The afternoon of their last day on the lake, Star and Jimi pulled into one of the lakeside gas stations to fill up as they’d done often enough before. But this time would be different.
During the day the station was run by a lone jockey, Earl, who pumped gas and took money. Business was slow enough that he could usually manage on his own. Besides, it wasn’t as if a boat could get very far if a customer decided not to pay. The atmosphere at the gas station was as informal as Earl’s uniform. Twentysomething, with shaggy sun-bleached hair and a permanently peeling nose, Earl had long ago torn the sleeves off the light blue attendant’s shirt embroidered with his name, which he wore with cut-offs and beat-up sneakers with no socks. Earl had clearly been checking Star out on previous visits, so when she emerged completely naked and strolled over to say hello, she and Jimi knew they had a captive audience.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
Earl stood frozen to the spot. It was Miss March. And she was talking to him.
“Uh, fine,” he answered, his voice cracking.
“Kinda hot today for all those clothes,” Star said, running her hand inside his loosely buttoned shirt.
“Yep,” Earl said, not talking about the weather.
“What time do you get off?” Star asked suggestively, her hand sliding slowly down toward his waistband. “Wanna go for a ride?”
“What about your husband?”
“I’m pretty hot too,” Jimi said, stepping up behind Star and trailing his fingers up her naked body.
“So, you coming?” Star asked Earl again. “I bet I can cool you both off.”
“I get off at sundown,” Earl managed to say at last.
“Tonight sundown is just the beginning,” Star said, withdrawing her hand and slipping it through Jimi’s fingers.
“We’ll be back to pick you up,” Jimi said, paying Earl for the gas.
“You sure you want to do this?” Star asked Jimi as they watch the gas dock recede, Earl staring after them in amazement. They’d talked about it before. Since they were leaving the next day, and Earl was cute and would be oh-so-grateful, they figured it was a good time to try.
“It’ll be so hot watching you get off,” Jimi said, chewing on her ear.
Just the idea got Jimi going. They didn’t want to wait until they returned later for Earl, so they let the boat drift as they made love all afternoon. But the idea of a third was hot enough to have them both going again that evening when they picked him up.
“Hi,” Star called, as Jimi navigated the boat expertly up to the dock.
“Hi,” Earl said, hopping aboard without tying the boat off. “You need gas?”
“We’re good to go,” Jimi called down, pulling the boat away from the dock.
“Why don’t you slip this off,” Star suggested, flicking Earl’s collar. She and Jimi were already naked.
Earl was clearly uncomfortable, but not so much that he’d miss out on an opportunity to have a woman like Star—and with her husband’s encouragement. He shucked his shorts and kicked off his shoes as Star tugged him toward one of the padded benches that surrounded the rear deck.
Taking a seat, Star pulled Earl over to her. He gently kissed her lips and then, with Miss March guiding his head, dropped his lips lower to kiss and suckle her breasts. Jimi watched as he brought the boat into a secluded cove that he had picked for their little ménage. A bit off the beaten path, it afforded a little extra privacy on the vast lake.
By the time Jimi came downstairs, the video camera loaded and in hand, Star was nursing at Earl’s hard cock, tickling his balls with her long nails.
“Ah,” Earl cried out, his head and upper body jerking forward each time she hit a nerve, which was pretty often.
Jimi stroked himself and shouted encouragement as he filmed.
But as Star fitted Earl with a condom and pulled him on top of her to guide him inside, something in Jimi shifted. No longer was it a hot and erotic scene. It was someone getting ready to fuck his wife.
“No,” Jimi said, setting the camera aside and moving toward them. “I don’t think so.”
And before he could slide into home, Earl was thrown out, his clothes and shoes tumbling after him into the shallow water of the cove. He was treated to the sound of their laughter and the fumes of the boat’s engine as they powered away, leaving him naked and treading water a long way from anyone.
As with all good things, the trip to Lake Havasu came to an end. It was time to return to their lives and to the obligations of the world. Star had promised the Hy Voltz people an answer on the script she was supposed to be reading, and on the trip home she actually read the script, or what there was of it. It was really just an overgrown version of what Star had come to understand was called a treatment. Kind of like someone was just telling the idea for the story with a few scenes written out to give the impression.
But the idea was irresistible, and both she and Jimi took to it as she read it to him in the car. It had started as a project that they were in together. His enthusiasm and confidence that she could play the part had been the main reason she’d said yes in the first place. He had even sat with her when she’d made the decision to get the tattoo of cable around her upper arm.
It was something new to do together. They had been virtually inseparable since that night they’d gone to Madre de la Perla in Cabo. In that moment on that May morning, Star stood on the prow of that yacht rolling into the harbor at Cannes like a tsunami engulfing everything in her path.
The good news was that, due to Star’s overwhelming reception at Cannes, Hy Voltz was the most hotly anticipated film of the year. The bad news was that, due to Star’s overwhelming reception at Cannes, Hy Voltz was the most hotly anticipated film of the year.
Star’s little summer movie project was rapidly turning into a big-budget action-adventure film, and the quirky little script was being turned into a formula-one, high-performance blockbuster. The original director had been replaced by someone with big-budget-movie credits. So, an untried Star and an untried studio were rushing to supersize the production, trying to keep their original production date so that Star could resume shooting her two television series in the fall.
As preproduction hurtled toward the commencement of principal photography, the only thing higher than the expectations was the tension.
And so it was fortuitous that Theresa had called with her “bad” news.
She and Star had spoken since Cabo and the wedding, but they were taking their time warming back up to each other after a few sharp words over the trip and the wedding and Jimi. Star had wanted to pick up the phone so often, just to vent about some crazy day or other on the Hy -way, as she and Jimi had taken to calling it, so, when the call came, Star was glad to hear from her best friend.
“Hello, Star?” Theresa said, her greeting almost a plea.
“Theresa!” Star trumpeted. “Hi! How great. What’s up, you sound a little stressed!”
“He fired me! Can you believe that?”
“What?”
“Mother fired me,” Theresa said, breaking down again for the umpteenth time since she’d gotten home from her former job at Mother Pearl’s. Despite the name on the door, the place belonged to Bernie Weintraub, whom everyone called Mother.
Theresa had paced, cried, eaten all the sweets in the house, and, when that had failed, remembered what she’d done in every crisis since Eddie Greenleaf had kissed her behind the equipment shed in third grade. She called Star.
“I can’t believe it,” Star said, sitting heavily on the lowest step on the main staircase at the Malibu house. “What happened? Did you two fight?”
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