Beautiful You (17 page)

On a rare evening outside the office, Penny and Tad had gone to a mixer at the Yale Club. Surrounded by Bucks County bluebloods, he seemed to be immersed in his element. No, he wasn’t ready to drop the class-action lawsuit, despite Penny’s bruising failure to rustle up some plaintiffs. He’d adopted a sensible wait-and-see attitude. Given some time, he was certain more women would materialize to file claims. Until then, he was ready to move forward with her suit to contest the ownership of Beautiful You patents.

That was another reason to venture out tonight and have some fun. Tomorrow Penny would be confronted by the senior partners of BB&B and she’d be compelled to give her deposition.

At the Yale Club, Penny admired the casual way Tad wore his tuxedo. He greeted some of the wealthiest people in New York
as old friends. He was a keeper for sure. If only he didn’t keep pressuring her for vaginal intercourse. They’d done pretty much everything else, but Penny couldn’t risk hurting him. Nor did she care to explain her growing fear to him.

Lost in these thoughts, she collided with another guest. A few drops of champagne were spilled, but no permanent damage was done. The tall, bearded man looked familiar.

“You are Penny Harrigan, no?” He offered his hand. “I am Pierre Le Courgette.”

It was the prizewinning novelist who’d been dating Alouette at the time of her death.

“It was very sad,” he said.

Penny squeezed his arm. “You must miss her very much. She was so lovely.”

Wistfully, he replied, “Do not be mistaking me. We were not intimate lovers.”

Penny waited for him to say more.

“We tried many times,” he admitted, “but I could not know her in that way.”

Dread washed over Penny. She pictured the blood gushing from her attacker’s erection in the subway.

“Something … inside my Alouette,” he began, but his voice trailed off in misery.

Penny risked finishing his confession. “Did something jab you?”

“Jabbed?” he asked, confused by the word in English.

“Like a harpoon,” she coaxed. “Something impaled your penis.”

His eyes flashed with understanding.
“Oui!”
he cried. “
Mon dieu!
It was hidden there, inside her
chatte
. She was convinced that Maxwell had left some tool inside her, although the doctors could find nothing.” He reached to grip her by the elbow and steady her, saying, “My dear, what do you know of Alouette’s condition?”

Penny reeled. The room spun. Was this the secret Alouette had planned to tell her over lunch?

At this Tad materialized and slipped an arm possessively around her waist. “I think it’s bedtime for somebody.” He held her so close she could feel his erection through the thin fabric of his tuxedo pant leg.

There it was again. He was pressuring her for sex. Just out of her growing irritation Penny was almost ready to let Tad take that dangerous chance.

The following day, on the sixty-fifth floor, seated in a conference room where she’d delivered so many extra chairs in the past, Penny gave her deposition. The only employee of the firm not present was Monique. Poor Monique was still barricaded behind her bedroom door. Otherwise, Penny faced associates and partners on all sides. Their expectant eyes scoured her for traces of falsehood. Any nervous tic might suggest she was lying. A microphone collected her words as she described the first night Maxwell had filled her with the pink-champagne douche. A stenographer scribbled notes as quickly as Max had.

The majority of her coworkers listened, spellbound. Their jaws hung in disbelief as she haltingly described the process by which Maxwell had battered her cervix to racking spasms of fulfillment.

Periodically, Brillstein fired off questions to challenge her. “Miss Harrigan, you said earlier that Mr. Maxwell placed a hand inside your vaginal orifice. How is that possible?”

The memory shocked and excited Penny. With the entire firm watching, she stammered, “I don’t know.”

“Take your time, sweetheart,” Tad assured her. He gave her a wink and a quick thumbs-up. “You’re doing great!”

Relentlessly, ruthlessly, Brillstein continued. “Would you say, Miss Harrigan, that your anatomy was especially suited for such extensive exploration?”

Penny bridled. “Are you asking if I’m a slut?”

“I’m inquiring,” Brillstein sneered, “whether you contributed any unique abilities to the research process.” He said
unique
as if it were a dirty word.

“There were times I almost
died
,” Penny shot back. She tried not to fidget under his penetrating gaze.

“From the pain?” Brillstein hated her.

“Not exactly.” With eyes in every direction, the only safe place for Penny to look was the floor.

