I washed my face, rinsing away what little make up I had on, and brushed my teeth. Biting back tears, I staggered into my bedroom once more and collapsed, still naked.
4
The Healing
I awoke to a knock on the door. I was groggy, barely able to sit up. I was still laying on my stomach, face down in my pillow. I was lucky I hadn't smothered myself like that.
"Hello? Tara? Tara North?" came the voice on the other side of the door. "This is Dr. Fernandes. Can I come in? T... Your Boss, sent me. He wants me to take a look at you. Is that all right, honey?"
"Y... Yes..." I stuttered, the events of the previous night coming back to me in a flood. Christ, what had happened? What had I done? Mario was in the hospital, I had escaped my apartment, and met up with... Boss? What the hell? Somehow, I had, in my sleep, just assumed that this had all been a dream and maybe I would wake up in my own bed, slightly nauseous, slightly hung over, but just able to rouse myself and stagger downstairs to brunch with friends: a Bloody Mary (and nothing else) would perk me right up.
The door opened and a nicely dressed woman about my mother's age strode in. She had a slight Puerto Rican accent that made everything she say sound a little bit more festive and friendly.
"Oh, boy. Would you like to dress, sweetie?" she said, giggling a bit girlishly, despite her age, when she was me. I was still naked.
"Oh, god, I'm sorry, I forgot."
"Sweetheart, I'm a doctor. I've seen everything you got. It don't bother me none," she said. She had a short, butch haircut and even though she must have been over sixty, she seemed strangely physically imposing. When I didn't immediately sit up, she crossed over and pulled me into a sitting position. It was then that I realized how strong she was.
"Well, you're just skin and bones, aren't you? He mentioned that. I guess it's not surprising. Models, you know. I've treated a whole mess of models in my time. Mostly for overdoses, but other things too--girls get pregnant but their bodies can't handle the babies..."
"I'm not pregnant," I said in a daze. She smiled sweetly at me.
"No one said you were, honey."
She began feeling the sides of my neck. "Does it hurt when I push here?"
"Uh..." I murmured, still groggy. "I guess not. I don’t know.”
She pressed harder.
“Ow! Now that hurts.”
"Well, good. You're not swollen there, so I'm going to take that as a no."
She had me follow a pen light with my eyes (surprisingly difficult) and tested my reflexes (a little too slow for her taste, judging from the way her lips pursed). She felt my breasts for lumps, her hands warm and strong, maybe even stronger than... his hands.
"I'm just trying to get my head straight here," I said, finally, as she had me lay back and spread my legs for an impromptu exam. I gasped as I felt her fingers on me. "Who owns this apartment?"
"I'm not supposed to tell you that, sweetie, and I think you know that," the doctor said with a tight smile. She hesitated for a moment and I wondered if maybe, just maybe, she would tell me anyway but no—she kept her mouth shut on that part.
"Okay. Right. I remember that part,” I said finally, easing us out of the awkwardness.
"What were you on last night? It's okay, you can tell me--I'm not a cop. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that."
"Um..." I murmured, trying to remember. "Well, I did some cocaine earlier in the day, maybe around one in the afternoon and again at six... Or was it five? I also did a line in the morning when I got up, and smoked a joint. And I had an oxycontin at like midnight. Or maybe a little later. And then... Maybe a glass and a half of champagne?"
"And did you eat anything yesterday?"
I struggled to remember. Had I eaten anything yesterday? It felt so damned long ago.
"Um."
"Nothing?"
"No, I think I had something. I think I had half a grapefruit in the morning."
"Well, at least you're getting your vitamin C," she said brightly as she closed my legs. "Plumbing all looks good down there. When was the last time you were tested for venereal diseases?"
"Um, excuse me?"
"I said, when was the last time..."
"I know what you said. Did... Did he make you ask me that?"
"Well, it's something I would bring up with any young woman, to be honest--it's an important part of sexual health, especially if you're not monogamous long term--pardon me for assuming that you're not, but your Boss did give me some details of the situation. No judgment, of course. That’s not my place."
With a twinkle in her eye, she grinned at me.
