Girl After Dark (36 page)

“Well … thanks, I guess,” I practically whispered, my breathing a little short now. And I found myself shifting uncomfortably in my chair, as if to escape Blake’s painfully direct gaze, uncrossing and recrossing my legs, unable to ignore the subtle but insistent little throb that had begun, right at the center of me …

“Anyway,” he said, “let’s get to it. What have you got?”

I pulled the iPad from my bag and opened up the portfolio before passing it across the table to Blake.

He took the tablet from me and sat back in his chair, his face fixed and serious as he scrolled slowly through my many pages of preliminary designs, sketches, ideas, all the while betraying nothing of his thoughts. For a moment I thought I saw his dark brow flicker in dislike but really, it was impossible to tell.

The moment seemed to take forever, the background noise fading away as Blake stared down at my designs with a ruthless intensity.

Then, finally, he looked up, his face cold and humorless. “Is that it?” he said quietly and I felt pierced by a cold spear of shock.

He doesn’t like them.

It’s obvious.

I’ve messed up, big time.

“I, um … well, I …” I began, but really, I didn’t know what I was about to say. “Yes,” I concluded eventually, deciding that excuses or explanations just wouldn’t fly. “Yes. That’s it. That’s everything.”

 He scrolled back through the images a second time, almost as if he was doing it on purpose, dragging out the awkward silence for maximum effect, letting me stew, before he finally spoke again.

“These ideas are good,” he said finally. “But I’m not looking for good. I’m looking for perfection. These just aren’t quite right. They’re not … me.”

At this, I felt the first jolt of anger.

I’d worked damn hard on those ideas, and if they weren’t ‘him’ then that was because it was still hard to know who he really was!

I mean, what did he think I was, some kind of freaking mind reader?!

 “Well,” I said, keeping my rising anger as much under my control as I was able, making sure to keep my voice slow and steady and even, “perhaps that’s because I don’t really know very much about you … You’re rather … how can I put this … mysterious?”

At this, an odd, sly smile spread across his face.

“Oh, am I?” he said, again nodding to himself. “Okay, perhaps you have a point. You want to know something about me?”

“Yes,” I said, genuinely. “I really do …”

He paused for a second, as if deciding whether or not to go through with his threat, then reached into the breast pocket of his blazer and pulled out a small, jet-black business card, clipped at the corners to resemble the shape of an old-fashioned cinema ticket, almost flinging it at me.

“What’s this?” I asked, picking it up off the table, examining the expensive finish, just a simple silver address embossed into one side, and the words ADMIT ONE in a beautiful, elegant typeface on the other.

“I host a party, last Friday of the month. Come down. It’s exclusive. Bring your boyfriend, too.”

And with that he flicked a second ticket at me.

“Thanks,” I murmured, slipping the tickets into my bag with a shaky hand.

“I hope to see you there,” Blake said quietly. The more I got to know this complicated man, the harder I found him to read, but I could swear there was an oddly suggestive tone to his voice.

All of a sudden he was lifting himself to his feet, running a hand through his thick shiny hair, preparing to leave.

I was trying to keep myself together, but my face must have given me away and he looked down at me, as if disappointed, as if I was some schoolgirl, causing a scene.

 “Jessica,” he sighed. “I’m not leaving because I’m mad at you. I need to get back to the office.”

Embarrassed, I turned my face away, busying myself by fishing my wallet from my bag.

He sighed once more.

“Put that away. This is on my tab.”

And with that he was gone. I watched his tall, athletic frame as he walked out through the restaurant.

You well and truly screwed that up, didn’t you?

CHAPTER SEVEN

That Friday afternoon in Workshop, I felt my attention straying. I’d made little headway all week since my frustrating lunch with Blake. I looked uneasily around the busy coffee house, before opening my purse and slipping out one of the sleek black tickets Blake had flung at me.

ADMIT ONE.

The party was tonight, and if I was going, it certainly wasn’t with Greg. His shift at the bar didn’t finish till 3 a.m., and anyway, he’d never been one for partying, even back in college.

I opened a new Ghat window to Fallon on my MacBook.

“You there?” I typed.

“As always,” she replied almost instantaneously.

“What are your plans for tonight?”

“We’re playing Pete’s Candy Store at 11. Why? U finally coming? ;-)”

I flicked the ticket in my fingers, feeling the expensive, silky matte-finish of its paper.

“Maybe,” I replied.

§

“Have fun tonight,” Greg said, kissing me tenderly at the door before he left for his shift at the bar.

I kissed him back hard, part of me wishing that for once he’d just throw caution to the wind, push me up against the wall, tug my skirt around my hips and thrust his hand roughly between my legs. But instead, after a moment, he pulled away, a sweet, simple smile on his face. “I’ll see you in bed,” he said, just as he always did, and then he was gone, leaving me alone once more in the apartment.

