With or Without You (19 page)

Anthony leaned in. ‘I hope you kept the tape.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘Because I’m sure her bosses would appreciate a copy. You could send it right on to the law firm. I’ll bet they have a strict policy about the management level fucking the underlings.’

‘How did you know she was a lawyer?’ I asked, surprised.

Anthony gave me another smile, but didn’t respond.

Nora looked gleeful at the idea, but I said no. ‘Look, I’m not out to get them. I just want him to go away.’ I took a sip of my drink and then faced the dance floor.

Nora said, ‘I’m glad you guys are here. The casting starts at midnight, and I’m going to need all the help I can get.’

‘Is it an open call?’ Anthony looked shocked.

Nora shook her head. ‘No, way. We’d have people lined up around the block. But it’s been wild nonetheless. That’s why I missed Byron at first. We’ve been overwhelmed tonight.’

‘What do people have to do to try out?’ She shot me a look, and I said, ‘I’m not kidding. I really want to know.’ I didn’t think that they’d have to fuck her, or put on an act of their own in the Cinéma Vérité room. But what might Nora have dreamed up for the competition? I could only wonder.

‘Mix up a unique drink and serve it with sophistication.’

‘That’s it?’

‘You’d be surprised at how hard it is,’ she said. ‘Think of the sexy drinks you know: Sex on the Beach, Blow Job, Fuzzy Navel … Our bartenders have to make drinks like that without batting an eye. And sometimes the person ordering the luscious libation is extremely flirtatious, yet our bartenders have to handle the request in as professional a way as possible. Imagine you’re a girl working bar and a movie star walks up and asks you to give him a Blow Job.’

Anthony started laughing. He looked around the room, then back at Nora. ‘Nine out of ten of your staff would be on their knees behind the bar.’

‘That’s not so!’ Nora said in mock outrage.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What do you think?’

‘A hundred per cent. We aim to please.’ And even I couldn’t tell whether or not she was kidding.

At midnight, all of the attractive hopefuls had lined up against the wall. There were several Bijoux Network studio execs sitting at the bar along with Nora, Travis, Anthony and myself. Although I’d told Anthony that he didn’t have to stay, sure that I could get a ride home with Nora, he said he wouldn’t miss the event – that this was pure excitement. I was surprised by his attitude. Sometimes, artsy folks, or ‘ARTSI’ folks can be a bit on the pompous side. Art has its merits, but this sort of event would rank so far below what my co-workers would consider entertainment, they wouldn’t even acknowledge its existence. I knew that Byron would have wrinkled his nose at the concept of the reality show, even though he’d been caught in the reality room only hours before. But I had to think that was all Gwen’s doing. Byron had never been one to engage in PDAs in the past. The thought of him willing to fuck for the camera was almost frightening.

But Anthony looked as if he was having a blast.

‘You sure you’re OK?’ I asked him, just to check.

‘Are you kidding? I’m thinking of trying out,’ he told me with a wink.

We watched together as more than fifty different beautiful people took their turn behind the bar.

‘Why did you hold the auditions so late?’ I asked Nora in between two contestants. When I looked around the room, I saw that one hopeful had already fallen asleep, her hands folded under her head, her blonde hair hiding her face. My guess was that she had already eliminated herself.

‘Because the club is open until two. I need people who are true night owls. We’re not filming a faux show. The thing is going to take place right here. During real club hours.’

‘Some of your contestants are going to blow it before they ever belly up to the bar,’ I told her, pointing to the sleeping blonde, and now I saw that a second contestant had fallen asleep, as well. It was amazing to me that either girl could sleep with the music playing so loudly. In order for any one of us to have a conversation, we either had to yell, or move in close and speak directly into one another’s ears.

‘That simply makes the choosing process that much easier.’

‘How many people did you start with?’ Anthony asked.

‘We whittled down the list from several thousand. People sent in videotapes and headshots from as far away as New Zealand. I got so much email on the first day of the call for contestants that our server went down.’

Next up was a young Swedish girl who explained that she would be making a Tantric Kiss, a drink created by a mixologist at Tantra in Miami. The drink consisted of orange blossom water, vodka, peach Schnapps, two different fruit juices and a flower for garnish. I knew from experience that Nora keeps several types of edible flowers
in her refrigerator at all times. But this girl won the judges’ eyes by flirting slightly as she plucked a flower from her own silver-blonde hair and dropped it into the drink.