Brillstein redirected. “You mentioned how Mr. Maxwell had made an exhaustive study of all things erotic.…”

In turn Penny told them what she could remember about the various swamis and courtesans Max had mentioned. She described Baba Gray-Beard, Max’s primary mentor, and how the great woman lived high in the Himalayas in a hermit’s cave, where he had sought her out. Penny related how the ancient teacher had mentored her billionaire student in erotic techniques that dated back to the dawn of human evolution. Penny did not mention Clarissa Hind and how the doomed president had urged Penny to also seek out and study with the fabled crone. Why drag the tormented president’s memory through this?

Again, Brillstein interrupted her. “If my questions seem antagonistic, Miss Harrigan, please understand that I’m doing you a great favor. The counsel defending Mr. Maxwell won’t be any easier on you.”

Penny steeled herself. Shoulders squared, chin held high, she waited.

His eyes leered. “You’re saying that you allowed Mr. Maxwell to anally stimulate you in a posh French chow hall?” Brillstein
was grilling her with relish. His gaze was dissecting her body the same way so many wealthy strangers had tried to analyze her sensual secrets at Parisian parties. His clear assumption was that she was a deranged nympho in the sack.

In icy tones she replied, “Maxwell and I were coresearchers.” She sensed he was preparing to fire his big guns. Despite the steady incoming rush of air-conditioning, the conference room felt like a sauna. Men pulled at their collars and loosened their ties. The few female associates seemed to swoon in empathy with her, fanning themselves with whatever legal documents were at hand.

“Is it true”—Brillstein consulted his notes—“that on the date of April seventeenth, between the hours of seven and eight p.m., you affirmed to Mr. Maxwell that you’d enjoyed forty-seven distinct orgasms brought on by what you now refer to as ‘research’?”

Penny stiffened. It was true, but there was no way Brillstein could have those numbers. She hadn’t mentioned them. He could only know those details if he’d conferred with Maxwell himself. The realization chilled her: Brillstein was secretly allied with Max.

Emboldened, Brillstein pressed his point. “For one full hour your heart rate averaged a hundred and eighty beats per minute.” Referring to his notes, he read, “Your respiration was a hundred and ninety-one breaths per minute.” These facts were clearly gleaned from Max’s little notebook. “Doesn’t that seem like sufficient reward for your participation in this so-called experiment?” He smiled a self-satisfied grin, his beady eyes daring her to deny his implication.

Not waiting for her reply, the senior partner clicked a button that was installed in the conference room tabletop. A projection screen quickly lowered from the ceiling. Another button brought a video projector to life, and screams roared from
unseen speakers. Monstrously enlarged, the shape of a nude woman filled the screen. She rolled on her back amid white satin pillows, her fingers clutching white satin bedsheets. The hilt of something bright pink protruded from between her thighs. When her frenzied thrashing threatened to dislodge the pink instrument, the hand of an unseen man entered the shot. It pressed the tool fully into place. One of the fingers wore a ring set with a huge ruby.

It was Max’s hand. It was Penny on-screen, heaving like a sexed-up Hottentot.

“Miss Harrigan,” asked Brillstein, sneering at the video, shouting to be heard above the torrent of her recorded grunting, “how do you explain
this
?”

Penny looked to Tad for support, but he’d turned away. Resting his elbows on his knees, he was covering his face with his hands, shaking his head in despair.

It was one thing to discuss the testing process using lofty verbal legalese, but to actually see Penny wallowing, near-insane with wild animalistic release … spitting vulgar obscenities … she didn’t look like a dedicated, hardworking scientist. During that scorching moment of humiliation, with scores of legal minds wondering whether she was a wronged coinventor or just a wanton harlot, Penny heard a familiar racket. A loud thrumming rebounded from the office towers around their building. A helicopter was preparing to set down on the roof two floors above them.

Penny didn’t need to ask. She knew who was arriving.

The video stopped. The screen disappeared up into the ceiling.

“Gentlemen,” Brillstein announced, “should we move on? We’ve got another lengthy deposition to take this afternoon.”

As the weary attorneys rose from their seats and began to vacate the room, Brillstein offered Penny his hand. “If you don’t
mind a little advice, young lady,” he said, “I think you’d be very foolish to pursue this claim.”

