It was chaos. It was always chaos. The house was crawling with photographers, reporters and the usual pathetic tag alongs that came with the Stella Rose fame whoring tactics. McKenzie watched with a turned up lip from the sofa in the living room through wide open double doors. Stella hated that living room. Why? Because it looked like a normal living room. Well, it looked like a normal living room if the person who owned it was an aging movie star. It had a TV, and board games on the coffee table. That alone made Stella object. Stella Rose, who had a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. Stella Rose, who got standing ovations at Cannes. Stella Rose, who had been through five husbands, three nervous breakdowns and more plastic surgeries than anyone could count. Stella Rose, who spoke with a weird pseudo British accent even though she was really Estelle Markowitz from The Bronx. Stella who posed naked for Peta and had a closet full of fur coats.
--- I don't allow the children to watch television. Such frippery rots the brain.--- Stella had said in a Vanity Fair interview, which wasn't at all true.
In fact, just the opposite. Bad American TV had been a full time nanny to every kid Stella had adopted. Stella Rose had no time in real life for the poor lost souls she had rescued. Only in her fantasy public life did Stella Rose make a perfect, compassionate mother.
MacKenzie was past all that. At nineteen, she was past all of Stella's craziness, but she still lived in the house, because as rich as Stella was, the woman hated parting with a penny and would not help McKenzie get an apartment of her own. The truth was, she relied on McKenzie so much that she couldn't let her go. It was McKenzie who mixed her drinks, fetched her prescriptions, reluctantly stroked her ego when she had fits of rage at whatever hairdresser had cut her trademark blond bob a little too short. Stella had a wicked temper, and if McKenzie wasn't around to soothe the brunt of it, then the younger kids would be the targets. There were seven adoptees altogether and last year McKenzie had talked Stella into putting them all into fancy boarding schools, except one, the youngest, Sevigne, a nine year old from Zaire who would be old enough for Tottington School in London next year. McKenzie had plans to send the poor kid there. It was better than here with Stella.
McKenzie was on Stella's shit list lately. A reporter had overheard McKenzie talking to a friend and saying that Stella adopted a kid in every color so she would always have a child to match her shoes. That comment was a verbal shot heard round the world, and since then, McKenzie had been trying to keep a good distance from Stella. McKenzie spent most of her time anywhere but the house. She had moved into the pool house a month ago (Stella had not noticed.) and had taken to parking her car in the East gate garage so that Stella wouldn't know if she was home. She came home at six pm every day to help Sevigne with her homework, then left again. The only other time she stayed around was to watch Stella's fiancé, Jason Kerr do his daily laps in the pool. It was a beautiful thing to watch. She had a serious jones for her 'mom's fiancé, even though he was a gold digging social climber. He was hot. He was old enough to he her father but then again Stella was old enough to be her mother so in a weird way, she figured it evened out.
***
McKenzie watched Jason Kerr cut through the water effortlessly. He had been on the Australian olympic swim team, but that had been thirteen years ago. Still, he was in perfect shape and he didn't look forty. Not at all. He was lean, and fit, cut from marble and it made her mouth water. She adjusted her little yellow bikini and slathered more tanning oil on her legs in the sunshine. What the hell was this gorgeous man doing with her aging, sad sack of shit mother? Stella! Ugh. Just the thought of it made her skin crawl. Stella was so drunk or bombed on pills all the time, McKenzie doubted the woman even knew he was there. Of course, he was after the prestige, the press... the money. He was a hotshot director and he had gotten to the hotshot level with Stella's money and influence. Without her, he would still be making grimy one camera street dramas in Australia.
He popped up out of the water and grabbed a towel, eyeing her with a smile. His camera was there, on the table. Jason was one of those directors who always has a camera, always ready to capture a moment. A wicked idea began to stir in McKenzie's head.
"Is Ste... Mom asleep?" She asked.
"I dunno. She was reading a script in bed last I was upstairs." He replied, giving her a nice view of the sculpted V of his pelvis as he dried off. The bulge in his speedos was thick and enticing.
"Maybe you should look in on her and make sure she's ok. You know how she takes too many pills, then the wine..."
"Hmm. Not a bad idea. I'll run up and have a look. You up for uh... a swim when I get back?"
"Absolutely. I'd love for you to teach me proper stroke technique." She smiled. The innuendo did not go over his head and he smiled, his white teeth gleaming. He gave her a knowing look over his shoulder as he went back in the house.
Once he was out of sight, she went to the table where the camera sat and found the controls. She angled it toward the poolside chaise that was edged right next to the pool so that the lens viewed a wide space. Yeah, that should do it. A good view of anything that happened there. She switched it on and hoped he wouldn't notice. She had some plans to keep him distracted.
When Jason came back, she was laying on the chaise, slathering coconut scented oil on her arms.
"She asleep?" McKenzie asked.
"Snoring like a bear." he said with a smile, that Aussie accent making her panties wet.
"I could use some help over here." She said, holding up the bottle of tanning oil.
He wasted no time. He was slathering oil over her legs, her back, her shoulders.
"Mmm, you have nice hands." She moaned. "You can do the front too." She rolled over and sat up a moment, reaching behind her to untie the bikini string. "I hate tanning lines."
He grinned from ear to ear when she tossed the bikini top to the ground and arched her back, presenting perfect tits, the kind of tits women paid huge sums of money to have surgically implanted. Hers were courtesy of nature and a Brazilian biological mother. He looked like he might salivate. She grinned.
"You like?" She asked, cupping her tits in her hands.
"Oh yeah, those are... damn. Those are fucking beautiful."
"My mom, I mean my real mom, was Brazilian."
