by Thea Devine
“We’ll both stay with her for the next couple of days. I’ll take a day off—you arrange to work a couple of nights. We’ll get her through it.” Brooke eyed MJ. “I don’t think it will take long.”
“About as long as it will take to find this mythical mistress broker,” MJ said a little snidely, because she felt as if Brooke were rolling right over her.
“Oh, that,” Brooke said airily. “I bet you I’ll know everything I need by this time next week.”
MJ was a mess, but she’d walked out at the right time. The real problem was the neediness that glossed over the bullying and the complete abnegation of self. She’d lost herself in her eagerness to please him.
And what pleased him changed moment to moment on his whim. That was one of the many things that Delia would make her understand, with her tact, her empathy, her own experience, and her hard-won resolution. She would have an answer for every “but,” an answer for every excuse.
Brooke sat in awe that first evening after they returned from dinner, listening to Delia handle MJ, preventing her in the most delicate way from calling Baines and handing herself over to him again.
“If you felt tired and weary before,” Delia said gently, “you will feel crushed by him altogether if you give in now. He will lord it over you that he won, and that he didn’t have to do anything to bring you back to him.
“That’s the whole key to everything, and you know it already. He has never had to do anything. He knows you will do it all for him.”
“No,” MJ protested. “No.”
“You’re doing it now. Listen to yourself. He doesn’t have to do anything to make you crawl back to him. Nothing. That’s what he knows, and you don’t. Nothing.”
MJ shook her head…but in her head, she heard: I need cunt.
No, he needed me. Didn’t he?
Let’s fuck…
She went very still. Time’s up.
That’s what he knows, and you don’t…
“That’s how they bully you,” Delia said in her gentle voice. “I believed it, too. That Frank loved me. That I wasn’t doing enough. That he was really a great guy. And omigod, he chose me! And all I had to do was be a little better, a little more submissive, a little more deferential. A little more…dead.”
MJ looked at her with hollowed-out eyes.
“That’s what they want. They want to kill your spirit and destroy your life—and they know you’ll help them do it.”
MJ shook her head again.
“Just think over your time together.”
Yes, Dallan. Whatever you want, Dallan…. Don’t dare ask anything of Dallan. Can’t I stay, Dallan?
Time’s up.
I have to go. I’m not coming back.
He’d laughed. You will. You need me. You need this. You’ll be back.
She’d been complicit in her own spiritual demise.
No, I won’t let you. At that moment, she’d been certain.
Yet not even a whole day later, she couldn’t bear to think she’d never fuck him again.
I need…you. He’d never said so. You need me. He’d explicitly said that.
That’s what he knows—you’ll do it all for him.
Say that over and over and over. He doesn’t have to do anything, you’ll do it all for him. All he wants is cunt, anyone’s. It didn’t matter to him whose. Hers just happened to be the cunt of the moment.
She looked at Delia.
Delia nodded. “Don’t do it for him, MJ.”
It doesn’t matter to him…
She felt a cold anger. She felt the hot tide of all the months she’d held herself in rigid check slowly melt away. It had never mattered to him.
Only to her. And he’d known that. It was his weapon, but she was the one who wielded it, punishing herself for his inconsistencies.
Doing it for him.
She wasn’t there yet, but she felt the release of the god-awful fear of never seeing him again. Not nearly there yet. But she knew at that moment that she would not willingly and metaphorically obliterate herself for his sadistic pleasure.
Sunday, Brooke went out, leaving Delia with MJ, who looked a lot less like a refugee from the village of the damned.
Had she looked like that, after she realized what Hugh Steffen was up to?
I will not analyze what happened with him. What’s the point? He’s a practiced charmer, and I’m a babe in the city and he got me. He got me big time.
She headed east. Maybe Saks or Bloomie’s would be fertile fields today. And Images, their favorite resale shop. Where she’d bought scads of things that MJ and Delia didn’t know about, so that the owner, Marielyce, now knew her by name and taste.
Maybe today she’d ask questions. There is always someone who knows the thing you need to know, the life coach had said, and Brooke liked the idea that any friend, any random stranger, might have an answer she needed.
She headed down to Saks, where she spent a lovely hour wandering around haute couture, trying on unaffordable Carolina Herrera dresses and listening to interesting but unproductive conversations.
She loved this floor, with its respectful and hushed atmosphere of uncompromising service. This was where the elegant CEO wives would shop. This was where the salespeople knew you by income level, and maybe even hand-picked outfits for you to choose from. Or sent them to your home, if you had a personal shopper. They probably all had personal shoppers. So what clever question could she ask a salesperson to ferret out what she needed to know?
But the salesperson was too watchful, subtle as she was, as if Brooke might walk away with the store if someone weren’t looking. Could salespeople discern who was there to spend serious money?
Now and again a well-dressed woman came in and went off in deep discussion with the salesperson to more private quarters.
Maybe that was the tipping point.
Show your bank account at thirty paces.
Her bank account didn’t even total thirty pesos.
