Edge Play X (19 page)

“Coffee,” X
said, “with cream and sugar.”

“Decaf,”
Compton
said.

So deeply had
X rested that she was unsure if
Compton
had slept at all.

The
attendant served the coffee in delicate china cups set on small flowered
saucers. The containers for the cream and sugar bore the same intricate pattern
as the cups. Next, she brought them real silver flatware and linen napkins
which were placed gently onto the table along with small plates of fresh fruit
for each of them.

X added the
cream and sugar to her coffee and took a drink.
Compton
did the same.

“It’s
good,” X said.

“Sumatran,”
he informed her. “Did you sleep well?” he asked.

X shook her
head yes.
 

“Was your
seat comfortable? Each seat is custom made.”

“Yes,” X
returned, “it was fine.”

“Good.”

It felt
strange to be making small talk with
Compton
so early in the
morning, the sleep barely gone from her eyes. She had never interacted with him
in this way. It almost made it seem that he was a regular person. Except that
he wasn’t. And she wasn’t.

“What about
you?” she asked. “Did you sleep?”

The
attendant brought the food to them and X put the napkin on her lap. She began
to eat a sliced strawberry.

“No,” he
said, “too many pressing issues to take care of. But after we’re up in the air
again, I’ll rest in the back. There is a small room behind the galley that has
a sofa that can be made into a bed.”

Compton
didn’t look tired—there was only the faintest
deepening of purple below his eyes to communicate his fatigue.

X bit into
her toast and
Compton
broke off a piece of
his croissant and popped it into his mouth.

“Have you
ever been on a private plane?” he asked.

X took
another drink of coffee. She was starting to wake up. His question made her
feel very small and inexperienced.

“No.”

“What do
you think of it?”

X surveyed
the cabin. The attendants were in the galley and she could hear the drawers
opening and closing, the clinking of glasses being taken out or put away. The
constant shroud of white noise of the plane, quieter now that they had landed
but still present, continued in the background. Soon, X guessed, the attendant
that had been with them on the first stretch of the flight would leave and be
replaced with the fresh one.

“Flying is
flying,” she said. “I don’t like to fly.”
 

X dug into
her eggs which were starting to get cold.

“But not
all planes are the same,” he countered.

“True,” X said.
“Your plane is opulent. It’s lavish. Clearly it’s incredibly expensive. I
wouldn’t have expected anything different from you.”

Compton
ran his fingers over the stitching on the arm of
the white leather chair.

“Each of these
chairs cost over $20,000 dollars,” he said. “There are seven stitches per inch,
meticulous detail. The wood,” he continued, “is a veneer on top of a honeycomb
composite because the weight is an issue. Likewise, what appears to be marble
in the bathroom and kitchen is an artistic rendering. Some reproductions are
incredibly convincing.”

“You should
have dipped the whole thing in gold,” X said as she finished her meal.

Compton
laughed, and X got a sense that he was enjoying
her lack of awe for his plane. The truth was that she was amazed by his plane
even though she found it a garish, bloated display of wealth.

X pointed
to the gold trim. “Did you know that every ounce of gold requires that roughly
250 tons of rock and ore are excavated?”

There was a
gleam in his eyes now, a look of real enjoyment as if her comments awoke a part
of him and energized it. She wondered if anyone else ever spoke to him this
way, questioned his wealth, the smug complacency of it. It probably made his
little penis hard in his pants.

The
attendant came over and poured more coffee into X’s cup.
Compton
was finishing his
croissant.

“Have you
been to
Europe
before?”

“No,” X
answered, small again. “I’ve traveled mainly through
Asia
and
India
with my mother. She
did humanitarian work there.”

“From what
I understand, your mother had been a popular model in
Paris
.”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad
that you agreed to come with me,” he said. “There is so much that I want to
show you.”

She started
to wonder about how
Compton
viewed her, about how
she appeared through his eyes. Clearly, X was something more than just a
dominatrix to him. She wondered if maybe he thought he could win her with his
charms. Maybe he just liked the challenge of it.

Up near the
front of the plane, X saw Steinberg stand up. He made his way down the aisle
past them and into the bathroom, avoiding any eye contact. In contrast to
Compton
, Steinberg looked
tired, absolutely spent. His thinning hair was wild and disheveled.
 

X watched
as the original attendant left the plane and fresh pilots entered. The new
attendant came over and removed their dishes and took them into the galley.
Compton
finished off his
coffee, blotting off the corner of his mouth with his napkin.

Once the
plane finished refueling, it started shuttling them over to the area where they
would take off.

Compton
reached down and buckled himself in and X did the
same.

“The lift
off,” he began, “is my favorite part. The sheer amount of energy that is
necessary to get such a large vehicle off the ground is incredible.”

The plane
was gaining speed and finally, it lifted up and started its climb.

X closed
her eyes and started to think of the calm image of the ocean. The ocean was a
calm image as long as you weren’t drowning in it.

When it
seemed that they were finished with the climb, she opened her eyes. The plane
was passing through a cloud and the mist of it was right outside her window,
simultaneously wispy and thick.

