The Devil in the Duvet

If there is one thing all men do not know about women, it is that they are terrified of getting into any bed that does not have a duvet. As a matter of fact, most of us who identify as men have no idea what a duvet is. What is it? What is its purpose? Why is it named after every American's first European sexual encounter? "Welcome to Czechoslovakia. This is my son, Duvet. He eats dinner at 11 PM and has a permanent five o'clock shadow. He will ponder your abroad gardens."

It is a mystery that burned with the first fire and has burned since. History has yet to record an instance of a woman getting into a bed without a duvet without screaming and/or dying, but this was all about to change in the heart of Hollywood.

A blonde named Jessy walked in wearing Chanel earrings and a Dolce & Gabbana Eva bag. I wish I could say that was all she wore, but being a woman of exquisite taste, she spotted me, wondered why I wasn't cleaning her agent's pool, Kelly Boollington, and asked for my information. I wrote down my number, and when I handed it to her, she held it up for me to read and asked, "Is this your phone or social security number, Mr. Kael?" Before I could answer, Ms. Boolington had called her into her office. I was nervous.

I had made the mistake of sharing a photo of my brother with Ms. Kelly a week prior, and through the open door beside him, she saw enough of my bedroom to notice there was no duvet on the bed. She told me to get one, but did not say what it was. I had made the mistake of talking to another man, one Timothy Quentin, who said a duvet was just a sack of sea duck feathers, or eiderdown, amongst the well-to-do.

Distracted by Ms. Kelly's Caravaggio's, Jessy left the office and said, "We're going to Jones. 7 PM. What kind of car do you drive?"

"I…"

She threw her yellow jacket over he shoulder and laughed. "You'll be rubbing my neck in no time."

I listened to Jessy walk down the stairs, and once she had reached the marble floor, Kelly Boolington's office doors opened.

"Do you have a fucking Duvet?" she asked.

"A sack of sea duck feathers? Yes."

She closed her eyes, and though there was a pistol in her high-waisted pleated linen wide-leg pants, she decided to spare me and invited me into her study.

She sat in a brown leather chair. Her desk was spacious and made from rich mahogany. A fire bristled behind me, though it was summer, and her walls were decorated with "Originals. If there is one thing I'm guilty of, it's art. I love paintings, and I have always collected paintings, even when I couldn't afford to do so."

There was Francis Bacon, Joan Mitchell, and de Kooning. The only thing in the room that had nothing to do with taste or style was her glasses, which she kept pulled into her brown yet greying hair."

"I see no need to dye my hair. I fuck men half my age and walk out as if I've just had an ice cream." She pulled out a cigarette and lit it. "I'm always on top, Mr. Milton. I like to ride. What do you like to do?"

Her eyebrows arched, and after a moment of silence, she returned to her work, eyeing potential clients and business that lay across her desk. In my Speedos and flip-flops, I must admit there was a certain power dynamic at play. She was a woman who knew what she liked, and I knew how she liked her pool. He opened a ledger and began signing her name.

"You gave Jessy your number?"

"I…"

"There's a duvet in the pool house. I'll let you have it if you never mention sacks of sea duck feathers again, or enter my study in a speedo and flip-flops." She tore out a check. "Actually, go buy one, Mr. Milton. I don't lend out the obvious."

"Where should I go?"

"Where should I go?" she repeated in a mocking tone. "I don't wipe your ass when you go to the bathroom. Go and get a duvet."

"Yes, Ms."

I looked in the phone book and asked a woman with children where I could find a duvet, but they both had their own ways of screaming at me and scurrying off to the nearest phone booth, presumably to call the police. When the police did arrive, I asked how they had found me, and they said, "You are the only man in Azuza wearing a Speedo."

"What seems to be the trouble, officers?"

Their names were Bill and Butch. They had blonde hair, high and tight under their cop caps.

"You would have been better off saying that first," said Bill.

"But we were flagged down by a woman and her children regarding a certain disturbance of the peace," said Butch.

They didn't bother to get out of their vehicle. They kept the windows down and grinned.

"What did you do to the phone book?" asked Bill.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The phone book," said Butch. “They said you ripped out the D pages and held them up to a bunch of people."

Bill leaned over.

"You frightened the children."

"I'm looking for a duvet."

The cops looked at one another.

"A what?"

"A duvet. I need one. I'm going on a date tonight and…"

"What is a duvet?" asked Butch.

Neither cop was married. No ring.

"I don't know," I said. "I thought it was a sack of sea duck feathers, but apparently I'm wrong, so I tried looking it up in the phone book and approached women with children because that meant they were married and their husbands had duvets."

They squinted their eyes and nodded.

"I see," said Bill. "I had a broad over the other night, everything was great, cleaned the sheets, made the bed, but she wouldn't get in. She was terrified as a matter of fact."

"This happened to me too," said Butch. "Went out to the movies with Rebecca, slept at her place, but the next night I brought her over to mine, and she screamed and ran out of my room. Haven't heard from her since."

The three of us caressed our chins and thought.

"What is it?" I asked.

Bill motioned to the back seat.

"Get in. We'll get to the bottom of this."

I had never been in the back of a squad car, and they said I was the first one in a speedo. Butch looked into the rear-view mirror.

"What are ya, Mister?"

"Milton."

"What's your background, Mr. Milton?"

"Welsh and Italian."

"Ah."

"What?"

“Just wondering about your chest hair and gold chain. Ok, here we are, Patty's furniture."

"Patty knows everything," said Bill.

They stepped out and left me in the back seat. No, "We'll be right back," or any acknowledgement that I was left in a car you could not open from the inside. I sat there. Minutes turned into hours, and I was starting to sweat despite being in minimal clothing when Jessy, in a pink Cadillac, pulled up beside the squad car. I tried to duck, but her red sunglasses had already slid down her nose. "What has happened?" she asked.

Half-insane, I pressed my hands to the window and yelled, thinking I was muted in the closed police car, "I'm buying a duvet!" I reached into my Speedo. "Look, I have a check!"

The lollipop fell from her lips. She laughed and drove away.

"Jones at 7?" I repeated. "Jones at 7?"

The cops returned to a defeated man. They looked back and said, "No one's talking."

"You know," said Bill. "It scares me."

"That no one is talking?" asked Butch.

"Just what is a duvet?"

"Where do you want to go, Mr. Milton?"

"Do you know where Kelly Boolington lives?"

"Sure do."

"That'll be fine."

"What do you do there?"

"A few things, but I was cleaning the pool."

"Ah, that explains the flip-flops."

They dropped me off, and I waited. I waited for Ms. Kelly to go to bed. Wrapped around me were her sheets. I grabbed everything, as she did with her bar cart. I followed her around her house, window to window, as she headed to her room, stretching her arms and yawning like she was ready to sleep. She missed the light switch in her room and collapsed onto her bed. She rose immediately, realizing what I hoped was because of a missing duvet, and she said, "Where the fuck is my duvet?" But in I came, with a sack of sea duck feathers or eiderdown, and said, "Right here, my dear. You staying there?”

“Want me to?”

“You usually like being on top.”

“I’ll try new things, Mr. Kael.”