Chapter Six
In Between
I met with Henry a couple days later, at a quiet, private cafe in midtown. The first thing he did, after air-kissing both of my cheeks, was look into my eyes with deep concern. “How are you, Chere?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Talk to me about this exclusive arrangement with Mr. Cumming. Two dates ago, you were calling me to complain about him. You said he was an asshole.”
“He is an asshole.”
He waved to the waitress, and when Henry waved, women always came running. When she scurried over, he asked for a seltzer, then turned his attention back to me. “You know, you don’t have to be exclusive just because he asked you to.”
“I know. But I’ll make more money by being exclusive, right?” I didn’t want to admit the real reason I agreed…so I could see what the asshole looked like. “Not just more money, but less work.”
“Less work now. More work later, when you have to build up your client list again.”
“That’s where you come in. You always find more perverts to send me. I assume that’s not going to change.”
Henry smiled at me, his friendly, handsome smile with his white, handsome teeth. “I’ve got your back, love. I’ll always have your back.” He turned to the waitress and gave her the same drop-dead smile as she handed him his drink. “Thank you, Jessica,” he said, reading her name off her tag. “I appreciate it.”
Jessica practically curtsied as she backed away from the table. Ridiculous, his effect on women. I was glad he was my agent and not my boyfriend, not that Simon didn’t turn a certain type of woman weak at the knees. But Simon was artsy-beautiful. Henry was beautiful-beautiful.
“One to two times a week,” he said, turning back to me. “That’s your contractual duty. And those are two-hour sessions, not overnights. It’s a great arrangement, Chere. If you’re willing…” He shrugged. “Why not?”
Oh, there were so many why nots, but I wasn’t going to share them with Henry. I sipped my Irish coffee and looked out at the street, at people hurrying to appointments or jobs or lovers. “Do you know what he does for a living?” I asked.
“No.”
“Where he lives?”
He spread his hands. “New York, some of the time. I don’t know any more than that. I told you, I don’t even know his real name. He pays me from a business account.”
“What kind of business?”
“Taunt, Incorporated. It’s a dummy account, as the name suggests.”
I blew out a breath and rested my head on my hand. “It’s so weird. Most of them are proud of what they do. Most of them want me to know who they are, how rich and powerful they are, even the ones who want me to spank them and make them stand in the corner.”
Henry leaned closer to me. “Why does it matter so much to you? You’re not supposed to know anything aside from the client’s first name, and you know why.”
Agency rules, so we wouldn’t be tempted to contact clients outside of work. Bad for business. Bad for security. Bad for commissions.
“That’s not why I want to find out more about him,” I said. “I’d never cut you out after all you’ve done for me.”
“I know. But that’s not the only issue.”
He stared at me hard. We could have whole conversations without talking. Clients are clients. The relationship ends when they walk out the door. Don’t think of them as anything more than a business transaction. Don’t try to get too close to them.
Don’t ever, ever fall in love.
“It’s because he’s so different from the rest of them,” I said. “A mystery. I’ve dated him three times and I still don’t know what he looks like. But now, I guess I’ll get to see what he looks like. A perk of going exclusive.”
“I’m dying to know what he looks like,” he said, taking a swig of his drink. “You have to call me right after your date. I hope he’s not a gorilla.”
“He might be.”
Henry laughed. He used to be a very successful gigolo. His laugh made women’s vaginas wet. Not mine, of course. Henry was my boss. A sexy boss, but still.
“If you find out his real name at some point, will you tell me?” I asked. “I won’t tell him you told me.”
“He’ll tell you himself one day, if he wants to. Otherwise, don’t worry about it. I extra-checked that there wasn’t something deeper going on with him. He’s safe. His privacy…”
He paused.
“What? What do you know about him?” I begged. “Just tell me. Give me one fucking scrap. I’m the one who has to date him, and in three dates, I’ve had his cock up my ass twice. Not a small cock either. Spill it.”
He held up a finger. “I’ll tell you this one thing. His desire for privacy isn’t based on necessity. He’s not a public figure or a celebrity. He’s not in hiding, or running from the law. He’s not a secret agent.”
I thought to myself that he would make a pretty good secret agent. He was great at torture. “Darn,” I joked. “So he’s not dangerous at all?”
“He’s not dangerous at all,” Henry confirmed. “And that’s all I’m telling you about the mysterious Mr. Cumming.”
I shot him a side-eye. “But…do you know more?”
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“You’re an asshole sometimes.”
“That’s probably true, but you need me if you’re going to work. And as you know, this dude’s not going to stick around forever. All men get tired of the thing they have, and want some new thing. He’ll eventually move on, and take his money and his secrecy with him, and oh, how we’ll miss it.” He reached out to stroke my arm. “So string him along for as long as you can. You’re making a lot of bank right now. Don’t fret about who he is, or why he’s the way he is. Just be sexy, pretty Miss Kitty. Meow.”
“He knows my real name is Chere.”
Henry’s eyes widened. “I never told him.”
“I told him. I don’t know why.” I confessed it to Henry because he might eventually find out, and it was against agency rules to share our real names. “He asked me in such a demanding, scary way. It blurted out of my mouth. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t tell him your last name?”
