake said. “What time do you want to eat?”

“Why don’t you order us something now? I’m going to go grab a quick shower and change into my new jammies I just bought and then peace out for the rest of the night.”

“Okay,” Jake said. “What do you want me to order?”

“Surprise me,” she said, walking toward the bedroom. “Oh ... and if you have one of those drinks waiting for when I come back out, I’ll love you forever.”

“Who could say no to an offer like that?” he asked.

She went into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. Jake pondered the thought of her getting naked in there for a moment—it had been a long time since he had been laid after all—and then shook the image off and walked over to the writing desk. He picked up the room service menu and spent a few minutes perusing it. He then ordered two filet mignon meals with sautéed mushrooms and baked potatoes, two bottles of local merlot, and two cheesecakes for dessert.

“That will be delivered within thirty minutes,” the room service girl promised.

“Thanks,” Jake replied and then hung up.

He went back to the bar, carrying his glass with him. He refreshed his own drink and constructed a new one for Celia, going heavy on the rum for hers. She had some catching up to do, after all.

Celia emerged from the bedroom about ten minutes later. Her long, dark hair was down and still a little damp from her shower. She had indeed put on her new pajamas. They were maroon in color and looked very silky. The pants were capri style, with the hems at about mid-calf. The top was short-sleeved and button-up, loose-fitting across her chest. It was plainly apparent by the way her magnificent breasts bounced and jiggled as she moved that she was not wearing a bra beneath the top. Jake felt a wave of intense sexual lust go coursing through him as he watched her walk over and retrieve her drink.

Jesus fucking Christ she’s hot, he thought resisting the urge to stare at her mammaries, at her beautiful face, at the manicured nails on her sexy feet. Is she deliberately trying to drive me insane?

“Ahh, thanks for the drink, Jake,” she said, picking it up. “I guess I have to love you forever now, huh?”

“That was the deal,” Jake agreed, picking up his own drink and shooting down a healthy slug of it.

Celia carried her beverage over and sat in the clawfoot chair next to Jake’s position on the couch. As she settled in, the hem of her top rode up a little, exposing her bare midriff and her belly button. Jake exhaled forcefully as he saw the smooth expanse of skin. It looked incredibly soft—the kind of skin a man would like to run his hand across ... or perhaps his tongue. He took a deep breath and forced himself to look away. Celia, seemingly unaware of the view she was providing, took a long sip of her own.

“Oh ... this is heaven,” she said, relishing the taste. “I feel like getting drunk is in order. Did you order some wine with dinner?”

“Two bottles of merlot,” he said, still checking out her bare tummy with his peripheral vision.

“Excellent,” she said, taking another sip. She then casually reached down and pulled her top down, covering her belly up but creating another delicious rippling of her breasts.

Jake took a deep breath. He was buzzing a little from the booze he’d consumed but he could still sense a strong sexual tension in the air and it was making him nervous. The two of them had flirted with each other for years, each knowing the other was not really serious about it, but this seemed different somehow. Did Celia have any idea what she was doing to him, coming out in sexy pajamas without a bra on? He suspected that she did. But why was she doing it? She was married—to a good friend of his, no less—and he was in a committed relationship—with a good friend of hers. In addition to that, they were business partners. What was going on? Was anything going on? Was she just treating him as a good friend, a brother, a roommate and he was reading into things? That was certainly possible, wasn’t it?

Not just possible, probable, the rational part of his mind assured him. She’s having some sort of trouble with her husband, she just lost an instrument that was very dear to her, and now she’s stuck in Portland because we had to make an emergency landing. She’s just trying to get comfortable for the evening. And she’s comfortable enough around me that she can wear her pajamas just like she’s at home. That is all that is going on here.

They sat in companionable silence and Celia took the opportunity to play a little catch-up with him. She drank down her entire rum and coke and then walked over to the bar to mix up a fresh one. Jake couldn’t help but stare at her impressive derriere as she made the trip to the bar, and at her jiggling, unencumbered breasts as she made the trip back. This time she noticed his interest.

“Sorry,” she said. “I let the girls free for the night. That bra I was wearing was one of my tight ones and I just couldn’t stand it biting into my shoulders anymore.”

“No problem at all,” Jake assured her, feeling himself flush a little at being caught.

“I could go put it back on ... you know ... if it grosses you out or anything.”

