Spring Collection (8 page)

Why hadn’t he ever realized, in his flood of ambition, that no one was judged to the harsh public degree that a new couturier was? A fledging actor could play his first part without anyone knowing about it unless it was a success. A potential tennis champion could lose an early match without fearing ridicule from all sides. But every woman considered herself a judge of clothes.

Fashion had become the world’s most written about, most photographed spectator sport and each new collection was greeted with a chorus of praise or jest or indifference from the editor-in-chief of
Elle
to the shopgirls who worked at the Prix-Unique. He could just imagine them abandoning their counters to bend over the photos in the papers with the same serene yet beady-eyed, judgmental gaze adopted by those valued couture clients who were ritually seated in the first row next to the runway.

“Lombardi?—hmmm—never heard of him, somebody new I guess. What do you think? Yes, I agree, not my style, even if I could afford it. Oh, just look at Claudia in that cute little Chanel jacket … now I wouldn’t mind having one like that, would you? You could even wear it with jeans.”

Now that the moment he worked toward all of his life was almost upon him, was it possible that he couldn’t handle it, Marco asked himself, enraged at the scornful, dismissive words he’d conjured up. Was this the way other designers before him had felt before their first collections?

There was no way to know, no one to ask, for designers, like rival opera singers or two prizefighters before a boxing match, didn’t get together to share their inner feelings with each other. He tried to imagine the great designers having a fit of insecurity, as he was doing now, and failed. Saint-Laurent, of course, he’d made a fetish out of his ritualistic nervous attacks, the martyr to fashion, the tormented Christ-figure dying over and over for the sake of each new collection, but there was only room for one such genius.

Marco ordered another espresso, glad that he was still alone, that no one had yet arrived for a before-dinner drink. There were three dozen things he should be doing on this winter day that had turned to twilight outside the window, a hundred details he should be inspecting, and, yet, for the love of God, he didn’t even know who the three new models for his show would be. What excuse did Necker have to impose on him three
green girls when he absolutely needed the security of using none but experienced models who made anything look good, supreme girls the photographers would automatically focus on. But no, Necker had chosen to meddle, declaring a contest as if it were the Judgment of Paris all over again. How could Necker have dreamed up such a criminally stupid stunt?

He could kill Necker!
All Marco’s apprehension was suddenly channeled toward the man who had put him in this position. What right did that Swiss bourgeois have to impose his own taste on the presentation of the collection? Did his financial backing give him a free rein to call all the shots? He was the one who decided to show the spring collection in the great, cloud-frescoed space of the spa and beauty salon that had been built under the Ritz, where the vast pool could be covered over and the gigantic room could be turned into a venue for any kind of party or exhibition.

“It must be a real gala, Marco,” Necker had announced. “We’ll show at night, black tie, followed by a buffet. That’s the only way to start with an unknown. The press and buyers have such impossible days merely covering the established designers that they’d never be able to fit you in otherwise. At collection time hype and megalomania take over. A more distinguished approach is necessary.”

How the devil did Necker know? He was a businessman, a successful businessman but a
mere
businessman, an owner of fabric mills, a buyer of other people’s talents, a merchandiser, a hawker of the fleeting illusion of hope wrapped in perfume bottles—not a designer, for the love of God, not an artist who had to reach into his own guts and imagination and find a way to create something new.

Ah, but Necker was smart. He gave the son of a bitch that. Smart enough to make sure that he, Marco, the engine that pulled the train, was kept short of fuel. Of course there was no way in which he would have been able to suitably launch a major collection on his own; he needed enormous funds to back him.

“You’ll get your salary, Marco, a very large salary, you have to admit. But I have no intention of giving you a piece of the profits. In the first place, there may never be a profit. GN is taking a calculated risk in backing someone new. This is a speculative risk for me, an investment that may fail. I’ll lose money on the couture, like everyone else. Each dress we sell will cost more to make than you can charge for it. You know the couture only exists to get publicity. The ready-to-wear will take several seasons to prove how successful it
may
become and the perfume, if there is to be one, may be years away. Marco, I admire your talent, but business is business.”

