Chapter Nine

 

 

 

The glitz and glam of an exclusive exhibition at the Hendricks Gallery intimidated Kelly only for the few seconds it took her to ensconce herself in front of the first sculpture, called simply ‘Horse and Rider’. After that, it no longer mattered that several US senators, two daytime TV gurus, a couple of movie stars, Portland and Seattle’s wealthiest and everyone who was anyone in the art community was at the exhibition. They were all background noise. She had half a dozen coffee-table books full of photos of Alexander Valentine’s sculptures and, unlike most coffee-table books, they were dog-eared and ratty-looking from use. She couldn’t count the number of times the mysterious sculptor’s work had inspired her writing. In fact, Tom Angleton, the main character of her latest work in progress, was an artist patterned after her fantasies of what Alexander Valentine must be like. Of course, for all she knew, he might be a surly prick. But the fact that he stayed completely out of public view and that no one knew where he lived or where his studio was made the man all the more intriguing. That he had donated so much of his work for an auction to benefit the much-needed women and children’s hospital surely said a lot about the man. And it didn’t hurt that when he’d found out his work was being shown for only one night and only to the rich and entitled, he’d thrown a fit, placed a very strongly-worded editorial in The Oregonian about art being for everyone, and forced Hendricks Gallery to open its doors for two weeks following the auction for people to view the work for free with an opportunity to donate to the cause as they saw fit.

Of course, if she wasn’t convinced that the man was somewhere between a god and a saint before, she certainly was after the tickets arrived. They were delivered by a dapper courier, who stood at attention as though he were awaiting a military inspection. Then there was the note. It was handwritten on embossed stationary from the desk of Alexander Valentine.

 

Dear Ms. Blake,

Please accept these tickets to my exhibition at the Hendricks Gallery as a token of my esteem and respect from one artist to another.

Lex

 

Lex! That was how he had signed it. Who knew that his friends called him Lex? She would have figured Al, Alex, Zander, but Lex. She liked it. It was different. She liked it especially because he’d felt her enough of a comrade in creativity to refer to himself as such.

 

Dear Mr. Valentine,

 

She couldn’t bring herself to call him Lex, and after all, he had offered her the politeness of allowing for her professionalism.

 

I’m deeply touched by your kind consideration. As one artist to another, I thank you for your unexpected and welcome esteem. As a squeeing fan girl, however, I jump up and down and squeal ‘thank you’ for the tickets. And from both the fellow artist and the fan girl, thank you for your work, which inspires me daily.

Kelly

 

She’d always fancied that, though she’d never actually met the man, she somehow knew him through his work, and the magically appearing tickets made that sense of connection feel even deeper. The thing that she loved most about his work was that all of it, every piece, practically begged to be touched—to be fondled, even. She stood in front of the ‘Horse and Rider’ that greeted guests in the grand foyer of the Hendricks Gallery. It was well placed, she thought. The horse’s withers practically quivered to be stroked, as did the tight calf muscles of the woman riding it. There was a declaration of unspoken oneness between the saddleless, bridelless horse and the rider who grasped him between her muscular thighs as though he were somehow a part of her. The look on both of their faces was wild ecstasy that made Kelly think of sex, but something more than sex. It made her think of a connection that brought horse and rider into the realm of the other, realms in which neither would belong without the consent and the aid of the other. As she contemplated the sensuality of the sculpture, she found herself thinking about Alex Valens. She wondered if he were able to physically connect with animals. Perhaps if Alex might find healing aboard the broad back of a spirited horse or in stroking the sleek, warm fur of a sleeping cat. In her mind’s eye, she couldn’t keep from having that discussion with him, couldn’t keep from imagining what it would be like to share the exhibition with him, to be able to bring him here alone, to have the whole gallery to themselves, so that he would feel safe, so that he would be completely at his ease. She couldn’t keep herself from fantasizing about what it would be like to share something with him so sensual that the stone itself almost lived and breathed. It was easy for her to imagine Alex Valens touching, stroking, caressing, while she watched him and imagined that it was her he was touching.

Her stomach bottomed as she thought of that night, of walking out while he slept, of desperately wanting to touch him in his sleep, steal a moment of flesh on flesh, to know what he felt like. The worst part of it all was that she had ruined it, had ruined any hope they might have had for… For what? He was her client. She was his tutor. It was her job to facilitate healing, to help people become more comfortable with their own sexuality, and she’d blown it so badly it hurt to even remember. But then again, she could never really be sure if the pain she felt below her breastbone was from feeling sorry that she’d done what she’d done or feeling sorry she hadn’t done more. At any rate, it was a moot point now, wasn’t it? She had cancelled their next meeting and said she couldn’t see him anymore. He had sent back a stiff, formal and very vague apology. And that had been that. In the time that had passed, every day when she asked Myrna for her messages, she hoped against hope that Alex Valens’ PA would have asked again if maybe they could try one more time. And she would have said yes, if he had. Even though she was pretty sure she shouldn’t. But in the end, she’d done the right thing and it was better this way. It really was.

“You are not going to believe this in a million years.” Myrna grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away from the Horse and Rider as one of the Hendricks artists in residence began to give a running commentary on the sculpture for several couples clustered around her.

“What?” she asked. Half listening to the biography of Alexander Valentine the artist was sharing, Kelly wondered how much of it was fact and how much of it was conjecture, considering that no one actually knew much about him other than that his work was genius.

“He’s actually going to be here.”

“Who’s going to be here?”

