by Eden Myles
I asked Malcolm what Beck was doing in the States, and Malcolm smiled a little and said, “Sex tourism.”
“You must be kidding me.”
“Be careful around him, my dear,” Malcolm warned me with a wise smile. He looked me over in a concerned, fatherly way. “You look like Little Red Riding Hood tonight and there’s a saying among my circle: ‘Everyone take cover when the wolf is on the prowl.’” With a wink and a gracious smile, he went off to find his partner Devon among the melee.
Later that night, Beck tracked me down in the kitchen and said, “Despite what you might have heard, Ms. Lee, I’m not some villain.”
I stiffened at the sound of that weirdly dislocated British/African voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him as I busily uncorked bottles of champagne. I’d decided that I would rather hide out in Malcolm’s kitchen than stand around and wallflower all night, trying to look like I belonged where I didn’t. Malcolm’s friends were a strange lot. They dressed like people from another era, and they all had a certain cohesion I’d never understood. I always felt like an outsider at Malcolm’s parties.
“I’ll have you know, I’ve built over a hundred schools and medical centers all over Namibia and Botswana. I’m also working on the concept of seed villages, small ports of economy all over the Central Plateau. I want to preserve my people’s way of life, yet still improve upon it.”
My people? “Congratulations, Mr. Beck,” I told him. “I’m sure you’re very proud of your accomplishments.”
He paused a moment and then said, “Have I offended you in some way?”
I stopped uncorking and looked up at him. He was big and blond and almost frighteningly imposing. He made me so angry I thought about smashing one of Malcolm’s champagne bottles over his head. “‘My people,’ Mr. Beck? You’re not African. You’re German.”
Beck ignored that and jumped up onto the edge of Malcolm’s custom-made marble countertop. He spread his legs and rested his hands on his knees. He had large, slender, heavily corded white hands. He bit back a smile, looking very much at home, dominating the space around him. “I was born in the Namib Desert, Ms. Lee. How does that not make me African?”
I knew I sounded surly, and I was starting to even feel a little stupid. I was talking to a white man who was more African than I was. “Being born in Africa doesn’t automatically make you African, Mr. Beck.”
He didn’t take offense. “I dare say I’m more African then you are, Ms. Lee.”
“I don’t think so.”
He looked amused, which just made me angrier. “You were born American. Which, by your own definition, means you can hardly call yourself African, can you?”
“I don’t call myself African, Mr. Beck!” I said, deliberately sounding churlish. “It’s African-American, thank you very much.”
“You’re mixed. Bi-racial,” he said. “And very hot. Do you like fucking white men, Ms. Lee?” Mr. Beck asked.
I startled at his words and knocked over the bottle I was uncorking. I immediately set it upright before too much of Malcolm’s very expensive bubbly splattered across his fine Italian tiles. I glared at Beck in horror.
“I feel I should ask for future reference.”
I started walking out of the room.
“Forgive me,” Beck called after me. “I did not mean to frighten you, pet.”
I stopped and turned to face him, my anger boiling over. I’d dealt with his type before. Powerful men like Beck deliberately said inappropriate things in the hopes of mining reactions from those around them—particularly women, whom they naturally assumed were weak. It was the air they breathed. But if you didn’t fan the fire, eventually it went out. “I’m not frightened. I am offended, but not because you call yourself African, Mr. Beck. I’m offended because you’re an overbearing, egotistical, chauvinistic pig of a man, and I would prefer not to associate with men like yourself.”
I started to go again when he said, “You publish Blaze magazine.”
“Yes,” I said, without turning. “I do.”
“A men’s magazine. Otherwise known as lad mags in Africa and the UK.” I could hear the creeping satisfaction in his voice. “Your photographers take pictures of nude African-American women and you sell them to desperate, lonely men. You sell porn.”
I turned back, biting my lip, the fury rekindled within me. “Blaze isn’t about porn, Mr. Beck. It’s never been about porn. It’s about elegant erotic art.” I’d had this argument at least a hundred times in the past with people who did not seem to understand the difference between art and porn.
