A 21st Century Courtesan (22 page)

But love?

Too much to deal with right now. I can't do it. No, just be here with him, lie in his arms, listen to his breathing grow shallow as he slips into sleep.

And wonder for the first time about the limitless possibilities before me.

Absolutely terrifying. I have been such a sexual adventurer. But maybe the truth is that in every other area of my life, I have been hiding, too scared to take any real chances.

Turning to Joshua, I concentrate on the slow cadence of his breath. Careful not to wake him, I slide my hand onto his bare chest, feel the rise and fall of it. I need to know he's really
here.
I need him to ground me.

He draws in a deep breath, mutters, but he's still sleeping. Part of me wishes he'd wake up, make love to me again. But I've hidden behind sex for far too long already, haven't I? Perhaps that's actually been my specialty all these years.

I slip out of bed, finally, go into the kitchen and make a cup of tea. The floor is cold beneath my bare feet as I pad back
into the living room, curl up on the sofa under a blanket. The tea is too hot to drink, but the mug warms my hands, the fragrant steam comforts me. Still, I think of the small plastic bag of gummi bears in my nightstand drawer. I want them, but I don't want to risk waking up Joshua. I need a little time to myself, despite the constant craving to be near him, to touch him.

It's one of those pitch-black nights outside, no moon to illuminate the sky. Just velvet darkness and the distant stars. That same sky I watched as a child. But I'm not the same, am I? Maybe some part of me has never let that child go, on the inside. Have I ever really grown up, gotten over my past? Have I ever really let it go? Or have I just shoved it down deep where I don't have to deal with it?

I'm going to have to deal with it now, or nothing will really change.

I sip my tea carefully and let myself think for a moment about my clients, my regulars. Bennett, Colin, Zayed, Louis. Enzo. I'll have to talk to him eventually. Tell him I won't see him anymore. I can't decide whether any of them will truly care, beyond their own selfish need for the sex. I hope some of them will. Sweet Louis. Enzo.

How ridiculous is that? I'm a prostitute. They pay me for sex. I am not a wife. Not even a mistress. Why do I care?

But I do. And maybe, just maybe, that was part of the magic, too. Maybe it wasn't just that I got off on the sex. Maybe I can allow myself that much credit. Perhaps I can even allow myself to feel a little sad. To grieve.

I am tight with grief, like a cord strung to the breaking point.

Almost. Because I'm not breaking, am I?

I don't know how long I sit in the dark before Joshua
comes into the room, so quiet I don't even know he's there until he is sitting next to me, pulling me into his arms.

“What is it, baby?”

“I'm just… feeling everything, you know?”

“Yes.” He holds me tighter. “It's okay.”

“Joshua, I feel like … I'm some sort of emotional infant. Trying to figure it all out. I'm trying to find my strength here, but it's hard.”

He squeezes my hand. “I'm having a hard time with this, too. I'm trying to process it, but when I stop to think about it… Fuck, I don't mean to make you feel worse, but it's hard, you know? I have to be able to say that to you.”

“Of course.”

I know it's not his intention, but it does make me feel worse. Even though I am also deliriously happy that I have this chance, that he is here with me.

“Maybe we need to get you out of here? Change your environment? Maybe we both need to get out of here.”

I nod.

“I should take you to my house. I'll take another day or two off work.”

“When? How soon can we go?” Suddenly I want nothing more than to leave this place.

“We can go tonight, if you want. We can be there in twenty minutes if I drive fast enough.”

“Yes, please, Joshua. Let's just go.”

He pulls me up with him, pauses to tuck my hair behind my ears.

“Go and pack a bag and we'll do it. We'll leave right now.”

I feel an enormous sense of relief. I know it's only a temporary solution. But I feel like all I can do right now is survive this with him. It has to be that basic.

I leave him to go into the bedroom, throw a few things into an overnight bag: a silk nightgown, a pair of loose linen drawstring pants and a pair of jeans, a few cotton tank tops, my favorite cashmere sweater, a pair of sandals. I take my toothbrush and hairbrush from the bathroom, a bottle of lotion, throw those into the bag.

