The Gorgeous Girls (7 page)

Part Six

“‘If you don't have
anything nice to say, come sit by me.'” Wanda regales the girls with the evening's Parker tidbit and Rose carries the Dot from there.

“Assholes! They loved my Raz Ma Taz monologue but they said I was too old for the part. That's the end of my life in show business! Too old—at least according to a bunch of producers who look fourteen. I mean, seriously, I'm an actor. I can play any age!”

“Assholes!” Con agrees, flashing her sapphire-and-diamond ring before Rose's eyes, which are only seeing red at the moment.

With Con ready to pop, the girls have decided to fit in a toast or two before the big day. They have settled into a booth at Prohibition in the city's east end. Mrs. Parker would approve of the free-flowing alcohol. In the 1920s and 1930s, she bucked prohibition at every opportunity with speakeasy hopping and bathtub gin, no doubt even while pregnant (once, and it ended in miscarriage). But in the twenty-first century, Con is obeying the law of prohibition for pregnant women: not a drop has passed her lips since that test came back positive.

Wanda and Rose, on the other hand, are drinking cava as if the Temperance League were ready to pounce and confiscate. At least they don't have to drink it out of coffee mugs. On her fourth glass, Rose is holding forth on the state of the entertainment industry.

“That little worm of a playwright, feted and funded, sat behind a table with the other little worms, trying for all his might to look like goddamn Spielberg in a baseball cap. That tiny poseur who doesn't know the first thing about women . . .”

She has attracted an audience, as the guys at the bar lend an ear to her growing-in-volume voice. “His script was full of hyperbole and nonsense, and his female characters were totally unbelievable. Not the kind of thing for an actor such as myself!”

“You are a brilliant actor.” Con raises her glass of cranberry spritzer, diamond-and-sapphire jewelry nicely showcased against the deep red liquid.

“Sarah Bernhardt was sixty when she played the teenage Joan of Arc!” Rose exclaims. “And Jean Arthur—fifty-three when cast as the young wife in
Shane
. I could do the same if they'd give me a chance.”

“Of course you could, Rose,” Wanda says supportively. “Picasso said all art is a lie.” She proffers this bit of wisdom like a tipsy sage in poison-blue Comrags.

Con takes a slug of her spritzer. “Picasso lied exquisitely for art's sake.” Her left hand arabesques gracefully in the air.

“Yes, for art's sake, not for sex's sake, Con. So if you're trying to defend your pretend orgasm again, don't bother,” Wanda says.

“I wasn't trying to defend anything, Wanda,” Con replies peevishly, letting her hand drop to the table. “The faked orgasm that you can't seem to forget might be classified as a white lie, if you have to classify it as a lie at all.”

“A lie is a lie is a lie,” Wanda persists.

“Mrs. Parker, come sit by me,” Con snarls.

“It was an insignificant fabrication, Wanda,” Rose offers, feeling guilty for setting the bitchy tone.

Trying to get the bee out of Wanda's bonnet and the peeve from Con's patter, Rose reasons, “If lovemaking is an art—and I'm sure we all agree that it is—and if what Picasso says is true, that all art is a lie concocted to reveal the truth, then the same would apply to lovemaking. What is more truthful than intimacy, that union one achieves through sex?”

“Deception is what it is,” Wanda insists, not deceived by Rose's philosophical meanderings.

“Play-acting,” Rose counters.

“Play-acting.” Con rolls the word around on her tongue the way she does Tyler. “Ty and I do a lot of that.” She breathes huskily on her deep blue gem, then polishes it on the yellow bouclé skirt that barely covers her huge tummy.

Wanda opens her mouth to object but, as if on cue, “Take this Waltz” plays on the sound system and Wanda remembers Gorgeous Girl and the Pinstripe Suit. At the library bar he'd told her tales of his worldly travels, and at night's end he'd kissed her so passionately and sweetly that she'd forgotten where she was and even
who
she was. Wanda? Gorgeous Girl? Jag's cuckold? Leonard's muse? Pinstripe Suit's plaything? She sighs deeply, then raises her flute. “To play-acting.”

The girls bring their glasses together, and it is then that Rose and Wanda finally notice Con's betrothal bling. Wanda screams and Rose gasps as Con yells, “I'm tying the knot!”

The boys at the bar applaud.

Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness.

—Dorothy Parker

Dear Joe,

I'm in a tree and you're on the ground. We are naked and the opposite of “exquisite dullness”; we will always be at odds with the masters of all that is “impeccably right.” Let us be only impeccably adventurous and playful in our love.

My legs straddle a large branch of deep red bark. I cool my hot self against the smooth, cherry bough and my juices penetrate its hardness. The musky scent of my sex mingles with the freshness of new leaves and sap.

As I reach to grasp a branch above me, my nipples brush against light green leaves. I pull myself up, and my clit gently meets the main trunk. Undulating, I pull myself up farther, all the better to roll my pelvis forward, as if to make love with the tree. My wetness like a balm to its ancient wood, the fragrance of sex juice and resin fill my nostrils.

