Entry-Level Mistress

by Sabrina Darby

  He glanced my way. The smile flickered. Then his attention was back on the men and he was wishing them a good day, holding up his right hand for one last salutation before they boarded the elevator.

  I stood, smoothed my skirt down.

  “A nice surprise,” he said, gesturing for me to enter. I slid by him. When he followed me, I felt the caress of his hand on my hip as a yearning desire. Nostalgia, already, for something passed.

  “Is it a surprise, really?” I managed over the choking sadness. How, in four weeks, had I gotten so involved in this? With him? His hand on my lower back, he directed me to the sofa. That touch grew in my mind until it was all I could think about. I savored the feeling and when I sat, his hand was gone. He sat down next to me.

  “No, I suppose not. I met with Lance this morning.” His expression turned serious. “I am sorry, Emily, but he’s right. We’ll pay a month’s severance.” His hand was on my knee now. “Listen, I’ll call some friends. You tell me where you want to work. Marketing again? Maybe something a bit more artistic?”

  “I don’t need you to find me work. It’s fine. I understand. In reality, I should never have taken this job in the first place. I’m an artist not a corporate hack. No offense.”

  He laughed, looking a little relieved, but also confused. This was the moment he should ask me why I had taken the job in the first place. Instead he said, “I’ll make it up to you, though. Even better. Come with me this weekend. I have a business meeting out in the Hamptons.”

  He wanted to spend the weekend with me. In the Hamptons. I could almost smell the salt air and feel the sand under my toes.

  He stood, walked back to his desk, as if I were ready to make plans, everything was settled, taken care of.

  I could let it be. Or I could take a deep breath and—

  “I think we should stop seeing each other.”

  There, I’d done it. Been brave, said the right thing.

  Silence. I averted my gaze, terrified that he’d refuse, terrified that he’d agree and let me go that easily.

  “You’d rather keep working here,” he said flatly. “I was under the impression that … ”

  “No, I mean, I can’t keep working here, clearly. No one respects me.” He looked startled at that. “Oh, c’mon. Don’t act so surprised. But beyond that, really, it’s not what I should be doing. It would be … a different life. Safer than I want. No, I think when I leave, I should really leave.”

  “Because you’ve satisfied your curiosity?” he asked quietly, but there was something dangerous about the intensity of his voice.

  I looked at him helplessly. Honesty now.

  “Daniel, I don’t know what I’m doing here, with you of all people.”

  He walked back to me, took me in his arms and it was sick how his touch made me melt, made me long for things I shouldn’t want. He knew it too.

  “You said you don’t want safe. Well, you and me, we aren’t safe at all.”

  I was still thinking about his words when his lips touched my neck, when he stole the breath from my thoughts.

  Then when he’d given me the smallest bit of space, I grasped the half-completed idea that the relationship was like quicksand, and every time one of us tried to pull away—

  “Come with me this weekend. Forget about everything else.”

  What had that thought been? I blinked, staring up at his face, at all its beautiful and familiar parts.

  “Hamptons?” I repeated and he nodded.

  It was enticing, indulgent. A farewell weekend. Why not, as he said, forget everything else? When else in my life would I be visiting these places in the company of a man who could afford to be there?

  In whose arms I couldn’t nearly afford to be.

  Chapter 12

  “I don’t know what I’m doing.” I flopped back on the futon in the living room, reaching my hand out to trail my fingers along the wooden coffee table.

  As the electric whirl of the blender filled the room, I shifted, sprawling onto my stomach and resting my cheek against the rough canvas.

  Finally Leanna came out of the kitchen, holding two full glasses of blended fruit and rum.

  “I’m going to posit something a bit controversial here,” she said, placing one glass down on the coffee table before me.

  “I’m not sure I want to hear controversial.”

  Leanna continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Maybe he’s not as bad as you’ve thought your whole life.”

  I groaned into the cushion of the sofa, and then with a deep sigh, sat up and rearranged myself cross-legged. I watched Leanna fold herself up into the papasan chair kitty-corner from me.

