asks, grinning, and then pulls me even closer.
He’s strong. Solid.
Nothing to worry about at all.
You hear that?
CHAPTER 10
So Castillo Finisterre, being the most awesome place on the planet, has this amazing spa. The website lists all sorts of crazy stuff they can slather you in, rub you with, and strip you of. I’m talking an entire catalog of muds, oils, lotions, potions, and I don’t even know what else—tantric lava rocks and wax infused with emerald dust and the blood of virgins, probably. Serious rich-person voodoo shit. I’m not describing it well—I don’t exactly speak fluent
spa
—but the bottom line is that they appear to be pretty damn proficient at turning you into something poreless, hairless, and tension-free. A pampered, wild-verbena-scented invertebrate. Again, that might not sound so appealing—there’s a reason no one’s hiring me to write advertising copy for luxury resorts. But believe me when I say that I mean this all in the best possible way. It’s like platinum-card witchcraft or something—you look at the website and you
want
to be slathered in their moon-harvested Arctic lake mud; all of a sudden you
need
one of their goddamn green-tea and Jurassic-algae wraps before your parched and unexfoliated flesh shrivels up and suffocates you in a permanent skin sarcophagus.
Anyway, one of the pictures shows a couple getting a side-by-side massage. They’re lying on their stomachs on tables a few inches apart in a room with floor-to-ceiling windows showing the end-of-the-world views the place is famous for, all ice and water and crisp utopian nothingness. They’re stripped naked to the waist, and tended to by dark-haired women in pristine white uniforms, and their heads are turned so they’re facing each other, staring into one another’s eyes with expressions so blissed-out and tenderized that they almost look drugged.
Here, this morning, Charlotte and I are also half naked and lying side by side on tables, but other than that, everything else is pretty much the exact opposite of the image from the website.
We’re lying on our backs, for starters, and unlike the blissfully invertebrate spa couple, we’re undressed from the waist
down.
The stirrups are cold against my ankles, my own fault for not keeping my socks on, and instead of ocean-kissed sunlight prism-ing in through bay windows, the fluorescent lights flickering overhead are so bright they’re making my eyes water.
Not that I’m complaining, since today’s first gig is an easy one: medical modeling. We’re pretend patients for doctors and nurses in training. If I had a business card, it would read:
Because sometimes a cadaver just won’t do.
Occasionally it’s fun—you get to follow a script, moaning and weeping about fictitious symptoms until the flustered students come up with the right diagnosis. I am particularly good at feigning migraines—I can even work myself up to a fluttering little eye tic on command.
For today’s assignment we’re little more than spread-eagled mannequins, though—unspeaking orifices (orifii?) for rent—and right now six medical students are staring wide-eyed at my cervix. Today’s class: Gynecological Exams for Dummies.
It’s a welcome breather, actually, since the schedule Charlotte created has otherwise been skewing heavily toward the testing of ingestibles and injectables, some of which are doing quite a number on my digestive system.
I said yes to the plan. Of course I did. We all knew I would, right?
Dylan’s ribs clinched the deal. That, and seeing him round a corner in the hospital at a time of day when he should have been in AP Chemistry. He was with his mom and I didn’t want to make a scene, so I ducked into a restroom and locked myself in a stall until I was sure they were long gone. While I was in there, I tallied up the clues: long periods of not returning calls, conflicting stories about his whereabouts, an ever-changing patchwork of bruises shifting across
He’s strong. Solid.
Nothing to worry about at all.
You hear that?
CHAPTER 10
So Castillo Finisterre, being the most awesome place on the planet, has this amazing spa. The website lists all sorts of crazy stuff they can slather you in, rub you with, and strip you of. I’m talking an entire catalog of muds, oils, lotions, potions, and I don’t even know what else—tantric lava rocks and wax infused with emerald dust and the blood of virgins, probably. Serious rich-person voodoo shit. I’m not describing it well—I don’t exactly speak fluent
spa
—but the bottom line is that they appear to be pretty damn proficient at turning you into something poreless, hairless, and tension-free. A pampered, wild-verbena-scented invertebrate. Again, that might not sound so appealing—there’s a reason no one’s hiring me to write advertising copy for luxury resorts. But believe me when I say that I mean this all in the best possible way. It’s like platinum-card witchcraft or something—you look at the website and you
want
to be slathered in their moon-harvested Arctic lake mud; all of a sudden you
need
one of their goddamn green-tea and Jurassic-algae wraps before your parched and unexfoliated flesh shrivels up and suffocates you in a permanent skin sarcophagus.
Anyway, one of the pictures shows a couple getting a side-by-side massage. They’re lying on their stomachs on tables a few inches apart in a room with floor-to-ceiling windows showing the end-of-the-world views the place is famous for, all ice and water and crisp utopian nothingness. They’re stripped naked to the waist, and tended to by dark-haired women in pristine white uniforms, and their heads are turned so they’re facing each other, staring into one another’s eyes with expressions so blissed-out and tenderized that they almost look drugged.
Here, this morning, Charlotte and I are also half naked and lying side by side on tables, but other than that, everything else is pretty much the exact opposite of the image from the website.
We’re lying on our backs, for starters, and unlike the blissfully invertebrate spa couple, we’re undressed from the waist
down.
The stirrups are cold against my ankles, my own fault for not keeping my socks on, and instead of ocean-kissed sunlight prism-ing in through bay windows, the fluorescent lights flickering overhead are so bright they’re making my eyes water.
Not that I’m complaining, since today’s first gig is an easy one: medical modeling. We’re pretend patients for doctors and nurses in training. If I had a business card, it would read:
Because sometimes a cadaver just won’t do.
Occasionally it’s fun—you get to follow a script, moaning and weeping about fictitious symptoms until the flustered students come up with the right diagnosis. I am particularly good at feigning migraines—I can even work myself up to a fluttering little eye tic on command.
For today’s assignment we’re little more than spread-eagled mannequins, though—unspeaking orifices (orifii?) for rent—and right now six medical students are staring wide-eyed at my cervix. Today’s class: Gynecological Exams for Dummies.
It’s a welcome breather, actually, since the schedule Charlotte created has otherwise been skewing heavily toward the testing of ingestibles and injectables, some of which are doing quite a number on my digestive system.
I said yes to the plan. Of course I did. We all knew I would, right?
Dylan’s ribs clinched the deal. That, and seeing him round a corner in the hospital at a time of day when he should have been in AP Chemistry. He was with his mom and I didn’t want to make a scene, so I ducked into a restroom and locked myself in a stall until I was sure they were long gone. While I was in there, I tallied up the clues: long periods of not returning calls, conflicting stories about his whereabouts, an ever-changing patchwork of bruises shifting across
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