Beck stared at me from across the room, rubbing his hand against the top of one of his thighs. I tried not to notice the rather substantial bulge in his tailored trousers. I had a feeling he wanted me to see. For a moment, the world seemed to tip sideways a little. I was acutely aware of how hot Malcolm’s kitchen was, and the fact that my panties were almost soaked through with sweat.
“I know what you sell, Ms. Rachaela Lee,” he said. His voice was quiet. He watched me like some cunning predator hiding in the tall grass, waiting to ambush a prey animal. “What would you say if I told you I could connect you with some of the top African supermodels and actresses today?” He rattled off a number of A-list names I found very hard to believe.
I stood there and watched him, looking for the lie in his face. “You know these people?”
“I know a lot of people.”
Of course he did. I thought about what Malcolm had said about Beck’s “sex tourism,” and I wondered just how intimately he knew them. On the other hand, if he could deliver on just one of those supermodels, that’s all it would take. One exclusive, that’s all I wanted. A top supermodel. She would be to Blaze what Marilyn Monroe was to Playboy. I didn’t like Beck, but I knew better than to slam the door of opportunity in my own face. I crossed my arms and gave him my sternest look. “What’s the catch?”
Beck smirked for the first time, but not for the last. “What do you mean?”
“Assuming you can deliver on even half of what you promise, what do you want in return? You must want something.”
Beck’s face sharpened. “Oh yes. I want things.”
“Such as?”
He narrowed his eyes with interest. His hand moved up his thigh so it rested near the top of his leg, very close to his rather substantial erection. When next he spoke, it was with a different voice, softer, hoarser. “Sleep with me tonight, and I’ll make a call, and tomorrow morning you’ll have the number one African supermodel on your doorstep.”
I shifted around, the sweating insides of my thighs squicking uncomfortably. “I don’t think so,” I said, but my voice was soft. I was almost afraid he couldn’t hear me. “I’m not sleeping with you, Mr. Beck.”
“We won’t be sleeping, pet.”
“Don’t call me that. And I’m not giving you a quick roll in the sheets for a name on a list, so forget about it.”
“I had something else in mind, actually.” He looked me over, carefully and thoroughly. “You have a beautiful mouth, Rachaela. I should like to fuck your mouth. Then tie you down on my bed and cane you since it’s obvious you’ve had very little discipline from the men in your life. Then I’d like to fuck your pussy. I might even like to fuck your ass. I haven’t decided. After that, I’ll decide if I should keep you or not.” He slid off the counter so he was resting against it, very tall, very slim, and more than a little foxy in his dark suit. I tried to decide if he was handsome, homely, beautiful or just scary. I looked at the walking stick in his hand and decided on scary. If he had said all those things in some kind of joking manner, I would have laughed him off. But he sounded dead serious.
“Oh,” I said, sounding disappointed even to myself. “You’re one of those.”
“One of what?”
“A kink. You hurt women.”
He blinked slowly, like he didn’t understand.
“You’re a dom. A dominant.”
“I kn
ow what a dom is,” he said, his voice so low it faintly growled. “I’m not a dom. I’m a gentleman.”
“Gentlemen don’t talk like that. Gentlemen don’t cane women.”
“You misunderstand. I’m a gentleman.” He said it like it was his title.
“Malcolm said you were here for the sex tourism.”
“In a way, yes,” he agreed. “But I’m not looking for a submissive. I’m looking for a courtesan.”
I could feel the sweat trickling down my legs under my dress. “What’s the difference?”
He looked faintly annoyed with me, as if I should know better than to make him explain. “I’m not looking to terrorize a woman with ropes and paddles, Ms. Lee. I’m looking for a courtesan willing to submit to both punishment and reward at my hands. A permanent engagement. I can see you don’t understand.”
“No,” I agreed. “I don’t.”
