Gold Diggers

by Tracie Howard

  “You’re not going to believe this,” she said.

  “What happened?” Lauren asked, then said excitedly, “Don’t tell me. You were offered a role in a big-time movie?”

  “Nothing quite that exciting, but I do have a date.”

  “You’re kidding! If you told me you were starring in Steven Spielberg’s next movie it’d be easier for me to believe! Who’s the lucky guy?”

  “Brandon Russell. Remember, our bags got switched when I first moved here?”

  “Of course. This is good news. Hey, it’s about time you got out. What are you going to wear?”

  “I don’t know. It’s been so long since I actually wore anything besides sweats and jeans.”

  “Just because you live in L.A., Juicy Couture still doesn’t count as couture fashion, so do yourself a favor and really dress up. You’ll feel better.”

  Gillian followed Lauren’s advice and wore a fitted, knee-length knit dress by Zac Posen. The print was a Pucci-esque mix of coral, brown, and mustard, great contrasts and complements to her rich, dark complexion, and the whimsy of the design worked well with her wild, free curls, which she wore scattered atop her head. And, of course, she’d wear her coral wrap sandals by Ron Donovan. She was actually getting excited about going out, and smiled genuinely for the first time in weeks.

  ELEVEN

  Reese emerged from the shower smelling of ripe grapefruit and fresh lavender. Her dewy skin was newly exfoliated and as smooth as whipped butter. Staring into the mirror above her vanity, she objectively took an inventory of her physical assets. The bottom line: She loved everything about herself. Her skin was smooth and poreless, thanks to a series of glycolic treatments from Mario Badescu. Her hair was long and luxurious, her figure curvaceous—full and flat in all the right places, even after giving Chris a child, something she would rather not have done. But, ever shrewd, Reese accurately calculated the true value of those nine months of hell. Like every smart gold digger, she knew that having a baby drilled the last nail into her poor victim’s coffin. Married or not, a baby was a guaranteed eighteen-year financial commitment.

  With a wry smile, she turned her thoughts to Carl, her first baller boyfriend, and how she’d dropped him like a piping-hot potato after he sustained a career-ending injury at the beginning of his senior year, shattering his NBA dream before it could become a reality. Carl was showboating his renowned slam-dunk skills during a pickup game when he took a violent elbow to the chest, lost his balance, and came crashing down hard on the pavement, shattering his right knee. While he lay crumbled on the floor, writhing in excruciating pain, clutching his crushed knee, Reese was already doing a situation analysis, quickly deducing that his injury was career-ending, and subsequently started plotting then and there exactly how to dump him and score with Chris, her second-round draft pick, all at the same time. In mere nanoseconds, Reese made the agile leap from Carl’s bed right into Chris’s.

  Up until then she’d had Carl on lock, so much so that the campus groupies had even thrown in the towel on bedding him. The two some were the premier “it couple” on campus. Bets were that he’d be the number one NBA draft pick, and they’d be married before the ink dried on his rich new contract. In fact, Reese, unbeknownst to Carl, had already picked out her wedding gown and gone for several fittings before his junior year even began.

  When Carl realized that the dream he’d dedicated his whole life to achieving was over, he was quite obviously seriously depressed. Reese spent a couple of weeks playing the supportive, stand-by-her-man girlfriend, while publicly insinuating (especially to his teammates) that Carl was so depressed that he wanted to be alone, and was pushing her away. But Reese truly deserved the Bette Davis award the night she showed up at Chris’s room, again playing the role of damsel in distress. She cried on his shoulder, recounting how Carl had asked her for space and didn’t want to see her anymore, and how devastated she was, and how badly she wanted to be there for him during his time of need. A shoulder to cry on quickly became a mix of arms, lips, and legs.

  For the coup de grâce, before Reese left his room the next morning she sneaked into the bathroom and pulled out a new cell phone, using it to anonymously text-message Chris’s soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, asking her to meet Chris in his room right away. At the appointed time, Reese emerged from the shadows wearing one of Chris’s extra-large T-shirts, with her hair freshly disheveled. She looked every bit like a woman who’d recently been fucked.

