Читать книгу The Woman Before You: An intense, addictive love story with an unexpected twist... - Carrie Blake - Страница 9

One slow morning at work, I looked up from my book and saw a white business envelope on the floor, just inside the door. I jumped up to get it before Steve did. I had a feeling about it.

The thick, expensive, cream-colored envelope was addressed to me. Inside was a printed invitation, the letters embossed in an elegant, old-fashioned cursive.

You are cordially invited for cocktails at the home of Valentine and Heidi Morton.

Val and Heidi Morton? Me? Why was my name on the envelope? Someone must have made a mistake.

There was something else in the envelope. I reached in and pulled out a Loteria card. El Mundo. The world. A picture of the world. On the back it said, in neat block letters, I’ll meet you there at seven. It couldn’t have been a coincidence. I knew it was from Matthew. But why had my own letter with the melon card come back to me? Had he opened the envelope and resealed it and returned it to the postman? Why would someone do something like that?

I would find out, or I wouldn’t. I was meeting Matthew at a party at the Upper East Side apartment of Val and Heidi Morton.

What did you wear to a fancy uptown Upper East Side cocktail party when you were a failed actress and mattress professional living over a toxic dump site in Greenpoint? I went to one of the last vintage clothing shops in the East Village and asked Melinda, who’d owned the store for years, what to wear to a cocktail party given by (I didn’t want to name drop) a famous older celebrity actor and politician on the Upper East Side.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Val Morton.’

‘How do you know?’

‘People have been coming in all week looking for something to wear to that party. You’d think the guests would be shopping at Bergdorf, but everyone seems to want vintage Balenciaga or Chanel. Okay. Let’s see. What can you afford?’

Nothing was the truth. But I’d gotten an advance from Steve.

I spent all my money on the perfect little black dress from the Sixties that made me look so pretty that even I relaxed. A little.

‘Fabulous,’ said Melinda. ‘Anyhow, it hardly matters. You’ll be a good ten years younger than anyone there. Fresh blood at the vampire party.’

I called in sick (Steve was definitely not happy about it) and spent the whole day getting ready. I watched the porn clip on my laptop, the one with the guy that looked like Matthew. I came when he was doing the interview and had the prospective secretary bent over the desk. I wanted to be satisfied before I went, at least sexually. It might help me act and react with more common sense and control than I’d had so far around Matthew.

I took Lyft from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side, though by this point I really couldn’t afford it. I’d figure something out before the credit card bill came and started accumulating massive amounts of interest. Well, maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have to pay for a car home. Maybe I would be going home with Matthew…

Three girls—around my age, dressed sort of like me, prettier than me, with better jobs than me—stood in the lobby with clipboards. It seemed impossible that my name could be on their list. But it was. One of them took my coat and gave me a coat claim ticket.

The door was open, and everything I could see inside the apartment shone—like gold, like glass, like perfect skin and hair and teeth. There were windows everywhere, and the starry lights of the city glittered in the dark sky. I hesitated in the doorway. Just walking into that room seemed like the hardest thing I would ever have to do.

The rooms were vast, the walls covered with brocade silk and gilt and mirrors. It looked more like the reception room of a French king’s palace than the living room of a former movie star and fashion model. I tried not to think about my apartment, how small it was, how dark. It hurt to picture what this place looked and felt like in the mornings when Val and Heidi Morton could hold their coffee cups and drift—slowly, leisurely—from room to sunny room.

Melinda was right; not counting the girls with the clipboards, I was the youngest woman at the party by ten or fifteen years. Many of the women were beautiful, and they looked as if they spent every spare minute and dollar on that beauty. But I had the skin, the bounce, and underneath my little black dress, pretty perfect breasts. No spending required. The men looked at me, even the ones trying not to look, even the gay ones. I felt as if I was struggling to keep my head above water, fighting for sheer survival with whatever weapons I had. The bloom of youth, good skin, good tits, whatever.

A strange man who excited and frightened me had arranged to meet me in this frightening and exciting place. And I had agreed.

There were mirrors everywhere, and they multiplied everything endless times. It was dizzying, disorienting. Even so, I saw Matthew clearly, from across the room. I fought off the weak-kneed feeling, followed by the adrenalin rush.

Matthew was leaning against a green and gold wall, sipping a glass of wine. He looked at me over the top of the glass and smiled his radiant smile. By the time I’d crossed the room, he—as if by magic—had gotten another glass of white wine, which he gave me. He kissed me lightly on the cheek. He smelled of that sandalwood and vetiver cologne he wore the first time I met him. Expensive. Delicious.