‘Not so hygienic,’ Anthony said.

‘Perhaps not, but sexy,’ Nora replied. ‘Sexy is very important.’

‘It is,’ Anthony agreed, and he set his hand on my thigh under the bar. I knew that Nora couldn’t see him, but I felt myself freeze. As soon as his hand touched me, I remembered the manuscript he’d translated. I wished that I’d thought to tie my hair up with a ribbon, something golden that Anthony could remove and use to bind my own wrists …

‘Who’s next?’ I asked quickly, to cover my nerves.

‘You thirsty?’ Nora asked. She was teasing me. I’d been the one to try several of the concoctions so far. Nora had chosen me to ask for the drinks, as I am not the average customer. She wanted to mix things up for the contestants. So far, I’d had to ask one bartender for A Piece of Ass, another for an Affair, and a third for a Slow Comfortable Screw. That one was my favourite.

Nora had put Anthony to work, as well, instructing him to ask for a Wet Dream, a drink called Wild Sex and another one called Party Girl. It was between that and a Dirty Girl Scout, and he said he felt too lecherous to order the last one. At this point, we were neck and neck, definitely drunk and getting drunker.

‘I can’t believe we’re doing this,’ I said as I lay back in one of Nora’s booths. It was made of purple leopard-print vinyl, and it felt cool when I rested my cheek against the side.

‘Getting plastered together?’

‘Just all of it.’

‘You mean it’s an odd sort of way to spend a first date.’

I didn’t respond right away. Nora had been right. This was a date. But it wasn’t a date-date. I mean, it wasn’t
like any date I’d ever been on in the past. Perhaps that had been my problem. I’ve always been on the sort of dates you could find if you looked up first-date tips online: dinner and a movie, walk through a park, drive to the beach.

‘I like it,’ Anthony said, pulling my hand so that I moved back into an upright position. We sat there, side by side, watching as Nora spoke with the show’s official casting director. They were honing down their favourites, deciding who they would ask to come back.

‘The winner has a shot at creating his or her own drink,’ Nora told us when she came to say the preliminary casting was complete. That we could all call it a night and go home.

‘I’ll bet I know what it’s going to be called,’ I said, but Anthony said it before I could: ‘A Pink Fedora.’

In my dreams, I attended the party described in the journal. But unlike the girl in the story, who had been blindfolded by her partner, I could see the different players, and they were all the co-stars in my life. Byron was there, in a mask with devil’s horns. He and Gwen lay entwined on a shimmering white fur rug, and I watched as Byron lifted Gwen’s sheer dress and pressed his face to her pussy. I could actually hear it as Byron’s tongue plunged in and out, making Gwen arch and moan loudly, gripping my ex-boyfriend’s shoulders as he came.

Across the room, Nora and Dean were entwined, smoothing golden oil on each other’s naked skin. Nora’s hair was as short as always, but in this vision, she did not sport a multicoloured look. Instead, her hair was its true midnight black, and decorated with tiny purple wild flowers. Dean’s long dark locks shone in the light. His tattoos seemed to be living artwork, moving on his skin. I watched as he fucked Nora, watched as Travis came and joined them, turning Nora into an intricate sexual sandwich, and although I felt a twinge within me, I wasn’t jealous. I was waiting. I knew that my lover was coming soon, and I held myself in check, preparing for his entrance.

But where was he?

I could smell the fragrant fruit trees just outside, the wafting scents of citrus and the still-blossoming honeysuckle, the flowers drooping heavily on the vine. Then I heard a voice call my name. I turned to the doorway, and there stood Anthony. As he strode forwards, all of the
other partiers faded away. It was just the two of us, together.

‘What are you thinking?’ he whispered, as he had asked me at dinner. This time, I didn’t let him down. I told him everything. All of my fantasies. All of my secret dreams. And slowly, as I slept, Anthony made each one come true.

He tied me up, the knots so firm, I couldn’t fight. I tested the bindings, pulling my wrists, but that only worked to tighten the knots even further. Then he put me over his lap and spanked me. His hand came down on my ass, hard, and I cried out and kicked my heels in the air. He took no pity on me. He slapped my ass harder still, and I felt my pussy respond, tightening, contracting.

