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  If Blake’s spa tech looked half as exotic as Mr. Kim Lee, as muscular as Dar or as suave as Weber, he’d be in Heaven. Spa Heaven.

  Resting his head against the sofa, he allowed his eyelids to become heavy. He must’ve dozed off as he heard his name being called.

  “Huh?” Blake looked up to see a guy, early twenties, common face, no body, no muscles.

  Dammit.

  “Sugaring, right?”

  “That’s me.”

  “I’m Ernie. Follow me please.”

  Ernie? What the hell kind of name was Ernie? Why wasn’t he given Dar or Weber?

  Blake followed him down the dark hallway to a quiet room. White and posh, the area was about eight feet wide by ten feet in length. Blinds drawn, one window.

  “Mr. Morgan?”

  “Yes.” Blake jumped a little. Though the room smelled of lavender, he was still jittery.

  “Relax, make yourself comfortable. I’ll step out while you get undressed.”

  “Undressed?”

  Ernie nodded then pointed to a hook. “Hang your robe on the back of this door.”

  “Right, of course.” He tried to act as though he did this every weekend. He didn’t. “Umm, then what?” Clueless, he’d never had hair removal. Did he sit in some special chair? Or do a handstand?

  “Is this your first time?”

  “Ah-huh.” Nervously, he laughed. “Sugaring is new for me.”

  “Okay, have you had a massage before?”

  “No…not really. Only once—I was clothed. One of those chair massages at some Zen Buddha store over on Madison Avenue.”

  “I see.” Ernie’s face lit up a bit. He smiled with confidence, assuring Blake was in good hands. “Lay down on the bed, backside up. Put your head in the bolster.”

  “Sounds easy enough.” Maybe he’d enjoy himself.

  “Give me a holler when you’re ready.” He dimmed the lights and closed the door.

  The robe hit the floor with a loud thump. Naked, Blake stood there. The AC vents blasted cold air upon him, causing his skin to goose bump. Other than his husband, he’d never been touched by another man before. Hell, he’d never been naked in front of anyone else but Diego.

  What if he got hard? Hmmm.

  Not to worry, Ernie didn’t get his juices flowing. Could be a good thing.

  Maybe it was for the best that Ernie wasn’t like Vive’s or Thor’s therapists. He reminded himself why he was there: Nello. Their date was tonight. Then later in the week came Gunter.

  Funny thing was they didn’t appeal to him, either. Taddy professed the best way to attract a new guy was to date other guys, even if you didn’t like them.

  It all sounded exhausting, so he focused on the spa treatment at hand.

  Upper East Side

  “Morning, Mom.” Lex sat up in bed, yanking down the comforter Massimo had bundled her in before he’d left. Her satin chemise clung to her body. She wanted to take a shower, but Massimo wouldn’t let her. He’d threatened earlier he was going to handcuff her to the headboard with their kinky cuffs if she didn’t stay still.

  “I let myself in.”

  “You always do, Birdie,” she said in amusement, remembering back to her childhood when her mother made her call her by her first name whenever they were out in public.

  Her mom had a knack for getting in the elevator without having the doorman downstairs buzz ahead. She pulled a stack of shoe boxes behind her in the red grocery buggy her maid used for errands. The faded exteriors of L. A. Gear, Pony, and Doc Martens labels told her the ’80’s shoes were long gone.

  “Honey, I have no idea what’s in these but I’m sure it’s every photo ever taken of you.” Her jeweled hand swept over her forehead as she pushed her jet-black hair away from her tight face. She took the lid off a small box and plopped it onto the bed.

  “Thank you for bringing them over.” They were going to sort through the images. Each guest would be featured in a small, sterling silver frame at their assigned place setting as they sat enjoying their seven-course meal.

  What was the purpose of all the extra hoopla? To put her friends first. Lex copied the tip from Blake’s wedding and thought it was endearing.

  “Where are my boys and Jemma?” Birdie poked her head around then went to the large window which faced west, out at Park Avenue, and opened the blinds.

  White light spilled into the room. Lex noticed the film of dust covering the Mother’s Day card on the nightstand from two weeks before. It reminded her to tidy up, but not right then. No, Massimo would shit if she was caught out of bed. If he didn’t let her shower, what made her think she could dust?

