The Seduction - Art Bourgeau

by Art Bourgeau

  "But . . . but—"

  "Get out of the car."

  She wanted to plead for forgiveness, anything, but all she could manage was "Next week? At the warehouse. Please?"

  "Perhaps." And he reached across her to open the car door. Terri spent the early part of the week in torment. She told Marie everything, and Marie tried to comfort her. It did no good. She knew she had driven Peter away with her sharp tongue and distrust. She deserved to be punished, to spend the rest of her stupid life alone and unloved.

  On Tuesday evening the building tension in her house broke free when her father reached the limit of his tolerance when she knocked over a wine bottle and ran crying from the table. Her mother came to her defense, and the air grew blue with angry words. Her parents fought up the stairs, around the landing and into their bedroom, punctuated by the slamming of the door, while Terri, tears streaming, envisioned her own funeral, thinking how much better off everyone would be without her and yet how much they would miss her as they said good-bye to her little white-clad corpse in its pink-lined coffin surrounded by beautiful flowers.

  Gradually the sound of angry words from the upstairs bedroom died down and an uneasy silence settled over the house. An hour later both parents came downstairs looking warm and happy, the fight forgotten, no grudges carried by either one. She had known for a long time what her parents did behind that closed door, but she had always blocked it out. Until now, the idea of her parents having sex had been too creepy even to think about. Now, in the light of her predicament with Peter, it all made sense. Sex was what kept the wheels turning. She had lost Joey because of it. If only she had the chance she would not make the same mistake with Peter.

  But once she had reached this decision she felt no peace. The nights were hell. She avoided her parents the rest of the week, feeling that somehow her decision to sleep with Peter made her look different and they would know. During her showers she inspected herself for size and depth, thinking about the difference in the huge erection she had brushed against and the slim tampon that fitted her so snugly, hoping that she would not pass out from the loss of blood when he came into her. In bed she lay awake thinking about pregnancy and how she would break the news to her parents and how she would look to her friends when her belly got big and swollen.

  The days were her only relief. From the older girls at school she had gotten the idea that sex in cars made a man think the woman was easy. For a man truly to love a woman, they had to have a place—a special love nest all their own that she could make with her own hands.

  In this pierside neighborhood with so many warehouses, it had been easy. She chose an old railroad depot, long deserted, because it looked like a castle: big, solid and blocky, with turrets on each corner and tall chimneys running up each side. In a freight cul-de-sac, away from prying eyes, she found a convenient rear door with a nearby window. It had been a simple matter to go through the window and open the door.

  Each afternoon after school she spent her time cleaning and feathering the nest with blankets and candles, a transistor radio, and even a bottle of wine stolen from home to celebrate with. It was perfect.

  * * *

  Now as Terri hurried toward the Water Street warehouses, filled with the hope that Peter would not let her down after she'd arranged the meeting, she was more nervous than if she had to make a speech in front of the entire student body. There was no sign of him, and ten nerve-racking minutes passed before she saw the headlights of the familiar silver shark of a Datsun. It stopped alongside her and she hurried to get in. The sight of him made her shiver. She couldn't get enough of looking at his dark hair and beard, his fine bones, his leather jacket and white scarf, his aviator glasses.

  She smiled with the thought of finally getting his glasses off and getting a good look at his eyes.

  He looked back at her for a moment or two, as if he was reading something in her face. Then he reached for her, and she felt the loving touch of his gloved hand as he brushed back her hair from her face. She leaned forward to be kissed, felt the tip of his tongue, the tickle of his beard, the sharpness of his gun beneath his jacket, and when they broke, her hand brushed the erection in his trousers. She was right, this was the night.

  "I've brought you something," he said.

  She watched as his hand slipped into the left side of his jacket—the side over his heart—and returned with a chain. It was stainless steel, but to Terri it was silver, priceless silver, the first gift Peter had ever given her, and it happened to be the hottest piece of punk jewelry the older girls were wearing. She had seen them several times in South Street boutiques but had never had the money to buy one for herself.

