Romantic Interlude

"What's you destination, mam?" the tanned spa attendant asked Lilith Whitley. He peered into her eyes with the deepest and most soulful kind eyes she had ever seen. "Oh my gosh, he is the most handsome man I have ever seen, I think I am melting". Lilith took a deep breath she could hardly believe this dream was happening. Lilith's intuition and feminine wiles gave her the skill to play the temptress to the hilt. She nonchalantly pretended to be uninterested in Michael's advances. "Oh, I don't know, maybe a backrub?" Lilith slowly arched her back as she got comfortable on the massage table. "Oh, mam, I dont mean what you would like me to do, but rather, where would you'd like me to take you" Michaels deep voice sent shivers down Liliths spine. Her skin cooled with the goosebumps that ran down her arms and she could feel those tingling sensation she had forgotten for so long. I am yours for as long as you wish, mam." Michael amazing smile lit up the candle-lit
room. She could see his sexy dimples and automatically started to smile inside. Lilith thought she had died and gone to heaven.

In fact Lilith was in Heaven, however, she was apparently not quite dead yet. Seventh Heaven Virtual Reality and Healing Spa catered to the unusually rich women. Powerfully rich middle aged women clientele with a power-base which rivalled their unloved CEO husbands. Why these women did not love their husbands was obvious. They had married money. They were at the spa for another adventure; love. These women did not want a manho. They wanted a lover and they would pay dearly for someone to love them. At least they thought they were being loved. These women did not know what love really meant. Being spoiled to such an extent meant that these women had never experienced defeat in the love game. They always came out on top of the game. If the ladies had ever truly felt a lover's rejection they would have imploded or disolved into a gelatinous blob on the marbled floor of their hillside mansions. As soon as the ladies sensed a doomed relationship looming ever closer to effect their status they would switch into a type of depcon level. Often the ladies sensors could accurately sense in a sixth sense sort of way a lovers pending betrayal. Then the vixens would switch to cloak mode and transform automatically into the classic version of the dragon lady. Either that or the black widow, the spidery devourer of men. Any man in the way of this charming snake dance would be toast, as these ladies were professional wives and knew the regulations, the laws and the code. Pity the poor divorced men. The women usually ate them alive, and it did not feel good afterward. Most women at the club were divorcees. They were looking for a new adventure not usually lasting love, that was boring. Often the love they seeked they never found. It would be hard to find love since they often disposed of men like disposable razors. Micheal provided the much need hubris for the women who felt they needed to possess men, body soul and ticker tape.

Women had to have big bucks to get into the club. Not only big boobs, but big bangles, lots of wealth. In fact to get into 7th Heaven they had to have a lot of pull. This pull was a natural skill for most ladies of the spa and the yearly membership did not come cheap. It cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. These fees rivalled top golf club fees, yet the women insisted the importance of the spa to their husbands and their husbands reluctantly agreed to the outrageous pricing. To get a membership to the club one had to be referred by another client. Usually recommended by other founding club members, Lilith had gotten into the club through her recent connections with the CEO of San Corporation, and moved her way to the top of the publishing business, Miche Landau, a middle aged feisty, woman libber who had burned bras in the seventies was Lilith's best friend. Miche could easily steamroll any one of the five hundred women at the club, at least politically speaking. Miche had vasts amounts of money and power. Miche had recommended the club to Lilith and had taken her repeatedly with her to the spa as a guest. A year after Lilith had applied, she received a call from Susanne Lake, the spa's secretary. Everything was very straight-forward about the application process and nothing seemed at all out of the ordinary. It was not until Michael had requested persnonal information regarding Lilith that the members at the club began to suspect Lilith did not follow the strict protocol at the club; "Do not fall in love with the help".

Lilith really just wanted to relax, little did she know that due to the politics of the members of the spa there was little or nothing to do with relaxing. Networking was the name of the game and climbing the ladder of success, like the childhood game of Snakes and Ladders. The only problem with this hierarchial game was that, the game was all about the power politics of sleeping with your best friend's husband or paying under the table payola to the Queen Bee, Mrs Marilyn Danner. This was the business-as-usual procedure of events at a day at the "Club".