“The gentleman/courtesan relationship is old, Ms. Lee. It is ancient. And there is more to it than some silly game played between two naïve children. A dom and his sub have an understanding, an arrangement. They play a game. A courtesan belongs to her gentleman. There is no arrangement. There are no games. No lies. No ‘role-playing’. She lives for him. She services him. That is her purpose.” And that’s all he said on the matter.
I didn’t even know where to begin with that. So Wolfgang Beck was a deviant sexual maniac and a completely twisted control freak. I thought about asking him further questions out of plain old morbid curiosity, but he blinked and the look went out of his eye, that look that said he was thinking about me tied down on his bed while he did those things to me. His face smoothed out and returned to its usual easy, almost empty, mirth. I had been dismissed, released. He had tested me, and I had failed. I was free.
I waited to feel relief. I felt angry instead.
“How would you feel about a corporate partnership?” he asked suddenly. His voice was even and remote. Not a trace of his earlier aggression remained. He gave me a cordial look I easily recognized. It was the same look I got from all the good businessmen I knew, that look that says, Let’s do business, shall we? Let’s make a lot of money. “I’m here in the States looking for investment opportunities, and I think it would be great fun to help you run the magazine, Ms. Lee. I think I should enjoy that very much.”
***
I was still thinking about Wolf’s invitation to meet his courtesan when I got back to the apartment that night. The first thing Asia said was, “You’re late. And Daddy called. You missed him.” She was on her way past me, carrying a pint of Ben & Jerry’s into the living room.
I threw my purse down on the sidebar in the hallway. “Did he say anything about the papers?”
“Not to me.” She disappeared into the room.
I looked after her. She was thirteen now, tall and coltish. Like me, she’d gotten my mother’s smooth, straight hair. Like me, she wore it long so it hung like a curtain nearly to her waist. She used to wear pajamas all the time at home with My Little Pony on them. Now she wore painted-on Guess jeans and middy shirts and a chain around her neck with a school ring that her boyfriend Jayden had given her. They were going steady, although Asia called it exclusive. Sometimes I wondered where my little girl had gone.
I stepped into the darkened living room and watched her bunker down with her ice cream and an episode of Vampire Diaries on Netflix. “Sorry about being late. We’re having a contract crisis at the office. You want I take you out? We could get some Indian.”
“I already ate,” she said, ignoring me.
“I can order in.”
“I said I ate already.”
Asia and I had been best friends once, up until Jerrel and I got serious about the divorce. Then everything changed. I’d thought she would adjust. She was a smart girl, a real survivor like me. But maybe I was wrong. A few months ago, she’d surprised me for my birthday with a Carnival Cruise Line vacation. She’d saved up for it for two years, she’d told me, and there were two tickets, one for me, and one for her daddy. I offered to go with her instead, and she blew up in my face. She’d been blowing up ever since.
I’d been blaming hormones, but I knew better now. I stepped around the furniture and reached for the ice cream carton. I snatched it away and banged it down on the table beside her. “Listen to me, Asia. Don’t you ever speak to me like that again. Do you understand me?”
Asia glared at me defiantly. “No!” she shouted, jumping to her feet and snatching up the ice cream. “I don’t understand you at all!” She threw the ice cream across the room and raced up to her room in tears.
***
I was feeling like shit the next day when I got to work. I hadn’t slept, the birth control pills I took to control my PMDD were making me feel sick again, and I’d had to play phone tag with Jerrel for three hours before he finally got off the golfing green long enough to tell me the divorce papers were on their way. I had to make certain he sent them to my office instead of the apartment. I was sure if Asia found them we’d have another fight. On top of it, one of my top editors came down with the killer flu bug that was going around and wound up in the emergency room the night before. And we still hadn’t found that contract.
I was sitting at my desk, trying to unfuck a thoroughly fucked up photo shoot schedule with one of our models when Wolf let himself into my office and sat down on the edge of my desk. I looked up and noted the fitted, pinstripe Brooks Brothers suit, complete with waistcoat and watch fob, the glowing white shirt, the silk tie, everything wrinkling up because of the way he was perched on my desk, not that he cared. He once told me he liked having sex in his power suits because of the way they rubbed against him when he came inside a woman. No, really.
