Midtown Masters

by Cara McKenna

  “Whoa. Hold up.” John Lindsay. From Philadelphia. That’s where those books were set, weren’t they? “Do not tell me we’ve been fucking for a famous person.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Oh my fuck, this is fantastic!”

  “Is it?”

  “It’s deeply amusing, at the very least.” Meyer rolled over with a grunt to lie on his stomach. “I have no idea what he looks like.”

  “I do. He turned his camera on.”

  “What? This gets better and better. Let me watch the feed. I need to watch that feed.”

  “I’ll have to think about that. He told me it was okay with him if I told you who he is, but the talk was kind of . . . intimate.”

  “Filthy?”

  “No, not at all. Just personal.”

  “And all this time I figured I was the one being lusted after by the demure Miss Lindsay . . .”

  “Me too.”

  “You don’t think he’s, like, in love with you, do you?”

  “I don’t. And actually, he hasn’t even been . . . you know, when he watches us.”

  “Jacking off?”

  “He’s been taking notes, for his books. I guess his critics ream him for his sex scenes. He came to us for research, of all things. He wanted to see the sort of sex that a female audience would want to read about.”

  His mood cooled a little at that. But only a little. “I’m going to need to digest all of this . . . I wonder why he decided to reveal all of this to you. He has no idea who we really are. We could’ve blackmailed him, knowing all this.”

  “I know. So does he, actually. I’m guessing maybe he needed to share it. Needed to feel known or something, even worse than he might want to keep his identity a secret.”

  “He’s either very, very lonely, or very, very naive.”

  “Good thing his trust wasn’t misplaced, then.”

  “Indeed . . . So all those things he said to you, about being inexperienced, that was just a cover story?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I think that’s all true—that’s why he needed to see what sex looks like, to describe it. Because he really doesn’t know.”

  “Huh.”

  “Yeah, huh. Crazy, right?”

  “Crazy that he’d tell you who he is.”

  “A bit. But then again, you haven’t been there for our conversations.”

  At this, Meyer rolled his eyes. The thing that had ultimately tanked his and Suzy’s attempt at a romantic relationship—apart from their mutual restlessness—was her conceit that his emotional depth was more rain puddle than swimming pool. She was right, no doubt. Meyer didn’t like examining emotions too closely—not his or anyone else’s. Feelings had their place, but to obsess over them was both tedious and narcissistic. He’d explained this to Suzy but it had offended her, and probably rightfully so, considering it dismissed her entire field.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” he said. If an emotional attachment could indeed drive a person to irrational, even dangerous impulses like their client’s, he wouldn’t be the one to say. Sex certainly had the power to move a person to stupidity, however. In fact, he couldn’t say which had led him to more idiotic decisions in his own life—sex or booze. If sex could be seen as a controlled substance, it seemed reasonable that feelings might also fit the bill.

  “So what comes next?” he asked. “Hopefully us, with a best-selling novelist watching. And hopefully with his camera turned on, because the fact that Lindsay has been a man this entire time makes him marginally more exciting.”

  “I left that ball solidly in his court. I overstepped things so ridonkulously, I just told him, ‘Let me know what you decide. We’ll understand either way.’ But I hope he’ll decide to keep going with our Tuesdays. If not the camming, then talking with me.”

  “That’s adorable.”

  “Shut up, Meyer. You wouldn’t know a meaningful bond if it bit you on the dick.”

  “And I wouldn’t want to. Hang on,” he said, pushing himself up to sitting, then getting to his feet. “I need to Google John Lindsay now.”

  “To see what he looks like?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “He’s handsome.”

  “Really?” he asked, striding to the kitchen, sidestepping the laundry bag on the floor and clearing the takeout boxes from the table to pull his computer close.

  “Yeah. And he didn’t lie about his age. He looks about forty.”

  Meyer flipped open his laptop and launched the browser, shutting its many incriminating windows. “John . . . Lind . . . say,” he mumbled as he typed, phone pinched between his shoulder and jaw.

