As Gregory scrutinized James’s toxic bedroom, I wondered whether watch- and- want could be sustained after decades of marriage. I’d have to remember to ask my parents.
“I think the first landing would come in right about here.” Gregory knocked his fist lightly along the wall between the two closets.
Two weeks of inactivity had not improved the odor in the room. I realized that the pizza boxes were still beneath the bed. Did James deliberately set out to attract roaches? Maybe it was a ploy to see Gregory. Maybe James was in love with Gregory. Too bad, I thought triumphantly. He was mine. Well, I was pretty sure he would be mine soon.
Gregory had wanted to go directly to Roxana’s apartment, where the exterior staircase appeared to end. I sorely wanted to help him get access so that he could examine the accursed vent and we could resume the kissing portion of our program. But despite the lust pounding in my ears, I wasn’t eager to make Roxana invite us in. I had already intruded on her privacy too much in the past day.
Gregory reached for the closet door.
“You have to really yank it,” I said knowledgeably, remembering my poor show of strength in front of Mercedes. “There’s nothing in there. I already looked.”
Gregory opened the door and pushed aside the clothes, squeaking hangers along the metal pole.
“Nothing,” he concluded. Now could we kiss? I wondered. He headed for the other closet, which, I suddenly realized with a defeated shudder, I had forgotten to try to open last week. I had to face facts: the CIA almost definitely had no use for me.
The door swung open easily, of course. I peered over Gregory’s shoulder, resisting the urge to rub my face along it, and saw a sparse array of clothes—the bomber jacket James wore throughout the winter and a couple of frayed raincoats. To one side of the clothes sat a torn cardboard box piled with paint-splattered, rust-encrusted tools.
On the other side of the coats, there lay not the stacks of bundled Benjamins I had briefly imagined I’d find, but to my prurient delight, boxes of condoms in a crowd- pleasing variety of colors and flavors. On the bottom shelf was a tangle of handcuffs, some fur- lined (for those cold days), and an array of dil-does that looked like parts of a dismembered Halloween costume. James apparently did not conduct privacy checks. Then again, he probably hadn’t planned on calling Rikers Island home.
Gregory coughed.
“Two personalities and a sex addiction,” I mused, feeling a touch of pride that our super had harbored such colorful dis orders.
When Gregory pushed back the coats, we were rewarded with a door. It was raggedly set into a hole cut out of the three-brick- thick wall, with pink insulation escaping around the edges.
“I knew it!” He slapped the metal door, then tried the knob. “A fire escape? What kind of fire escape is locked from the inside?”
“James’s fire escape,” I said, handing over the keys before he asked. Gregory diligently tried all of them—even the ones that Lucy had labeled—though we both already sensed that none would work. I tapped my foot maniacally. This was some kind of appliance- driven morality battle: Gregory’s unwavering resolution to fix the dryer versus our—or just my?—baser yearnings.
I leaned back against the doorjamb, then considered the kinds of upright acts that had been performed on that very spot and straightened up again with a shiver of revulsion. The biological atrocity of that apartment was the only thing keeping me from pushing Gregory to the floor and having my way with him.
“You want me to call a locksmith?” I offered halfheartedly.
“Do you really want some stranger to bust open a secret door in your home when you don’t know what it’s for or where it goes?” Gregory said, handing the key ring back to me.
A secret door? I stared at him.
I had a secret door in my home?
I did. I had a secret door! Mercedes had Dover Carter, but I had a secret door, something that, if I’d thought it was even a remote possibility, I would have longed for all my life.
Who could I tell? Tag was at the museum, having been forced by the director to charm a gaggle of potential donors. Lucy was semi- mad at me. Mercedes was giving free lessons in East Harlem. Abigail lived in a time zone scheduled to slide into the Pacific.
This would stay between Gregory and me. The intimacy of the thought shot a new prickle of longing through my body.
Wordlessly, I rummaged through the pile of tools and came up with a paint scraper. I crouched in front of the lock, which put my head just inches away from Gregory’s crotch.
Ever the gentleman, he took a step back.
