by Lee, Corri
“It means he’s not shallow.” I looked sideways at Bethany and sighed casually. “You can stop stuffing your bra, Bethy, he doesn’t care about your tits.” I laughed as she swiped at me and dipped my fingertips into my glass to flick wine at her face. It was an immense relief that she had found someone willing to look beyond her big blue eyes and flawless complexion to discover the inner beauty she held. Her new relationship held great prospects of happiness- mine didn’t.
Cole and I sat complacently next to each other and hardly interacted for the entire duration of our meal. I had no idea what had happened to inspire the cold front, but I was damned if I was going to make all of the effort to make it thaw. How long was I supposed to keep my expectations low before I nipped this in the bud? I wasn’t hopeful that we would ever forge a deep and meaningful connection but still- I’d barely given him a chance to try.
“So then,” Bethany clapped her hands together and shrugged into her jacket, “time for hard music and hard liquor.”
I leaned my head down on the table top and whimpered. “Do we have to? Soho is such a bitch to get home from.”
“I live in Soho, I have space for you all.” Cole spoke for the first time in an hour and his tone was terse. I was on the cusp of declining his offer when Bethany jumped in and gushed with unfailing gratitude. She pulled my face up from the table cloth and tutted.
“I did not lend you my Prada kitten heels to end up back at work. Up.” Consider me told.
The Duplicate was, as ever, rammed to the rafters with grumpy bisexuals in tight leather jackets, and what seemed to be a vast sample of corseted pole dancers grinding against the less feminine looking men. The only advantage this place had was the music- the typical club anthems were exiled in favour of the likes of various aggressive rock artists who sang harshly of loathing and shattered dreams. I didn’t look like it, but I was a closet mosher and could do more than hold my own in the aggressive thrash of a rock concert.
The atmosphere was perfectly moody, yet sultry and highly charged with a vicious sexual energy. This appealed to my inner monster, and a surge of flame flowed through my veins and made my fingertips sizzle. I was ready to rock.
Bethany stripped me from the modest full length black military style coat I’d worn all night and revealed the full extent of my outfit, or lack thereof. My flesh was barely covered by a black satin dress that looked like I’d done nothing more than mummify my midriff in a long thick ribbon and tied it at the waist. From my thighs down to my loaned Prada shoes, I was completely bare and I felt glorious. I waited for a reaction-
“God damn, Cecelia, you’ve got legs for days!” And that reaction came from Adam. Cole barely made eye contact as he pushed his way past me to the bathroom without a second glance at my splendour.
Adam and Bethany blinked after him, mouths agape. “That was cold.” I was about to quip about how he could go and screw himself when a wave of unease passed through me. I knew that feeling, and I knew it well- Death had entered the building. I bit my lip and grabbed my cloakroom ticket from Bethany’s hand.
“We have to go.”
“What?”
“Unless you want to spend the night drinking with your boss, we have to go.” Her eyes scanned the dance floor, bar and the upper balcony level of the club- clearly she didn’t trust my intuition as much as I did.
“I can’t see him.” I shook my head in frustration as she snatched the ticket back from my hand.
“I can just feel him. Please, Bethy.”
“Cecelia.” I swore under my breath and glared at Bethany with I-told-you-so eyes. She gaped back at me, clearly confounded by my newfound clairvoyance, and grabbed onto Adam’s hand for support. Can anyone smell fried brains?
I turned around slowly and glared at a light just over Nathaniel Alexander’s shoulder, preferring to avoid eye contact with the enticing irises that entrapped his slightly too dilated pupils. “Mr Alexander.” I darted away from his approaching hand and shoved my way through the crowd to the heaving bar.
“I thought we agreed to a first name basis.” My jaw clenched as his voice shouted behind me. I had certainly given him no reason to think he should follow me and my mind boggled at his aloofness.
“I agreed to nothing.”
“Your friends are upstairs- you’ll get served faster up there.” I backed away from the bar and angled myself past him- sour faced and rigid- and stormed up the metal spiral staircase to find Bethany, Adam and Cole huddled together in an intimate corner of the balcony overlooking the rest of the club.
