His Little Black Book

by Thea Devine

  This was not working the way Brooke said it would.

  No, you aren’t working it the way Brooke said you should. The game plan. The right address, the right job, the right clothes, the right contacts.

  They had been so cocooned at school. Everything seemed possible there, but the real world was merciless. And truthfully, she hadn’t really been taking this Mistress Club thing that seriously. It was too much work.

  She had been the first to come to New York, and just finding a job was hard enough. The rest was dominoes: If you didn’t have money or a job, you couldn’t get the address, the clothes, the contacts.

  And she hadn’t been looking all that hard for that perfect meet-the-moneyed-men job. She’d been working as a temp, which was the first step in Brooke’s strategic plan, but she was barely scraping by.

  Because she’d stupidly thought that maybe somewhere among the losers she’d been meeting she’d find someone seriously worth her time, seriously worth the effort, and she wouldn’t have to do the work.

  But the truth was, the only effort she was expending was to get her own orgasm before they jacked off and left.

  They want sex with no strings and no investment, in case something better comes along.

  Brooke again, in her infinite wisdom. Though bunny fucking got you temporary pleasure, it got wearing after a while. Either sex was just one more thing to get over with on a date, or you forced yourself to date someone just to get sex.

  MJ yawned and stretched. She ought to write all that down. She’d keep her focus better that way.

  Brooke checked on them like a worried mother hen, via their bimonthly meetings and email, that at a minimum they were keeping up the beauty regimen.

  And MJ was. So she knew the bull had enjoyed stroking her silky-smooth caviar-infused skin. Had loved the scent of the lavender cream she rubbed on her body every night, and the sheen of her Louis Licari–dyed, avocado-conditioned hair.

  But she lacked the clothes, the job, the resolve, the attitude. If she had any resolve at all, she wouldn’t be staring at a snoring lump of limp muscle that had nothing to give her but grief.

  Out, out, damned penis…

  She lay wrapped in a sheet, her resolve reenergized, waiting impatiently for the moment when the bull would come to consciousness.

  Shit. His penis was coming to consciousness.

  Not going to happen…. I have been reborn.

  That was the lesson. She got it now.

  Get first, then give.

  Rule number three? One?

  Never waste your time on anything that doesn’t get you something in return.

  She’d better memorize those rules.

  Never let a penis roam your territory—ever. You want to be on his territory, because that means he wants you there. Big time.

  She nudged him with her foot.

  “Oh, yeah, hi…baby—hey, gotta go…”

  Predictable.

  She watched with detached amusement as he scrambled into his clothes.

  Get first, then give…

  He probably had a wife, kids, and a boring nine-to-five job.

  Get out…

  You’re wasting my time.

  Get…

  The door slammed. Out.

  A new record: two minutes and gone.

  Thanks for giving me that, at least.

  And thank you, Lord, he didn’t say he’d call.

  Delia was ambivalent about New York. She had been here one month and the city seemed cold and heartless. It chewed you up and spit you out. You had to find your own way, skating on your own confidence whether you felt it or not.

  She never felt it.

  But if you could get that attitude, sometimes you could feel the energy here, feel that you were part of the swell of people who had places to go and things to get done.

  She was getting something done today: She was prowling upper Madison Avenue looking for that potential meet-the-CEO job, although she hadn’t figured out how you found such jobs when they weren’t listed in the Sunday Times.

  Maybe you just walked right in and asked.

  Except she couldn’t do that. How did anybody do that?

  Thank God for Brooke. Superorganized Brooke had plotted the whole thing out, from rules to live by to a plan for getting them to their goal.

  Everything so straightforward and simple that even she could follow through. The first part was to come to New York, get temporary jobs, and find inexpensive temporary apartments separately, so they wouldn’t look like a pack of wolves on the hunt.

  The apartment part was pretty rough. She had finally taken a tiny studio on Seventy-ninth and Madison, the cost of which was so astronomical she almost had to be earning six figures just to afford it.