“No.”
“Or anything else about yourself? Where you live? Simon’s name?”
“No. Of course not.” I didn’t mention that W probably had all that information from looking at my phone. Henry was the one who had okayed the blindfold. I also chose not to mention the bondage. That wasn’t allowed either, except with established clients and Henry’s express permission. This whole conversation was making me feel sneaky and defensive. I’d never broken any of Henry’s rules before now.
“He hated the name Miss Kitty,” I said, as an excuse. “He hates fake stuff.”
Henry’s expression lost some of its warmth as his gaze bore into me. “Everything between the two of you needs to be fake. The escort-client relationship is fake. Don’t ever forget that, love.”
It was a warning.
“I won’t,” I said. “I swear I won’t.”
* * *
I returned home to find Simon in a tempestuous mood. He was painting, which was good. He didn’t like what he was painting, which was bad. He was on some kind of stimulating drug, which was worse.
“Where were you?” he asked as he stabbed at the canvas with his brush.
“Meeting with Henry.”
“You weren’t with one of your men?” He flipped some of his hair over his shoulder, getting paint on his shirt with the jerky movement. “Tell me about your last one. Was he any good?”
We used to do this. I used to tell him about my clients to amuse him. I didn’t do it anymore because he was rarely amused. More often, he used it as an excuse to lose his shit and fight with me.
“My last client was very boring,” I lied.
“Oh, yeah? You didn’t come home that night.”
“You don’t come home every night either.”
He smiled like that was funny, but it wasn’t a nice smile. I felt the warning systems go off. Tread carefully, Chere.
“But hey,” I said to soothe him, “here’s some good news. Henry’s giving me a raise, so I can see less clients and still make the same money.”
I wasn’t going to tell Simon I was going exclusive with one person, not in his current, edgy mood. But he’d wonder why I wasn’t going on as many dates, so I lied. I lied to Simon all the time these days. The lies felt more comfortable than telling him the truth.
“Less dates for the same money?” Simon said. Stab, stab, stab, still stabbing at his canvas. “Why don’t you keep seeing the same number of guys and just make more?”
Why don’t you make more? I thought to myself. Why does your art suck? Why are you blowing our savings on drugs? Why can’t things be the way they used to be?
“Or are you losing clients?” he said, turning to me with an accusatory stare.
He was worried about the money. He knew his comfortable drug-addict existence was dependent on my career. If I stopped escorting, he wouldn’t have the money he needed for narcotics and partying with his lemming-artist friends.
“My work is going fine,” I said coolly. I wondered if he read my tone, the tone that said Unlike yours.
Apparently he did, because he came at me, stalked across the studio, his dripping brush pointed at me like a weapon. He jabbed the brush toward my face, his features screwed into a furious mask. I was terrified he’d try to take out my eyes. I told him to fuck off, and pushed him away. The brush flew across the room and then he was attacking me, slapping me, pushing me down on the floor. I rolled away from him and ran, but he caught me before I got to the door. I hit, I punched, I kicked, but he was stronger, and whatever he was on made him stronger still.
“What’s wrong with you?” I shrieked, although I knew what was wrong with him. “Let go of me. Let go!”
“You cunt. You bitch. You think you’re so much better than me.”
“No, I don’t!”
“I talked to Boris White. Boris White, you fucking cunt. I’m going to do a show next month, so fuck you.”
“Let go of me.”
I screamed no and stop, and pushed at him, but when he wigged out like this, there wasn’t any way to calm him. You asked for this, I thought. You set him off. As quickly as he’d attacked me, he was gone and I was gone, running out the door, not looking behind me. I ran into the guest room and slammed the door and threw the lock. This was my safe room. It had a dead bolt, because Simon had these druggie freak outs now and again.
A moment later he was back, banging on the door like a maniac.
“Don’t lock me out!” he yelled.
“Go away!”
He started kicking the door so hard I was afraid the frame would give way. I stood with my back against it and prayed for it to hold.
He finally stopped kicking, and I slept and cried, and slept and cried some more, and waited for whatever he’d ingested to wear off. Whatever he’d taken, it had made him into that person. Not Simon, but that monster who was erratic, heartless, terrifying.
I had to leave him.
I knew I had to leave Simon, but after a decade together and so much history, how did that leaving start? How did you forget all the memories and cut those ties? And what would happen to him when I was gone?
I stroked my face where he’d slapped it, and wondered if there’d be bruises. My mother had always had bruises. Her partners always slapped her around, and I had always thought to myself, not me. I’ll never put up with that when I’m in a relationship.
But I did put up with it, and I hated myself for it. In some sick, twisted way, I believed that I deserved his abuse, and I probably looked just like my mother had looked when her men were hitting her. She used to cry for me to help her, but I always ran away because I didn’t want to be hurt too.
She asked for this, I would tell myself, but the sounds were awful, and I’d hide under my pillows, pressing them to my ears. In the darkness, her image would be burned in my mind, her cowering, her pained expressions. She always looked resigned and guilty, just waiting for it to end.