Nights in Black Lace

by Noelle Mack

  “Don’t sweat it.”

  She began to pace and he noticed the track in the carpet. Apparently she did it a lot.

  “Ruffles and bows. Sugar and spice. Little mice with big eyes—mon Dieu!” She threw up her hands. “The Japanese are my biggest customers right now and they want cuteness—they call it kawaii. So I will learn to be cute,” she hissed.

  He had to smile. His beautiful she-cat looked like she could eat cute little mice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner right now.

  “It’s not the end of the world,” he said gently. She was entitled to be temperamental. Even his mom had grumbled about adding Cinderella bows to the backs of prom gowns and wedding dresses. Like a neon sign for Look At My Big Butt, she’d said.

  “No. I suppose not. Thank you for listening.”

  “No problem.”

  She went back to her desk and checked her planner next. “The fitting models are coming in soon. Do you want to watch that?”

  “Am I allowed to?”

  “Of course.”

  “Anything I need to know first?”

  “They stand around with no clothes on. We have to turn the heat up.”

  He gave her a wry smile. “Sure. I’ll watch.”

  Odette with pins in her mouth and a measuring tape around her neck and glasses sliding down her nose was yet another different woman.

  He could tell she liked working with her hands. The experience transformed her.

  He tried not to stare at the naked fitting model, but Grischenka Oblomov didn’t seem to care. She looked off into space, over his head. Close up, models just weren’t that great as far he was concerned.

  Okay, on the plus side, this one had ruler-straight, white-blond hair down to her waist and apple boobs. But she was six and a half feet tall, with skeletal legs and no ass. Both minuses.

  Odette had caught him scoping Grischenka out before they reached the glassed-in fitting room. “She has perfect breasts. That’s all I need to fit a bra design. Everything below that is of no consequence.”

  “Got it.”

  He didn’t like himself for judging the model the way he had, even if Grischenka did seem kind of d-u-m-b. But she obviously hadn’t eaten for days and she couldn’t help the body she’d been born with.

  Judgy-Wudgy was a bear, he told himself. Was the fashion mindset catching?

  He looked over Odette’s shoulder into the mirror and wondered what the hell she saw in him.

  It was the second time around for the wool sweater he’d worn to Chez Prune and it still wasn’t quite dry. He pushed up the sleeves. The damp cuffs were irritating. Then he ran a hand through hair he didn’t even look at as a rule, trying to shape it a little.

  Marc came in waving a sketch and Odette p’too-ed the pins out of her mouth and put them in her pocket. He conferred in French with her, then went out again, giving Bryan a brief wave. He’d handed Odette the sketch—she was frowning at it now while Grischenka stood and yawned, then looked at her nails which were bitten down to the quick.

  Bryan corrected himself. She had eaten.

  She wasn’t completely naked. A tiny, tiny thong covered her pubes. He didn’t feel a flicker of interest. Grischenka was twitchy and vacant, and Odette had probably ruined him for any other woman.

  What a woman she was.

  “Flower petals,” she was saying. “That I can do myself. Lucie!” She went to the door and called for her assistant.

  “I’m right here. You don’t have to yell.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “What do you need?”

  Lucie seemed well-trained in fetching. Bryan folded his arms and waited on the sidelines.

  “The styling wand and some pink silk scraps, please.”

  Her assistant nodded and went to get both.

  “I am going to play God and make flowers,” Odette said. She slid a tape measure around the fitting model’s waist. “Grischenka, stand still. Can you do that?”

  “Da.”

  “Thank you.”

  She lifted the tape to the model’s nipples and Grischenka trembled. That got to Bryan. Not now, Wonder Dick, he said silently. Go back in the Dick Cave.

  Odette had given him another prototype pair of briefs, but these were a little too big. She seemed to think nothing of handling another woman’s breasts, but he was definitely going to have to adjust his junk or tie the baggy briefs in a no-nonsense knot if he had to watch her do it much longer.

  Bryan looked at the ceiling.