He gave her a meaningful look. “You know goddamn well your jiggling boobs are not grossing me out. They’re making me have impure thoughts, is what they’re doing.”

She giggled a little. “Impure thoughts, huh? It’s nice to know I still have it.”

“Oh, you have it all right,” he told her.

This statement obviously pleased her. “Thanks, Jake,” she said. “My ego needs a little boost about now. I will go put the bra back on though if my ‘jiggling boobs’, as you say, are distracting you too much.”

“No need for that,” he said. “You should be comfortable, especially after everything that happened today. I’ll try not to ogle you so much.”

“All right,” she said, making herself comfortable in her chair once again. “Although there’s nothing wrong with a little ogling, is there? You know, between friends?”

Jake thought it wiser not to answer that one.

Celia stepped out of the room when the server arrived to bring their meal order in. This precaution was undoubtedly pointless since the staff at the hotel had to know the two of them were here together and were staying in the same suite together—and even if the server did not know that the two of them were in the same suite, he had just brought up two dinners—but there was no sense in giving him visual confirmation of what he knew, especially not with Celia dressed in a pair of sexy pajamas with no bra on. Over the past few years a handful of incidents such as what had happened to Jake and Helen in Omaha had forced hotels to put in place rigid rules about discretion when it came to famous guests who were staying with them—any staff member found to have blabbed any details were summarily fired these days—but those maroon jammies and free-range boobs just might have been enough to get a few tongues wagging despite the consequences.

Jake tipped the server twenty dollars and then engaged the privacy lock on the door once he was gone.

“The coast is clear,” he called to Celia. “Let’s eat.”

They ate, sitting at the fancy oak dining room table in the padded oak dining room chairs. The steaks were excellent, cooked to a perfect medium rare and covered with the sautéed mushrooms. The wine was excellent as well, and they killed the first bottle well before getting to their cheesecake.

Jake opened the second bottle of merlot while Celia took the first bite of her dessert.

“Oh, this is heavenly,” she declared, savoring the bite.

“Yeah?” Jake asked.

“Oh yeah,” she confirmed. “I can feel it going to my hips as we speak, but it’s worth it.”

Jake poured them each another glass of wine and then tried a bite of his dessert as well. Celia was correct. It was excellent cheesecake, with just the right level of sweetness and an absolutely decadent texture. And the fact that he could see the bulging of Celia’s hard nipples poking out as she sat across from him only added to the experience.

“I think I’m ready to talk now,” Celia said softly after chewing up her next bite and washing it down with a drink of wine that was a little too high in volume to qualify as a sip.

“Haven’t we been talking?” Jake asked, catching a glimpse of a slight smear of cheesecake on her pink tongue. He wished he could suck it off of there. Jesus fucking Christ, he thought lustfully, I need Laura to come visit in a bad way.

“I mean talk about what’s been bothering me,” she said.

He let his eyes move up a bit, from her tongue and lips to her eyes. They were very beautiful eyes, a rich, luxuriant brown. And they were serious now, no longer flirty or teasing. “Oh...” Jake said slowly. “That ‘ready to talk’.”

She nodded. “If your offer is still good,” she said. “Your offer to listen and be here for me?”

“You know it’s still good,” he assured her. “Let me just shift my brain out of ogling and impure thought mode and into friend who will listen and absorb mode.”

She smiled, a weak smile but a smile nonetheless. “Go ahead,” she said.

He took a deep breath, hit the side of his head with his right hand dramatically, shook his head a little, and then looked back into her eyes. “All right,” he said. “Switching of gears complete. What’s been going on, hon?”

She took another bite of her cheesecake, chewing it thoughtfully, seemingly composing in her mind how she wanted to put her problem into words. She chased it down with another gulp of her wine and then simply blurted out the summary of her issue in four simple words: “Greg cheated on me.”

Jake had strongly suspected that whatever her problem was, it had something to do with her husband. Still, he was caught off guard by this. He knew Greg very well and had come to respect and like the man over the years of their acquaintance with each other. Greg did not seem the cheating type. He was pompous, arrogant, more than a little conceited, but he was honest and he truly loved Celia. Jake never would have pegged him for a cheater.

“Really?” he said after pondering for a moment. “Cheated on you with ... you know ... another woman?”

“With another woman,” she confirmed. “Some puta who works in the makeup department for the film crew. It happened about two months ago, while they were doing the principal photography up in Alaska.”

