by Eden Myles
“How do you feel about Marguerite?” he asked me.
I picked my words carefully. One of my jobs as his courtesan was to engage him in intelligent conversation. “Despite the tragedies of her life and all the things she had been forced to do, Marguerite was a pure woman.”
“A pure woman?” Mr. Sterling asked, smiling at my assessment.
“Yes, sir. Her love for Armand Duval made her that way.”
Mr. Sterling pressed his lips together and watched me through the imperial lenses of his glasses. I wondered if he approved or only thought me foolish and romantic. I told him the next book on my reading list was Memoirs of a Geisha. I wanted to learn everything I could about professional courtesans through the centuries.
He circled my sex with his ring finger, his touch as light a feather, teasing more wetness out of me. “You enjoy that, don’t you? You’re like a little cat in heat.” I squirmed against the teasing pressure of his hand. He did not sound altogether displeased. His finger dipped into me, but only briefly. “So wet and tight and eager to please your gentleman like the good little courtesan you are, Evelyn. Like little Marguerite, content to serve your gentleman’s needs. Have you ever come for anyone like you’ve come for me, little cat in heat?”
I groaned at his words. I loved his pillow talk. No one had ever touched me like this. No one had ever spoken to me like this, so sweetly perverse.
He withdrew his hand and eyed me critically. “Have you ever sucked a man’s cock, little cat?”
I felt a flash of terror. I had no experience with these things. “No, sir.” I was too ashamed to admit that the first time I had ever even seen a real-life cock was only yesterday. “Please, sir…” I pleaded. I didn’t want to do this. Not yet. Not here.
He offered me a wicked smile. “A good courtesan knows how to please her gentleman, Evelyn. She knows how to perform on demand. Undo me.” He was using his voice again. I’m sure he had used that voice frequently in the past while building up Sterling of New York into one of the most powerful cosmetics empires in the world. The sound of it suggested he would not tolerate failure.
I took a deep breath to steady my rampant heartbeat and told myself that I could do this. I was learning. I was strong, like Marguerite. I went to work on Mr. Sterling’s belt and fly. His erect cock bobbed free of its own accord.
Dear God, he was huge. I wondered how I had ever taken all of that inside me the evening before. It didn’t seem possible, and I was glad I hadn’t known then how big he was. I thought how much more it might have hurt if I had known.
“Lick me,” he said.
I had to slide to my knees on the floor of the car to get the angle right. I inclined my head and flicked my tongue over his throbbing red cock. He tasted salty and warm and male. My soft licks encouraged his cock to grow, engorging it further.
“Harder.”
I licked him harder, starting at the base and moving my way up to the glistening soft head. He was wet at the top. I licked the wetness away from his slit, digging my tongue in just a little. I heard him stifle a groan.
“Now take me in your mouth.”
I hesitated then, wondering if I could. A part of me whispered that what I was doing was filthy, something desperate women did in dark alleys in New York late at night. It certainly wasn’t me, the professional temp, the good girl who wore sensible flannel pajamas to bed, had two cats, and an appetite for chocolate chip cookies, warm milk and Masterpiece Theater. I’d never even kissed a boy until college, and now here I was, being asked to suck the cock of one of the wealthiest men in New York. For a moment, the world felt surreal.
“Evelyn.” I could tell he was losing patience.
I took his now fully erect cock in my hands. I bent my head to it. It felt warm and tender and alive, like something apart from him. I thought about how Mr. Sterling had pleasured me with his mouth only the night before, the care he had taken to bring me to orgasm again and again. Turnabout was fair play, I suppose. I took the head of his cock in my mouth and sucked a little on it. I didn’t think I could take all of it. I wasn’t sure anyone could.
