“All true. But still. Can I go see him?”

“No.”

“It's very hard for me to be a good girlfriend to him, when you're always interfering,” Tate teased. Jameson glared at her.

“It must be even harder for you to be a good girlfriend to him when I'm the one who's always inside you,” he responded. She shrugged.

“What are you doing home?” she asked, cutting through the flirting. Or was it teasing? Bullying? It was all the same to her.

“It occured to me that maybe you would be uncomfortable here, all alone,” Jameson said.

“Sanders is here,” Tate reminded him. He rolled his eyes.

“Sometimes that's almost like one and the same. I only had one consultation this afternoon, so I rescheduled it and came home,” he explained.

“For me?” she asked. He nodded.

“For you.”

Sometimes he could almost be sweet. Sure, he was the devil incarnate, but in his own weird way, he would try to be sweet. She tried to encourage those moments, figured they would lure him into a false sense of security.

“That's very nice of you,” she said, reaching up and grabbing onto his hand. He frowned, but allowed her to link their fingers.

“I also had something else,” he went on.

Uh oh.

She let go of his hand.

“What?” she asked, instantly wary. He lowered himself so he was sitting on the lounger across from her.

“I have to go out of town,” Jameson started. Her breath caught in her throat. “Just to Los Angeles. I've been trying to sell off my piece of a film company, and it needs my personal attention. I'll be back in a couple days, five at the most.”

Los Angeles. L.A. didn't scare her, Tate didn't have any bad memories associated with that city. She had been nervous that he was going to say New York, or worse, Berlin. L.A. she could handle. It was actually a good thing. Ang hadn't been over to Jameson's house, but maybe now he could be convinced to come over if the devil wasn't home.

“Oh, that's it?” she feigned nonchalance. “That's fine. Are you taking Sandy?”

“I was planning on it, but I don't have to,” Jameson offered. She waved her hand.

“No, it's cool. I'll just bug him if we're here alone. When you're not here, it's basically me just following him around all day,” she laughed. Jameson didn't. He looked suspicious.

“I didn't think you would take this so well,” he told her. She managed to shrug.

“Why? You've been to L.A. before, remember? Maybe this time, instead of two women, you should try for a full on orgy,” she joked. Still no laughter.

“And I certainly didn't think you would be okay with that,” he added. Tate was surprised. Was he actually worried about how she would feel?

“Why wouldn't I be?” she asked.

“Well, last time I attempted to sleep with another woman, I had to pull you off of a certain slutty maid after -,” he started. She held up her hand.

“That was completely different. I don't care if you fuck other women, I just don't want to be a part of it. Besides, she was a bitch who didn't know her place. I was there first,” Tate said. He finally smiled.

“Staking a claim on me? Sexy. But I'm kind of disappointed, does this mean no threesomes in our future?” he asked, pouting his lower lip out. She resisted the urge to nibble on it.

“Sure, we can have a threesome,” she nodded as she laid back on the lounger, putting her hands under her head.

“Really?” he asked, his voice full of surprise. She nodded her head again.

“Of course. I've got, like, a dozen guys I can name, right now, that I would love to be in a threesome with you. I know you don't like Ang, but we've kind of had this long standing thing that if I was ever gonna try DP, he had to be one of the P's,” Tate explained. Jameson's foot hooked under her lounger and suddenly she was being shoved over. She rolled onto the grass, snorting and laughing.

“I find it disgusting right now that Angier and I have fucked the same person. I certainly don't ever want to be doing it at the same time as him,” Jameson said, standing up and straightening his suit.

“So you're saying there's a chance with another guy?” she asked, propping her knees up. She watched him as he sighed, then stared off into the horizon.

“If you were serious – which you aren't – I would do it. But only after I got to do every sick, deviant, fetish thing I could ever possibly want to do with you, first,” he told her.

“That could take years!” she laughed up at him.

“Yes, but my needs come first, Tate,” he reminded her, then turned and walked away.

~2~

Tatum wasn't sure if she'd ever actually been alone in Jameson's house before – she was pretty sure Sanders had always been there, at least. Without anyone there, it was big and drafty and kinda scary. She went to sleep in Jameson's bed, spooning his pillow. She felt like a baby.

She had worried about what to do for transportation, or how she would even get Ang out there, but it turned out Sanders and Jameson had been holding out on her. The Bentley wasn't the only car. There was a Jaguar S Type that never saw the light of day. Sanders preferred the Bentley, and Jameson hardly every drove himself. It was all hers, she was told. Tate decided not to point out that it would have made life a lot simpler, in the old days, if she'd had access to her own fucking car. Like, say, a certain night ... when she had wanted to leave ... but didn't have a ride ... so she drank herself retarded and stole a car anyway. Yeah. Not cute. One more point to the devil.