by Eden Myles
“You should go to bed, Mr. Sterling,” I said.
I helped him up, no small feat. He was huge, but I was tall and not weak. Digging my way under his arm to keep him upright like a human crutch, I walked him down the hallway to his bedroom. We made a detour into the bathroom so he could throw up all over the toilet, then I walked him the rest of the way to his room.
After I got him into bed, I paired him down to just his trousers. Then I went back into the bathroom to retrieve the First Aid kit and went to work cleaning the ugly gouges in his knuckles with astringent. I was wrestling with the covers when he grabbed me. He was so strong he dragged me right down into the bed with him as if I really were a doll. He spooned his body against mine, his hands moving over my belly and breasts, and buried his face in my hair. He trembled against me and said something about the pearls again.
“You would have saved them if you could,” I told him and let him clutch me in the dark.
It occurred to me that despite the fact that we had fucked many times in his bed, I had never actually stayed over. I had never really slept with Mr. Sterling. I comforted him, I serviced him, but I always went home afterward. So I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feel of him pressed against my back, snoring gently into my hair.
I woke in the very early morning with his arm still firmly wrapped around me. He stank of vomit and misery, and yet I couldn’t be happier. For the first time in my life, I had woken not alone in bed. My stirring must have roused him, because as I sat up on the sheets to check on him, he turned to look at me. His face immediately clouded with rage as he remembered most or all of last night, the things he had said to me, the way he had acted. He pushed himself up, his entire body vibrating with rage. “Get out,” he growled like some angry bear emerging from its wintery den. “Get out of here now!”
“Mr. Sterling,” I began, “I don’t mind…”
“Get out of here, Evelyn!” he cried and knocked over the bedside lamp.
I scrambled to get out.
***
Malcolm and Devon shared an adorable little studio apartment on the Upper West Side, complete with a pre-war, full service doorman and a scenic view of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine through the huge, Plexiglass windows of the living room. There were enormous black-and-white lithographs of Devon on the walls, mostly modeling jeans, which didn’t surprise me in the least as I looked around.
Devon came up behind me and took my coat. “How is he?” he asked quietly, sounding concerned.
“I don’t know,” I told him, turning around so I could take in all that long, tall, beautiful blondness that was Malcolm’s professional courtier. “I haven’t seen him in days.”
Just saying that made me sad. Mr. Sterling and I had been together almost every day for over two weeks, but ever since that night he’d phoned me, he hadn’t been round to call on me. Over a week had passed. At work every day, I was tempted to go upstairs to confront him, maybe try to convince him that I didn’t blame him for what Brian had done, that I didn’t care that he’d smashed his apartment, but I just couldn’t pick up my courage to do so.
I suppose, in a way, Brian really had gotten to me. I kept thinking about what he’d said about Mr. Sterling having other women. Well, of course he did. I was a fool to think otherwise. Men like him always had more women. But that wasn’t what hurt. What hurt was the fact that Mr. Sterling had lied to me. He’d led me to believe I was the one. The woman, as he called her. But I wasn’t. If I was the woman, wouldn’t he have called? Wouldn’t he have come for me?
Devon led me across the plush, furry white carpet between all the cameras and lighting equipment until we reached an old fashioned, Queen Anne-style divan. Two Highland White terriers chased each other through the rooms. I assumed they were Malcolm’s. Or maybe they were Devon’s. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Devon asked for perhaps the hundredth time since I had called him. “You don’t have to.”
I thought about that. “Yes. I want to do it.”
I knew it wouldn’t make Mr. Sterling love me if he didn’t already, but at least he would know I wasn’t angry with him, that I didn’t blame him for the incident at the Dollhouse with Brian.
I looked over at Malcolm, quietly fiddling with a lens on one of the old-fashioned box cameras that he seemed to favor. He had other, more modern, models on tripods, of course, but now I knew why the erotica on the walls of the Dollhouse had that “look” of being old when in fact it wasn’t, not really. Using the old equipment was just Malcolm’s artistic expression. And, somehow, it made the girls who decorated the walls even more glamorous than they were. I wanted to be like those girls.