Channeling my frustration, I wedged the scraper into the flimsy lock and pulled back hard. The door popped open as though it were rooting for me. I jumped back, startled by my prowess, and found myself nestled against Gregory’s chest. He tightened his arm around me for an instant, pressing me to him, the back of my thigh to the front of his. I swallowed hard.
Gregory nudged me forward and we stuck our faces through the doorway into cool, stagnant air. He craned his head and looked up and down.
“Pretty dark?” I said stupidly.
“Yeah, and really…” he felt around on the wall, “soft.”
“What?” I put my hand near his and felt something like silk. And then a light switch. I allowed myself a brief image of triggering trapdoors or explosions, and then flipped it on.
Pink. Pink here, pink there, pink everywhere. Pink carpeting on the stairs, pink silk covering the walls, pink sconces lighting the pink banisters. This rabbit hole was cotton- candy-mates- with- Pepto pink. Barbie orgasm pink.
Gregory puffed out his cheeks in surprise and started to step inside. “Wait!” I grabbed his arm. “What if it’s unstable? Or booby-trapped?”
“ Booby- trapped?” he repeated sarcastically. He was either fiercely brave or woefully unimaginative. He jumped hard on the pink- carpeted landing to prove his point.
I followed him onto the landing and looked down toward the door we’d discovered in the alley. Then we both looked up to where the staircase ended. Another pink door. This time, there wasn’t much question about where it would lead.
My hesitation to intrude upon Roxana was pre- secret-pink- staircase. My discretion had evaporated as soon as I’d flipped the light switch. Plus, I’d been emboldened by the sight of Roxana leaving the building shortly after her tiff with Mini-Dolly
Gregory followed me up the creaky stairs. I was walking where I shouldn’t be able to walk. These steps were not supposed to be here, and it felt as if any moment, the illusion would vanish and we’d be cartoonishly spinning our legs in midair.
At the top, I reached for the handle perfunctorily, assuming it would be locked like the other two. But it swung open easily and even Gregory inhaled sharply. My legs wobbled. Had I come in Roxana’s front door, it would have been as her super. Coming in this way, through what seemed to be a closet, was probably breaking and entering. It should be entering and breaking, I thought. You enter illegally and then you … break things?
Gregory put one finger lightly in the middle of my back.
“Hello,” I whispered quietly into the dark. I did a Mr. Magoo probe, tentatively waving my arms in front of me, afraid of what I’d find. My fingers brushed what felt like robes, exactly the kind I’d expect to find in Roxana Boureau’s bedroom. Soft, feathery, filmy, but not cheap.
The door behind us swung shut and I felt Gregory start beside me. Ha, I thought and then wondered why I was bent on spotting the ways in which he was human, as if he were a myth that demanded debunking.
We stood still for a moment, our eyes adjusting to the dim shapes. Gregory reached past me and felt for a light switch, but I grabbed his arm.
“Are you crazy?” I hissed. “What if we’re in her bedroom and you turn on the light and there she is!”
“Then she’ll have already heard us, don’t you think?” Gregory stage- whispered back. I pursed my lips: ha ha, very funny. But of course he couldn’t see my face, so I jabb
ed him with my elbow.
“Ow!” he yelled out loud.
“Shhhhh!”
“You have bodily injured me twice in the last half hour,” he grumbled.
“Bodily?” I whispered back.
“Bodily,” he answered. But I felt him lower his arm.
We ducked through the robes and found that we were, in fact, in another closet. This wasn’t Wonderland; it was Narnia with negligees. I stumbled over something and reached down to feel a jumble of furry mules that almost certainly matched the robes now brushing against my face.
I felt along the walls, but there was nothing else in the closet. Just as Gregory was about to turn the handle on the door that presumably did lead into Roxana’s bedroom, light spilled across our feet from the other side and we jumped back through the robes. My throat closed up. Roxana was home!
With our backs literally to the wall, we listened in horror as Roxana paced around the room yelling in frenzied French. If my high school Spanish couldn’t score me a meatball at the St. Regis, it certainly wasn’t going to help me now. She was silent a moment, then started up again. So she was alone and on the phone, I concluded. Maybe the CIA would have me yet.
