I look away.
“You did it! For just one night you were young!”
“No, I was irresponsible.”
She arches a blond eyebrow. “There’s a difference?”
I make a small gesture of concession to her point. “The thing is, he’s not a stranger anymore.”
And now both her eyebrows reach for new heights. “You’re having an affair?”
I wince, disliking the word. It’s common and ugly.
And it fits perfectly with my actions of the last week.
“He hired me to consult for his company. Even when I’m not talking to him he”—I glance up at the photographs—“he dances around in my head. I’ve been doing things I never thought I would do. I think things I never thought I would think. I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“That’s easy,” Simone says, sitting by my side and slipping my two hands between hers. “You’re a woman with secrets”—she studies my eyes, my lips, my hair—“and you wear them beautifully.”
I pull away. “It’s just my hair, I’m wearing it down.”
“No, it’s the secrets, giving you color, brightening your eyes . . . you look more . . . human somehow.”
“I didn’t look human before?”
“Always beautiful, but a bit statuesque . . . Do you remember the statues we saw during our college trip to Florence? They were fantastic . . . but as grand as he is, I can’t imagine making love to Michelangelo’s David. Too hard, too cold, too . . . perfect.”
I laugh into my glass. “I have never been perfect.”
“But everyone thinks of you that way. It earns you admiration . . . now you’re inner human is showing and it sounds as if it’s earning you something . . . warmer.”
“I slept with him today.”
“At his place or yours?”
“In his office . . . on his desk.” I’m surprised that the admission makes me grin.
“Shut. Up.”
I look up at her and for the briefest of moments I bask in her envy, allow myself to indulge in the gratification that comes from my newfound audacity.
“You made love on his desk,” she repeats. “It sounds like a fantasy.”
I shake my head. “That’s the thing, I did it and then I fantasized about it afterward.”
“But it was better than a fantasy,” Simone corrects. “It’s a memory now, and it’s yours to keep.”
“No.” I shake my head. “In my fantasy I . . . added things.” I swallow the rest of the burning liquid and tell her my imaginings . . . the image of him entering me while my team looks on. The words are hard to get out but I need to tell someone whose mind might be unconventional enough to explain the shift in mine.
“I imagined myself having sex in front of the people I work with!” I finally exclaim. “It’s a little extreme, don’t you think?”
Simone stares at me for a moment and leans back against the opposite end of the couch. She stretches her long legs toward me so she now has the repose of a Roman who might be fed grapes by beautiful slaves.
“Remember when I used to date Jax?”
I nod. Jax flies into my head with his wavy dark hair and impertinent brown eyes.
“While I was with him I developed this fantasy. . . .”
“ ‘Developed a fantasy,’ ” I repeat. The term sounds so purposeful, as if she spent her nights laying out a structure for her future daydreams.
“I still indulge it from time to time. I’m laying out on his deck on one of his lawn chairs, flat on my stomach wearing nothing but my bikini bottoms. I don’t hear the knock on the door, or the footsteps of his friends.” Her voice is slowing, lowering, changing texture. “He leads them out to the deck. . . . I try to get up with some bit of modesty, my arm covers my bare breasts as I walk to them, shake their hands. I lead them to the living room and they all take a seat. Jax asks me to get each one of them a beer from that little bar area of his. I lean down and take the beer out of the mini fridge, try to open it without revealing too much, but every once in a while they get a glimpse. I’m pouring an ice cold beer in a glass for each one of them and now I serve them . . . wearing almost nothing.”
“And then?”
“Jax asks me to sit next to him. He doesn’t want me to get more clothes. He wants me to be there with him right now. And so I oblige. He’s already turned the television on; it’s the Lakers as it always is with him. . . .”
I can see by the glazed look of her eyes that she’s not with me anymore. She’s by Jax’s side . . . wearing almost nothing.
“His hand falls to my leg and I shiver as it moves up and down . . . in front of all these men.” She shudders and suddenly I’m self-conscious. I shouldn’t be seeing this. I was not invited into this room full of men.