Bettie Page Presents: The Librarian (5 page)

“We could just eat in the other room,” she said, with an uncomfortable laugh. “This is a lot of space.”

The sommelier brought the wine list, but Sebastian barely glanced at it.

“We're having the tasting menu, so whatever you're pairing with that tonight,” he said. Then, to Regina, “The tasting menu is eight courses. I hope you're not in a hurry.”

Regina just shook her head, trying not to panic. What would they talk about for
eight
courses? And how good could the food be that anyone would want to sit through that many servings of it?

“You look very beautiful,” he said. “That dress suits you.”

“Oh, thanks,” she said, looking at her water glass. “You really guessed right with the sizes.”

“I spend a lot of time looking at women,” he said. She flushed at the statement, then realized he must be talking about the photography.

The waiter appeared with their amuse-bouche. He set three small white plates in front of each of them and announced: “Mosaic of poularde and daikon radish, wild mushroom gelée, and young vegetable salad.”

“Thank you,” she said, desperately wishing she recognized something that had been placed in front of her. And then Sebastian winked at her, and her stomach did such a flip she realized she wouldn't be able to eat a thing.

CHAPTER 11

Regina pushed the food around a little on her plate, and looked up to find Sebastian staring at her.

“I'm disappointed, Regina,” he said. “I didn't take you for a noneater.”

She felt her face color, and the discomfort and absurdity of the situation finally outweighed the thrill of it. “Forgive me for not diving right in, but since I've been ordered around for the past hour and feel more like I'm in some bizarre play than out for an actual meal, I've lost my appetite.”

Sebastian laughed.

“Hmm. An unsatisfied customer. That's a first for me,” he teased, rankling her all the more.

“And how am I going to get my own clothes back? I'm not going to that hotel room after dinner.”

“Fair enough,” he said, clearly amused, which only irritated her all the more.

“I'm just telling you ahead of time so we're on the same page.”

“On the same page, eh? Spoken like a true librarian,” he said.

Not knowing how to respond to that comment, she tasted the wine. It was delicious, and the sip spread warmth down her throat. “Now that you mention it, aren't we going to talk about the books? I thought that's what this whole dinner was about.”

“Anxious to get down to business.”

“Yes,” she said, taking one more sip.
That's it, now I stop,
she told herself.

“Why don't you have a cell phone?” he asked.

She was surprised by the question, which seemed to come out of nowhere. “Um, I don't know,” she said. She would never admit her frugality to someone who drove around in a chauffeured car and used one of the world's most expensive hotels as a glorified dressing room.

“It's inconvenient,” he said.

“Not for me.”

“Have you ever worn garters before?” he asked.

She almost spit out the wine.
“Excuse me?”

“You said you wanted to get down to business.” His eyes were intense and his expression serious. Clearly, the cell-phone interrogation had just been the warm-up. “How does it feel to wear the underwear I bought for you?”

“As if I'm wearing a costume,” she said.

“You say that like it's a bad thing.”

The plates were cleared, the reappearance of the waiter granting her a momentary reprieve from Sebastian's questioning. A new plate was set in front of her, the dish so elegantly arranged it looked more like art than food.

“Mousseron and Swiss chard ravioli, nettlesome cheese, pickled St. George mushroom, fiddlehead ferns,” the waiter announced. The sommelier cleared her wineglass even though it was still half full, and set new glasses out. He presented a new bottle to Sebastian.

“Domaine Drouhin Meursault, Burgundy 2008.”

Regina started to politely decline any more wine, but a critical glance from Sebastian silenced her.

When they were once again alone in the room, Sebastian raised his glass.

“To costumes,” he said with a smile.

“Why are we drinking to costumes?” she asked, touching her glass to his.

“Because they inspire. And liberate.”

Easy for you to say,
she thought. “What's so liberating about your telling me what to wear?” she asked.

“Well, think about it: Imagine I told you ahead of time that we were going to a restaurant and you needed to be dressed up. You'd be in a quandary about what to wear, how to find it, how much to spend . . . I just took care of all that work and worry. Giving up control is the ultimate liberation.”

“And what about giving up choice?”

“You had a choice,” he said. “You could have refused to go out with me. You could have refused to wear the clothes.”

She nodded, thinking about how she had contemplated walking out of the hotel room.

She took a bite of her ravioli. It was delicious and surprisingly rich, unlike anything she'd ever tasted before.