  Odette had removed the tape and was making notes on the sketch when he looked down again. Grischenka’s nipples were red where the tape had been.

  Bryan decided to study the floor.

  “Here you are,” Lucie said. “What’s the matter with him?”

  He was the only him, so Bryan assumed that Lucie’s assistant was looking at him.

  “Hot in here,” Odette said absently. “Thank you, Lucie. This will do nicely.”

  He heard the snipping of scissors and took a deep breath. Then he looked steadily and exclusively at Odette. She was cutting circles and ovals out of the pink silk that Lucie had brought.

  Then she set them on a table and shook up an aerosol can, spraying them lightly with some kind of starch or stiffener. Whatever it was, it made him a little light-headed. No one else seemed to mind it.

  Odette jammed the styling wand plug into a wall outlet and let it heat up, putting her hands on her hips and smiling at Bryan. He cheered up. Maybe they could get in a four o’clock.

  No, Parisians ate late. Six o’clock would be even better for sex.

  She checked the temperature of the wand by holding it near her hand, then took one of the damp ovals and formed it into a petal. She did all the others quickly after that, setting them down one by one.

  Grischenka’s arms were folded over her pretty breasts. Bryan hoped the petals would end up there.

  Sure enough. Hell fucking yes. Odette picked up a stiffened petal and rested it lightly on the model’s nipple.

  Shoot…me…now. Bryan hoped he looked bored, instead of like a slavering, sex-crazed dog to end all dogs. He checked. His long, lascivious tongue was behind his teeth.

  Was Odette torturing him on purpose? He had to sit down and cross his legs. The semen was five feet high and rising.

  Problem: there was no chair.

  Solution: suffer.

  Odette placed a second petal on the model’s other nipple.

  “Grischenka, don’t breathe,” she said laughingly.

  “Da.”

  The one word made the petal flutter off, and Odette gently turned the model’s head to one side. “Breathe away from them.”

  Something about the way she held the other woman’s chin made Bryan think of girl-on-girl porno. Chicks kissing. Yeah.

  She put the fallen petal back, not even looking at Bryan. Then, using bits of bodystick tape, she attached all the rest, barely covering Grischenka’s perfect breasts.

  “There,” she said to Bryan, standing back to study the effect. “I want it to look like the petals just fell there.”

  “I think you succeeded.” He was glad to have something to say, and grateful he had a legitimate reason to look at Grischenka’s breasts.

  He hadn’t known it was possible to like only one part of a woman, but he did now, because Grischenka wasn’t interesting in any other way.

  The way Odette handled her was very interesting.

  “I prefer to design directly on the body,” she was saying. “The result is body-conscious, you see.”

  “Yes.” He nodded. Slavering dog.

  “I might try panties to match,” she mused. She pulled on the threadlike elastic that held Grischenka’s thong in place. Almost against his will, Bryan glanced down at her pubes and saw a completely shaved slit.

  Odette better not touch that. He’d fucking vaporize on the spot.

  She took the biggest petal and folded one edge over the top of the tiny front panel of the thong. Touching that.r />
  Bryan wanted to whip off his wool sweater and jump on it the way Tom Cruise had jumped on Oprah’s couch. Making a point. Joy to the world. Let’s go crazy.

  Something like that.

  “Mind if I go out for a cup of coffee?” he asked Odette.

  “There is excellent coffee in the break room. Tell Delphine I want one too. She knows how I like it.”

  “Be right back. Grischenka, anything for you?”

  The model gave him an appalled look and shook her head. “Nyet.”

  Delphine turned out to be a doe-eyed beauty from the Riviera who was working her way through fashion school by serving coffee to the staff of Odette’s atelier.

  They talked surfing for a little while—apparently, the Mediterranean produced waves at least fifteen inches high, who knew—and he took the coffees back to the fitting room.

  Grischenka’s ass was fluttering. Flat to begin with, it looked good now.

  “Pretty, no?” Odette asked him.

  “Very nice.” He kept holding the coffees. “Here ya go.”

