Naughty (7 page)

“You’re divorced, but I’m still married, and can’t take the chance of my husband finding out about my involvement in any type of scandal.”

“Trust me; the Black Door is above reproach. Meri told me that some of New York’s wealthiest women are members, and she should know, since she’s a seven-figure diva.”

“Mmm, I’ve known Meri for years, and wonder why she has never mentioned the Black Door to me?” Beth said.

“She probably didn’t think you needed its services, since you have a man at home, while on the other hand, my bed has been empty for months.”

“I may be married, but having a man at home is an understatement. Now that Doug has his own practice, he’s been working at the firm around the clock. I hardly ever see him. Don’t get me wrong, I love my husband . . . but a woman has needs.”

Naomi nodded her head in agreement, even though the callers couldn’t see her.

“Beth, I totally understand. What’s ironic is that most men think that a woman will just sit around and wait until they have time to sex us up.”

“Those days of waiting patiently are long over. Besides, it’s not like I’d be having an ongoing affair, it’s just a club; and I decide when, with who, and for how long.”

“You’re right; it’s like going to the gym, except the muscles you’re working out aren’t visible to the naked eye.”

They both laughed, and then Beth asked, “Okay, I’m in. How does the initial process go?”

“As far as I know, you have to be referred by a member. So let me call the club and give them your name and number, and someone from the Black Door will contact you,” Rhoda told her.

“Okay, just be sure to give them my cell number. I don’t want some stranger calling the house in case Doug happens to be home.”

“No problem. Oh, goody! I’m so happy you’re going to join. Now we can really let our hair down!”

Naomi was anything but happy. She had gotten excited hearing about the Black Door, but unfortunately Rhoda—the woman who was a member—didn’t divulge any pertinent information, such as an address or telephone number. The only thing Naomi knew was that a club existed that took care of a woman’s needs.

The women had changed the subject, and were now talking about finding a good hairstylist. Naomi already had the bomb stylist, and wasn’t interested in hearing any more of their conversation.

She clicked the phone off and began frantically thumbing
through the Yellow Pages. When she got to the B’s, she ran her finger down the pages, looking for a listing for the Black Door, but found nothing.
I should have known it wouldn’t be listed. I bet I’ll find it on the Internet.
She typed “The Black Door” in Google’s search box, and hit enter. Naomi read every listing, but nothing resembled the club. She then thought back and remembered that the woman had said membership was by referral only. The owner was clever enough to keep the club off the radar of the general public. Though Naomi didn’t find what she was looking for, she admired the fact that the Black Door wasn’t pedestrian, which really piqued her interest.

I wish I knew this Meri person, or someone who was a member.
Now that she was aware of the club, she wanted to know more. If her husband was indeed having an affair, it would give her justification for the possibility of also having a lover on the side. Naomi had never thought about cheating before, and didn’t know if she could actually carry out the deed, but one thing she knew for sure, and that was, she was tired of putting Jacob’s desires before her own. Naomi had given in to Jacob and agreed to move to the suburbs, but she hadn’t agreed to being neglected. Had she known that Jacob would be spending most of his time at the office, she would have started her interior design career years ago. At least then she would have something else to occupy her time with instead of just being a housewife and mother. She loved taking care of her son, but wanted more out of life than keeping a nice home, and waiting for her husband to pay her some attention. If she couldn’t get the attention she needed at home, then maybe she would seek it out elsewhere.

TODAY WAS
Noah’s fifth birthday and Naomi was trying to break the bank. There were no ordinary helium balloons with streamers strung to the mailbox. Oh, no, there was nothing ordinary about this party. No puppet show, no petting zoo, no storytelling, and no magicians. Instead of the run-of-the-mill kiddy party with face painting and clumsy clowns, Naomi had chosen an
Into the Woods
theme. She had taken Noah to see the play and he fell in love with the characters. The Broadway musical by Stephen Sondheim was set in a mystical forest, combining various fairy tales. There were two twenty-foot-tall weeping willow prop trees on either side of the doorway, with drooping branches framing the entrance of the house. The overall effect simulated entering an enchanted forest.