I could feel people watching us. It didn’t seem to matter that I was the poorest, least famous, least powerful person in the room. I didn’t know where Matthew ranked, in that group, in terms of power and money. But we had something they didn’t have. The aura of sex, the promise of sex. Even the oldest and most important guests sensed it.

Matthew cupped my elbow and leaned in close to my ear. ‘I’m glad you came, Isabel.’

Nothing seemed real. Not Matthew, not the wine, not the party, not the other guests trying not to watch us. I’d spent so much time imagining this. How could it be coming true?

I leaned back into him, ‘Who are these people? I recognize some of them, I mean from the news and magazines, but…’

‘I thought you knew. I assumed you would Google the foundation and figure out the rest. I work for Val Morton. This is a fundraiser for the Foundation. This is where Val and Heidi live.’

I couldn’t stop myself from saying, ‘The letter I sent you came back.’

‘What letter?’

‘A letter I sent to the place in Brooklyn Heights. Where we had drinks on the terrace. Let’s watch the sunset. The mattress … your apartment. Remember?’

‘Right. Well, you’re not the only one who can pretend to be somebody else for a minute or two. Truth is, that was Val’s apartment. Part of my job was to keep that fact out of the papers. Because when there was all that trouble, the PR was that he wasn’t building it for himself—but I assumed you would figure that out. That’s hilarious, really.’

‘I just assumed it was yours…’ I was trying to remember if he’d actually said anything to suggest that it was his apartment.

‘What made you think that?’

‘Didn’t you say that you were moving and didn’t want to take your old mattress with you?’ I was getting my stories mixed up—when was Matthew playing The Customer and when was Matthew just being the real Matthew?

‘I was,’ he said. ‘And I didn’t. But that wasn’t the same mattress. I bought that one for Val and Heidi. That was their apartment. Did I not make that clear?’

Something still didn’t add up. He must have gotten my card with the picture of the melon if he’d sent me back a card with a picture of the world. And yet he was refusing to answer, or choosing to ignore, my question about it. Was he just messing with my head? I didn’t want to think that was true, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t like the slippage, the questions that suddenly rose in my mind about what was real and what wasn’t, what was true and what was a lie. For a moment everything seemed like a mind game in a thriller … and then I calmed down. After that it just seemed quirky and interesting. Funny.

No wonder he didn’t want to have sex on someone else’s mattress.

‘It’s crazy how two people can have a complete misunderstanding. Isn’t it, Isabel?’

I loved how he said my name. I hadn’t misunderstood what had happened on the mattress at the store, nor the feeling of his hand on my back beneath my T-shirt as we’d looked at someone else’s bed in someone else’s apartment.

‘Let me introduce you,’ he said, and steered me over to Val Morton, who was surrounded by a group of older men with good haircuts and much younger wives.

For some reason they shifted to make room for Matthew and me.

‘Val Morton,’ said Matthew, ‘I’d like you to meet my friend, Isabel Archer.’

Val Morton smiled his famous smile and looked me up and down.

‘Beautiful name,’ he said.’ Is that your real name? Wait a second. Don’t tell me. Portrait of a Lady. Early Nicole Kidman. Malkovich was amazing.’

‘My mom’s a big Henry James fan,’ I said.

‘See?’ he said. ‘Didn’t I call it? Let’s give me some credit.’

His friends made admiring gestures and noises.

‘You’re sure it’s not a stage name?’ he said. ‘You’re an actress, right?’

Failed actress, I thought. Shit. Was it that obvious?

‘I can always tell. I spent the best years of my life in the industry. There’s something about how you hold yourself, how you study the world, I can watch you figuring out what other people are feeling. Figuring out what you can steal. Or should I say borrow?’

‘That’s my real name. And thank you,’ I said.

‘She’s perfect,’ Val Morton told Matthew.

Then he turned to me and said, ‘Nice to meet you, Jessica.’

‘Isabel. Nice to meet you too.’

Morton’s attention drifted back to the men in his group. Matthew led me away.

‘Perfect for what?’ I said.

‘Huh?’

‘He told you I was perfect. As if he had something in mind. Perfect for what?’

‘Perfect,’ said Matthew. ‘You’re perfect. How many different things does perfect mean?’

A waiter put a full wine glass in each of our hands, and I drank mine in a few gulps.

It was happening. I was here with him. I would try to be what he wanted, if I could figure out what that was. He didn’t seem to expect me to say much as he took me around to groups of partygoers and introduced me mostly to young men, all of whom seemed to work for Val. I smiled. Nice to meet you. None of them was as handsome or as hot as Matthew. We navigated around the circles surrounding the actors and politicians and socialites whose faces were so famous that even I recognized them.

