The black Bentagya SUV kicked up dust in the circular driveway. A coal-black security officer with a shaved head opened the door for a young woman in a beige business suit and Versace handbag.
Two eight-year-old girls in Coline t-shirts crouched at the side of a hedge, their hands over their eyes, barely daring to peek at the reality. Coline held out her hands. One girl rushed to embrace her, the other ran away.
A dark-haired woman in jeans and boots, a few years older than Coline, walked up and exchanged kisses. Veronica Vector had taken over from her mother as hostess a year ago.
Veronica pointed out people and buildings as the two-man security team carried Louis Vuitton bags to the guest house. She waved me over.
Nicole Landa was the real name (and anagram) of Coline, one of the world's best-selling singer-songwriters. It hardly seemed possible she had grown up downstairs from me in the two-story motel along the highway largely populated by the Vectors' workers and their families.
"Nicole, do you remember Miko?"
"Of course. What's it been, twelve years?"
"Fourteen."
She hugged me, loosely. I returned it, stiffly.
Lord have mercy, what a smile. Her teeth didn't used to gleam.
"Veronica says you've gotten new job responsibilities."
"Yeah, I'm working with the computers along with the cows. They don't always do what I say either, but there ain't one that's kicked me yet."
"You're too modest," Veronica said.
Some of the staff began approaching for introductions, but not selfies. Veronica had instructed us not to bother her too-photographed houseguest.
"I hope we have time to catch up later, Miko," Coline said. I didn't sense a lot of sincerity.
Coline's next tour date was in L.A. in two days, so she would probably only spend one night. Most likely she and Veronica would take the horses up to the hills.
They began walking toward the veranda for cocktails and dinner. Coline sauntered away, her sway augmented by three-inch heels that were starting to get coated in dust blown up by the afternoon westerlies.
Stanislaus, Veronica's husband, with longish hair and designer glasses, met them. The heavy front door closed with finality.
I took my truck back to the motel and played Call of Duty with ten-year old Luis, pretending to be excited as he completed another successful mission for Captain Price.
About 10:30, I got a surprise text. Veronica wanted me to come over.
Marta, the cook, had been dismissed. Since the cutbacks, there was no one to serve as dishwasher, so Veronica was finishing the cleanup.
"Nicole told me you guys were playmates. How did I not know that?"
"You were in college. We were the only two kids that age in the motel. We did homework stretched out on her old green carpet till we wore a hole in it."
"That must have been strange when all of a sudden she got famous."
"It was, but it didn't change anything. We stopped being friends two years before."
Like many agri-businesses, the Vector Company hired as many undocumented immigrants as it could get away with. My mother had been a waitress in their steakhouse, and Mrs. Vector also paid her to tutor English to the workers' Spanish-speaking children. Coline's mom was a maid from Czech Republic.
When I was fourteen, Mom got busted for prostitution and deported to Venezuela. Both she and the immigration judge wanted to put me on a plane to Caracas, and I got put in a detention center, but—long story--Mrs. V helped me get out and hide.
That was just about the time Coline took her stage name and made a demo of the tweener girl anthem that would become her first single to chart. After the heat died down and I snuck back, she wouldn't talk to me.
"She told me you guys were close till she moved away."
"Whatever."
She picked up two glossy folders from the counter. "Nicole is interested in possibly buying some real estate in the area for a retreat, and I told her I'd send you up with some brochures." The photos showed ugly new mini-mansions in the hills.
"You guys could catch up on old times...or maybe you could think of some other activities."
My jaw dropped. She licked her upper lip to confirm her meaning.
My mind held two opposing thoughts. One was that Coline obviously didn't care about me so I should just drop off the folders, make polite conversation, and leave. The other was that I'd been waiting for this chance most of my life.
Small gas lamps illuminated the paved stones as I walked to the guest house, a European fairy-tale cottage marooned in the desert.
The security men greeted me at the door, biceps bursting out of their black golf shirts that read "CL Entertainment Group."
"I'm here to show Miss Landa the real-estate brochures she requested."
"Are you carrying ID, mon?" the black guard said with a Jamaican accent. When the guards were confident my driver's license matched the name on their list, they passed a wand over my body, inspected my folders, and confiscated my no-name smart phone. He examined it as if he'd never seen that brand before.