“How do you know this?” Jake asked. “There hasn’t been anything in the celebrity rags about this, right? They’d be all over the story.”

“They don’t know about it,” she told him. “I know because Greg himself told me.”

“Greg ... told you?” Jake asked, surprised.

She nodded. “He called me on the phone and confessed the night after it happened.”

Confessed? the essential male part of Jake’s mind asked with appalled bewilderment. Why the hell would he do something like that? Who in the hell confesses if you haven’t actually been caught? Maybe that was it. Maybe he had been caught.

Celia was apparently able to read these thoughts in his brain. She shook her head. “I never would have known if he hadn’t told me,” she said. “He says he felt so guilty after doing it that he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, was having trouble with his acting even. He said he needed to get it off of his chest.”

“Jesus, C,” Jake said, still trying to wrap his mind around an unsolicited confession. “I’m so sorry. I never would have thought Greg would do something like that.”

“Neither did I,” she said, picking at the edge of her cheesecake but not actually cutting into it any further. “Of all the things I worried about with him on that project—helicopter crashes, the film being another Northern Jungle...” She looked up at Jake meaningfully. “ ... my own temptations—Greg sticking his polla in some puta’s concha was down at the bottom of the list.”

“Did it just happen the one time?” Jake asked.

“That’s what he says,” she said bitterly. “And I believe him. Why would he lie about that? He didn’t even have the decency to keep me in the dark about the first time.”

“Would you have preferred he keep you in the dark?” Jake asked.

She put the fork down and picked up the wine glass. She shot down another healthy slug of it. “I don’t know,” she said. “That’s part of what’s been running around in my head ever since that asshole told me. Is ignorance bliss? In a way, I suppose it is. If he had just kept this shit to himself...” She shook her head. “But then again ... I hate the thought of being played for a fool almost as much. I just don’t know, Jake. I can tell you what he should have done though. He should have not fucked that bitch in the first place.”

“Agreed,” Jake said, “but the deed is done, right? And so is the confession.”

“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “The deed is done, as is the confession.”

“Is he still working with this woman?” Jake asked now.

“According to Greg, as of the last time I talked to him anyway, she is still part of the crew, but she is no longer put in the position of working with him.”

“Why don’t they just get rid of her?” Jake asked. “Wouldn’t that kind of be the logical thing to do?”

“They can’t just fire her,” Celia said. “That can’t even reassign her. It’s a union position protected by a very strong collective bargaining agreement. She would own that movie studio if they dismissed her just because she slapped her fucking twat down on my husband’s chorizo. And even if they could fire her, how long do you think it would be before she was talking to the goddamn Watcher about what happened? As it stands now, as long as she’s employed in that position, she is held to a strict nondisclosure clause in the contract. Revelation of any details about the film, the actors in it, the crew making it, or even the subcontractors working on the periphery of it would lead to immediate termination, blacklisting, and legal action. If she is unjustly fired, all that goes right out the window.”

“That is a bit of a dilemma,” Jake said. “I can see how this would tend to keep nagging at you.”

“Yeah, that’s the goddamn understatement of the year,” she said spitefully.

“Did he ... well ... explain how this happened?” Jake asked.

“Of course he explained!” she barked. “His fucking dick got hard and he put it in her snatch! That’s how these things normally happen, right?”

“Well ... yeah,” Jake agreed. “In my experience, that’s usually how it goes. What I meant, however, is that doing something like that seems ... oh ... out of character for Greg. Or am I wrong about that?”

She sighed again. “I’m sorry, Jake,” she said. “I shouldn’t be yelling at you. None of this is your fault.”

“Hey,” he said with a shrug, “once you’ve had your ass beat in a New York hotel room by a bunch of cops, once you have an article put out that says you rape women and throw them off boats into the river, once you eat a woman’s pussy out and then have her break up with you without even returning the favor, things like that just kind of roll off your shoulders.”

“You ate someone out and then she broke up with you without returning the favor?” Celia asked.

“It’s a long story,” Jake said with a wave of dismissal.