  She’d had about six cents left from her summer waitress job in Bar Harbor when she’d arrived here, and she’d maxed out her credit card just for air fare and the upfront money for the apartment.

  Add to that the necessary trendy haircut at Sally Hershberger, and buying that one really great suit—on sale. And the sexy city-chic shoes.

  God, she loved shoes.

  But working as a waitress would not get her Jimmy Choos on a regular basis. And even though she was a really great waitress, her restaurant wasn’t, as Brooke had pointed out, high on the list of potential places to meet a man with a black American Express card. They were looking for the kind of employment where they would provide a certain level of personal service—not sex—to a certain kind of clientele as part of the package.

  Like a high-end, service-oriented department store like Bergdorf or Barneys, a jeweler like Graff or Cartier. A spa. A luxurious East Side hotel. A university club. An auction house.

  Places where they would be seen, dressed for success, and interacting one-on-one with the clientele, taking care of them the way their would-be lover might like to be taken care of by a mistress.

  Get the apartment, find the job, make the contact, and reap the benefits of being in the right place to make something happen.

  They had to view Brooke’s plan as an investment, and investments took time to reap dividends.

  Delia knew that, but it was hard not to want things to happen instantly, very hard to take things slowly.

  But Brooke had been firm. “Give it time; the effort will be worth it.”

  Delia wondered sometimes, given their competition: the hordes of flashy, trashy twenty-somethings flooding Manhattan, ready to drop a dress at the drop of a dime, fucking in clubs, in cabs, on countertops, and in corners every night.

  They had discussed all that at the first Manhattan meeting of the Mistress Club one week ago. Brooke had found the place—an inexpensive deli hard by Madison Square Garden.

  A mecca for men and big, thick protein- and carb-loaded sandwiches that would choke a horse. Man-sized sandwiches. Perfect.

  The competition wouldn’t be eating those sandwiches, Brooke pointed out, but they did, cutting them up into manageable bites while they eyed the customers and discussed strategy.

  “Here’s how you deal with the competition,” Brooke had said. “You target the market and sell to them. That’s the first rule of business.”

  “A tough sell,” MJ had commented, scooping up a forkful of coleslaw, “when they can have sex anytime and anywhere they want for free.”

  “Well, then, if that’s true, why would a man take a mistress?” Brooke had asked.

  “Because he can,” MJ had said promptly.

  “Because he’s too old to get it up,” Delia had put in.

  Brooke had wrinkled her nose. “No—I’m thinking it’s more like he’s a certain age and income level, and he can afford to be particular and selective. He’s not looking for a random fuck. He wouldn’t want to risk making a random fuck his mistress for all kinds of reasons. So a mistress is someone he chooses.”

  “Sure,” MJ had said caustically, “and all she has to be is young, beautiful, malleable, and uncritical, and adore him the way his wife doesn’t. A
trophy fuck.”

  “She is us, in other words,” Brooke had said.

  “She’s a thousand of us pounding the streets right now,” MJ had retorted.

  “She’s someone who devotes herself entirely to him and his pleasure,” Delia had said suddenly.

  Brooke had looked at her sharply. “You know, that’s a good point. I mean, can a lawyer who’s billing a hundred hours a week be a good mistress? Does a man looking for a mistress want a woman who’s so busy at work she really has no time for him?”

  “He wants someone whose sole purpose is to have time for him,” Delia had said softly.

  They had looked at her in awe, impressed that in one cogent observation, Delia had defined exactly what the mistress thing was about.

  Someone young, beautiful, and multiorgasmic whose sole purpose is to have time for him.

  “I can do that,” MJ had said.

  “I can’t wait to do that,” Delia had whispered.

  But meantime, Delia thought now, she needed to find that job to turn the fantasy into a reality. Even though Madison Avenue seemed too full of women just like herself, well dressed, well coiffed, and on their way somewhere.