Mr. Sterling groaned and bucked his hips against me. I tasted a bit of pre-cum in my mouth and swallowed it down. It tasted strange but not unpleasant. I sucked harder, taking more of him into my mouth. My heart sped up, thudding so hard against the wall of my chest that I worried he could hear it. I felt the wetness growing between my legs again, but at the same time, I felt strangely electrified, in control. Powerful. I was bringing him to orgasm, making this powerful man whimper with just the suction of my mouth. The fear that I was doing something wrong, something filthy, slowly disappeared. He felt so perfect in my mouth, so warm and alive…
Mr. Sterling’s hands clamped around the back of my head, holding me firmly in place while he thrust himself in and out of my mouth, fucking my mouth with his cock the way he had fucked my mouth earlier with his tongue. He came hard in my mouth, pounding against my tonsils so I almost choked, almost couldn’t swallow him down in time. He recognized my distress and pulled out. I found I could breathe again. He gripped me by the hair and pulled, hurting me, pulling me back up onto the seat with him. He kissed me desperately, his teeth clicking against mine in his urgent desire to kiss me, to taste the inside of my mouth, to taste himself in my mouth. “Christ, you’re so fucking beautiful, Evelyn,” he told me, practically growling against my mouth. “So fucking perfect. I love your mouth almost as much as I love your sweet little cunny.”
I squirmed uncomfortably. Suddenly I was sad.
“Evelyn?” he said, sounding concerned.
I realized he’d thought he had hurt me in some way. He hadn’t. “I’m not beautiful, sir.” Plain, pleasant enough, perhaps, but not beautiful.
He sounded angry. “Who told you you weren’t beautiful?”
I realized my mistake. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have revealed my insecurities to him that way. I was his courtesan. It wasn’t my place to pass judgment on myself. That was his job.
Mr. Sterling studied me through those glasses of him. I could feel a kind of fission coming off him in the dark. It wasn’t anger—more like righteous indignation. He took my face in his big hands. “Evelyn, you’re beautiful and healthy and intelligent and everything I’ve waited for.” His words touched something deep inside of me. Then, as if to prove his point, he touched me between the legs, sliding his hand over my wet opening. His touch made me hyperaware of my body. “I never want to hear you say you aren’t beautiful, because when you insult yourself, you insult me. And I don’t tolerate insult. Do you understand me?”
I groaned a response. My cunt was wet and aching for him, and I could hear the low whimpers in my throat, almost mewling noises like I truly was a cat in heat. He pressed the strange roughness of his fingers against me. Unlike the other executives I knew in the pool, his hands were work-roughened, as if he’d known hard labor at some point in the past. He plunged three fingers inside me. I writhed for him, my knees coming up on the seat. That left me wide open to him. He could take me easily, if he wanted to.
“Please,” I heard myself say. I had never thought to hear myself say that. I never would have believed it if someone had told me that one day I would be writhing on the seat of a Mercedes-Benz, spilling my juices all over the upholstery, begging for sex. “Please, sir…”
“Hush now,” he said, teasing my legs further apart, giving him wider access to all the parts that ached for him. He touched all my wetness, running his fingers lovingly up and down my slit, exploring my openings. I loved the touch of him. He started torturing my exposed clit, tapping it and then pinching it, a sensation that left me groaning and rocking back and forth on the seat, wishing he would go deeper, would fuck me already. I’d been waiting all day. He inclined his head and buried his face in my throat, the scrape of his beard grazing me. “Evelyn, Evelyn…my little Marguerite,” he said, and the
purring sound of his voice in my ear and the tapping of his fingers at my overstimulated core were enough to tease a little orgasm from me. I shuddered against him.
“I need you to fuck me,” I told him, ashamed of the begging quality of my voice. But I would beg, if I had to. I wanted to feel him inside of me. “Please, sir...
“Please, sir…may I have some more?” I felt his teasing smile pressed against my neck. I felt my ears burn. But at least he wasn’t angry with me anymore. He kissed the side of my neck, his breath hot against my cheek. “Soon, dove. Soon. But you must hang on just a little bit longer. I can’t have you spent before your big debutante ball.”
We sped on into the night.
***
We’d arrived fashionably late to the Dollhouse. The building was really Hampton House, a huge, rambling stone colonial manor built in 1680 on the southernmost tip of Staten Island. It sat overlooking Raritan Bay. I only recognized it because it was on the National Register of Historic Places, and I had seen a documentary on the oldest landmarks in New York City on late-night cable one sleepless night.