  “If I didn’t know what I know about him, I would be head-over-heels swept away. Of course, if I didn’t know what I know I also wouldn’t have gone to work for him. Or if I had gone to work for him, my job would have mattered more. And seriously, would he have even looked twice at me, so different from all his models, if I hadn’t been exactly who I am?”

  “Slow down, meta girl.”

  I sighed again, reached for my glass. Took a drink.

  “Emily, listen, in the last four weeks, I’ve heard you gush about him and then feel guilty, and then gush, and then feel guilty. Now he’s asked you to choose him over work. There is something intensely romantic about that.”

  “Except I’m the one supposed to make the sacrifice,” I pointed out. “That is far from feminist, I think.”

  “Everyone makes sacrifices in relationships.”

  “That’s the problem, Leanna! It’s not a relationship. It’s a game!”

  “I think you need to get rid of the guilt, Em, and maybe stop playing the game.”

  My gaze flew to her.

  “Stop?” I blinked. “But he’s playing too.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I pulled a pillow into my lap, took a sip of my drink. There was only the slightest tang of rum rounding out the sweeter flavors of banana and strawberry. I took another sip.

  Thought of the way he trusted me with information, thought of my clothes tucked neatly in their drawer in his apartment. Thought of how he’d told me that what was between us wasn’t safe.

  “No, I’m not sure of anything.”

  “Well, at the very least, go with him this weekend. Enjoy yourself. Don’t fight it. Let yourself be in love. When it’s over, you’ll have a better idea of how you really feel.”

  There was something incredibly beguiling about Leanna’s advice. For one moment, I let myself imagine being in love with Daniel. And then I thought about the consequences.

  I pulled my knees to my chest, around the pillow, holding on, the glass sweating in my hand. I didn’t look at Leanna. I pulled words out from the deepest, darkest place inside of me.

  “I’m scared, Lee. I’m really freakin’ scared.”

  • • •

  The fear was gone the next morning, replaced by a surreal sense of otherness. I was living a life of high drama and nothing in the outside world mattered or compared. This was a movie, some other girl’s life. Sitting in a private jet, or going for a weekend away in the Hamptons with a handsome billionaire. A billionaire who was paying more attention to a stack of papers than he was to me. This was what it would have been like to be a mistress. Only, rather than being the mistress/muse to another artist, I was lover to a businessman or to, like, Napoleon or something.

  But I wasn’t living in the Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec, Zola or Colette, where courtesans and courtesan culture was celebrated. Well, I wasn’t living in France, period. Instead, I was a girl who’d been raised on feminism, riot grrls, third-wave feminism, independence and equality. Drinking a mimosa, flipping through a copy of Vogue while my paramour—Lover? Boyfriend?—made million dollar deals as if that were chump change, did not fit in that life.

  But Leanna had suggested I give myself up to it, embrace everything, at least for this weekend. And wasn’t that what feminism really was about? About having the choice to do what one wanted?
Even if it meant choosing an outdated historical paradigm for one’s life?

  All of this was ridiculous anyway because this wasn’t a permanent situation. One weekend. That was all I had agreed to.

  A sudden heat seemed to fill the climate-controlled cabin. I looked up, found Daniel watching me. With that look. That subtle look that, now that I knew him better, wasn’t so subtle. I was suddenly uncomfortably aware that the flight attendant was in the galley at the back of the small cabin.

  Daniel reached across the aisle, rested his hand on my bare knee.

  “I’m so glad you came.” In that moment, with his voice gravelly and aroused and with him looking at me as if I were the most amazing, important thing in the world, and his hand—his hand simply on my skin—every sensation was heightened. This moment, now, not the future or the guilt, the past or the worry about tomorrow, only this moment mattered.

