Aphrodisiac

by Alicia Street

  One of the miraculous things about being petite is that it takes only one martini to nudge my delicate body’s chemistry over the line into funhouse land. So, you can imagine what three did to me. In other words, I had no idea how plowed I was until I got off my stool. The room was spinning, and the floor wavered beneath me. Still, I raised my chin and strutted away, showing off my best feature, the Ozyutikoffsky inverted heart fanny. Every woman knows a man will size up her ass the instant she turns her back.

  I made it across the room and stepped to the door in a manner I once saw demonstrated by Gwyneth Paltrow in a nineties’ movie. I forget which one. Actually, I’d forgotten a lot of things while caught up in my Tanqueray huff. Including the fact that I came here with Benita. Set to leave, I thrust my shoulder against the front door just as a man on the outside yanked it open. I can still taste the pavement.

  Wouldn’t you know Eldridge Mace had to be obnoxious enough to come running out and scoop me up by the seat of my jeans.

  So much for my Hollywood exit.

  FIVE

  On Thursdays I usually worked until four at the Institute for Sexual Counseling, but today my last two appointments called to cancel. At two fifteen I took the F train from midtown Manhattan and managed to reach York Street in DUMBO with only one generous offer for a tongue bath. Making my way down Bridge Street in my denim gauchos, artichoke print shell and ankle-tie wedges, I passed the local Dominican eatery, which had been here long before developers started converting rundown warehouses into luxury lofts. The delicious smells made me realize how hungry I was. I’d eaten only blueberries for breakfast and didn’t allow myself lunch, thanks to Mr. Mace’s rude estimation of my weight.

  I rounded the corner of Front Street and shuffled down a block with lovely old brick townhouses. After two more blocks my grouchiness got the best of me. I was hungover from last night’s martini fest, and as any medical professional knows, the best cure would be large doses of sugar.

  I made a pit stop into DUMBO General Store, which was not really a store, but a café frequented by neighborhood residents. It also sold art supplies, held drawing classes and hosted music performances. The place was cool, dark and not too crowded at this hour. Two ponytailed guys, who were obviously artists, sat at a long wooden table near the baby grand piano. I heard them talking about the current exhibit on the walls. Photographs of empty closets. The show was entitled “Gone.”

  I studied the chalkboard menu over the bar and ordered a cappuccino and three brownies. Taking a seat at the long table, I wolfed down my six-hundred-calorie remedy. One of the artists in a paint-splattered tee started razzing me about how fast I motored through all three brownies.

  Was every man on the planet concerned about my weight? “Yeah, well, my next stop is Blazing Donutz. So, there.” Of course, my mouth being stuffed, naturally I sent a barrage of chewed brownie fragments airborne across the table. Very attractive.

  My little comment started him on a rant about Blazing Donutz. He educated me quickly and sharply on the neighborhood’s disdain for the donut franchise that had moved in and threatened the homespun businesses that were the heart and soul of DUMBO.

  I stood up. “Point taken. Can’t say I don’t agree with you. It’s just that I’m new in the neighborhood. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m battling a triple-martini headache and must prepare myself for a session with a man who gets aroused by vacuum cleaners.”

  The endorphins from the chocolate helped carry me the few blocks to my place. In the lobby Caspian handed me a large UPS box that had arrived. I turned into the elevator alcove and, while waiting for one of the gold metallic panels to slide open, glanced at the box’s return label. Darryl Applebee. Must be the package he mentioned to me at Gwen’s funeral. Some mementos he’d put aside for Benita and me.

  I heard the clickety-clickof doggy toenails on the tile floor, followed by the sound of shuffling feet. Oh no. Come on, elevator. Open fast.

  A raspy voice asked the doorman-concierge, “Didn’t I see Dr. Oz? I need to talk to her.” Ninety-year-old Mr. Fellows lived here with his son, who seemed to travel a great deal. In my three weeks here I hadn’t seen or met the younger Fellows, but considering what his father was like, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  “Yes, she’s right here,” Caspian said.

  Thanks a mil.

  Fellows chugged toward me, his white miniature poodle, Renoir, dancing at his feet. “Wait, Dr. Oz. I have something to tell you.”

