The First Wives Club (22 page)

For a man over fifty, he was in good, even great, shape. His relentless competitiveness had him on the squash court every day, where he almost invariably decimated the competition. He was territorial to such a degree that he felt personally offended when a player moved onto the court to begin the game. He always won. And if the victories were one part skill, one part intimidation, and one part his younger partners’ fear of the repercussions their wins might have, so be it.

Winning and having were what it was about, and Gil smiled at the thought of the Hobson’s choice he presented to his squash opponents.

He felt powerful, and he knew he was powerful. The Cushman offering had flown well, and he was ready now to make an extra hiccup out of it, although he’d wait until October. After his little flirtation with Asa Ewell, he was sure he could use the kid creatively in the future. Bill Atchison, the empty suit, was on line, rubber-stamping whatever he wanted. Gil had needed someone at Cromwell Reed to bend, and Bill bent over backward. The Morty the Madman offering had been a bit dicey, but the name recognition made it a natural. The little people bought it up. And with a Cromwell Reed seal of approval, so did the big boys.

He could well afford to throw a bone to Bill, fool though he was.

Now he impatiently waited for Mary, his wife. He had surprised himself and Mrs. Rodgers, his secretary of more than a decade, by arranging this meeting, since his calendar, as always, was already filled with meticulously scheduled meetings and appointments. That, however, was a perk of power, and he had both Mrs. Rodgers and a personal computer committed to nothing but arranging and rearranging his time. Gil Griffin could do anything he wanted, and he wanted to see Mary now.

Watching her earlier, during the two-thirty meeting, at which she conquered the twits from Smith Barney, his dick had swollen in direct proportion to his pride in her. He also had her working on the Japanese takeover, and while it was difficult and risky, he let her manage it. He had taught her a great deal, and she was an apt pupil.

Plus she was brilliant. An incredible turn-on. He knew he had to have her. Soon. Before the end of the day. Now.

There was an incredible eroticism in working with Mary in their mentor-protegee role. Their work was demanding, and serious. Mary looked the part, dressed conservatively, wore her blond hair in a neat chignon. That was her very allure. As she led the meeting and pointed out both the flaws and merits of each of her team’s comments, she was all business, all power, masculine power. Everyone could see that.

But only Gil could see her naked, only he knew the noise she made, deep in her throat, when he brought her to orgasm. Only he knew how it felt to possess her.

At the stroke of four-thirty, as the Queen Anne grandfather clock that had belonged to the Swann family for generations chimed once, Mary entered. She walked without the slightest girlish hip movement, projecting an almost tangible confidence. Everything about her was direct, the model of brisk efficiency. And yet, in the few seconds it took her to see his expression and close the door behind her, he watched her transform herself from business prodigy to welcoming vessel. The narrowing of her eyes, the slight bending of a knee, a shift in her hips—subtle adjustments, but to him they were clear, unmistakable. Gil watched silently, unmoving, his eyes greaming. She was incredibly intuitive, and it benefited him in business as well as in bed. But of course there was no bed here.

Mary put her attache case down at the end of the mahogany table and walked toward Gil, slipping out of the jacket of her suit as she approached, running her tongue over her already glossy lips. She was broad shouldered with a narrow waist, and now that contrast was emphasized by her plain white silk blouse and dark skirt. She walked to him, and he placed his hands around her waist, his long fingers almost meeting. Without speaking, she began to unbutton her blouse, revealing a pink satin bustier that lifted her small breasts high.

Their smallness was her one imperfection, but now they were presented to him beautifully, plums on a plate.

Yearning, tight to the point of discomfort, Gil absorbed the white glow of her beauty.

She was a porcelain doll whose pink lips, nipples, and sex studded her creamy blondness like forbidden candies. He could never get over the contradictions of her. She was tough as a man, independent, yet she was dominated so completely by him. As always, she knew what he wanted just by looking into his eyes.