So Brooke decided to cut her losses, even though she loved the luxe silk blouses and the rich bouclé Chanel jackets that felt custom fitted but were not working-girl friendly, pricewise.
This is where I’m going to shop when someone wants to buy me nice clothes.
Okay, to business. Outside, she flipped her cell and called Delia.
“We’re doing fine,” Delia reported. “What about you?”
“I haven’t found the right opportunity, the right venue, or the right question,” Brooke said, “but I’m working on it.”
“You go, girl,” Delia said. “We’ll be fine.”
Reassured that MJ was coping and not crying, Brooke headed downtown to Images.
The shop was quiet on a late Sunday morning. That could either be good or bad, there was no way to tell.
Marielyce greeted her like a long-lost friend. Or maybe she was just lonely for some company.
“Brooke. It’s been a while since you’ve been here.” Marielyce was older, elegant, totally fashion savvy, and had a faint accent.
“I’ve been busy,” Brooke said. “But it’s time to update. What wonderful things are lurking on the racks?”
“Look—just turned in, I have a Chanel suit, a mere four hundred fifty dollars—a pair of Luca Luca shoes, under a hundred. An Hermès bag—but don’t even think about a Birkin. Everyone’s hoarding them. And—this the best—La Perla lingerie. This is how you know a man is serious about you.”
She opened the display case and brought out an extravagantly embroidered set of lace and stretch tulle thong panties, bra, and bodysuit. “Never worn—the tags are still attached. Someone must have been very angry to dispose of such beautiful lingerie. Look at the way the embroidery covers everything, yet glimmers to catch the eye. See the deep vee of the thong, so it sits just below the small of the back, inviting a lover’s touch? And the bodysuit—all nude except in strategic places. The lace, so soft. Touch it.”
Brooke touched and imagined a lover touching her.
“This would fit you,” Marielyce said, eyeing her speculatively. “One hundred fifty dollars for the set, a third of the retail price. Some customers are a little leery about such items. But for you, if you’re interested…”
Brooke’s imagination ran wild. It was almost orgasmic, the thought of wearing this for a lover. Of getting a gift like this from a lover.
“If you’re looking…” Marielyce murmured.
Brooke brought her attention back to Marielyce, something prickling at the back of her neck.
“What if I’m looking for a nice, wealthy man who wants a fresh, young, unspoiled, well-educated, and beautiful mistress?” she asked impulsively, yielding to a feeling that Marielyce was talking about something entirely different from lingerie.
“Oh,” Marielyce murmured. “Well…”
That sounded…hopeful.
“The set, shall I wrap it for you?”
Brooke took a deep breath. No help there. “Absolutely.” Now what? She watched as Marielyce folded the pieces reverently.
She handed over her credit card, signed the slip, and watched as Marielyce tenderly wrapped the set—her set—of La Perla in tissue paper.
“What you want,” Marielyce said softly, “is entrée to the Mistress Club.”
Brooke’s head snapped up. “What?”
“The Mistress Club. This is the place you find the man who can truly afford to support a mistress.”
Brooke’s heart started pounding. There was another Mistress Club? A real Mistress Club?
“How does one obtain entrée?” she asked, fighting for calm.
Marielyce gave her that speculative look again. “One is referred,” she murmured.
“And who might make such a referral?”
Marielyce smiled and handed her the bag. “Not everyone is suitable.”
“That is understood.”
Marielyce continued staring at her, almost as if she were trying to see her.
“I am so empowered,” she said finally. “If you truly mean what you say.”
Brooke let out her breath. “I do.”
“Then you have everything you need to know,” Marielyce said. “I hope to see you again, Brooke. And soon, so you will tell me how it goes.”
“I will.” Brooke took the bag, restraining the urge to ask where the “everything” was. Maybe there was something in the neatly wrapped package, because Marielyce had given her only the receipt. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” Marielyce said just as another customer came in the door.
…everything you need to know…
She had to get home, fast. Marielyce must have given her something in that package that would open the door to getting everything she wanted. She stepped into the street and hailed a cab.
There was bouzouki music coming from her apartment, with low thumping drums underscoring the sensual beat. She opened the door to find MJ and Delia in the middle of the living room, moving in rhythm to the belly-dance tape she had bought after the last class.
And MJ was smiling. MJ was moving sinuously and effortlessly to the music as Delia encouraged her, neither of them having noticed Brooke.
So this was why Delia had said they were fine. She’d gotten MJ off the couch and away from the bedroom, and encouraged her to take out her well buts in a sensual exercise that made her shake her butt. Delia was a genius.
“Hey, you all,” she called finally.
They stopped simultaneously. “Hey,” Delia said. “C’mon, we’re having a bellyfest here.”
“I can’t compete with you guys. I do those moves better on my back.”
Delia stopped the tape. “I’ll get some coffee.”
“Great. I have lots to tell you.”
They each took a cup and settled on the couch.
“You really do that belly thing well,” Brooke said to MJ.
