by Gow, Kailin
And in a box Mrs. Walters hands me with a smile, a box so precious and tidily wrapped it might as well be from Tiffany's, a blue sapphire bracelet: the sign that I am taken, tonight, that I am his.
To my surprise, Mrs. Walters finishes her primping and preening an hour early.
“Don't overexert yourself,” she says in a dry voice. “I've taken ages to get the makeup just right. Don't eat or drink anything. Try not to move. Try not to ruin all my hard work.”
“What, I should just sit still then?” My voice is heavy with sarcasm.
“That would be ideal,” she sighs. “But we're all human, aren't we.” With a click of her fingers she summons the rest of her team and they are on their way, leaving me alone in the hotel room that with every passing day feels more like a prison.
I sit for a while, staring straight ahead, trying to decide what to do. No Internet, no live TV, no real connection with the outside world. No real connection with anyone in here. I can't call Terrence, for obvious reasons. Part of me longs to call the only family I have left – but I'm not sure I'd be able to stand lying to my mother about my real plans for Thursday night. And I know that Mrs. Walters would have me shot like Roz if my mascara runs because of tears.
I flick through my contacts, and at last settle on one.
CALLING...BEN.... The phone lights up.
“Hello?” He almost sounds confused.
“Hey,” I say. “I'm sorry – this is stupid...”
“No...” His voice sounds sincere, now. Sweet. “What is it?”
“I've got a date in an hour...”
“Oh? But I thought...”
“Just a dinner date. Maybe a dinner-and-dirty-talk date, I don't know. Some kinky guy who likes...a whole lot.”
“What's his code name?”
“Mr. S.”
I can hear him wincing on the other side of the phone.
“Anyway, I'm not allowed to move or eat or do anything because of this stupid tight dress I'm wearing – and all this stupid makeup.”
“You want me to come over?”
Instinctively, I nod.
“Do you mind?”
“I'll bring some soda,” he says, “And really tiny straws. They won't muss up your makeup, I promise.”
Ben turns up at my door barely five minutes later. He's all dressed up, too – in a suit rather more tailored than that he normally wears as a bartender.
“You brought the soda?” I ask him.
“I brought something better.” He sits next to me on the bed.
“What?”
“Listen – I'm going to preface this with a conversation about how you should really only use these with a prescription, and how you probably shouldn't take them at all, since your body is a temple and you don't want to mess with it, and how you should definitely, definitely not spread it around that I'm where you got these, since my contact's having enough trouble keeping his prescription already...but...”
He hands me a box full of tiny yellow pills.
“What is this?”
“Diazepam. Valium. It's legal – just...you know...controlled.”
“It's not like anything we do here is legal, anyway,” I say.
“It calms you down. Relaxes you, a bit. Just take one or two and you'll feel better.” His voice turns hollow. “I always do.”
He takes one pill himself, swallowing it without even drinking any water. I guess he's used to it by now.
“One or two, you say?”
I take three.
“There's something else,” he says. “You should be pretty careful about drinking. You're not supposed to drink at all – it'll make you sleepy and lower your heart rate and could kill you. In practice – just be smart – take a few sips of wine to be polite, but remember – every sip you take worsens the effects.”
“I could use some worsening effects right about now,” I say.
“You won't even have to sleep with this guy,” Ben says. “What's the problem? You've got Mr. X. already this weekend?”
“I don't know...” I sigh. “I feel like I've been so focused on Mr. X. that I'm not even sure I can deal with thinking about a different client.”
“That's part of the job, though,” says Ben. “Thinking fast. Shifting from client to client – personality to personality. Being head over heels for one guy, then falling for someone totally new the very next day – or even the same night.”
“I wanted to be an actress once,” I say. “I guess that means I thought doing that would be pretty easy.”
“Let's face it,” says Ben. “When we started out, it all seemed pretty easy.”
“And look at us now.”
I'm feeling a little woozy from the Valium, but it's a good kind of high. It's soft, warm, a slow-burning feeling. Like all my muscles are relaxed. My mind is still sharp – or at least, it mostly is – but my cares seem to be receding.
“You feeling it?” Ben asks me.
“Yeah, I'm feeling it.”
“I take some when I'm nervous,” Ben says. “I know I shouldn't – I mean – I know it's bad – but sometimes when this place gets to you, when it's more than you can take, you need to numb yourself somehow.”
His eyes, so hollow, so sad, get to me. More than anybody else I've met here, Ben seems broken by this place. Like an addict. Hating, despising every minute of his time here, but unwilling or unable to escape. Is it the money that keeps him here, I wonder? Or is there something else? Does the Blue Room have something on him?
“You're lucky,” he says. “The fact that you're nervous. It means you haven't been here long enough for the degradation to get routine.” He inhaled sharply “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn't mean to upset you. I know you're nervous enough already...It's just...”
“It's OK,” I say.
My alarm goes off. 7:45. Almost time for dinner.
“I'd better be going down,” I say. “I don't want to be late for Mr. S.”
“Good luck,” Ben says.