"Sorry, mon, she's had bad experiences with visitors taking secret photos and selling them."
"No problem."
He handed me the same kind of light-up watch they gave out at her concerts for fans to wave and make a light show. "Go upstairs and wait in the hallway. When the watch buzzes, knock twice on the blue door, like this. Boom-BOOM!"
I cooled my heels on a plastic chair. The monitor played soundless videos from the Grammys.
After about twenty minutes, the watch buzzed and lit up frantically.
She opened the door tentatively, saw it was me, and undid the chain. The media sometimes described her as willowy, but barefoot, she was shorter than I remembered, which made sense since girls stopped growing before boys.
"Hi, Miko. It's been a long time."
"Fourteen years, Coline. Half our lives."
She had changed into comfortable jeans and a red top. Her shoulder-length, wavy hair was auburn, between her natural chestnut color and the platinum bombshell of her recent videos.
"You have something to show me?"
I handed her the folders. She thumbed through and laid them on the table.
"You know, I met some famous baseball player who looked like a grown-up version of how I remembered you, and now I see it's true. I don't follow sports and can't remember his name."
"Probably Jose Altuve. He's Venezuelan too. I'm a little taller, though."
"That's him. I was surprised to see you today. I figured you'd be like me and go to a city where there was more opportunity."
"Don't have any place to go. When I graduated high school, Mrs. V made me the houseboy. Then she had to cut back so I went out to be a ranch hand."
"How did you get started with the computers?"
"It took the foreman over an hour just do the spreadsheet for the cows' daily milk production, and nobody could install programs or troubleshoot the hardware. Mrs. V sent me to community college to learn IT and Excel and I took over. It's not a full-time job, so I still do some milking too."
"I'm so happy you're doing well...Would you like a drink? There's small-batch Tennessee whiskey."
"What are you having?"
"Just Pellegrino."
"Make it two."
She poured two glasses. The room became silent.
I was the Vectors' employee, not even a manager. She was a superstar whose recent breakup with an English EDM producer had made the front page of TMZ. And yet as a male I was expected to make the first move.
"I don't want to overstep, but Veronica indicated we could do some adult activities if you have any interest."
She stifled a laugh. "That's an overly polite way to put it. What do you suggest?"
"We could take a shower. I could give you a massage. I could kiss you down. I could give you genital stimulation, manual or oral or both. I can do BDSM stuff, either as a dom or a sub. About the only things I probably shouldn't do are kiss you on the lips and stick my cock in below your waist."
"Veronica keeps that for herself, huh? How do you want to get off?"
"It's not that important. You don't have to treat me like we're on a date."
Wrong thing to say.
"Are you only here because Veronica ordered you?"
"Of course not. I'm not a male prostitute."
"All right. I'll start by taking a massage and you can kiss me down. But you're right, it's too weird to kiss me on the lips."
I removed my V-monogrammed purple golf shirt and khaki shorts and slowly lowered my plaid boxers.
"Really?" she said.
No, she wasn't referring to the size of my cock. My surprise for partners was a prominent brand on the side of my left butt cheek—the flying V seen on the Vectors' front gate, work shirts, steak packages, and cattle.
She unbuttoned her blouse and took off her jeans. No brands or tattoos. She wore a black bra and matching silk panties displaying her personal symbol, a C with an upside-down semicolon, a dyslexic version of the "wink" emoji. The word Wrong! was displayed in graffiti-type lettering on the butt.
Wrong! had been her most controversial album, rough synth-pop that caricatured her image as a perfectionist who drove away flawed boyfriends and then shredded their egos with her lyrics.
"May I ask if you've had custom lingerie made for all your albums?"
"The last four. I was a virgin for the first two."
She spoke to Alexa. The album blasted from hidden speakers, starting with the sub-bass on the electropop opener, "Only Fools Trust Me." She slipped off her bra and panties and lay face down on the king-size bed. I started massaging her shoulders and back, stopping at her hips.
"Keep going."
She he had a long back, with well-formed lower dimples that compensated for not having as much butt as her female rivals at the top of the charts.
"Turn over?"
I started at her neck, inhaling her perfume, licking softly. I got to her breasts, a little smaller than average but nicely rounded. I outlined them with my tongue before reaching her areola, circling and biting lightly. I licked down past her navel before taking the plunge.