Since Lilith was part of the nouveau riche clientele, conspicious with her wealth, driving her Rolls around town, wearing a huge 4 carat pink diamond/platinum ring, wearing the latest Rodeo Drive designer label of the day garments. Lilith did not know the ways of the rich, soon she would learn, and it would not be a simple lesson. Jealousy was written all over the faces of the ladies of the spa, Lilith had what they wanted and they were going to make sure they got it.

The other women at the spa heard of Lilith but did not want much to do with her. She was considered lower caste by most and thus an Americanized versionof "untouchable". Catty snickers from other rooms could be heard whenever Lilith walked through the various areas in the spa. The gossiping women were skilled at putting people into their place, and could be vicious if not dangerous. Especially to a career woman's upward mobility in the ladder leading to the upper echelon of success. UnLike the warm golden light that glittered from the gigantic gold leafed Louis XIV mirrors these women were as cold as ice without the martini to make it all better. Lilith thought to herself; "how can their husbands stand them?".

When Lilith walked through the spa she often said hello even though she knew she would be met with the silent response. After a few weeks at the spa, Lilith ignored the women and their jeers as much as she could, but there was one day when she just could not stand it anymore and she broke down in tears. It took awhile for Lilith to understand the reason for the hatred and distain by the super rich Cruella. She was a threat to them. She had taken Michael away from them, and they wanted him back.

This trip to the spa was started typically enough with the usual recalcitrant downcast eyes and snarling mouths of these overtly primped society's super mavens. Lilith felt lost and alone in this world, but she was not too concerned. She knew she could face anything; considering what she had gone through in the recent past. Besides, she would just be at the spa for a few hours, and she would not have to meet these ladies or have anything to do with them once outside the spa. Lilith had hoped she would have made fast friends with these women, but this was unfortunately, not to be the case.

Often Lilith felt like am invisible being when up against the beastly vixens as Lilith called them. Lilith was unimpressed by their wealth or position. Their plastic surgeries bothered her the most as they looked like aging Barbie dolls without any distinct or individual personality. Lilith's true desire was to find her soul at the spa. She was going to go to Big Sur to the Zen Buddhist retreat near the ocean but opted for a closer venue. to meditate and achieve inner peace. "Isn't that the purpose of a spa?" thought the petulant Lilith in hindsight.

Although these rich spoiled ladies of wealth had everything they could ever physically want, they kept searching for something more. The rich women never knew how to get the thing they wanted because they never had the thing they really needed; real love, without the incumbrances. These rich women seemed to only understand conditional love; their rich husbands or lovers made them feel like they could be replaced with the next newer, richer, prettier model. This was the threat the women had vowed to overcome. This was the position of powerlessness most of the women had unfortunately had become; empty souled and resentful. Although some had both riches and power, this was maybe the top three percent of the clientele. Lilith was learning the ropes, but first she had to make more connections. She found her connection with Michael, the buff spa attendant.

Lilith already knew what she wanted and it came in a four letter word "love". The women of the spa despised her attitude and they thought her naive. Lilith definitely did not fit into their mold of success. The mold was something completely known to these women of the plastic silicone breasts. They could not break away from the constraints of being the perfect Stepford wife for their husbands. They always felt the push to become "new and improved" to keep their husbands interested, to find new positions, to challenge their men so that they too, could climb the ladder of success. The mold Lilith presented to the women of the spa was threatening to their way of life, it interfered with the very concepts and constructs. Lilith was in danger of becoming the next victim because she posed a high risk or a perceived high risk to these women who had fallen in love with Michael. If they could not have him, no one would have the nubian.

Like the good old boys, the good old girls knew how to maintain their power position. Usually the spa's pecking order was simple and straight forward; you dont challenge, you never threaten, you take a back seat, you let the Maven rule. Any challenger was met with a samurai sword to the chest. The heart being the first organ that these women often devoured. If visciousness had a name it was The Ladies of the Spa.