  From that moment on, Reese seduced, cajoled, and badgered Chris until she was finally able to lead him down the aisle, but not before his mother insisted that she sign a prenup. This was a hitch that she had been unable to graciously avoid, making childbirth more financially beneficial than the marriage license. After fifteen hours of hard labor she promptly handed the screaming child over to a flight of nurses and nannies. She was just thankful to have weathered the ordeal without the physical catastrophes of stretch marks or extra pounds of fat that plagued so many women she knew, instantly diminishing a girl’s physical value.

  Polishing off her beauty routine with a touch of glitter lotion smoothed across her cleavage and clavicle, she felt good knowing that the rough part was over. Now was the time for her to cash out and trade up while her personal stock remained at an all-time high, a fact that was confirmed for her every time she looked into the mirror. Chris had served his purpose; now she wanted someone more exciting, handsomer, and definitely sexier. She only needed to bail out with as tight a grip on as much of Chris’s money as possible.

  Reese propped herself up on the silk damask chaise longue that graced a corner of their massive bedroom, with a glass of French cabernet sauvignon in one hand and a seldom-used ultraprivate cell phone in the other. Chris didn’t even know it existed. Reese paid the monthly bill from a checking account she’d wisely held on to from her poor days.

  She took a sip of wine, then dialed Kira, who, besides Paulette, was her closest confidante. They were two of a kind, so Reese felt that she could trust Kira with her more dastardly secrets. “Hi, girl.”

  “Hi, yourself,” a groggy voice on the line replied.

  “Sounds like someone had a long night.”

  “When don’t I?” Though it was two o’clock p.m. on the West Coast, for Kira this was a wake-up call. She normally rolled out of bed about three o’clock, was in the gym by four, and back at home at seven-thirty to dress for her evening activities.

  “Was part of it spent with my husband?” Reese asked.

  “No, but it wasn’t because I didn’t try. The man is a hard sell.” Reese had come up with the brilliant idea of having Kira seduce Chris, have it secretly taped, and then use it as leverage to break the prenup, which had a fidelity clause buried in it. Reese figured that, unless he was an alien, like most NBA players he was having affairs on the road anyway, so why shouldn’t she just surreptitiously arrange a little tryst and then benefit from it?

  Reese sat up from her reclining position, her relaxed mood suddenly replaced with angst. “What happened?” This was not good news; her little covert mission was supposed to be a fait accompli. The Knicks were in L.A. playing the Lakers, and there was a big after-party that everyone was going to. Chris had even confirmed to Reese that he’d be there. For someone with Kira’s seduction skills, snagging Chris should have been like shooting big crabs in a small barrel, especially since he had no idea just how close the two women were. Plus, at the end of the day men were men, and usually thought with the smaller of their two heads.

  Kira was up now, ready to defend her scandalous reputation. “He was at the party, and we did have a couple of drinks together, but when I invited him upstairs to my suite for a nightcap, he declined!” Kira herself sounded just as surprised that her target had escaped her clutches, something that rarely happened to her.

  “Shit!” Reese slammed the glass of wine down onto the side table. “Now what are we gonna do?” She colla
psed on the chaise, deflated.

  “You know you’re my girl, but that’s your problem now. Not mine.”

  “You’ve obviously forgotten about the money.” Reese had offered her ten grand to sleep with him and produce video or photographic proof of the deed.

  “Girl, you know me; ten grand is chump change. I go through that on a light sprint down Rodeo Drive.”

  Reese knew she was telling the truth. Kira rocked the fashions as hard as Reese did. Reese’s problem was that, while she had liberal access to lots of credit lines for charging goods and services, which meant that Chris or his accountant had detailed access to every penny she spent, unfortunately her cash access was more limited, so ten thousand was the most that she could get away with without attracting suspicion. Suddenly an idea came to her. “What if I gave you ten grand now, and another fifty once the divorce is final and I get a settlement?”