He dropped the contract in front of me. “Found it.”
“Thank God,” I said, picking it up. “Where was it?”
“Filed wrongly.”
I was far too relieved to be angry with my secretary. “At least something is going right for once.”
“Rough day, my pet?”
“Rough week.”
“Perhaps you’ll tell me all about it over dinner tonight?”
I looked up at him, wondering if he was being serious or just flirty, as usual. “Are you asking me out?”
“As a friend only,” he said. His voice was dry, clipped, almost without accent. “I want you to meet Jasmine tonight. I want to get your opinion of her.”
“Jasmine your potential it girl.”
“That’s correct.”
I held his steady, almost steely gaze. “Isn’t choosing a sex partner sort of your decision, not mine?”
“Courtesan,” he corrected me.
“Courtesan,” I agreed. I was feeling too tired to argue with him.
Wolf smirked. “You have good instincts for people, Rachaela. You know whom to trust. I want you to meet her. I want you to tell me if she would make a good courtesan or not.”
“I don’t even know what to look for.”
“You will tell me if she is submissive. If she will please me. You know what I like.” He put his big hand over mine.
I looked at it. I thought about tonight. Jerrel was picking Asia up so they could see the game at Yankee Stadium. Undoubtedly, Asia would spend most of her evening telling Jerrel how awful a mother I’d been. I didn’t want to sit alone in my darkened living room, watching/not-watching TV and eating Chinese out of a takeout box while I thought about that. “Sure. Why not,” I said.
It’s not like I have any kind of life, I silently added. Why not pick out a sex slave for my business partner?
***
There was a French restaurant in Midtown that seated only twenty-six people at a time. It was considered the most expensive French restaurant in the city. But I didn’t know that until Wolf arrived to pick me up and told me where we were going. He said he wanted to make a good impression on Jasmine.
I stepped down off the curb and looked over his roadster. It was silver, vintage, and looked like the one
James Dean had owned and died in. I didn’t ask him if it was the same car.
Wolf looked particularly dashing in his Brioni tuxedo. It was dark, geometrically fitted to him, and made me think of James Bond. He carried purple orchids and he smelled like a rich African bazaar full of flowers, sun and spices. His cologne had a slight citrus smell about it. I figured it was foreign and very expensive, just like him.
He looked me over, but there was an aloofness to his face that I wasn’t used to seeing. I was his friend, not his date. I wore my black take on Marilyn Monroe’s pleated halter dress and red gladiator sandals with three-inch heels. The dress wasn’t very expensive but looked it. The shoes were expensive and had been my gift to myself on my thirty-fifth birthday. He offered me the orchids, which surprised me. Then he took my hand and brought my fingers to his lips. His eyes stayed focused on my face, not going below my chin, even though the neckline of the dress plunged lower than I was generally comfortable with. He was being a gentleman tonight. “You look like heaven,” he said.
“You don’t have to be so formal,” I replied.
“It’s not formal to treat a woman well. It reflects good manners and good breeding.”
“Both of which you have.”
“I like to think so.” He nodded toward the roadster. “I have roses for Jasmine, but I felt if I gave you roses, that would be like sending you the wrong signal. Then I saw the very regal orchids and thought of you. You are my friend as well as a woman, Rachaela. That means I should take very special care with you.”
“No caning?” I said, and wondered where that had come from.
His expression changed, and I could tell I’d ruined an otherwise perfect mood. “You confuse cruelty with discipline. But then, most uneducated people make that mistake.” He turned, suddenly very cold, and opened the door of the roadster for me. I didn’t like the way he’d said that, so dismissive, but I slid silently into the car anyway and worked at keeping my big, fat, “uneducated” opinion to myself.
On the way over to picking Jasmine up, I asked, “You don’t have plans to hurt this girl? I don’t want to be party to that, just so you know.”