I am so hot, so close to coming. I look down at you. Your erection looks as smooth and hard as the tree trunk. I could take you right now and fuck you instead of the tree, but it is too exciting to watch you watching me, taking your hardness in your hands and moving your fist up and down the length of your own fabulous cerise bough.

You stare at me with eyes lit with sexual desire, the pure light of lust. I am pulling myself up, moving my wet, hot pussy against the trunk, and I know I'm going to come. You match my heavy breathing. My clit is swollen and hard and as deep pink as cherries in July. I pull myself up and thrust my cunt into the tree once more, leaves tickling and caressing my excited breasts. My tongue wets my lips in desire for you and your enormous cherry-red cock. You move your hand ever faster. I wrap my legs around the trunk and pull my pelvis higher, higher one last time. And then I break. Panting, lust-filled, you squirt creamy white cum over the base of the tree. I keep coming, my juices falling down to your lips, your eyes and still you are coming . . .

Your cherry blossom,

Rose

And I'll stay away from Verlaine, too; he was always chasing Rimbauds.

—Dorothy Parker

We wander through the
Jardin du Luxembourg, starry-eyed and travel-weary. Paris! I am in Paris with Wyatt, who is no longer wearing his pinstripe suit, just as we are no longer in the library but rather creating our own movable feast.

The magnificence of this city enters me like a lover. Gentle and powerful, it opens my soul to revelations, delights, secrets unveiled: a Delacroix mural peeking through the dim light of an ancient church; pale pink roses hiding near the stone wall of another. There are so many ancient churches that one travel book describes several as being “one of the oldest” in Paris.

After all, the city does date back to 250 BC, when the Parisii built their huts on the Ile de la Cité. The Romans conquered them in 52 BC, and you can still see ruins from that time amid the marvelous structures that have arisen in the intervening centuries.

Surrounded by such superb antiquity, it only makes sense that the old people here possess a keen awareness of their value as senior members of the populace. The Parisian elderly have dignity in their bearing, wisdom in their eyes, elegance in their deportment and scarves around their necks. Ah, the scarves of Paris!

In Paris, scarf wearing is practically a religion (Our Lady of the Scarf—
the
oldest church in Paris). I had to have one, so Wyatt took me to a little shop on the Rue Descartes and picked out a gorgeous crimson swath trimmed with gold beads and small tassels. I wrapped it around my neck and walked on, a newborn Parisian swaddled in blood-red.

Somewhere in a labyrinth of galleried streets near the École des Beaux-Arts, we come across, quite by accident, a small, secluded circle called Place de Furstenberg. I recognize it from Henry Miller's
Tropic of Cancer
: “In the middle of the square four black trees that have not yet begun to blossom. Intellectual trees, nourished by the paving stones. Like T.S. Eliot's verse.”

I lean against one of those black trees and imagine a drunken night in 1920s Gay Paree, when Henry might have wandered home in the early hours and relieved himself on this rough bark like some stray dog. Or, as I'm sure he did more than once, backed a woman against a trunk—flutter of skirt, scent of roses, tobacco, sex.

As if reading my mind, Wyatt puts an arm around my waist and presses against me, biting my ear, kissing my neck. In the streetlamp's glow he lifts my red cancan skirt (bought in the Latin Quarter) to find I am sans knickers and wet with desire. He pushes into me as forcefully and naturally as these trees push through the paving stones.

Now I know what Rose meant when she said that sometimes when she's getting fucked really good she doesn't have to climax right then and there. I also understand her tree thing now. Wyatt comes quickly and fantastically and leaves me panting for more. We retreat to our hotel room.

I pour the bath while Wyatt pours the wine. The tub is too narrow for two, but the bathroom itself (sans toilet, which has its own little room) is big enough for a small party. Wyatt sits by its open gabled window and looks out at the rooftops of Paris. A breeze rushes in and whispers over my naked body.

Wyatt crosses the aquamarine-tiled room to massage my feet, but it isn't long before his hands move up to my calves and then on to my thighs. When he reaches his final destination, water sloshes around me as I arch my back and spread my legs over the edges of the tub. Wyatt plunges his head under the water, finds my clit and sucks, a sensation of oceanic proportions, vast, deep and furious.

He emerges to inhale and drop a
Sex Bomb into the tub. One of Lush's
bath bombs
,
the confection fizzes around me and releases fuchsia confetti, pink sparkles and flower petals into the water. Scents of ylang-ylang and jasmine fill the air. Wyatt pushes the bomb under my ass, where it tickles and makes me giggle. Then he holds it at my clit, where it provides faint but exciting echoes of his tongue. Eventually the bomb dissolves completely, revealing a rosebud at its centre.

“Slightly forensic,” Wyatt observes as he pulls the plug on the pink water. Flower petals and sparkles stick to the sides of the tub and to my skin. When the water has almost drained, Wyatt grabs his shaving cream and razor. He tells me to lie back and relax. He shaves my pussy.

