“It will look good in that apartment,” she said, paging through the brochure.
Finally, we decided on another nude. Apparently, she liked them as much as I did. Had anyone ever drawn Grace naked? Or taken photographs of her? A dull pang hit me in the gut. I didn’t like the idea of anyone looking at her without clothes. Even more, I hated I felt that way at all.
“Come on, Saks next,” she said, leading me out the exit. “How come you don’t have a driver?” she asked. “You’re like richer than the pope or something.” She flagged a cab, but I pulled her away, putting myself between her and the curb.
“Why should I have a driver? Manhattan’s full of them.” As if to prove my point, a yellow cab drew up, spraying the morning’s rain on my trouser legs.
“Well, you could fire a driver if he did that,” she replied. “But I’m glad it wasn’t me. Thank you.”
Grace gave the address, then listed the exact route she wanted him to take. I sat back and watched, still intrigued. She’d seen buying a couch as a victory. I saw it as an inevitability. I didn’t want to have to fuck her on the floor again.
But I wanted to fuck her again.
I would fuck her again.
Shit. I kept my eyes firmly on the street outside. I wanted to fuck her again.
“But you don’t want to spend your money on someone permanent?” she asked.
“No, I just don’t think it’s necessary.”
“You say that like you don’t buy into the New York lifestyle, but look at your office, or your suits, for Christ’s sake.” She looked me up and down as if checking that I was actually wearing a suit. Or was she just checking me out?
“That’s different. That’s business. People expect me to have nice offices, wear nice suits. It’s just part of the job.”
Grace chuckled. “So you’re just doing what everyone expects of you?”
Was she deliberately trying to find flaws in my character? I so rarely interacted with women outside work other than Angie. I didn’t understand the reasons behind her questions. Did she have a point to prove or was she just trying to get to know me? “I’m doing what’s necessary. Sometimes you have to take certain steps in order to get to your goal.” I didn’t care about a fancy couch or having a driver because it was slightly more convenient. What I cared about was making sure I’d never have to repeat my youth. I’d do anything it took to avoid that.
“So you do whatever it takes?” Grace asked as we pulled up outside Saks.
“No. That’s not what I said. I do things to help me achieve my goal. But that’s just common sense. There’s no point making life harder for yourself,” I said as I followed her out onto the sidewalk.
She was ambitious. She got how it worked, surely. “You were dating the artist of your first exhibition. You wouldn’t have got his show if you hadn’t been involved, right? You did what it took.”
“What?” She spun around to look at me. “He was using me, you asshole. Steve wouldn’t have gotten an exhibition without me.”
“That’s not what I was trying to say. Don’t overreact.”
“Did you know I found him banging his assistant on my desk just after I opened?” She turned and flung open the door, not waiting for me to catch it as it swung shut in front of me. I yanked it open and followed her inside. “And how did you know I was dating him?”
“It was obvious. And just because he cheated on you doesn’t mean you didn’t do what you had to do to further your goals,” I said from behind her.
“Whatever,” she replied.
We made our way to the furniture department in silence. Every now and then, Grace opened her mouth to speak then decided against it.
“So am I using you?” she finally asked as she took a seat on a huge L-shaped sofa that had room for twenty people.
“I didn’t say you were using that painter guy.” I took a seat beside her. Every relationship was a trade-off. Someone wanted something from you, you wanted something from them—business, personal—it was all the same.
“You didn’t answer my question.” she said. “When we had sex, what exactly was I using you for?”
“Let me ask you something.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m not asking to be evasive, I just want to answer your question better,” I explained, running my hand over a cushion. Of course she was using me. I just wanted to be sure I knew why.
“Go on then,” she replied.
“Who was your boyfriend before the cheater?”
She narrowed her eyes, which I was pretty sure she thought looked menacing. Really, it was beyond cute. “His name was Nathan. Happy?”
“But what did he do? What did you like about him?”
“He was a musician, if you must know.” She stood and marched across to another, slightly more realistically sized sofa. I followed her. “He was very talented.” She inspected the couch, trailing her hands over the black velvet.
“I like this one,” I said as I sat down, hoping it was comfortable. It was long enough that I could lie full length on it and Grace would look beautiful lying next to me, her blonde hair a delicious contrast to the black.
Grace came and sat next to me, her eyes facing forward.
“Using is the wrong word,” I said. “But you have to get something out of a situation, otherwise why would you bother?” I didn’t say that I thought it sounded like she had a habit of dating losers, or that there was likely a whole host of reasons why she needed that. “You have a type of guy you normally date. That’s because you get something out of dating that guy—just like he gets something out of dating you.” If she liked artistic types, I was definitely not the kind of man she usually slept with.
“Okay,” she said, “And I had sex with you because?”
“My big cock?” I replied.
She laughed and I found myself grinning not at my joke but at the sound of her belly laugh.
“You like it?” I asked, patting the couch.
“I do. It’s masculine and pretty at the same time.”
“Okay, well if this is the one, let’s find a sales clerk.”
“What, just like that?”
I shrugged as I leaned forward, then glanced over my shoulder at her. I was right; she looked beautiful on this couch. “We’ve found something we like. What’s the point in continuing to look?”
“You’ve resisted buying furniture for what looks like your whole life, but now, all of a sudden, you’re ready to pick the first thing we see?”
I stood and held out my hand to help her up. “I told you I’d get a couch. We found one. I like it. I’m going to buy it. It’s really not that complicated.”
She ignored my offer of help and stood. “Okay. Well that was easy. What about a coffee table?”
I chuckled. Why was she taking such an interest in my interior decorating? “Oh of course,” I said. I wasn’t so different to the other men she’d been with—the artist boyfriend, the musician before that.
“What?” she asked, looking at me from where she was crouched over a glass table.