Entry-Level Mistress

chapter 12



“I don’t know what I’m doing.” I flopped back on the futon in the living room, reaching my hand out to trail my fingers along the wooden coffee table.

As the electric whirl of the blender filled the room, I shifted, sprawling onto my stomach and resting my cheek against the rough canvas.

Finally Leanna came out of the kitchen, holding two full glasses of blended fruit and rum.

“I’m going to posit something a bit controversial here,” she said, placing one glass down on the coffee table before me.

“I’m not sure I want to hear controversial.”

Leanna continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Maybe he’s not as bad as you’ve thought your whole life.”

I groaned into the cushion of the sofa, and then with a deep sigh, sat up and rearranged myself cross-legged. I watched Leanna fold herself up into the papasan chair kitty-corner from me.

“If I didn’t know what I know about him, I would be head-over-heels swept away. Of course, if I didn’t know what I know I also wouldn’t have gone to work for him. Or if I had gone to work for him, my job would have mattered more. And seriously, would he have even looked twice at me, so different from all his models, if I hadn’t been exactly who I am?”

“Slow down, meta girl.”

I sighed again, reached for my glass. Took a drink.

“Emily, listen, in the last four weeks, I’ve heard you gush about him and then feel guilty, and then gush, and then feel guilty. Now he’s asked you to choose him over work. There is something intensely romantic about that.”

“Except I’m the one supposed to make the sacrifice,” I pointed out. “That is far from feminist, I think.”

“Everyone makes sacrifices in relationships.”

“That’s the problem, Leanna! It’s not a relationship. It’s a game!”

“I think you need to get rid of the guilt, Em, and maybe stop playing the game.”

My gaze flew to her.

“Stop?” I blinked. “But he’s playing too.”

“Are you sure?”

I pulled a pillow into my lap, took a sip of my drink. There was only the slightest tang of rum rounding out the sweeter flavors of banana and strawberry. I took another sip.

Thought of the way he trusted me with information, thought of my clothes tucked neatly in their drawer in his apartment. Thought of how he’d told me that what was between us wasn’t safe.

“No, I’m not sure of anything.”

“Well, at the very least, go with him this weekend. Enjoy yourself. Don’t fight it. Let yourself be in love. When it’s over, you’ll have a better idea of how you really feel.”

There was something incredibly beguiling about Leanna’s advice. For one moment, I let myself imagine being in love with Daniel. And then I thought about the consequences.

I pulled my knees to my chest, around the pillow, holding on, the glass sweating in my hand. I didn’t look at Leanna. I pulled words out from the deepest, darkest place inside of me.

“I’m scared, Lee. I’m really freakin’ scared.”


• • •



The fear was gone the next morning, replaced by a surreal sense of otherness. I was living a life of high drama and nothing in the outside world mattered or compared. This was a movie, some other girl’s life. Sitting in a private jet, or going for a weekend away in the Hamptons with a handsome billionaire. A billionaire who was paying more attention to a stack of papers than he was to me. This was what it would have been like to be a mistress. Only, rather than being the mistress/muse to another artist, I was lover to a businessman or to, like, Napoleon or something.

But I wasn’t living in the Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec, Zola or Colette, where courtesans and courtesan culture was celebrated. Well, I wasn’t living in France, period. Instead, I was a girl who’d been raised on feminism, riot grrls, third-wave feminism, independence and equality. Drinking a mimosa, flipping through a copy of Vogue while my paramour—Lover? Boyfriend?—made million dollar deals as if that were chump change, did not fit in that life.

But Leanna had suggested I give myself up to it, embrace everything, at least for this weekend. And wasn’t that what feminism really was about? About having the choice to do what one wanted? Even if it meant choosing an outdated historical paradigm for one’s life?

All of this was ridiculous anyway because this wasn’t a permanent situation. One weekend. That was all I had agreed to.

A sudden heat seemed to fill the climate-controlled cabin. I looked up, found Daniel watching me. With that look. That subtle look that, now that I knew him better, wasn’t so subtle. I was suddenly uncomfortably aware that the flight attendant was in the galley at the back of the small cabin.

Daniel reached across the aisle, rested his hand on my bare knee.

“I’m so glad you came.” In that moment, with his voice gravelly and aroused and with him looking at me as if I were the most amazing, important thing in the world, and his hand—his hand simply on my skin—every sensation was heightened. This moment, now, not the future or the guilt, the past or the worry about tomorrow, only this moment mattered.

