Attraction

by Linn Young

  She looked at him with surprise. “You want to show me off?”

  “That’s what mistresses are for, aren’t they?” he said with some irritation. He seemed a bit peeved that she should ask him the question, as if he thought she should know the rules without being told.

  “Sure, but only with beautiful women, like my sister.”

  “You’re attractive.”

  “Sure, but I’m know I’m not beautiful.”

  Heron studied her for a moment. “You must know that men find you extremely attractive.”

  “They find me sexually attractive. But I never thought that I was the type to be used to dress up a man’s arm in public. Besides, I know you have a score of beautiful women that you can choose from to take as window dressing out in public.”

  “Why should I call up one of them, when I don’t happen to be seeing them? I’m currently seeing you. And I want you to go with me to Sotheby’s.”

  Riley opened her mouth, about to refuse. Then she thought, why not? She was his mistress for the time being. It might be fun to play the part in public for one time, dress up, be amongst the filthy rich, see some incredible art and antiques that would never be shown to the public, and having all the other rich, society people gaze at her and speculate who the mysterious woman was.

  “Alright. It might be fun,” she said carelessly. She saw him watching her speculatively. “What?”

  Heron just shook his head as if to say whatever he was thinking was not all that important.

  Privately, he couldn’t really explain why he was deliberating over her answer. She had given the one he had demanded of her. But he knew that it wasn’t because she wanted to please him in any way. She was agreeing to go with him more to please herself, because she was at that moment game to try a new experience.

  He realized that he himself might be having some misgivings about their casual arrangement, because he was experiencing conflicting points of view of it. On the one hand, he would say that Riley might be viewed as the worst of mistresses. She refused to cater to the man, not bothering to stroke his ego with flattery and adoration. She did not submit herself to be at his beck and call. And she kept to her own schedule and only saw him when it was convenient for her. On the other hand, other men might view Riley as the ideal mistress. With her, a man had all the benefits of a purely sexual relationship and none of the headaches that usually accompanied such an affair. When they did come together, sex between them lasted hours and was volcanic. But Riley was not at all demanding of the man, for his attention, his time, or expect any gestures of affections. She made a good living on her own, so she did not become dependent on him, and was even more easy on the pocket book, because she did not expect to be showered with expensive gifts.

  Heron did not know why it should be so, but he felt a little uneasy about the casualness of their relationship when their sex was so intensely erotic. He did not care for the fact that his need for Riley was not as careless as was the arrangement of their relationship.

  “Why do you want me to wear,” Riley suddenly asked, breaking into his thoughts.

  He frowned for a moment. Then he realized she was talking about Sotheby’s auction. “Whatever you want to wear.”

  She had her tongue in her cheek, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Well, if I’m going to play the mistress of a wealthy man like you out in public at such a high-brow soiree, then I think I should look the part, shouldn’t I? And, why not? You’re my Sugar Daddy and I’m your pet.”

  “Except that I don’t spend a lot of money on you, and you’re not exactly as devoted as normal pets are to their masters.”

  “So, for that night, we’ll both play our proper roles. That means I need a new dress and some outrageously expensive jewelry.”

  “And you want me to buy those for you?”

  “The dress I can buy. I can always wear it at work. Now, the jewelry is another story. I need something big and flashy, like a five carat diamond.”

  Heron drew his brows again. “So, now you want me to spend money on you, where, before, you refused anything I offered you.”

  “You don’t have to buy the jewelry. We can rent it for the night. A lot of the stores do that now.”

  He paused. “It’s yours if you decide you want to keep it after the evening.”

  Riley made a face at him. “What would I do with a five carat diamond?”

  The night of the auction, she got ready at the penthouse. When she came down the stairs, she was wearing a slinky silver satin dress that had a long train behind her. Over her dress to fight the winter chill, from her shoulder to her thighs, she was wrapped around in a large black shawl of light wool knit, the shawl trimmed all around the edge with silver beaded fringes. Around her neck was a collar cuff with six strands of diamonds set in platinum. Her thick curtain of dark curls was piled on top of her head with jeweled combs and pins.

  “Very nice,” Heron said as he watched her walk towards him, his eyes cool, assessing. “Thanks.”

  Tonight, Riley thought he seemed more unemotional than usual, detached, perhaps even a little impatient. Automatically, she thought she might have done something to displease him or that there was something about her that was not to his liking. Then she firmly pushed the self doubts away as she followed him outside to the car. Heron was the one who insisted that she accompany him to the exclusive auction tonight. If he had second thoughts or wasn’t too desirous of her company tonight, than it was up to him to tell her so.

  The auction was held at the newly renovated De Young Museum as part of their grand opening. As she and Heron walked up the stairs to the entrance, Riley recognized a few prominent businessmen and politicians and handful of famous entertainers. Even the Governor of California showed up with his famous wife. There were many guests who gave Heron greetings. Heron’s return greeting was mostly with a curt, dismissive nod.