Penny let him steer her toward the door.

As they parted company in the hallway, he asked whether she’d perform a favor for him.

Stunned, mute, she nodded.

“If you’d be so kind,” he asked, his voice dripping with contempt, “please tell your little friend Monique she’s fired!”

“Please don’t be mad at me, honey.” It was Penny’s mom calling from Omaha.

Penny had been at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper when the telephone rang. All the day’s news was about the late president. Officially the White House wasn’t offering any explanation, but a fact-finding commission had issued its report. According to the security protocols the commander in chief was seldom searched or directed through metal detectors. It was always assumed that she would be the target. Not the shooter. Hind had been both. The vice president—a man, of course—had been hastily sworn in. Talk radio’s bombastic pundits were blaming the self-assassination on menopause.

With the gun so close to the microphones, the noise had been deafening. Penny’s ears were still ringing, and she had to concentrate to hear her mother speaking from Omaha.

Weighing her words carefully, the Nebraska housewife said, “I bought some of those Beautiful You doohickeys.”

Penny held her breath.

At that confession, her mother’s voice changed pitch, rising to a girlish squeal. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she exclaimed. “The feeling is incredible! This is why God made me a woman!”

Penny tried but couldn’t get a word in.

“Your father had been sulking in his woodshop all week.” More bashfully, she offered, “They’re not made to last, are they?”

Penny interrupted: “Which one broke?”

Her mother’s blush was audible. “God only knows how those engineers product-test the durability of those things. I really gave it quite a torture test. Worse than John Cameron Swayze used to give to Timex wristwatches.”

Vaguely, Penny remembered the watch’s advertising slogan:
It takes a licking and keeps on ticking
.

“Until it broke”—her mother gasped—“I was having the time of my life!”

Penny crossed her fingers. “Which appliance was it?”

Please don’t be the Dragonfly
, she prayed.

“It was the Dragonfly.”

“Mom!” Penny protested.

Oblivious, her mother prattled on. “Have you got a pair of those new shoes everyone is so crazy for?” With the chatty enthusiasm of a teenager she said, “Well, call me crazy, too. Those shoes are so ugly, but the TV commercials give me a little tingle inside. Just seeing those shoes on television, I’m tickled pink.”

Earlier that day, Penny had knocked on her housemate’s bedroom door. She’d not had the heart to deliver the bad news about Monique being fired for absenteeism. Instead, she’d stood in the hallway and rattled the locked doorknob while repeating, “Open up.” She’d put her ear to the wood and listened to the ominous buzzing sound that emanated from within. “Open up,” she’d demanded. “We need to get you some help.”

Finally, the door had opened a crack. The stench was appalling. The crack was just wide enough for Penny to see a skull-like face framed in untidy braids. “Girlfriend,” the skull had said in a rasping voice, “you need to go fetch me some batteries.” The door had slammed. The lock had snapped shut. Once more, Penny had heard the muffled sound of humming.

It was maddening that now her own mother was threatened by the same terrifying obsession. Trying to redirect the older woman’s attention, Penny asked, “Have you checked out those back issues of the
National Enquirer
like we talked about?”

Automatically, Penny’s fingers rose to her own neck. Her pulse was 127. Time with Max had made her compulsively aware of her own vital signs.

Her mother didn’t respond, not right away. It might’ve been Penny’s imagination, but she thought she heard a distant humming over the phone. “Mom?” she asked, “is Dad using the chain saw?”

“I keep meaning to tell you,” her mother said, “your father might be calling you.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He wants to put me into a straitjacket and trundle me off to a loony bin.” Exasperated, she hissed, “Just because I’m fulfilling myself so much.”

“The tabloid research, Mom?” Penny persevered. “You were going to find out about Maxwell’s childhood?”

Her mother changed the subject. “What are you up to tonight?”

Penny counted 131 beats per minute. “Tonight?” She needed to test something. “I’m inviting a friend over for the evening.”

“Someone special?” her mother asked.

“Yes,” Penny replied, without a trace of irony in her tone. “I’m spending the evening with someone very special.”

Brillstein must’ve seen her name on his caller ID, because he answered on the second ring. His voice hushed, husky with desire, he breathed, “Yes?”