The Queen of Dauphine Street

by Thea de Salle

  Apparently, in Cylan’s world, having the grooming habits of a college freshman was akin to being an abomination unto Christ.

  It is pretty gross, though.

  Darren shook his head, grinned despite his worries, and let himself back into the room.

  “You should have woken me up sooner,” Maddy said, fresh from the bath and rushing around the suite with a towel wrapped around her body. Darren was sprawled on the bed, a book in hand, appreciating the jiggle of wobbly Maddy parts as she swooped for her suitcase, dashed back to the sink, and hopped into a fresh pair of underwear.

  She caught him ogling, too. When the towel dropped down, exposing both of her luscious DDs, she glanced up and quirked a brow.

  “You seem really put out by my tardiness,” she remarked. “Are you distracted?”

  “Yes. Put out. That’s . . . what were you saying?” He cocked his head, his eyes still devouring the heavy mounds tipped with hard nipples.

  It’s like two sundaes with cherries on top. They’re amazing.

  “Thank you for running me the bath, dove.” She snickered before ruining his view and donning a black bra. His buddies, those soft, perky pals, were stuffed away. Caged. Oppressed, even, by shaped cups and lace.

  “Hey, so why was the mermaid wearing seashells?” he asked.

  “Oh God.”

  “Because B shells were too small. Ba ding ding!”

  She rolled her eyes, shook her head, and tore through her garment bag to find a fresh dress. “I should have had Patrice unpack my things before giving her the day off. Why do I never think of these things when I’m eager to get rid of her?”

  “Don’t you like her?” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for a short-sleeved button-down instead of a T-shirt. “Also, do I need to dress up for dinner, or—”

  “No, no. It’s Gustav’s. It’s downstairs. You could wear a trash bag as long as you’re with Sol. Anyway, I adore Patrice. I just sometimes want to cunt-punt her. It’s not her fault. She’s paid to be annoying.” She shimmied into a red shirtdress with a folded-over collar, no sleeves, and a black patent-leather skinny belt. “Think of it this way: she makes me do all the boring adult things I— Shit, I forgot to get that paperwork to Tempy. She’s going to kill me.” She whirled around, eyeballed him, and sighed, her hands settling on her hips. “Oh, and she told me to tell you she’d represent you pro bono when you need legal counsel for the shooting. She’s one of the top lawyers in the country. You’d be a fool to say no.”

  “What’s a Tempy? A lawyer, I know that much.” He walked to her and leaned down to press a kiss to her head. She was worked up, which put an adorable V in her brow that required his lips. He wouldn’t say that, of course—it was patronizing as hell—but he could think it and not feel too guilty about it.

  “One of my best friends. Very tall, very black, very lesbian. She punches injustice in the butt for thirteen hundred dollars an hour. Sadly, she also punches me in the butt when I don’t do the paperwork she asked me to do.”

  “Hot damn, I am not in the right business. That girl makes some bank.” He stepped in close and peppered more kisses along the side of Maddy’s neck. She smelled like fruit after her bath, something tropical and lemony, and his stomach growled to let him know he hadn’t remembered to eat lunch. “You smell like food. And I’m starving.”

  “No more eating Maddy until after we play with our friends. My friends. Well, maybe our friends if you stick around.” She winked at him and dashed off to slip into a pair of sandals.

  “Would you like that, if I stuck around?” he called after her. The question sounded light and airy—he was careful to make it sound that way—but that didn’t mean there wasn’t substance there. If she was planning on dumping him back in Texas in a week and never giving him a second thought, it’d be good to know.

  Though her saying “my friends could become our friends” is promising.

  Maddy didn’t say anything for a long moment. He watched her reflection in the bathroom mirror while she wrestled with a pair of hoop earrings and put a matching necklace around her neck. The marks from the collar had faded during her nap, which made him feel better—for all that he’d enjoyed the play, he hated to think he’d leave a mark on her that’d make people think he’d harmed a hair on her head. The rough stuff was all right as long as it wasn’t too rough.

  Maybe? She really liked it.

  Still she said nothing.