“That’s my endorphins on overdrive. I like it. I wish I’d been able”—MJ stopped and looked at Delia, who obviously had been pushing home how Dallan had been isolating her—“to take the class with you,” she finished slowly.
“She’s a motion-commotion,” Delia put in.
MJ smiled faintly. “Anyway, what’s your news? You look like you’re about to burst.”
“Frankly, I’m leery of what I’ll find when we unwrap that.” She motioned to the package she’d placed on the coffee table.
“What is it?”
“Lingerie—gorgeous, luscious lingerie, the kind men buy for mistresses. Someone had just put it in for resale.”
As they drank their coffee, Brooke told them what had happened at Images.
“You’re kidding,” Delia said. “There really is something called the Mistress Club?”
“I was floored. I never would have thought there was such a thing.”
“Sounds to me like a version of that mistress matchmaker you were theorizing about,” MJ said.
“Yeah, it does. But that wasn’t my question—that was the answer to where to find the kind of men who can support a mistress. So this proves that the universe knows the answer to everything—you just have to ask flat out.”
“A mistress club,” MJ said, shaking her head. “Like the Playboy Club or something, a place a man would go specifically to find a mistress.”
“That’s what she said. Where men who can support mistresses find them. I guess anything’s possible in this city.”
“So what, exactly, did you receive in this answer from the universe?” MJ asked with a touch of her usual skepticism.
Brooke grimaced. “I’ll know when I unwrap that package.”
They stared at it like it was radioactive.
“Open the damned package,” MJ said.
“Okay.” Brooke pulled off the tape and slowly unwrapped it.
Right on top, tucked into the low-cut double-strap bra, was a small vellum card.
Brooke held her breath and extracted it. She handed it to Delia, who handed it to MJ. On it was a name—Maîtrise—and an address in tiny raised letters and nothing more.
Chapter Nine
The address was one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the city.
They looked at each other in dead silence. This thing was real. The address was real. The Mistress Club was real.
And it could happen. If they wanted it to happen.
“Omigod,” Delia breathed.
It scared the hell out of Brooke. It was one thing to talk about it and fantasize about it. But to willingly hand yourself over for the hedonistic pleasure of a choosy, high-powered sophisticate who could afford to keep you as his plaything, and who operated on a whole different plane with a whole different set of rules?
They would want perfection, total immersion, and other things she couldn’t even imagine.
She’d be walking in blind.
“Are you going to do it?” MJ asked in a hushed voice, ever practical.
“I don’t know.” But she was the one who had been given the entrée, she was the one who had dreamed up the idea, had pushed and prodded them to this point, had cheerled them into believing they could achieve the goal of having a mistress lifestyle. So how could she back down now?
It was just that her two-day affair with Hugh Steffen had been an eye-opener. To be so seduced by such a totally worldly man who got off on coddling, cuddling, and petting you until you were butter in his hands, and then lapping you up until he was sated, and you began to nurture hopes…
Of course he’d needed no more. He had no dearth of women willing to sleep with him. He was attractive, amusing, sexually magnetic, and just elusive enough to make an irresistible package. But to him, she was now a memory, one among dozens, even hundreds, a passing fancy to while away the time between business meetings.
So why was she hesitating? A mistress club at least guaranteed the possibility of a result, if you got past the door. She should jump on this instantly.
No. She should scope it out, investigate it, take her time.
Or just ignore it, an
d everything Marielyce had said to her.
She was usually fearless, but this was outside anything she knew: This was TV movie stuff. Fantasy novel stuff. This was entrée to a sex career in Manhattan, the equivalent of an actor’s big break.
Because what was a mistress but an extremely facile actress?
Then she noticed the flushed and absorbed look on MJ’s face. MJ wasn’t weeping over Baines now; she was as deep into this bombshell as they were.
Brooke felt like the fairy godmother who’d waved the magic wand, turning mice into mistresses.
So how could she back out of it?
She rubbed her hand over her face. “I still can’t wrap my brain around it.”
“You have to see what it’s all about,” MJ said. “You can’t not.”
Delia put up her hand. “You do what you think is best.”
Brooke looked at MJ. “You think I should go for it.”
“Sure.”
Delia leaned forward. “We should look at that address tomorrow. It could be a warehouse or something.”
“In that neighborhood?”
“Well, you never know.”
“I know,” MJ said. “She has to take off from work and she has to do it.”
They stayed up nearly all night discussing it.
“What do you think the girls have to do, the ones who are referred to this Mistress Club?” Brooke asked. “What do you think we would have to do?”
“Maybe give references, take physical exams, that kind of thing?” MJ suggested.
Delia laughed. “It’s probably like school—you start with Mistress Mandates 101.”
Brooke grabbed the reins. “Maybe they test you to see where you are in the pantheon of prospective mistresses. How smart you are, how cultured you are, how street smart, how fashion savvy.” Really, what did she know about what supernova men wanted in a mistress? “So how would anyone determine that?”
It was a question they turned over and over, with no answer. There’s only one way to find out.
“You just have to lead the charge,” Delia said sleepily, thankful for her evening shift the next day.