  “Merci.” Odette took the cup marked with an O and set it down, prying off the lid to let it cool. “Thank you, Bryan.”

  Grischenka was squinting at the clock on the wall.

  “Oh, do you have to go? I’ll take these off you. But let me photograph you first—Bryan, do you still have that camera?”

  Did he want Grischenka’s fluttering ass on his memory chip? Sweet dreams were made of this. “Sure,” he said. “In my pocket. Hang on.” He set down his cup of coffee and retrieved it for her.

  Like a robot, the fitting model turned around step by step, letting Odette snap photo after photo. She handed the camera back to Bryan.

  “Thanks.”

  Then she kneeled in front the model and pulled her flower-petal panties down. Slowly. Not a petal came loose.

  He still wasn’t turned on by Grischenka, but Odette’s action had opened the floodgates of fantasy. Bryan picked up his coffee and stared into it so hard the breath from his nostrils made ripples in it.

  Odette rose and plucked the petals from Grischenka’s breasts, then picked off the bodystick tape. The model thanked her, and went over to a bulging bag, pulling out a sweater and jeans, which she put on as casually as if she’d been in a women’s locker room.

  Odette thanked her and Grischenka left.

  Bryan took a nonchalant sip of his coffee. “What now?”

  “Men’s underwear,” Odette said sweetly.

  “Whew. That I can handle.”

  She burst out laughing. “It wasn’t very nice of me to turn a girl into a flower in front of you.”

  “I honestly didn’t mind,” he said, “but for a while there, I was headed for meltdown.”

  “But you didn’t.” Her eyes danced with amusement. “You are stronger than you know, Bryan.”

  “Thanks. Just remember, you’re the one I want.”

  “Is that so?”

  He put down his coffee, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her breathless.

  “Mrmf,” she said, squirming away. “I have to get back to work.”

  “Bring on the dude.”

  Lucie escorted the next model in after a few minutes. He was tall, with a swimmer’s body, and had a nicer ass than lanky Grischenka.

  At least Odette seemed to think so. She kept looking at it. He wore a man-thong-thing that looked weird. Studying flawless male butts couldn’t be entirely work for her, Bryan thought sourly.

  “Turn around, please, Johan.”

  He obeyed, hands on hips.

  “Pose.”

  He struck various attitudes. Nothing ridiculous like a bodybuilder, but Bryan still felt annoyed.

  Odette was now studying his package.

  Mr. Big Stuff had won the genetic lottery in that department. Bryan felt outdone. Of course, the really super-extra-longs didn’t always get longer when excited, or so a couple of girlfriends had told him.

  What did Bryan know? He had a degree in marine biology, not human anatomy. But he was pretty sure only a male whale could beat Johan.

  Odette whipped out the tape. Same routine. Around the waist. Around the nipples. She might as well have been measuring a cast-iron streetlamp for all that Johan reacted.

  He just stood there, blinking.

  Then Odette kneeled in front of him.

  Was she going to measure the guy’s inseam? Or his—no. Bryan was heading out if she did.

  “You hold that end there,” she instructed him, pointing to where his thighs joined the army.

  He relaxed a little. She wasn’t going in. Johan would have to touch his own nuts to get measured.

  She got a measurement to the knee, then held up a piece of soft dark cotton, spreading it over Johan’s quad.

  “Nice and stretchy,” she said approvingly. “This might work. Lucie—”

  The assistant had never gone away, Bryan realized.

  “Hold that there for me.” Odette got up and went to get a few pins.

  Lucie kneeled and looked up at Johan adoringly. He gave her a slight smile.

  Johan, if you like girls, you have a date, he thought. Bryan couldn’t really read the guy. Maybe his jealousy was getting to him.

  Odette came back and kneeled next to Lucie. Both of them giggled.

  He was definitely jealous.

  “Lucie, you slide a finger under there and I’ll pin this on. Johan, don’t move.”

  “Ja.”

  “I’m thinking of men’s swim trunks, circa 1925,” she explained, looking up at Bryan. “Worn tight. With a striped tank. Very sexy look.”