  Each end of the chain had a ring on it, and one end looped through the other, forming a noose like a choker for a dog. He slipped it over her head, tightening it until it was snug around her throat. On the end that dangled like a man's tie was a medallion of a bird. Terri looked at it and thought how beautiful it was.

  "I bought this to let you know that you're mine, even though we can't let the world know yet," he said.

  Terri was swept away.

  After another kiss he put the car into gear. As they pulled onto Water Street, he popped a tape into the deck, and the car was filled with the sounds of Dire Straits playing "Telegraph Road." Over the snaky guitar of Mark Knopfler he said, "Light me a cigarette."

  She opened the fresh pack of Marlboros and searched for a light. In her hurry at the candy store she had forgotten matches. Seeing her problem Peter handed her a pack of matches. They were black with only the word "Lagniappe" in gold on the front. Naturally, she thought, the city's most chic restaurant would be Peter's hangout, and soon maybe hers too. She lit two cigarettes, putting his in his mouth, and dropped the matches in her purse. At the corner they stopped and she said, "You don't have the only surprise tonight. I've got one for you, too." For a moment Peter looked surprised, but his smile quickly covered it.

  "What is it?"

  Terri smiled back at him and gave him directions. As he spun the wheel and shifted gears she thought about how nice it would be if someday he would teach her to drive so she could use the car for lunch and uptown shopping trips. At night the old railroad depot with its turrets and boarded-up windows looked more like a castle than ever, and the tracks and weed-grown field around it looked like a battlefield where soldiers had died.

  She directed them to the cul-de-sac, where they stopped, the car hidden from view, the first drops of rain beginning to splatter on the windshield. For a brief moment Terri's Catholic upbringing told her to wait, to reconsider.

  Peter seemed to sense her hesitation. "I know what you're thinking, and it's all right." It was enough.

  He waited while she walked up the freight ramp, opened the window, and climbed inside. Using the matches he had given her, she lighted a candle and, with the candle, lighted other candles until their light encircled the pallet of blankets like a frame of flickering gold.

  She opened the door and motioned for Peter to join her. He climbed the freight ramp and closed the door behind him, the rain outside coming down harder now.

  She was very nervous. If he laughed at her or treated her like a child she would just die. Getting up all her courage, with a sweep of her hand she said, "Well—?"

  He didn't answer immediately. Instead he took his time, carefully looking over the room, like he was a movie director checking out a location.

  Terri's hand shook as she unscrewed the top to the bottle of Folonari white wine and poured them each a cupful.

  "Marie helped me. Do you like it—the place, I mean?" she said, lying about Marie's help to cover her nervousness. She had told Marie about the place but hadn't shown it to her yet. That would come later.

  When Peter finally finished his inspection he turned and in a mock-serious voice said, "What we have here is a clear-cut case of breaking and entering. I'm afraid I'm going to have to take you in."

  For a second Terri's heart stopped, then she saw his smil
e. And as he approached her with handcuffs gleaming she knew he was of course teasing, so she only put up a little girlish resistance when he pulled her hands behind her and snapped on the cuffs. Strangely, the restraint comforted rather than frightened her. Now she was no longer in control and responsible for what she was going to do. No longer was she the seducer; now she was the seduced-the captured queen of the castle—and the role, with its blamelessness, pleased and calmed her.

  He took her in his arms, kissed her with sharp, biting kisses that sent tiny needles of pain through her lips. She did not flinch.

  "You know you're in big trouble, and your only chance is to make me happy, very happy," he said in a hoarse whisper.

  "I'll be good, I promise," she whispered back, playing the game.

  His hands went over her body, touching her everywhere, each touch seeming to light fires inside her. When he lowered her jeans and panties, he touched both her vagina and her anus. She gave an involuntary start when she felt his gloved finger slip inside her rear, but after that she stood still. With her nervousness gone, everything felt so good that she hoped he would never stop.

