Bettie Page Presents: The Librarian (8 page)

CHAPTER 16

Sebastian tossed his keys on a glass table and took her umbrella from her hands.

Despite the relentless rain, Regina was completely dry. Sebastian had parked his car in a garage that led right into his building. They took an elevator to the top floor, and the elevator opened directly into an enormous loft.

The apartment had floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Hudson River. The sheer openness and size of the space was enough to amaze her, but the interior was visually stunning, a dramatic mix of dark woods and marble. The rooms were sparsely furnished, but the few pieces he did have served the space like art. The white walls were filled with photographs in black frames.

“What's so important that you had to bring me here in the middle of a monsoon?” she asked.

“You said you were uncomfortable at work. So now we're here. No more excuses,” he said. “I'm having a glass of wine. Would you like one?” He walked into the black marble kitchen.

“Okay,” she said nervously, walking closer to the first wall of photographs. Even from somewhat of a distance, she could see they were fashion shots like the ones she'd seen in Carly's magazine. They were more polished than the raw style he used for the Astrid Lindall shots. But here, too, she recognized many of the models, having seen them on magazine covers, in window-size glossy shots in store windows on Fifth Avenue, and on ads on the sides of buses.

She walked slowly from one end of the wall toward the other, pausing every half foot to examine the shots. She didn't know very much about photography, but she was drawn to the images on a gut level, the way she might respond to a certain song on the radio or to the great opening lines of a novel.

“These aren't the ones I brought you here to see,” Sebastian said suddenly from behind her. She jumped slightly, then recovered. He reached his arm around in front of her, pressing a glass of white wine into her hand.

“What did you bring me to see?” she asked, taking a sip.

“I told you at dinner that the fashion photography was not my favorite work, remember?”

“Yes,” she said. She felt his body press against hers, though his arms and hands did not touch her. This alone was enough to make her heart pound. She took another sip of the wine. It was light and crisp, and she had to remind herself to nurse it.

“Follow me,” he said quietly.

He took her by her free hand and led her toward the back of the loft. His grip was firm and commanding, even in that simple contact. She wanted to assert herself in some way, to say that she wasn't done looking at the photographs in the living room area, thank you very much. But she knew all such protests would be futile. He knew, and she knew, that from the moment she'd left her own apartment, she was along for the ride.

The loft space turned at a sharp angle, the walls narrowing to create a long hallway. Sebastian guided her through the semidarkness until he hit the switch that illuminated the corridor. And she realized she was surrounded by floor-to-ceiling photographs, all black and white, and all of scantily clad, outrageously beautiful women.

The women were all bare breasted, some completely nude. They wore garter belts, high heels, sheer black dresses open at the chest. They had skin like fresh cream, some covered in tattoos, some pure like a blanket of snow. Their big eyes—heavily made up, seductive, sleepy, wanton, angry—told her a thousand stories.

She kept walking slowly, mesmerized by the images. As she walked deeper into the hallway, the images became more intense: a grainy image of a woman bound to a chair with rope, naked except for garters and fishnet stockings, a gag in her mouth. In the background, a woman in a tuxedo held a whip by her side. And then a shot of two brunettes kissing, clad in lingerie like the things Sebastian had bought for her, while in the foreground was the blurred image of a woman watching them, brandishing a riding crop. Then a shot of a woman on her knees, a curtain of black hair to her waist, her back arched, her ass high in the air, her legs covered only in the fishnet stockings that trailed to her ankles, her feet in black patent-leather platform heels. A shot of a woman's bare ass, her skin as pale and smooth as fresh cream—except for the red mark in the faint but distinguishable shape of a hand.

“You took all of these?” Regina asked, even as she knew the answer.

“Yes,” said Sebastian. He stood directly behind her, and put his hands on her shoulders.

“Were you . . . dating all of these women?” she asked.

“No,” he laughed. “They're just models. Although, when I'm taking photographs, my subject might as well be my lover. My girlfriend. My wife. The person in front of the camera is the only woman in the world for me.”

Regina swallowed hard, feeling something close to jealousy, as absurd as that was.

“How did you get into photography?” she asked.

“My stepmother introduced me to it.”

“She was a photographer?”

His face clouded. “No. A model.” He squeezed her shoulders. “I'd love to photograph you.”

She whirled around and looked at him like he was crazy. “That's not going to happen,” she said.

He laughed. “You say that a lot, you know. Why don't you think about it for maybe two seconds before you decide.”

“I don't like having my picture taken.”

“That's because you don't feel worthy of being the object of attention. I could see this when you walked through the lobby of the Four Seasons the other night. I want to help you get past that.”

“Well, thanks, but I don't want to be some project of yours. I can see you have many ready and willing participants in your, uh, stable of subjects.”

“They're professional models. I don't want them. I want you.”

“I'll stick to reading for the fiction award. That should give us plenty to work on together.” She laughed uncomfortably. He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. Her heart started pounding so hard she felt something might be wrong with her.

“Did you look at the Bettie Page book?”

“A little,” she said, blushing at the memory of what she had done afterward. And then she was unbalanced by the thought of Sebastian's touching her the way she had touched herself alone in her room that night.

“Have you thought about what I asked you at dinner? What does Bettie Page have in those photographs that none of these women have?”

Was this a trick question? Regina did a mental checklist: Bangs? Boobs? A retro bathing suit?

“I don't know.”

“Mirth,” he said. “She looks like she is having fun. She's every woman, and yet she's like no other. She had a duality of innocence and sexiness that has never been replicated. But I see it in you.”

“It's just the haircut,” Regina said quietly.