“I want to see you in the garters and bra,” he said. She swallowed hard, before she was ready. She coughed and took a gulp of wine.

“That's not going to happen,” she said, although just hearing the words coming from his mouth made her tingle between her legs the way she did when she was in bed, alone and awake in the middle of the night, touching herself.

“We don't have to have sex,” he said. “I'm just very inspired by beauty, and I've been curious about how you would look in lingerie from the minute I set eyes on you.”

Regina said, “I know that you're a photographer.”

“Ah . . . life in the age of Google. We're being robbed of any sense of discovery or mystery. Don't you agree?”

“I didn't Google you. My roommate goes to Parsons and has practically every fashion magazine on the planet. I saw your photos in one of them.”

He nodded. “The fashion photography is always an interesting exercise. But it's usually just a job. My favorite kind of photography is very different.”

“And what kind is that?”

He smiled, and something about the way he looked at her made her feel more exposed than she had while undressing in front of Jess. “If you allow me to, I'll show you.”

“I'll Google it,” she said, angry at the effect he had on her and not wanting him to think he had so much power over her.

“You can't find them on the Internet,” he said. “You can't find them anywhere.”

“In that case, I guess I won't be seeing them.”

“I am confident that you will,” said Sebastian. “Speaking of photos, did you look at the Bettie Page book?”

“A little,” she said. “I was at work, so I couldn't really . . .”

“Do it before you go to sleep tonight.”

Regina took another sip of her wine. “Why are you so in to Bettie Page?”

He seemed to consider the question carefully, though he obviously had an answer at the ready.

“I find her—and the effect she has on people—intriguing. It's understandable why she was a big deal in her time: so few women were posing like that, right? But why does she still cast such a long shadow? Naked women are everywhere today. The photographs online are far more explicit than anything she ever did. Many women are more beautiful. But still, there's only one Bettie Page.”

His face was completely animated, and the fact that he was a photographer suddenly seemed more real. He was into this stuff. He thought about it the way Regina thought about books.

Regina wished she could dazzle him with some Camille Paglia–worthy commentary about the semiotics of Bettie Page, but the truth was, she'd never heard of her before Alex's haircut comment.

“I want you to take this seriously,” he said suddenly, his eyes locking on hers. She took a sharp breath. “I didn't invite you out to make bullshit small talk. And despite what you think, I didn't ask you out so I could fuck you—although I think about that, Regina.”

Her stomach did a tiny flip, and she looked away. A part of her wanted him to stop talking, and another part of her prayed that he wouldn't.

“Does it bother you that I say that?” he asked.

“No,” she breathed, barely audible.

“You look at me with those enormous blue eyes, and I don't know if you're just shy, or if you're quietly judging me,” he said.

She looked at him, startled. “Why would I judge you?”

“You judged me the day you saw me fucking that woman in the library.”

She flinched at his repeated and casual use of the word
fuck
.

“Well, yeah. I don't think the library is the place for that sort of thing. . . .”

“May I tell you something?” he asked, and something about his voice and the way his gaze moved from her eyes to her lips and back again made her entire body tense.

“Okay,” she whispered.

“I think about fucking you in the library.”

Blood rushed to her face. She looked down at the table. And then, between her legs, she felt a terrifying pulse of desire.

•

After dinner, the Mercedes was waiting for them outside of Daniel. It turned west and headed down Seventh Avenue.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“I'm taking you home,” he said. She tried not to feel disappointed.

“Don't you need my address?”

“I have your address.”

“What?” Whatever spell had been cast with the wine, the fancy clothes, and the talk of sex was suddenly broken. “How do you have my address?”

“I got it from the library office.”

“They can't just give my address out to people!”

“I'm not just ‘people,' Regina. They know me.”

“That's not the point!”

“Do you feel violated?” he asked. And something about the way he looked at her made her certain he wasn't talking about the address.

“It's just . . . not appropriate,” she said.

He seemed to consider this, and nodded slowly. “I can be inappropriate, that's true,” he said. “And I'm not very good at asking permission.” He took her hand, and she looked into his eyes. Their intensity stirred her in a way she'd never felt before. “I guess you should know that about me if we're going to be spending time together.”

And at those words, her irritation evaporated. They would be spending time together.

When the car pulled up to her apartment building, she managed to say, “Thanks for dinner.”

