“Oh, you’ll have normal relationships,” Babylona said, with a sad tinge to her voice. “You’ll fall in love and desert me; I can tell these things. It’s tragic.”
But Emily was not so sure. The show had become a crazy dream world of sensuality. She would wander through the city, noticing all the good-looking men and wondering if they had a story, if she could get them on the show. One day she actually struck up a conversation with an absurdly sexy man in a bar, who turned out to be a successful artist and a fan of
In Depth.
He was the first near-celebrity she’d had on the show—the first person, anyhow, who had considered it a possible boost to his career. The day after it aired, her producers were besieged by phone calls from slightly less well-known artists. Soon Emily was sleeping with a series of C-list celebrities trying to become B-list celebrities. At that point, the show became something that was written about in
Newsweek
: a symptom of a decadent age. Emily was suddenly famous as an emblem of the “pornification” of media.
It had never occurred to her to think of herself in that light. Porn had always existed (well, as long as people could draw). And she wasn’t selling sex on a major network; it was a porn channel. A place people went to specifically
for
porn. And, once she thought about it, she herself didn’t approve of pornography becoming a part of mainstream culture. She found herself in a bar one night with her friend Jared (internationally renowned star of
Mile-High Club)
, both of them tipsily denouncing pornification. “It’s horrible how kids’ first experience of sex is Internet porn nowadays,” she was saying. “I mean, I never had that. I got to come to it from my own . . . you know . . . my private fantasies that were really about falling in love.”
“Yeah,” he said, “up to a point. Like, I watched porn when I was a teenager, but it wasn’t so normalized. You didn’t think that was all sex was about.”
“And it’s different for girls,” she said with a touch of anger. “I just think of thirteen-year-old girls seeing something like
In Depth
and it makes me feel sick.”
Here she noticed two men at the next booth eavesdropping intently and looked fiercely at the floor. She heard one of them say to the other in an undertone, “You’re right. That
can’t
be Emily Lister.”
It was also then that the hate mail began, in tandem with a flood of love letters and proposals of marriage. Looking back on it, she didn’t know how she’d maintained any balance at all. Jared was helpful—he was going through his own crisis, giving up on-screen sex just as she was getting used to it. He and Emily would spend long nights together, talking about all the stresses and the moral dilemmas until the sun came up. He was also the first person she had private sex with in the
In Depth
era. He turned out to be a thoughtful, sensitive lover as well as a wonderful confidant, although their relationship never had a romantic component. It was the only time she’d been able to have sex with someone whom she loved as a friend.
And then she’d met Evan. Their relationship had started on the show. He was a fashion designer with a bad-boy reputation. Being a straight male designer gave him privileged access to models, of which he took full advantage—before and after he began to go out with Emily. When she found out he was still sleeping with other women, he said, “You do remember how we met, right? I mean, I can go get images of you cheating on me from the Internet right now, if you really want to have this argument.”
And when she said she would give up her job, he stammered and said, “Oh . . . you couldn’t do that. It’s your dream.”
It had never been her dream. Maybe, in a weak moment, the five-room apartment she’d just bought overlooking Central Park was her dream. When she was an awkward teenager, being on Hottest Women lists, as she routinely was now, could have been her dream. But . . .
“My dream, for your information, was to be a veterinarian,” she’d told him furiously.
Well, she could hardly blame him for laughing.
Babylona was no help at all. She wanted to be a help, but she just didn’t understand Emily’s psychology. She admitted as much herself.
“I am sorry about Evan,” she’d said with real sympathy. “He was such a beautiful man. But only one man for the rest of your life? I don’t know how you people face the idea. It’s like only eating steak for the rest of you life. However good the steak . . . I suppose Evan is still taboo. Oh, I see. Well, I will tear up his number, cross my heart.”