  The phone line was quiet as Kira pondered the new proposal. Ten thousand was one thing to sleep with a friend’s husband, but fifty thousand was something else. The most she’d ever been paid for a one-night stand was twenty grand. There were risks involved. What if word got out? The last thing she needed was a reputation as someone who set up her lovers, many of whom were married. That could be bad for business. But she and Reese had agreed earlier that she would say someone installed the video camera in her hotel room without her knowledge, and she could feign as much outrage as Chris would feel. “Now, that’s a different story.”

  “We’ve got to move quickly.” The relief was loud and clear in Reese’s voice.

  “Shaun must be taking care of his business,” Kira teased. She and Paulette were the only people whom Reese had told about Shaun, her new boyfriend, or more aptly put: Her new fuck buddy. He was the man she’d met when he introduced himself by grabbing her ass instead of shaking her hand at the Knicks party that Kira had also attended in New York. The brazen move had worked: Reese had phoned him the very next day, and they’d been fucking like horny bunnies ever since. He wasn’t the marrying kind—didn’t make enough money—but if orgasms were publicly traded, homeboy would be Warren Buffett.

  “He is amazing,” Reese reflected. Just thinking about him had diverted her attention, at least momentarily.

  “But back to Chris,” she said, snapping out of her lustful reverie. “The Knicks will be in town for another two play-off games. Last night he was probably just tired, and may have been worried that you two had been seen together at the party. You should just show up at the Mandrian Hotel two hours after tonight’s game. His room number is sixteen-twenty-five. I’ll call him before the game and make sure he’ll be around. Maybe I’ll say that Rowe wants to speak to his daddy before bedtime.” The churning wheels in her swiftly calculating mind were a blur as her new plan came blazing together. “Show up in a coat and nothing underneath. That drives him crazy.” By now her chemically whitened smile spanned from ear to ear.

  “Cool.” Reese could hear Kira’s cell phone ringing in the background. “Listen, gotta go. I’ll stop by his room tonight, and we’ll talk tomorrow. Ciao.”

  Pleased with the new plan, Reese got up from the chaise, dressed, and prepared for a rendezvous of her own.

  Using the same secret cell phone, she called Shaun and purred, “I’m on my way.”

  Thirty minutes later Reese was nervously knocking on another hotel room door, praying that no one she knew—or who knew her—would see her. She wore a baseball cap pulled down low over her face, with her hair stuffed underneath, and a pair of large Christian Dior sunglasses that covered much of her face. Though her jeans and stack-heeled boots were pricey designer pieces, they weren’t nearly as flashy as most of the clothes in her wardrobe. By her standards she was dressed down.

  Before the third knock landed on the hotel room door, it swung open to a dark room with music playing softly in the background. Reese took two steps in and was grabbed by her collar, then roughly yanked into the room and into a deep, passionate kiss. Pushing the door closed with one hand, her shirtless lover unbuttoned her jacket with the other, all while moving her steadily against the wall and kissing her with an urgency that took her breath away. His passion was raw; in fact, she could feel him already straining mightily against the baggy jeans he wore. It was with grateful surrender that she allowed herself to be pressed against the wall. Her lips left his and her head rolled back. She inhaled deeply and let a long, low, throaty moan escape. Her mind was completely detached from her demanding three-year-old son, from her boring, unromantic husband, and from the self-imposed pressure to always look as if she’d stepped off of a runway. Her only thoughts were those that would lead to a long and satisfying night of being satisfied by a man who knew how to do it right.

  “You ready for me?” His lips caressed her ear, and the sexy voice was followed by his wet, hot, and proven-to-be-talented tongue. His husky breathing sent shivers down her spine.

  “Always, baby,” she managed to say. By now he was grinding into her, making them both wish that the layers of clothes between them would simply melt away.

