Madam Page 7

  She still sparkled at my soirées. It was Jeannette who christened them my “salon,” who looked at the people I gathered around me and drew parallels from history in the most flattering way.

  She thought I was brilliant, so I felt brilliant.

  She’d be sweet and passive and go along with whatever I wanted to do in the afternoons, but at other times she’d refuse my suggestion of a movie and take me to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum or the Museum of Fine Arts instead. We started working on the outline of a novel we might write together.

  We’ve had our ups and downs over the years; but she is the one friend I have had who has consistently made me feel that I, too, can achieve excellence.

  I still go out to Walden Pond, in Concord, these days. Actually, Sam nearly grew up there, sitting on the small beaches and venturing into the sun-warmed water in the hot days of July and August, when the air shimmers with heat and the hawks circle lazily overhead. We brought small stones to place on the pile near Thoreau’s house, Sam taking the gesture with the same grave seriousness with which he regards all of life.

  Concord and Walden Pond are filled with bright and current delights and memories for me; but in the layers beneath them I remember the days when Jen still worked for me and we’d drive out here in the afternoons—some of them cold and snowy—to do the circuit of the pond, tramping resolutely on the path, our breath visible in the still air around us, me insisting that we stop halfway across so that I could light a cigarette.

  Then lunch in Concord afterward, the requisite trip to the Cheese Shop for wine and cheese and vanilla beans, the metal sculpture I bought at the Artful Design, another stop for used books at Barrow’s and new ones at the Concord Bookstore, and Snow Pharmacy for the odd ointment called Bag Balm that soothed everything from chapped lips and hands to coke noses. And the freedom of it all; I didn’t have a cell phone in those days, so we were alone in an enchanted world, far away from Boston, demanding clients, and ringing telephones.

  Every time I come to Concord, she’s here, too.

  Jen encouraged me to get involved with the Design Group, an arts association in Boston where I volunteered from time to time, dressing up in suits and high heels and talking to potential donors on the phone or showing them around the gallery. She wasn’t thinking that it would enrich my future prospects, either. She was one of the few people who didn’t fawn over who I was or ask me what I planned to do in the future, as though I were going to grow up and get a real job later on. She didn’t ask, When are you going to get serious? What do you want to be when you grow up?

  Honestly, the answer would still be the same now as it was then: I want to own my own business. I want to be a madam.

  Under … and Over … Jesse

  I was writing poetry again, but an alarming amount of it was focusing on Jesse. I was still stalking him, still morbidly interested in his every move. I ran into him once in a while at one of the regular parties we were all going to and, after one memorable evening when we both got drunk and maudlin at a loft somewhere by the Channel, I even brought him home with me.

  I realized that it was a mistake as soon as we reeled in the front door of the apartment. Jesse groped his way with some familiarity to find one of the table lamps and turned it on, and his shadow was immediately cast, grotesque and menacing, on the wall behind him. I flinched, the gesture automatic, and I found myself wondering how my body could be so in tune with what was good and bad for me, while my mind lagged so far behind. Did I really imagine that Jesse would suddenly become someone who he clearly was not? I was more in love with the thought of Jesse than I ever could be with his reality, and my body knew it, but my brain was doggedly assuring me that I could get him back, that I would never love anyone like that again, that he was worth all the problems he caused. Silly brain.

  Still, it kept me going there for a while; we didn’t even make it to the bedroom. He was pulling at my dress as I stumbled into the Pullman kitchen (my apartment was designed for people like me, who consider coffee brewing and dinner reheating the major uses for a kitchen). He grabbed me and forced me up against the sink. I gasped and put my arms around him and started kissing him, deep, demanding kisses, while he fumbled to get my panties off. This accomplished, he lifted me up so that my bare ass was sitting on the edge of the sink; I locked my legs around him while he released my breasts from the bra and sucked on my nipples, holding one breast in each hand. I thought I was never going to be able to breathe again.