He took her hand, and his touch felt heavy and warm and made her want to lean in to him.

“I meant what I said about looking at the Bettie Page book tonight. I want to hear what you think. I want to know you, Regina.”

“Okay,” she said. Again, his eyes locked onto hers. In the darkness and unwavering focus of his gaze, she felt she had somehow made a significant promise. Though for what, she couldn't begin to imagine.

CHAPTER 12

Regina couldn't sleep.

Hours after Sebastian had dropped her off, her mind still raced with snippets of conversation and the memory of the way he looked at her. And although he'd barely touched her all night—a hand on her arm here or there, the brushing of her shoulder against his—her body was keyed up, wound like a spring that she knew she had to release.

Regina pulled her nightgown over her hips and stretched out on her bed, then lightly touched herself over her cotton panties. Then she slipped her hand inside her underwear, fingering herself in the way that never failed to give her satisfaction. She rubbed her clit and moved her index finger inside and out and back again, but barely felt a twinge.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She tried thinking about Sebastian, touching herself again, but this only made her self-conscious.

Confused, she sat up. It was better to stop now than to get even more frustrated.

She turned over and peeked out her curtains. The moon was half full and bright, and she pulled the window coverings back so its light could fill up her room. And then, watching the shadows play against her wall, she remembered his request that she look at the Bettie Page book.

It rested on her nightstand, and she reached over to pull it into bed with her. The beautiful brunette smiled at her from the cover, almost winking as if to say, “Don't worry about it.”

“I bet you never had these types of problems,” Regina sighed. The moonlight wasn't strong enough for her actually to read, so she got out of bed and turned on the overhead light. She blinked hard and got back into bed with the book.

She flipped through the pages, searching for some clue as to what Sebastian found so interesting. The woman was pretty, for sure. More than that, she seemed confident. Despite some of the more provocative poses, her blue eyes had, as Regina's father would have said, a “twinkle” in them. And in many of the photos, she had a big smile that was somehow very old-fashioned, all-American in its guilelessness.

The first section of the book, Prelude to a Pin-Up, showed pictures of a very normally dressed and unremarkable—though pretty—young Bettie Page. She didn't even have her trademark bangs. The next section showed Bettie when she moved to New York City, just before she became a model. The text read, “She was an anonymous secretary, working all week and taking long lonely walks on weekends dreaming of a more glamorous life.” Regina couldn't imagine that the beautiful, commanding-looking woman she saw in the latter half of the book could ever have felt lonely—or worked a boring nine-to-five job as a secretary.

She flipped further, studying the progression: Bettie wearing bras and stockings with garters, then Bettie brandishing whips, and eventually Bettie being bound and gagged.

Regina closed the book.

She wondered if Bettie had ever felt as she herself had felt tonight under Sebastian's gaze: partly thrilled, partly mortified. She wondered if Bettie had ever let a photographer touch her.

Regina thought about Sebastian's request to photograph her. What she had told him was true: she hated having her picture taken. She felt self-conscious while the other person was focusing the camera on her, and she usually hated the way she looked. She didn't like to think of herself as being vain, but the idea of how she looked in her own mind didn't match up to what she saw in pictures. She wondered what it had been like for Bettie Page. Had she been resistant at first? Had she done it for the money? How did she find the courage to take her clothes
of
f
?
Regina could never do it, and she lived in the age when women disrobing was more normal than their not taking their clothes off. Who
didn't
have naked pictures on the Internet these days? Or a sex tape? Sometimes Regina believed she was the only one.

She looked down at her floor, where the lingerie was piled in a small dark heap. She'd been too tired even to put it in the laundry. She picked up the garters, playing with the small hooks. Then she got out of bed and carried the pieces with her to the full-length mirror propped against the wall next to her small closet.

She pulled off her nightgown and looked at her body, naked except for her plain white cotton underwear. She thought about trying on the garters to see what she looked like in them, but it was too much trouble. Instead, she had the urge to touch herself. She lightly ran her hands over her breasts. She didn't see herself, but instead had visions of the burlesque dancer, the smear of blueberry pie between her breasts, her fingers trailing up her body and into her mouth. Regina didn't understand how that woman was able to do that in front of an audience, or how Bettie Page could take her clothes off for the camera. Did it feel good to have people watch? Did it make them feel beautiful?