I laid my hand over his, caressed the edges of his fingers, enjoyed the feel of his well-manicured nails against my own sensitive skin. So what if the flight attendant was in the back? I lifted his hand to my mouth, turning it as I did, and kissed the place where his wrist met his hand. I had the pleasure of watching his eyes darken, the intensity of his gaze deepen. That made me shiver, gave me another sort of pleasure. I licked the place where I had kissed. Moved my lips to another small area of skin. Licked.

Kissed.

Licked.

Stroked the skin with my fingers, massaged the muscles of his palms.

Kissed.

Licked.

Daniel groaned. And I heard it. Smiled against his hand. I’d make a good mistress. I could focus on pleasure.


• • •



The minute we stepped off the plane, the mixture of sun and wind brought a smile to my face. Daniel took my hand, even as he greeted the driver who met us. I loved the feel of his fingers wrapped around mine and, with that connection, was content to follow.

A simple black sedan waited for us. I slid into the back seat. Daniel came around the other side, reached for my hand again. Pleasure curled up within me, spread out in warm spirals. Each breath I took felt deeper, fuller—freer. I looked around at everything as we drove on the country roads. Tall hedges lined either side and I knew that behind those green walls were fairy-tale estates.

We drove through one of the small villages, past the main street of stores, and then into another residential neighborhood. There were only brief glimpses of the water that surrounded the land. Seeing the names of all the villages and hamlets brought back memories of my childhood. Summers with my father and his rotating cast of girlfriends, the other children at the country club. I’d been just like every other budding socialite, from tennis to horseback riding. I had even competed and placed in the Hamptons Classic when I was ten.

Finally the car turned into one of the breaks between hedges, down a long drive and through an open wrought-iron gate. The house rambled, looked like a farmhouse plucked up out of the country and stuck on the seashore. Only, it was some wealthy person’s idea of a farmhouse, like Marie Antoinette at Petit Trianon.

“My mother chose it,” he said, as we walked through the rooms. The mention of Lucille Hartmann grabbed my attention. He never spoke of his parents. We had that agreement, as if the past could ruin everything about the present. Only the past was why we were here now. “Not exactly to my taste but … ”

But he’d kept it just to be close to his mother. I could read between the lines. I wished sometimes we could simply talk about it all. I had the sense now that, whether or not Daniel knew the truth of the matter, he believed his father had been wronged. He wasn’t some evil man out to get everyone. From what he’d told me about his father, and what I knew of his mother, they’d both pretty much abandoned him at the end.

In fact, I probably knew more about his mother’s last year than he did.

“You know that I stayed with them,” I said softly, hating that he tensed at my words. “Your mother—”

“Let’s not, Emily.”

Let’s not talk about the way I’d watch Lucille throw fits about nothing and disappear behind closed doors for days. The way my dad would stare at that closed door with clenched fists, and I would hide before he knew that I had seen it all. And why should we talk about the overheard whispers of friends’ parents and the way none of my friends had ever come to play at my house anymore? That unexplained shame had dulled and been forgotten under the much brighter embarrassment of my dad’s imprisonment.

For a moment I walked next to Daniel in silence, taking in the huge rooms with their bizarre decorations. They were named as well, like the Africa room, which was supposedly decorated like a farmhouse in Uganda. But the tension between Daniel and me was so thick, the topic so not talked about, that it was driving me crazy. He’d trusted me with intimate details of his business, of his hopes and dreams for his future. Why not trust me with this?

Except for the reason above all other reasons. I was an Anderson.

And the next reason down the list, this thing between us would inevitably end. Why share more than a bed?

“It’s beautiful here,” I said finally, drawing on that sliver of acting experience, trying to turn the atmosphere back to the arena in which we were comfortable. “Thank you for bringing me.”

We stopped our meanderings on the white-washed deck just beyond the living room. With the sound of the waves licking up onto the beach, and the feel of the balmy wind rushing through the trees, he turned to me. I watched that devastating mouth curve up into a wry smile. He knew exactly what I was doing. Of course, he was complicit in it.

“We have dinner reservations at eight. I have a few calls to make before then, but if you need anything, you’ve met the housekeeper.”

I nodded.

“Emily, I apologize for yesterday. It wasn’t really fair to throw all that on you. To ask you to give up your position … ”

“It’s all right. We both understand,” I said quickly. “It wasn’t ever meant to be permanent.” None of this was meant to be permanent.

He smiled more freely, as if the tension of a few minutes before were gone.

“From what Lance tells me, you could have had a great career in marketing.”

At that, I rolled my eyes, laughing. My laughter stopped abruptly when he slipped a slim, long case out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket. I sucked in my breath at the implication of the blue velvet box.

“I wanted to give you this.”