  It made him more nervous than he liked to admit, enough that he looked away from her to peer at the door. The idea of what they’d done together being a passing fancy bothered him, but he didn’t really have the right to complain and he knew it. He was the one who practiced monogamy almost exclusively, not her. He was the one who had to change his lifestyle to even be fucking her in the first place. Hell, she’d had someone in her bed the day before she met him.

  “Yes,” she said from the bathroom doorway. He looked back at her. His laughing girl, that pretty, glimmering thing he’d ravaged to within an inch of both their lives a few hours ago, looked solemn. “I like you, Darren. You’re beautiful inside and out. If you wanted to stay awhile, I’d be glad for it.” And just like that, her seriousness was swallowed by her usual Maddy-ness, her grin sharklike, her eyes bright. She reached for her purse, she reached for his hand. “Let’s get fed, dove. You’re starting to look like a pork chop and I don’t think my jaw can take another blow job right now.”

  “Well, if you want to try . . .”

  “Darren!”

  TWENTY-ONE

  MADDY ONCE FAMOUSLY said in a Vogue article that she grouped her adult life experiences by red lipsticks. Her first was Revlon Red; she’d picked it up at a drugstore when she was fifteen, thinking she was bold to buy it when other girls her age were only seen in pale lip gloss. It was on the fuchsia side, not as severe as her later colors, and she wore it every day, to the point she went through at least three tubes that first year. It was the color of her teenage years, of the young girl she’d been when she was locked in a very fancy house with very fancy things and no friends beyond her family and the staff who cared for her. It was, in retrospect, a very lonely color, but she recalled it fondly all the same. She’d gotten a taste of fabulous with Revlon Red, and it had opened many a scarlet door for her.

  At eighteen, she’d had a photo shoot with a famous New York photographer for an exposé on the hyper-rich American family. They’d hired a professional hair and makeup artist, and much to Maddy’s chagrin, her Revlon Red was deemed “trash” by a woman with heavy foundation and sculpted nails. She’d liked the idea of the red, just not the red Maddy preferred, and so Ruby Woo by MAC came into the picture. Maddy hadn’t been sure what to make of it at first; it was a richer color, more of a blue-red than a true red, but after she saw the photographs and how her lips popped against her fair skin, she was a convert. Ruby Woo it was for her high school graduation and her freshman year of college.

  Ruby Woo was for her father’s funeral. It saw, too, her checking her mother into the first of a long string of hospitals. That particular red was a bloody stain in more ways than one, and when she’d put it away, she’d put it away for good and never looked back.

  At twenty-three, Maddy had done far too much living for one so young. She’d traveled the world, she’d done all the drugs and all the people she could think to do. She’d grown up a lot because of it, and instead of being an amorphous blob of pain and privilege grasping at any experience in hopes of finding an anchor against the storm, she’d developed interests, one of which was fashion—in particular vintage fashion. There were plenty of skinny, waify, modern-day models she could have emulated, but the real glamour, in Maddy’s opinion, was found in the Ava Gardners, Katharine Hepburns, and Vivien Leighs. And so Bésame Red came into her life. It wasn’t a vintage brand, per se—it’d only come on the scene in 2004—but it honored Hollywood’s golden
days, its packaging and shades an homage to the glitzier days of yore. It became Maddy’s new signature shade, every picture taken of her for seven years featuring it. She’d even been offered an ad campaign once, which she’d declined, but only because she and Sol had been high as kites when they’d called to offer it to her and she misunderstood what they were asking.

  Oops.

  At thirty, Maddy considered herself a fine wine—aged to perfection—and while the vintage glam was part and parcel of the Roussoux brand, so, too, was the mature, sexual creature. It was as much a part of her identity as anything else, and while the Bésame had been a loyal friend that’d seen Maddy rise to the top of the social ladder along with the Kardashians and Taylor Swifts of the world, she retired it when she met and fell in love with Lady Balls by Too Faced. It was the perfect blend of ridiculous and in-your-face; she’d laughed reading the name, she’d cooed seeing that vibrant color on her lips. It made her feel sexy to wear it. It made her feel like a boss, and when your approach between the sheets was to dom the fuck out of the plaything du jour, it fit the bill.