  He nibbled down the side of her neck, lingering along that sensitive path of nerves that ran from her ear down to her clavicle, leaving intense shudders of anticipation in his wake. “Let’s see how bad you want me.” With one hand he ripped her shirt wide open, scattering her buttons to the floor and revealing a skimpy red lace bra that barely constrained her augmented thirty-six-Cs. With his teeth he pulled the flimsy material aside and began licking, biting, sucking, and just short of mauling her breasts. Without wasting a movement he deftly unfastened her belt and plunged his hand into her G-string, not bothering to unbutton her low-riding hip-hugger jeans. His middle finger came to rest between her slippery lips, which he parted, causing her to take a deep breath and begin moving urgently against his probing finger. But he denied her the building friction by removing it, bringing the coated digit to his mouth for a taste. “I think you’re very ready,” he said, offering her a taste of the creamy evidence, which she accepted.

  Shaun was a master of sexual manipulation, and he had Reese exactly where he wanted her. She was the picture of sexual abandon. Her baseball cap had fallen off by now; her hair was a mess of tangles. Her cheeks were flushed a shade that Revlon could never replicate, while her breasts swelled well beyond the flimsy bra and torn blouse. Happy with his handiwork, he unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them off. While looking deep into her eyes, which were fixed on him as though he were the Dalai Lama, he slowly unzipped his own pants, removing ten inches of power. Reese’s gaze was drawn to him as he stroked himself for her viewing pleasure. When she reached for him, he lifted her up and penetrated her sex, pinning her to the wall. With a strong, steady rhythm he gave her every inch. Reese was on another planet by now, and a three-alarm fire couldn’t have driven her away from this spot. Through hooded eyes she took in the sight of Shaun’s upper body as his muscles flexed and bulged in time to his powerful, relentless thrusting. She wanted the feeling to last forever, but he took her to the edge of pleasure, angling himself just right to push her over. When it happened and she could no longer fend off the inevitable, she hugged him tightly, burying her face in his neck as the intense sensations racked her body.

  When she caught her breath again, she also felt the earth move, and soon realized that Shaun was walking them toward the bed, not missing a stroke or a step. When they got there he lowered her, never breaking contact, and took her with animalistic force. She felt him expand inside of her, heard his moans escalate, and saw his muscles tense as his orgasm built, crashing to the surface. He carried her along with him to the precipice of pleasure and they both went crashing over the edge. Her body shuddered from head to toe as a ringing chorus filled her head.

  All of a sudden he froze. She opened her eyes and saw that he hadn’t been overcome by a body-seizing orgasm, but that his head was cocked to one side, listening. That was when she also realized that the ringing w
asn’t the result of her own resounding, mind-blowing orgasm, but filled the room. The hotel’s fire alarm was blaring loudly, and a blinking red light pierced the darkness. “Oh, shit.” Shaun hopped up, followed by Reese, who was naked from the waist down, with her torn shirt on top.

  “There’s a fire in the building, and you must evacuate the hotel right now,” a detached, mechanical voice implored.

  While Shaun scrambled into his pants and shirt, Reese searched frantically for her panties and jeans. She could do nothing about the torn top, so she tied it at her waist and threw her cap back on. When they ran out of the room to gather with everyone outside the hotel, she looked exactly like what she was: a woman who’d just been fucked very well. Her makeup was a smeary mess, and clearly visible since she hadn’t had time to search for her sunglasses; her hair was a tangled nest under the baseball cap; her ripped top looked as disheveled as she felt; and, to top it all off, she could feel traces of him flowing down the insides of her legs, staining her jeans.

  To make matters worse, the whole thing turned out to be a false alarm.

  TWELVE

  Reese started ringing Kira’s phone at noon West Coast time the next morning, dying to know whether her girlfriend had succeeded in bedding her husband. And, more important, whether she had evidence of the dirty deed; even a stained blue dress would suffice, though she was certain that in Kira’s case it would not be from the Gap. Imagine having an affair with the most powerful man on the planet, and you’re wearing a forty-five-dollar dress from a chain store! Monica should have been indicted for that alone.

  Careful not to smudge her freshly painted nails, Reese dialed the phone number for the fifth time, and again she got Kira’s voice mail, imploring the caller in a sexy, throaty voice to leave a message. Where the hell was she? Reese wondered as she blew on her nails to speed the drying process.