Now, in her third year of
In Depth,
Emily was both more comfortable with the unsavory fame, and more certain that she wanted to leave. Some days, the only thing that stopped her from writing a letter of resignation was the image of herself in a class on canine respiratory illnesses, hearing the inevitable giggles and whispers from the people behind her. There would be rude come-ons, cattiness from other women. And although she hated the notoriety, surely life would seem boring without it? Would she really be happy to go back to being an ordinary person?
All this was turning in the back of her mind as she accompanied Ralph Anderman into his Upper East Side pied-à-terre. When he’d asked her to lunch, she’d assumed it would be at a restaurant. But of course he couldn’t be seen with her without risking gossip about their relationship. The idea depressed her even as she was glad to be with him alone. His apartment windows overlooked the park, from almost exactly opposite her apartment building. She knew, with a sinking feeling, that she was going to be looking for his window at night. In spite of herself, she took notice of the floor—twenty-one—and figured out which corner of the building it was, ensuring later sleepless nights.
The living room they were entering was a huge sweep of gleaming wood floor on two levels, and the side overlooking the park was glass from floor to ceiling. The view was breathtaking. The furniture was a motley collection of antiques, with the odd masculine wrong note thrown in here and there—a dartboard over the chesterfield armchair, a punching bag hanging beside an ornately carved bookshelf. The bookshelf itself held a jumble of reference books, classics, airport novels, and—she noticed with an odd tenderness—children’s books that he had obviously saved from his own early years. (Thanks to her researchers, she knew Ralph had no children. He had, in fact, never had a relationship that lasted longer than three months, which had made her feel a certain kinship to him. At four months, Evan was her personal long-distance record.)
A rack of neatly halved sandwiches and a bottle of Pellegrino waited on a low chestnut coffee table in front of a huge leather sofa that showed the telltale signs of previous occupation by a dog. Ralph and Emily sat, a little self-consciously, and she found she was staring at the sandwiches without any desire to eat at all.
“I’m sorry it’s a little uninspiring,” he said. “This is what I always have, and I didn’t really think . . .”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter.” She looked up at him and was instantly entranced by his dark gaze. A faint, pleasant chill went through her, and she wondered if this was what people felt when she gave them the “magic touch.” Every cell of her body felt more alive when he looked at her. Even his handsome face, the presence of his strong masculine body so close to her, were like background noise to the compelling electricity of that look. She swallowed and said, “So . . .”
“Why are you here?”
She laughed. “I guess I’m always asking you why I’m here.”
“But this time I wanted to give you a real answer. I know I behaved very strangely the other day.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m used to people behaving strangely. I mean, it wasn’t strange. In my world, everyone’s strange. I mean . . .”
He smiled. “No need to tie yourself in knots. It was strange, and I think there are strange people in everyone’s world. But I’m not usually one of them. Now I’m in the difficult position of having to explain something I don’t understand myself. You know I told you I’d read your interviews?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“That was an understatement. I read one—I just happened upon it, and it struck me somehow. I can’t say what it was. Maybe it was your picture.” He shook his head. “I know people get all kinds of fantasies about celebrities, but I guess I thought I was immune. I meet famous people all the time now.”
“So you got a . . . fantasy?” She tried to smile, but completely failed. His eyes were burning into hers. “But you still didn’t watch the show? Oh, because you . . . don’t have cable.”
“Because I didn’t want to watch you having sex with another man.”
She felt a prickling in her eyes and realized she was, ridiculously, on the brink of tears. She forced herself to say, “You mean you had a sexual fantasy, but it was . . . it wasn’t about me with someone else?”
By the time she finished speaking, he was already shaking his head, with an expression of mild impatience. He said, “Don’t sell yourself so short, Emily.” He smiled. “There, I said your name.”
“You did,” she said, swallowing again to try to quell the threatening tears.
“I’ve been saying it in my head. . . . You must think I’m completely crazy.”
“You’re completely crazy,” she said, and a rogue tear slipped down her cheek. “But I still don’t understand.”