Glasses of wine kept appearing in Matthew’s hand. He kept passing them to me, and I kept drinking. It helped fuzz out the rest of the room, which was fuzzy to begin with, and it brought him—only him—into focus. After a while he was the only thing I could see.

‘Should we leave?’ he said. Together? He’d said we. I could hardly keep my voice steady as I said, ‘Sure!’ That high little squeak didn’t even sound like me.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Let’s blow this clam shack.’

‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ I said.

‘Brilliant. So do I. I’ll show you where it is. This place is a maze.’

There was a powder room downstairs off the living room. Matthew tried the doorknob.

‘Occupied,’ someone yelled.

‘Okay. Follow me.’

He knew his way around the maze, taking me through one of the closed doors at the end of the corridor and down another short hall where three steps led up to the private wing. How did he seem so comfortable in his boss’s private space?

He was holding my hand now, friendly but neutral, the way you’d hold a child’s hand, crossing the street.

‘Guess how many bathrooms this place has,’ he said.

‘Five?’ I said.

‘Double it,’ he said.

‘Why does anyone need ten bathrooms?’ The question didn’t interest him. I was sorry I asked.

‘I’ll show you the best one,’ he said. ‘The craziest one. As long as we’re here, what the hell?’

I should have known that in order to reach the ‘best’ bathroom, we would have to experience the full pageantry of Morton and Heidi’s bedroom. I don’t know what it was supposed to be. A Renaissance Venetian Vegas palace French bordello with all the modern conveniences. A billionaire’s sex cave. We paused in the doorway, just as we had in what had turned out to be the Mortons’ Brooklyn Heights apartment. We seemed to spend a lot of our time looking at other people’s bedrooms.

Again, I wondered how he knew so much about his boss’s bedroom and private bathroom? Had he come here with Heidi? Or with Morton? Did they give him orders from bed?

He said, ‘Managing both apartments, that is, managing the people who manage both apartments, is part of my job. Not the most exciting part, but the buck stops here. And the two of them can be monsters. If Morton runs out of toilet paper, he’s capable of firing every employee down the food chain starting with me.’

I didn’t want to imagine Morton and Heidi in that beautiful bed. But I wouldn’t have minded lying down. I felt tired and hot and drunk.

But first, right … the bathroom.

The bathroom was as large as my entire apartment, a gold-fauceted, marble-tiled, dazzlingly white Roman bath. The toilet, the bathtub, and the steam shower each had its own separate room.

Matthew showed me to the room with the toilet. I was startled when he followed me in and locked the door behind us. But I was so tipsy, it seemed to make a kind of sense.

I should have been alarmed, or maybe embarrassed. But it all seemed like fun. Matthew wasn’t going to rape me in Val Morton’s bathroom. If I asked him to open the door, he would. But I didn’t ask, I didn’t want to.

He stood with his back to the door. Across from the white marble toilet and the bidet was a white marble sink, and behind it, a mirrored wall. Did Morton like watching himself on the toilet? Matthew had said that people could get fired if Val ran out of toilet paper. I tried not to think about that.

Matthew said, ‘Go ahead. Pee. You first.’

‘Okay,’ I said. The wine made it easier, but I wasn’t so drunk that I didn’t know what I was doing. I lifted the hem of my little black dress, pulled down the black lace and red ribbon underpants that had cost half a week’s salary, and sat on the toilet. I closed my eyes and waited for what seemed like forever till I heard the trickle beneath me.

‘You next,’ I said.

I started to pull my underwear up.

‘I’m good,’ he said. ‘I can wait.’

I made a move to get up.

‘Don’t put your underwear back on. Take them off and give them to me.’

I did it. I wasn’t embarrassed. I’d never done anything like that. I was becoming someone else. Definitely not one of the characters I’d played on any of my online dating adventures. And definitely not me.

He folded my underwear with one hand and put it in his pocket.

He said, ‘Now lift your skirt over your waist. Lean over the sink.’

He came around behind me. He kissed the back of my neck. He took his time.

Finally he said, ‘You were really bad down there at that party. You liked the way those old men looked at you, didn’t you?’

Did I? I couldn’t think.

He ran his hand up my thigh and pulled his hand away. He gently slapped my ass.

I’d never done anything like this. I put my head down and moaned.

I was learning too slowly. I didn’t get it. If I showed him that something gave me pleasure, he would stop. He stopped.

He backed away, closed the lid of the toilet seat, and sat down.

‘Come here,’ he said. ‘Sit on my lap. No. Here. Pick your dress up more.’

