That first year he’d been endearingly polite and boyishly romantic, making her feel more like a fiancée than a mistress. Yes, of course, there was the issue of his wife and young son to surmount, but when he swore he’d ask Katharine for a divorce when the time was right, Honey persuaded herself he must be sincere. In the meantime, every “date” was a delightful adventure, another page added to their unconventional fairy tale. Caviar and vodka at the Russian Tea Room, intimate late night suppers at Balthazar, shopping sprees to Tiffany’s and Bergdorf’s, carriage rides through Central Park—it was as if Manhattan was their personal playground, as if the gloriously Happily Ever After vision of the future she’d once conjured to keep out the fighting was finally hers, bestowed by a charming if not wholly available prince.
The crash of 2008 had changed him, or at least it had justified his changing. He started drinking more and more, even dabbling in drugs. And he was angry, always so angry—at the clients, the market, the federal government and, most of all, her. The thoughtful scheduling of their “dates” stopped. A text message was the most warning she could hope to get. She couldn’t ever know when he might show up—or what mood he’d be in when he did.
But whether he was jubilant or brooding or furious, whether it was a bull market or a bust, whether he’d made or lost millions for his latest top-tier client, he was always, always in the mood for sex. Not the gentle passion he’d shown her when they still “dated,” when she was self-sufficient in her way, when she’d still had other men and other options. Now all he wanted was to take her roughly, bend her body and will to his. Forcing her down on her knees to suck him off had gone from occasional “play” to their standard scenario. The way he held her head, her long hair balled into his fist, his cock jamming down her throat until she could barely breathe beyond the gagging, always with him fully dressed except for his open trouser fly, made her feel less like a mistress and more like a slave. And not even a cherished slave, which since coming to New York she’d learned existed, but a piece of dirt stuck to the sole of his Prada wingtips, something he might decide to scrape off at any time on a whim.
As the scenarios in Drew’s playbook got progressively more brutish and one-sided, there were no more safe words, no more beforehand discussions to ensure that whatever happened was consensual. And if she let on how much she loathed it, all of it, he would punish her, not in play but for real. Hiding what she was thinking and feeling wasn’t about being mysterious, not anymore.
It was about self-preservation.
But so long as she bore it, so long as she pleased him, he’d still sometimes be tender afterward. He’d scoop her off the floor and sit her on his lap in the vintage modern wingchair that only he was ever allowed to use. At those times, he’d take out his carefully pressed and folded handkerchief and use it to dab cum from the corners of her mouth.
“So long as you keep taking care of me, I’ll keep taking care of you, got it baby?”
After six years together, their tainted fairytale was finally reduced to its rancid essence: a business deal, a transaction. He wasn’t ever going to leave Katharine, not when the time was right, not ever. He’d given up the pretense years ago just as Honey had given up first the hope and eventually the desire. So completely had she sold herself, she might as well be walking the streets. At least whoring that way would be honest. At least then she’d get to choose. “My ass is my own,” or so the sex workers’ slogan said. She’d believed that once, had murmured it beneath her breath like a mantra. But she gave up that right, any right to dignity and self-determination the day she accepted Drew as her exclusive, the day she’d quit the agency and stood beaming smiles as he signed the first of six one-year leases on “her” apartment. The posh Park Avenue co-op had started out as a castle-in-the-air but these days felt more and more like a gilded cage—a prison.
By a fluke, she’d found FATE—Faith, Acceptance, Trust, and Enlightenment—an informal meet-up for former adult entertainers living in New York City. Through the frank, nonjudgmental sharing of their struggles and triumphs, members strove to make peace with their pasts and “write” their unique new life stories. The weekly coffee klatch met from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. every Monday at the Soho walkup of their group leader, Liz.
At first, Honey had been skeptical. She was never much of a joiner, preferring solitary pursuits such as journaling to sharing her thoughts and feelings face-to-face. But what had started as a social outlet had quickly become a lifeline. Liz, Brian, Peter, and now Sarah had become more than friends. They were her people. With its salvaged furniture and strewn-about kid’s toys, Liz’s felt far more like home than her own place did. And yet even there, with them, she couldn’t be totally truthful, didn’t dare let down her guard. The secret that was tearing her apart inside was the very one that she couldn’t admit, not without getting thrown out of the group.
She hadn’t really left the life.
She might not work for an “agency” any longer, but she was still accepting money in the form of apartment rent and clothing and jewelry in exchange for sex. And that ongoing choice had brought her to … this.
Moving into the main room, silent except for her soles crunching on broken glass, the stillness seemed to resonate with the echoes of their earlier one-sided argument.
“Who the hell have you had in here?” Drew demanded, sniffing the air as if catching a whiff of contraband cologne. “Who have you been fucking?” He slammed his scotch glass down so hard on the side table it was a marvel the vessel didn’t shatter.
“No one, no one’s been here but you, darling,” she’d answered, modulating her voice to come off as calmly as she could, even as her heart threatened to hammer a hole through her chest.
