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  Toussaint kneels by the tub. He says, “Desiree and Raven. Magnificently done, ladies. Unparalleled.”

  I asked, “What’s our haul?”

  He says, “The pay per view is lighting up. You will break all records.”

  I say, “I’m taking a vacation. A long one.”

  Denise says, “I’m retired. Permanently.”

  Toussaint says, “If Seattle Young draws you back, you are welcome. Do not waste your best years.”

  Good advice, but what does it mean? The squeeze Denise gives my hand tells me she’s thinking much the same. I lift my champagne. She raises her glass to meet mine. We touch them together in a silent toast.

  Toussaint gives me a lingering look. I know he’s dwelling on the ass fuck I gave him. I return his gaze levelly. He still owes me. He takes a folded paper from an inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket, lays it on the rim of the tub near me, and leaves us.

  Denise says, “You don’t want to know.”

  I say, “We’ll see.” It carries the name of our first hotshot of the night, the guy with enough pull to visit Seattle Young twice in a week. Denise looks at me like I’m nuts. I say, “You met Walter here.”

  She’s fighting to keep tears from leaving her eyes.

  Sally kneels behind me and wipes away my face paint. She tells me, “What I hear, you girls went all the way.”

  Behind Denise, another beautician settles. Denise says, “Never mind. I’ll clean up later.”

  I look at her. In the bright lights of the shower room, the blue and silver diamonds painted on her face can’t hide everything. I tell her, “I’ve seen.”

  She says, “You would.” But she looks more relaxed. She lets the paint be wiped away. On her white skin the bruise beneath her eye shows starkly. When the beauticians are gone, I ask Denise, “Walter did this?”

  She won’t look at me. She says, “He didn’t mean to. I pissed him off.”

  I ask, “He’s pimping you? He made you come tonight?”

  She shakes her head. She says, “He wanted me not to. When I wouldn’t listen, he said I’ll always be a whore.” She takes a long drink. She says, “I asked him if he’d always be a whore’s boy.”

  I say, “And he hit you.”

  “It’s my fault.”

  I know I can’t win this argument. Denise will discover for herself whether her boy Wally plans to make a habit of beating her. In my negative moments, such as when I’m sitting in a whirlpool trying to recover from an hour’s savaging by the nastiest collection of sex toys ever assembled, I think a woman’s life consists of learning things the hard way.

  This leads my thoughts back to my courtroom client of the morning. I wonder if she’s found a safe place for the night, and how many fucks she gave to earn the money.

  If she’s thinking of me, she probably believes I’m a two-timing bitch of the worst sort. Her passing by while Angie White and I were on the sidewalk outside à la Seattle made me feel bad for no reason. I did my job. The charges against her were dismissed. Clients tend not to understand how lawyers can be vigorous opponents in court and friends afterward.

  Was her walking past us too much of a coincidence? Angie and I took a cab from the courthouse. The trip was several blocks and around a corner or two. She couldn’t have followed us unless she hailed her own cab.

  Though I’ve worked two demanding hotshots and ridden Toussaint’s indecently long pecker, I feel un-fucked, left with an emptiness no cock can fill. Denise and I rose to new heights in the glass rooms. When I was scared and hurting the most, I felt safe with other hotshots and their whores watching through the transparent walls, and who knows how many others following the action on pay per view.

  Inside Seattle Young, you know what’s going on. And it’s all for nice, clean money.

  Chapter Nine Standing Up

  My office chair is more than I can handle, after my night’s work. I’m working on my feet, at a high table I scrounged from the firm’s storeroom a year ago when the partners promoted me from my first office to a less teeny one with an actual window. At the time, I thought I’d saddled the skyrocket to prosperity. Now I can’t wait to leave.

  Roberto, my assistant, knocks once and opens his door wide enough to let in his head. He’s his usual self, carefully combed dark hair, light purple shirt, dark purple tie, gray vest. He’s thinking he likes what my low heels do for the shape of my ass when I stand at the table.