“Malcolm’s almost done setting up. Let me show you where you can change.”
I followed Devon to a changing room outfitted with a lighted vanity and racks and racks of dresses and costumes. Cosmetics and toiletries covered every inch of available surface, and there were strings tied across the length of the room with various photographs clipped to them, mostly of the other courtesans from the Dollhouse.
I looked at the pictures. “Does Malcolm do all the photography?”
Devon grinned and sheepishly tried to clean off a space for me at the vanity. “I do some too. These are mine.” He indicated a number of photographs strung across the lighted vanity mirror.
I went to look at the gallery of Devon’s work. Malcolm had a more romantic eye toward women. He liked partial nudes and plenty of costumes and props. Devon was stark—he liked bare walls and bare bodies with plenty of oil, glitter and body paint. I thought his work could easily be featured in a Playgirl or Penthouse spread. A few weeks ago, I would have been blushing furiously at so many beautiful, vulnerable-looking bodies on display, but now I could see the art in what they were doing. They didn’t just capture beauty; they captured emotion, one frame at a time.
“Do you have any idea of what you want?”
I thought about the pictures I’d seen in the Dollhouse, the ones I liked the most. “I want to look beautiful…glamorous. But more old fashioned. Does that make sense?”
“You want pictures that Ian would like.”
I blushed furiously at that.
Devon offered me a sympathetic look. “You’ll want Malcolm for this. He knows Ian better than any of us. Looks like I’ll be your fluffer tonight, doll.”
“What’s a fluffer?”
Devon told me.
“Do you think Mr. Sterling would approve of something like that?” I asked.
“Of you spending an evening with two old queens?” Again that winning smile. “I don’t think Ian will mind too much.”
I started to relax a little. I’d never seen anything in Malcolm or Devon’s faces to suggest I was in any danger from them. I was very comfortable with them, actually. I think it was just the incident with Brian spooking me. As we started looking at costumes, Devon explained that Brian had been expelled from the Dollhouse, that I had nothing to worry about regarding him, and that there would be no repercussions. I found that reassuring.
We finally agreed on a Jean Harlow-inspired nightgown in watery red satin. It was smaller than my size, but I still managed to fit into it. Then again, I hadn’t had much of an appetite these last few days. Well, I hadn’t been eating anything, to be honest. If I kept this up, I’d be turning into a size zero like I’d always wanted to be, just not for the right reasons.
Devon helped me with my hair and makeup. I was still hopeless in achieving those smoky eyes that Mr. Sterling liked so much. As he worked over me at the vanity, he showed me a scrapbook of his drag queen days. I couldn’t even tell it was him!
“Have you and Malcolm been together a long time?” I asked.
“Seven years,” Devon explained as he hunted through a jewelry case. I knew my pearls would have been perfect with the dress, but Brian had done a fine job on them and now they were gone forever. “But sometimes it fe
els longer.”
“You don’t get along?”
“We fight, we make up. We fight some more.”
“You should get married, then it would all make sense.”
“You think?”
“No,” I said. “I know.”
Devon fastened what looked like real diamonds around my neck. “If I married Malcolm, would you be my maid of honor?”
“Of course.”
“You’re my favorite doll, doll,” he said, squeezing my shoulders. He gave me a once over in the mirror. “You’re all ready for the ball, Cinderella.”
He led me back out into the studio and had me sit on the divan, now covered in white ermine. Malcolm came over and explained how the series of shots would work and what I would need to do. It didn’t sound difficult, and Malcolm was very sweet about everything, telling me I could stop anytime I started feeling uncomfortable.
He photographed me first sitting and then lounging on the divan. Devon stepped in between shots and fixed my dress or hair or touched up my makeup when I needed it. I learned that this, too, was the job of a fluffer. Malcolm must have taken a hundred pictures before he stopped and asked me if I wanted to do the next series of shots.
