The Love of My Life
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I wasn’t supposed to be home that day. I’d wrapped the film I was shooting early and caught a plane back to Miami without telling Cole, as a surprise for our nine-month anniversary. Oh, how things had changed between us in a few short months. We were caught in a vicious cycle of insults that could never be unsaid followed by flying plates and days without speaking. The makeup sex wasn’t even good anymore. I’d thought the gesture might help heal things between us, so I had planned a romantic dinner at a swanky restaurant, followed by a night of molly and dancing at our favorite club.
He’d assured me that he’d be around all weekend studying lines for his next project, so I was disappointed when I arrived home that evening to find his G wagon missing and some kind of beat-up hatchback parked in the garage. The alarm was off as I entered the house; I called out and no one answered. I thought it odd, but the front door had been locked and nothing seemed amiss, so I ventured upstairs.
The door to our bedroom was ajar, the curtains drawn and the lights dimmed. Atop the huge mahogany four-poster bed that presided over the mostly beige room someone had placed a red velvet blanket, upon which was resting the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Her golden hair was spread across my pillow like a halo, her angelic face in repose; her naked body smooth and supple, as though she’d been airbrushed.
My first response was shock; I yelped, but she didn’t budge.
My second response was envy: who was this girl and why was she in my bed? It was relatively obvious why she was in my bed—after all, I did share it with one of the most notorious playboys in the world, and I knew about his sleeping fetish—but I hadn’t imagined he’d do it in our bed. And with a girl whose looks put me to shame!
My third response was concern. Why was she still sleeping? Why had he left her there? Was she alive?
I crept closer to her and gingerly placed my fingers on her wrist. I couldn’t find a pulse, but I was no doctor, and remembering that I’d once checked for breath with a mirror in a film, I extracted my compact from my purse and held it beneath her nose. I had to position my head right next to hers to view the reflection, but was relieved to see a faint trace of fog on the mirror as she almost imperceptibly exhaled. She smelled of jasmine.
Next to the bed was a syringe, and the only blemish on her golden skin was a series of holes on the inside of her elbow. Heroin? My mind reeled. He was giving his sleeping girls heroin? I’d assumed sleeping pills were involved—or perhaps they pretended to sleep. But heroin? He could kill her. I’d never tried it myself, but I’d had friends disappear down the slippery slope of opioid addiction, and it was not pretty.
I took her by the shoulders and shook her. She didn’t respond. I gently slapped her cheek, then harder, but she continued to sleep. I tried to pull her up to sitting, but she was deadweight and I was dead tired from a night shoot followed by flying all day without having slept. I didn’t know what to do. Should I call 911? But she didn’t seem to be having any trouble breathing, and I couldn’t have the press finding out there was a naked chick on heroin in my bed unless it was totally necessary. I went to the bathroom and filled a glass with cold water, then returned and threw it in her face.
She gasped as she sat up, disoriented. Her wild blue eyes landed on me and her brow furrowed, a flicker of recognition spreading across her face. I had the urge to apologize to her, but I squelched it, seeing as she’d been fucking my husband in my bed. “You wouldn’t wake up,” I said.
I threw a towel in her lap, but she disregarded it, continuing to stare at me with something akin to wonder. “Stella,” she croaked.
“Yeah,” I said. “You should probably get your shit together and get out of here. Where did Cole go?”
She looked around, as if realizing where she was for the first time. “I don’t know. What time is it?”
I glanced at the little silver clock on the bedside table. “Seven.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay, I knew…about his fetish,” I admitted. “I’m just surprised to find you here.”
“I’m sorry to be in your space.” She picked up the towel and began to dry herself. “I wouldn’t usually go to someone’s home, but he’s paying me a lot of money.” She met my eye, and I could tell she really was sorry. “I have a daughter,” she added.
“Where is she now?”
“At home. She’s ten and she’s really mature, so…”
I picked up the syringe. “Heroin?”
A slight wince as she nodded. “His choice. I wasn’t a user before.”
I assessed her big blue eyes, her pert little nose and pouty lips. I wasn’t jealous or angry with her, as I would have thought I’d been. Instead I found myself strangely drawn to her in a way I couldn’t explain, and I overwhelmingly felt the need to protect her from my predator of a husband. “Whatever he’s giving you, it’s not worth it,” I said. “You’re ruining your life.”
She pushed herself off the bed and wobbly stood to her feet, but her knees gave out. I caught her and eased her back onto the bed. “Stay here,” I instructed.
Her clothes were neatly folded on a chair in front of the fireplace, where blue flames danced behind the glass—an unnecessary feature in a place where the temperature rarely dipped below seventy degrees. I deposited her little pile of belongings on the bed next to her, and she shimmied into a short silver party