  Any young and reasonably attractive woman is accustomed to the reflexive sweeps of male eyes. What I’ve gained from my nights at Seattle Young is an ability to read their nasty minds. Or I feel I can, which is the same.

  Without looking up from the document I’m reviewing on my laptop, I say, “Yes?”

  Roberto answers, “Mr. Walton needs the addendum by ten.”

  It’s nine forty. I say, “Not a problem.” I keep reading the document. My door stays open a couple seconds more than it needs to before Roberto shuts it.

  I look out my window at my view of the office tower across the street and a slice of the sidewalk below. People hurry through the rain. How many of them got laid last night? How many rode a bucking sex toy or permitted a stranger to tickle their sweetest parts? Pressing me to the wall in the dark, Denise’s hands guiding his cock into me.

  I bore through the document I need to finish, a contract amendment describing how our client will atone for its ecological sins with a sunny agreement to fund the construction of a new playground. The park will hide hundreds of buried barrels of the client’s toxic waste.

  The paperwork is good enough. I push the print key. Older partners prefer to see words on real paper, not emailed drafts. I reach for the first page from the printer. The movement makes my tits hurt. If I never see another yellow clamp….

  Before I leave my office, I fill the oversized purse I brought for the purpose with the few personal things I kept here. My last look around doesn’t take long. This room I worked hard to win looks confining and colorless.

  On the way to the partner’s office, I pass Roberto’s cubicle. He looks up from his screen and sees the file folder in my hand. He says, “I can deliver that.”

  I tell him, “Never mind.”

  I walk away without a goodbye. He’s an okay assistant, but like most men he’s too intent on himself. I know what he’s thinking while I cross the cubicle maze. He’s watching my ass move and wondering when he’ll lay his hands on it. Sorry, Roberto.

  The senior partner’s office is on the other side of the firm’s suite. Our partners follow an open door policy, which means you can open their doors if you have a damn good reason. He’s on the phone when I walk in. I stand in front of his desk while he extracts himself from the call. He glances up at me a couple times, assuring me he’s nearly done. But I know what he’s doing is filling his eyes with my shape.

  The backdrop behind his desk is a glass wall with a wide view of Puget Sound. Ferry boats and container ships ply the water between the docks and Bainbridge Island. The high green shoulders of the Olympic Peninsula are hidden in fog. The Sound curves toward the Pacific, flat and gray.

  Any glass wall carries me to memories few people would believe. The hotshot slaps my ass hard. I put my tongue down Denise’s throat. She presses her mouth to mine. The hotshot yanks her hair. The dildo wends through her.

  The partner finishes his call and gives me his reflexive grin.

  I hand him the file. “Here’s the Valley Chemical addendum.”

  He takes it from me, glances at a clock on his big, cluttered desk, and says, “Right on time.”

  I say, “You’ll need to find someone to pick up my load. I left a project list on my desk.”

  He says, “You’re giving notice?”

  I tell him. “Thirty days, if you want.”

  He says, “Thanks, Laurie, but you know how we do it.”

  The minute the law firm knows you’re quitting, your computer shuts down and your key card no longer will open the doors.

  H
e says, “Whatever your plans may be, I hope you won’t forget us.” The remark has to do with money, not sex. The firm spent five years training me, and now I’m taking my skills elsewhere. I don’t feel guilty. I’ve given them their money’s worth.

  I can read him more deeply than he knows. I was due to come up for partnership consideration in a few months. A part of his mind has been wondering whether I might offer him a piece of ass to boost my eligibility.

  He won’t come on to me. Female associates in law firms know how to bring sexual harassment suits. But he can dream, and maybe see his fantasy come true. He’s looking at my face, with barely a dip of his eyes toward my tits.

  I wish I’d kept one of the tit clamps for a souvenir. I’d snap it at him. “I’m not going to a different firm.”

  He says, “Good luck. Think of us if you need representation.” He warms his grin. “If you’d have let us know, we’d have given you a reception.”

  I say, “Thanks. It’s not necessary.”

  The one friend I made at the firm was Jen. Until she ran off with my fiancé.

  The receptionists in the lobby give me the eye. The security guard politely asks to see my purse. I hand it to him.

