by Cynthia Dane
“I knew it! I couldn’t believe it, but I knew it!” A blinding white Givenchy pantsuit in front of me was brighter than the Easter lilies in their diamond-encrusted vase. Or maybe that was the diamonds on the woman’s ears and hands begging me to steal Sherman’s sunglasses. “Eric Fucking Mann. It’s been way too long.”
There are only two kinds of people who would dare talk to Mr. Mann like that. Crass assholes who refused to know any better…
And heiresses who were so wealthy that they could go their whole lives insulting every man around them and still come out unscathed. Because why would they need manners when they had money and status?
“Long time no see, Ms. Warren,” Eric said. “Pleasure.”
“Yes! It is a pleasure!” Eva Warren, one of the richest heiresses from the Eastern Seaboard and someone who is only celebrity-famous due to her outrageous style and affinity for leaving lesbian heartbreak in her wake, pulled out a chair. “Just seeing your face makes the trip across the country worth it. I haven’t seen you since I was in high school. Can’t believe that was so long ago now…”
Eric remained gracious. “You’ve come quite into your own, I see.”
“Keeping Mommy and Daddy proud. You know how it is.”
The false smile on Eric’s countenance faltered. “Yes. I do.”
The other woman Eva came with finally finished her approach. I didn’t pay her much mind, other than making a mental note that she had gorgeous red hair and a keen sense of style for her curvy body…
Then I recognized her.
Oh, it’s not hard to recognize someone who has been going out with an elite member of high society for more than a few months. You’re required to recognize them from a mere glance in these types of situations. But even though my head smartly said, “That’s Eva Warren’s girlfriend,” my adrenaline screamed, “COLLEGE PARTY IN UNDERGRAD, YOU STUPID SLUT.” I knocked over my empty wineglass.
“Well, well,” Nadia Gaines, who was way more composed than I was in this situation, chuckled as she sat between us. “It really is a small world. Natalie, right? I think we met at the mixer in Chicago… 2011, was it? No, wait. Twelve.”
Eva let out a low whistle as she glanced between us. “You know her, do you?”
“Oh, yes.” Nadia politely looked away as my whole body froze in one giant pile of nausea. “Very well.”
Even Eric caught her meaning, although he was hardly as appalled as I was. “It is a small world, Ms. Warren.”
No fucking shit. Sitting across from me was the only woman I had ever fucked.
Chapter 12
NATALIE
It wasn’t something I thought about a lot. Not willingly.
As far as I was concerned, I was an average heterosexual woman. Being straight was one of the few privileges I had in the world, and I wasn’t in a hurry to relinquish it. But I’ve always been of the opinion that because you fall into the experimentation trap that you’re suddenly gay. Or even bisexual, pansexual, whatthefuckeversexual.
I wasn’t in denial. I wasn’t bartering with God to make me forget that one time in college I hooked up with a hot woman and dared to go all the way in the name of drunken revelry. There was no internalized homophobia or whatever the buzz word on the blogs is. I had lesbian sex once. It had been a long time ago, and while I didn’t regret it, it wasn’t something I was in a hurry to experience again, if ever.
Let me back up a bit.
I first met Nadia at a college conference in Chicago. I was a junior, excited to have been selected by the debate club to represent young women everywhere at a national conference for women in business and administration. Over a thousand college-aged women were there, and the only men in sight were supervisors, presenters, and Women Studies professors who still looked too lost to be allowed.
The mixer was meant to encourage networking. Otherwise, we studious and ambitious young women would be holed up in talks or devouring more information in our hotel rooms. You think I’m the only one who would do that? Yeah, right. The organizers knew what they were doing. They rented the hotel ballroom, provided two free drink tokens per attendee, and watched the bullshit happened.
I was nursing a particularly nasty breakup with a guy named Stephen. Now I look back and think, Who the hell was Stephen? But when I was twenty-one and pissed off at love and romance, Stephen was a guy in my business program who thought it cute to fuck one of my supposed friends behind my back. When I found out about his betrayal, I dumped both him and the fake friend willing to ruin my relationship and fuck my boyfriend.
