Introducing James

The redhead stepped off the elevator at the Kerns, Kaplan and Deerfield she had entered hours earlier. Only the dim security lights remained on. The place look like it had shut down for the night, but it never fully went to sleep. KKD was twenty-four/seven. She stopped in front of a door and let herself in with her key card. It had been one bitch of a day and all she wanted was a shower – and maybe some Chinese take out. Come to think of it, she hadn’t eaten all day!

Stepping into the small bathroom of the office, she gave the cubical of a shower stall the look of expectant lover. Soon...but first...

She tugged off the red wig and replaced it on its foam form, so it wouldn’t lose its shape. She pulled off the flesh-colored cap that had covered and controlled her real hair all day. With a blissful sigh, she shook the midnight black mane loose. Falling past her shoulders it was a matted sweaty mess now. A good shampooing would return it to its silken glory.

In front of the mirror, she put a finger to her left eye removing the green contact lens and put it in solution. Then the right eye. Blinking furiously for a few seconds, she let her own dark eyes breathe for the first time since the day had begun for her. She leaned close to the mirror inspecting herself. Some enamored chef had referred to her eye color as ‘the color of the finest semi-sweet chocolate’. “Dark brown,” she murmured. They were almond shaped and tilted upward at the outside – that cat look men found exotic.

Perfectly arched brows owed little to tweezers and more to nature. The natural arch had been a blessing with their black color. Taking a washcloth, she removed the make up that had lightened them for her red-haired persona.

Scrubbing the layers of paint off her face and neck, she revealed her true face and own complexion. Her nose was straight and unremarkable. Her mouth wide and full. She didn’t see herself as beautiful. Her mother had referred to her as ‘striking’. A believer in sunscreen, her ivory coloring was easily changed with cosmetics. “You’ll do,” she told her reflection with a smile. She was comfortable with herself.

Grasping the zipper of the leather cat suit, she pulled it down the track. “Oh, yesss!” she exclaimed nearly orgasmically. Her first deep breath since pouring herself into the thing this morning. This was why she was starving. Just try a cheeseburger and fries when you are wearing a second skin! Peeling the offending thing down, she kicked off the matching boots and was free – save the tiny thong – the only thing that fit beneath the damn thing!

She inspected herself in the mirror once more. She was toned and deceptively muscular. Years of martial arts, boxing, and belly dancing had made her lean, supple and deadly if need be. She thought of her breasts as unremarkable, average. Not big. Not small. Okay. But her legs – she knew she had shapely, sleek legs that made men drool and women envious. And since she was five-six, they seemed longer. In heels, she was dynamite.

Finally, her shower! She didn’t rush herself, letting the hot water, cleansing gel and shampoo renew her.

A good half-hour later, she stepped back into the office wearing her preferred wardrobe – sweatshirt and jeans. She realized most day employees at KKD had no idea what James Deerfield looked like. Some had no notion James was even a woman. She was the undercover person in many of their investigations, because she could be a chameleon. She could slip into a persona in a blink of an eye. Before the cunning, sexy redhead, she had been a blonde bimbo, before that a brown mouse techno-nerd and before that...sometimes James wondered who she was. She didn’t get to be herself very often.

Once she placed her order for delivered Chinese from her favorite restaurant, she opened the thick file on her desk – a new client.

“Hey, Not Bad!” she murmured when the face of the man she’d bumped into in the elevator earlier looked up from a photograph. “Let’s see...Not Bad has a name... ‘JC’ Joshua Scott Cha-say. Nope. Cha-zay – with the ‘z’.”

A sticky note from Kevin said, “Hey, this guy may like the real you.” Kevin knew wigs, make up and clothes that made her think were not her style. She was low maintenance.

Studying the picture of the blue-eyed popstar, she advised, “Use a lighter conditioner.” His long brown curls seemed weighed down in this particular shot. The buzz of the secured elevator brought her to her feet. “Food!"

James lost track of time as she read the file of the imperiled popstar and ate her dinner. She was still there when her partner let himself in, bare feet propped up on her desk, folder in her lap, shoving shrimp fried rice into her mouth with chopsticks from the squarish container.