I watched helplessly as Roxana’s movements made the light dance around the closet floor. What would I say if she caught us lurking in her closet? How could I possibly dissuade her from prosecuting me? This would ruin my father’s reputation! My parents’ disappointment over my premature adieus to two expensive professional schools would certainly be forgotten the first time they glimpsed me seated at the defense table. Were you supposed to look at the jury? The judge? Keep your eyes cast humbly downward? What happened if you had to pee in the middle of the trial?
I turned to Gregory to whisper my panic, but he took my hand and pulled me down into a crouch, tightening his fingers around mine.
We stayed there, knee to knee, elbow to elbow, listening to Roxana alternately shout and then lapse into silence. As scared as I was, I was also entranced by the haughty French music coming out of her mouth. Crouching there in the dark, listening to Roxana tweet and growl, made me wish I were strolling along a tiny street in an ancient French town, a bottle of wine and some Brie in my backpack. I’d come across a sun- soaked field bordered by crumbling stone walls, the perfect spot for a picnic and a nap. I’d stretch out in the warmth, ready for anything. Anyone.
My fantasy was being fueled by the heat from Gregory’s body. My sleeve was touching his, and though my arms and legs were growing stiff, I didn’t want to break that meager contact. Every now and then he squeezed my hand, sending a pulse straight down my belly.
Here, in the dark of a strange apartment, with a strange man and no one in the world possibly imagining where I was at this moment, I was suddenly choking with lust, with the freedom from space and time. I didn’t care about the crime I was committing or that I had no idea what I was doing with my life. I just wanted the man next to me, without thoughts of propriety or consequence. It struck me that we were no longer in James’s infested apartment, but rather in a perfectly clean closet.
Ever so slightly, Gregory began rubbing one finger back and forth across my thumb. He might as well have been drawing one finger up the inside of my naked thigh. Did Hayden ever have this effect on me?
Gregory leaned over and kissed me, forcing the question from my mind as quickly as it had entered. Under cover of another outburst from Roxana, we pulled each other to the floor, brushing feathers and spiky heels out of our way as we went. Gregory stretched his lanky body on top of me, pulling my arms with his above our heads. I nearly groaned from the sheer pleasure of his weight, as if I’d been thirsting for it for years instead of a few hours. His mouth on mine was rougher this time, and I was glad for it. Anything gentler and I might have wept.
As if he knew how much I ached, he shifted his hips and drew one knee up until it was pressed firmly between my legs. I clamped his knee with my thighs and pulled his tongue into my mouth. He let go of my hands, sliding his down the length of my arms until they came to rest lightly on my breasts, his fingers and thumbs just far enough apart to give the suggestion of a squeeze. I wrapped my hands over his shoulders, then ran them up his smooth neck, to the top of his head. I tangled my fingers in his thick hair and gently tugged. Gregory pulled his mouth off mine and moaned quietly into my ear. The vibration of his voice, his breath on my face, his hands over my nipples, and his knee, which had more pinpoint accuracy than a heat- seeking missile, made me come right there, right on the plushly carpeted floor of Roxana’s closet. I arched back, then thrust my face deep into the well of his shoulders to muffle my gasp.
Hayden had never done that, I couldn’t help thinking. Not while we were both fully clothed and without the aid of a more precisely shaped appendage.
Just as I was about to release a sigh, we both realized no sound was coming from the other side of the door. We froze. Something small and round and sharp—a sequin?—was embedded on my cheek, but I didn’t so much as lift a finger to remove it. My underwear was soaked, but I didn’t dare move my leg. We heard Roxana moving around and muttering to herself, apparently having ended her conversation without us noticing.
From our new position flat out on the floor, we could see her slingbacked feet, not just the shadows they were casting. The feet headed toward us. My gut contracted with panic. I squeezed my eyes shut, dug my fingers into Gregory’s scalp, and buried my face in his chest, this time out of abject fear.
Then the feet stopped just before the closet door and turned around again. And then turned around once more. What is she doing? I thought, impatience trumping fear for a nanosecond.