“I'll need it, won't I? But, it's not so bad,” I say. “At least there's no sex involved. Yet.”
“Make sure you keep it that way,” Ben says. “You can always say no. Remember that.”
We hug goodbye – gingerly, so I don't rumple my dress – and then I head for the hotel restaurant: the Azure.
I arrive and at once I'm overwhelmed by the sumptuousness of the atmosphere. From its tall Neo-classical columns to its stained glass dome to its trailing vines and the enormous cascading water fountain in the center of the room, the whole place spells luxury, excess.
“Miss Atussi,” a bartender approaches me, one I recognize but whose name I don't know. “Compliments of Mr. Terrence Blue.” He slides a drink over to me. “Our signature cocktail here. It's called “Blue Moon.”
“Of course it is,” I say. Is anything here not named after the Blue family?
I remember Ben's warning, but tell myself I'll only take a sip. It's delicious – grenadine and blueberry and something dark and almost bitter I can't identify but which tastes surprisingly familiar.
With a start I realize it. The musk of the drink tastes almost like Terrence himself.
I blush, and out of fear of my own nerves I take another sip.
I take another look around the Azure. It's moderately full, but I don't see anyone that strikes me as obviously Mr. S. I have a picture of him in my head. Handsome, fit, rich-looking – those go without saying. And a cynical look in his eyes: the jaded look of a man who has seen and done it all - - and has had it all done to him in return.
I catch sight of a couple holding hands – clearly not him, then.
And then I see him. The only man in the restaurant dining alone.
He's got grey hair, brushed back. He's wearing an outrageously expensive suit. He must be about seventy, I think, with a shock. At the table next to him, two burly men in dark suits are watching him like lions. They're not eating, just drinking water. His bodyguards, I wonder?
Without mea
ning to, I down my drink.
How am I supposed to deal with a seventy-year-old? All the dirty talk I've come up with in advance would probably give him a heart attack. I wave, shyly, practically hiding under the bar, but he doesn't see me.
The combined effects of the Valium and the cocktail help slightly, but nervous questions still run through my head. He looks up at me, gives me a funny smile. I wonder what he's thinking. Is he imagining what it will be like to have me, in bed, at this very moment? The idea makes me sick – terrified in a way I didn't know I could feel.
I walk towards him, my empty drink glass trailing uselessly in my hand.
“Hi...” I barely get the words out. “I'm Sta...” A hand seizes my wrist, turning me around so swiftly I barely register who it is
“Sorry, Mr. S. She got confused and lost her way.”
It's Terrence Blue.
Interfering, once again.
Looking at me with the wickedest, sexiest stare I've ever seen.
Chapter 7
I look up at Terrence in shock, disbelief. How many times is Terrence going to try to interfere with the job I'm trying to do? Anger flashes through me. How am I supposed to work at the Blue Room – working for Terrence, I might add – if he doesn't let me go on a single assignment? Does he really think I'm some innocent, some blushing virgin, he needs to protect from the cold hard reality of this business? Doesn't he know that I'm just as strong, just as jaded, as he is? Maybe more so.
There's a part of me that's almost flattered by his attentions, by his desire to keep me all to himself. But that desire is drowned in anger – an anger that turns to rage. How am I ever supposed to find out the truth about what happened to Rita and Roz if I can't do my job?
The Valium and the alcohol are taking effect, making my response slower than it otherwise might have been. I'm all the way at the bar – Terrence dragging me by the arm – before I can speak again.
“What are you doing?”
“You. A favor.”
“By taking away my work?”
“That's not your work.”
“I don't understand. I thought you were going to leave me alone.” My voice gets higher. “You said you were going to leave me alone.”
“And I am. But that's...let's just say you're not his type.”
Now I'm angry. I've spent two hours getting tweezed and plucked so that I can be Mr. S's type – only to find out I'm still not good enough? That really takes the cake.
“Look,” I'm getting angry now. “What do you want from me? I've done everything Mrs. Walters asked and more. I've let her tear my scalp out, practically, to get this hair. I've let her pour me into this dress that's so tight I can barely breathe, let alone move. And you're about to tell me that I'm still not femme fatale enough for Mr. S.?”
I'm getting angry now.
“It's not that, Staci...”
He has the bartender bring us two more Blue Moons.
“I can't believe you, Terrence! If you want me all to yourself, just say so. But you can't keep sabotaging my assignments like this! You just can't!”
“Staci,” his voice is low. “You're not his type, believe me.”
“Because I'm so innocent and sweet? Because I'm a virgin, is that it?”
“Staci – if you went over there, he'd be insulted – just listen to me for a second – you're not what he wants.”
That's rich. After spending all day preparing to be the perfect woman – I can be any woman that man wants.
“Then let me go over there and give him what he wants.”
I want to smack that stupid smirk off his face.
“Staci...”
“You think I can't handle it? You think I can't handle rough sex, is that it?” The combination of pills and the sips of the second Blue Moon I'm drinking to quell my rage is making me let loose in a way I'd never dreamed of doing in public. “I'm warning you – I can.”
“I don't doubt that,” Terrence says, “but...”
