She allowed herself to fall back onto the king-sized bed and almost disappeared into the softness of it. Don't close your eyes or you'll fall asleep, she told herself. Get a shower and go to the party.
Although she was only twenty, she wasn't much of a party animal. She preferred sitting around a table with friends and talking. She heaved herself off the bed and walked to a door, behind which she assumed there was a bathroom. She was right, only it wasn't a bathroom as she knew them. This bathroom was more like a Roman bath house. There was black granite on all surfaces, a huge bath on lions’ feet, and a shower behind glass. It was the most enormous shower she'd ever seen. She was torn. Bath or shower? Shower. She'd fall asleep in a bath.
She got undressed and stood under the powerful jet of warm water. She took the shampoo and began to wash her hair. If Alina had known that at school she'd been most boys’ masturbation fantasy, she wouldn't have been quite so dissatisfied with her body. She liked her legs and thighs but hated her stomach. To her, it sagged and bulged in all the wrong places, and her breasts were too large. She was sick and tired of men staring at her chest when they should be looking at her face. She was reasonably satisfied with her behind, although she often looked at it in the mirror, searching for the tiniest evidence of cellulite. There was none, and her dissatisfaction with her stomach was ill-founded. Any boy who had ever seen it, and not many had, thought it was soft and seductively feminine.
Her room had everything. She'd brought her own hair dryer, but when she switched on the one in the room, she was almost blown away. It fanned her dark hair and dried it in no time. She had long hair. It swept down to the center of her back, in long shiny waves. She didn't wear much makeup. She didn't need much. Her skin was unblemished and fresh. She applied a little eye shadow and lip gloss.
Hell, it's all creased, she thought as she fished around in her bag for something to wear. The only thing that had escaped the baggage handler’s wrath was a tiny black circle skirt. She wondered if she dared appear in it. She had no choice, though. She added a black silk top with spaghetti straps and stood in front of the mirror. She was pleased she had; her nipples protruded through the material, making her look like a cheap hooker. She gave a whoop of frustration. Then it came to her: all the Regency British movies she'd seen, the butler with an iron in his hand. John was very obliging and in no time returned to her room with her knee-length skirt and a navy blouse, both impeccably pressed.
Feeling more comfortable in her conservative clothes, she went downstairs. Ryan had pointed to a door when he'd mentioned the party. She could hear music and decided to follow the sound. The door took her from the entrance hall into a huge living room. Although the house probably had been built in the 1920s, the room was contemporary in decoration. When she looked out the window, she found herself looking at the backyard. There was a large, well-manicured lawn with the kind of stripes her father always tried to get on his lawn but never did. At each side of the lawn were flower beds with a dazzling array of colorful foliage.
The French doors were open, and Alina stepped outside. It was then that she noticed the music was coming from a separate building across the lawn. When she was halfway across the turf, she heard the sound of water and screams.
“Hi. Welcome to one of my famous parties,” Ryan said. His white pants were gone, and he was wearing a pair of tight-fitting swimming shorts and no shirt. Obviously just out of the pool, his body was covered in tiny drops of water. Keep your eyes up, she told herself, painfully aware of the considerable bulge down below.
“Come on, let's get you a drink,” he said. The pool was large, as big as most municipal pools. It was housed in a building with an arched roof and glass doors that opened to the lawn.
“Are they...?” she exclaimed.
Ryan followed Alina's eyes. He laughed. “Yes, looks like it.” In one corner there were a number of sun beds covered in red leather mattresses. A couple was making love on one, both totally naked and in full view of everybody. The strange thing to Alina was that nobody seemed to care, or for that matter even looked. She, on the other hand, couldn't take her eyes away. The man, on top, was a so good looking, she instantly wanted to swap with the women whose moans were getting louder by the second.