  Jesse had pulled his turtleneck over his head and had already kicked off his shoes; he grabbed me then and threw me, firefighter-style, over his shoulder and carried me into the bedroom. Court (named for “Court and Spark,” my favorite Joni Mitchell song; there had once been a Spark, too, but he had died and Siddhartha had taken his place) gave a loud protesting yowl as I was deposited on top of him, with Jesse pretty much on top of me. He felt heavy and dominating, and I forgot that I was angry with him. I forgot everything but his body on top of mine, his hands grasping my wrists and pinning them to the bed, his rough kisses.

  I squirmed out of my dress and bra and by the time I’d finished he was naked, too. He grabbed me and turned me around, so that I was lying flat on the bed on my stomach, and he was all over my back, kissing, caressing, nipping, while still holding me down. I was gasping for breath.

  He grasped my hips and pulled me to him, so that he could enter me from behind, and as his cock entered me it felt as though he had plunged it all the way up to my throat. I’d never felt so impaled before. I screamed, and then his hands were on my ass, squeezing and kneading them, finally slapping them, which I found more erotic than I ever had before.

  I know that I was screaming by now. He was ramming himself inside me, pausing from time to time to pull his cock almost all the way out, almost, so that I was gasping with need and desire and emptiness, and then he thrust again, harder, deeper, until I could feel him on my cervix and felt that he was inside all of me. And again. Each thrust was harder, more demanding; and when he withdrew, it was to slap my buttocks, again and again and again …

  I don’t know how long it lasted. I may even have blacked out at some point. There was nothing in the world but us—Jesse and his hard, ramming cock and me with my wet pussy. My buttocks felt hot from the slapping and the kneading, almost enflamed, and the fire seemed to lick up around my whole body. I felt the orgasm coming, building from the front, from my clitoris, to the rear, so that when I came it felt like every organ of my body was quivering.

  He slammed into me a final time, reaching forward and grabbing my hair to pull my head up next to his. “Take it,” he growled. “Take it, take it, take it … uhhh …”

  When he released me I rolled over on my side and remembered how to breathe again.

  We lay there together in silence, both of us catching our breath, both of us drenched in sweat. I waited until my heart wasn’t pounding quite so painfully and until I was starting to feel a little chilled as the sweat dried on my body.

  I realized, with a start, that I wasn’t drunk anymore.

  I groped on the night table for my cigarettes and pulled one out of the pack. The lava lamp over by the divan gave just enough light for me to find the lighter, flick it, inhale, and look over toward Jesse. He was on his back, arm flung across his forehead, staring at the ceiling. I lay back on my pillow and exhaled smoke slowly toward the ceiling, the relief of it filling my lungs with the sharp little mental push that it always seemed to give me, the sense of well-being.

  I didn’t say anything, just lay there, waiting for—well, I’m not sure what I was waiting for, actually. And then it happened.

  I realized that I didn’t want him there.

  It came to me sharply and suddenly, the absolute and sure knowledge that this man didn’t belong in my bed. Or anywhere else near me, either. That he had no right to just stride back in as though he belonged, as though his place there was permanent and assumed and accepted. That he didn’t belong with me anymore th
an I belonged with him.

  I cleared my throat to say as much when the phone rang. The work phone. I sat up, suddenly wanting to not be naked next to him, pulling my silk Victoria’s Secret robe around me hurriedly as I answered the call. “Peach? It’s me, Evvy.”

  Part of my brain clicked into work mode. Evvy was on her way to see some guy out in Worcester—nearly fifty miles away. Amazing what kind of time and mileage some people will pay for, and aren’t there escort services in Worcester, too? Apparently not, which was fine with me. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  There was a bit of a cough, and then, “I can’t go, Peach. I just got my period.”

  Well, that did take care of that, didn’t it? I had a couple fetishists among my clientele who would have welcomed the announcement, but the guy in Worcester wasn’t one of them. I sighed. “Okay, honey.”