  “Masi took M2 out for a walk. Jemma didn’t come home last night. She texted saying she and Thor had gotten invited over to Tom Ford’s house for a party.”

  “Good for them, and how nice of Masi to take M2 out and about.” Birdie rounded her shoulders as her face smiled with approval.

  “It’s become their Saturday morning ritual. He should be back in an hour or so.”

  She was grateful Massimo had developed a routine. Her fiancé, a morning person, bathed and dressed M2. Lex, the night owl, repeated the routine and put her son to bed. She wondered, for a second, how their schedules would change once the second baby came along.

  Her mother sat on the mattress and pulled what appeared to be a family album out as well as a few stacks of envelopes. “I haven’t gone through this stuff since—” Birdie started to choke up. “Before your father left.”

  She hated when her mother referred to her daddy as ‘leaving’. He didn’t leave—he killed himself. Murder was how she thought of suicide, and she’d never forgiven him for it.

  “This will be good for you then.” She wanted her mother to move on.

  “Eddie isn’t dead,” Birdie hissed softly under her breath.

  “Please.” Every fiber in her pregnant body went cold. “Don’t start in on that Charmain shit.” Curses fell from her mouth as she glared at Birdie to stop with the nonsense.

  “Don’t you swear at me.”

  Two years before, Birdie had given a little over half a million dollars to a Caribbean psychic named Charmain Whitedove in exchange for her medium services to channel Eddie from the dead. Miss Whitedove’s clairvoyant powers told her Eddie Easton, the world’s most famous rock star (next to Elvis Presley), wasn’t in Heaven or Hell. He was living it up in the US Virgin Islands. Therefore, Eddie was unchannelable. This, of course, drove Lex insane.

  “Your father will be back, honey. One day, we’ll see him again.”

  Birdie never got over her husband’s suicide. Lex caught her mother talking to Eddie all the time as if he was in the room with her. It was the only way she could get through the day. At first, she thought her mother was on drugs, but since Eddie’s heroin overdose, Birdie had avoided all illegal and prescription substances. The doctors said she’d been scared into sobriety. Hallucinogens aside, her mother was still bat-shit crazy.

  “We’ll see Dad in Heaven. He’s with the angels.” Knock it off, Mom. You’re freakin’ me out.

  Birdie’s head shook, pursing her mouth as if she was forming an argument, but she suddenly stopped and released a gasp of air. She forced an obvious tense smile in Lex’s direction. The grin was painted across her made-up face, probably in the shade Melonlicious by Baden Cosmetics, a Brill Inc. client, and her favorite coral lip-gloss.

  “Mom, you okay?”

  She held her breath; Lex could tell by the way her chest came up against her pearl and diamond statement piece, which was around her neck.

  Suddenly, she chewed her lower lip. Birdie grabbed onto another stack of photos. “It’s a nice touch that you’re doing the tables like this. I loved seeing the guest’s reactions over them at Blake’s wedding.”

  Thank you, Mom. “Me, too.” She felt a sense of relief come over her as her mother changed the subject. Lex acknowledged to herself that it wasn’t easy for her mom to let go. Birdie loved to argue and she usually
won, even when she wasn’t right. And she was rarely right.

  “Blake had the best reception I’dve ever attended.” Birdie placed a glossy picture flat on the bed and looked at it fondly.

  “Is that so? Better than your gal Rachel’s wedding to Rod Stewart?”

  “Yes. Even more fabulous than when Heather married Richie Sambora in Paris.” Birdie spoke of her celebrity friends in jest. After one platinum album, a Playboy Centerfold cover, a Grammy, and her own line of perfume called Dirty Birdie, the woman knew everyone.

  “What did you like most about Blake’s wedding?”

  “How proud Blake II and Paulina were of him. Aside from when Elton John married David, it’s the only gay wedding I’d been to. His parents, and everyone, were so happy for Blake, particularly me.” At Avon Porter, Birdie was the first mother to get behind Blake when he came out. She encouraged Mrs. Morgan to join Parents, Families, & Friends for Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and spoke publicly for teens coming out.