  “Guess you and Renoir had your daily walk,” I said, trying to sound chatty.

  Dressed in yachting pants and polo tee, Mr. Fellows looked like a cross between Yoda and the Pillsbury Doughboy. The elevator arrived, and he wobbled on, the only man I knew who was actually my height.

  I pressed floors six and seven. We stood facing the doors. As soon as the car began to rise, so did Mr. Fellows’s hand. I felt it caressing my backside. “Mr. Fellows. Please.” I shifted the box to one arm and pried his hand away. “I’ve asked you twice to stop this.”

  “I had another one of those dreams.”

  I pretended not to hear him and stared up at the glowing numbers.

  “Same as before. The wet kind…about you…and me.”

  Delete and cancel, please. Last time he’d launched into a description of us doing it doggy style on his Prestomatic adjustable bed. “Keep the details to yourself.”

  “My Martha passed on so long ago that my jolly wally is good and ready. And you’re the best-looking woman around here. You really get me going.”

  Lucky me. Was this my karma? To be the hot pick for lecherous ninety-somethings with a fondness for rear entry? His palm did an encore on my buttocks. “Stop it!” I swatted his hand. He looked hurt. What was I supposed to do? Beat on a defenseless old man? “Mr. Fellows, I can imagine being alone must be difficult, but you simply cannot—”

  “What I’ve lost in stamina, I make up for in technique.” He let out a hoarse chuckle.

  Looking down so I wouldn’t have to watch all four of his chins moving in tandem, I instead experienced the thrill of noticing the erection in his pants. Geeeez.

  The elevator hit my floor. I leaped out and hurried down the hall to the corner loft. Once inside the apartment I was greeted by Uncle Pete.

  “I farted. I farted,” he said, waddling around in his cage.

  “I’m not interested, Petey.” I set the box on the floor. “Charming gentlemen everywhere. Some even have wings.”

  “You’re in a great mood.” Benita was home this afternoon prepping for a weekend business conference in Atlanta.

  “I think I’ve discovered a new listing for the DSM-IV. Horny Nonagenarian Disorder.” The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was the bible for people in my field.

  “Not Mr. Fellows again. He’s always so polite when I see him. Are you sure you’re not doing anything to lead him on?”

  “Very funny.”

  She bit back her laugh and knelt on the floor next to the box. “What’s this?”

  “Actually, it’s for both of us.” I tore open the lid and read the enclosed note.

  Saylor,

  After having sold a few of these perfume bottles from my late sister’s collection I decided to be a nice guy and give you a break. I know that you and Gwen had this thing for perfume. And quite frankly I know that if my sister had made a will, she would have left these to you. The rest of the garbage in the box is stuff that I’m sure means more to you and Benita than to me.

  Darryl Applebee

  P.S. If you want more, come on by. My basement’s full of crap. Thanks to my pack rat sister.

  I sighed. “How sweet.”

  “The guy’s an actor,” Benita said. “Pretends to be all upset over Gwen, now he’s calling her names.”

  “But Gwen was a pack rat.”

  “I don’t care. Don’t trust him.” She shook her head. “He’s our man.”

  “Impossible. Darryl can be a steaming asshole, but he’s no murderer
. Maybe his relationship with Gwen wasn’t exactly close; still it wasn’t all that bad. And what would he possibly have to gain by killing her? He’s a successful real estate broker, and Gwen was a starving academic.”

  We started digging through the box. No big surprises. Nothing we didn’t already know about our friend. There was her favorite book of women’s poetry. A coral necklace Gwen frequently wore. An ashtray from our night at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. One minute our eyes were wet, the next, we were squealing with laughter.

  “Ohmigod.” I held up a curled and faded eight-by-ten of Binnie, Gwen and me sporting bikinis and sunhats in Cancun. “Look at this. I gave her strict orders to destroy it. Instead, my Danny DeVito look-alike photo comes back to haunt me.”

  “Nah, the light just caught you at the wrong angle. You look more like David Letterman.”