“Hey, Kevin,” she acknowledged without looking up. The rugged blonde grinned. “How do you know it’s me?”

“One: only you and Robert have access. Two: Robert doesn’t wear that cowboy aftershave.” She still hadn’t lifted her eyes.

Kevin was a cowboy. Transplanted from Texas. He also thought of himself as a ‘Walker Texas Ranger’ kind of guy. Truth, Justice and the American Way delivered with cowboy kickass. He, like James, was very honest and modest about his appeal. They had no ego problems that kept them from being good partners in the field. They honestly respected and cared about each other. They were good and trusted friends. Only that slip up in Cancun a year after she had joined the agency prevented it from being a perfect partnership. It had been a holiday and they had been far from home. Loneliness had gotten the best of them. To James, it had meant a sexual healing of sorts. To Kevin, well, he had lost a piece of his heart — but being who they were, he realized there was no future and moved on.

He moved to sit on the front edge of her desk. Picking up a carton and extra chopsticks, he began picking his way through the rice.

“Help yourself,” she told him belatedly. “But don’t just pick out the good stuff and leave rice.” Which was his habit.

Kevin set the carton down.

“I hate celebrities,” James mumbled around a mouthful of rice.

“He doesn’t come off that way,” he told her. “My take on him – he’s tired, pissed and lonely. He wants it over with and isn’t any too happy that he has to have more security.”

“When will they learn big guys block them but you can’t call them ‘security’? Brawn ain’t brains.”

“He’s got some good people around him. They just aren’t equipped for the investigative end.”

She merely nodded, accepting his opinion. “Doesn’t seem like the player type so far.”

“The guy’s single and he gets around, but no, I don’t think he’s a player.”

“Know his music?”

He laughed. “I know of his music. Only someone with his head up his ass hasn’t heard of *NSYNC.”

She gave him a sweet smile that was anything but sweet. “Thank you for that comment. I will remove my head from my ass now,” she said dryly.

Kevin grinned.

“Decapitated Barbie doll. Lovely.”

“She was a blonde starlet,” he said of the girlfriend who had left abruptly when faced with the doll.

“What about the model before her?”

“Voodoo doll complete with pins.”

“Model. Skinny as they are a push pin runs them through.” she mused. She would never be paper-thin. She liked food, and she believed in being strong and healthy. Carrot sticks were fine snacks; she couldn’t live on them though.

“So, what are your plans, gorgeous?”

She wrinkled her nose at him. He taunted her with ‘gorgeous’ and ‘beautiful.’ “Did you drop that stuff off?”

“Yes’m.” He had delivered videotapes, cd’s, any media he could find on their client to her apartment earlier.

“Well, then for the next twenty-four hours, I shall immerse myself in one JC Chasez. I’ll probably know more about him than his mama. I’ll set up a time with you and Robert for the next day and we’ll make us a plan.”

“Looks like you’ll be point man again.”

“If we could pour your nice ass into a mini skirt...”

They laughed together.

“If some hot movie actress would get herself in trouble...” Kevin sighed.

“I’ll see what we can do.”

Mr. Chasez was a man of many hairstyles, James mused as she laid out pictures on her dining room table. During his late years of the Mickey Mouse Club and early NSYNC, he had a cap of unruly hair he tried to tame. From that he went to a ridiculous Caesar style. Who in the hell had that idea? Then he had that well trimmed, clean-cut look that he spiked once in a while. Then it began to grow – a chin strip was introduced. The curls grew and sometimes he got scruffy looking. The curls and scruff appealed to her on a strictly hormonal level. The curls kept growing and he was using the wrong conditioner. The chin strip came and went. She supposed with whatever mood he was in. She wondered at his heritage that his beard growth was quick and dark.

As a beloved adopted child, he would never know – if he even cared. It was the investigator in her...

Damn, the man had a gorgeous face! God had given him those beautiful cheekbones. Those big blue eyes. Eh, his nose was slightly big but that kept him from being too pretty. She paused the tape. He’d been caught in an unguarded moment. His hair had been shorter then, lighter – a bouncing mass of unruly curls. The frozen frame had him looking over his shoulder. Male perfection. Manly while maintaining a boyish, innocent quality. The look was openly vulnerable. The look that made women breathless...