I was on the rebound and anti-social. Sure, I went to the mixer, but I spent most of the night pouting at the bar and ignoring anyone who dared trying to chat me up.
Then I saw Nadia.
She had come to redeem her second drink token. Bacardi on ice. I remember thinking that rum matched her look well. Feminine, fiery, and possibly spicy.
I had never seen someone quite like her before. Even at the gala, when I saw her for the first time in years, I was taken aback by her unique beauty. Her body was voluptuous in a black and white-speckled wrap dress that hugged every generous but perfectly placed curve. Long, flowy hair was such an impossible shade of red that I wondered how she managed to dye it so well. (Later, I discovered that was her actual hair. To this day I’m still in shock.) Her makeup was a combination of infuriatingly effortless and the product of careful attention. She was either dressed to impress her fellow women… or seduce a few of them.
Sometimes, you know.
At first, I was jealous of her. Jealous of her ivory-pale skin and the exotic hair that turned every head in the room. People constantly stopped her to compliment her look. I was quick to pick up that most of her responses were flirtatious.
The look she spared me when she picked up her drink was almost wistful.
“I like your skirt,” she had said. “Not everyone can pull off earth tones like that. I know I can’t.”
My skirt was an earthy brown with faded yellow flowers. Enough to draw attention away from my lackluster chest and piss-poor makeup. “Thanks. I like your… wow, I like your everything.”
What made her decide to stay and flirt with me – even though it took me twenty minutes to realize she was flirting with me – I will never understand. Maybe like a lot of men, many lesbians are capable of Asian fetishes. Maybe I was the first one to respond to her advances. Maybe I reminded her of an old lover she still had a thing for. Who knows. Who cares? Point is, she invited me up to her room for more drinks, and I decided to take her up on it. Not until we reached her floor did I realize she was gay and this was a potential hookup.
How did I finally realize it? Because we were alone in the elevator, and she said, “I might need help untying this knot on my dress.”
Well!
I could’ve ran. I could’ve politely turned her down because I had misread the situation. I could’ve had the drinks and conversation without the noise and crowds… and “realized” I was too tired to do anything else.
I wasn’t someone who took a lot of personal risks. That night, with two drinks in me and one of the most gorgeous women I had ever seen coming on to me, I decided fuck it! What better way to rebound after a shitty breakup with an assface than to try pussy for the first time? Maybe I’d like it. If I didn’t, oh well. There were worse ways to find out.
The only thing I confessed was that I wasn’t very experienced with lesbian sex and would prefer if she took the lead once we got going. She didn’t have a problem with that.
I’ll spare the details. Once one thing led to another, I discovered that it wasn’t bad at all. Nadia knew what she was doing and had no issue making me feel good. Exploring another woman’s body was a novelty I hadn’t indulged in yet.
We didn’t see each other again at the conference. I rarely thought about it again, having decided that while it was nice, Nadia was not the kind of person I could see spending the rest of my life with. I had assumed that meant women. I wasn’t bi.
I simply fooled around, experimented, got it out of my system and now knew.
Flash forward to the gala in San Francisco. Me. My boss. Eva Warren. Nadia. At the same. Damn. Table.
What a small fucking world!
Nadia was too polite to delve deeper into what we had for one night. Eva was too professional to make a joke at her girlfriend’s expense or to put me on the spot.
Eric? I don’t know what he was thinking. He had been more closed off than usual, and now he either kept his eyes on the tablet screens describing what the event was about and the items up for auction. Occasionally, Sherman whispered into his ear and either received a nod or the shake of the head.
I had no idea the event could drag on for so long. Before, I had been excited to have this front-row seat to a high society charity gala. I knew I would never be able to afford the items on the auction, but who didn’t want to see who bid on what, let alone who won? When the floor was given fifteen minutes to do a final perusal of the list on the tablet screens, an excited murmur rippled through the crowds.