  I laid my hand over his, caressed the edges of his fingers, enjoyed the feel of his well-manicured nails against my own sensitive skin. So what if the flight attendant was in the back? I lifted his hand to my mouth, turning it as I did, and kissed the place where his wrist met his hand. I had the pleasure of watching his eyes darken, the intensity of his gaze deepen. That made me shiver, gave me another sort of pleasure. I licked the place where I had kissed. Moved my lips to another small area of skin. Licked.

  Kissed.

  Licked.

  Stroked the skin with my fingers, massaged the muscles of his palms.

  Kissed.

  Licked.

  Daniel groaned. And I heard it. Smiled against his hand. I’d make a good mistress. I could focus on pleasure.

  • • •

  The minute we stepped off the plane, the mixture of sun and wind brought a smile to my face. Daniel took my hand, even as he greeted the driver who met us. I loved the feel of his fingers wrapped around mine and, with that connection, was content to follow.

  A simple black sedan waited for us. I slid into the back seat. Daniel came around the other side, reached for my hand again. Pleasure curled up within me, spread out in warm spirals. Each breath I took felt deeper, fuller—freer. I looked around at everything as we drove on the country roads. Tall hedges lined either side and I knew that behind those green walls were fairy-tale estates.

  We drove through one of the small villages, past the main street of stores, and then into another residential neighborhood. There were only brief glimpses of the water that surrounded the land. Seeing the names of all the villages and hamlets brought back memories of my childhood. Summers with my father and his rotating cast of girlfriends, the other children at the country club. I’d been just like every other budding socialite, from tennis to horseback riding. I had even competed and placed in the Hamptons Classic when I was ten.

  Finally the car turned into one of the breaks between hedges, down a long drive and through an open wrought-iron gate. The house rambled, looked like a farmhouse plucked up out of the country and stuck on the seashore. Only, it was some wealthy person’s idea of a farmhouse, like Marie Antoinette at Petit Trianon.

  “My mother chose it,” he said, as we walked through the rooms. The mention of Lucille Hartmann grabbed my attention. He never spoke of his parents. We had that agreement, as if the past could ruin everything about the present. Only the past was why we were here now. “Not exactly to my taste but … ”

  But he’d kept it just to be close to his mother. I could read between the lines. I wished sometimes we could simply talk about it all. I had the sense now that, whether or not Daniel knew the truth of the matter, he believed his father had been wronged. He wasn’t some evil man out to get everyone. From what he’d told me about his father, and what I knew of his mother, they’d both pretty much abandoned him at the end.

  In fact, I probably knew more about his mother’s last year than he did.

  “You know that I stayed with them,” I said softly, hating that he tensed at my words. “Your mother—”

  “Let’s not, Emily.”

  Let’s not talk about the way I’d watch Lucille throw fits about nothing and disappear behind closed doors for days. The way my dad would stare at that closed door with clenched fists, and I would hide before he knew that I had seen it all. And why should we talk about the overheard whispers of friends’ parents and the way none of my friends had ever come to play at my house anymore? That unexplained shame had dulled and been forgotten under the much brighter embarrassment of my dad’s imprisonment.

  For a moment I walked next to Daniel in silence, taking in the huge rooms with their bizarre decorations. They were named as well, like the Africa room, which was supposedly decorated like a farmhouse in Uganda. But the tension between Daniel and me was so thick, the topic so not talked about, that it was driving me crazy. He’d trusted me with intimate details of his business, of his hopes and dreams for his future. Why not trust me with this?

  Except for the reason above all other reasons. I was an Anderson.

  And the next reason down the list, this thing between us would inevitably end. Why share more than a bed?

  “It’s beautiful here,” I said finally, drawing on that sliver of acting experience, trying to turn the atmosphere back to the arena in which we were comfortable. “Thank you for bringing me.”

  We stopped our meanderings on the white-washed deck just beyond the living room. With the sound of the waves licking up onto the beach, and the feel of the balmy wind rushing through the trees, he turned to me. I watched that devastating mouth curve up into a wry smile. He knew exactly what I was doing. Of course, he was complicit in it.

  “We have dinner reservations at eight. I have a few calls to make before then, but if you need anything, you’ve met the housekeeper.”