I strode over to the floor length mirror, again hearing Blake’s words from yesterday:

You’ve got a good body. From what I’ve seen of it so far.

I’d never had anyone say anything so direct to me before, especially not about my body. After all, Greg was the only guy I’d ever really been particularly intimate with, and while I knew that he found me attractive, he was more of the gruff, silent type.

No, this felt different — and to be honest, I was kind of enjoying the thought of my body actually turning Blake on, being that ‘perfect design’ he’d mentioned.

And what exactly does he mean by ‘so far’?

I stood in front of my wardrobe, looking in at all my clothes, the vintage finds, the polka-dot dresses I liked to wear on the weekends, then all my old work clothes, the dowdy pencil skirts and blouses that I’d once been so proud of – and that I was now intending to take to Goodwill at the next available opportunity, then at my new clothes. I was seriously falling in love with all my beautiful new outfits, but there was one in particular that I hadn’t dared to wear yet.

It was a tight black Hervé Léger bandage dress, coupled with a pair of skyscraper-high Louboutins.

Fallon had practically begged me to get them; it’d always been a fantasy of hers to get a pair.

I’d protested, of course – wondering when I’d even need to wear something like this during my work with Blake, but she’d insisted that there would be ‘client dinners’ and so forth. And she simply wouldn’t take no for an answer.  

As I got dressed, I realized there was no way I’d be able to wear a bra with this dress. Not that I needed one anyway, but still. It felt kind of strange, like I was already half-naked ...

§

Okay Blake, I thought as I gave myself a final look over in the mirror, getting ready to leave. If you like what you’ve seen of my body ‘so far’, you’ll certainly be getting to see a little more of it now ...

My hair was scraped back in a tight, high ponytail, and my skin was pink and tingling from the vigorous scrub I’d given it in the shower, followed by a rich slathering of my favorite scented moisturizing lotion.

There was only one thing left to do.

After Blake’s cutting comment about my ‘drugstore lipstick’, I’d thrown the offending item straight in the trash. And last night, before I headed home, I’d taken a deep breath and finally called into Sephora. I was usually so intimidated in there, but with my new clothes things weren’t quite so bad. In fact, I’d even received a few compliments from the counter girls. And I had to admit just how much I was enjoying finally being a part of this secret new world of womanhood. There in the store, I was on a mission. I knew I had color sense, I just needed to apply it to myself, the way I would approach any new design project.

I lifted the tiny, beautiful package from my dresser drawer. I’d gone for Nars Heat Wave – a violently bright shade of red that I’d never normally have been bold enough to wear. But it suited my pale complexion perfectly, just as I knew deep down it would.

I glanced at my body, so clearly defined by the unforgivingly tight contours of the dress, the way it pushed my small breasts together to give just the slightest hint of cleavage, the smooth curves of my ass shown off by the tight black material.

I wobbled a little as I clicked towards the door in my stilettos. As a final thought, I stuffed a pair of black ballet pumps into my bag, too, thinking that I’d never be able to make it a whole night in these shoes.

And I chose my biggest, warmest, most sensible brown winter coat, too, even though it wasn’t that cold yet, perhaps subconsciously compensating for the skimpiness of the rest of my outfit.

Halfway down the block, I found myself stopping, pulling out my brand new iPhone 6 and hailing an Uber.

Now I finally understand why women who wear heels always seem to be getting in and out of taxis!

§

When I reached the address on the ticket — somewhere between Chelsea and the waterfront — I’d expected to see a long line of party-goers queuing up. But instead, all I found was a simple entrance, the kind of regular plain slate-grey door you might pass on any day of the week, set between a closed-up storefront and a tiny Italian restaurant, totally unassuming and anonymous.

So far, I’d only ever met Blake in sumptuous, lavish surroundings – in high-rise offices with gorgeous views, in fancy restaurants and hotels he owned, and of course in his huge penthouse apartment.

Maybe I really was about to see a different side to him, after all ...

As I approached the unassuming little door, I felt my heart pounding as I wondered once more just what I was letting myself in for. There had been something that day about his behavior, the suggestive tone of his voice, that let me know this was going to be no ordinary party.

But what in the world was it?

My next thought was that it might be some God-awful pretentious art party or noise band; the kind of thing Fallon sometimes dragged me along to, held nine times out of ten at some freezing cold warehouse, and usually under the promise of free drinks (which always turned out to have ‘ran out’ before we got there) — but Blake really didn’t seem to be the type for that kind of hipster scene.

Hesitantly, I reached out to the door and tried its handle, but it remained firmly shut. There was a little peephole in the front, and a button for a buzzer to the left, which I pushed just once with a trembling finger, my glossy, freshly-applied blood-red nail polish glinting in the dim orange light from the street. A pause, then a click within the door’s mechanism, and this time when I pushed on it, it swung open, revealing a plain, dimly lit corridor beyond.