As he handed it to me, heat washed over my body. My hands shook as I tried to open it. Then it opened with a sudden crack, the clamshell parting to reveal a bracelet that sparkled brilliantly in the late afternoon light. I wasn’t an expert but I was guessing topaz, yet the stones looked much lighter than what I thought topaz was.

“They’re yellow sapphires. I was imagining them on you when your hair is back to its natural state.”

I laughed, but at the same time, I felt too hot, my cheeks burning. I didn’t know what to say, how to accept the gift.

“Here.” He slipped it from the box and, mesmerized, I watched the stones dangle from his fingers. He laid the bracelet across my outstretched wrist, and I was surprised by its weight. The warmth of his fingers tempered the coolness of the gold as he worked on fastening the clasp. Then it was closed; my wrist was my own again, only, sapphires encircled it. Yellow sapphires.

I realized, bemusedly, that this too, receiving the gift of wildly expensive jewelry while on a decadent weekend away, was the sign of a mistress.


• • •



The master bedroom had two full separate bathrooms, and while both Daniel and I were getting ready, I developed an intense appreciation for the layout. I heard him across the room, the sound of his electric razor, the running of water and the sliding of clothes from the closet. It felt elegant and homey all at once. Playing house on a scale far larger than his Charles Street place.

As I dressed, I kept looking at my wrist, at the sapphires that sparkled with every movement of my arm. I even stopped, after pinning up my hair, with my hands resting on the back of my head, because I liked the line of how I looked, clad in all black undergarments with the startling yellow at my wrist. It could almost be a set-up for a fashion photograph. I imagined the framing, the color de-saturated everywhere but the yellow of the sapphires, which would be exaggerated.

“Definitely a sight worth admiring.” I heard Daniel’s voice, but still the image of him right behind me in the mirror startled me, and I dropped my hands with a yelp. I flushed with embarrassment, but as I started to turn, he stopped me. He was fully dressed now, handsome and perfect as usual, and the fabric of his suit pressed against my body, touching all the naked expanses of flesh. His hand splayed out across my stomach.

I studied our image in the mirror just as he did.

“Maybe dinner should wait,” he suggested, his voice in that deep tone that every inch of me recognized. Heat gathered between my legs, making me feel fuller, making me want him. He slid his hand down, over the skimpy fabric of the garter belt. I watched as he lifted the lacy edge of my panties with his index finger. I let out a little moan, as his fingers swept over sensitive skin in their search for my center. Which he then found.

“Daniel,” I whispered his name on an exhalation as I leaned against him. I reached back, clutched at his lapel. He held me firmly with his left hand while his right gave me pleasure, made me shift in his arms restlessly, wanting and needing more.

“But then,” he said softly, against my temple. “Maybe dessert should wait.”

The absence of his hand was torture and I gasped when he disengaged, stepped back.

“You’re cruel,” I accused, stalking away, to where my dress lay draped over a chair, waiting.

“I’m simply a man who knows how to savor a good wine.”

Dinner. Dessert. Wine. I didn’t care what he called our encounters. As I slipped my dress over my head, I knew I could press the point, get my pleasure and his now without much of a fight, but I also knew he was right. I lifted my hair, turned my back to him. As his fingers slid across my back, lifting the zipper, I was primed, on edge, would be all night. And he would be as well.


• • •



A blue Ferrari convertible sat waiting for us in the garage, apparently the car he preferred to drive by the beach. He backed the car out into the courtyard and glanced over at me.

“Roof down?”

“Definitely!” I rested against the leather seats, enjoying the scent and the feel of the car even as the roof slowly retracted. I watched Daniel’s hands as he turned the heater on, operated the gearshift, handled the wheel. I loved the shape of his hands—strong and male, yet with long, well-formed fingers. I knew how the touch of his skin on mine felt, the exact sensation of those fingers between my legs. The warmth of them still lingered.

The wind kissed my face, played havoc with my hair, and I shifted in my seat, simply wanting him. I slipped my hand over his, tentatively playing with the bare skin visible at his wrist. He glanced at me and then turned his attention back to the road. But he moved his hand from the gearshift to my thigh, shaping his hand to the curve of it.

I stroked the skin of his wrist in a tight little circle, playing with the sensitive underside, giving his hand the utmost attention as if it were the only part of him that existed.

Finally, I lifted his hand to my mouth, followed all my little patterns with the tip of my tongue. I glanced at him from the corners of my eyes and had the satisfaction of seeing just how I was affecting him.

