Amply Rewarded (9 page)

“I would love to join you for dinner tonight, but I’m afraid you’ve already seen me in my one pretty dress. I wasn’t anticipating staying in the city.” I was on my best behaviour. It’s no secret that you never get more than what you ask for.

“Say no more, my dear.” He opened his pocketbook and pulled out more bills than I had ever held in my hands. “I’ll meet you at five in the lobby for martinis.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” I winked.

With that, I was off for a day of shopping at the best boutiques. Nothing but the most extravagant would do. I started from the inside and worked out, buying myself a black velvet corset and panties with frills. It was the kind of luxury that Carla would have envied. I had my long hair styled and indulged in a manicure and pedicure. This was the life I had wanted when I left home and now, only days after leaving Carla’s house, it was mine. I gathered it could stay my reality forever, from the sound of Hal’s voice. Women are loved the way they want to be loved, and I owned Mr Hal Broughton.

In the lounge, to the outside observer, it might have appeared as though I was my companion’s plaything. Mr Broughton’s salt-and-pepper hair and oversized belly emanated experience. The lines around his eyes and mouth indicated a rich life of laughter and money, but I saw something others were unaware of. Hal suffered. It was clear from his milky white hands that he’d been privy to the kind of nepotism that makes a man soft. He had no clue what his role was. His accomplishments had been orders that he had filled out. His whole life had been lived for approval. Yes, this was a man who was so out of touch with his own desires, so far removed from his inner sexual bully, that he had become a puppet of his parents’ fortunes. Taking him would be easy.

We feasted, drank wine, ate fine cheese plates and salads, and he became more and more enamoured as I looked into his eyes with compassion.

“You sure are a lovely creature, Miss Julie,” he offered on several occasions. Each time I wondered whether he knew that ‘creature’ was the operative word. If he didn’t, then he would soon find out.

“Mr Broughton, would you care to join me in my room tonight?”

“I would like that very much.” His words spilt out of him, delighted as he was that such a beautiful young woman was taking interest in him. Real interest.

“Then you shall be my guest. I am an excellent hostess.”

“I’m sure you are.”

* * * *

We ordered nightcaps to be sent to my room. A martini for me, and bourbon for Mr Broughton. I lit the candles I’d bought. “I’m going to slip out of this dress and into something more comfortable,” I said, eyeing the shopping bags in my boudoir.

“Wait.” He paused. “Why don’t you come sit next to me for a moment.” I joined him on the dark green velvet chaise longue. “It’s just that you look so lovely tonight, refulgent and full of energy. I’m…”

We both knew what he was about to say. “I’m… Well, let’s just say I’m from a different generation than you.”

“Why, Mr Broughton! Do you think I’m trying to seduce you?”

“Heavens, no. Absolutely not,” he said. “Heaven forbid, my goodness.”

“Because I’m not. I’m a lady.”

“You are an extraordinary lady, Miss Julie—the best I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.”

“Why, thank you. And you are a gentleman. The best I have known.”

“Come with me, Miss Julie.”

“What?”

“I mean it. Come with me. You and me. I’d like very much for you to join me.” He took my hands into his soft, doughy ones.

“Join you? Where?”

“Everywhere. I’m leaving in a week, sailing with my friend Timothy to Florida. From there I’ll be taking a plane back to Virginia. If you like it there, you’re welcome to stay with me. I mean, if that’s okay with you.”

“That’s quite an offer. I barely know you. I have my home in New York City.”

“We can send for your things.”

“I’ll have to think about it. This is very sudden,” I lied. There was nothing to think about. I didn’t have a home. I didn’t have things. I had no prospect of ever having things without working very hard for them. This was as easy as smearing warm butter on toast.

I approached him, sitting on the chaise. I lunged onto him, straddling his lap and slipping my legs around him. My long velvet gown fell onto the floor and my breasts heaved out of the neckline. He stared at me in utter amazement. One would think that women do this all the time, but I don’t think Mr Broughton had ever experienced this kind of aggression, or even admission that I was ready for him to take me. I was ready to take him. He was overwhelmed. I liked it that way. I always have. I enjoyed total annihilation of self-control and abandonment of social niceties for the sake of utter passion.