I caught sight of myself in a large mirrored column that sprouted from the middle of the ground floor and spread up to the ceiling- I was smouldering. My eyes glowed an unearthly grey while my hair swept over my face like an off kilter veil, just catching the back of my dress. I was a poisonous Jessica Rabbit minus the excessively huge rack. I felt a hand settle on the small of my back and rolled my eyes. “You can’t take a hint, can you Mr Alexander?”
He twisted me around and offered me a glass of something in a shade of shocking green. “You look like you need to get drunk.” He wasn’t wrong- I always found a reason to ‘need’ to get drunk. I took the glass from his hand and sniffed the liquid suspiciously. “It’s absinthe. I don’t recommend you drink too much unless you’re bored of vision.” I threw back the drink in one gulp and winced as it burned and churned inside me- I had no will to replicate the experience unless it was capable of immediate intoxication. "Are you being hostile because I bought you the escritoire?”
“What?” I scowled at him and began to sag under the fog that was starting to addle my mind. Hello, absinthe, my new best friend. “No, if you want to buy furniture that’s only going to get used for a couple of weeks, that’s your prerogative. I’m annoyed because I confided in you like a friend and you couldn’t find it in yourself to return the favour.”
“What?” I waved a hand and used it to prop my head up as I leaned against the balcony. If he didn’t know what I meant, I wouldn’t spell it out for him. “Okay, Cecelia, time to sit you down with your friends. You hear horror stories about people falling over balconies.” I batted his hand away when he tried to support me by the elbow and staggered down into a seat between Bethany and Cole when I was close enough.
“What are you even doing here?” I huffed at him and struggled to hang on to my last shred of sobriety.
“My brother owns this club. The Duplicate? Twins? I come here all the time.” He smiled at me smugly and turned his attention to my companions. My comrades. My compadres. That was me gone- a victim to alcohol abuse, and yes, I was both big and clever in my recklessness. “Drinks anyone? Miss Marshall?”
“Oh please, call me Bethany.” I fake-retched as she giggled flirtatiously and leaned my head down on the table as I had done in the restaurant. My nose was in something sticky, but at least I was spared from the visual stimulus of Nathaniel Alexander schmoozing with my friends. “And I’ll have whatever you gave her.”
“Certainly. And call me Nate.” My head jerked up.
“Don’t you dare call him Nate. Don’t indulge his desire to be ‘normal’.” My head flopped back down with a thud. “Ouch.”
“Mr Fiore?” There was nothing but a deathly silence between them. “Suit yourself. Mr… I don’t think we’ve met.”
“Just call me Adam- not even my students use my surname. I’ll take whatever’s on offer.” I felt a hand stroke the back of my head and I groaned at the contact. But it was more of a purr than a groan, and I resisted the urge to paw at the table like a kitten having her ears scratched.
“And for you, Miss Douglas?”
“Same again.”
“Can you touch type?” I twisted my head around to glare at him acidly through my hair.
“Yes, actually.”
He smiled down at me, amused by my bad attitude and winked. “You look outstanding tonight, Cecelia.” I watched his silhouette leave my side and twisted my head back down to face the table.
Several drinks later I was lured down to the dance floor with the promise of The Duplicate’s house cocktails if I cooperated. I couldn’t deny that I was having a good time, despite the fact that Cole still hadn’t spoken to me since we’d arrived. The walls spun around me but my company kept me steady- literally. An outlandishly camp man sprayed us with glitter and called me ‘sugar’ as we descended the spiral staircase and I felt myself passed around between Adam, Bethany and Nathaniel as I danced.
My memory from then is distorted except for my lewd performance to the sound of Closer. My blood was heated and every inch of me screamed out that I needed passion in my life- I needed to be seen as both intelligent and alluring, but I probably should have realised the implications of grinding against a billionaire to such a provocative track about seeking power through sex at the time.