  Behind me, Jesse turned on the TV. Someone was saying, “We’re available twenty-four hours a day, so call now …”

  I focused back on Evvy, who was still talking. “I’m really sorry, Peach. It’s early, I didn’t expect—”

  I interrupted her. “It’s okay. Go home. Give me a call when you’re around again.” Being around was my euphemism for being available to work.

  “Thanks, Peach. Sorry. Do you want me to call him?”

  I hesitated. Normally I’d be the one to make the call, after seeing who else I might be able to get out to him that night. But maybe I had something more important going on here. “Sure, why don’t you? Just tell him the truth. He may want to reschedule with you. Otherwise, tell him to call me.”

  Disconnecting, I turned in the bed to look at Jesse again. He was still naked, sitting on the other edge of the bed, watching the TV screen. I could see, now, that it was an infomercial for astrologers or mediums, something like that. There was a toll-free number flashing at the bottom of the screen.

  Hardly captivating, but he seemed entranced. I cleared my throat. “Jesse, it’s time for you to go.”

  “What’s that, babe?” He sounded distracted, and I leaned forward, only then realizing that he wasn’t looking at the TV at all, but rather scrolling through the numbers on his beeper. Seeing who was important to get back to, now that my five minutes was finished. I felt my stomach clench in the familiar titillation-and-pain combination, and then resolve took over.

  Well, nothing like a kick in the pants to help you move along with your decision.

  I said, loudly, “I want you to leave now.”

  That got through to him, all right. “What?” His voice was incredulous—as well it might be, since past experience had been quite the opposite of what was happening now. Usually, I thought bitterly, I spent postcoital time begging him to stay, clutching at him, whining and crying. No wonder he seemed disconcerted. “I want you to go.”

  He turned to look at me. In the purple light from the lava lamp, and backlit by the TV, he looked suddenly old, dissipated, empty.

  I wondered why I hadn’t noticed that before.

  I got up, pulling the silk robe more closely around me, feeling chilled as if from a breeze or a bad memory. But there was no breeze. I put out my cigarette and faced him, standing and clothed, which had to give me some sort of advantage. His penis was shriveled and small and ridiculous, and I suddenly, irreverently, wondered what I had ever seen in it—or him. There was a drop of semen on his thigh. It was oddly disgusting. “Please leave, Jesse.”

  He still couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “It’s okay,” he said, easily, his tone becoming seductive. “I can stay the night.” He lowered his voice still more. “I know you want me to, cara.”

  That fake Italian lover thing was the last straw. I moved to the bedroom door and opened it. “Now,” I said firmly.

  He stood up, looking even more ridiculous, looking even older. “Fine,” he said, the anger and frustration that were always simmering just below the surface of his personality bubbling up. How quickly he could turn from seduction to disdain. “Fine, but you’ll be sorry. I don’t know when I’ll be back.” Threats, the fallback position. He reached for his shirt, buttoned it in haste. Unevenly.

  “I don’t want you to ever come back,” I heard myself saying. Wow. I could hardly believe it myself. I felt like applauding.

  That got a reaction. “Fuck you,” he said intensely. He looked more absurd than ever, standing there in his badly buttoned shirt, his arms thrust into a sweater as he started to dress, with the small and now insignificant penis dangling uselessly below the shirttails.

  Against my own better judgment, I giggled. I couldn’t help it. They’re so proud of those things, men are, but honestly, it looked so ridiculous. It was hard to imagine it ever being connected to passion in any way.

  The giggle went over well. Jesse pulled the sweater on, thrust his legs into his jeans, jammed his feet into shoes. A week later, I would find the socks he hadn’t bothered to put on tucked under the bed, one of my cats sleeping happily on them. He was too busy working on the grand exit line to bother about something as superfluous as socks. “Fine, if that’s what you want.” There was menace in his voice now. “But don’t go crying for me later. I won’t be there.”

  I didn’t say anything, as he glared at me, stomping by with much fanfare, taking care to slam the apartment door so hard that my two downstairs neighbors undoubtedly stirred in their sleep.