“Trust me, Wanda,” he murmurs mysteriously. I inhale deeply and decide to trust completely this man I hardly know but feel such deep connection to. Call me crazy or call me brave, but I accepted his invitation to Paris after having dated him only a handful of times. He draws the razor over my most precious skin with a sure and steady hand, then splashes with water to rinse.

“Touch yourself, Wanda,” he says when he's done. I do. It feels as soft as a horse's muzzle. I am in awe of my Venus de Milo hairlessness, and look down to see my clit shining like a small pink-purple heart, inverted from my perspective. Wyatt flickers his teasing tongue over it.

“Make me come,” I murmur.

“No,” he says. “You do it. I like to watch.”

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

—Dorothy Parker

Mrs. Parker may have
consumed many bottles of bathtub gin, but let me introduce you to the bottles that surround my bathtub—not gin, but just as intoxicating.

My stash of little bottles gives the impression that bigger bottles have been getting together at night and making babies. In fact, they're orphans collected from hotels that Ty and I have occasionally holed up in together over the past three years. They contain the shampoo and conditioner, bath gel and body cream that I always feel compelled to pack when I leave a room.

For some time now I've felt annoyed at how they take up space and clutter my already cluttered bathroom. Sure, they come in handy when I run out of shampoo, but other than that I have little use for them and a kind of disdain for their very diminutiveness.

That is, until I hop in the shower with Ty and reach for one of those little bottles to spread a dollop of its contents on his body. A wonderful, earth-by-way-of-heaven fragrance fills the steamy air. On waves of that lovely aroma, I'm transported back to a rainy night last spring when he and I checked into the Hotel Le Germain in downtown T.O.

The lighting in the room was golden, the artwork vibrant, and outside the rain fell steadily. I did the requisite bed-bouncing and closet-checking upon arrival, then undressed, kissed my beloved long, slow and hard, and climbed into the rainforest shower. The wall separating the tub from the bedroom was all glass—one huge window covered with a big wooden Venetian blind. As the water poured over me in refreshing, sensual torrents, my naked partner lounged on the bed, watching me through the open slats. Film noir via the jungle. Sam Spade meets Jane.

As I washed my hair, the shampoo's scent enveloped me and floated out into the room, inviting Ty. He got up from the bed and walked toward the window, pulling up the blind that separated us.

Sam Spade transformed into Tarzan, hard and primal. His eyes never leaving me, we came together with the sheet of glass between us, just like all those early encounters I never knew about.

Later, he showered and I watched.

These days, the bathtub has become a glorious retreat for this mother-to-be. Today I squeeze body gel into my palm, and its fragrance sends me back to Sofitel in Montreal, a room of champagne tones and black wood, brass fixtures and soft lighting, with single orchids elegantly arranged in glass vases. Tired from the trip, I shed my travelling garb and relaxed in the big bed. I sank under the duvet while my lover went out to survey the Montreal scene. I fell into delicious dreams and woke up wanting him.

When he tiptoed in an hour later, I beckoned to him. He pulled a crackly bag of M&M's from his pocket and held it out to me, and I crunched a few as I watched him disrobe. Then, as he lay down beside me, I put a yellow one in his mouth and a red one on his cock. He crunched the yellow while I took in the red.

As I moved over his growing hardness, the candy floated and swirled, got lost, then resurfaced. My tongue whirled and twirled, and as I sucked I tasted warm chocolate on his hot, silky skin.

Candy cock and lemony marshmallows—the latter being the scent of Casino Rama Hotel's Citrus Body Wash. It makes you want to inhale your beloved, lick him, eat him, gobble him up. We use it regularly and return to this love-and-sex retreat as often as we can to replenish both libido and shower gel.

At home, I shampoo my hair with a concoction called Purify, from the Pantages Hotel. The contents of the clear little bottle with the silver top smell fresh and sensual, like a garden in the rain. The Pantages bathroom was boring, but the suite's low ceilings created an intimate feeling. It was a good venue for hot sex. With my head hanging over the edge of the bed, Tyler fucked me long and hard. I noticed, in the heightened awareness of sex-induced delirium, that the old city buildings I could see through the window resembled drawings from an old kids' book. As I thrust my pelvis up to meet him, the drawings became mere scribbles, then an ecstatic, bouncing blur.

In the movie
Fight Club
, these same little bottles in the protagonist's apartment symbolize modern alienation. I feel quite the opposite about them. They stir up sexual memories that often lead to brand-new explorations in lovemaking.

Slathering a Pantages lotion called Renew on Ty as he lay back on the bed, I discovered it to be true to its name. Renewed passion, renewed awareness, renewed connection: what these little vials actually contain are love potions, sex serums and ecstasy elixirs.

Soon the baby will arrive. Tyler and I might have a big bottle of champagne to celebrate, but most definitely we'll crack open a tiny bottle of Rain Bath for that glorious postpartum soak. Cheers!