Breaking Joseph (6 page)

“Budget?” Elise
barked as we approached a vintage boutique.

“Um…” I lifted
the credit card out of my purse, as if staring at it might make the
limit appear.

“Awesome.” She
inclined her head, curious and awed by the name on the slip of
plastic. “No budget required.”

So it
began.

In a store
swathed in plum velour, I pointed out the shoes that my outfit had
to match. She stroked along the butter-soft leather and mewed like
a pleased kitten.

“Leger, I
think,” she murmured. “Simple shapes.”

It was almost
like having my best friend, Clemmie, over–though Clemmie with no
budget was probably enough to cause economic collapse in a small
European country.

I’d always
picked clothes in the same manner that I interpreted law: they made
sense. I liked them. Things matched. I had no innate sense of what
was fashionable, only of what I thought suited me, and now one
without the other seemed such a waste.

We sat on plush
sofas in changing rooms the size of my flat, sipping at Champagne
flutes and whispering to each other between giggles. Shop stylists
swept in with armfuls of clothes: beaded and exuberant, tight and
unforgiving, simple and sinful.

A black bandage
dress with a square neckline made Elise raise a hand.

“Turn around,”
she said, her wrist flicking.

“What do you
think?” I glanced over my shoulder. “This one?”

She stalked
over and fingered the faint touch of sparkle over my hip. It winked
at her in the harsh light like a gem-wrought tattoo. “This one.”
She smiled. “See–Leger. I was right after all.”

I peered into
the mirror and a stranger stared back. The one thing I’d worn that
was more expensive was my own skin–the one men paid to wear. I
loved the way the dress bound my breasts against my chest, forcing
them to swell just slightly above the bodice, how it nipped in my
waist and sucked at my hips. Like it wanted to fuck me.

“We ought to
find a place to celebrate,” said Elise. She turned to one of the
stylists. “We’ll take it.”

The dress was
wrapped in tissue paper that rustled deliciously as the bag swung
in my hand. We pottered around a department store while she chose a
scarf, and then fell into a booth at a slick little diner.

“Will you be
offended if I don’t drink? I’ve had a lot on this trip…I’ve already
got a headache from the fizz.” I let the shiny menu slide back onto
the table.

“I suppose
since I’m being paid, I should stop drinking too. Still. It doesn’t
suck,” she added, her teeth wide and white as she grinned.

“Are you even
slightly tipsy? I need you to be all vulnerable so I can pull those
embarrassing stories out.”

“About
Joe?”

“Yep.”

The waiter
arrived and we ordered gooey milkshakes.

“I did ask Ken
for you.” She rested her chin on a hand. “But he didn’t have much.
I’ve heard stuff from their college days but it’s…well…”

“Were they
secret geeks?”

She stifled a
giggle with nail-bitten fingers. “Probably! But that’s not what I
meant. I don’t know. It’s not really embarrassing, it’s just…ugh.”
She snorted. “Crude.”

“I can tolerate
crude.” I heart crude. I would elope with it to Vegas and pose next
to fake, fat Elvis with my cheap bouquet aloft.

“Oh, really?”
She stirred her shake with a stripy straw, leaning in. “Do you know
what their nicknames were back then?”

“Go on.”

“Ken-Fucky Tied
Lickin’ and the Chairman of the Whored.” Her upper lip twitched in
disgust.

A great gulp of
melted ice cream did little to stem my laughter. I couldn’t help
it, and yet it seemed so inappropriate, compared to her face. I’d
heard Joseph’s nickname from a similarly revolted mouth–his ex,
Isobel, had sobbed the moniker on the floor of our office toilets,
and as the memory rose and popped like a bubble, my giggles went
limp on the air.

“You think it’s
funny
?” asked Elise.

“I’m sorry.
They’re very…um. Visual names.”

“They were
giant man sluts, Leila. Proud of it, too. Joseph keeps threatening
to use it in his speech at our wedding.”

“You’re
engaged? Wow. Congratu–”

“Oh. No.” She
sighed.

“I’m sorry.” I
cringed. “I didn’t mean to assume–”

“No, no, it’s
okay. It’s…complicated.” She gazed forlornly at her empty ring
finger. “He’s asked, you know.”

“But you said
no?”

“I really do
want to marry him, I just…I don’t know why I’m even telling you
this. I barely know you,” she said, flustered.

“I think I owe
you a shoulder, given your excellent taste in dresses.” And she
seemed so buoyantly lonely.

She tugged at
her hair. “Maybe I feel that you know what it’s like, you know,
being with Joe and all.”

“Being like
what?” Kenji was unlikely to be paying her. Ahem.

She leaned in
again. “Does he–oh God. I can’t believe I’m asking you this,
but…ugh. Does he want to see you with other people?”

Erm. “Yes.” I
watched her blink. “He wants a lot of things in that vein,
actually.”