  I opened the freezer and pulled out the bottle of vodka I kept there. I poured a shot, drank it in one swallow, and then did it again. I switched off the TV and got back into bed, too tired to change the sheets as I thought I probably should. I was suddenly tired, exhausted even, as though the full weight of the relationship, such as it was, had come crashing down on my shoulders.

  There was a soft mew, and Court landed next to me. He started purring immediately, kneading my upper arm, delighted to be alone with me again. And as I slipped into sleep that was what I heard, the sound of my cat’s contentment—and a little bit of my own.

  I’d like to say that it ended there. I’d like to write that I was strong, liberated, able to move on without a backward glance. But life is never that neat, is it? Relationships end raggedly rather than dramatically, in squalor rather than in triumph. Even by the next day I was questioning the wisdom of the stand I had taken.

  Jesse may have left, I found, but he cast a long shadow behind him. The worst, the absolute bloody worst, was how I felt after he left. How much I missed him, his warmth next to me, the bed seeming forbidding and empty without him. His bourbon on the sideboard, his T-shirts in the laundry, his hot breath a memory across my cheeks. I missed him more than I could bear. I hated him, I hated myself, but I missed him all the same.

  Yet I wasn’t going back. Even if I could have faced myself, I couldn’t face him. So I did what I never before could have imagined doing.

  I left everything. My business. My friends. My life. I stood in my bedroom and felt the walls closing in, like I was suffocating, felt like I was dying. And if that was what was happening, I sure wasn’t going to do it here, where Jesse could gloat, where someone, if only my cats, would mourn.

  I got on a bus heading to Atlantic City and cried all the way there. Look on a map: Massachusetts to New Jersey—that’s one hell of a crying jag.

  I’m not even entirely sure what it was I was crying about.

  By the time I arrived in Atlantic City, I was exhausted. I stumbled off the bus and I checked into a room at the Sands Casino. The sparkling chandeliers and a sudden cry of delight from one of the blackjack tables that I passed, the ever-present underlying vibration, made up of hope and cynicism and desperation, all surrounded me, wrapping me in a blanket of unreality.

  Everybody else was in town counting cards; I was in a bleak hotel room counting pills.

  Enough, I thought—but maybe not enough.

  I’d brought an eightball of coke with me, too, and I figured that maybe the combination might do it. An eightball—three and a half grams—might even be enough, by itself. So I p
ut on the Do Not Disturb sign and opened the wine (I’d bought screw caps, perhaps not the best vintage, or indeed any vintage at all, but a lot more accessible than fiddling with corks and openers) and started laying out lines on the desktop. I bought some pay-per-view movies and watched them without seeing anything, with my heart hammering in my chest because of the cocaine, my thoughts racing aimlessly in circles.

  I started stacking the pills, riffling through them like people riffle through poker chips, feeling their weight and their meaning slipping through my fingers. I lined them up and counted them, then messed them up, did another line, and stacked them instead. I was mesmerized by those pills.

  Oddly enough, I didn’t like the thought of taking them, though I very much liked what they were promising me. Oblivion. Darkness. Silence. Sleep.

  I touched them, caressed them, as though there were some dark meaning that could convey itself to me through my fingertips. The answers to all of life’s problems. No more thought, no more dilemmas, no more pain. The question isn’t why people kill themselves; it’s why people don’t. I touched my pills and felt a wave of peace. I was in control. Here, at least—here, at last—I was in control. I could make a life-or-death decision.

  I riffled through the pills again and slowly the feeling ebbed, the surge of energy drained out of me. I counted them, rotely, and then counted them again. I even brought one to my lips and pressed it against them, but didn’t open my mouth.

  There was something dark sitting inside me. I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t know how to make it go away.

  I put them all back in their plastic container and leaned back, closing my eyes, holding it close to me. I was in that hallway again, the hallway of the house on South Battery Street, the long streak of light from the window at the end catching the motes of dust hanging all around me, still, as though suspended in air, as though suspended in time.