"I myself have two girlfriends, in addition to my wife. But we all get tested every few months. Just to be safe. It's responsible."
"No."
"No what?"
"I've never been tested."
She clucked her tongue disapprovingly. I had never felt so slut shamed, though not for being a slut--just for not checking to see if I have herpes every three months.
"I'll schedule one for you. It's easy enough; we can do it tomorrow."
"Fine."
"Open your mouth and say 'ahhh.'"
I obeyed and she hmmm'd into my mouth.
"Teeth aren't looking great. I'll have a dentist come by too."
"I don't think I need all these specialists."
"But your Boss wants you to have them."
"Fine, fine, fine."
Dr. Fernandes scribbled down a few notes in a journal.
"You're meeting with Bobby, the nutritionist, at noon--he's also bringing a nice lunch for you, but your Boss wanted me to tell you that there's food in the kitchen, if you'd like. After that, at four, the trainer is coming by. That's Sven. He's a darling. But he'll make you suffer."
"Are you all... Employed by him?" I asked, eyeing her with suspicion, in spite of how much I was coming around to liking her. She just smiled.
"Well, yes. We're kept on retainer by your Boss. I, for instance, am a private doctor with a practice making house calls to those here in Manhattan who, for whatever reason, might need a doctor. Discreetly. There are people like that, as I'm sure you can imagine."
I started to say something and then I shut up. I knew exactly what she was talking about. Once, at a billionaire's party when I was still in college, a friend of mine had overdosed on something. She was comatose and our group of wasted girls was freaking out--we were all of us underage. But the host of the part swooped in, made a single call, and in minutes, a doctor appeared. He drove a needle into our friend's chest and she burst back to life, gasping. He then instructed us to take her home immediately, writing her a prescription which she was to fill in the morning. We obeyed, and left with him: he went to his car, a sleek black Mercedes and we to the subway, Janice hobbling and sobbing, too far gone to be intelligible but, at the very least, alive.
"I'm going to go ahead and provide you a low dose of ambien," Dr. Fernandes was continuing. "You're not going to be using any sort of drugs while you're here. Your Boss is very insistent on that. Making that transition can be tough for some people, and insomnia is often part of that. This should be a mild way of easing into that. If you can sleep, you have a better shot of feeling good."
"You keep acting like I'm sick," I scowled.
"Sweetheart, if your parents brought you into my office, I'd tell you the same thing. You're too skinny. You do too many drugs. Your blood pressure if through the roof. You've got the lungs of a sixty-year old. If you're not sick, I don't know who is."
I scowled again but there was nothing else I could say. I had never been very good at arguing with doctors.
As she finished up, the doorbell rang.
"That should be the nutritionist," Dr. Fernandes murmured, glancing up from her clipboard. "I'll let him in. Why don't you meet us in the kitchen?"
Left alone in my room, I stared at the prescription. I tried fathoming how my life had gotten to this point, where I was a prisoner in the lap of luxury and being prescribed
drugs to help keep me off drugs. I hated that she acted like I was some sort of addict. I mean, I guessed I was addicted to cigarettes, but that was different. I used cocaine a few times a week, and had definitely been using more the older I got, but unlike some girls I knew, I could go weeks without touching a line and feel fine. Same with drinking. Smoking was the only thing that made my skin itch if I didn't have half a pack or so a day, at least, but I knew people who smoked way more and were perfectly healthy.
I put on my bathrobe, and suppressed, only barely, a tiny thrill at the feeling of the luxurious silk on my skin. I tried not to like it too much. I didn't want to like it as much as I did. But I’d be lying if I claimed I was indifferent to it. All girls like to be pampered a little bit. Or a lot.
I glided out into the kitchen, which opened up into the living room. It was a work of art, the kind of place my mother would sigh over, watching HG TV back home in Wisconsin: granite counter tops, all new stainless steel appliances, and, like everywhere else in the apartment, a fantastic view.
A handsome young, effeminate looking black man had joined Dr. Fernandes.
"I'm Bobby," he said, all big smiles as he took my hand. Definitely gay, I thought. Did Boss only employ queers? I couldn't disagree with that business strategy. I'd been dating straight men my entire life, and most of them were more or less sociopaths, so maybe there was something to it.