  “Add ‘author,’” Suzy said.

  “Au . . . thor.” He hit ENTER, confronted with the mini Wikipedia entry at the top of the Google results. “Yes indeedy, he turns forty in November. Born in Philadelphia, number one New York Times best-selling mystery writer—ooh la la. No mention of spouses.”

  “I hadn’t even thought to wonder.”

  “Bunch of award nominations and assorted accolades.” He clicked on the images tab, and blinked.

  “Fuck me, you’re right. He’s not bad at all. Quite nice eyes.” Lots of the pictures were repeats—head shots, and not a ton of them—and the rest looked like they’d been taken at book readings or conferences. He had a sort of Gregory Peck thing going on, like he’d stepped out of a decade when men still wore hats. “That is one fuckable nerd. A sort of hot milquetoast, would you say?”

  “He’s a very nice, very sweet, lonely man,” she returned sourly.

  “I’m sure he is.” He scrolled until he seemed to have exhausted the headshots. “Stutter?”

  “Nope.”

  “We’re about zero for twenty on our assumptions, then. Gender being the most key of the bunch.”

  “Yeah, no stutter, though he was definitely nervous. At least at first. I think he’d relaxed some by the end.”

  “How do you know he wasn’t jacking off out of frame?”

  “I think I’d spot his rhythmically twitching shoulder, for one. And trust me, he’s just not the type. I did get one thing right—woman or man, Lindsay’s a class act.”

  “Yawn.”

  “You’re such a dick.”

  “Speaking of dick,” he said, gaze flicking over the image search results. “This will make Tuesday nights more intriguing, at least. If he wants to keep seeing us.”

  “Man, I hope so. Though he must have plenty of sex-scene fodder by now.”

  Meyer smirked, shutting his laptop. “If that was all he’s after, he’d have watched our ‘passionate lovemaking’ sample and called it a night.”

  “That did cross my mind.”

  “It begs the question: What keeps him coming back? Maybe he likes to direct. Or maybe he simply likes you.”

  “Maybe, but even if that’s true, he doesn’t like me in a creepy, sweaty way. I think it’s more romantic than anything. I think he likes the illusion of us. I think if he’s pining, it’s as much for romance as it is for sex.”

  “That illusion’s been tarnished now.”

  “Tell me about it. I told him we’re not married, by the way. He didn’t seem all that surprised. Disappointed, but not shocked.”

  “Not completely delusional, then.”

  “No. But I felt bad. I think he enjoyed that fantasy.”

  “How perfectly quaint.”

  An epic exhalation crackled the line. “Well, I’m pooped. That was way more intense than if we’d actually cammed for him.”

  “It must be exhausting, having feelings.”

  “You know what? It is.”

  “Tell me truly, darling—you’re going to go to bed and bang yourself, thinking about him. Aren’t you?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Tell me.”

  “No
,” she huffed, “I’m not.”

  “Only because . . .”

  The softest little sigh. “I don’t know. Because I’m too wiped. Because I’m still in shock, a little bit. And because it feels too dirty, knowing how sweet he is.”

  “You’re as bad as each other. If neither of you’s going to abuse yourselves over this startling revelation, I’ll just have to sacrifice my own honor.” And he very likely would. John Lindsay had rather penetrating blue eyes. Eyes Meyer could now picture as he recalled all of the penetrating he’d done at their client’s request. It rather changed things. Rather a lot.

  “Knock yourself out,” Suzy said, the final word warbled by a yawn. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Nine thirty.”

  “I’ll be there with bells on.”

  “No bells, just a suit. It’s that new client with the billionaire/secretary fetish.”

  “Take a memo, Ms. Parks.”

  “Night.”

  “Night.”

  Meyer set his phone aside and woke his snoozing laptop, eyes making a fresh inventory of what Google Images knew about John Lindsay.

  “Interesting,” he murmured, scrolling. “Infinitely more interesting.”