  She paused at the corner of Eighty-fifth Street. This was somewhere. She chose a store, girded herself, and determinedly went in.

  BROOKE’S RULES

  No clubbing.

  No bars.

  Don’t look or feel or be desperate.

  Be mysterious and elusive.

  Have no expectations.

  Don’t sleep around (unless there’s a purpose).

  Don’t get scared, frantic, uncertain—the only urgency is finding a job.

  Always be ready and wearing super-double protection.

  Brooke liked to organize and manage. And she loved lists. Lists gave you control when things spun out of control—like men leaving you, or parents divorcing.

  Lists focused your mind; they homed in on the important things and bypassed the garbage, the distractions, and the excuses. Lists were intimate and honest, and they allowed her to be herself and no one else had to see.

  And making lists had codified the game plan: the rules to live by and how to get everything they’d ever wanted.

  Minus the heartache and pain.

  What was the Mistress Club, after all, but a way to manage their sex lives to their best advantage?

  It made sense to her, and she believed in her rules.

  Though she had discovered there were times when heels would not do, like when you were coursing up and down Manhattan on foot, scouting out where the would-be mistress should live, shop, and play. She wanted the three of them to radiate a certain old money glow, even though they didn’t even have any money at all.

  The uptown life: timeless designers, an apartment in an Old World prewar building, employment in a field where the wealthy traditionally worked, and a glamorous world that would provide them with opportunities to meet those uptown men whose lives were well-oiled machines run by their well-oiled wives, who were looking for full-bore penal immersion into a well-oiled trophy who had all the time in the world for them.

  Perfect. On the money. Exactly where they were headed.

  BROOKE’S MUST-HAVES:

  The optimum job to meet wealthy older men.

  The best designer clothes (Note: find that perfect resale shop).

  An apartment at best address, even if it’s in a closet.

  The best hangout to meet men.

  The best places to volunteer to meet men.

  A place to network to get invitations.

  The best sporting events to meet men (Note: cost out corporate seats but aim for skyboxes).

  She was the last one to find an apartment. The building was on West End Avenue, on a corner just grazing the upper seventies. The tiny one-bedroom on the second floor had high ceilings, tall windows fronting the street, and barely any closet space. But it was drenched in Old World charm, and it had a tiny dining alcove (which Brooke immediately saw as a potential walk-in closet) and a fireplace. And it was only two thousand a month, with first and last months’ rent up front.

  “Cute,” Brooke said. It might have been five hundred square feet, but what did she know about square footage, coming from a wealthy Chicago family with a luxury penthouse overlooking Lake Michigan?

  This place was about as big as her room at home. And it cost too much.

  But among all the obscenely expensive shoe boxes she had seen this past week, the apartment had the advantage of being in a desirable neighborhood and it had charm. It had, as the broker said, potential.

  Although how much potential she would have, after writing the obscenely large check for rent, escrow, and adjunct fees, remained to be seen. She didn’t like the feeling of being insolvent even before she’d written the check.

  But she’d chosen to level the playing field, not to tap into her own money, her own clothes, her own previous life. Maybe to her detriment, since all these grand plans were costing more money than she had anticipated.

  But that was the challenge, after all. And she loved a challenge.

  “Someone is going to snap this up today,” the agent said. She was slender, blonde, well dressed, well coiffed, and well done. She knew when to let a client alone and when to push a little. When to let the client’s uncertainty about the outrageous cost percolate and when to initiate that moment of anxiety that would tip the client into I must have it at any cost mode.

  “I don’t doubt it,” Brooke said. “Very small. But nice.”

  “Great address.”

  Brooke peered out the living room window. “But so close to the street.”

  “Some people like that aspect.”

  “Well, I’m from Chicago,” Brooke said dismissively, as if that explained everything. “Hardly any counter space in the kitchen, either.”

  “The potential tenant of this apartment probably works long hours and doesn’t really care about that,” the agent said. “But of course the microwave comes with the apartment.”