Hal was not concurrent.

“Miss Julie,” he whispered as I licked his neck, “It’s late. Perhaps I’d best be going. I wouldn’t want to take advantage of a lady’s hospitality.”

It was hard to believe him. He had hung on to my words since he’d met me. He was fascinated with me—smitten, even. I was definitely a coveted prize and I was ready to offer myself on a platter. But it was more of a test than anything. Hal, like most men, was so afraid, so intimidated that he didn’t know what to do. I’d seen it all the time at Carla’s. Men are supposed to have a ferocious sexual appetite. Get them into a room with me who will do anything to fulfil their fantasy because I sincerely enjoy it, and they become little children who need their mothers.

I was hanging off one such man, had my tongue on his neck and my hands around his back and was stroking him in all the right ways. Now he didn’t know what to do and it angered me. I think it angered me because the trend had been so prevalent. I supposed that was the difference between the men I saw as clients and the kinds of men who wandered the world and didn’t have to make arrangements with a call girl. I had become an expert at dealing with the men least likely to fend for themselves in the sexual realm. If this had been a jungle, I would have been a vicious lioness and the men who saw me, including Hal, would be timid antelope. But if he thought I was going to go along with him, he would have to be prepared for me to test the merchandise. After all, there were dozens of rich men at my disposal and I certainly wouldn’t have difficulty meeting others.

“Mr Broughton, stay a while. Get comfortable. I insist.”

“But…”

“Really. It would be my pleasure to have you.” With that, I took his soft hand and guided it underneath my skirt to my awaiting moisture. He touched my warm pussy and a rush came over me. I took his hand and moved it around in tiny circles, hoping that he would take the opportunity to become more stern. I was more than willing. He looked baffled. Almost on the verge of mortified, as though this had been the last thing on his mind and that I had somehow choreographed the most atrocious humiliation for him, he politely retracted his hand. Had this happened to any woman but me, I’m sure she would have felt forever sullied by his bashful glance. But I wasn’t.

* * * *

Just as Kelly had gained the upper hand when she’d rejected my advances, I became intrigued with Hal’s convoluted desires. To really win him over, I would have to play his game and, in this case, he wanted desperately to see me as an unattainable lady. I was his fine young prize and he would treat me as such, providing for me the way his wealthy background dictated.

The week passed. I spent my days in extravagance. Hal was busy working, he claimed. There was some trouble with his estate, I gathered from his cryptic descriptions of daily activities. He was in the process of claiming his inheritance, hence the trip to Virginia. It turned out that, despite the occasional hint of a Southern accent, he had only been raised at the manor in Virginia part-time, having spent his childhood being carted back and forth between Europe’s finest boarding schools and his grandparents’ home in Canada.

Though he travelled freely between all the countries he loved, he explained, inheriting property was a messy matter and his papers weren’t clean.

I knew almost immediately that his motivation in San Francisco was twofold. The gentleman needed a wife. This was not a matter of want, but an issue of doing the right thing, as his ageing benefactor had recently become rather opinionated in the decision-making process.

Why, I wondered, had this handsome, eligible man put off marriage for so long? It seemed a mystery to me until I saw the whole situation with absolute clarity. Hal had not spent the last week as a gentleman courting a lady. He had as much interest in ladies as I had in Idaho. We were hardwired that way and, for the first time, I didn’t look into Hal’s eyes with the intention of dissecting him, as I did with most men. Instead, I looked at him with sincere compassion.

That fate had brought us together was a beneficent realisation.

The most luxurious week of my life came to a sudden close that climaxed with an evening of caviar and pâté in his suite. Hal, once I understood him, was the most entertaining man I’d ever known.

That last night marked the culmination of sizing each other up for the roles we needed each other to play for the next phase of our lives.

“Would you like to be my guest in Virginia?” Hal was blunt after the first few cocktails. I’d waited for the question since the first night he’d made the suggestion. I’d been working on the best possible answer.

I looked out of the window. “I’m sorry, Hal, I’m just not sure about it. I do like you and your offer is tempting, but think about what I might be giving up.”

