Actually, it was intriguing. What a cool assignment. All I had to do was find a girl who would do anything I said. I could have sex with her if I wanted to, but I didn’t have to. And it would be fun to make her wait. Val was right. I was getting paid for what most guys would pay to do. And somehow, in a funny way, that qualified me to do it. It was a job. Compared to the jobs that were out there, this was beyond sweet. I’d be nice to the girl, court her, tease her a little. She’d never have to be the wiser. And—at least as far as I knew—no one would get hurt.
I felt a little guilty, not telling a woman the truth, but, let’s face it, I’d done it before. It was something guys did all the time, even when they were married. Especially then.
I’d had several relationships. They always ended badly. Freud said, what do women want? I could have told him: Whatever they want, it’s more than you want to give.
Val Morton made it a challenge. An assignment. I began to look at women in a different way. A more … specialized way. More … practical.
Dating apps made it too easy. I went on Bumble—where sweet girls who want to feel empowered by doing all the work go to meet guys who supposedly want more than one fun night. Maybe for the first time ever, I knew what I was looking for. And now all I would have to do is swipe right and wait for her to make the first move. That was how I found her.
Isabel.
Later, too late, I asked myself: Why her? I never figured it out. I guess people just know things about each other. They pick things up on their radar. They know how far a person will go.
I don’t know how I knew about Isabel, but I did. Even when I thought her name was Riley.
That was an added twist—something that made her even more perfect, for some reason.
Right away I could feel it between us. The heat. When she walked into the coffee shop and told me about her little game. When she said yes to my own game. When I asked her to lie down on the overpriced mattress she was pretending to sell me. Well, good for her. It was pure inspiration. It was fun, and it was hot. By the time I left the mattress store, I knew I had found my accomplice, my partner in crime. My creature.
Who knows how far I would have gone if her creepy boss hadn’t shown up at the store? Or maybe we’d gone far enough. For the moment.
That night, alone in my bed, I thought about her and jerked off. I hoped she was doing the same. I would have liked to call her the very next day. But I knew better. I made her—and myself—wait.
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