When she opened the front door of her Pasadena apartment to Jake's knock he couldn't help but feel a sharp twinge of lust go coursing through him. "You are absolutely beautiful," he told her, quite truthfully.
She blushed, her long eyelashes batting just a little. "Thank you," she said shyly. "And you look... well... nice too."
He laughed. He was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans, tennis shoes, and an old blue sweater. "I look like a skid row bum next to you," he said. "I told you it was casual."
"Do you think I'm overdressed?" she asked, suddenly alarmed.
"Not at all," he assured her. "You'll have all the heads turning. I guarantee it. Are you ready to go?"
"Uh... sure," she said, "but before we go... well... can you come inside for just a second and meet my roommate? She doesn't believe I'm really going out with Jake Kingsley."
He went inside and met her roommate. She was a voluptuous brunette with large, jiggling breasts. She was dressed in a leather mini-skirt and a pair of knee-high boots, obviously about to go out on a date of her own. Her mouth dropped open when she saw Jake and she actually screamed, a shrill, piercing cry of worshipful disbelief.
"Oh my Gawd!" she yelled, bouncing over to him. "It really is you. She wasn't just fucking with me."
"It really is me," Jake said. "She wasn't just fucking with you."
"Oh my Gawd, oh my Gawd, ohmygawd!!" she yelled, bouncing up and down in excitement.
Rachel was clearly embarrassed by her roommate's reaction. It took her more than a minute to calm her down enough to make introductions — the roommate's name was Maureen. Jake took it in stride. He was quite used to women reacting in this manner when in his presence. He instinctively knew that if he wanted to, he could fuck Maureen right now, that she would accompany him to her bedroom right in front of Rachel if he only just asked. He didn't ask. Eventually he signed an autograph for her and told her it was time that he and Rachel got going. Maureen followed them downstairs, still bouncing excitedly and proclaiming "oh my Gawd!" every few seconds, saying she wanted to see the limo.
It was a standard stretch limousine, so common to Jake that he hardly even noticed it anymore. Both girls fawned over it, ogling the leather seats, running their hands over the window controls, drooling over the fully stocked bar. Finally, after more than ten minutes of showing them the various features, Maureen bid them a reluctant goodbye and went back into the house. Jake and Rachel settled into the seats near the back and Mario, their driver for the night, closed them inside. A minute later they were off, heading toward Malibu.
"Are you sure it was a good idea introducing her to me?" Jake asked. "Won't she go telling all your friends at school that you went out with me?"
"Probably," Rachel said, still looking around in awe.
"And won't word of that make it back to your boyfriend? I really don't like to make an enemy out of a man who might someday be treating me in the emergency room."
"It might," she said with a shrug. "I'm not really sure I'm going to be dating Paul much longer anyway, so what does it matter?"
"I see," Jake said, a touch of nervousness worming through him. He decided to treat it as he always did — with alcohol. "Would you like a drink?"
She did. He mixed her a whiskey sour and himself a rum and coke.
They arrived at Matt's Malibu beach house twenty minutes later. Mario held the door open for them and they stepped out, climbing the porch steps to the front door. Matt's butler opened it within seconds of the doorbell button being pushed. He led them inside to the entertainment room, where most of the people were gathered. Music was playing from the sound system at a volume just below the conversation dampening point. A keg of Foster's beer — an import from Australia — had been set up next to the bar. Nerdly and Coop were playing a game of pool at the table in the center of the room. Each had a young woman dressed in slutty clothing with them. Pauline was talking to Darren over in a corner. Another sluttily dressed woman was hanging on Darren's arm. Pauline had apparently come stag. Matt was over near the stereo system, loading CDs into his forty-eight disc changer. He had a drink sitting on the stereo cabinet and two women — one a petite brunette in a pair of hot pants, the other a demurely dressed redhead who looked like a librarian — standing next to him.
"Holy fuck!" Matt proclaimed when Jake and Rachel walked up to him. "Is this the waitress at that chow joint you took me to that one time?"
"This is her," Jake confirmed. "Rachel, I trust you remember Matt? He's kind of hard to forget."
"Hi, Matt," Rachel said shyly. "Nice place you got here."
"Jesus fucking Christ," Matt said, looking her up and down. "You're hot, baby! You oughtta wear that outfit when you're waiting tables. I bet your tips would go up."
She wasn't quite sure whether Matt was insulting her or not. Jake assured her that he meant that as one of his deepest and most heartfelt compliments.
"Fuck yeah, I do," Matt proclaimed. "You're the shit."
The party settled into gear. Everyone had a few drinks and then Matt broke out his newest acquisition — an electric water bong. "It doesn't actually burn the shit," he explained. "It just heats it up and vaporizes the THC for you. You can hardly feel the hit at all but it'll fuck you up like an F-111 over Libya."
He took the bong around to each person, refilling it after each hit from a large bag of green buds and explaining over and over how it worked. Rachel eyed it nervously as it came their way, sipping from her third whiskey sour.
"I've only smoked pot like twice, Jake," she whispered to him. "I'm a little nervous about it."
"You don't have to smoke it if you don't want to," he said. "We're here to have a good time. Nobody's gonna pressure you."
She thought that over for a few minutes and then decided to go for broke. She took two tremendous hits when the bong was given to her. Almost instantly her eyes began to glaze over. "Wow," she said. "I've never smoked anything like that before."
"Only the best in my house," Matt told her. "Only the fuckin' best. You in on this shit, Jake?"
Jake was in on it. He took two hits himself and was soon feeling quite all right.
As the night went on people gathered in small groups, talked, broke apart into other groups, and then talked some more. They munched on mushrooms stuffed with crab and cheese, finger sandwiches, taquitos smeared in guacamole, and several other appetizers prepared by Louisa, Matt's cook. They drank and smoked cigarettes. Matt, Darren, Coop, and a few of their women all snorted some cocaine from the edge of the pool table. Through it all Rachel stayed by Jake's side, flirting gently with him and making a point to touch his arm, his shoulder, his back whenever the opportunity arose. Several times she was a bit careless with her skirt when she sat down, letting Jake see that she was wearing frilly black panties beneath the nylons. It seemed that her boyfriend was the furthest thing from her mind right now.
Jake wasn't quite sure whether he should make a serious move on her or not. He genuinely liked her company and he knew that if they ended up having sex it would change their relationship, probably for the worst. Sex usually did that. And then there was the question of her boyfriend. She might not be thinking about him but Jake was. He didn't like to be thought of as a man who stole another man's girlfriend. But on the other hand, she was very attractive. As more drinks went down his throat, as he took more bonghits, his better judgement began to retreat to the back of his brain and his little head began to assert itself as the entity in charge.
"Do you want to go out to the balcony and look at the ocean?" he asked her just after ten thirty.
"Sure," she said, blushing a little, her leg rubbing against his.
He led her out the back door, the one that led to the ocean side of the wraparound balcony. The lights had already been turned out and the ocean air was brisk. Jake immediately heard the sound of a harmonica being played from somewhere to his right. He turned in that direction just as Rachel let out a gasp and a startled "oh my Lord."