When I come back into the bedroom, he's dressed. He's holding a dress for me that he must have pulled from my closet, a soft gray knit piece with long sleeves. He goes to my drawer and pulls out a bra, underwear, and helps me into them, handling me as though I'm fragile. But for the first time in a long time, I'm not. Whether I ever wanted to admit to my own weakness, it's been there, beneath the smooth veneer. Now I've dug deeper and found something more, something better.

He sits me down on the bed, slides my feet into a pair of black boots. Then he takes my hand, picks up my bag, and leads me into the living room. I pause to scribble a note to my housekeeper to take care of my orchids before picking up my purse. My heart is pounding. I need to
go.

In minutes we are in his car, flying down the empty streets. The sky is just beginning to glow with the first light of dawn. I normally hate to see the sun come up. It's always felt incredibly lonely to me. It still does. But there is also a sense of absolute safety, here in the car with Joshua.

He has a Hummer, one of the new smaller ones, but still ridiculously enormous. All black, sleek, masculine. Totally decadent. I love it immediately. It feels like him. Beautiful and luxurious but still a little bad boy.

He holds my hand the entire time, but we don't talk. I am exhausted, half out of my head. But so damn grateful to be here with him. His profile is almost too beautiful to look at,
with the slowly rising sun lighting him up just a little in purple and gold that fades to gray as we get closer to the beach.

How is it that I've never been to his place? I don't even know where we're going until we hit Washington Boulevard and I can smell the ocean through the closed windows of the Hummer. A few more blocks and we're on Pacific Avenue, that funky end of Marina del Rey where there are a handful of restaurants and cafés on a winding road leading to the beach. As we move away from the big hotel strip, it feels more like one of those small beach towns that dot the southern coast of California: Huntington Beach, Sunset Beach, Laguna.

He takes a right, pulling into one of the back alleys all of these beachfront houses have. He hits a button on the remote built into the dash and the garage door on a two-story Spanish-style goes up.

Joshua insists on helping me from the car, which I secretly love. Taking my hand, he leads me into the house.

His house.

It smells like him. That's the first thing I notice. The second thing I notice is that it feels like home.

“I'll show it all to you later. Let's get you into bed.”

I follow him silently, through the shadows of his house. Down a wide hallway and into his bedroom.

There's an enormous window with an incredible ocean view. The sun is a dim red glow, forcing its way through the fog. And in that pale light I can see a big bed, a wooden four-poster with all white bedding. Simple. Beautiful.

He undresses me quickly, tenderly. Then he tucks me beneath the covers, under the crisp white sheets and a heavy down quilt, before he moves around the room, sliding the drapes closed, hanging my dress in the closet. He gets undressed, and I watch him through sleepy eyes: the smooth expanse
of his broad chest, the tattoo on his biceps, his muscular thighs.

A lovely surge of heat between my thighs, but I am so tired suddenly. He slips in beside me, holds me close, stroking my hair, kissing my temple, my eyes. He's whispering to me, but I don't know what he's saying. His voice is soft in my ears as I drift toward sleep.

Safe at last.

I
WAKE UP, BUT
I don't want to open my eyes. I've been having this lovely dream about Joshua, about lying in his arms, in his bed. About surrendering to that sense of being absolutely cared for, allowing myself to depend on it.

I squeeze my eyes tight, but no matter how much I don't want to leave the dream behind, I am awake.

I open my eyes. And smile.

He's not here in bed with me; I can sense it before I turn to see the divot in the pillow where his head rested. But I can hear him. He's whistling from some far-off room, which makes me smile more. The acrid scent of coffee is rich in the air.

This must be what normal feels like.

The sun is shining through the heavy curtains. I glance at the clock on the nightstand; it's almost two in the afternoon.

The bed is like some enormous womb, and I lie there for a while, luxuriating in the soft sheets, the weight of the comforter on my body.

My mind, sleepy and on autopilot, wants to think about
how I might fuck this up. But right now I'm simply too happy to allow myself to go there.

“Valentine, you up, baby? ”

Ah, there he is. So damn sexy in his dark blue pajama bottoms and nothing else. I am crazy about his bare chest. I really am. The muscles there are heavy, thick, his skin a perfect shade of light gold. And I know what it feels like to have my cheek pressed against his heart.

“Hi.”

“Hi, sleepyhead. I thought you were going to sleep all day.”