It was one of the oldest houses in New York, if not the oldest.
Mr. Sterling escorted me up the almost treacherous stone path to the front door, his hand at my elbow to steady me in my platforms. I said, “Sir, why do you call it the Dollhouse?” It looked somewhat like a dollhouse, but not exactly. It looked more like an English manor house better suited to the Scottish moors.
“Ah, that,” he answered. “That’s something of a joke. The gentlemen of New York have been bringing their courtesans here to show them off almost from the founding of the city. At that time, it was impolite to directly refer to a place that might be considered a house of ill repute—even though this place does not qualify as such. So the members of the Society began using a codeword. They started calling it the Dollhouse, and the name has been carried down by tradition for over three hundred years by Society members.”
“The Society?” I asked. He made it sound like it ought to be capitalized.
He pressed his lips together. “You’ll meet them tonight.” He looked me over. I must have been trembling. “You mustn’t be afraid,” he said in a serious, softer tone of voice. He put his hand over mine where it rested on his arm. “The Dollhouse operates on very stringent regulations, and any breaking of those regulations is punishable by instant expulsion. No one under the age of thirty is allowed inside, and every gentleman is screened for at least a year before joining. Decorum must be observed at all times. Courtesans are treated with utmost respect here, and you will never be forced to do anything you don’t approve of. If you disapprove of something, you’ll use a safe word. When the safe word is used, all play stops immediately in the Dollhouse.” He closed his hand over mine, his grip powerful. “But the most important thing you must remember is that in the Dollhouse, only a courtesan’s gentleman may touch her. Nothing else is allowable.”
He said that last like it was very important. I nodded dutifully as we approached the huge front doors with their muttoned windows. A doorman stood to one side. He recognized Mr. Sterling immediately, and without saying a word, dutifully opening the door for us. He was dressed in a tuxedo, but I could tell he had a lot of muscle going on. Obviously, no one who didn’t pass muster got inside the Dollhouse.
The foyer was huge and echoing, full of rawbone wood wainscoting and Shaker furniture polished to a shine. A huge, wagon-wheel chandelier hung from the ceiling, full of flickering candlelight. I half expected to see Puritan women passing through the rooms in their bonnets and aprons, but when several people started forward to greet us, I realized they were society people like Mr. Sterling, all dressed in tuxedos as if they were visiting the opera or some kind of charity ball.
Mr. Sterling shook hands heartily with the first man to come upon us. He called the man Malcolm. I thought I recognized him as a major publisher, but I wasn’t sure. He was a small, stout man, almost perfectly bald, with a mustache. He didn’t introduce himself or speak directly to me. “Is this her, then, Ian? Your new girl?”
“She is my girl, yes.” His hand brushed along my arm, making that very clear.
Mr. Sterling and Malcolm talked about their upcoming golf date next week. Then Malcolm excused himself and drifted away to find them drinks. Perhaps Mr. Sterling thought I had taken offense to Malcolm’s reaction, or lack thereof, but the truth was, I was used to being ignored. When we were alone again, he took a moment to explain to me that a gentleman will never speak—or, indeed, even acknowledge—another man’s courtesan. It was a tradition at the Dollhouse, one meant to discourage gentlemen from lavishing attention on other men’s girls. It kept them all civilized, he said. “At times it can strain what we generally consider to be good etiquette,” he added. “But you must never feel that you are being ignored, because I assure you, dove, that you are not.”
A number of other gentlemen gravitated toward us. They shook Mr. Sterling’s hand, commenting on me but never speaking directly to me. I stood at his side, trying not to feel too much like a piece of furniture. I saw a number of people I thought I recognized from the society papers, publishers, real estate moguls, clothing designers, a scattering of politicians. I noticed the entrepreneurs like Mr. Sterling had a tendency to stick together in tight groups, while the politicians stayed apart, looking slightly lost. Mr. Sterling said in my ear, “In years past, the Dollhouse has been an exclusively upper working class society, but more recently the board has allowed a few pundits in, much to the chagrin of us all.”
He turned to his friend Malcolm, who’d fetched them both a tumbler of scotch. His eyes shifted over a collection of men. “Bloody hell, who let Brian in?” he whispered with scorching disdain.