He took his hand back to change gears and I studied him, wondered if I could slip my arm under his to reach his leg. But then he rested his hand on my thigh again and looked at me, as if he wanted me to keep doing exactly what I’d been doing before. But I couldn’t just do what he wanted, because that game wouldn’t be fun at all. When I brought his hand to my mouth, I bit the soft pad of skin at the tip of his finger, ran my tongue along the edge, and then, caught his eye and closed my lips down over the length of his finger.

His look said everything I wanted it to say, and after I released his hand, I slanted him that smile.

Daniel pulled the car up to a valet zone and a waiting attendant opened the door for me. I stepped carefully out of the low car, and then up onto the sidewalk, where Daniel waited for me. With the hot press of his body against mine, his arm holding me close to him, and the brief touch of his mouth against my ear a whispered promise, I was only peripherally aware of my surroundings. There was a glass wall through which I could see crowded tables, a pale blue door, and people milling about on the sidewalk. None of it mattered.

Once we crossed the threshold of the restaurant, the deafening soundscape added to the blurriness of the night. It was as if I’d been handed a Renoir filter with which to experience the world. As the hostess led us through a maze of tables to one in a more secluded corner, I was vaguely aware that people were watching us. Here and there Daniel nodded and offered a polite smile, but I only had the briefest impressions of the people he greeted. By the time we reached our table, I wondered if he knew everyone in the Hamptons.

Halfway through dessert a woman—blonde, pink silk tunic, very tan legs—approached our table.

“Daniel Hartmann, you didn’t tell anyone you were coming this weekend.”

He laughed but I thought he didn’t seem particularly amused by the interruption.

“If Stacia Klein knows you are in town, she’ll be devastated if you don’t come to her party tomorrow night. Did you really think you could have a tête-à-tête and we wouldn’t know? Who is your friend?”

Suddenly I was the focus of the woman’s brilliant green stare.

“Emily, meet Gretchen Lawrence. Gretchen, this is Emily. She’s a very talented sculptor.” It felt strange hearing him introduce me that way. Pleasurable for an instant, until I wondered if he was complimenting me only for show.

But the way the woman looked at me, I had the distinct impression she thought Daniel appreciated my other talents. Which he did. I laughed, and met the woman’s eyes in acknowledgment.

“I am good with my hands.”

The woman laughed. “I do hope you’ll come! Fitzi should be there.” I blinked once at the casual dropping of the name of Manhattan’s breakout pop-fashion artist. “You can talk art.”

“Fitzi? Really? I think we have to go then.” I turned to Daniel, wide-eyed.

“Excellent! Stacia will be thrilled!” Gretchen enthused. Then she leaned a hand out, touched Daniel lightly on the forearm. “Your girlfriend is a doll.”

The word girlfriend lingered in the air and I savored it with surprised pleasure. Daniel’s lack of comment was almost a tacit acknowledgment.

“You’re quite a fighter,” Daniel murmured when we were alone. “I had no idea.”

“I wasn’t fighting,” I corrected him. “I just didn’t hide.” I was proud of myself for that. It made me feel good. And it contrasted greatly with all the other parts of my life that were hidden. After all, I was likely going to have to come clean to my father next week. “Thank you for dinner,” I added softly as I watched Daniel sign the check.

“You’re more than welcome,” he returned and then stood. I stood as well, half tipsy on wine, delicious food and the unreality of this night, so out of time and space from my usual days. He took my hand and, safe in that warm connection, I followed him outside.

“Are you sure you want to go tomorrow?”

The night air had picked up a stronger breeze, and I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering.

“Why not? You can introduce me to all your fabulous friends. Weren’t you going to find me another job?” I shot him a teasing glance. “I’m good with my hands … ”

He grabbed those hands and pulled me toward him. I sucked in my breath at his expression. “Emily—”

“Emily Anderson!”

I looked up sharply at my name sounded by a female voice. Daniel shifted, pulled me tight against his side, his arm around my waist. A tall, willowy woman with slim hips and glossy, long black hair that swung with each step, strode toward us, effortless in her high-heeled sandals.

“I haven’t seen you in forever, not since … ” the woman trailed off. Lila Lee, the name came to mind, and I started to place her, to remember the eleven-year-old version of this woman who had trained beside me at the stables. Lila was looking at Daniel, whom she clearly recognized.

“Lila, right?”

“I’ll get the car.” I heard the quiet words before Daniel stepped away. I looked after him for a moment but then turned my attention back.

“Yes!” The woman was smiling brightly, as if happy to be remembered as well. “What have you been up to? We’re the same age, right? I just graduated Stanford. Going to Cornell Med in the fall. Really, it’s so good to see you!”