“Him!” She nodded to the sculpture. “I just talked to Terry and he says Alexander Valentine has shocked everyone by, just out of the clear blue, deciding to make an appearance. Can you believe it? We’re actually going to meet the man in person, maybe even get a chance to talk to him and shake his hand.” She fanned herself with the program. “Oh, honey, I’m so glad we went shopping. If I never get to wear this dress again, at least I’ll have fond memories of the night I met Alexander Valentine looking like a million bucks.” It was true, the woman looked like a porcelain doll in the antique peach number that could have come straight from a party in Downton Abbey. For a moment, Kelly was glad that she’d had her friend to help her pick out the deep red dress that she would have completely ignored if Myrna hadn’t insisted she try it on. She didn’t shop, in fact she hated shopping, but this was Alexander Valentine, and though, for all she knew, he could be old and fat and bald, any genius who could create such moving work deserved high homage from a fan girl in a red dress.

 

* * * *

 

“Look, Lex, it’s okay if you change your mind. It’s not too late. I can make your excuses and, I promise, I won’t let the lovely Ms. Blake off the premises before I speak to her.”

Lex came out of the bathroom a little unsteady on his feet and dropped onto the loveseat next to the picture window. “I just went in there for a piss, Dil, not to puke. Do you mind?”

Dillon had commandeered the director’s office for the evening, and she’d been only too happy to give it over when she’d found out Alexander Valentine was going to make an appearance. He’d hired a team of six bodyguards dressed like guests to surround Lex’s person without getting too close. He’d stacked the decks with people who knew the situation working on the wait staff, on the gallery’s security staff, even the maintenance staff, and everyone who worked there from the director down to the lowliest janitor had been warned on pain of death not to touch Alexander Valentine. No! Matter! What! He’d even wrangled Lex’s personal physician into being there just in case. Jesus, he hoped it didn’t come to that, but it was a base he had to cover—certainly one Lex wouldn’t be happy about. He’d made sure there was a getaway car waiting at every possible exit. He’d equipped himself with every kind of sedative and calmative he thought he might get down Lex’s throat in case of an emergency, though usually Lex couldn’t swallow anything in his attacks, and he refused to take anything before. He was reassured that the doctor would be equipped with needles and injections and more immediate solutions to any possible incidents. Dillon had even tucked a couple of airsick bags away in the inside pocket of his jacket. He honestly didn’t know what else he could do. Fuck, this was such a bad, bad idea, and yet here they were. Here they fucking were!

So far, Lex had managed to keep his dinner down, what little of it Cookie had cajoled him to eat and, though he had the complexion of cottage cheese at the moment, he wasn’t hyperventilating and he wasn’t throwing up. He was calm and focused.

“Is she there?” he asked, keeping his gaze on the few notes he’d written down for the little welcome the director had asked him to give. He didn’t mind speaking in front of people, he said, though Dillon didn’t know how he’d know that when he’d never done it before.

“Oh, she’s there, all right. She’s wearing a heart’s blood red dress, and when she stands next to the white marble of your sculptures, well let’s just say she’s breathtaking. And Lex, the woman is totally—I mean totally—focused on your work.”

“Heart’s blood.” A blush crawled up Lex’s cheeks, lending some much-needed color. “I like that.”

“She’s very excited that you’re going to be there.”

“She might change her mind when she sees me,” he said. “Especially if I throw up on her shoes.”

“Well, just don’t throw up on her dress, because it really is stunning.”

The two men sat in silence for a moment, and though Lex pretended to be focused on his notes, Dillon knew that he wasn’t. Dillon knew that he was focused on getting through this night so he could get to Kelly Blake. What the fuck had the woman done to make the man go all love-sick stalker, to make him willing to do what had to be the most terrifying thing imaginable for a person who was as haphephobic as Lex was?

Dillon had been able to get no details from the man, only that he kept saying it was all his fault. Since then, there had been lots of brooding and solitude, even more than usual, and not much sleep, even less than usual. Dillon had offered to go and speak with Ms. Blake in person, but Lex had absolutely forbidden it, and he had forbidden any of the rest of his staff to talk to her either, as if Dillon might involve V or Cookie or Duncan the gardener in his plans to get to the bottom of the situation. As it turned out, the very informative call from Andy about Ms. Blake’s love of Alexander Valentine’s sculpture and her desire to see the exhibition of his work had made an all-out intervention unnecessary. Though, as he sat there looking at Lex’s chalk-pale face, his tux pockets stuffed with airsick bags and the troops standing by, he wondered if an intervention might have been easier. They were definitely in uncharted waters where Kelly Blake was concerned. Dillon didn’t know whether to be encouraged or to start researching psychologists just in case things went south.

“Lex, you do realize that once you’ve done this, you’ve crossed the Rubicon. There’ll be no turning back. The place is crawling with press and paparazzi and your face, which has remained secret up until now, will be splashed all over the media.”

Lex only nodded and wiped sweaty palms on his trousers.

“It’s not too late to back out, you know?”

“I know.” His voice was little more than a whisper. “I know, but I’m not backing out. Not this time.” He returned his attention to his notecards, his hands trembling just slightly.

There was a soft knock on the door and the director stuck her head in. “Mr. Valentine, everything is set up. We’re ready for you.” She offered a reassuring smile and stepped aside as Lex came to his feet with way more confidence and aplomb than Dillon knew he felt. But that was okay, as long as Dillon was the only one who knew. He gave his friend a nod and a smile and said a silent prayer to every god he could think of who might have something to do with getting a clinically haphephobic man through a night in a crowded gallery with several hundred fans who would love nothing more than to shake his hand or rub up against him. And all of this he did in hopes of talking to a woman.