Be My Guest

He placed his finger under my chin and closed my gaping mouth. “I paid and I want my bed and my breakfast,” he said calmly and started to walk around me towards the porch.

I grabbed his arm to stop him. “Oh no you don’t. You just take this money back,” I said trying to make him take the bills. “You are not staying here,” I said stamping my foot. He shook me off and kept walking. I followed him up the steps onto the porch where he stood waiting for me to unlock the front door. This was not going the way I had planned. He nodded towards the door and I threw my hands up in disgust.

“Ok. Ok. You want to stay. You can stay. But let me warn you buster, I have a deadbolt lock on my door and I keep a baseball bat by my bed.”

“And that would interest me why?”

“You are incorrigible!”

Once inside, I flipped on the hall light and threw my purse on the mahogany stand by the door. All I wanted to do was get to my room, lock the door and scream into my pillow. I hadn’t expected Jack’s next reaction at all.

“This is great,” he said. “It’s like stepping back in time. Is it all authentic woodwork?”

I was taken aback at his genuine interest and compliment. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

“It must have taken a lot of work to refinish that stairway. How about the chandelier, is it a copy?”

“No. It’s authentic. It’s been here since 1887.”

“Did you recreate this all yourself? It’s absolutely fabulous. I’ve been on movie sets that weren’t this good.”

I put my hands on my hips and looked at him questioningly. “Who are you and what have you done with Jack Shannon?”

“What?”

“Is this some kind of ploy to get on my good side?”

“Sweetheart, from where I stand, you don’t have a bad side.”

“Oh there you are. I should have known it was too good to last.”

“I genuinely like this place. Can I see the rest? I promise to behave.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you’re a man of your word?”

“Trust me.”

“Oh, like that will ever happen. Men like you are not to be trusted.”

“Men like me? You mean actors, directors or producers? I do all three.”

“I mean, men like you who think all women are after them because they’re some kind of big-time celebrity or something. Men who think that every woman is just dying to end up a notch on some bedpost so they can have something to talk about to other lonely women.”

“Are you lonely?”

“No! I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about you, thinking, assuming that I was interested in you because of who you are and making advances to me all night at my restaurant.”

“I did no such thing,” he denied innocently. “You came on to me. And I must say I was very flattered.”

“I never…..”

“Didn’t you say that you weren’t going to wash your hand after I kissed it?”

I started to respond, but he wagged his finger at me haltingly. “And weren’t you the one who went out of her way at the restaurant to serve my drink last, as you leaned in and whispered in my ear, not to mention that you were keeping track of how many times I referred to you as lovely, which you are by the way.”

I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. “And correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you the one who, while dancing with me provocatively, suggested that you slept with men for money? While, I might add, you hinted that I might enjoy a night here? If that’s not coming on to me or assuming that I wanted to sleep with you, then …I don’t know what is. What was I supposed to think? Would you show me the rest of the house now? I’d really like to see it.”

“The only thing I am going to show you,” I said through clenched teeth, “is your bedroom, where I may just tie you to the bed for safekeeping!”

“Whatever turns you on.”

“OOOHH,” was all I could manage. I turned and stomped up the stairs with Jack close behind. I decided to put him in the blue room because it was farthest from my private quarters. I did have a deadbolt lock on the door that divided the guest quarters from my private rooms, but there was no baseball bat. There were plenty of creaking floorboards in a house this old. I was confident that I could at least hear him coming, should he get any ideas. He had me so flustered that I probably wouldn’t sleep anyway. I seemed to remember him playing a cat burglar in one of his movies and I wondered if he had really learned how to pick a lock.

“This is your room.” I opened the door and flicked on the light. “There is a private bath and a robe hanging in the closet, should you need one. Breakfast is at eight and then you can be on your merry way.” He tossed his bag on the floor and we stood in the doorway. There was no way I was setting one foot inside that room with him. I was beginning to wonder whom I trusted less, him or me. He almost had me convinced that on some level I had been coming on to him. Even if it had been awhile since I had any male companionship, I was not that lonely or desperate.

“No ropes? No handcuffs? No goodnight kiss?”

I leaned back against the doorway and shook my head in frustration. “Jack, can’t we just say goodnight and stop this? I’m tired, my feet hurt and I just want to go to bed. I mean sleep.”

I had to be so careful in choosing my words around him.

He positioned himself against the doorway with one arm extended, his body leaning over mine.

“Hard day, huh?”

“You haven’t exactly made it easy.”

“Well, let me make it better right now,” he offered. With that he took me in his arms, gave me one long kiss full on the mouth, pushed me out the door, closed it and turned the lock.

I stood motionless in the hallway, staring blankly at the closed door. What had just happened here?