“A million girls have the haircut,” he said. “And why can't you take a compliment?”

“I just don't get why you're so focused on me. It's not that I'm being modest or something. I just don't get it.”

“You looked so beautiful, and helpless, and lost on the stairs of the library. Watching you was like seeing the opening sequence of a movie in which you know the actress is going to be a star. And then I talked to you and . . . I felt something. And I know you felt it, too, didn't you?”

She nodded slowly. Of course she'd felt something. She knew he was the most beautiful man she'd ever set eyes on. But more than that, his physical proximity made her feel shaky inside. It had happened when he'd handed her back her thermos lid on the library steps, and it had happened when she'd sat near him after the Young Lions meeting. And when he'd stood behind her just minutes ago as she looked at the nude photographs, the slight touch of his body against her back had made something twitch deep inside of her.

She shifted in her shoes. The arches of her feet ached, and her toes were pinching at the front. “Do you mind if I take these shoes of
f
?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I do. And I never want to see you in flats again.”

She looked at him, speechless.

He took the glass of wine from her hands. “Come with me,” he said.

She followed him back to the living room.

Sebastian sat on the black couch. She stood awkwardly, waiting for him to invite her to sit down as well.

“Should I just . . . sit over there?” she asked, gesturing to a black leather chair.

“No. You will stand. You're a beautiful woman, Regina. Not a girl—a woman. It's unacceptable that you don't know how to wear high heels.”

She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

“I assume, after our conversation at the library today, that you are here tonight because you want to be here. Is that correct?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Say it,” he said.

“I want to be here,” she said.

“Good,” he said. “That's the last time I'm going to ask you that, Regina. From this point on, we have an understanding that what goes on between us is consensual. But at the same time, you need to accept the fact that what you
want
does not matter.”

She had an urge to reach out and brush a lock of dark hair off of his forehead. He was so beautiful it was downright distracting.

“I don't really know what you're talking about.”

“Come here,” he said, motioning her to the couch. She sat next to him. He took her hand in his, and in his palm her own hand felt small, like a child's. “I want to have a physical relationship with you, Regina. A very specific type of physical relationship.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, still not following him. Was he talking about sex? Did people always come out and say it like that?

“I want to dominate you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Specifically? I want to tell you what to do, and I want you to obey me without question—whether it's wearing a certain type of underwear, or shoes, or undressing when and where I say, or sucking my cock on command.”

She swallowed hard, certain her face was bright red. He stroked her hand. “Sometimes I might want to do other things, too. But it all comes down to your giving up your control to me. And we can discuss if there's something you really don't want to do, but it's important that you fundamentally give yourself over to me.”

Regina nodded, her mind stuck like a scratched DVD, replaying the words
suck my cock
again and again. This was not a phrase she was prepared to have directed at her. But at the same time, the look in his eyes mirrored the same feeling that she had for him, a potent mix of curiosity and desire.

This is it,
she told herself. No more life on the sidelines. All of the things that had always seemed out of reach—excitement, passion, sex—were being offered to her. If she had the nerve to reach out and take them.

“What do you say, Regina?” he asked. She nodded, not trusting her voice. But it was enough for him.

“Stand up,” he said. She hesitated for a second, then stood awkwardly in front of him. His eyes swept over her, taking her in from head to toe. Then he said, “You were a very bad girl today at the library, the way you disobeyed me like that.”

She giggled, a nervous laugh that was as involuntary as a twitch. His dark eyes clouded, looking at her with such intensity she couldn't maintain eye contact.

“Get down on my lap,” he said.

Regina stood frozen, looking at him in disbelief.

“Lie across my lap. On your stomach,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

“This is what I'm talking about, Regina,” he said. “Don't you want to please me?”
Yes,
she thought with every fiber of her body.

She moved slowly—and, she felt, awkwardly—onto his lap in the position he directed.

Sebastian shifted under the weight of her torso, and her legs stretched out along the length of the couch.

“Move forward a few inches,” he instructed. She moved so that her waist was draped over his lap.

“This feels ridiculous,” she said.

“Don't speak,” Sebastian commanded. For what seemed like a long time, she just lay very still, her head turned to the side and resting on her folded arms.

And then she felt him pulling up her dress.

Her first instinct was to jump up, but she forced herself to stay still. She knew that if she was going to protest, she might as well just leave. But she didn't want to leave—not yet.

Sebastian lifted the dress only just above her waist. It was Carly's dress, a navy-blue bias-cut sundress from Alice and Olivia. When she had borrowed it earlier that night, she never imagined it would end up bunched above her hips, leaving her legs and ass exposed.

Her breathing quickened, and she tried not to wonder what her ass looked like in the underwear she'd pulled hastily from the top drawer of her dresser. She'd barely looked at it since pulling it from the laundry after the first time she'd worn it, and now she couldn't even remember if they were sheer or not. And she hoped she'd hooked the garters on correctly.

No one had ever seen her in her underwear. The few boyfriends she'd had only groped her in the darkness of late-night dorm rooms, or in the shadows of the front seat of a car. None of them had really looked at her—not like this.

“I'm glad to see you in the appropriate lingerie, Regina. But I'm still going to have to punish you for earlier today. I'm taking your panties off now,” he said as he gently tugged them down.

“No!” she said, her hand flying behind her back, holding them in place. He didn't say anything, but he did stop moving his hands. Regina froze, too. Then, slowly, she moved her hands back up under her cheek.

Sebastian continued pulling down her underwear. She felt the cool air of the room on her bare skin, and it gave her goose bumps. The thought of Sebastian staring at her naked ass was excruciating.