  In time he led her to the pallet and motioned for her to kneel down. It seemed a little strange to her that by now he had made no move to take off the handcuffs. This wasn't the way she had pictured her first time. She had thought she would lie on her back, gloriously but shyly nude in front of him, and then he, also nude, would lay his beautiful body on top of her, and they would be joined down there in a pure, white and perfect union. But handcuffs . . . ? Well, maybe this was the way the uptown women of Society Hill did it, and she didn't want to appear unsophisticated. Besides, Peter was her man; she trusted him. This night she would not back away from him, no matter what. When he left her, he would know he had really been loved. And she would be a woman.

  Kneeling was difficult, but with his help she obediently leaned forward until she was on her knees with her head on the blankets.

  She heard him lower his zipper, and held her breath waiting for the pain to come. But it didn't. She felt the hardness only penetrate her slightly and then withdraw. Peter did this over and over until by his gentleness, rather than force, he gradually broke through all her physical resistance and filled her. As she became accustomed to feeling Peter inside her, she began to respond, pushing back, and trying to match his rhythm. It was awkward for her, but she was dead set on being the best damn lover that ever was.

  Soon she began to feel his body jerk and to hear him moan. Even though she had never experienced it before, she knew what was happening. It was the magic moment, and pregnant or not, she was happy and proud.

  When she finally felt him relax against her, she knew she was no longer a girl. Now she was a real woman, and the tears began to flow.

  When he took hold of the dangling chain and proceeded to tighten it, Terri's last thought was of the warm look on her mother's face when both the fighting and the loving were done.

  OCTOBER

  CHAPTER 2

  COCAINE GAVE the night snap and tingle for Missy Wakefield, ripping away her blues. Gone momentarily was the depression that had dogged her every step since her father's recent death, and in its place was a rush that heightened her senses, giving the lights and action of Second Street in Society Hill, with its street peddlers and glut of Saturday night celebrants sporting bright colors and bright smiles, the blue-white crystal clarity of a glass of gin.

  Of all the drugs she had tried over the years, and there had been many, cocaine was her favorite. With it, so far, the best of the best was even better, and the worst of the worse was nothing to worry about. It was an almost valley-proof high, like makeup: a little at the right time always made you more beautiful, especially in the right light.

  A few doors north of Chestnut Street, in front of Sassafras, an old man wearing a blue cap with gold braid and sitting on a milk crate caught a glimpse of her and began to play "Give My Regards to Broadway" on a harmonica, accompanying himself on the spoons; they sounded like a set of wind-up false teeth. Stapled to the utility pole beside him was a poster that pictured a dark-haired, teenage girl and offered a five-hundred-dollar reward for information concerning her whereabouts. The girl's name was Terri DiFranco.

  Missy did not notice the poster as she deposited a couple of bills in the old man's coffee can and kept walking. In the middle of the block she paused long enough to give Tem, the tall Mongolian doorman at Lagniappe, a chance to get rid of two suburban couples who were trying to get into the in-club that was not for the likes of them. As they walked away one of the women was grumbling at her husband for not standing up to the doorman. When she saw the amused expression on Missy's face she flashed her a look that could kill weeds. Fueled by the cocaine, her mind echoing with her father's dictum never to run from a fight, Missy did not look away, nor did her expression change. The other woman did not rise to the challenge.

  After they had gone Tem opened the door and gave Missy a smile of welcome, but where his smile was usually tinged with a touch of desire—she knew Tem wanted her—tonight it was different. Tonight he smiled concern.

  He seemed clumsy to her, the way he dropped his eyes and shuffled slightly from one foot to the other. "I'm sorry to hear about your father. I know he was a fine man and you'll miss him—"

  She silenced him by putting a finger to his lips as if to say, Ssh, enough said, more will only bring back the pain.

  Thursday and Friday of the preceding week had been the worst days of her life, and now she needed to put that part behind her.