“What should I get?” Eva asked Nadia. “There’s a week-long safari trip in Kenya on here. You ever been to Africa before, babe?”
“Do I look like a girl who’s been to Africa before meeting you?”
“Savannah it is. Ooh, and the spa trip for two in the Himalayas! Talk about some fresh air.”
I didn’t expect my boss to ask my opinion.
“If you had to choose between the cabin in Alaska or the luxury Scandinavian cruise, what would entice you more?”
I looked around, as if he couldn’t be talking to me. “Alaska, I guess. Cruises are crowded. Cabins at least give you real privacy.”
“Very true.”
“Who’s the lucky lady you would be taking with you to a cabin in the Alaskan woods?” Eva goaded my boss. “Didn’t know you were dating anyone.”
“I’m not.” That snap of his voice made my toes curl. “Sometimes it’s nice to find a Christmas present for dear friends while helping a good cause.”
Who were the good friends? Brooke and her suppose fiancé? Either way, Eric’s bid for two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars won the trip to Alaska. Eva and Nadia were off to the Himalayas for their spa trip of a lifetime.
Eric also pledged two million dollars to the charity by the end of the night. He had one of the largest donations and garnered more interest from the press and applause from his peers. I saw the look in everyone’s eyes. So that’s Eric Mann? He doesn’t look quite what I expected.
Only now do I realize this whole trip had been carefully calculated, from where we sat to what he purchased and how much he donated. As Brooke had told me before I left, this was all PR. Thanks to the attention Eric achieved, he could duck out of the public eye for a few more months and nobody would go to extremes to bother him.
Or be inspired to hunt down his deepest, darkest secrets because they were famished for a good story.
Chapter 13
ERICA
After seeing Natalie to her suite, I retired to mine, kicking myself for at least not flirting with her a little. My big chance to leave an impression, and I blew it. She probably thought I was a bigger, anti-social freak than ever.
Sometimes I wonder if I really am an anti-social freak. And is it because of my situation, or because of how I was born?
Sherman retired to his room half an hour later, leaving me to wallow in my bullshit.
I indulged in a drink and spent an inordinate amount of time on my phone in a vain attempt to distract myself from my convoluted feelings. Ha! Did I say feelings? I meant my burning, unbridled attraction to a woman I shouldn’t want to have.
For weeks I had told myself that Natalie Chen was untouchable. She was my intern. She was younger than me. She was in my office to work and start her career, not flirt with an ass like me. She wouldn’t be able to handle the fact that I had tits and a vagina, when her whole life she had been led to believe that one of her business “idols” was a man.
Then I remembered the awkward recognition between her and Nadia Gaines. Natalie claimed she was not dating Mr. Webb, even after being assured it wasn’t against company policy. Was it possible that she was attracted to women? That she wouldn’t run away screaming the moment she saw my body and learned of the war raging inside my mind? Perhaps I had underestimated her regarding that.
Or maybe I was setting myself up for unspeakable rejection. Again.
I stared at the wall for so long that I almost forgot where I was. When the shadows dancing above my head looked more like swarming darkness than what they were, I knew I had to do something. It didn’t help that I kept replaying every interaction I ever had with Natalie. It wasn’t just obsession. It was survival.
She likes me, doesn’t she? I wasn’t just convincing myself of that, right? She’s attracted to me. She acts so differently around you. Brooke has commented on it! Brooke was prone to jealousy when it came to my love life. She hated to hear about my appointments with escorts and the occasional date I indulged in when I felt reckless. What would she think about me dating our intern?
What would Natalie think about that?
Maybe it was the drink in me. Maybe it was the whirlwind of anxiety after being so prominently in public. Or maybe I really had lost my mind to the privileges everyone told me I had. When someone says you think the world owes you everything enough times, you start to go with it.