Bethany lowered me down into my seat on the balcony and brushed the glitter out of my hair with a laugh. Her rosy face matched mine and Adam draped himself over her like a loyal guardian. They looked at Cole with a contempt that matched mine and I appreciated the solidarity of their disapproval.
Adam slapped his shoulder drunkenly and jabbed him in the face with his index finger. “Cole, doesn’t your woman look amazing?” He grunted in reply and pulled out his phone, flicking mindlessly through his social networking accounts.
I snatched it off him and slammed it down on the table in front of him. “What the hell is your problem, Cole? You spent over a year hassling me to be with you and now you have me it’s all you can do to talk to me.” I slurred at him with ill-disguised resentment.
“Nathaniel Alexander is my problem, Cecelia.” I rolled my eyes and lifted a glass of something orange and cloying to my lips.
“Here we go.”
“Where does the duty of mentoring end? I’ve read your novel- how much is he going to recreate? I saw the way he looks at you.” I exchanged annoyed glances with Bethany and leaned in towards him, eyes alight with choler.
“Why don’t you just say what you really mean and ask me if I’m fucking him? I dare you.” He looked at anything but me for a moment before sighing and closing his eyes.
“Are you?” Even though I had know it was coming, it felt like a slap in the face when the words spilled from his mouth. I had honestly thought that my ‘friends’ knew me better than to think that I’d initiate and attempt to maintain a relationship while revelling in premeditated carnalism on the side.
I leaned back into my seat and scoffed. “Wow.” Gripping the edge of the table, I heaved myself up to my feet and swiftly emptied my drink over his head. “Thank you for making it perfectly clear that you don’t know a single damn thing about me.” I paced away a few steps and turned on my heels. “And for the record- no, I am not sleeping with him. I don’t compromise my integrity over a few billion in the bank and hotel suite.”
When I emerged outside onto the street, the cold midnight air hit me with a welcome chill and soothed the beast that raged within my soul. Cole had proved that calculated risks were a ridiculous concept, and that the heart wants what the heart wants. I held my head up to the heavens and smiled at them, deeply satisfied by the fact that I could say ‘I told you so’. I didn’t have to compromise to find my happily ever after and that knowledge was liberating.
“Cecelia?” Nathaniel waved at me and cocked his head to one side. “Are you alright?”
“Oh yeah,” I grinned as I hobbled towards him, “stupendous.”
“You look quite drunk.” I raised an eyebrow and stepped back to lean against a wall behind me, underneath the large white sign pointing into the club’s entrance. A fine mist of drizzle fell down on my bare face and shoulders and flecked my hair with a coating of white droplets. My head fell back and I could feel my inner party animal slip into a coma- I needed sleep. I had a reputation for flailing halfway through the night and finding a nice damp corner to doze in.
A hand grabbed mine and traced a line up my arm. Their touch ignited a deep yearning for more- more depth, more emotion, more fire. “Don’t touch what you can’t afford, Alexander.”
“You think I can’t buy you?” I pushed myself up from the wall and squared my shoulders to the best of my ability in my drunken state.
“I’m telling you that you can’t. I’m priceless.” I half-smiled and ran a finger down the length of the loosely knotted black satin tie around his neck. “We always match, Nathaniel.” I caught him off guard by yanking it so he was forced to take a step closer to me. “You have my eyes too. Give them back. I had them first.”
He smirked at me and pulled his tie from my hand. His liquor drenched breath burnt my skin as he pressed his cheek to mine and whispered in my ear. “There are photographers for gossip columns across the street. How audacious are you?” I pulled myself back from him and blinked at him from under my lashes. I was purposely set to provoke, though I knew that I really ought not to be and had no intention of making any advances.
“How audacious or how drunk?” His eyes locked onto mine and something crackled in the air between us that sparked all kinds of deviltry within me. I brushed my lips across his jaw and lingered close enough to nudge my nose against his. “Not drunk enough.” I stepped back from him and headed back indoors feeling like a devious seductress.