The onslaught of words overwhelmed me but I returned the smile. The night felt overly warm, and my chest tight.

“I just finished school also.”

“Oh, you know, I’m keeping you,” Lila exclaimed, glancing at the street where Daniel waited by the car. “I’m so sorry, but we should catch up. How long will you be here? Or, I’m in Manhattan now, so next time you’re there?”

“Yes, I’d love to catch up.” We exchanged numbers and then Lila grabbed me in a hug.

“Really, we have to talk. I always wondered where you went.”

As I climbed into the waiting car, I swallowed back the bittersweet emotion. I hadn’t realized until then how much I’d denied my childhood once I’d moved to Arizona, tried so hard for so many years to not have anyone know I was the daughter of that Mark Anderson. But Lila was someone who remembered the good stuff.

I had told Daniel that I wasn’t hiding. Now, I wondered what life would be like if I never did and never had.


• • •



The next day, he took me sailing. I had missed this. Forgotten the enjoyment of it in my youth. There was this other way of being, this intense way that Daniel lived and it made every situation feel more. Not a single breath was wasted. After he’d set our course, and the boat simply moved, smoothly, I crawled over to him, rested in his arms. The salt air, the warmth, lulled me into thinking that life was perfect. That this moment could be always.

Out of the stillness, he lifted his hand, ran his fingers along the v-shaped neckline of my blouse, grazing the swell of my breast over my demi-bra.

“I’ve always wanted a life of action, an intense urban experience that inspires me,” I said, my words slow, rolling with the motion of the boat on the water, “that makes me feel as if I’m in the thick of things.”

“Yet you’re choosing to go off into some isolated forest,” he pointed out. He molded his hand over my breast and despite the pleasure of his touch, I looked at that place as if it weren’t my body he held.

“Only for five months.”

His hand moved again, lifted, and he continued his stroking, searching motion. I sighed, feeling my desire build, collect in all the places where he touched, in all the places I knew he would soon touch.

“What will you do after that?”

“Move to Manhattan, most likely,” I said, not nearly as interested in the conversation I had begun as I was in the fact that he was lifting the hem of my shirt, baring my stomach to the warmth of his hand and the sun. “But what I was going to say, was that right now, I like this pace. I like this.”

“I think you like being my girlfriend,” he teased. But his words were the antithesis of teasing. They made me all scared and tense because he couldn’t possibly be giving the idea any weight. Even with some of my clothes in his dresser on Charles Street. Even though we’d shared a bed the greater portion of the last month. I’d just tried to end this crazy amorphous thing we had, but now I was here with him and he was calling me his girlfriend. Was this a goodbye weekend or a prelude to something more? How could there possibly be more between us?

“Right. About that … girlfriend?” I said it lightly, matching his tone, as if I were amused by the very idea.

“Is that the label you prefer?”

Girlfriend. Mistress. Lover. I ran through all the terms, all their connotations, weight and meaning. Lover was the only one that allowed us to be free, that allowed this strange relationship we had to exist without conflict. There was no future for us. The word lover accepted that.

“Not really,” I said softly. “But I don’t care all that much what people think.”

“People will think, will ask questions,” he reminded me. “Especially tonight.”

Of course, like Gretchen, people would be curious about anything Daniel Hartmann did, anyone with whom he was involved. They would ask questions about his relationship. That made me want to ask Daniel those same questions. To ask myself them. Because I wasn’t sure what we were doing. I knew I was supposed to put those kinds of thoughts aside. Just as we had put the past aside. I was supposed to let this be a weekend away, apart, where we simply enjoyed each other’s company. But I was enjoying his company too much.

“One moment,” he said softly and I moved to let him get up. He moved cautiously but efficiently around the boat. Trimming the sails? I struggled to remember the vocabulary of sailing even as I admired the lean length of his legs, his bare ankles between khakis and boat shoes. Studying his body gave me a pleasure similar to creating a new piece of art. I could lose myself in him.

Quicksand.

Leanna’s advice had been to seize it all, to let it be what it needed to be, to not put any false limits on the relationship because I was moving to upstate New York in August. The idea that this thing between us might be something more than a fling was terrifying.

But it couldn’t be more. Even if I wanted it to … once my father found out … Once I told him.

Yet, what if? For an instant possibility blossomed in my mind. A high society life of two successful people, a private life of passion and intensity. Built on confusion, opacity. Lies.

Daniel lowered himself back down beside me. I wrapped my arms and legs around him, refusing to think. The only thing that mattered was right now: the wind in my hair, the sound of the waves, and the feel of his skin against mine.