Regina trailed her hand from her belly up to her breasts, the way the dancer had done. She teased her nipples, watching them grow into small points, and imagined someone else watching. She looked away from the mirror, embarrassed. But there was no denying what her body needed her to do.

She returned to her bed, turning off the light and lying on top of the covers. Safely in the dark, she again touched her breasts, this time not letting up until she felt the familiar throb between her legs. She moved one hand to lightly stroke her clit, the other still rubbing her nipples gently. She closed her eyes, imagining Sebastian there, perched on the edge of her bed, watching her, telling her not to stop. She would tell him she couldn't do this in front of him, and he would ask her, Isn't this why you moved to New York? To do something sexual and alive and real?

She moaned quietly, pressing a finger inside herself. She imagined Sebastian saying, Let me do that for you. And she would say, No, I can't. But he would brush her hand away and touch her himself, and she would give in, and he would finger her with his large hands . . . touching her in a way that she didn't even know she wanted to be touched.

Regina's hand moved quickly in and out, growing slippery with her own excitement. She kept her eyes closed, Sebastian's face and voice vivid as she felt the first tremors of release, a wave that came again and again, until she was able to ride it all the way to sleep.

•

The buzz of her alarm jolted her awake. How could it be morning already?

Regina pulled open her curtain, and sure enough, the sun was high and bright. She sank back against her pillows.

She'd tossed and turned all night, and even when she'd slept, her mind raced with dreams that woke her up, drenched in perspiration, yet she was unable to remember what they had been about. For a minute, she thought the dinner with Sebastian Barnes had been one of those dreams, but the Miu Miu dress on the floor next to the high heels were proof that her evening had, in fact, been reality and not a product of her active nocturnal imagination.

And then, with embarrassment, she remembered the fantasy she'd had while masturbating.

A knock on her door startled her.

“Are you in there?” Carly called.

“Yes. Is everything okay?” Regina asked, sitting up and running her hand through her hair.

Carly opened the door. She was still in her nightclothes, a Juicy Couture T-shirt and black yoga pants from Athleta. Her hair was in a messy high ponytail, and her iPhone was already buzzing with incoming texts. “You weren't here when I left last night. And then I wasn't sure if you ever made it home.” Carly noticed the pile of clothes on the floor. She bent down and picked up the Miu Miu dress. “What the hell? Did you just rob Bergdorf's?”

Regina got out of bed and walked past Carly to the kitchen, where she turned on the Keurig brewer.

“Seriously,” Carly said, following her. “What gives? I know that's a sixteen-hundred-dollar dress. At least. And those shoes! I thought you were devoted to your lifetime supply of Tom's. . . .”

Regina opened the fridge and pulled out a jar of Skippy peanut butter, digging out a fat spoonful.

“How can you eat this early?” Carly asked.

Regina sucked all of the peanut butter off the spoon. “I had dinner with Sebastian Barnes last night.”

Carly's eyes widened with newfound respect. “You were out with Sebastian Barnes,” she repeated.

“That's right,” Regina said, digging into the peanut butter again.

“You lucky bitch!” Carly said with glee. “Oh my God, you had me fooled, Regina. Moping around here all quiet, buried in your books . . . I never imagined.”

“Trust me—neither did I.”

“Is he good in bed?” asked Carly.

“
What?
I didn't have sex with him,” Regina said, mortified.

“Well, that was a mistake,” said Carly. “Where did you go?”

“Daniel,” Regina said, rummaging through the drawer full of coffee pods for the strongest brew she could find.

“I looove Daniel,” Carly said, pouting. “How old is he? Older than us, right? Guys in their twenties don't know how to date. Have you noticed that?”

Regina, of course, had not noticed that. She knew nothing about how guys in their twenties dated—how guys at any age dated. And besides, she wasn't even sure it had been an actual date. It felt more like some sort of strange exercise, some power trip for a guy who liked to throw money around and had probably slept with every woman in New York and was just looking for fresh meat.

“I wouldn't call it a date,” Regina said. “I'm not even going to give it too much thought.”

“Oh no—I'm not going to let you do that,” Carly said.

“Do what?”

“Overthink it. Don't you know how to have fun, Regina? Every woman in New York wants a shot at Sebastian Barnes—and you have it. Go for it. Live a little. There's more to life than shelving books in some library.”

“Maybe not for me,” Regina said. But for the first time, she was seriously starting to wonder.