  “Of course,” Brooke murmured. It was a really nice apartment, but it cost half as much more than the one MJ had found the first week here, a studio on Park Avenue, and the one Delia had rented just last week, also a studio with a tiny balcony.

  But it really was a nice apartment. And she didn’t want anyone else to have it.

  “Well, then—” the agent said, gathering up her purse and Maxx tote bag. “I see you still want to think about it. Don’t take too long.”

  “Oh, no,” Brooke said, opening her pocketbook. “I decided the minute I walked in the door. I’ll take it. To whom do I write the check?”

  A week later she found the resale shop, where the designer labels were top-notch and of the moment, where no item was older than last year, and most weren’t even six months off the runways.

  Where the clientele was so wealthy and so in love with fashion they could afford to have what was new and one of a kind for as long as it remained one of a kind. And when they got bored or saw someone wearing their hot find, they brought it to Images so they could go in pursuit of the next new thing.

  “We don’t consign, we repurpose,” Marielyce, the owner, told them.

  And the racks were full, the labels were to die for: Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui, Prada, Bottega Veneta, Michael Kors, Celine.

  The prices were expensive, but a bargain for those designers. Under a thousand dollars for a three-thousand-dollar Chanel jacket. Strappy snakeskin stilettos at five hundred dollars retail, under a hundred dollars there. Ralph Lauren, Roberto Cavalli, Pucci, Chloe. Missoni. Donna Karan.

  A banquet of the best names, the most beautiful tailoring, colors, textures, and sparkle.

  “We could only afford one item once a year,” MJ moaned.

  “One big shout-out item for starters,” Brooke coaxed her. “Shoes, a bag, earrings—these prices aren’t too out of sight.”

  “Shoes,” Delia sighed. She was already trying on the snakeskin Bottega Veneta sandals. “These
were in Vogue last month. I must have them.”

  “With what money?” asked MJ, ever practical, whose credit card balance was not skirting the edge of bankruptcy and who knew that Delia’s was.

  “I won’t pay the electric bill this month. I’ll give up cable. I’ll—” Delia caressed the shoes. “I love these shoes.”

  “You shall have these shoes,” Brooke said. “And I’ll have this sweater and this skirt,” a rose-scattered tea-length Ralph Lauren chiffon skirt with a coordinating cashmere sweater in deep chocolate brown. “And MJ will have—?”

  “A bank balance,” MJ said.

  “And MJ will have that luscious Lauren emerald green silk blouse,” Brooke said, ignoring her. “I saw you try it on, you loved it. It’s the perfect color, perfect shape, perfect fit.” She took it from the rack. “My treat, this first time.”

  “Don’t do it,” MJ said.

  “Of course I’m going to do it. This is our new favorite store. The more we shop here, the better they’ll get to know us, and soon we’ll be giving them an ongoing list of our objects of desire, and they’ll be calling us to come in. Just this once, to start us off. There’s nothing like a designer blouse to add that je ne sais quoi to an inexpensive suit. You know I’m right.”

  She was at the register, flashing her credit card.

  “How’s your balance?” MJ murmured.

  “In line with my dreams,” Brooke said.

  “Pretty big dreams.”

  “You have to see it as an investment. But you’re still not sure, are you? MJ, you have to have faith.”

  “It all could crash down around us tomorrow,” MJ warned.

  “Or the price-to-earnings ratio will make it a spectacular buy.” Brooke handed over her credit card. “Plus, I get mileage for every dollar spent. By the time I’m finished, I’ll get us all to Europe on mileage, or we’ll treat ourselves to that trip to St. Tropez that we couldn’t get any other way. So stop worrying, MJ. We’re almost there!”

  Chapter Two

  Brooke became the cheerleader, the perky recreation director who kept their minds off of the difficulties of job hunting and the expense of the apartments they didn’t have a real salary to pay for, and she occupied them with New York things.