  ***

  John Lindsay was as good as his word.

  Suzy had been checking the Web site for new e-mails every chance she got as the weekend approached, assuming he’d revert to formality. But he surprised her, popping up in the chat window while she was online, just after four on Friday afternoon.

  Lindsay has sent a request to chat.

  Suzy hit ACCEPT, heart thrumming. She touched the spot, fingers slipping under her camisole and the lace trim of her bra. It was hot for mid-May, and her skin was warm and damp. She felt her nerves there, thumping as quickly as if a man’s hand were taking that pulse.

  Bloink. I’ve given it some thought, John wrote, and I don’t think I’m ready to return to our usual Tuesday sessions for now. I hope you’ll understand.

  Her shoulders drooped, but before she could reply, he went on. Though if you wanted to chat again . . . ?

  Definitely, she typed back, hopes rising. I’m busy tonight, but tomorrow I’m free after three. Or we could wait until Tuesday, like usual.

  She and Meyer could easily find another client for that slot, but Suzy wasn’t ready to just yet. Tuesdays still felt like Lindsay’s—like John’s—and she wasn’t ready to open them back up. She still held out hope that he’d change his mind. The idea was positively infatuating her, in fact, a chance to cam for John, knowing who he was. What he looked like, how his voice sounded. Miss Lindsay had been exciting, in her way, but this new reality . . . Suzy had thought that the novelty and the thrill had come from their client being a woman, but knowing now that John was a man didn’t take any shine off their evenings. In fact, knowing he was a man, but that those requests had been genuine in their innocence and romanticism . . . She shivered as she typed.

  I totally understand about our sessions. If you decide you’re ready to start those up again, great, but if not, no worries at all, she wrote. All of this is simply evolving.

  Bloink. Thanks. And tomorrow night could work, if I buckle down and get my work done early. Maybe 8pm?

  Perfect. A strange sort of Saturday-night rendezvous, but given Suzy’s hobbies, infinitely more intriguing than some boring old hook up. I’ll see you here. Looking forward to seeing your face again, she added, and tossed in a dorky smile emoji.

  See you then, he replied.

  Suzy closed the chat window after a half a minute’s inactivity, feeling giddy. She honestly couldn’t say if she was more excited about the opportunity to chat with John than if he’d asked them to cam for him. A different sort of excited, from a different breed of intimacy. She wanted to tell someone, wanted to vent some of the energy humming through her body before it vibrated her straight off this chair. Of course Meyer was the only one she could tell, and her giddiness would be lost on him. In the end she simply texted him, We’ve got Tuesday off. L needs some time, but everything’s good. We just talked.

  His reply didn’t arrive. Friday afternoon? He was probably playing chess with old men or lost in some moldy biography of a dead general from the Crimean War. She nearly wished he was free for some recreational fucking—she really needed an outlet.

  No problem, there was a kitchen to clean, Mr. and Mrs. Parkses’ bedclothes to launder, a fridge that held nothing but wine and half a mummified lime and six packets of duck sauce . . .

  “Who am I fucking kidding?” she asked the room.

  She filled a glass with pinot and made her way down the hall to the bathroom. She turned the tap on hot, lit a candle and flipped off the vanity lights. Dishes could wait, laundry could wait. Groceries could wait. All she wanted right now was to soak until she was pruney, sip this wine until she was buzzed, revisit every last word she’d ever traded with John Lindsay, and imagine what others were still to come.

  Chapter Nine

  “Don’t fuck this up,” Suzy muttered as she sat down before the laptop on Saturday night. “Don’t scare him off, don’t fuck this up. Don’t scare him off, don’t fuck this u-u-up . . .”

  She entered her endlessly long and cryptic Mr. and Mrs. Parks admin password, logging on to the Web site. A few messages waited, new session requests and general queries, but she ignored those folders on the messaging dashboard, checking only the inbox where messages from active clients were routed. With bated breath she scanned the new e-mails, their subject lines bolded, then sighed her relief. Nothing from John. She’d nearly expected a cancellation, and not finding one meant she was a step closer to maybe having actually fixed this.