We heard some rustling, a few “merde”s, the sound of a bag being zipped, and then, to our surprise, the light went out. We remained still in the pitch black, Gregory hard against me, breathing softly near my ear. We listened to Roxana’s curses grow fainter and then heard the distinctive creak and whump that all the apartment doors at 287 West 12th made. We lay motionless for another minute. And then another. I still couldn’t see Gregory’s face, just an inch from mine. I matched my breathing to his, deep, long breaths, and just when I was afraid he had fallen asleep, he put his hand on my cheek and stroked it lightly. He touched his nose to mine and then kissed me.
“I guess we should get out of here,” I whispered, letting my hands travel down his back and come to rest with my fingers hooked inside the waist of his jeans.
“ Uh- huh,” he whispered back, and kissed me again, harder.
“This is insane,” I murmured, finding the button over his fly.
“Completely.”
“But we can’t,” I wailed quietly, clutching at his pants with both hands. “We don’t have anything.”
“Back pocket,” he grunted. I felt around over his (definitely round) ass and almost laughed with relief when I pulled out a condom. And then I grew indignant.
“Wait,” I said accusingly, “did you plan this?”
“Hoped. Only hoped.”
“Since when?”
“Since fifteen minutes ago.”
“This is James’s condom,” I hissed, dropping it as if James himself had just offered it to me.
“It’s not used, Zephyr.”
Why did the sound of my name crossing a man’s lips do for me what it took roses and nights at the opera to do for other women? Shouldn’t I have a higher threshold for swooning? I wondered as I hungrily pushed Gregory’s jeans down over his narrow hips.
ELEVEN
T HEY MUST HAVE BEEN HAVING AN AFFAIR,” TAG CONCLUDED as she stepped on and off the pink landing, studying the silky wallpaper in amazement.
I had kept the secret staircase a secret for nearly forty-eight hours, which I thought was a pretty respectable interval, and the Sterling Girls hadn’t been able to come see it for another day, so it was almost as if I had kept it to myself for three days.
“Frenchie can really pick ‘em,” Mercedes commented lazily, her eyes closed, plucking at an imaginary vio
la. I wanted to pinch her. Everything she did reminded me that she was getting away with not telling us any details about her night with Dover Carter. I sincerely hoped it was as hard for her to withhold this information from us as it was for me to keep mum about Gregory. She certainly looked the picture of self- control. She was sprawled across James’s bed, which we had stripped down to the mattress and scrubbed with Lysol at Lucy’s direction. I had felt a small stab of guilt about showing Lucy the state of this room, as I correctly suspected that her cleaning compulsion would ignite at the sight of a cheese- encrusted fork nestled into a pair of tightie whities. But I was eager to make inroads on this garbage pit.
My need to kick- start my career as a minor Donald Trump had been stoked on Sunday night, a few hours after Gregory kissed me good- bye. I had returned to my apartment and was wandering around moonily, grinning at myself in mirrors, shivering at the memory of Gregory’s warm face nuzzled into my neck, when my brother called to give me a piece of planet-realigning news.
Gideon, formerly the king of Steamboat Springs’ double black diamonds, was calling to announce that his “film” was now a Film. No more quotes, no more rolled eyes, no more exaggerated sighs. His movie—about a ski bum who becomes a successful CEO by applying his slope credo to the boardroom—was now viewable to people besides him and his roommates. And. And. It had been accepted into the Tribeca Film Festival. Gideon was not only leaving me to fill his position as the least accomplished person in the Zuckerman nuclear family, but he was coming back to town. The prodigal son was to return home, redeemed, while the prodigal daughter remained prodigal.
I feigned delight in Gideon’s news, but as soon as I hung up, I sank down on my kitchen footstool, my post- tryst glow evaporating as unbridled professional desperation set in. I stared at a rust stain on the cabinet beneath the sink and wondered how fast I could get James’s apartment cleaned out and rented. If I did that, then at the very least I could refer to myself as “working in real estate” at my college reunion. Now I’d be the one with a job in quotes.
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