Jacob unlocked the door and the moment he stepped inside of the foyer, he was instantly transported to the Broadway stage. It was as if a Tony award-winning set designer had come in and transformed the entire living room. The sofa, cocktail table, and two Maurice Villency chairs that usually sat in the center of the
room were pushed against the far wall. In the space where the furniture once stood were two huge, adjoining, eight-foot-tall storyboards with a fairy-tale village of cobblestones and gingerbread cottages painted on the front. Covering the floor in place of their Moroccan area rug was emerald green indoor/outdoor carpeting. In addition to the play’s theme, there were also Zorro masks decorating the walls, in honor of Noah’s hero du jour.

Naomi had hired student actors from a local theater company to act out certain scenes from the play. Four actresses costumed as Cinderella, her stepmother, and wicked stepsisters, Florinda and Lucinda, whisked past Jacob as he entered the living room, followed by a masked actor, no doubt Zorro himself.

“Daddy, Daddy,” Noah cried, running through one of the miniature doorways of the fake village, “goody, goody, you’re home.”

“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Noah, happy birthday to you,” Jacob sang, reaching down and swooping his son high in the air.

“Daddy, Daddy, put me down.” He struggled. “You’re going to wrinkle my costume.” Noah was dressed as Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk, in brown tweed knickers, white knee socks, an emerald green vest, a white cotton shirt with billowy sleeves and an oversized collar and cuffs. Clenched in his right hand was a toy cow.

“What’s that, Buddy?” Jacob asked, referring to the tiny animal.

Noah looked at him as if he had just asked the world’s dumbest question. “Daddy, this is Milky White, Jack’s best friend. Now let me down. Let me down.”

The moment Jacob released him, Noah ran back through the miniature door. And from the sound of several petite voices beyond the village facade, Jacob assumed that’s where the rest of the children were playing.

“Jacob, I’m so glad you’re home. These kids are driving me crazy,” Naomi complained, appearing from behind the facade.

“Wow, look at you!” he said, commenting on his wife’s costume. She was dressed as the witch, the role played by the beautiful Vanessa Williams. In the first half of the play, Vanessa donned an ugly Wicked Witch of the West–type mask, with warts and all. But at the end of Act I, after losing her powers, she was transformed back into a stunning beauty dressed in a sexy, form-fitting, bloodred evening gown.

“You like it?” She spun around so he could get the full effect. The crimson gown plunged low in the front, just enough to give a glimpse of cleavage without revealing too much. The silky fabric hugged her hips and fishtailed out in the back. Her long brown hair was parted on the side and covered one eye like Jessica Rabbit, the sexy character from the movie
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
.

Jacob walked over and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “You look great, hon!”

“Now we have to get you into costume,” she said, taking his hand and leading him toward the staircase.

“Me in costume?” Jacob stopped midstride. He had no intention of wearing a silly costume. “What are you talking about?”

Naomi tugged at his hand. “Come on, Jacob. You’re going to be the Narrator. I already have the outfit laid out on the bed.”

When they reached the bedroom, there, in the center of the bed, was a gray flannel, three-piece suit, a white French-cuffed shirt, horn-rimmed spectacles, and three leather-bound, oversized storybooks. He breathed in a sigh of relief, glad that he didn’t have to dress as some grotesque ogre with a hunchback and an exaggerated limp.

“What happened to Tinky Winky and the gang?” he asked, referring to the original party theme.

“Noah has outgrown the Teletubbies,” Naomi said, picking up one of the volumes. “Now, Jacob, as the Narrator, all you have to do is read a fairy tale from each book.” She handed him the
scarlet, leather-bound book. “This one is ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ The other two are ‘Rapunzel’ and ‘Rumpelstiltskin.’ ”

Most people didn’t realize that the German-born Grimm brothers wrote not of dreamy idyllic fairy tales, but of the often cruel and poverty-stricken life of Europe in the early 1800s. Over the centuries, their crude tales were softened into children-friendly stories. “I think I can manage that,” Jacob said, and began to change into his costume.

“Don’t be long. The natives are getting restless. After Zorro performs a few sword tricks, they’ll be ready for a story.” Naomi turned to leave, but stopped. “So”—she ran her hand up and down her midsection—“you like the dress?” she asked suggestively.

“Yeah, it really looks great on you.”