"Bobby will take over from here," Dr. Fernandes concluded. "We're going to be putting you on an extra nutritious, extra delicious diet. Isn't that right, Bobby?"
"Girl, you are going to love this. I am jealous of you, I tell you what," she said, his voice bearing a slight Southern twang. I guessed he was some poor kid from Tennessee who, facing harassment and prejudice down south, had moved to New York, where he could be who he wanted to be. As another outsider, another relative newcomer to the city, I immediately felt sympathy for him.
"Why's that?" I asked, my voice colder than I had intended it to be. I knew from experience that when I went Ice Queen, it was hard to snap out of it.
"Because, baby girl," he said with an easy grin, a grin that ignored my cold tone and warmed it with his friendliness. "You are going to be on a caloric surplus. Doctor's orders. Do you know what that means?"
I looked from Bobby to Dr. Fernandes.
"It... it means you want me to gain weight."
"That's right, sweetheart. And gaining weight is a hell of a lot more fun that losing it."
"So, what? Are you just going to be bringing me chocolate cakes every day?"
He laughed.
"Not quite, but I bet you we could slip in some chocolate cake if you're good. I can swing down to Little Italy and pick us up some cannoli. That's my secret weakness--it's like heaven for me."
I noticed a white paper bag on the table. Bobby unwrapped it--a veritable feast of Indian food. When the smell of the spices hit my nose, my mouth started watering. I loved Indian food. I just rarely ate it. I mean, I rarely ate anything, so I supposed I ate as much Indian food as I ate anything else, if you think about it.
I dug into a few samosas while Bobby and Dr. Fernandes discussed.
"It's important that she gets enough protein," the doctor was saying. "Since Sven is going to put her through the ringer."
"Do you eat meat, darling?" Bobby asked me. I shrugged.
"I'll eat anything, I guess."
"Good. That makes it easier. Nothing like a big juicy steak to put some meat on those bones."
God, the mere thought made me voracious just as much as it turned my stomach. After half a samosa, I was already getting full. I had trained myself over the years to eat hardly anything. Since junior high. That was when girls started getting their periods, started growing boobs. When boys started noticing you. And when the girls I was friends with started… Well… We’d go in the bathroom after lunch and take turns jamming our fingers down our throats. It was like a mark of a true friend, to have your BFF do that for you. It was gross, and so instead, any girl who was cool, who was hot—you just stopped eating. Just broccoli and lettuce, please. Years and years of passing up plates of barbecue ribs, hamburgers, macaroni and cheese… Trying to get yourself to the point where you don’t want it anymore. But the want never really goes away. It just learns to sleep for a while.
"Oh, no, honeybee," Bobby said with a grin, pushing another samosa towards me. "You've got two more of these little devils. And some tandoori chicken, chana masala..."
"I'm really not that hungry," I insisted, but I obediently ate the second samosa, and then the third. I was feeling pleasantly full, even bloated, but I kept eating, something I hadn't done since I was a kid.
Once Bobby and Dr. Fernandes finished hammering out the details of my diet, they left me to finish my lunch--breakfast?--in peace. I drifted over to the couch, plopped down with my bowl of curry and rice, and clicked on the TV. I began to flip channels, not really knowing what I was looking for. Well, I guess I did.
Here's something you should know about me. I'm secretly a huge nerd. Lots of girls who end up modeling are. You just never admit it. You write Harry Potter fan fiction at night when you can't sleep because you smoked too much before bed, or you sneak off to a Dr. Who convention, always in heavy make up and costumed, because you don't want to be recognized or, almost as bad, creeped on by the other convention goers. I knew a couple girls who were closet trekkies, who had almost overdosed when Leonard Nimoy died and waited in line at midnight to see the new movies.
In my case, I loved Pokemon. I had loved it ever since I was a kid. Some of my favorite memories of home involve sitting on the slide at the playground after school, playing Pokemon with my friends, trading and battling monsters. I could still see their faces now--Harry Donaldson, Paul Schneider, Linda Wong, Henry... What was his last name? And Tom Story--his chubby, ruddy face peering over the screen of my Gameboy, his pudgy fingers pointing at monsters on the screen, giving me advice to get me to the next boss battle and beyond.