Malcolm raised his eyebrows at that, glancing briefly at a man who stood near the wet bar, downing martinis like they were mineral water. He was in his early thirties, with sandy, salon-cut hair, a Gucci tuxedo, and a bored playboy expression. “Ah, Brian, our little Presidential hopeful and pretender to the throne. It’s rumored he paid his way in.”
“He’s alone?”
“Do you see any courtesans nearby?”
“He won’t last,” Mr. Sterling said with authority. “He won’t respect the Dollhouse. He’ll treat it like his own personal toilet. Like some common Union Square pickup bar.”
“That’s the best we can hope for, old boy.”
Brian was as well dressed as the rest of the gentlemen here, and I thought I recognized him from some local campaign from years ago, but there was something about him I instantly disliked. I knew he had to be at least thirty years old to have gotten in, but he had that look of a man who had never grown up, a randy sixteen-year-old in the body of a grown man, the type of guy who looked better suited to a sleazy peepshow down in Times Square than a gentleman’s club.
He was looking at me, but not like the other gentlemen here. I was Mr. Sterling’s girl, and they seemed to respect that. Brian was the only one raking his eyes all over me in a way that made me press my knees together and lean against Mr. Sterling’s arm. He must have sensed my unease because he placed his fingers in the small of my back and guided me into an adjacent room. “Perhaps you would like to meet the girls?” he asked to cover me.
The next room was a large hall of some kind of the type normally reserved for banquets. It was painted all white, with a black and white checked parquet floor. I saw a collection of beautiful women standing near the giant stone hearth, gossiping with drinks in hand. They were dressed exquisitely in long, flamboyant evening gowns or tiny, shimmering cocktail dresses similar to the one I wore. They sported professionally coiffured hair and nails and real diamonds glinting like a constellation of stars at their throats and wrists and ears. The term society women came to mind, making me hesitate. This was definitely not my crowd. I turned, but Mr. Sterling had rejoined the gentlemen in the other room. I was on my own. I took a deep breath to steady my nerve
s and looked back at them. I felt so awkward, like an intruder, like a little kid who had stayed up past bedtime to watch the grownups.
There was only one man among them, tall, youngish, mid-thirties, dressed in a very expensive Italian tuxedo and professionally tousled hair. He towered amidst the circle of beautiful women, defending his decision to buy a pair of pink deck shoes, if I was understanding the conversation correctly. One of the beautiful society women seemed unconvinced of the merit of pink deck shoes, which made me smile a little. Perhaps they weren’t as scary as I thought.
I took a few exploratory steps into the hall. The first room had had more traditional things on the walls—historical plagues, old fashioned firearms, and masculine pictures of English foxhunts. But this room was different. It seemed softer, somehow, more feminine. Stark, sepia-toned antique erotica was scattered across the walls, similar to the pictures in Mr. Sterling’s office. I looked up at all those pale, full-bodied women looking like forest nymphs from some forgotten mythology. There were girls on swings, and girls twined in veils, and naked girls with giant hunting dogs creeping mysteriously through deep woods. Mixed in were more modern pictures. I saw modern women with exquisite, wet and almost snakelike bodies, wearing big, fluffy fur coats or perched sassily in cane-backed chairs. Modern women sitting on Harleys with their backs to the onlooker, great tribal tattoos unfurling across their shoulders. All the photographs were in black and white. I couldn’t say they were pornographic. They were too much like high art.
I turned my attention to the curious sight of an exquisite, four-poster antique bed situated on a dais in the middle of the room. It was draped in white sheets and pillows, white veils hanging from the canopy. I took a step toward it. The sheets smelled like minty new linen.
The women bantering amongst themselves stopped and turned their collective attention on me. I felt a flash of panic. I half expected them to sniff like they smelled something bad in the room with them, but their expressions were uniformly bright. “It’s the new girl!” one of them squealed, and suddenly the gaggle of society women descended upon me, moving with impossible grace in their high heels, hemming me in on all sides and touching my shoulder and arms gently with just their painted and bejeweled fingertips.