Barring the housekeeper, who popped in for two hours every other week, and the super, who’d recently repaired the dripping kitchen faucet, leaving a cloud of Old Spice in his wake, it was the truth. She hadn’t even had her FATE friends over. When Liz had asked if they might move the weekly meeting elsewhere while she was having her apartment painted, tempted though Honey had been to volunteer, she knew better. Drew liked things a certain way—the towels folded and draped over the bath rack just so, the decorative pillows on the loveseat and bed plumped and prettily arranged—and the single malt sitting out on the bar amidst freshly washed Lalique cut-crystal glasses.
“Don’t darling me, you fucking cunt,” he spat, closing in on her, the liquor on his breath combining with fear to flip her stomach. “I know when I’m being bullshitted. It’s my business to know.”
She shook her head, vehement in her denial, frightened and yet furious at the unfairness of it all, that she was once again being falsely accused and punished for something she’d never come close to doing. Times like this carried her back to Omaha, to her stepfather, Sam, with his beer breath and blow-dealing backhand. No matter how closely she watched, searching for warning signs, that flying fist had always managed to appear as if out of nowhere. If she lived to be one hundred, she’d never understand how such a big, sloppy man had managed to move so swiftly.
Drew wasn’t big or sloppy. Even wasted, he had a fencer’s light-footed grace. Despite his regular drinking and more than occasional cocaine use, he somehow managed to stay in shape, sweating out his hangovers in workouts with his personal trainer.
She let out a manufactured laugh, mostly to hide how frightened she was. “Drew, darling, please, you’re being perfectly silly. In six years I haven’t so much as looked at another man.”
Honey paused, momentarily pulled back to the present. Had she really said that just last night? The testimony, true at the time, was true no more. With his tall, broad-shouldered body, closely cropped dark hair, mocha-colored complexion, and thickly lashed hazel eyes that seemed to see straight through her, the ER doctor who’d patched her up was nothing if not easy on the eyes, even if, in her case, she’d only had the one able to open. Firm yet softly spoken, caring yet exuding a
n aura of command, he struck her as the polar opposite of Drew. The contrast carried her back to the previous night’s argument-cum-fight.
Drew answered her heartfelt declaration with a disbelieving snort. “It’s not the looking I’m worried about.”
“Then what are you worried about?” she asked, gingerly taking a step toward him, for a split second thinking that, this once, she might smooth things over before everything fell to pieces. “I’ve never given you any reason not to trust me, and I never will.”
The lips she once hadn’t been able to get enough of kissing curled into a sneer. “You’re forgetting how we met,” he said, flinging her away from him.
Before last night, his booze-fueled fury hadn’t taken them beyond bruising, the marks sufficiently noticeable to call for wearing elbow-high evening gloves and long sleeves no matter the season or time of day. But until now, he’d never hurt her so badly that she couldn’t camouflage the aftermath with clothing and makeup, so badly that she needed to go to the hospital. Until now he’d never actually broken—fractured—anything, at least not beyond her heart, which felt as if it must be sutured and scarred, callused and numbed, only not quite numb enough.
Blaring from the house buzzer bumped her out of her morbid musings. Her heart rate ratcheted. Drew, back so soon! But no, he would never buzz into their—his—apartment, not even if he’d forgotten his key. A spare was kept at all times by the doorman. If Drew wanted in, he only needed to walk up to the lobby desk and have Freddie, Carlos, or Joey turn it over. Even if the neighbors had called the building superintendent to complain of the noise from their arguing—again—the hefty holiday tips Drew doled out to the building staff assured blind eyes and deaf ears year-round.
She reached out and pressed the intercom button, her hand, like the rest of her, shaking. “Y-yes?”
Joey’s Queens-accented voice cut through the crackle of static. “Ms. Gladwell, there’s a guy—gentleman—here to see you.”
So she wasn’t to have any reprieve after all. Honey stuffed a fist—the fist of her “good hand”—into her mouth to muffle any sobbing.
“Ms. Gladwell?”
Deep breaths, take deep breaths … What would Audrey do in such circumstances? Mix martinis? Pop on a pillbox hat? Flutter her doe-like eyes and explain, albeit apologetically, that this simply wasn’t a convenient time?
Only Audrey would never find herself in such circumstances, not on-screen or off. Not even her supposedly Svengali-like first husband, Mel Ferrer, had gotten the better of her. Being the biddable wife had merely been another part to be played, Honey was convinced of it. Even as Holly Golightly, one of her many iconic screen roles, she managed to convey the sense that she was the mistress of her destiny, a gamine-like goddess having a marvelous time making fools of all the mortal men.
Honey dropped her hand and found her voice. “Yes, yes I’m listening. If it’s Drew … Mr. Winterthur, please tell—ask—him if he’ll please be so good as to come back another time. I’m not feeling terribly well at the moment and—”
“It’s not Mr. Winterthur, it’s … He says he’s your doctor.”
*
“Are you stalking me, Doctor … ?” Ms. Gladwell asked him, her one slender arm draped along the doorframe. The other arm was in the soft cast and sling that he’d prescribed.
“Sandler,” Marc supplied, more miffed than he cared to admit.