  She was a few minutes early but she logged on to the video feed interface, scrolled the client list until she found “Lindsay,” and clicked it twice to pre-approve the link. Her little dot turned from yellow to green, which left her with nothing to do but wait.

  “Hm.” She opened the desk drawer and rummaged for a compact she kept—

  Bloink.

  “Ooh.” She smoothed her hair, eyes jumping back and forth between John’s green dot and the cycling icon now spinning in the center of the video window, heart hammering hard enough to rattle her ribs.

  His feed filled her screen, the image far brighter than the last time—a lamp was lit in the background to reveal the room, as well as another, probably a desk lamp, casting John himself in its soft, yellowy glow. It was more flattering than the sickly cast of the screen, and it confirmed the color of his eyes—blue. Quite startlingly blue, if you went by his official headshot, and possibly enhanced by Photoshop, but seeing him now, she wondered if they might not be that heart-stopping for real.

  She waved, feeling half dopey, half charming—a mix that felt remarkably first-date-ish. But her heart had slowed. He’d showed, and that banished her worst fear for this evening. “Hi, there.”

  “Hi, yourself,” he offered, and that voice sounded just as it had in Suzy’s imagination these past four days. Like red velvet cake. “Thanks for agreeing to this.”

  “Are you nuts? I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”

  Ah, that blush was even more vivid, lit properly.

  “Nice place,” Suzy said, eyeing what she could see of his room. “Crown molding, la-di-da.”

  He laughed, calming her officially. “Would you like the tour?” His arms rose to flank the laptop and then the whole scene was shifting as he swiveled it around, giving her a full view of what must be his den. Framed photos she couldn’t make out, an army of bookshelves, a matching leather couch and love seat, plus a battered-looking easy chair beside a brick fireplace.

  “I bet I can guess where you do your reading,” she said when he set the computer back in its place.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the recliner. “Reading, editing, research, Sunday crossword. That chair’s upholstered in sweat and ink and coffee a
nd wine.”

  “You’ve got a library in there, too. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “I have a hard time getting rid of books. Even donating them. It’s a minor mental illness.”

  “I’m like that with clothes. In my defense, if you just wait twenty years it all cycles back.”

  “I think we’re all allowed one irrational attachment.”

  Suzy smiled, but inside she smirked. Irrational attachment—if that wasn’t the best description of her feelings for John, nothing was.

  “Get all your work done?” she asked.

  “Enough,” he said and took off his glasses, buffed them on an unseen hem. Suzy took in the little red marks where they’d perched on his nose and memorized his despectacled face in the two-second space before he spoke. “What have you been up to?”

  “Not much. Cleaned my disgusting kitchen, went to my mom’s for lunch. Counted the minutes,” she teased.

  It worked—that blush bloomed afresh. He replaced his glasses. “You flatter me.”

  “Good. I meant to. Oh—Mr. Parks sends his regards.”

  The flush deepened. “Ah. Can I . . . May I ask, what did he make of my being a man?”

  “He was amused,” she offered, omitting a few other apt adjectives related to the man’s dick.

  “Not offended, or upset by the deception?”

  “Oh, God no. He’s almost impossible to offend.” Politics was the only thing Meyer ever seemed to get bent out of shape about. That and Christmas decorations going up before Halloween candy had a chance to be devoured. “He’s, like, pathologically easygoing. As a high-strung person, it drives me a little bananas.”

  “You don’t seem high-strung. Not uptight, anyway.”

  “No, not uptight. But I have a loud brain. I don’t switch off easily.” Not without pot or a large glass of wine, at least.

  “I can relate,” John said with a smile. “Thank goodness I have books to plot, these days. That gives me a productive excuse for obsessing.”

  “What would you be obsessing about, if not your books?”