ARRANGED

by R. K. Lilley

  “Hello, Father,” he said into the phone with utter contempt. “Yes, I’m here. Yes, I took her out. Oh, we’re getting on famously. I got her off with two fingers in the restaurant, and she clumsily serviced me in the limo. I’m not sure anyone told her she’s supposed to swallow the cum when it shoots down her throat. Enough details for you?” He paused. “If you don’t like hearing that, quit interfering in my life.”

  He hung up his phone with angry motions just as we were pulling up to our building.

  My husband was back to not looking at me. “I’d see you up,” he told me coldly, “but it’s been a long day, and I can see Chester waiting to do the honors, so I’ll let him.”

  “You’re leaving?” I asked him. It was unexpected.

  “I have some work to do, and I don’t know if anyone told you, but I prefer to stay at my own place when I’m in the city.”

  He had a separate apartment for me. How had I not known that?

  How would I know that? Asha loved keeping me in the dark, and who the hell kept multiple apartments in the same city?

  Old money did. And they also had strange notions about marriage, apparently. He treated me more like his mistress than his wife.

  “Well, thank you for dinner,” I told him stiffly.

  “Good night, Noura.” He didn’t spare me a glance.

  I didn’t look at anyone as I made my way on shaky legs up to my apartment. I was grateful when Chester didn’t say a word.

  I showered and went straight to bed. It had been an enlightening first date. My husband couldn’t stand me, and I needed some better lessons on sucking his dick.

  Things could have gone better.

  Why then was I still turned on? It was hard to fall asleep with the relentless throbbing in the pit of my belly that would not subside, but eventually I fitfully dozed.

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  I decided the next day that living alone in my apartment was a huge a relief, although the alone part was short-lived, and my husband had nothing to do with that.

  A girl named Jovie did.

  I was backstage changing into my street clothes after a runway show. My part was over, and I was all set to leave when I was stopped in my tracks by a loud fight between two other models. I was across the room so I didn’t hear everything that was said, but the end result was one of them storming off, a triumphant smile on her face, and the other one bursting into tears.

  This wasn’t all that unusual, and I might have minded my own business but for one little thing: the crying girl was young. Painfully young.

  She didn’t look a day over fourteen.

  It wasn’t unheard of to see a girl that young at this kind of show. It was an immensely high fashion dressmaker, and they loved fresh faces for the really avant-garde stuff.

  Hell, I’d been her age when I’d moved to New York to model full-time.

  I wasn’t in the best mood. I felt the night before in a sharp pain under my eyes and a constant clench in my gut. I wanted nothing more than to go home and be alone, but her broken sobs swayed me.

  With a sigh, I walked across the room.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  She sized me up with a pretty glare, like she thought I might pinch her. “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You looked . . . upset. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  She scoffed. “Unless you have a spare room for rent starting tonight, then no.”

  “You need a place to crash?”

  “Men are scum, you know that?”

  I thought it over. “Yeah, I know that. Are you okay?”

  “Do you really care?”

  I thought that over too, studying her. God, she was young and as innocent looking as a little lost lamb. “I do.”

  “I’ve been better, to be honest,” she eventually answered. “I just got dumped by my boyfriend, and now I need to find an apartment in Manhattan, which is like impossible, ya know?”

  “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen.” She saw my expression. “Practically fifteen. In less than two months,” she added defensively.

  “And you were living with your boyfriend?”

  “Yeah, so? My parents were taking all of my modeling money, so I paid my lawyers a small fortune and emancipated myself. I don’t like being alone all the time, so I moved in with my boyfriend. It was working out just fine . . . until today.”

  “What’s your name?” I probably should have known it, I’d seen her around, but I’d been preoccupied with my own issues for a while now.

  She didn’t seem offended. “I’m Jovie.”

  “That’s a cool name.”

  “Thanks. I made it up myself.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Jovie is now. I had it legally changed. I went with just the one name. Like Halsey. Or Beyonce. Or Madonna. Doesn’t it sound like the name of someone who’s going to be famous?”

  I nodded encouragingly. “It for sure does.” She looked like someone who was going to be famous too. She was drop dead gorgeous, obviously biracial with stunning coloring: light brown skin, golden blonde hair, and sky blue eyes. “Nice to meet you, Jovie. I’m Noura.”

  “Oh, I know who you are. You’re the snobby, famous, rich one who doesn’t talk to anyone.”

  The rich part of that I was still getting used to, though it was accurate and didn’t bother me a bit. I’d done a lot for that money, and it was still fresh enough that the idea didn’t taste bitter. Yet. The snobby part now, that stung a little. I kept to myself, but I wasn’t a snob. I didn’t think I was better than anyone, I was just doing the best I could, though it wasn’t the first or even the tenth time I’d heard that said about me. “I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” I pointed out.

  “But look what a fool I had to make of myself first,” she said with a disarming smile.

  That startled a laugh out of me. The tears weren’t even dry on her face and already she was joking around. What a strange, interesting girl.

  “What did she say to you?” I asked her. Jovie had seemed fine until the other girl had spoken to her.