“Why don’t
you like flying?”
Compton
asked.

X, unsure
if she wanted to tell him, finally divulged the reason.

“It’s the
idea of a sudden, instantaneous death,” she answered.

“Ha! That
would be the best way to go.”

Immediately,
the image of a woman with a nail through the base of her skull passed through
her mind. X stared deeply into
Compton
, still unsure if he
was capable of such a thing. And when
Compton
looked at X he seemed
to be measuring her as well, trying to decipher the woman somehow.

They hit a
bump of turbulence and X grabbed onto her seat.
Compton
smiled as if he
enjoyed watching her anxiety. Behind them, the flight attendant buckled herself
into a small seat by the galley.

“I haven’t
told you yet today,”
Compton
said, almost
whispering, “
how
beautiful you look.”

X had worn
just a pair of jeans and a simple sweater for the journey, having had no intention
of dressing up for
Compton
unless she had to.

“You are
patronizing me,” X replied.

“Not at
all,” he said, seeming bruised from her comment. “You’re a natural beauty.”

X was
initially unsure how to respond.

“I’m sure that
there are many women more beautiful than I am who would jump at the chance for
your company.”

Compton
fingered the gold trim that ran around the table.

“X, there
is no one like you. No one.” He was looking out the window dreamily. “You are
irreproducible. A work of art.”

“Stop it,”
she commanded.

“Why?”

“Your
flattery is pathetic.”

Compton
rubbed his lips together.

“Is it?”

“Yes. I
don’t like it.”

Compton
was looking out the window again.

“I’m sorry
that it is not to your liking,” he said.

“Look at me,”
X said and he obeyed.

“You like
it when I insult you, don’t you?”

Compton
paused and then answered, “Yes,” the word coming
out in a little whisper. X wondered how a man so able to do multi-million
dollar business deals without a flinch could enjoy a woman like her,
a nobody
, insulting him.

“Why?” X
asked.

“I don’t
know why.”

“It’s
because you think you are better than everybody.”

“You think
that’s why?” he asked, seeming to be genuinely curious for what X thought.

She was
running her fingertips over the burled wood of the table and she gave him her
assessment.

“You are so
used to being respected for nothing other than the fact that you are a rich man
that you are surprised when you are insulted, aren’t you? It reminds you that
you are a regular human being.”

“Yes.”

“You want
someone to be brutally honest with you, don’t you? It touches something inside
of you. Personal truth has become so rare to you that it’s now a valuable
commodity.”

Compton
was listening to her every word as if hypnotized
as she leaned across the table.

“All of
that money that you have, and still, you are nothing more than a man. I want
you to know something,” X continued, “I insult you because I detest you, not
because you like it.” X sat back onto her seat. “There is a strange symbiosis
in it. We each get satisfaction from it.”

That was
the moment X first thought she noticed true adoration in his eyes.
 

“Go to
bed,” she said. “You are starting to look tired.”

He stood, gazed
at X a few more moments, and then was off to the back to take his rest.

3.

Compton
got up several hours later, stopping in the
bathroom first and then returning to the front of the plane after acknowledging
X with a gentle smile. They arrived in
Paris
in the late afternoon,
and shortly after landing, Steinberg accompanied X to a private car and told
her that
Compton
would join her shortly
after he finished a brief business meeting.

After they
arrived at their hotel on
Faubourg
Saint-Honoré, she
and Steinberg exited the car when it stopped in front of the building, the two
doormen opening the glass doors for them as a bellboy scurried behind the car
to retrieve their bags which he placed on a tall rolling cart. Once inside, the
concierge met the pair at the reception desk, giving them their room keys and
then leading them to the elevator, inconspicuous and nearly hidden by its
ornate wooden housing.

X followed
Steinberg to the penthouse suite, and as they entered, Steinberg let her know
that she could choose either of the two downstairs bedrooms. The suite could
actually be made into four bedrooms, if necessary, he continued, but that
Compton
had decided to leave
the upstairs level open for business meetings.
 

The bellboy
put down her bags and Steinberg gave him a tip before the young man left.
 

“Mr.
Compton will be with you within the hour,” Steinberg said. “A meal will be
brought up after he arrives. Tomorrow, while Mr. Compton is in meetings, a
woman will take you to the boutiques and then later, you will go on a private
tour of
Versailles
. The day after, you
will be visiting the
Louvre
in the morning and then
go to a party that evening.”

Steinberg
reached into his jacket pocket and handed X a business envelope full of cash.

“That
should cover your incidental expenses. If you need any more, let me know.
 
On your shopping trip tomorrow, Mr. Compton
will be paying for everything, and he has requested that you buy whatever
clothing you like. If you would like room service, or to go to the hotel spa,
feel free to do so. But if you need to leave the hotel for any reason, call the
number on the envelope I gave you so that we can arrange for a bodyguard.”

“A
bodyguard?”

“Yes,” he
began, “there have been occasional threats on Mr. Compton’s life, and a close
personal friend of Mr. Compton’s could potentially be kidnapped in order to
secure ransom funds. You aren’t in imminent danger,” he said, trying to quell
her worries, “it is only a precaution.”