I happened upon Cartoon Network. Pokemon was on. Jackpot.
I could get used to this, I decided--kicking back, eating myself silly, watching my favorite TV. I felt like a kid again, sitting wrapped up in a blanket on a Saturday morning, clutching a bowl of Lucky Charms, bathed in the glow of childhood.
At some point, I must have fallen asleep, because when the doorbell to the apartment rang, I awoke with a shudder. Pikachu, in all his garish yellow glory, was dancing around on the screen as I struggled to sit up.
The doorbell was just a pretense, it seemed, because then I heard the door open. Who could it be? Mario? Had he found me?
No, he was in the hospital. And I did, honestly, doubt that anyone could hurt me here. It felt practically fortified. I didn't know what kind of security system Boss had in place, but I guessed that like everything else here, it was state of the art and brand new, ready to alert the police or, more likely, a highly trained, highly ruthless private security firm of any break-ins.
And then, I remember. My last, so to speak, appointment of the day--Sven. The personal trainer.
And there he was: a tiny, compact, blonde man, looking more like a gymnast than anything else.
"You must be Tara?" he said, pronouncing the J in my name like a Y.
"Uh, yeah, that's me," I said, standing, feeling less wobbly than before. I realized I was still wearing my bathrobe but Sven wasn't fazed by it. He had a big shopping back from Lululemon in one hand. Clothes for me, I guessed?
"Good to meet you. I am Sven--your Boss's personal trainer. How do you do?" he asked, extending his free hand to me. Good god, what a firm, powerful hand shake he has.
"I'm fine, I guess."
He was listening to me. He was turning my hand over in his, looking at my wrist.
"My, my, my... You're very thin. I know Mr. Bobby has you on a special diet, yes, an athlete's diet?"
"Yeah, something like that."
"Very good. Just like we used to eat in Norway. My credentials, Tara--I am an Olymp
ian; I took the Silver Medal in Weightlifting for Norway in 2004 and 2008 in the Men's 69 kilo division. That probably means nothing to you, but it is quite a competitive division," he added with a smile.
"Wow," I said, for lack of anything else to comment on. I had dated an Olympian briefly, a diver who knew all the famous swimmers but never took any medals.
"Yes. Wow." He pronounced his W's as V's. "Now, your Mr. Boss had asked me to purchase you some interim clothing. Some things from..."
He wrinkled his nose.
"This Lululemon place."
He placed the bag on the floor, and rubbed his palms together. There was a hungry glint in his eye, and I couldn't help but wonder what he had in store for me.
"Now. Shall we begin?"
"Um, I guess..." I murmured. I picked up the bag of clothes and retired to my magnificent bathroom. Once there, I began to change.
I was amazed to find that the yoga pants, the sports bra, and top--it all fit perfectly. Had Boss taken my measurements before leaving, while I was passed out? I wouldn't have been surprised. It creeped me out, but I couldn't help but appreciate having something else to wear.
"Very good," Sven commented, looking up from a men's fitness magazine as I returned to the kitchen. "Now, to Mr. Boss's little gym. I say little gym but... Well, you will see."
He led me down a corridor I hadn't noticed before, one decorated with old-looking oil paintings. My knowledge of art failed me but Sven noticed me looking at then.
"Yes, they are very nice, aren't they? Your Mr. Boss picked them all out. Lots of pictures of Jesus, Bible stories, I do not think he is religious, though. They are the old masters, these--from the schools of Rembrandt and Vermeer and them. Not the painters themselves, but their pupils, who painted these."
I nodded. I understood what he meant--back in the day, a famous painter would have a workshop where he could teach and apprentice other painters. Most of them wouldn't become famous, but they would produce solid works in the style of the famous master. Most of those paintings are the ones that have survived and it's sometimes difficult to tell the difference between those works and the real deal.
Insatiable: A Dark Billionaire Romance Page 4