Just like the girl in the story, I let him know what I wanted with my eyes on his. I looked over my shoulder at him, begging silently for him to strike harder, and then to fuck me even harder than that. Anthony had told me when I’d reached his favourite part. The bondage part. He’d let me know that he was willing. That he was ready. And in my dreams, I responded as I’d been unable to in real life.

In the middle of the night – well, much after the middle of the night, since we had not gotten home until four – I jerked myself awake. It felt as if I had been physically pulled from the dreams, wrenched from sleep. My body was wet with sweat. The place between my legs felt swollen and used. I could not think of another time that I had touched myself in my sleep. Byron would have told me if I had, would have teased me mercilessly if he had caught me.

I brought my fingers to my face, smelled them, catching the scent of my pleasure. I must have pushed my fingers into my pussy, must have rocked my hand in and out, thrusting in deep, curving the tips of my fingers to stroke the inner walls of my cunt. This was so unlike me. I assured myself that I was behaving oddly simply
because I wasn’t used to sleeping in a strange room hearing strange noises. I lied to myself. My mind was filled with images of the couple in the diary, of me and Anthony, of naked lovers putting on shows for a rowdy audience.

Everything whirled at fast speed behind my closed eyelids. Images dripping with sex, girls bound on tables while others dined on the feasts of their bodies. These visions kept me awake, my heart pounding in my chest, and though I willed myself to go back to sleep, my mind would not let me.

I took a deep breath, tried all of the tricks I do when I am occasionally plagued by insomnia. I closed my eyes and counted backwards from one hundred. First in English, then in French. I imagined myself tucked into a hammock, swinging back and forth between two palm trees, the sun beating down on me, the waves folding over to kiss the sand just below the woven hammock. I created a mental paradise where I relaxed naked under the sun. But every time I closed my eyes, I was consumed by thoughts of Anthony. By images of him. I could see him without his glasses on, at close range, leaning in to kiss me. I could feel the warmth of his body in the booth at the restaurant, sliding closer to me, his hands probing under the table, finding the edge of my skirt and pushing it up. Revealing me inch by inch, playing teasing games with his fingertips until he got to the ridge of my panties.

What would he do then? What did I want him to do?

My mind spelled it out. I was in the restaurant once again, and this time I answered his questions. He said, ‘What are you thinking?’ and I said, ‘I want to be bad. I’m tired of being good all the time.’

‘What do you mean, “bad”?’

A question someone at ARTSI would ask.
What does the picture mean to you? What does bad mean in your world?

‘More than anything, I want to be …’ To be what? To be different. To push the boundaries. To break free. ‘More
than anything, I want not to be …’ Not to be what? Boring? Simple? Dull?

This was a simple statement – maybe too simple – that I could not seem to complete. Where was my powerful vocabulary? Where were the ten-dollar words that win me Scrabble every time, that help me do the
New York Times
crossword puzzle faster than any of my friends can.

The only words I had power over were these: I want to be naughty, bad, wicked.

Perhaps those were all I needed, because he nodded, and his fingers pushed forwards, and there, where I was wet and hot and ready, he discovered my centre, plunged my core.

Why hadn’t I given in tonight?

After the casting call, Anthony had asked me if I wanted to go back to his apartment with him. ‘I know it’s late,’ he said, ‘but I’m not tired. Do you want to come to my house? Do you want to see my trains?’

And I’d said no.

As if to punish me for my lack of excitement, sleep would not come for me. I climbed off of the sofa bed and walked to the window. It was after 6 a.m. If I’d gone to Anthony’s, what would we be doing? Would we be asleep yet? Or would we be watching his valuable train set go around and around his bedroom?

Fuck the train, I thought to myself.

We’d be on the floor, or on the bed, or on his fire escape. Yes, the fire escape. Even though Byron and I had lived in an apartment with a balcony for three years, we’d never managed to make love outside. I had a strong desire to do just that, to fuck where people might see me. To fuck where the wind and air could flow over my naked body. I could visualise doing this with Anthony, his strong arms around my body, his head leaning in towards the back of my neck to lick me, to kiss me, to bite me and make me squirm. His hips pressing against my backside, thrusting, teasing. There’d been a promise in Anthony’s eyes. I
wanted to see exactly what that promise meant. And I mentally berated myself for not going home with him, for not being daring enough to explore the unknown.