  The wall of glass in the firm’s entrance foyer shows the same views the partners have from their offices, the pageant of harbor life on Eliot Bay. Stephan and I used to joke about me getting a bayside office.

  I’d come home after one of my usual twelve hour days. He’d be waiting on the couch, starting a beer. The nice aromas of the dinner he cooked for us filled our apartment. I’d sit on his lap, share the beer, and tell him law office gossip. He’d run a hand up my leg while I blathered. Most nights, we’d make love before dinner. It’s what I called fucking. Making love.

  Outside the building, I wait under the portico. Rain bounces off the sidewalk hard enough to splatter on my shoes. A cab pulls to the curb. The driver looks to see whether I want a ride. I take it. Sitting on the seat brings a protest from my sore twat.

  The cabbie is a grandfatherly type who thinks his baggy face hides the way his eyes scan my body. He asks, “Where to?”

  I say, “Los Angeles.”

  He laughs. “You good for the fare?”

  I say, “Sorry. I meant, take me to SeaTac, please, and drop me at a gate for flights to LA.”

  He asks, “Luggage?”

  I say, “Nope. I’m going shopping.”

  He pulls the cab into the traffic. I reach in my purse for the folded paper Toussaint gave me last night. On the paper inside there’s a name. I wonder if it’s real.

  Chapter Ten Finding Phil

  Rainy Seattle doesn’t feel left behind until I walk into the concourse of LAX. The golden light slanting through the windows makes the lightly dressed people in the crowded airport a bouquet of colors. The cab queue looks like a row of cats on a sunny ledge.

  My black cabbie asks, “Wa tow?”

  His radio blares drumbeat music with lyrics in a language I’ve never heard. I ask, “I’m sorry?”

  He flashes me a wide smile in his review mirror. “Do na be sorry. You are too pre-tey for sorry. Wa tow?”

  I ask “Where to?”

  “Yzzmm.”

  “Can you take me to a high-rise hotel with a view of the ocean?”

  He nods. “Hotel plenty cost?”

  I say, “Yes. Plenty cost is what I want.”

  “Otay den.” His eyes linger on the mirror. I give him a smile and pretend to check my phone for messages. It doesn’t matter where men are from, how they talk, or what they’re doing. Put them near a hot woman, and one is the same as another.

  A suite twenty-eight floors up, done in bright splotches like an impressionist painting, fresh flowers on the sideboard, and a bedroom with a wall of windows overlooking an ocean more blue than the sky—perfect. I take off my clothes and stand in front of the window munching a complimentary Godiva chocolate bar and sipping from a complimentary bottle of Evian water.

  I’ve made lots to tightly scheduled trips to Los Angeles for the law firm. This is the first time I’ve come not knowing what I want. All I have is a guy’s name on a piece of paper given to me by a Jamaican bawdy house manager in payment for a world class ass fuck. The name doesn’t sound real. Phil Still? Come on.

  Why am I holding the cool water bottle against my bare waxed crotch? Less than twenty-four hours ago, I went through enough fucking in two shifts at Seattle Young to drive a nymphomaniac to a nunnery. But my cunt never runs short of reasons.

  I pull the curtains together, walk through the shadows to the bed, stretch my legs under the fragrant sheets, hide my face in a pillow, and let my finger play hide and seek with my clit. My coming is soft. My head feels heavy. The room is deliciously silent.

  After the nap, a soak in a bathtub big enough for a foursome, and a glass of wine from the complimentary bottle of California Chablis, I feel ready for some kind of evening. I open the shades in time to watch the setting sun spread a golden carpet across the Pacific.

  I’m anxious to search for the guy who gained admission to Seattle Young twice in one week. Why? The mix of intensity and detachment in his eyes and way he touched me, both soft and bold, cut me in two. And though he handled me expertly, I failed to read a single sex thought in him.

  I’m on his mind, but why? I’ll find him, and he’ll be this ordinary shmuck, and the disturbance he stirred in me will go away.