  At the entrance, Heron gave the attendant his coat and Riley her wool shawl wrap. As she walked further into the foyer, she examined the ceiling, trying to remember how it was the few times she had been at the museum a few years ago. Heron was about to catch up with her, then he stopped when he saw the back of her black dress. Riley’s small slender back was completely bare, the back line of the dress dipping low to almost her buttocks, falling into gracefully arching folds, so that the beginning flare of her hips was revealed. If the six-strand diamond choker was stunning from the front, the jewelry was astonishing at the back. One long line of strand of diamonds fell down Riley’s spine, each diamond at least one-half a carat, to her waist, where a very large tear-drop diamond hung at the end of the one strand. This was, apparently, her fivecarat diamond.

  Without realizing it, Heron murmured, “Jesus Christ!”

  Riley turned to face him. “What?” She saw the stunned look on his face and knew he had seen her back. “Oh. –Is it too much?”

  With her facing him, he examined the front of the dress. It would have been demure with its simple neckline if it’s malleable silk did not mold her large, full breasts, including her large, erect nipples, making it obvious she wore no bra underneath.

  “Would it have mattered,” he said a little testily.

  Riley gave a small moue with her lips. “I guess not.” Her eyes turned mocking. “I want these other guests to know just how generous you are with me?”

  Heron didn’t say a word but entered the reception hall and Riley was forced to follow him, and sighed a little as she did. It looked like it was going to be a long night.

  The reception was to last an hour to two hours with champagne served, a must because it gave the guests opportunity to reacquaint themselves to each other, although most were known to one another. Since members were very wealthy, it was a small social group and non-inclusive unless you had several million dollars that you needed to stash in some foreign country or needed advice on buying a yacht. Such events as the auction allowed members of the group to observe newcomers, to get the latest news or gossips, to see a tycoon�
��s or playboy’s latest mistress, or hear tidbits about an old rich patriarch or matriarch who had passed away.

  In the hall where the reception was held, Heron left Riley pretty much alone, falling into a conversation with a group of lawyers and businessman he worked with. Not knowing what to do, feeling completely out of place amongst the monied crowd, she slowly made her way around the wall of pictures, sipping her champagne. Some of the men discreetly eyed her, but the women ignored her. They did not recognize her as a member of some prominent family, and she did not seem to have the air of one who was used to wealth and ease. Most suspected that she was the mistress of a male guest who had brought Riley along as window dressing.

  At the end of the line of pictures, leaning against the wall was a young man, goodlooking in a black tuxedo. He looked to be no more than in his early twenties, tall with athletic build, very blue eyes, soft-full bodied lips, and streaked dark blond hair. He wore an expression of youthful boredom, reminding Riley of some child who was forced to go to a grownups’ party where there were no other kids to play with.

  “Well, here is another stray cat,” Riley said. “Are you here alone?”

  The man shook his head, his lips sulky. He extended his arm and pointed at the crowd. Riley followed the line of his arm and guessed that he was pointing at a woman who looked to be in her forties, bleached blonde hair that was well-coiffed, colored warmly from a tanning salon, thin as a rail that her simple-form Donna Karan showed off unflatteringly, and heavy diamond and sapphire necklaces and bracelet.

  “Is that your mother,” Riley asked.

  The man looked at her coldly. “No. That’s a friend.”

  It took Riley a few seconds to understand the meaning of his words. “Oh, so you’re like me. We’re both here at the favor of our so-called patronage.”

  “Who’re you with?”

  Riley pointed across the room where Heron appeared to be in deep conversation with his colleagues.

  “Who’s he?” the man asked.

  “Heron Wait.”

  He looked at Heron and shrugged. “Is he rich?”

  “Very.”

  The man looked at her diamond collar. “Did he buy you that?”

  Riley was about to say yes, because, after all, she was supposed to play her role properly for tonight. But she felt some kind of fellowship with this young man whose time, like hers, was in the hands of another.

  “No. It’s a rental.”

  “Geez. So, what, he’s too much of a bastard to buy it for you?”

  “No. He offered, but I don’t want it.”

  The man frowned. “You mean you don’t care about his money?”

  “Not really.”

  He shook his head. “Man, dig that, a woman who doesn’t care for a rich boyfriend’s money.”

  “So, is that why you’re with your friend?” Riley asked.

  He looked at her blankly for a moment. “Yeah.”

  “Surely a young, good-looking guy like you can do better than that?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, but, I’m a college student, and my parents don’t have a lot of dough. This friend of mine used to do it while he was in medical school, go out with all these rich, older women. He’s now a resident and doesn’t have any school loans to worry once he’s finished.”

  “Well, you could get a part-time job?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, right, making six bucks an hour steaming coffee and milk foam at Starbuck’s.”

  “So, how much are you getting for this?”

  He shrugged again. “Usually she gives two or three hundred for something like this.”

  “Does that include sleeping with her?”

  “Naw. That’s usually another few hundred bucks.” He leaned closer to Riley and whispered, “Sometimes, if she gets really drunk, and I take her home and she passes out, the next morning she won’t remember a thing, so I make her think we had great sex, and she’ll give me five hundred bucks.”

  Riley laughed, finding it all absurd. “Wow, that’s quite a scheme you have going there.”