His face went grave and alarmed. “You’re crying.” He started to put out his hand, but thought better of it. “Did something I said make you cry?”
“No! I don’t know why I’m crying. I don’t usually cry.” She wiped away the tear, trying again to smile. She was aware of giving herself away in the worst possible way, but she still wasn’t sure what it was she was revealing. She hadn’t had any ridiculous fantasies about him. Had she?
Then he said, “I’m sorry. I can’t stand it anymore. Would you come here?”
A moment later, though she couldn’t have said how it happened, she was in his arms and he was holding her while she cried desperately on his shoulder. His arms felt familiar to her—though at the same time he felt like no other man she’d ever touched. The sensation of being protected was mingled with a dizzying impression of his strength. She had put herself at the mercy of someone who was stronger than she was. If it was just a sexual fantasy that he’d had, that he was blowing up into something else, then she would be used and put aside. If it was something else, she didn’t even know what was going to happen to her. At that moment, it felt like something so overwhelming and new that it was frightening. She knew, paradoxically, that she wouldn’t have the courage to do it without him there.
And only a tiny, tiny voice continued to insist, through her tears and longing, that she didn’t know this man at all. How could he mean anything to her?
He put his lips to her ear, tenderly kissing the place where it met her cheek, and began to speak in a low, impassioned voice. “I felt as if I’d always known you. I do know you—I don’t care if it sounds crazy. I know your gentleness and your honesty, and the way you won’t forgive yourself for things that aren’t your fault. I kept thinking you needed someone to tell you you’re not to blame. And I know you can’t tell anything about a person from an interview. I know it, but I knew all about you. Those pictures. God, they broke my heart.”
“But I’m fine,” she blubbered.
They both laughed. She said, “I mean, I was fine until just a minute ago. As fine as most people are. I don’t know—could you be in real trouble and never even know it was happening?”
He pulled back a little to look at her. “Well, I’m no judge, but . . .”
Their eyes met again. And since they were already holding each other, it seemed only natural that he leaned down and kissed her on the lips. It seemed natural and at the same time it seemed as if a massive wall had fallen, the wall between the past and an unimaginable future. He was kissing her, and she clung to him, letting the feelings fall with her through a million miles of needs she had suppressed, fears she hadn’t acknowledged. And through it all he was holding her, keeping her safe within the charmed circle that was his kiss. At the same time, her body felt charged with desire of a different order from anything she’d ever felt—all she could think was that it was a complete desire, a confluence of emotion and physical passion.
So it seemed only natural when he began to unbutton her blouse and kiss the tops of her breasts. She immediately accepted it as a tribute of affection, and her skin was warm and alive where he kissed her. Even the feeling of her nipples hardening as his fingers ran over her breasts was a deep yielding to him, an opening into sex with a significance she had never fully suspected. She had known the words for it but not what they meant.
He leaned forward, bearing her gently onto her back, and then his wonderful body was weighing her down as his hands moved up and down her body, hungrily getting to know her. He pulled one breast free from her bra and bent to kiss it and then to suck on her nipple with a sweet eagerness. She moaned and was aware at the same time that she was crying again, even as he pulled up her skirt and she felt him pressing against her. Ridiculously, the fact that she could feel his hard-on against her made her swell almost unbearably with love.
Then she had thought the word “love.”
As he pulled down her panties and opened his belt, his eyes locked onto hers again. He said, “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
She couldn’t speak. She wanted him so much she couldn’t find the words. At last she managed a whispered “Yes . . . yes.”
A second later he was pushing inside her, holding her in his arms as his cock opened her with an aching note of delight that made her clutch his shoulders and cry out. She surrendered herself to the helpless pleasure of being fucked; her breasts flattened to his chest, his cock stroking her inside and seeming to open new reserves, sources of pleasure she hadn’t suspected. Each stroke inside her drove her to a new plane of pleasure, until she was coming while he was still fucking her. She felt his desire and need mingled with her own release—and desired him more.