She knelt, unzipped him, and swallowed his cock whole, just as Gil’s lust reached the very moment where ache and pleasure meet. He was rough with her, but she liked it that way. They both liked it that way. It was part of the turn-on. And the sight of her there, kneeling on the boardroom floor, her rosebud mouth crammed full of his dick, the sight was as good as the feel of it. And that was another part of the turn-on. The thrill of fucking her in places where the danger of discovery was ever-present, that was the ultimate turn-on. He had put it to her in the backseat of their limo, in other people’s bedrooms during society parties, and on beaches around the world. The first time he had taken her in the bathroom of his corporate jet, initiating her into a sexual relationship with him and the “mile high” club with one thrust.

Whispers and scandal had always surrounded their relationship, and that was a turn-on, too. Gil wanted all men to envy, as well as fear, him.

Mary’s lips had performed their magic. She now rose as he put his hands around her waist again, lifting her up to the boardroom table, hiking her skirt up over her hips. Gil looked at her long legs, encased in black stockings. He had banished her panty hose long ago, and now she wore a black, lacy garter belt.

As he watched, she climbed onto the boardroom table, positioning herself on her hands and knees, turning so that she faced the Swann grandfather clock, her delicious ass pink naked in front of Gil. He stood up. Mary looked over her shoulder, once again licking her lips with her pink tongue. Gil reached out, his hands grabbing the soft mounds of her buttocks as he found his place inside her welcoming flesh. He clutched her tightly, almost viciously. All of Gil’s feelings crystallized here, in the cockpit of control, the boardroom of the most powerful firm on the Street, in the most powerful country on earth. He leaned forward over her back.

”You want it?” His voice was hoarse. It was the first time either of them had spoken.

“Yes, oh, yes.”’ “Right here, on the table? The table we meet at with Jamison, and McMurdo, and the board members?”

Mary groaned. “Yes, Gil, I want it.”’ ”And is it good?”’ ” Yes . ” ”Yes, what?”

“Yes, Gil. It’s very good.” Her knees were slipping against the glossy surface of the tabletop, so he pulled her back onto his cock and pinioned her, clutching her thighs with his strong hands. He rocked into her until she moaned. Then he stopped for a moment and covered her mouth with one hand, gently, yet firmly.

“No noise,” he warned her. With the other hand he picked up the remote control. “Do you know what I’m going to do now?”’ he asked. Mutely she shook her head. ‘I’m going to ring for security, and in three minutes the guards will be in here.”’ Mary moaned again and he pressed into her. She braced herself against her arms to accommodate his brutal thrusts. Not bad for a fifty-year-old man, he thought, his breathing only slightly labored.

”They’ll knock on the door in a minute,” he told her. “They’ll come in and see me fucking you like this.”

She came then, as he knew she would, arching her back to meet Gil’s frantic strokes, squeezing him tightly on the downswing, releasing up, squeezing down again. Gil shuddered and groaned as he came inside her.

Then he pressed the remote to cancel the security call.

Whenever Gil compared his two wives, there was no contest. In every way, Mary always took first prize. Where Cynthia had been repressed (God, in all their years of marriage, she had never once given him head!), Mary was uninhibited.

Whereas Cynthia knew nothing about business, Mary was at the top of the class.

He never felt alone when Mary was with him. And while Cynthia was disgustingly domestic, Mary understood all his needs. She knew how he felt about his Jaguar XKE. She even enjoyed his preoccupation with it.

And you would never hear Mary whine about children. She realized Gil was her baby, and that he was entitled to all her attention.

Mary slipped out from under him and slid off the table, then wordlessly smoothed down her skirt and buttoned up her disheveled blouse. “You are wonderful,” was all she said.

Gil smiled to himself as he watched Mary rearrange her clothes, concealing herself from all the others. He felt a moment of jealous rage at any other man who might ever have possessed her. He wanted to be her one and only, now and forever. It was adolescent, even primal, he knew, but it was undeniable. It amazed him how strongly the feeling came, he had not felt this way in years, not since the early days with Cynthia. But he had actually felt that once for Cynthia, he remembered with a chill. Back in the days when he respected her, when he feared and respected her family, the Swanns and the Witters. But the feeling had passed, dead so long ago. Would this feeling for Mary pass, too?

Seeing the shadow cross his face, Mary ran her fingers lightly over Gil’s temples and gave him the smile of adoration that she reserved exclusively for him. Gil felt both the fear and anger subside.