  “Ambrosia Hurst? She’s the one he left me for. You know how it is with these model chasers. They want a piece of us all. And she called me a baby prostitute.”

  That made me so mad I felt my face turning red. “What a stone cold bitch.”

  “I know, right? I absolutely hate being called a baby.”

  There was a hint of a smile around her mouth as she said that last bit, and I couldn’t help but be charmed.

  “I have an extra room,” I said impulsively. “You can crash there if you want.”

  She eyed me warily. “I don’t want charity. I can pay for the room. I mean, until I find something more permanent. ’Kay?”

  I shrugged. “Whatever. We’ll figure it out later. Are you hungry?”

  Her face fell. “I’m staaaarving, but I went over my calorie count at like nine a.m.”

  “You’re only fourteen. You’re probably having a growth spurt. You need extra calories to grow. You should eat.”

  She studied me like she was trying to figure out whether I was putting her on. “You think? I’m only five eight. I’d love it if I could grow three more inches. I hate it when other models tower over me.”

  I nodded. “I bet it is a growth spurt. I kept growing until I was seventeen, and those extra inches are an advantage. Let’s go get dinner.”

  We went to a tiny pasta place in Little Italy that Chester recommended. He’d been trying to talk me into going there for weeks, but since pasta was my favorite food and the bane of my existence, I’d been using all of my self-control to avoid it.

  That night I indulged, and it was worth all the extra work I’d have to put in later.

  Jovie and I shared a plate of manicotti that literally made my eyes roll up into my head with every bite.

  “Oh my God!”

  “Can we swing by my boyfriend’s place after this and grab some of my stuff? I’m
afraid if I leave it there too long, he’ll just throw it away.”

  “Of course,” I said, glancing at Chester, who’d been silent while he ate enough food to feed a small village of models.

  He shared a look with Vincent, who was also packing in food like he’d been starving along with me.

  “I’ll go in with her and help her carry everything,” Chester told me. “But you’ll need to stay in the car.”

  I stared him down. “Why?”

  “This is a break up thing, right? That sort of thing can go badly. The boss wouldn’t like it if you got caught in the middle of some domestic dispute.”

  When he said boss, I never really knew who he meant. My husband or father-in-law? And I never asked, because it was humiliating that I didn’t already know.

  “Raoul probably won’t even be there,” Jovie assured him. “He’s a club kid. He likes to go out late like every night ’til five a.m.”

  “How old is this Raoul guy?” Vincent asked her.

  I eyed him warily. Vincent didn’t talk much, so when he did, everyone paid attention.

  Jovie shrugged, but it was a tense movement. The question made her uncomfortable. “Twenty-five or twenty-six? It doesn’t matter. I’m never speaking to him again.”

  “And how old are you?” Chester asked her, his words coming out very slowly.

  Uh-oh. The guys’ hackles were up. So were mine, for that matter, but the last thing I wanted to do was scare Jovie off.

  “Almost fifteen,” she said, looking back and forth between the two men.

  Vincent spit over his shoulder.

  Chester started cracking his knuckles.

  Not good. “Guys, tone it down,” I told them firmly. The last thing we needed to do was push her back to the creep.

  Jovie was looking back and forth between the two of them. “You know, never mind.”

  “They won’t do anything,” I told her. “They’ll help you grab your stuff and that’s it.”

  “I hate violence,” she said slowly.

  “There won’t be any violence,” I told her.

  “You promise?” she asked, still looking at the guys.

  They both mumbled out that yes they promised.

  “We won’t touch him tonight,” Chester added with a bland smile.

  Well, that did not bode well for Raoul the Creep, I mused.

  It took her less than twenty minutes to grab her stuff from the creep’s apartment, and he never made an appearance, thank God. Chester threw two overstuffed suitcases in the trunk as Jovie slid back into her seat beside me.

  “That’s all your stuff?” I asked her in surprise.

  “I’m a minimalist. It suits me. You never know when you’ll need to bolt.”

  I used to be like that. Before the wedding, my life could’ve fit into two suitcases, as well, so I don’t know why it threw me off. Perhaps because I couldn’t travel overnight without more junk than that nowadays. How quickly I was becoming accustomed to my strange new extravagant existence.

  The instant Jovie entered my apartment something changed. Something about the space and something about my life. Both became more full of an intangible something I hadn’t known I’d been craving. Chester and Vincent were great company, all things considered, but Jovie was something else. Her vivacious energy was food I hadn’t known I was missing.

  We stayed up way past my bedtime talking for hours and doing all the fun girly shit we could think of.

  I got her hooked on DramaFever and she got me hooked on BTS. It was very easy. Both were highly addictive.

  “Where’s your husband?” she asked at some point. We were drinking unsweetened green tea kale smoothies and she was braiding my hair.

  I shrugged. “Working probably.” It was only a little lie.

  “Did you tell him I was staying here?” she asked, pausing her quick motions against my scalp.

  I shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter. He rarely stays here. This place is mine.” I felt pleasure as I said it even if it wasn’t strictly the truth. It was true enough.