  “You were always good to him, Mom.” Lex loved that about her mother. But back then, when they were teens, it did bother her. Birdie could be a better mom to other people’s children, but when it came to her own, she’d failed miserably.

  “Damn that ex of his for screwing up.” Her mother made a tsk-tsk noise. “Such a shame.”

  “Indeed. I remember the toast they gave right before cutting the cake. That they’d adopt a baby within a year.” She didn’t like to see her friends fail, especially not in love. “Blake had so many hopes of having a family…”

  “How’s he managing since the divorce?”

  Lex felt guilty. She wanted to do more for him, but hadn’t found the time. Recently, their only moment together was at Secrète de St. Barth. They’d been so busy working out they didn’t get to have much fun. Blake was angry, too upset to talk about what had gone down with his marriage. All he did was lift weights. “Taddy and Vive have been with him around the clock. He’s getting better.”

  “What has he said about MLD?” Even Birdie refused to call him Diego.

  “That he was tempted to hire some Staten Island hit man he’d seen on that reality show Mob Wives to take out MLD for good.”

  “I don’t blame him.”

  “Taddy talked him out of it. Said he’d get caught and be an embarrassment to his family.”

  “MLD should be roughed up.”

  She joked, but Lex knew she was serious. Her mother was a bully in her heyday. She’d gone after many of Eddie’s lovers. If she didn’t beat them up, one of her ‘fans’ did it for her.

  Birdie pulled out another folder and held it up for her to read the label, Avon Porter. “I remember when Blake enrolled at your school. You girls fought over him.”

  “Avon Porter had just gone coed, Mom. Blake and Thor were the first male students admitted.”

  “Blake was also the cutest boy you’d ever seen.”

  “Says who?”

  “You, at fourteen. I was in London staying with David Bowie. I remember because you called me saying you’d met the nicest boy in class.” She held up a photo of Blake being hugged by Taddy and kissed by Vive.

  Lex remembered snapping it out in the courtyard between classes. Everything seemed easier then. “True, he was. Thor was cute, too. But Blake was, and still is, classically handsome. He gets better with age, like fine wine.” She took the photo and put it off to the side of the bed to be framed. That one they’d put on Blake’s table. “Vive won the battle of who would try and flip him.”

  “Alexandra Easton, my ears. Please don’t talk like that.” Birdie shushed her.

  “Mommy, don’t act like such a prude. After all, you were a swinger.”

  Her mother was a playgirl. But ever since her father died, Birdie carried on as a reborn virgin. Lex figured it was her Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. She’d given up pretty much everything but eating iceberg lettuce with French dressing and Coke Zero. Whatever worked to keep her mother sober, she’d go with it.

  “Sex is overrated.”

  “Since when?” she asked, shocked to hear her mother say this. Birdie in her prime had been known to have slept with thousands. At least that’s what her unauthorized biography stated.

  “The scars of my life say so. I regret all that wasted effort I put into partying and having sex. It ruined me. Sucked the energy right out of me.”

  “I’m pretty sure that was the cocaine, Mother.” Lex tilted her head, giving her mother a sidelong glance. Pride normally prevented her from arguing with her about most things, but Birdie’s past mistakes weren’t part of them.

  “Cocaine, cock, it’s all the same.” Birdie held up another photo of Taddy and Lex as toddlers. In diapers, they were both covered in what appeared to be strawberry ice cream. “What matters are your friends. Don’t forget that.” Sadness rang in her mother’s voice. “After your father left, I realized I didn’t really have any girlfriends.”

  “Put that photo with Blake’s. I’ll use it for Taddy’s table.” Lex noticed her mother was hanging on to that thought about friends and wasn’t paying attention. “Mom? Hello? You’re zoning out.”

  Birdie nodded, “You girls will always have one another. No one can take that friendship away.”

  “I know. She’s my bestie, Mom. Vive and Blake are, too.”

  “Taddy is special. Always has been. You’ve known her since the day you were born. That girl hasn’t had the same luxuries as you.”

  Lex looked up to her. The Brillfords had dropped her off at boarding school and never picked her back up. Emancipated as a teenager, Taddy had turned herself into a self-made millionaire.