  On Thursday her father, Cyrus Wakefield, M.D., had been struck by a massive coronary while strolling from Brooks Brothers to lunch at the Union League and had died right there on Broad Street, his Brooks Brothers' bag with two shirts and three ties instantly snatched up by someone in the crowd. By mid-afternoon, in accordance with his known wishes, his medical colleagues had stripped his body of any transplantable parts, and what was left had been cremated even before Missy could say a short good-bye to the man with the hawklike visage, the salt-and-pepper mustache and the great tufted brows. With Friday morning had come a short service for a few select friends, the scattering of his ashes in the garden of the Chestnut Hill home and a buffet afterward—at which Missy had acted badly.

  The sight of people sipping white wine and lunching on crab claws, smoked salmon and cold lobster had been too damn much—too civilized—and made her own grief seem out of place. There had been too much vodka, a drive into town she could barely remember, a bottle of pills and then, almost too late, a frantic call to Carl Laredo, who had found her nude and unconscious.

  Well, get hold of yourself. You're a good actress. Act. "Is Carl here tonight?"

  "He's in the back at his usual table," said Tem.

  "Good." She turned toward the bar.

  After her release from the hospital she had gone to the family condo in Marigot, St. Martin, for some healing sun, but within days the peaceful solitude was driving her crazy. To work through her grief she needed to expend energy, not to sit and stare.

  She walked through the crowd, paying no attention to the sleek men and beautiful women around her as they flashed their predatory eyes and switchblade smiles, pursuing one another with the bartering carnality of Armenian rug merchants. At the bar she pushed into a space between two women and motioned for Marc, her favorite bartender.

  He hurried down, leaned across the bar and took her hand.

  "Darling, you look scrumptious tonight."

  He was right. The Gucci blue-and-gold bolero jacket worn over a darker blue silk blouse with a turned-up collar fit her perfectly. Highlighted by a turquoise and old silver necklace and bracelet given to her by Carl and completed with black pleated evening pants and Charles Jourdan shoes, the outfit showed her athletic leanness with enough style to raise the hackles of every woman in the room. It was too New York, too competitive, too daring for Philadelphia, where women still made fashion statements with simple little two-piece suits and blac
k pumps. It was too haute bitchy, but she was the woman who could carry it off. Her short black hair was moussed and tousled. She had beautiful high cheekbones but without the cadaverous look of fashion models. Lips that were just a trifle too thin but with skillfully applied makeup still had the glistening fullness to give a primitive growl to most men's thoughts. But her eyes were what kept them at bay, eyes dark and shiny as a black onyx soul.

  She thanked him and, more out of courtesy than interest, said, "How are things with you?"

  She waited patiently if abstractedly through his reply. When he realized that Missy was only half-listening to his paean to yet another sullen-looking blond boy with whom he had had his way, he quickly got down to business.

  ”You want the usual—Stolichnaya and soda?"

  She nodded, looking not at him but at the crowd.

  "Shall I send it over to Carl's table?"

  "Oh, Carl is here?" she said as if it was news to her.

  Tanya Tucker was belting out "Bed of Roses" on the stereo system, and Lagniappe only played that tape when Carl was there. They did it partly to flatter him, partly to josh him about the torch he still carried for her, dating from her days as a teen heart throb.

  Cyrus Wakefield had never approved of Missy's relationship with Carl, but then he had never understood what an interesting relationship theirs was. They had met a few years earlier at a Locust Street art gallery. Carl had just returned from five poverty-filled years studying in France and was taking his first career move as the artist-in-residence at the Philadelphia art school, the Walker Academy. As soon as she saw him, it was like seeing the right fur coat. She just had to have him.

  The reason she had to have him was simple in a complex way. He gave off signals, subtle but obvious to her, that he wanted to be possessed by her. She was more than receptive.

  In exchange for his devotion and submission to her whims she offered sex, money and a place to sell his paintings through her society contacts. It was a devil's bargain for Carl . . . one she broke according to her mood. His going along with this unequal pact was most pleasing to her, somehow a confirmation of his devotion and love. She needed that, needed it badly. She might grieve for her father, but she'd received precious little show of affection from him . . .