I'm sorry.

“Don't be.” He moves across the room, sits down on the bed, leans in and kisses me with his coffee-scented mouth. “Mmm, don't move.”

He slips off his pajama bottoms and gets under the covers, his body warm and strong next to mine as he pulls me into his arms. I rest my head on that curve of muscle that runs from the underside of his arm to his shoulder. Lovely. I want him. But I also revel in simply being with him, like this. I could stay here forever.

Tilting my head to look up at him, I touch the scar on his lip, as I often do, and he kisses my fingertip. He is idly running his fingers through my hair, his eyes half lidded, just a glow of green and gold peering out from beneath his thick lashes. “Tell me something, Valentine.”

“What do you mean?”

“Something else about when you were a kid. No … tell me about the beginning of sex for you.”

“You mean when I lost my virginity?”

He's quiet a moment, thinking. “Not necessarily. I mean that time in your life when you first became aware of sex.” He's watching me in that penetrating way he has.

“I haven't really thought about it.”

“Haven't you? That's such a turning point in anyone's life. It seems that way to me, anyway.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

“So tell me.”

I close my eyes, letting my mind drift. How far back? It seems a lifetime ago. Maybe it is.

With my eyes still closed, I remember.

“I was eleven when Billy Carrow moved into our neighborhood. All the girls were in love with him instantly. He was maybe a year older than I was. But so pretty. Not that he looked like a girl, but he had the longest eyelashes I'd ever seen. And dark, hooded eyes. Sleepy. He was a bit exotic to me, because he really was so … beautiful. He exuded sex, even at twelve. And he was bad. He had that aura of danger about him, even at that age. He was always getting into trouble at school. Getting caught shoplifting, stealing from a neighbor's garage, crashing his bike and breaking his arm. I remember watching him step out of his house for the first time and feeling that tingle between my thighs. It was frightening and exciting. I didn't know how to feel about it.

“But I always watched him. In school, around the neighborhood. He used to hang out at this liquor store down the street with some older boys, and I was always hunting for change to buy candy. Not because I wanted candy, but because it gave me an excuse to go to the store. No one stopped me. No one really cared what I did.”

I stop and think about that for a moment, about wandering the neighborhood, not having to report in at home like the other kids did. It was a little scary. And exhilarating. It made me feel grown up.

“I remember purposely putting on my shortest shorts, my
tightest tank tops, to go to the store. Using Vaseline on my lips before I was old enough to buy real lip gloss. And walking into the store, passing Billy and those older boys, that thrill going through me when one of them turned to watch me. I didn't understand until I was a lot older how sexual even that was for me.”

“Did anything ever happen with him?”

I pause, looking at him, but his face is blank, innocent. He gets my silent question right away.

“Valentine. Come on, you were a kid. I just want to know you. I wish I knew you back then. I wish I'd seen you as a young girl.” He reaches out, strokes my cheek, and I go soft and loose all over, as I always do with him. He murmurs, “I bet that Billy kid was in love with you.”

“I don't know about that. But he was the first boy I ever kissed.”

“Oh, this you have to tell me.” He's grinning now.

I roll my eyes, trying not to grin back. But I tell him.

“It was the summer I turned thirteen. Billy had two older brothers, and one of them had a room off the garage. He took me in there. I mean, he just came up to me on the street one day and took my arm and said, ‘Come with me.’ It wasn't a question. I went. I remember the smell of the garage: dry and dusty with a little motor oil mixed in. I remember how warm his hand was on my arm as he led me through the garage and into his brother's dark room. I remember my heart pounding in my chest. I wasn't sure what would happen. But simply being alone with him in the half-dark room seemed forbidden. Exciting. And then he just pulled me to him and kissed me.”

“And…?”

“And I was wet instantly. I didn't know what it meant. It almost hurt. He pushed his tongue right into my mouth and
I was shocked and ridiculously turned on. And he was pressing up against me; I could feel his erection against my thigh. I was squirming. I didn't want him to stop. I don't know what would have happened if his mother's car hadn't pulled into the driveway right then. He pulled away from me and I was just… stupid. I couldn't speak. I could see him smiling at me in the dim light coming in through the curtains. Then he said, ‘Come on, let's get out of here.’