  “It pays the bills,” the man said with perfect unconcern. Then he eyed her a bit more closely, his eyes running slowly over her, as if , for the first time, he was seeing her as an attractive woman. “What do you do, then, if you don’t make a living off your old man?”

  The two talked for awhile, happy in each other’s company because both were pretty much outsiders with most of the guests. The young man talked to Riley about his dreams of owning his own computer chip manufacture company. She told him about her bar and her sex club.

  “No shit,” he said. “Wow! That’s wild!”

  Riley laughed at the enthusiasm in his young eyes. Suddenly, she became aware of Heron standing a few feet from them.

  His striking face was hard and cold. “Excuse me, but I hope I may not be interrupting. I’ve been looking for you, Riley. They started the auction five minutes ago.”

  She saw that the reception hall was empty of guests, except for the three of them. From another room, they could hear the auctioneer introducing an art piece.

  She gathered her purse. “Oh, I’m sorry. We didn’t realize everyone was gone.”

  “They rang the warning bell twenty minutes ago.” Heron flicked a look at the young man. “But, it might be understandable that you didn’t hear it, seeing that you were so occupied.” He looked at Riley. “I’d appreciate if you’d come along now however you may be enjoying your small, private affair.”

  At first, Riley was shocked and could only stare at him as he turned away. Then she found her tongue. “Look, I don’t know what bug has gotten up your ass, Heron, but you’re the one who invited me here.”

  The young man muffled a laugh.

  Heron turned back. “Yes, I’m quite aware of that. I wasn’t too sure that you were,” he said with reasonableness that had the hackles rising even more in Riley.

  “Well, as soon as we arrived, you deserted me, and you’ve been ignoring me ever since. That’s fine with me. You think you have certain social obligations to meet because you’re such an important man from such an important family and, after all, I’m only the mistress. But don’t throw a hissy fit when you find me fending for myself just fine.”

  Riley stalked past Heron. The young man burst out laughing, the laugh high and almost hysterical. Heron turned and gave him a hard look, making the young man laugh even harder.

  “I…I’m sorry, but…” the young man gasped in his chortling. “But, man, does she have one over you.”

  Heron turned and stalked away, leaving the young man laughing gleefully.

  The auction was in earnest as he entered the room. He stopped short when he saw Riley standing just after the door, waiting for him. Without a word, he led her down the aisle, to the second row up front, to the two aisle seats.

  For close to an hour, the two did not speak or look at one another, sitting in their chairs, next to one another as if they were perfect strangers. For her part, Riley could still sense the displeasure that was stewing inside Heron. She was baffled as to why he should be so irritated with her, and decided the best way to handle such unpredictability of her escort was to ignore it. Like an adult would ignore a child’s sulk because he didn’t get his way.

  She tried to be interested in the auction items that came up for bids. Most of the items easily shot up to over a million dollars at the beginning of the bidding, items that were completely out of Riley’s range of interest because they were so out of the reach of her own bank account. So, it was hard for her to take any real interest in them. A few times, she’d look around at the others, and she would see a few of the other women barely suppressing their boredom, some of them trying to discreetly listen to their messages or text messaging on their cell phones.

  A couple of times, she thought she recognized a famous painting that she vaguely remembered reading had been stolen a few years ago. She narrowed her eyes, trying to get a closer look at the painting, then dismissed her suspicions, thinking t
hat a world reknown auction house like Sotheby’s would know better than to do a high-brow “fencing” for stolen art.

  Barely holding back a yawn, Riley picked up the thick program that featured articles on each of the auction items, and began to read their descriptions. As she read the history of a pearl necklace that was supposed to have belonged to Queen Elizabeth, she felt the hair on her neck bristle. She turned her head and saw that Heron was staring at her. Without haste, he turned away and watched the bidding on the stage. Riley frowned, then shrugged off her puzzlement and went back to reading her program. Several minutes later, she sensed his eyes again and turned hers to them, dark and brooding as they studied her.

  She raised a mocking eyebrow at him. “Is there something I can help you with?” she said politely.

  That seemed to snap Heron out of some sort of spell. He gave her a chilling smile. “It’s amazing that you’ve not had your neck broken with that mouth of yours. Especially by a man.”

  Riley went back to her reading. “If you weren’t so rich, you’d have experienced by now what it was like to be slapped down by a woman.”

  “You seem to be more than willing to make up for that lack in my education. So, why go out with me?”

  She studied him for a moment. “I may not be a sucker for money, but I sure am for looks.”

  Then she leaned closer to him and put her hand to his crotch and was very pleased to find him hard and swollen. She gave his penis a long, slow squeeze, and whispered in his ear, “Not to mention a man who’s hung like a horse.”

  Heron jerked in his seat, shifted to dislodge her hand, and gave a cursory glance around him.

  Riley almost laughed at the shocked look on his face. “Oh, my God! You’ve never been felt up, have you. Definitely not in public, but I’m betting not in private, either.”

  He looked at her with irritation, a slow flush creeping up his face. “Women I’m used to being with observed certain behaviors in their appropriate settings, if that is what you mean.”

  “You mean you never sat in the back seat of her daddy’s Buick and played doctor with a girl?”