  My password still works for the people-finder program my law firm—my former law firm—uses. The search shows one person in the LA area named Phil Still, which isn’t surprising. At least I know the name isn’t fake. I’m not familiar enough with the city to make a guess at what part of town his address might be in. I call the concierge and order a cab.

  The ride leaves me in front of a three-story office building with an outside staircase and red awnings. A dry cleaners and a Chinese restaurant occupy the ground floor. The address indicates a location on the top level.

  This neighborhood doesn’t look able to generate enough spare income for multiple visits to Seattle Young.

  I climb the stairs. Light comes through a glass door painted with the title CPS Placements. Inside, I see a reception area with no magazines on the rack and no computer on the desk. I call, “Hello?”

  Voices come from the back room, not conversation but the cadenced back and forth of announcers. Somebody is watching a ball game, or listening to one.

  I try another hello, hear no answer, and head toward the noise. I’m wearing low-heeled sandals, short shorts, a silk t-shirt, bikini-style bra and panties, and minimal makeup. I’m worried he’ll recognize me. Or am I worried he won’t?

  The inner door is open. I head for the noise.

  I know him at once by the top of his head. I’ve studied it from above before, when he went down on me. It’s all of him I can see with the back of his chair between us, except for his feet, which are clad in nice black leather shoes and black socks. They’re crossed on a scarred desktop, next to an old television showing black and white images of baseball players in a game played long ago.

  I ask, “Mr. Still?”

  The feet come down. The chair turns. Apparently the mix of hot and cold never leaves those eyes. His blue suit and open-collared light blue shirt make him look more downtown than his surroundings. His grin slides sideways. Oh, shit. He knows who I am.

  He did well, the time he went down on me. His tongue knew what to do.

  He asks, “Shall we go for a ride?”

  “Why should we?”

  “Have you eaten?”

  I know I should say Cut the crap and tell me who you are and what you want. Instead, I hear myself saying, “Good idea.”

  Chapter Eleven Dinner Propositions

  His new-looking Lexus convertible is parked in a palm tree lined gravel lot behind the building, between a dry cleaner delivery van and a bike rack. He punches a button on his keychain. The Lexus turns on its lights, starts its engine, and lowers its ragtop. He opens th
e passenger door for me.

  I’m aware of how my bare legs steal the scene when I settle in the leather seat. When I glance up to see where his eyes are roaming, they’re partly watching my face and partly a zillion miles elsewhere. If he’s thinking of sex, I can’t sense it.

  The car and the city are wonderful together, the lights around us passing in bright streaks over the polished metal of the hood and fenders, the soft night air, the breeze playing with the fringes of my hair. The drive ends in front of a stucco bungalow identical to the ones around it except for its nicer yard and the other expensive cars parked in front.

  I’m making the biggest mistake, the one they warn you about at Seattle Young—letting a hotshot in my real life. Except I don’t have a real life. I’ve burned away the scars of my secrets in the heat of the glass rooms. All I want is to feel as good moment to moment as my heart, mind, and body will let me.

  The three of them aren’t doing badly.

  Crossing the threshold feels like invading someone’s home, but the interior of the place is a glitter of white tablecloths, candlelight, and polished floors. A widely smiling man in a white dinner jacket approaches.

  He says, “Good evening, Phil. Inside table or veranda?” Though he spoke to Phil, he looks to me for an answer.

  I say, “Outdoors sounds nice.”

  He says, “Excellent.” He touches a finger to his pursed lips, and looks at me as if he’s measuring. Turning to the wine rack, he runs his hand across a row of bins, selects a bottle, and holds it for my inspection.

  It’s a California Chablis. I ask, “How did you know?”

  He says, “I love matching the wine to the person.” The tables he leads us past are set with light blue plates and heavy, plain silver. Three diners at a table near a window are watching a waiter serve sushi.

  I’m underdressed for this place, but the glances of the two men at the table don’t object. The woman between them is dolled in a spangled short red dress. She acts as if she doesn’t notice me.

  The rest of the tables are empty, though it’s nearly seven. The white-shirted staff looks primed. I get the impression the place will fill quickly.