  That same self-affirming fierceness allowed her to get through signing her divorce papers without cracking; with Lady Balls, she was swollen with ovarian fortitude. She could do anything. She hadn’t loved Sol that way for a long time when they’d made their split official, but she’d truly believed he was her last chance to try the whole husband and kids thing. Separating from him was putting a dream on the shelf to gather dust for a while—perhaps indefinitely—but she could handle it thanks to Lady Balls.

  What was interesting then was to sit at dinner surrounded by that same ex-husband and his new girlfriend, his accountant, a Barrington slab of meat in an Abercrombie T-shirt, and the beautiful Texan man she was fucking, not wearing any lipstick at all. She hadn’t even noticed it, which wouldn’t have been so noteworthy for most anyone else, but not Maddy. She hadn’t left the house barefaced in seventeen years. Hell, even when she was padding around in her yoga pants, she had on a smear of lipstick, but there she was, holding Darren Sanders’s hand, the remains of a pork-and-apple fritter on the plate before her, naked.

  And she didn’t care. Not even a little bit. When she’d wiped the grease from her mouth, she’d expected to see the familiar red stain on her white cloth napkin—liquid lipsticks didn’t fare well in the face of oils—but there’d been nothing because she’d worn nothing. It hadn’t occurred to her to put it on. She’d been content to fresh-face it out the door with her beau and join her friends, new and old.

  It’s significant. It means something. I’m not sure to what extent, but it’s noteworthy.

  She had vague notions swimming around her head about shifting identities—how a lack of lipstick was as important as choosing a new one when she’d been so particular about having it on in the past. It certainly indicated a comfort with herself and her surroundings that hadn’t been there before, and that was worth thinking about simply because she struggled so much to ever feel like she could relax. But she was relaxed. Ridiculously relaxed. It wasn’t hard to figure out why.

  Darren had just told the awful Brie joke at the table. Everyone was laughing to some degree except for Cylan, who was actually an android and didn’t know how to laugh, and wasn’t that part of his charm? Every time she caught Darren’s eye, he smiled or winked or reached over to squeeze her thigh. He liked touching her. She liked being touched by him, and not just in a sexual way. He was a warm person, so she associated his gestures and touches with warmth. Darren was exciting, yes, but he was also steady despite not having the easiest time of it postshooting.

  Steady was new for her. Frenetic energy often called to frenetic energy, and the people she’d surrounded herself with were as starved for experience or distraction as she was. It was always go, go, go with no place for boredom or quiet because quiet bred rumination and rumination bred all the bad feelings she’d worked so hard to ignore. But with Darren, the melancholy rumination didn’t seem so imminent. She wasn’t constantly worrying they’d drag her into a depressive swing.

  She could let go and be happy, with or without her lipstick. It didn’t mean she didn’t love her lipstick, it didn’t mean she was giving it up for good or even often. It just meant that she wasn’t so afraid of being seen without it for this one moment.

  Deep thoughts, deep thoughts. Something something about my lipstick being the armor I wear to greet the world.

  Maybe, with Darren, she didn’t always have to be armored, just like maybe, with Darren, she didn’t have to be the dom all the time to be satisfied in a sexual relationship. Was it one of her kinks? Absolutely. Was it the entirety of her kink tool kit? Not even close. She wasn’t giving up on it, but she was willing to explore a different world to see if it satisfied her, too. Maybe it wouldn’t, but it was worth a try. Darren was worth doing some trying for. That’s why she’d agreed to stick with him when he’d asked.

  She sipped her wine and cast him a smile. He tapped the back of her hand with his fingers and told yet another awful joke that saw everyone snorting into their desserts.

  She perused the restaurant with its crystal chandeliers, cathedral windows, teal damask-print wallpaper, and cherry floors. It was a beautiful place. Gustav and Sol’s father had opened Gustav’s decades ago, and Gustav had never wanted to leave, not after Katrina and not now. One of the top New Orleans chefs, Gustav could have moved into any number of larger spaces around the city, but he stalwartly refused, insisting his max capacity of one hundred was exactly what he wanted. She supposed that kept the demand high. Well, that and Gustav’s was a staple feature in all the travel guides’ top-ten lists of places to eat while in New Orleans. He made great Louisiana food and he kept his prices reasonable.