I had to wind up my courage, but I said, “Yes, please.”
“These are for Ian, I take it? His private collection?”
“Yes. Though, perhaps…”
“What is it, my dear?”
“I wondered if they might be good enough to go in the Dollhouse? But I suppose not…”
Malcolm smiled. “I think they might be more than good enough. You would look lovely on the walls of the Dollhouse, my dear. You look like a young Ingrid Bergman, all cheekbones and dreamy eyes.”
I tried not to blush at his compliment. I wondered what Mr. Sterling would think when he saw the pictures. I thought about the other women I was likely competing with, the other women in his collection. I expected to feel sad, but instead I found myself growing angry, which was good. I was so tired of being second best, of being ashamed and ignored and the last in line for everything. I had taken the job in the secretarial pool at Sterling of New York because I figured it was best I would ever get. And I had dated Shawn because I thought he was the best that I deserved. I had done everything right and proper in my life because I was a right and proper girl, a good girl. And utterly miserable. I was sure the other girls that Mr. Sterling kept were incredibly beautiful and cultured—French fashionistas and Swedish models and Italian Contessas, for all I knew. But I could be like that, too. I could be just as beautiful and bold.
Devon helped me out of the dress and repositioned me on the divan in just my stockings and heels. I listened to Devon’s instructions as Malcolm set up and took the first series of shots. He shot me on the white furs, very demure, and then had Devon change them out for dark minks. He said he liked me against the dark plush mink much better, that it made my skin glow. I let Devon position me like a big doll. I still didn’t have a very good sense of my body or what was attractive, but I trusted Devon. He moved like silk, very sexy. He seemed to know exactly what to do.
I didn’t mind so much when Devon had me lounge on the furs and draped one of my legs over the back of the divan. It was a frighteningly exposed position, and Malcolm even shot me from above, but I had a feeling that Mr. Sterling would like this series more than any of them. They discussed using an ice cube to get the coloring up in my breasts, but I asked them if there was another way. An ice cube sounded too much like torture of the wrong sort to me.
Devon sat on the edge of the divan beside me and looked at me. “I could do you by hand, if you like.”
I thought about that. It sounded better than ice cubes. “All right. But nothing painful.”
“You mean taking Ian in one of his shoddy moods isn’t painful?” he asked with genuine surprise.
I hated the way he made me blush all the time! “He doesn’t hurt me. He knows I don’t like that.”
Devon began by circling my nipples with his fingers, then replacing them with his mouth. He was gentler with me than Mr. Sterling. He tongued them and then blew them dry until they were hard and dark. Next, he drew his tongue down over my body to my navel and poked in a little ways, which had the inadvertent effect of making me giggle. I’d always had a ticklish belly button. “Not the effect I was looking for,” he admonished me with his lopsided grin. He moved back up to my neck to lick me there, biting gently at the sensitive skin under my ear like some exuberant vampire until I whimpered, while his hands moved down over my belly and between my legs. His fingers parted my folds and tapped gently at my clit before moving into the wet depths of my slit. “She’s very tight,” Devon complained. He lifted my leg and bent it at the knee, resting the heel of my black platform shoe against his shoulder so he had better access to me. He slid his fingers further in, making a kind of squicking sound in all my wetness. I writhed under his touch. “Now that’s much better,” he said.
“Does it bother you?” I asked, breathing roughly against his shoulder. “Touching a girl?”
He raised his eyebrows at that, then removed his fingers to bring them to his mouth to suck all my juices off. “No, doll. I like chicks and dicks.”
“Oh,” I said. “So no one is safe from you.”
Devon laughed at that as his hand found me again. He dabbled his fingers in all my wetness before sinking two of his fingers inside my cunny while his thumb brushed over my ass and pushed inward a little ways. I had never been penetrated this way, in both places at once, but Devon was very good. I immediately started writhing for him and pushing my pelvis up to meet his thrusts. I wanted him to go deeper than this. “Christ, she’s incredibly strong inside,” Devon said, obviously not to me. He sounded impressed. “I know she’s not a virgin but she feels like one. Ian much fucking love this. It must be like fucking heaven on earth for him.”