  I nodded.

  “Emily, I apologize for yesterday. It wasn’t really fair to throw all that on you. To ask you to give up your position … ”

  “It’s all right. We both understand,” I said quickly. “It wasn’t ever meant to be permanent.” None of this was meant to be permanent.

  He smiled more freely, as if the tension of a few minutes before were gone.

  “From what Lance tells me, you could have had a great career in marketing.”

  At that, I rolled my eyes, laughing. My laughter stopped abruptly when he slipped a slim, long case out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket. I sucked in my breath at the implication of the blue velvet box.

  “I wanted to give you this.”

  As he handed it to me, heat washed over my body. My hands shook as I tried to open it. Then it opened with a sudden crack, the clamshell parting to reveal a bracelet that sparkled brilliantly in the late afternoon light. I wasn’t an expert but I was guessing topaz, yet the stones looked much lighter than what I thought topaz was.

  “They’re yellow sapphires. I was imagining them on you when your hair is back to its natural state.”

  I laughed, but at the same time, I felt too hot, my cheeks burning. I didn’t know what to say, how to accept the gift.

  “Here.” He slipped it from the box and, mesmerized, I watched the stones dangle from his fingers. He laid the bracelet across my outstretched wrist, and I was surprised by its weight. The warmth of his fingers tempered the coolness of the gold as he worked on fastening the clasp. Then it was closed; my wrist was my own again, only, sapphires encircled it. Yellow sapphires.

  I realized, bemusedly, that this too, receiving the gift of wildly expensive jewelry while on a decadent weekend away, was the sign of a mistress.

  • • •

  The master bedroom had two full separate bathrooms, and while both Daniel and I were getting ready, I developed an intense appreciation for the layout. I heard him across the room, the sound of his electric razor, the running of water and the sliding of clothes from the closet. It felt elegant and homey all at once. Playing house on a scale far larger than his Charles Street place.

  As I dressed, I kept looking at my wrist, at the sapphires that sparkled with eve
ry movement of my arm. I even stopped, after pinning up my hair, with my hands resting on the back of my head, because I liked the line of how I looked, clad in all black undergarments with the startling yellow at my wrist. It could almost be a set-up for a fashion photograph. I imagined the framing, the color de-saturated everywhere but the yellow of the sapphires, which would be exaggerated.

  “Definitely a sight worth admiring.” I heard Daniel’s voice, but still the image of him right behind me in the mirror startled me, and I dropped my hands with a yelp. I flushed with embarrassment, but as I started to turn, he stopped me. He was fully dressed now, handsome and perfect as usual, and the fabric of his suit pressed against my body, touching all the naked expanses of flesh. His hand splayed out across my stomach.

  I studied our image in the mirror just as he did.

  “Maybe dinner should wait,” he suggested, his voice in that deep tone that every inch of me recognized. Heat gathered between my legs, making me feel fuller, making me want him. He slid his hand down, over the skimpy fabric of the garter belt. I watched as he lifted the lacy edge of my panties with his index finger. I let out a little moan, as his fingers swept over sensitive skin in their search for my center. Which he then found.

  “Daniel,” I whispered his name on an exhalation as I leaned against him. I reached back, clutched at his lapel. He held me firmly with his left hand while his right gave me pleasure, made me shift in his arms restlessly, wanting and needing more.

  “But then,” he said softly, against my temple. “Maybe dessert should wait.”

  The absence of his hand was torture and I gasped when he disengaged, stepped back.

  “You’re cruel,” I accused, stalking away, to where my dress lay draped over a chair, waiting.

  “I’m simply a man who knows how to savor a good wine.”

  Dinner. Dessert. Wine. I didn’t care what he called our encounters. As I slipped my dress over my head, I knew I could press the point, get my pleasure and his now without much of a fight, but I also knew he was right. I lifted my hair, turned my back to him. As his fingers slid across my back, lifting the zipper, I was primed, on edge, would be all night. And he would be as well.