  I pulled out a rolled up movie poster and opened it. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I’d given that to Gwen on her seventeenth birthday. Along with…there it was. The poster of Funny Face, in which Audrey Hepburn played Jo Stockton, an intellectual beatnik who goes from working in a Greenwich Village bookstore to becoming a high fashion model. Gwen and I had both yearned to straddle those two worlds. In our freshman year of college we explored the big city together. We pretended to be part of a sophisticated world of style that neither of us could afford. And we searched for New York’s bohemian philosophers that were long gone by the time we arrived.

  Next I unwrapped a newspaper bundle to find an empty Jean Patou crystal flacon with a golden lotus stopper. “Ooh. I remember when Gwen bought this one.”

  Benita uncovered another. Rubbing her thumb across the gold filigree top of a Givenchy miniature, she said, “Are perfume bottles that valuable? Darryl mentioned selling some.”

  “Well, it depends on how old and rare they are. Most are worth, say, fifteen to fifty dollars. But a few of Gwen’s would definitely be priced in the hundreds. To her, every single one of them was precious.” I pulled out a square bottle that once held Tigress, a sixties’ cologne, and burst into tears.

  My roommate placed her hand on mine. “Why don’t we just leave these alone for now? Later, when things smooth out, we can take time to enjoy them.”

  I nodded and started rewrapping the bottles I’d removed, carefully fitting them back into the box. All I could see was Gwen working in her lab trying to create her own fragrances. “Remember the perfumes she used to make?”

  “Yeah. Talk about hit-and-miss.”

  “Her mixology did get a touch heavy-handed sometimes.”

  “How about the one she made for your birthday?” Binnie wrinkled her nose. “The one she named Puppy Love. And you suggested calling it The Pungent Puppy. Man, did she get pissed.”

  “I feel bad now for saying that. I’m surprised Gwen wanted my opinion on the name of her latest perfume.” My hand flew to my mouth.

  “What’s the matter?”

  I jumped to my feet and hurried to my bedroom, where I’d left the poem. Benita chased after me. I grabbed the paper from my bureau. “Read it. The second line. ‘Heaven’s Daughter has brought the storm upon me, I meet my end.’ “

  “So?”

  “Gwen named her last perfume Heaven’s Daughter.”

  “Now there’s a catchy title.”

  “It’s about Gwen’s favorite goddess, Inanna. A really ancient love goddess. The first Venus.” Gwen had been an authority on the early female deities. And she’d been devoted to them. They were so closely tied to vegetation that her work in archaeobotany had often dealt with their religious rituals.

  Benita shrugged. “Maybe she was just getting spiritual in her last few minutes. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with her perfume.”

  My tone was insistent. “I think it does.”

  “Explain.”

  I sat on the bed. “A few months back Gwen and I were eating lunch in Chinatown. She was giddy with excitement. She said the big fashion houses would be lining up and begging for her newest fragrance. And now it’s in her secret message.”

  Benita reclined next to me, leaning back on her elbows. Her look reminded me of the one I got from Detective Roach. “Aren’t you stretching things a bit?”

  “Think about it. The name of the perfume, next to the words, ‘has brought the storm upon me.’ Sounds like it had something to do with her murder.”

  “That is pretty weird.” She cocked her head. “Except, how come you didn’t recall that conversation with Gwen?”

  “You know how manicky she could be. I wrote it off as just another one of her wild fantasies.”

  “What else did Gwen say?”

  “Nothing. She was afraid she’d jinx it. Wanted to wait until an agreement was signed. So, I forgot about the whole thing.” I sighed. “I should’ve pried it out of her. But with Gwen’s vivid imagination, half the time I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t.”

  “Did she mention the names of any contacts?”

  “No. But, since my Thursday private isn’t due until five thirty, I’m going to make a few phone calls to fashion houses.”

  Benita helped me find the numbers online. We divided them, eight apiece. I did Vera Wang, Calvin Klein, Estee Lauder, Revlon and Chanel. And the LVMH group that included Givenchy, Dior and Guerlain. Talk about frustrating. None of them ever heard of Heaven’s Daughter or Gwendolyn Applebee. When I asked about them buying a perfume of hers, I was told the companies get their new scents from big fragrance houses, which have their own staff of professional perfumers. My heart sank. Poor Gwen. She really could get delusional.