All his life Marco had been a wage slave, assisting and designing for others, and this was his only chance to have his own label, so he’d taken it, of course, as Necker knew he would. He’d never forgive the Swiss for his refusal to allow as little as one crumb from the table to fall into his hands. Where would fashion be without the handful of men and the few women who had creative talent?

He caught himself trying to find a cigarette in his pocket. In another minute he’d be ordering a pack from the barman. These hours of freedom, instead of calming him, were proving counterproductive. What he needed was a woman, Marco realized suddenly. How long had it been? Two, perhaps three weeks since he’d had the time to spare for sex?

Yes, a woman, an uncomplicated woman who would not need one word of the endless seduction the harpies at work required every day. A brief, brutal relief from nervous tension, the kind of animal release only a whore could give you, and he never used whores. An appraising look came into his eyes as Marco mulled over the possibilities available to him with the kind of close attention he’d give to the menu in a new restaurant.

After a few seconds he sighed with resignation. He didn’t have the time to bother finding anyone except Peaches. She had wearied him for at least six months, her attempts at possessiveness angered him, her utter availability made him disdain her. Even now, when she
should be following her enviably worldly schedule, when she should be in New York for a dozen galas, she was shamelessly hanging around Paris trying to reach him. Was it possible that she was the same woman he had once, for only an evening, imagined to be, if not out of his reach, at least difficult to attain? A woman with whom he had bothered to make the kind of quasi-intellectual conversation designed to impress? Yet how could he have expected that Dior’s best customer, a woman world famous for her wealth and social standing, would be so easy, so avid, so lacking in the dignity he considered proper to her age?

Nevertheless, Marco decided, physically she was exactly what he had prescribed for himself, an open pair of thighs with no questions asked. He made a quick phone call to make sure that she was in her suite and in a minute he was on his way to the Plaza, right around the corner.

Peaches felt pleased with herself as she put down the phone. She’d told Marco to come right on over, in a sweet, level voice, but she hadn’t told him that she was giving a cocktail party for a good-sized group of visiting Texans, some of whom were already in the large sitting room scarfing up her caviar.

Instead of the discreet personal maid who normally ushered him into the suite, a white-coated butler opened the door as he rang, and a waiter took his scarf.

“Madame Wilcox is in the large sitting room, Monsieur,” the waiter said. Marco had imagined that Peaches would be lounging expectantly in the smaller sitting room, by the flattering light of her artfully small lamps, wearing one of the hundred elaborate dressing gowns she possessed. He was taken aback when she came toward him, leaving a cluster of her compatriots by the fireplace. She was very Catherine the Great tonight, wearing a red velvet dinner suit with a closely fitted, gold embroidered jacket, its cuffs and wide skirt both trimmed with bands of sable.

He took her hand and kissed it on the inside of her
wrist, knowing that not one of her guests would realize that his gesture indicated a degree of intimacy that should never be revealed in public.

“Champagne?” she asked, with her flashing, red-lipped smile, as if she’d seen him five minutes earlier.

“Why didn’t you warn me you had guests?”

“But Marco,” she said, opening her beautiful eyes in mock surprise, “every one of these old gals is a good potential customer. You have all evening to charm them, we’re going on to dinner later.”

“I’m not here to sell dresses.”

“Really?” she retorted, as if surprised, leading him into the room. “Come on in and say hello to the Andersons, Selma and Ralph, from Fort Worth, and these lovely folks are Betty Lou and Hank Curtis from Houston. This is Marco Lombardi, everybody, he’s a dress designer and you’re going to be hearing a lot about him.”

As he shook hands with the Texans and heard Peaches greet another couple who were just entering the room, Marco promised himself that he would leave in three minutes, simply slip out of the room, and walk down the hall to the elevator without even saying good-by to Peaches. He asked for a Scotch, drank it quickly and accepted another.