“I bet it’ll even look better on the floor, once I take it off tonight.” Naomi had purposely chosen the sexy costume to make her husband drool with desire.

Jacob cast his eyes to the costume on the bed. He had forgotten about his earlier promise to make love to his wife, but obviously she hadn’t. “Yep, I bet so,” he said lamely.

“Once the parents pick up their kids, and I put Noah to bed,
we are
going to bed, and I don’t mean to sleep.” Naomi walked over to her husband, grabbed him around the neck, and gave him a juicy kiss. “Don’t disappoint me tonight, Jacob. We’re long overdue, and I’m horny as hell.”

“I promise, honey, tonight is our night.” He unwrapped her arms from around his neck and said, “Now go on downstairs, before Noah starts looking for you.”

As soon as she left, Jacob began taking off his clothes and dressing the part of the Narrator. He looked at the books and wished that he could read every single last page in order to prolong putting off the dreaded lovemaking.

He was buttoning the last button on the vest when his cell
phone rang. He walked over to the dresser and picked it up. “Jacob Reed speaking.”

“Jacob, I’m so glad I caught you. I just called your office and Charlotte said you had left for the day.”

“Hello, Mira.” He looked at his watch. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the meeting with the board?”

“Exactly!” she shouted in a muffled hush, as if trying not to be overheard.

By the tone of her voice, he detected something was amiss. “Mira, what’s going on? Why aren’t you in the meeting?”

“Because I’m in the lobby waiting for your ‘more than qualified’ associate,” Mira spat out, quoting his description of Nina.

“Calm down, Mira. She’s only a few minutes late. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. She’s probably lost, or in a traffic jam,” he suggested.

Mira exhaled loudly. “Jacob, you know I despise tardiness.” She then continued. “I should have insisted that you come, instead of some lame-brained associate who can’t even find her way around London.”

Mira Rhone was the epitome of the unyielding client who demanded nothing but absolute perfection. She expected everyone to perform like androids. And heaven forbid if someone should slip up and reveal a human trait like an honest mistake. “Mira, go on up to the meeting and I’ll locate Nina. I’m sure—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Mira interrupted, “Don’t bother. She’s here.” Click.

“What? No good-bye,” he mused to himself. “I’m sure Mira will give me an earful on the virtues of time management at our next meeting.” Though Mira was a tyrant, he still found her sexy and imagined how she would look wearing Naomi’s dress. The thought of Mira in that ruby red gown clinging to her every curve was making his dick hard.
Calm down, boy. You’ll have her soon enough.

He clicked the phone shut and put it back on the dresser, then continued with his transition into the Narrator. Jacob put on the blazer and smoothed the fabric with the palm of his hand. He put the glasses on and adjusted them on the tip of his nose. As he tucked the books underneath his arm and headed toward the doorway, the phone rang again. He assumed it was Mira calling back and smiled. He crossed the room, cleared his throat, and dropped his voice another register in an attempt to sound sexy. “Jacob Reed speaking; how may I help you?”

“J . . .”

All he heard were the sounds of someone sniffling. “Hello? Who is this?” he asked, changing back into his regular voice.

“J . . . it’s . . . it’s . . . me.”

“Tyler, is that you?” He was immediately alarmed. Jacob had never heard his sister sound so despondent. “What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

“Everything’s wrong . . . I don’t . . . know what . . . I’m going to do,” Tyler said in between sobs.

“Calm down, Tyler, and tell me what happened.”

Tyler was eight years his junior and his only sibling. They had grown up in a tight-knit family in Queens. Their parents were in their mid-forties when Tyler was born; his mother would often say that Tyler was a change-of-life baby. Working eight hours a day as a file clerk and maintaining a household, their mother had little energy to spare for a toddler, and their father usually worked overtime as a train operator, and also had a part-time job on the weekend, so Jacob took Tyler under his wing. She went with him everywhere, to football practice, to Yankee games with him and his buddies, and even on dates to the drive-in. In some ways, she was the little brother he never had. Jacob wasn’t too surprised when, at the age of twelve, Tyler told him she liked girls and had a crush on his girlfriend. Jacob told her the attraction was just a phase and that she would outgrow it, but she never did.