  He only nodded.

  She took a pin, placed it and—Johan moved.

  “Ach! Bitte, nein!”

  Was that German for don’t castrate me? Bryan thought so.

  “I am so sorry, Johan,” Odette said, flustered. “Lucie, you do it.”

  Her assistant pinned the material where her boss had tried to. She managed not to stick Johan, who relaxed visibly.

  The rest of the fitting went quickly. Nothing about it interested Bryan, who was glad when it was over.

  “So,” she said when they were back in her office. “Now you have an idea of what I do all day.”

  That, and an idea that seeing her with another woman turned him on, but he suspected she was too fiery and jealous to tolerate a threesome, let alone enjoy it. No biggie. He’d done it once with someone else and her girlfriend, hadn’t been a life-changing experience.

  Bryan understood wanting to have your lover all to yourself. He’d gotten an even clearer idea that seeing her with another man made him want to punch something like a wall. Or the man.

  “Also you have a few pictures for your mother,” she was saying.

  “None of you.”

  Odette frowned. “Why would you send a picture of me to her?”

  “Okay, it’s not for her. I mean, she would be curious but she can look you up online.”

  “Pah. Meaningless, all that.”

  He gave her a surprised look. “You’re a big goddamn deal whether you think it’s meaningless or not. Do you know how many hits came up for your name? About fifteen thousand. Your designs and your shows, more than fifty thousand.”

  “Lucie handles publicity for me. I have never looked. What of it?”

  “You’re famous, Odette.”

  “I know that. But I am not recognized on the street as a rule and I don’t care. Do you?”

  He was quiet for a little while, thinking it over. “No. not really. But—”

  “But what?” she asked defensively. “Are we so very different?”

  “Well, yeah. Hell, yeah. I’m nobody.”

  “Not to me.”

  He studied her face. Her beautiful, changeable, moody, one-of-a-kind face. All he wanted right now was one good photograph of her so he could look at it back in California and remind himself that this three-day dream had actually happened when it was over.

  “If you want my picture, then take i
t,” she said. “So long as I can take one of you.”

  Without asking her to smile, he lifted the camera and looked into the viewscreen. Her eyes were compelling enough to belong to a movie actress from long ago, her lips sensually full. She did remind him of a famous French actress, but which one?

  He tried to recall the hours he’d spent slumped in the UCSC campus theater, watching classic movies for a buck. Someone from a while ago. Not Catherine Deneuve. Too perfect. No, the other one, the actress with the world-weary beauty that shone with intelligence. She’d been in a great black-and-white movie he’d rented from Netflix. Jules et Jim. Yeah. Jeanne Moreau. Odette looked a lot like her.

  He pressed the shutter button and looked up at the real woman. Odette Gaillard was impossible to capture.

  “Happy now?” she asked.

  “You don’t seem to be. Sorry if you don’t like having your picture taken. I wanted one that wasn’t official. You as you are.”

  “Hmm. But that is why I brought you here to my atelier. Yes, yes”—she waved away the words that weren’t quite out of his mouth—“you wanted to tour the place to get a few souvenir pictures for your maman and I didn’t mind—oh, Bryan. She must be a very nice lady to have raised a son like you and all by herself too.”

  “I’ll tell her you said so. She won’t believe me. Let’s get back to what you were saying before that. I think I missed something important.”

  Odette stared down at the bulging ring binder that held too much.

  “I wanted to show you that I worked for a living. That I am not a stupid slave to fashion—it just happens to be what I do.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a fool.”

  He gave her a level look, but he was hella curious. “Just say it.”

  “I was—because I am—in love with you. I think.”

  Bryan sucked in a sharp breath. “You think?”

  “I have never been in love before. In lust, yes,” she said honestly. “And I am in lust with you too.”

  “Good.”

  “So what do you think?” she asked him. “I expect complete honesty. Nothing less.”

  “About you loving me?”

  “Yes.” She smiled slowly. “It sounds nice when you say it.”