The heat wave from the teeming club hit me like a cataclysm and the magnitude of what I’d just done sprung to the front of my mind. Those pictures would be everywhere in the morning- rumours would be rife and my name would be plastered all over the Internet. Once my book hit the shelves, there would be a mass of speculation over whether I’d just screwed my way into his good books- no pun intended.
Bethany raced over to me, glass of absinthe in hand and stumbled in her heels as she screeched to a halt in front of me. “Were you out there with Cole?”
“Get a grip, Bethy- he just called me a slapper. I was too busy making an idiot of myself in front of the paparazzi.” She looked at me for a moment, trying to fathom my admission, and then shook her head.
“He must have gone to cool off. He didn’t half get a hard time off Adam for what he said.” I shrugged and pulled her by the wrist to the bar. “If it’s any consolation, he looked pretty embarrassed with himself.”
“It’s not.” I snatched a cocktail menu up from a nearby table and scanned the list for something suitably appetising with enough potency to sedate a rhino. “Honey Trap?”
“You had one of those,” Bethany laughed, “Cole is wearing it.” I pulled a face at what else was on offer- I was not impressed by the variety.
The same queen who had coated us with glitter sashayed over to me with the stem of a cherry hanging from his bared teeth. He glanced down at the fruit and snuck an arm around my waist. “Good girls drink absinthe,” he murmured, “bad girls eat cherry bombs. I hear you need a lesson in deviance.” I stared at him, a little intimidated but also entirely curious. “Open your mouth.”
“Excuse me?” He pulled my chin down and towered over me to drop the cherry onto my tongue, sealing his lips around mine for a brief stolen kiss.
“I hope your pretty friend has a camera- you won’t remember a thing.”
And he was right. Everything slipped out of view after that maraschino cherry slid down my throat until my eyes flickered open to the dim light of vanilla scented candles in my lounge. I lay face down across the couch and winced at the sound of nearby laughter.
“Look who’s back in the land of the living.” Adam crouched down next to me and shook his head severely. “You are never going to redeem yourself after your actions over the last four hours.”
I blinked at him, scared to ask for the finer details. “Why are we at home?”
“Cole vanished and left us to fend for ourselves- Nate saved the day and had his driver bring us back here.” I quickly pulled myself up to sit straight, alarmed by the news that there was a billionaire sitting in my modest and messy London townhouse.
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nbsp; He smirked at me from the doorway into the kitchen and admonished me with a tut. “Never take the cherry bomb from Bruno.” Lobke poked her head up from behind him and chuckled impishly.
“We’ve all been there, Nate.” She threw a camera over to me and smiled apologetically. “She’ll only ever do it once.”
I flicked the camera onto preview and found myself utterly horrified by dozens of less than flattering photographs of myself dancing on podiums, exposing my ‘assets’, groping Bethany, pulling pound notes from her cleavage with my teeth, kissing various male and female club-goers and- far worse- kissing Nathaniel. I later learned that my misdeeds had come at the hands of Everclear- a highly potent imported spirit that was mostly outlawed in America due to its ridiculously high alcohol content. However, to this day, that information has never served to dull the blow of seeing myself looking so ridiculously inebriated and careless.
I threw the camera down on the couch next to me and buried my head in my hands. “You set me up, you bastard. You told him that I needed a lesson in deviance.”
“You definitely don’t anymore.” I pulled a shoe from my right foot and launched it at Adam’s face, missing by a wide margin.
“How the hell am I supposed to write about it if I don’t remember it?”
Nathaniel snuck up behind me and rested his hands on my shoulders. “You don’t, it was just fucking hilarious to watch.” The room erupted into raucous laughter at my expense.
“I hate you all.”
Lobke ruffled my hair and swiped Nathaniel’s backside with a loud slap. “Come on, hot shot. You need to sober up before lunch with your parents and I have a family who’ll be wanting breakfast in a few hours.” Their unexpectedly relaxed professional relationship left me baffled- they spoke like friends but she was his employee. She had been right- Nathaniel Alexander didn’t conform to stereotypes. Something in that casual exchange left me in awe and fascination.