  Benita walked into my room, cell in hand, Petey on her shoulder. She had the same results. “Something told me this idea was too far-fetched.”

  I crumpled my list of numbers into a ball and hurled it at the trashcan. My absolutely abominable toss missed by a yard, but at least it was sufficiently violent. “Are we out of our minds? Shouldn’t I hire an expert to do the legwork? We could go around in circles forever.”

  “Hey, we’ve barely started. Let me do some net searches on Darryl, Rob and that grad student who was Gwen’s assistant at Columbia.”

  “Okay, but if we haven’t made any headway in a week or so, we call in the troops. Not that I think some PI is going to fathom the mind of Gwendolyn Applebee. For all we know she had a double life as a hooker or something.”

  “I doubt it. You gotta shave your legs if you want to be a hooker.”

  Benita rushed around getting ready to leave. Her limo to the airport was due any minute. Hopefully before my five thirty client arrived.

  “Adios, Tio Pedro.” Benita coaxed the mynah onto her finger, gave him a quick smacker on the beak and set him back in his cage. She put three shopping bags next to her suitcase. Presents for her nephews. Benita was taking an early flight so she could visit one of her five brothers before checking into the hotel for the conference. Roberto lived in Atlanta with his wife and three children. I helped her cart her bags to the company limo waiting outside.

  Across the street I spotted one of those super wide military-type vehicles parked on the corner. This one was all black. “I can’t stand those cars. And they’re so popular these days.”

  “You mean the Hummer?” Benita said. “I’d take one. It’s the mack daddy of wheels.”

  “Reminds me of a giant water bug. Creeps me out.”

  “Got tinted windows.” She bobbed her eyebrows Groucho-style. “Maybe Detective Roach is at the helm, trying to get a better look at you.”

  “Come on, Binnie. It’s a parked car, which means it’s empty. Probably belongs to that macho guy who lives on the third floor.” At least I hoped so. My doubts about Gwen’s suicide had me scrutinizing every walking, rolling or flying unidentified object.

  We traded hugs. The driver held the door, and Benita hopped inside. On my way back to our building, eerie feelings continued to gnaw at me. I stepped into the foyer and decided to ask to the doorman. “Caspian, do you know who owns that black Hummer parked acro
ss the street?”

  “No, Dr. Oz. Never saw it before.”

  The two of us stood there looking at it, when suddenly the engine started, and the Hummer moved slowly away.

  SIX

  The large meeting room in the Center For Being on Broome Street in SoHo had minimal furnishings—potted ferns, batik pillows and beanbag chairs around the perimeter. Tonight it was filled with unclothed men and women. For those New Yorkers not lucky enough to spend the weekend at the beach, the next best thing was going bare ass at Dr. Lana Klein’s Friday evening Love Your Body, Love Your Self workshop.

  Truth was, I relished being naked as much as Lana did. In my developmental years I’d been one of those toddlers who ripped off her clothes and went running around in front of company. Guess I started embarrassing my mother pretty early.

  Lana glided to the front of the room and spoke, accompanying her rich alto voice with sweeping hand gestures. A psychologist, but not a sex therapist, her brand of humanistic therapy came straight out of the seventies.

  Right now we were in the midst of the “walk around.” Everyone, unclothed and without a word, circulated among the group. At Lana’s instruction they would stop and offer a silent greeting to the person in front of them. A smile, a handshake, an admiring or maybe embarrassed look. No inappropriate touching was allowed. Later there would be trust-building exercises with holding and touching under Lana’s careful direction. Of course, there was the occasional nude-workshop erection. No big deal. Just a sign of appreciation.

  When Lana gave me the nod, I pulled back a curtain to reveal a wall of full-length mirrors. She usually capped off the “walk around” with this exercise.

  “Find a place in front of the mirror,” Lana said. “I want you to observe your own body and face. Without judgment, without shame or criticism.”

  I remembered my first date with the mirror at one of her nude workshops. I was nineteen, and as luck would have it, I stood alongside one of New York’s supermodels feeling like a can of Bud next to a bottle of Moet.