  She was quiet for a while. “That’s cool,” she drew the words out. “But if he doesn’t stay here, where does he stay?”

  I tensed up. I’d literally signed my rights off to give away candid details about my marriage, but I wanted to spill my guts to this girl I’d only just met. It was stupid, and I made myself exercise caution.

  “Hey listen,” she finally said when it was obvious I wasn’t going to answer the question. “Forget I asked. I’m way too self-absorbed to be all up in your business.”

  I smiled because that was bullshit.

  She proved me right a minute later when she just couldn’t help but pry more. “Is marriage how you always hear it is?” she asked.

  “How do you always hear it is?” I couldn’t help myself either. I wanted to hear her fourteen-year-old take on it.

  “You know. Mistresses, resentful blowjobs, and fights about serious shit that really doesn’t mean anything. Like grownup stuff.”

  We laughed for a long time at that, and I never did have to answer the question.

  I went to bed after midnight with a smile on my face. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so much fun.

  At about two a.m. there was a light knock on my bedroom door.

  It was Jovie. She didn’t want to sleep alone, so I let her bunk with me. I didn’t mind. The big bed always felt too empty with just me in it.

  Soon after she got settled, she started crying very quietly then louder until she’d worked herself into wrenching sobs.

  I tapped her on the shoulder and she rolled over, burrowing her wet face into my neck.

  I held her as she cried. She didn’t stop for hours, saying over and over, “He was supposed to be my family.”

  “I don’t have a family, either,” I whispered to the night. “We’ll be okay though. We can lean on each other.”

  “What about your husband?” she whispered back. “That’s a family.”

  “Not for me, it’s not.”

  “Well, then you can leave that asshole. We’ll figure it out. We both get plenty of work. We don’t need him. You could have any man you want.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I replied. “I have everything that I want.”

  “Okay, okay,” she sniffled. “How long can I stay here? I never want to leave. I’m so lonely, Noura.”

  “As long as you want.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she sobbed.

  By the time she cried herself to sleep in my arms, my heart was a puddle of mush at her adorable, baby model feet.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  I didn’t hear directly from my husband again for weeks.

  It bothered me more than I was comfortable with.

  I’d walked into our marriage for reasons that had nothing to do with love or affection. I’d gone into it with my eyes wide open. My motives were money and security, and at one point, before I’d set eyes on him, there was nothing I’d have loved more than a wealthy husband who ignored me as much and as often as possible.

  It bothered me how much that had changed with just a few brief exchanges. I didn’t want to be ignored. Not by him. I wanted the opposite. Mean and nasty as he was, I wanted his attention.

  I wanted his fingers in me again. I wanted his cock in my hands, down my throat.

  His insults after were still ringing in my ears, and still I wanted a repeat.

  How messed up was that? I knew how much, and it didn’t matter. I wanted more destructive contact with him. Enough to think about it too much. Enough to fixate on it. Enough to do something about it.

  Two weeks and two days after our one month anniversary and our first ‘date,’ I accidentally stumbled upon a way to get it.

  Up to that point, I’d followed all of the trophy wife rules to a T.

  They weren’t easy rules. And there were a lot of them. They were a consuming set of arbitrary commands designed to keep me in my place and blendin
g in seamlessly with my new fake family.

  I was bound to break one or two of the little ones at some point. And when I did, it gave me a powerful weapon against Calder, because I learned something valuable.

  If I wanted his attention, all I had to do was misbehave.

  It was simple, and honestly it came more naturally to me than what I’d been doing.

  So far in our marriage I had, for all intents and purposes, been very well behaved. I went where I was told to go, wore what I was told to wear, and tried my best to keep quiet and out of trouble.

  Through it all, I’d only seen my detached husband one obligatory time.

  I found out, quite by accident, that a little bit of trouble was the quickest way to get a response out of him.

  It started with one impulsive, racy Instagram post. It was uncharacteristic of me, and I can’t even explain what gave me the urge. Since the wedding, I didn’t run my own social media. I was signed in on my phone on every platform, but I’d never posted personally. My timelines were generally filled with professional shots shared directly from modeling jobs. There were no captions, just pictures tagging whatever clothing I was being paid to sell. I’d never given any of it much attention.

  If I had a free moment, I spent it joking around with Chester and Vincent, or watching DramaFever on my phone, not stalking my own social media profiles.

  It all began with a snag in the paper thin couture dress I was supposed to be modeling for an editorial in Vogue.

  I was all set to go, hair piled high up on my head and laced through with an extravagant crown of dusky pink roses. My makeup was heavy glam, with a dramatic cat eye and dark red wine lips.

  The gown I was modeling was a risqué ensemble to begin with. It was so sheer that I couldn’t even wear a bra. This was why I was wearing nothing but the tiniest nude thong in the world, itty bitty pasties, and four-inch high transparent stiletto sandals while I waited for the alteration.

  Normally I’d have a robe to walk around in, but they’d taken the dress from me mid-change, and what was supposed to be a quick fix, wound up taking longer. Two minutes turned into an unexpected thirty as they carefully hand sewed the tear and hid it enough for the shoot.