Now Mary was before him, dressed. It was hard to believe this woman, the one he had just taken on the table, was going to help him with the biggest coup of his career. Together they would find the perfect Japanese company for takeover. And it wouldn’t be just the money he would make. It would be knowing, and having all of Wall Street know, that he, Gil Griffin, had turned the tables on the little yellow bastards who had begun to poach on his territory. How he despised other races. It was his natural, rightful heritage to rule, and it offended him, even shocked him, to see blacks or Hispanics or Asians in uperior positions. On-worse yet—involved with white women. He knew, in this respect, he was like many men of his class.

All the wrongs would be righted by this deal. “How about Mitsui Shipping?” he asked Mary. She smiled.

”Well, we’ve planted the …” She paused, searching for le mot juste.

‘Disinformation,” she finished.

“Well, that should cause some surprises.” Gil smiled slyly. There were leaks even in his carefully controlled organization. And Gil hated leaks. It enabled others to ride his wave, the wave he worked so hard to create. But no one else would ride this wave. And maybe then he’d even plug the leak, though now it would be useful. The market had to be played like a great actor plays an audience. It had to be manipulated with all available tools, by leaking informatin, truth or lies, and controlling rumors. Or even starting them.

“And what’s our real target?”’ he asked.

“Too soon to tell, but Dotsoi or Maibeibi look good.”’ Gil pursed his lips. It was possible. And if it was, no one would do their homework and finetooth-comb the numbers as Mary would. But now Mary frowned.

“Gil, you’ve got to do something about Stuart Swann. I can’t stand having him around. He gives me the creeps when I catch the way he looks at me sometimes.”

Gil nodded. “Don’t worry about Stuart. I’ll take care of him.”

Then Mary took something from her attache case. “And Gil, I got another envelope.”

Gil sighed and held out his hand. These anonymous notes were nothing.

Successful, wealthy, good-looking people were always targets. He had explained that to Mary. Her one character flaw was her concern with her pubic image, with what people thought. She’d ridden the scandal of their corporate romance to national prominence, but since then she seemed disconcerted by the bad press that followed their marriage. Gil felt she should rise above that kind of concern. Instead, she’d stopped giving speeches at professional women’s organizations and was concentrating more on social networking.

She handed him the interoffice mail envelope. Gil opened it and pulled out a clipping from People or one of those rags. It featured a somber picture of Elise Atchison, Bill’s soon-to-be-ex-wife. Bill seemed completely besotted with the Van Gelder girl. Ridiculous, really. The man was obsessed. Gil would never let himself feel that for any woman, even Mary. He looked down at the page. The caption below Elise’s photo read, The elusive Elise Elliot leaving a friend’s funeral.

Scrawled across it were the words, Ask your husband whose funeral it was. Ask him why the friend is dead.

Gil looked directly into Mary’s blue eyes. She’s waiting for my reaction, he thought. But there was none. Gil felt neither guilt nor remorse over Cynthia, and certainly he felt no responsibility for her suicide. That was her choice.

The choice of a jellyfish. Contemptible. It came as no surprise to Gil, who knew all of her weaknesses intimately. She had always been the first to give in, often without even a struggle.

“We’ve been through it all before, Mary.”

“I know. But it makes me so uncomfortable … someone in the firm sending this stuff.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. It’s nonsense. Go on, we have a lot more important things to do. But if you’ll feel better, I’ll have security look into it.”

Looking back at the photo of Elise again, he hoped, for Bill’s sake, that she would show more character in the face of adversity than Cynthia had. He put his arm around Mary’s shoulders, and together they walked out of the boardroom to their next appointments.

At their backs, the Swann clock chimed the hour.

Some Suit!

Brenda wandered through the decorated rooms of furniture in Bloomingdale’s, trying to keep her mind off food and the meeting this afternoon with Morty and his lawyer. She used to shop till she dropped, distracting herself from the emptiness of her marriage, but she couldn’t afford that anymore. And she’d already bought something today, a sweater for Angie, which would give her a good excuse to drop by and see her daughter, who was about to return to school after her internship. Now, she could only look. And pretend.