Had he really just risked his professional reputation and possibly his medical license for someone who couldn’t be bothered to take note of his name? Of all the foolhardy and self-sabotaging things he’d done in his thirty-three years, trailing Honey Gladwell home from the hospital ER might well top the list.
Her good eye flashed, whether with humor or annoyance he couldn’t yet say. “Well, Doctor Sandler, this certainly is a surprise.”
“Think of it as me resurrecting the time-honored tradition of the house call.” He looked past her and into the apartment, preparing for the possibility that the bastard who’d battered her might have returned, literally, to the scene of the crime. “Can I come in?”
She shot a nervous look over her shoulder before turning back to him. “I’m not really in a position to receive guests.”
“I’m not a guest. I’m your doctor. I only need five minutes, ten tops. C’mon, what do you have to lose—unless, of course, you’re afraid to let me in?”
The dare worked like a charm. “Don’t be absurd,” she snapped, backing up to make room for him to enter.
Not giving her time for second thoughts, Marc planted one Skechers on the other side of the threshold. Inadvertently he brushed against her, catching a whiff of shampoo and shower gel, all overlaid with what was likely some ungodly expensive perfume.
The apartment was almost exactly as he envisioned it would be, down to the sliding-glass door opening onto a communal, wrap-around balcony, the partial park view, and retro-inspired furniture that was altogether too stylized and sleek to be comfortable. There was, however, one glaring detail that had been missing from his mental picture: it was a wreck. An overturned lamp lay sprawled across the Berber wall-to-wall. A half-open door showed a mussed bed and clothes spread over it and the carpet. The empty shelves and shattered glass suggested that Ms. Gladwell must have made a doomed but spirited attempt to fight back—good for her.
“Maid’s day off?” he quipped, turning back to her.
She lifted her swollen chin. “The politically correct term is housekeeper, and as a matter of fact it is. She only comes every other Tuesday.”
Framed prints lined the far wall, movie posters of the same dead white screen actress, the one who starred in My Fair Lady, Gigi, and a slew of others from the fifties and sixties that were now relegated to Turner Classic Movie fare. For the moment, Marc was blanking on her name. No doubt it would come to him, but for the time being the scarlet stain smudging the glare-free glass covering Breakfast at Tiffany’s reminded him that he had more important matters on which to focus.
“I’m sure she’ll be happy to know that the elevator’s fixed. Hoofing it all the way to the ninth floor carrying a mop and broom must wear on a body.”
She didn’t answer that, not that he expected she would. Dropping her gaze to his full hands, she asked, “Have you come bearing gifts, doctor?”
He hesitated, looking down at the bags he’d as good as forgotten, one white paper from the hospital pharmacy with the prescription information stapled to the outside, the other plastic bearing carryout and the Mendy’s logo. Looking back up, he said, “You ran … left before I could write the script for your meds.”
He held out the pharmacy bag, but she drew back as though he’d offered her meth. “I don’t take drugs.”
Marc stifled a smile. “Again, good to know, but you might want to make an exception for the next day or so. One is an anti-inflammatory to reduce the swelling—”
“I know what an anti-inflammatory does.”
“And the other is to help manage the pain. Take it on a full stomach and avoid alcoholic beverages.”
She hoisted her chin. “Other than the occasional glass of champagne, I don’t drink.”
He couldn’t help it. He glanced over to the Art Deco cocktail cart. Prominently positioned, it was as well or better stocked than most commercial bars. “Someone here does, though I’ll admit you don’t strike me as much of a scotch drinker.” He would have pegged her as a Veuve Clicquot girl, though when she first came into the ER last night he hadn’t detected so much as a whiff of alcohol on her breath.
Her swollen face flushed. “I entertain frequently. A good hostess anticipates the desires of her guests.”
“Who do you party with—Guns N’ Roses?”
Her unhurt eye narrowed. “Any other prescriptives before you go?” She wasn’t only being rude for the sake of it. She was frightened.
“Yeah, this.” He handed her t
he carryout.
“Is that—”
“Chicken soup. It’s good for the soul, or hadn’t you heard?” The side trip to Mendy’s on Park and 34th Street had taken him several blocks out of his way, but it was worth the walk. The celebrated kosher deli made some of the best chicken soup in the city.
She tilted her head as though making a study of him when, really, it was the other way around. “Are you quite certain it’s my soul you came here to check up on? I’d thought it was my body.”
Improbably, he felt himself flushing. Seeing her in her own clothes and environment, rather than swathed in the hospital gown in a curtained exam room beneath neon lights, was a different experience entirely. Any previous pretense to detachment flew out the goddamned window—or in this case, sliding-glass door. Even dangling a broken strap and denuded of beads, her floor-length evening gown was unmistakably couture—and she wore it like a queen. But then she had the sort of body his mother would call “neat”—small breasts, small waist, slim hips, long slender legs. There wasn’t an ounce of extra body fat on her, and yet he couldn’t say she was skinny, at least not unhealthily so. Marc ordinarily went for fuller-figured women and yet suddenly, improbably, he found himself fantasizing about what it would be like to settle his hands on her buttocks and bring her gently but firmly against him.
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