Damn, James! She scolded herself as she hit resume. She guessed she’d been too long without honest male attention and faced with the fine form of one Joshua Scott Chasez was bringing her love-starved hormones to the fore. Much more of this and she’d be tempted to call Kevin over for some recreational sex!

She hadn’t guessed that body was beneath the denim jacket and jeans this morning. The film she watched was from a Challenge For The Children the group *NSYNC had created to raise money for organizations that benefited youth. Do-gooders. She liked do-gooders. In the basketball jersey she could see the nicely muscled arms and shoulders. The hint of a nice chest. In earlier tapes, she had seen him in tight tee-shirts confirming the muscled chest and washboard abs. Yum!

He had to have some amazing legs, she decided after seeing the height of lift he’d gotten in the opening song of the 'No Strings Attached’ concert at Madison Square Garden. Strong, powerful, muscular legs from years of dancing – since he was what? Fourteen on the Mickey Mouse Club?

And lungs. Singing and dancing and not sounding breathless meant he had great lungs.

And stamina. Stamina was a good thing in singers and dancers and lovers...

Being entirely female and obviously horny, she noticed Mr. Chasez’s - um- package. It evidently had a mind and ego separate of its owner, because it seemingly liked to be ‘up-front’ and noticeable. It wanted to be a star in every photo – and was! After a while, that’s where her eyes went automatically. “Well, hello, big fella!” she murmured when he wore that pair of stretchy dark red pants for the song Space Cowboy on the ‘No Strings Attached’ video. The man’s one-eyed crotch monster was not shy. Which went against the man’s documented persona: quiet, shy, intelligent and serious. He didn’t seem to feel the need to be a star.

But he had become one, leading to his current dilemma. James could only imagine how terrible it must be for a fairly accessible personality he projected. Looking over his shoulder. Wondering who was doing this to him. The not knowing... “Don’t you worry, Not Bad, James will fix this for you and you can have your life back,” she declared.

After her meeting with Robert and Kevin, it was decided James would try to infiltrate JC’s ‘posse,’ placing her near him without invading his life as they had promised. It had been incredibly easy to do. They were a friendly group – and diverse. She hadn’t had to do a lot of acting to get into his basic circle. The inner circle would be more difficult. Due to his current problem, they were mostly male and had closed ranks. She had been almost ready to let Kevin have a go at it.

JC was aware of her. She’d felt his eyes a number of times. At first, they had been wary, not trusting a newcomer. Later, she supposed, he must have decided she was not the stalker. She had never directly approached him. Then his blue gaze began to light with interest, letting her know he was approachable. She acknowledged his interest, but didn’t go to him. She waited.

He didn’t know who she was and he wanted to. JC had seen her before. She was beautiful but that wasn’t it. She was so self-possessed. Confidence was a mantle she wore comfortably. She reminded him of a sleek jungle cat. Maybe five-six or seven. Her body was lithe and lean. Her breasts were just right, enough for any man. Her long mane of ink black hair flowed over and past her shoulder like a waterfall. Then there was that face. She’d never be considered pretty. Her features were too strong – from her exotic dark eyes to her full, kissable mouth… She had the sort of face one saw on magazine covers. May be she was a model...Except when had he seen a model with a killer body like that?

Damn! Why did he see a woman he wanted to get to know when an obsessed fan was determined he should remain alone? He couldn’t, in good conscience, bring anyone into his life and put her at risk. It wouldn’t be right. This was a price of fame he had never counted on paying.

He was watching her, James realized, and with more than casual interest. Damn! He wasn’t supposed to see her that way! She was supposed to stay in the fringe and observe. She had wanted to be welcomed into his circle of friends, but the look he gave her was not exactly friendly.

No one knew who she was. No one knew her name. She had simply appeared one day and no one questioned her presence. JC had questions. He had lots of questions. What’s your name? Why did you come into my life now – and will you stay? Can you brave this latest storm in my life?

No, he couldn’t put her at risk, so he stayed away from the woman he wanted to know.

He was too shy, she decided – and since shy wasn’t even in her vocabulary, James was determined to make contact. That night the group was going to a club. Tonight Mr. Chasez would meet James.