Maybe this time, she thought. She’d been thinking that for over a year.
Kim had first met Firman at the Toronto G20 summit. He'd taken her to dinner, and they'd arranged to meet the following evening. Firman handled security for one of the dignitaries at the summit. His work schedule intervened, and he'd had to cancel. Ten days ago, he’d called and asked to meet again during this year’s conference.
Annually, the leaders of the twenty most powerful countries in the world met at the G20 Summit to agree on global policy. As executive assistant to the Canadian Prime Minister, she’d had a busy day of preparation; even so, Firman had never been far from her mind.
They ate dinner seated side by side in one of the restaurant’s famous crescent loveseats. Five hundred feet below, cars looked like Matchbox toys. The city lights sparkled in the distance. The rotating restaurant completed a circuit once every forty-eight minutes. As they began their third rotation, they sipped fifty-dollar cognac from large, thin-walled globes that Firman called snifters.
The black dress she wore, purchased especially for this evening, was the most expensive garment she’d ever bought. It lifted her breasts into a revealing cleavage and followed the curve of her hips.
Firman paid the check.
She’d been sending out signals all night, and he’d been reciprocating. Would it end here? She hoped not.
“Kim, I’m staying at the Ritz-Carlton. They have an excellent cocktail lounge. Can I interest you in a nightcap… or must you work tonight?”
“Yes, I’d love to extend the evening. I’m having a wonderful time.”
Firman guided her to the elevator. His palm burned through her dress where it rested on her back. In the cab he held her hand. They walked, still hand in hand, into the lobby of his hotel.
“Tell me if I am being too forward, but my room has a better view of the city than the cocktail bar. We could take the nightcap up there.”
“Yes, I’d like that.” Kim wanted to give a high-five.
The living room in his suite dwarfed her downtown Toronto apartment. Bodyguards must be well paid, she thought.
He fixed Manhattans. They stood close, sipping their drinks and staring through the panoramic windows at the city.
Firman put his drink down. “I have something for you,” he said and went to the bedroom. A few seconds later he emerged with a small box, gift-wrapped in silver-accented paper with a red bow. “Please, open it.”
Kim grinned like a schoolgirl receiving an unexpected Valentine present. She tore off the wrapping and stared, shocked, at a bottle of Clive Christian No. 1 perfume.
“Firman, I can’t accept this. It’s too much.”
“I insist.” He closed his hands around hers with the bottle between them. “Whenever I smell this perfume, I think of you. Do you like it?”
“Yes, of course, but—”
His voice became husky, low. “Wear some for me.”
She held the perfume in one hand, ran the other hand behind the lapel of his jacket, and pulled him toward her. The kiss released the sexual tension of the last four hours; no, the last twelve months — sparks flickered against the inside of her eyelids, and she thought her legs would buckle.
“Give me a moment.” Kim headed to the bathroom, where she stripped off and crammed her bra and panties into her purse. After a pee, she used the bidet, then sprayed herself with the nine-hundred-dollar perfume and slipped, naked, into her dress.
When she returned to the room, Firman turned and smiled. ”Now you smell as beautiful as you look, Ms. Kimberly Stevens.”
They made love until three in the morning. Never had she experienced a body so hard and toned. Firman was a considerate lover, and insatiable. She didn’t ever want to leave his bed, but the Prime Minister was scheduled to depart the hotel at eight, and he needed her.
“Firman, I must go.”
He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. It took an extraordinary act of will to pull away. As she dressed, he watched with a coy smile on his face, and in that moment, under his gaze, she felt like the most desirable woman in the world.
“Kim, there’s one more thing I need.”
“Firman… there’s no time. I have to leave.”
He smiled. “Will you wear the perfume to the conference today? Although I won’t be able to speak to you, I will smell your presence as I stalk the corridors looking for bad guys.”
She shook her head. Kim would never dream of wearing such expensive perfume to work.
“Please, Kim, do this for me, just today.”
His voice and his eyes were pleading. He was serious about this. She smiled. “Okay. If you insist.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.” She bent and kissed him one last time where he lay in bed. “Now I must go or I’ll be late.” Playfully, he held onto her arms.
“Firman. Stop it.”
“Promise me again.”
“I promise.”
He let her go, and she floated along the hotel hallway, beaming from ear to ear. The early-morning traffic was light. She felt racy calling her hotel’s front desk at 3:40 a.m. and booking a six-thirty wake-up call. Snuggled under her sheets, Kim drifted to sleep surrounded by the smell of him and her perfume.
When she woke, she showered, toweled dry, and walked naked across the room to her purse. She took out Firman’s gift and with two quick strokes sprayed an ‘X’ of perfume starting at each shoulder, crossing her breasts and finishing at her hips. The aroma was exquisite. She posed in front of the mirror.
“I crossed my heart for you, Firman.” A pleasant shiver passed through her as she remembered last night’s sexual marathon — wow! Kim slipped into a blue pencil skirt and white blouse. The perfume would always remind her of him. “What a man,” she said as she left the room to begin a busy day of organizing at the G20 summit.
At the conference, she strode in front of the Canadian Prime Minister, cleared him through security, and gathered the necessary handouts. Inside the meeting room, she arranged the PM’s papers at a magnificent oval table whose stunning centerpiece featured a hand-carved conference logo: twenty rays of light — simulating the Eastern sun rising — emanating from a chung-sa-cho-rong, a traditional Korean lantern. Twenty plush, padded chairs circled the table, awaiting the representatives of the elite group of nations.
Staffers buzzed around their dignitaries making sure everything was set for the meeting. Kim watched as a robed assistant to the Saudi Arabian king demonstrated the use of a respiratory inhaler to his royal highness. The aide sucked in the spray with an exaggerated motion, then held the device to his king’s lips and depressed, encouraging and praising the monarch as a mother would her child. Boy, there were some spoiled puppies in this room.
At the head of the conference table, a small stage was set with a lonely white lectern at its center, flanked on either side by ten flags, one for each of the member countries.
At a quarter till nine, satisfied the PM had everything he needed, Kim headed for the bathroom. In the hallway, she nodded politely to Maureen Wilson, the American Vice President’s executive assistant; the President wasn’t scheduled to arrive until tomorrow.
As Kim passed, the aroma of Christian No. 1 perfume drifted into Maureen’s nostrils. A few thousand perfume molecules settled on Maureen’s tiny nose hairs as they filtered out dust and bacteria. But most swept in with her breath and flowed down her throat. The molecules, each less than three millionths of an inch, settled into the spongy pink alveoli in Maureen’s lungs. From there, they absorbed into the surging bloodstream pumping past her honeycombed lung walls, fetching and carrying oxygen to her brain and muscles.