“You’ll have to tell me that one someday,” she said, shaking her head. “Rude! In any case... si, you’re right. It was out of character for him. He tells me that the two of them had a little flirtatious relationship with each other—it seemed harmless at the time—and then, on the night in question, they ran into each other in town after the filming was done for the day. They had dinner together and then some drinks at the bar. He says he had a little too much to drink, was feeling a little too horny from not having been with me for months, and ... one thing just led to another and it happened. They started kissing in the bar. They walked back to the hotel and she came up to his room with him. He didn’t ask her to leave. He said he started to feel guilty pretty much the moment they got undressed.”

“But he didn’t stop,” Jake said.

She shook her head. “He didn’t stop. They did the deed and then she went back to her own room. He says he couldn’t sleep at all that night, that the guilt just kept spinning around in his head. And in the morning, when he was sober again, it just kept getting worse. It started to affect his work. That’s why he called me up and told me about it.”

“Uh huh,” Jake said with a little shake of the head. Even after hearing the whole story, he still thought confession had been a bad move. Who the hell had it helped? “And how’s that guilt been since?”

“I’ve only talked to him a few times since he ratted himself out,” Celia said. “And when I did talk to him, the conversations were brief because I simply can’t stand talking to him about it. I get too angry ... with him and with myself for letting this bother me so much.”

“It should bother you,” Jake said. “He cheated on you.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That does seem to be the topic at hand, doesn’t it? In any case, to answer your question, I think he did drop that guilt when he confessed to me. He’s been able to carry on with work and he even seems excited about the progress they’re making. Maybe confession is good for the soul, huh?”

“I’m sure he is still carrying a pretty heavy load of guilt with him, C,” Jake said.

“Maybe,” she said. “In truth, I’m not sure I even care. I’m not sure what’s going to happen now, Jake. Can I just let this go? Can I just go back to living with him as his wife once that damn film is shot and we’re done with our recordings? I don’t know the answer to any of that.”

“You say you believe him to be sincere when he says it was only that one time and that he felt immediately guilty for it?”

She took another gulp of wine, finishing what was in the glass. She then held it out to Jake for a refill. “Hit me again,” she told him. While he was pouring, she answered his question. “I believe he is sincere. I believe it was only one time and that he will not repeat the mistake.”

“That’s something, isn’t it?” Jake asked, finishing her pour and then freshening up his own glass.

“It’s something,” she agreed. “I just don’t know how big of a something it is. I don’t know if I can go back to my happy little life I was having and just forget about how he betrayed me. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to completely trust him again.”

“Those are valid concerns,” Jake said.

“Yeah,” she said. “And ... well ... there’s another variable in this equation as well.”

“What’s that?”

She turned those dark brown eyes on his, her stare intense. “You really don’t know what I’m talking about?” she asked.

He swallowed nervously under her gaze. “Uh ... no,” he said. “I don’t think I do.”

She reached out and took his hand in hers. He noticed for the first time that she was not wearing her wedding ring. “You are the variable, Jake.”

“Me?” he asked, managing to put an air of surprise in his tone, but it was only his own mediocre acting skills that put it there. He had a pretty good idea of what she was talking about.

“You,” she said. “I’m in love with you, Jake. And I’m pretty sure you’re in love with me as well.”

Jake took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his brain trying to process and qualify what she had just said. “You ... you are in love with me?” he finally said.

“I am in love with you,” she repeated. “I have been for quite some time now.”

“I see,” Jake said. “Well ... I do love you as well, Celia. You’re a very dear friend of mine and we’ve been working very closely together these past two years. I would do anything in the world for you, just like I would do anything for Nerdly, or Pauline.”

“I’ve never seen you look at Nerdly’s boobs with that hungry look you’ve been giving mine all night,” she told him. “Pauline’s either, for that matter.”

“Uh ... well ... no, I never really have,” Jake stammered. “But...”

“I’m not talking about friend love, Jake,” Celia said. “I’m talking about romantic love. I’m talking about the feeling that I want to be with you, to be in an intimate relationship with you, that I want to spend my life with you, that I want to wake up beside you every morning with my naked body pushed up against yours.”

That intense burst of lust that had been buried when the discussion turned serious suddenly reared its head again, this time with a boost of power added to it. “Yeah,” he said softly. “That doesn’t sound like friend love to me.”

“It’s not,” she said, her eyes still staring into his, her ringless hand still grasping his. “Do you feel the same about me, Jake? Do you love me, not as a friend, not as a sister, but as someone you would want to spend your life with, someone you would want to spend an eternity ... you know ... waking up naked next to?”