  “I can’t imagine my life without my BFF.”

  She reached up and pulled out an envelope labeled, Eddie. Whatever was inside that one, she knew it would send her mother off a cliff. Regardless, she wanted to fill the reception with images of her father; not a ton, but a few. It wasn’t as if she was going to play a memorial video of her father like the wedding planner had suggested. That would’ve been too much. Instead, a few photos around the room to see his face while she danced were all she needed.

  “Look.” The first image she grabbed was of her mother, pregnant.

  Birdie’s eyes narrowed as she focused on the picture. “1983. My Lucifer’s Mistress World Tour. That album went platinum. I was seven months preggers with you.”

  “I hate that song.” The ballad peaked at Number One on Billboard Top 100. It was the first song written to address the art of female submission. At Avon Porter, boys had taunted Lex in class. They asked her if she was as easy to submit as her mother.

  She wasn’t.

  “That ditty put me on the map, honey.” She hummed the chorus, “Take me now, take me tonight, I want you to take me any way you’ll have me. T-a-k-e me.”

  “Playboy made you famous. Your music just made you rich.”

  “I loved that tour. Back then, your father and I were so in love. We’d spend every free minute together. Then…I had you.” Her smile soured.

  She’d tried to hide it, but having Lex and becoming a stay-at-home mom had ruined her career. Over the years, she’d been told as much on many occasions, usually when Birdie drank.

  “Yup, I’m the catalyst for your demise.”

  “Don’t talk like that. When you were young, I was—”

  “Mean.”

  “A little.”

  “You took it out on me, Mom.”

  “Let’s not go there again. We’ve been over this a million times. If I could have a do-over, I would.”

  Birdie’s way of learning was by trial and error.

  “Okay, what would you do differently?” She didn’t blame her parents for everything. Finger pointing wouldn’t get them anywhere. Her new approach, which Massimo had taught her, was to ask, listen, and try to learn from her mother’s mistakes. There were hundreds of them to pick from.

  “You don’t want to hear it, Alexandra. Let’s change the subject…now, what time are Rocco and Luigi getting in f
rom Milan?”

  “Let’s stay on this topic. I wanna know, Mom. What would you have done differently?”

  Birdie frowned.

  You’re not gettin’ out of this one, Mother.

  Sugaring Blake’s Cookie

  Midtown

  Spread out as if he were a bald eagle with a vast wingspan, Blake was flying high. He lay on the massage table, naked. Ass up in the air, his face hung low in the aromatic pillow.

  Ten minutes and counting of sugar torture made his crack feel velvety smooth. He knew this because he kept touching his bum in disbelief. Thor had lied. Sugaring hurt as if a colony of fire ants were attacking a wounded grasshopper. Though, Blake was starting to enjoy the silkalicious titillation. Maybe I am a masochist after all.

  “Mr. Morgan, we’re almost done here. All that’s left is trimming up your pubes and shaving your nuts. You’ll be good to go.”

  “Are you serious?” At this rate, he’d be made into a prized Lhasa Apso, like Hedda, in no time.

  “That’s what Thor and Vive ordered for you when they made your appointment. Your friends are our best customers.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.” They give quaffed a new meaning. “I heard Taddy made you list Vajazzle on your spa menu.” He’d been the last of their group to join in the Exhale Bliss Spa fan club.

  “Yes, and anal bleaching.” Ernie laughed.

  “Lord, really?”

  “It’s all the rage. Vive refers us a ton of clientele, too.” He stroked the back of his neck. “Close your eyes and rest your face in the cradle.”

  His cheeks squished with his mouth as he did as instructed. “I must look like a blow fish.” He tried to laugh and opened his eyes, but couldn’t really see. The face cradle blocked out all light.

  “I’m going to put some Paraffin wax on your skin.”

  “Why?” he asked, staring at the darkness.

  “We infuse the paraffin with Azuline. It’ll soothe your skin. First, I’m going to cover your hair line.” Ernie placed a hot towel over the back of his head. Blake had been meaning to get a haircut; he just hadn’t found the time. He wondered if the spa could cut his hair when they were through with his manscaping. They’d done pretty much everything else.