“Is she wet?”
“Incredibly so.”
“Make her wetter still. Make her so wet she comes.”
He did. Devon expertly moved in and out of me, playing with my body until I began thrashing under him. It had been days since I’d seen Mr. Sterling, days since anyone had touched me other than myself, and anyway, that wasn’t the same thing. I could never come alone the way I could come under him. I closed my eyes and imagined Mr. Sterling penetrating me in that way he had, so fast, so hard, so full of hunger and primal male power. “Bite me,” I said to Devon. “Please. Bite me and fuck me at the same time.”
Devon’s teeth found the little spot under my ear. He bit down as his fingers thrust up and up inside of me. I came hard and very wet against him, my back arching up off the divan as I gave a whimpering cry of surprise and release. Malcolm photographed me very wet and very sated lying on the divan amidst rumpled furs and my wild tangles of hair.
Afterward he went to start the developing process and Devon showed me to the shower and let me dress. After that, he escorted me down to the TV room. It was a huge and lavish, with a sunken living room full of white, L-shaped sofas made of buttery white suede and covered in more of those animal furs that they both seemed to favor. Devon showed me to one of the two huge sofas and I sat down and played with the terriers wrestling on the cushions beside me while he went to retrieve a snack for us.
He returned a short time later with two pints of ice cream. “Are you a Cherry Swirl girl, or a Death by Chocolate girl?” he asked grandly, holding them up.
“Death by Chocolate, please,” I said, and we settled down to eat our ice cream while Devon flipped through Netflix for something to watch.
I was feeling sad again. The ice cream reminded me of all the sleepless nights I’d spent in front of the TV with my two cats, gulping down calories while I willed Shawn to phone me, to tell me he’d broken up with his girlfriend, that he wanted to see me again. It was so stupid because even after he’d made a fool of me, I’d held out h
ope that he would come back. I knew he wouldn’t, just like I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that I’d eventually turn into the crazy old cat lady down the street. I knew that even if he did come back, he’d eventually leave me again, like the way my dad had left my mom to go find himself in the world. I was a foolish girl. I didn’t want to believe I was so forgettable, so easily kicked to the curb. Hope springs eternal, even in the middle of a parched desert, I guess.
“Oh cool!”
I looked up and saw that Devon had settled on Dragonslayer.
“I love this movie,” Devon informed me with a huge, evil grin. “Peter MacNicol is so cute and clueless. And Dragonslayer really has everything you want in a good movie…violence, dragons…and plenty of sex.”
I laughed at him. “I don’t remember there being any sex in Dragonslayer.”
Devon looked insulted. “Of course there is. The whole movie is permeated with themes of sex.”
“You’re making that up.”
Devon ticked off the points on his fingers. “Caitlin Clarke dresses like a boy, so we have our themes of gender reversal. We get a nice look at Peter MacNicol’s very fine ass. And the princess has sex with the dragon.”
I stared at him in horror. “The princess does not have sex with the dragon!”
“Sure she does. Why do you think she’s so willing to sacrifice herself at the end like all those other virgins? It’s not to save the girls of the village from the lottery. It’s because she’s secretly in love with the dragon. She goes to him so she can sacrifice her virginity to him.”
“But the princess gets eaten!”
“Exactly. Which is what happens when you sacrifice yourself to your lover. You’re utterly consumed.” He smirked again, really enjoying this. “You see, the dragon is in great pain, that’s why he rages so and destroys everything in his path. He gathers stones and scales to defend himself and breathes fire at everyone who approaches. But then, the brave princess, who is really the hero of our story, goes to him and sacrifices her virginity to him. Then, and only then, can he be defeated and slain, because only then is he weak. You see, he has to be healed before he can be defeated.”