I picked up my phone and closed the web browser highlighting the latest fleet of Ferraris I thought about test driving to destress. Instead, I dove deep into the annals of my contact list and dug up Natalie’s number. One I had yet to exploit for personal gain.
I felt like a teenager hovering around the phone, rehearsing how to ask out a girl to a dance. To think. I had gone to prom once – as a woman. With another woman.
That sour memory plagued me as I made the call.
“Yes?”
Her voice killed me. Youthful, but mature. Unsure, but confident. No-nonsense, but respectful. I had no idea what version of Natalie Chen I had contacted. She probably didn’t even know it was me calling her. Why would she? I had her number, but she certainly did not have mine. Yet.
“Ms. Chen?”
There was a pause, although I swore I heard the smallest gasp erupt on the other end of the line. When Natalie spoke again, she had enacted the mature, confident, and respectful version of herself. I was only slightly disappointed.
“Mr. Mann? What can I do for you? Forgot something?”
“Could you please come to my suite when it’s convenient for you?” I had never felt so nauseous. “There’s something I need to speak with you about.” I could say that again. In fact, I did – to myself, in the deep recesses of my fucked-up brain. “There’s so much I must speak with you about. Like how much I want to hold you close to me and make the great attempt of fusing our bodies into one. We know we can’t. We know it’s impossible. But damnit, we’ll try.”
“Of course.” Wait. What had she agreed to? “Should I bring the tablet?”
“No need for that. Sherman’s outside my door and knows to expect you.” I hung up.
Shit. I better tell Sherman that he was now roped into my stupid plan.
I found him in his room, having just hung up the phone on his wife. He looked up to see me in his doorway and immediately furrowed his brows in concern. I suppose I had a certain look about me.
“Ms. Chen will be coming by here soon,” I said. “We’ll need some privacy. I have something confidential to tell her.”
Sherman propped his hand on his thigh and gave me such a heated look that I knew he saw through my veneer. “Confidential, huh? Well, can’t ask you what it is, I guess. Fine.” He stood up, grabbing his jacket off the top of his bed. “Back to work, I guess.”
“Last thing you’ll have to do tonight. I promise.”
He shook his head as he put his jacket back on. “I’m not even going to ask. Just don’t get into any trouble, Erica.”
“Don’t call me Erica around Ms. Chen, and there will be no trouble.”
I was snappier than I intended to be for the second time that night. Sherman looked up with a start and nearly scoffed his face off. “You can be so pissy when you’re half drunk and in a mood.”
I softened my demeanor and announced I needed to wash up. Sherman led me out of his room and went to stand outside the suite door. I went into my bathroom and freshened up, careful to not wash away the light makeup on my face or the cologne carefully applied to my throat.
But I wanted to smell and look like the man Natalie expected. I wanted her to walk into the room and see a man she couldn’t deny. A man whose mere presence made her throat close and her eyes widen in wonder.
Those are the most dangerous women, you know. The ones who made me want to be a man if it meant making their fantasies come true. The ones who made me put them first, forever, every single day, even if it meant my own end. Some women were worth making that sacrifice.
When I emerged from the bathroom, I heard voices on the other side of the suite doorway. Hadn’t it been open only a moment ago? Had Sherman closed it? What in the world was he saying to Natalie, whom I assumed had arrived?
What was she wearing? That intoxicating little black dress I had been fantasizing about ripping off her body since I saw her on her first day of work? Or something more… comfortable?
This had been a terrible idea. I was going to do something I would regret. I was going to either scare her off and kill any good will between us…
Or I was going to fuck her.
There’s this fine line you can only experience when you’re in my position. The one that borders between indulging in male privilege that screams at you to do as you please with the women in the room, or reminding yourself what it feels like to be a woman always on the lookout for a bad atmosphere. Inviting Natalie to my suite just to hit on her and possibly sleep with her was beyond unprofessional. It was foul. It was something the lowest of the low did because they knew they could get away with it. I was supposed to be better than that.