I sat on his lap, both of us facing the mirror. The cloth of his suit felt great against my ass and my bare thighs. He held me by both hips, shifted me and held me just over the hard-on I could feel inside his pants. I reached down and touched it through his pants. It felt good, it felt like a triumph.

‘Spread your legs,’ he said.

I did. After all, I’d already spread my legs for him, at the store. At least we were in private here, behind a locked door.

‘Lean back,’ he said.

I arched my back and let my shoulders rock back against his chest.

‘Now touch yourself,’ he said.

We both watched me in the mirror. After a while I closed my eyes.

‘Keep your eyes open and don’t you dare come,’ he said.

‘I couldn’t if I wanted to,’ I said, though that was only half true.

‘Good,’ he said.

I played with myself for a while. It felt great. We were both breathing harder.

‘Want to see something cool?’ he whispered in my ear. I could hear him grinning.

‘Yes,’ I breathed.

‘What’d you say?’

‘Yes,’ I repeated.

He grabbed the remote that was on a low table beside the toilet. He hit a button, and the mirror in front of us dissolved and turned into a screen the size of the entire wall. On the screen was projected a film of people in a room. No, wait. It was a live camera.

It was the party downstairs. I saw the guests I’d met; even more people had come. I picked out Val and Heidi, and the famous faces. They didn’t know we were watching. They certainly didn’t know what we were doing as we watched.

I tried to shut my legs, but Matthew’s hand was there. My legs pressed tight against his hand, which felt so good I didn’t want to talk and spoil it.

I’d stopped toughing myself, but I still felt on the edge of coming, with Matthew’s hand inching its way up around my thigh. Finally I said, ‘So does Val Morton come up here and take a shit without leaving the party?’

Matthew laughed. ‘I don’t know what he does here. I don’t want to know. I don’t ask. When he showed me around his place, he showed me how the camera works. He thought it was funny. There was no one downstairs at the time.’

Matthew pulled me back against his chest.

‘Unzip my fly.’

I was shaking, but I did it. I helped him lower the zipper and get his dick out. He was so hard. The skin was soft as velvet. He put his finger inside me.

‘Touch me,’ he said. I did.

After a while he shifted so that his dick was between my thighs.

‘I’ve got a condom in my purse.’ I was shocked by my own boldness. I sat very still, awaiting his response.

He said, ‘What’s the rush? Let’s take it slow. Get to know each other. We’ve got all the time in the world.’ We sat like that for a few minutes, his dick between my legs, pressing up against me, his finger stroking gently inside me while the party guests sipped their drinks and chatted, never knowing we were watching them—or what we were doing.

I bit down on my lower lip to keep from coming. He felt so good. Slow, hypnotized by pleasure, we were still fondling each other when he said, ‘We should go. It’s probably okay that we’re here. Val would think it’s funny, too. But you never know what’s going to cause a major incident.’

I jumped up off his lap and pulled down my dress. The last thing I wanted was a major incident. And I didn’t know if I wanted a famous movie star thinking this was funny.

‘Please don’t tell anyone.’

‘Of course not,’ Matthew said.

As we were leaving, he said, ‘Wait a second.’

I leaned against the door and watched him piss in the toilet. Then we straightened ourselves up and did one last check in the mirror.

‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘Open the medicine cabinet. That one, on the wall.’

‘Really?’ I said.

He said, ‘That fat amber colored bottle of pink pills. Take it. Put it in your purse.’

‘I couldn’t.’

‘You could. Val and Heidi have more. They have plenty. They don’t leave the house without them. You’ll thank me.’

‘What are they? The pills?’

‘Happiness in a bottle,’ he said. ‘My gift to you. One a day. Don’t overdo it.’

We returned to the party, and we walked through the crowd, arm in arm.

I thought: I still hardly know anything about him. We haven’t had actual sex. But for the moment I felt comfortable, almost as if we’d been lovers for years. Anyone who saw us would have thought we were a couple.

I gave him my claim ticket, and he retrieved my coat from the clipboard girls. I didn’t make eye contact with any of them. The doorman opened the door. Matthew and I went outside. He let me go first, very gallant and cool for a guy who’d just fingered me in the host’s bathroom and made me steal his drugs.

The night was cold and clear. Matthew hailed a cab and put me in it and gave the driver what I could tell would be more than enough money for me to get back to Greenpoint, tip included.

‘I’m sorry. I can’t leave, after all. I have to stick around till the end. It’s my job.’ He kissed me on the forehead. ‘Weird job, huh?’

Only later would I learn just how weird Matthew’s job was.

I would have stayed to the end of the party with him. But he hadn’t asked. Had he kicked me out of Val Morton’s apartment? Or had he protected me from something I wasn’t ready to experience?