With a final deep breath, I stepped inside, hearing the door slam heavily behind me.

My Louboutins clicked on the tiled floor of the corridor and I wobbled a little, once more feeling like I was on the brink of tripping over.

As I made my way further into the darkness, I realized that there was a female figure waiting at the far end, dressed in a long black cloak, the top half of her face obscured by a silver mask, and on her feet, a pair of killer stilettos even bigger than mine.

What was going on?

Is this some sort of costume party?

And if so, why didn’t Blake tell me?

“Ticket please,” the woman said with a cold smile once I’d reached her, her lips full and glossy, glittering in the dimness. And as she held out her hand, I swore the cloak flicked open for just a half second – and beneath it I saw a flash of milky white skin, a bare breast, and the shaved cleft of her sex.

No way, I thought, as the cloak flashed closed.

No, that couldn’t be.

My eyes must be playing tricks on me.

With shaky fingers, I fumbled around in my purse for my ticket, then handed it to her, trying to discern the rest of her features, hidden beneath that large, sparkling mask. But all I could see were her lips and her chin, which was pointed, and her eyes of course, glimmering and green, shining out from behind the mask.

“Follow me,” she said, turning and leading me round a corner, even further into the darkness, the cloak fluttering behind her. She was tall and slim, in good enough shape to be a model. From somewhere in the distance, I could hear the murmur of voices and the low steady beat of some sort of electronic music, and I felt a fresh pang of anxiety, wondering if I should just turn and run, back down the corridor, back to safety, just bury myself beneath the warmth and safety of my bed sheets, and wait there until Greg came home ...

But it was as if I was being controlled by something outside of myself.

I felt like I was watching myself from outside my own body: a timid young girl, moving nervously, following this ethereal beauty to God-knows-where. 

She pushed open a door at the far end and suddenly the corridor was flooded with light. I was expecting this to be the entrance to the party, but instead I saw that it led into a large, empty, mahogany-furnished locker room, the kind you might find in an exclusive, members-only gym or spa.

What in the world?

“I take it you haven’t been to one of Blake’s parties before, have you?” my guide said, somewhat coldly, obviously reading the flickering confusion on my face.

By way of an answer, she pushed open her cloak, placing her hands confrontationally on her hips, her naked body clearly visible now, her hard dark nipples pointing accusingly at me.

“It’s simple,” she continued, as I tried to keep my embarrassed gaze fixed firmly on her face. “Take off your clothes and put them in one of the remaining lockers. Attach the key to your wrist or ankle. Make sure to put on your mask. The party is through that door at the far end. And if you’re feeling really shy,” she added after a pause, looking me up and down dismissively, “you can keep your panties on.”

And with this final statement, she turned and left, heels clicking, hips swaying, the door to the room swinging heavily closed behind her with a THUMP.

I gulped.

Every rational part of me now was telling me to get the hell out of there, to call up Marianne in the morning and tell her that I’d made a huge mistake, to grovel and grovel until she gave me my old job back. Or perhaps I wasn’t cut out to work in this business at all. Perhaps I should just go back to retail or college or give in to Greg’s dream and run back to Glenbrook Falls ...

I looked around me, then gingerly approached one of the few lockers that still had a key poking from its door. I opened it gently and inside, lying there in the locker, was a shining silver mask, identical to the one my hostess had been wearing just a moment ago.

Am I really about to do this?

I felt so confused, so torn.

But even as I continued to wonder what exactly I was going to do next, I found myself slowly unzipping my dress up and letting it slip to the floor, moving almost automatically, as if that ‘other’ person inside me was in control once again, feeling the cool air prickle against my pale skin as I exposed it to the room. My nipples puckered and hardened and I felt the goosebumps flashing out across my flesh, as much from the mixture of fear and excitement pounding around my slim frame as from the chill in the room.

I looked down at my exposed breasts and my unsophisticated, girlish polka-dot black and white briefs: all that covered my remaining modesty.

She said I could keep these on?

There’s no way I’m taking them off!

I shivered, automatically reaching upwards in a pathetic attempt to cover my chest with my arm.

I cast my mind back over the number of people that had seen me naked as a grown woman, and realized that even my very closest female friends hadn’t. In fact, the only person – save from a few anonymous strangers in swimming pools and gym changing rooms – was Greg.

And now here I was about to step out into some kind of nudist sex party?

At least you have the anonymity of the mask.

I pulled it on, feeling it fit surprisingly snugly to my face, covering my nose and forehead, leaving only my mouth and chin visible.

Remember, Jessica, they’re just anonymous strangers.

But even so, I still felt so vulnerable and exposed as I gingerly crept towards the doors at the far end of the room, the ones the hostess had gestured to. I could hear a louder hum of voices and the throbbing insistent beat of the music coming from the room beyond.

I took a final deep, shivery breath then reached out and pushed open the heavy wooden doors …