A body bumps into me as he passes.
I recognize that expensive suit. I recognize the long, sandy hair.
“Sorry.”
I recognize his voice.
“Ben?”
“Sorry – I can't stay.” His voice is dry; his eyes are full of pain. “I'm late for...a date. I can't be late or he'll be angry.”
On his wrist, he's wearing a sapphire bracelet, just like mine.
And he's heading to the old man's table.
And Terrence is laughing.
“I tried to tell you,” he says. “I told you you weren't his type.”
“Ben?”
“That's not Mr. S, anyway. It's Mr. J. And Ben's an old favorite of his.”
“I thought Ben was getting out of the business. Getting into bartending.”
Terrence's voice is so nonchalant it's almost cruel. “Ben will never get out of the business,” he says. “He'll be a Blues Boy until the day he dies.”
Given Roz and Rita's history, I'm not sure that he thinks that day is too far off.
I can't help it. The sight of Ben, sitting so resignedly at that man's table, makes me feel sick. The look in Ben's eyes as he passed me – so helpless. The things Ben needs to do to numb his pain: the alcohol, the drugs.
I decide I don't want to deal with these feelings I'm having. I down my second Blue Moon and enjoy the encroaching onset of vertigo, the feeling that my head's about to start spinning like a top.
I don't want to feel anything at all. Right now, I want to be as numb as I know Ben is.
“Speaking of dinner dates,” Terrence says lightly, as if he doesn't have a care in the world, “yours had to cancel.”
I nearly knock him over in my anger. “You made him cancel? Like last time? I swear, Terrence, if you do this to me one more time – I'm really going to...”
“You're going to what?” Terrence's smile is cocky, cool, controlled. I can't stand it. I can't stand the fact that it makes him even sexier.
“I'm going to stop seeing you,” I say.
Terrence smiles like he knows my threat is completely empty. Like he knows that my attraction to him is so palpable, so strong, that I'll never be able to fully stay away.
“As much as I'd like to see you try and fail to carry out that threat,” he says in a throaty voice, “I'm afraid you got this one all wrong. You see, Mr. S. really did have to cancel.”
“Did he, now?” My voice is slow and shaky.
“I mean it. A terrible coincidence, that's all.” He's smirking, yet somehow I believe him. Even Terrence doesn't want to get a reputation for canceling on clients. “He had to fly to Switzerland for an emergency business meeting. You know the type. Money comes first for them, always. Even before a beautiful woman like yourself. But he's already asked to book you at a later date. Ideally when you're already deflowered and therefore free for...a more lengthy occasion.”
“Great.” I hope he hears the sarcasm in my voice. “So I guess I'm just going to go back upstairs, then, pop on some DVDs, maybe get into my sweatpants.”
He pulls me into the hallway.
“Really?” His voice is so low and hoarse it makes my spine tingle. “Is that what you expect to do with your evening?”
“I'm off the clock, Terrence,” I say. “I just want to go home and chill out.” Home. Is that what I call this place now.
“How about we have dinner?” His eyes are hooded as he leads me to the elevator. “No, let me be clearer. How about I have you for dinner?”
“Terrence...”
I don't know what I'm about to say. Terrence, we can't. Terrence, let me go. Terrence, I can't focus on you now. I can't let myself think about you. And I definitely, definitely, can't let myself love you. Terrence, stop – Terrence, that feels so good, Terrence, put your hands right there, oh, Terrence, don't ever stop.
When the elevator door closes, his hands are already between my legs, his fingertips lightly grazing my inner thigh. He runs his hands lightly up and down my skin, making
me involuntarily moan. I squirm against his hand, unsure if I'm trying to move towards or away the pressure he's so lightly exerting.
“Miss me?” His eyes are fixed on mine. His voice is husky with need.
Before I can answer, he is already upon me. He's managed to get my panties off, somehow, pulling my dress just so so that the panties fall to the floor in a black lace heap. The haze of the drinks and the pills is making it so easy to relax, to just lay back, to enjoy it – to forget about my worries, about the pain in my heart, about the fact that at any moment somebody might walk in, that the elevator security staff probably have a camera in here and are enjoying every minute of it. He pushes my dress up to my hips and lifts up my legs over his shoulders, pushing me against the elevator wall.
Then his tongue darts between my legs, and once more I am lost.
I don't care about who's watching, who might see. I care only about the pleasure he can give me, the insane tension that's coiling tighter and tighter with each passing second as his tongue and lips bring me to ever more explosive ecstasy. My hands are gripping his hair, pulling his scalp as tight as the reins of a horse; I'm crying out his name.
I come so quickly, so explosively, it's like a shot's gone off.
When he lets me go, I crumple to the floor, my whole body shaking from the pleasure, from the danger.
“I want you, Staci,” Terrence says. “I want you now.”
“Terrence...”
For sex? For a relationship? For what? Does it matter?
“Staci.”
“I can't.”
“Because you're promised to someone else? Please, Staci – please – I'll find him someone else. I'll cancel, I'll do anything – I want you, Staci. All of you.”