  Gustav’s patrons were always satisfied, his waiting line was always long.

  Sol never had to wait, of course, on account of having a private DuMont table reserved for family, friends, and hotel VIPs. Six of them were seated in the curving corner both, Sol and Rain in the middle. To their left were Maddy and Darren. To their right, Cylan and Vaughan Barrington. Maddy hadn’t spent time with Vaughan on her last trip to the city; he’d gotten himself arrested for assaulting a reporter and that had kept him fairly busy when she’d floated around. He was a good-looking man, tall and muscular with sleeves of tattoos, pierced ears, and the signature blue eyes and blond hair of all the Barringtons. She might have, in another circumstance, considered trying to lure him into her web for a night or two of fun, but Cylan’s repeated insistence that Vaughan was “dirty,” and not just in the way Maddy would respect, kept her away.

  He didn’t look dirty now, nor had he smelled bad when they’d shaken hands, but Cylan didn’t talk because he liked the sound of his own voice. She was guessing Vaughan needed a come-to-Jesus moment about his personal habits. She was always down for pet projects, but that one . . . no.

  “Did Maddy ever tell you about the time she got arrested on Dauphine?” Sol asked Darren, his grin vicious. Maddy sipped her wine, eyeing her ex-husband from beneath her lashes. He could be such a shit when he was inclined.

  “I hadn’t, but I’m sure you’re bursting at the seams to tell him,” she said.

  “Oh yes, I am. Story time!” Sol leaned on the dinner table, his chin perched in his hand, his eyes sparkling because he had everyone’s attention and he was never more pleased than when he was holding court. “Five years ago—”

  “Four,” Maddy corrected.

  “Fine, four years ago, our dear sweet Madeline and I were at a pre–Mardi Gras fete. Friends of friends who’d rented the LaLaurie Mansion from Nicolas Cage or something ridiculous like that. It was a big to-do, invitation only, rather exclusive. There was champagne and . . .” Sol paused to cast Rain a glance. She was listening to him while she spooned sherbet into her pretty piehole. He smiled at her, she smiled back, and he turned back to the table. “. . . excesses everywhere. We were completely out of our
minds.”

  Cylan wasn’t a forgiving man and promptly interjected with, “They’d snorted so much cocaine Stevie Nicks was impressed.”

  “She’s the singer, right? From that band?” Rain asked.

  Maddy tittered.

  Oh, Sol. She’s so young.

  “Yes, kitten. Anyway, thank you, Cylan, for your valuable input. You’ll all be glad to know Maddy and I gave up that lifestyle a long time ago, but at that point, we were still indulging.” Sol cast Cylan a glare, Cylan ignored him to sip his scotch. Sol continued. “We were inebriated and so we went for a walk, or more apropos, a stagger. Along the way, Maddy spied this house.”

  “It was a beautiful house,” Maddy told Darren.

  “I’m sure it was.” He reached for her hand and threaded his fingers with hers. She moved her wineglass to her other side so she could have the best of both worlds—Darren and a decent cabernet.

  “It really was, but it also wasn’t for sale. Even a little bit. It was owned by this dentist who’d lived there since the beginning of time. I think dirt is younger than he was, but our Maddy is not used to taking no for an answer. She determined in a fit of brilliance that she had to have this house, so she did what any reasonable person would do and she jumped the fence so she could knock on the front door at midnight. Or, let’s be real—she didn’t jump the fence so much as climb it, teeter awkwardly at the top of it, and then fall into the man’s front yard.”

  “Damned right she did. She was serious about that house,” Darren said, trying for jovial support, but really, all he accomplished was highlighting exactly how stupid the whole thing had been.

  Maddy snorted. “I was shit-faced! And I had it in my head that if I just offered the dentist enough money, he’d let me have it. That’s usually how it works. Yes, I realize how spoiled and shitty that sounds. No, that didn’t occur to me because of the aforementioned champagne and cocaine.”