Jackie Collins - The Power Trip

Before long there was a new hot show in town. The Ashley and Jeromy Show, interior designers to the stars. Both with famous partners. Both with endless ambition.

It had started out as a winning combination. Lately, things were not so good.

‘I’ve got somethin’ to show you,’ Taye said, waving a large cream envelope in the air.

‘What?’ Ashley asked, moving away from the mirror and drifting into the bedroom.

‘Wouldn’t you like t’know,’ Taye said, following her.

Taye enjoyed teasing his wife — it gave him a feeling of power. And he was holding power in his hand, for in the envelope with the embossed gold border and exquisite calligraphy was an invitation that, if he knew his wife, would positively make her come!

‘Don’t mess about,’ Ashley said, still slightly irritated.

‘Give us a kiss, then,’ Taye said, putting his arms around her from behind.

‘Not now,’ she said, wriggling out of his grasp.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Taye complained. ‘The kids are at me mum’s. Nobody’s around. It’s the perfect time.’

‘No, it’s not,’ Ashley argued. ‘We’re about to go out to dinner, and I don’t want to ruin my makeup or my hair.’

‘I’ll make it a quickie,’ Taye promised.

‘Don’t be disgusting,’ Ashley responded. ‘If we’re going to do it, then we should do it in our bed like normal people.’

Taye shook his head. Sometimes Ashley acted like a total prude. Normal people! What was that all about? Made her sound like her racist mother whom he barely tolerated.

‘I suppose a blow-job’s out the question then?’ he ventured, edging closer.

Ashley’s look of disapproval informed him that indeed it was.

Whatever had happened to the girl he’d married? Free and easy, up for all kinds of sexual adventures. They’d had sex here, there and everywhere. Now he had to practically plead to get any sex at all. It wasn’t right. He still loved her, though. She was his wife and nothing would ever change that.

‘Later?’ he asked hopefully.

‘We’ll see,’ she said. ‘Now go get changed — and hurry up. We’re meeting Jeromy. He’s off to Miami tomorrow and we can’t be late. You know how punctual he always is.’

‘Jeromy’s such a borin’ wanker. Do we have to go?’

‘Yes, Taye. In case you’ve forgotten, I work with him, so stop moaning and go and get ready.’

‘Okay, okay.’

Since she appeared to have forgotten about the envelope, Taye decided not to show it to her until they came home. He knew it would put her in an excellent mood — that, and a couple glasses of wine, and he’d have no trouble getting a piece of what was rightfully his.

Yes, Taye knew how to handle his wife.

Carefully .

That was the secret.

Dateline: Paris

There was never enough time in the day for Flynn Hudson to achieve all the things he wished to accomplish. As a respected, somewhat maverick, freelance journalist and writer, he was always on the move, travelling wherever the latest disaster took him. Over the last year alone he’d been in Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Japan and Afghanistan. He’d covered tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, wars.

Flynn was always front and centre of the action, reporting on events, government corruption, human rights. He was an activist who answered to no one except himself, with a website that had almost a million followers, for when Flynn wrote one of his essays, his faithful readers knew they were getting the real deal, not the fake bullshit that most news stations fed the gullible public.

Yet Flynn preferred to keep a low profile. He turned down TV interview requests and avoided being photographed, while home was a small apartment in Paris, where he lived alone.

He did have girlfriends. Several. Although none of them had ever gotten close.

Flynn Hudson was a loner. That was the way he liked it.

Born in England thirty-six years ago to an American mother and British father, he’d been educated across the world as his father was a diplomat. They’d travelled extensively, until at the age of twelve his parents were killed by a terrorist car bomb in Beirut. Miraculously he’d survived the tragedy, and he had the scars to prove it.

After the death of his parents he’d led a double life — spending half his time with his American grandparents in California, and the other half with his British kin who resided in the English countryside. He didn’t mind flying back and forth; it was an adventure.

After attending a university in the UK for a year, he’d switched to UCLA in L.A., before dropping out when he was twenty-one and setting out to roam the world.

He backpacked across Asia, mountain-climbed in Nepal, learned martial arts in China, joined the crew of a fishing vessel in Marseilles, worked as a bodyguard for a Columbian billionaire who turned out to be a drug lord, until finally at the age of twenty-five, he’d sat himself down and written a successful book about his travels.

Flynn could have been a media star, he was certainly handsome enough. Six feet two, strong and athletic, with longish dark hair, intense ice-blue eyes and a permanent stubble on his sharp jawline.

Women loved Flynn. And he loved them back, as long as they expected nothing permanent.

Once upon a time he’d made a lifetime commitment. It hadn’t turned out the way he’d expected. No more commitments for Flynn. He was done.

As an alpha male he respected women, enjoyed their company on a short-term basis, and never tried to control them. He wanted what was best for them, especially women in third-world countries who had to fight every day for their very survival. He helped out when he could, writing about the places he went to, exposing corruption, using whatever resources he could get his hands on to assist the not-so fortunate.

Money had one meaning to Flynn, and that was helping others.

The girl crawled on top of Flynn like a particularly energetic spider-monkey, all long gangly legs and arms, small breasts, cropped hair and enormous khol-outlined eyes. He thought her name was Marta, he wasn’t sure. Sometimes he felt he wasn’t sure of anything any more, not after some of the atrocities he’d witnessed. He’d recently returned from Afghanistan, where he’d watched a photographer colleague get caught in the crossfire between border guards and a car carrying two suicide bombers. The guy had had his head blown off — literally — by getting too close to the bombers simply to catch the best shot.

The image of the car blowing up was embedded in Flynn’s mind, and the headless body of his friend lying in the mud. It was a photograph he couldn’t erase.

After returning to Paris, he, who didn’t drink much, had gotten hopelessly drunk two nights in a row. Marta, or whatever her name was, happened on night two, and he wished he’d never picked her up and brought her home.

After reaching an unsatisfactory orgasm he managed to slide her off him.

‘ Comment c’est fini? ’ she said indignantly.

‘Not tonight,’ he mumbled. ‘Go home.’

So she did. Reluctantly.

In the morning, nursing a massive hangover, he discovered she’d taken his wallet with her.

No more drinking.

No more random sex.

It was his own fault, he should’ve known better.

Lately, things were getting on top of him. His recent visit to China, where in some places it was deemed acceptable to drown baby girls at birth. Another trip to Bosnia, attempting to give aid to women who’d been raped. And then to Pakistan, to write a story for the New York Times about an American citizen who’d been drugged by a prostitute and had one of his kidneys cut out and stolen.