Peaches, Marco noted, as he was introduced to more of her guests, was enjoying this to the same degree that her friends ignored him, too delighted to see each other to bother wasting more than a quick smile on some unplaceable foreigner. Although he spoke French with fluency, and his infrequent mistakes were always regarded as charming, he had never felt equally at home in English, a language he knew he spoke with a distinct Italian accent and a sometimes imprecise grasp of grammar. Standing slightly apart from the others, Marco observed Peaches flaunting her fake indifference as brilliantly as the great and indisputably genuine diamonds at her ears. Oh, yes, she knew perfectly well that she made her expensively gowned friends look drab and provincial in contrast to her vividly blond presence. He
found himself in a state of sudden fury as he surveyed her, the center of everyone’s attention. So she thought that he would stick around through dinner with these creatures, did she? He crossed the room and took her by the elbow, drawing her to one side.

“I want to speak to you.”

“That’s not possible right now, can’t you see that?”

“I’m going into your bedroom. Follow me.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” Peaches said, her eyes sparkling with malice.

“Do you want a scandal?”

“Don’t be silly, Marco.”

“I’ll make one this instant and your friends will tell everyone in Texas, I promise you.”

“That’s blackmail!”

“Follow me, I warn you,” he repeated, and wove his way across the large room, across the entry, through the smaller sitting room and into her bedroom. A few minutes later she joined him there, flushed with triumph.

“Are you happy now?” Peaches asked, as if speaking to a child. “What exactly do you think you’re proving besides appallingly bad manners?”

“Close the door behind you.”

“I’m going back to the party,” she said, turning away.

Swiftly he pushed her aside, locked the heavy door and gripped her hand so tightly that she gasped in the astonishment of pain.

“I’m going to fuck you. Now. Here.”

“The hell you are! I’ll scream. Marco! My fingers!”

He held her pinned to the door and rubbed violently against her as his penis, already hard, grew quickly.

“Stop that!
Let me go!”
She was stunned by disbelief. He’d hurt her hand badly.

“I don’t think so,” he muttered. Quickly, using his considerable strength, Marco lifted her and dumped her on her bed. As she struggled to rise he clamped her slender wrists together with one hand and with the
other he flipped her skirt up and pulled her silk and lace panties down so that her lower body was exposed, naked except for her garter belt and her stockings.

“Let me go!”
she shouted.

“Nobody will hear you, not with all the noise they’re making. Shut up or scream, it won’t make any difference,” he grunted, unzipping his pants.

“Marco, no! Stop! Don’t do this!”

“You’re dying for it, don’t pretend you aren’t.” He tore off her panties and wrenched open her thighs, taking her knees and forcing them to bend so that her legs were raised. Holding her thighs apart he quickly positioned himself on the bed over her so that his weight kept her from moving her body, as her fists beat ineffectually on his back and her legs thrashed in the air. He lifted himself off her just enough to take his penis in his hand.

As he ground it into her he found himself so intoxicated by the novelty of her dryness and her resistance that he no longer heard her begging him to stop. The universe was reduced to the monstrous orgasm he felt building from the base of his spine. A man threatening him with a gun couldn’t have stopped him now as he used Peaches mercilessly, quickly losing himself in a series of spasms that made him cry out as wordlessly as an animal.

When the last drop had been wrung out of him, he reared back on the heels of his hands and looked down at her face. Her eyes were closed and her face was set in an expression he didn’t recognize.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll make you come now,” he promised her, breathlessly. “With my mouth, the way you adore it.”

She opened her eyes and he saw the look of rage that filled them. “If you touch me, I’ll have you killed,” Peaches said in a cold monotone.

“Don’t be melodramatic,” Marco scoffed lazily. If she wanted to play at being angry she didn’t impress him. No woman had ever desired him as ferociously as this one did.

In a flash Peaches had wriggled out from the cage of his arms and was on her feet, by the bed.

“Get out. Get off my bed, get out of this room, leave here right away,” she ordered him.

“You’re a ridiculously delicious girl, did you know that? Just look, you’re impeccable, even your pretty hair isn’t disarranged. Come on now, come back here, let me suck you off. I need to taste you. You’ll come so soon, so deeply, right between my lips, right on my tongue … it will be good, so very good, even better than the last time, I promise. That’s what you need,
bella
, that’s why you’re so angry, don’t you understand?” he coaxed, rolling over and beckoning to her. Peaches turned her back on him, stepped into the pumps she’d kicked off, smoothed her skirt, checked her image in a mirror and left the room, all in one seamless flicker of movement.