“I don’t want you to have to sacrifice. I don’t want you to want for anything. Whatever you want, name it and it’s yours.”

“Lovers.”

“What?”

“I want lovers. I want to be able to socialise with whomever I want.” I certainly wouldn’t be able to tolerate a sexless life of ladylike behaviour. I would only have set myself up for the worst kind of failure.

His face went pale. Perhaps he had been expecting that I would say I wanted a diamond or a driver or an elaborate allowance. Sexuality was just not something that one discussed with Hal. He was a gentleman through and through, and he had no interest in publicising the private.

“That’s only fair,” he whispered. “After all, I’m…”

“You’re what?”

“I’m afraid to tell you.”

“Don’t be afraid, Hal.”

“Well, I’m not young anymore. I just can’t…”

He blushed, became unbelievably shy and awkward as he looked into the glass he swivelled elegantly in his hand. I vowed never to discuss the matter again. I hated causing him such discomfort.

“You are a handsome and successful man. I would be proud to be on your arm.”

“Really?”

“Yes, yes and yes.”

“Oh, Julie, you make me so happy.” He kissed my cheek. And with that we sealed our understanding. “I’ll do this right, Julie, I assure you. I’ll do this the old-fashioned way, the Southern way. You’ll want for nothing, I promise you that. If it’s lovers you want, well… You’ll have the best selection of everything. If it’s clothes, or jewellery, or travel, or…”

“Oh, Hal, stop.”

“I mean it, Julie. In all my forty-six years, I have never met a woman like you. You understand me. You know what I need. Do you have any idea what that’s worth to a man?”

For a moment, I had a difficult time believing Hal, but I knew that I couldn’t afford to think that way. Success has no room for self-doubt, and my success was contingent on his acceptance of me. Like Hal, I also had never met anyone like me. I was more than a pretty face—I’m sure he had had his pick of Southern belles before me—and what he saw in me must have been something quite extraordinary, something to do with my wild education and unabashed attitude. Yet I was, to my own surprise sometimes, very much a lady. It was a combination of manners, of my feigned gentility and my obscene mind coalescing somehow with his combined tact and pragmatism. And if he wanted to marry me and give me the life I craved, well, why get in the way of that kind of progress?

“Well, then, ask me properly, Hal.”

“What?”

“If I mean that much to you, then ask me properly. I am, after all, a lady and I deserve the kind of propositioning that makes a girl blush.”

“Miss Julie, I see there’s a bit of a romantic in you, after all.”

“If I’m going to marry a Southern gentleman, I have to at least know how to blend in, don’t I? Besides, what do you want me to answer when folks ask about your proposal? You wouldn’t want a lady to have to lie to defend your honour, would you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Okay then, so I’ll expect my wedding proposal in the next few days. Goodnight, Hal.” I kissed him on the cheek and left his room.

Back in the comfort of my own suite, I thought about how this could work.
Always an innovator
, I said to myself, over and over. It wasn’t so much that I had ever fallen into the right situation—I just seemed to know how to mould situations and work them to my advantage. This would be no different from Carla’s.

Except, of course, that it would be the complete opposite. I wondered how much I would even see Hal. I wondered what would happen after my end of the contract was fulfilled. There were many things to negotiate and Hal was not the kind of man to be upfront about his needs.

I’m not a romantic. I have always relied on my rationality and I like it that way. Men are a means to an end. I was his public tart and he was my ladder to climb. I appreciated the soft steps I could take on him and I soon figured out, much to my surprise, that I was capable of loving him. I was capable of finding sincere satisfaction in our agreement and our mutual admiration. I was no more at his mercy than he was at mine and we both knew it. This marriage would be built on understanding, contracts, discretion and fun. I still believe that we had unlocked the secret to marital bliss. It was in exact opposition to conventional definitions of marriage. We would not consummate, would not expect to find sexual satisfaction with each other. Instead, we would become excellent fakers for the cause. I would help him with his secret life and he would give me everything I longed for. We would not have couple friends over for drinks and talk incessantly about how similar we are, the way most married couples do. Instead, we would have carefully selected collaborators who understood us and how they fitted into the scheme of our union.