He did tell me
to be honest, and frankly, after Isobel, I felt like Elise deserved
it. Charlotte wriggled in the grip of pleasure–she wanted a
playmate. An acolyte.

“And that’s
okay with you?” Elise frowned.

“I think so.
But then I knew from the beginning. I can understand why you’d feel
weird about it if it’d never been your thing and it was suddenly
thrust upon you, so to speak.”

“Ugh, you don’t
know the half of it. I know he did a lot of that stuff back in
college–I swear, they did degrees in fucking–but I always thought
of it as something you leave behind when you settle down, you
know?”

“I think it
depends on how you view the other people involved,” I ventured.
“That is what you’re talking about, right?”

“Yes. Only in
bed, though. Not like bigamy or anything. Not swinging.”

“No swapping of
the car keys here.” I grimaced in a mock shudder. “Seriously
though, you know it’s not an insult, don’t you? He’s not saying you
aren’t enough.”

“But that’s
exactly it! That’s what it says!”

“You have to
think of it like…like using a toy.”

“Ew.” Her gaze
darted about. “Isn’t that, like, really demeaning?”

“Maybe.” I
shrugged. “But if everyone is enjoying themselves, does it matter?
Actually–no, I don’t think it’s demeaning at all. You can still
like the other person and respect them without falling head over
heels. You can have a connection without it being
the
connection.”

Elise went
quiet for a moment. Mulled it all over. “I feel like our bedroom is
for us,” she said finally, her mouth drawn.

“You shouldn’t
do anything you don’t want to do.” I nudged her arm. “Does he know
how you feel?”

“Oh yeah. He
says he’s fine with it, but he told me what his fantasy was and he
can’t take it back.” She pulled her arm away with a rueful smile.
“Maybe it’s all screwed from the beginning. I’ll have kids and get
fat, and he’ll run off with his secretary.”

“With all due
respect, it sounds like you’re putting more pressure on yourself
than he is.”

“Huh…you’re
probably right.” She sighed. “Don’t you ever worry that you’re not
enough?”

“For?” I
couldn’t say Joseph’s name, then. It was too much of a lie and
she’d confessed so much already. “If he thought I wasn’t enough,
then he’d end things. He’s that type of person.” I chewed my bottom
lip. “I don’t think he measures women in the sense that you’re
talking about.”

“You’re very
tolerant, Leila.” She laughed, shaking her head. I wondered if she
meant
stupid,
but then her eyes narrowed.

“I just don’t
see the point in ignoring desire. Not when it won’t harm anyone to
indulge it,” I said. “If it suits us both…”

Can we find
something that suits us both?

Oh. Oh.

Elise peered at
me over her tall glass. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, of
course.”

“Good. Hate to
think I was bringing you down.”

“No. You should
talk about this stuff. More people should, it’s more common than
you might imagine.”

“You
think?”

“I do.” I
finished the last syrupy dregs of milkshake and pushed the glass
aside. “Be thankful he doesn’t want to wear a nappy and be
bottle-fed, or something.”

Her eyes bulged
in horror. “Is that a British thing?”

“I’m pretty
sure it’s universal. Not that it makes it any less scary.”

“So you
think…you think I should marry him?” Her tone wavered.

“I think you
should be honest. If you don’t want to indulge him and he still
wants to marry you, why not?” I said.

“Why not,” she
murmured. Then she snapped up to catch my eye. “Would you marry a
man like that?”

I blushed so
viciously that my hands felt cold in comparison. “Oh God. We’re not
looking to do anything like that.”

“But if you
were–would you?”

“I’m not sure
I’m marriage material.”

“You’d look
good in pearls and a twinset, you know.”

That was a
joke, right? Or not, knowing Elise, as I had for barely days.
Still, pearl necklace…can’t ever think about that in a mature
fashion.

Elise laughed.
“Don’t look so disgusted, Leila. You’ve already got his credit card
and he’s parading you around like the spoils of war, or
something.”

That’s what
some men do with whores! Maybe not the credit card thing…only the
naive ones…but then I wasn’t about to run away with it. Not from my
boss.

“That’s what
he’s like,” I said weakly.

“Yeah, right.
He has never brought a woman to meet us. And there have been a lot
of women,” she added in disapproval.

That’s also
what some men do with whores when they want to boost their egos or
prove they aren’t gay.

Only Joseph
wasn’t ugly or gay.

“We’re really
not serious.” I looked away.

“Maybe you
should look to be.” Her tone dragged, the vowels long again. “He’s
a very successful guy.”

“Money isn’t
everything though, is it?”

“No. But it
would hardly hurt your career.”

The diner-light
heat drained from my face. “Oh. I see what you mean.”

“You keep a guy
like him happy and you’ll be laughing all the way to your own
office. There’s all this bullshit about equality for women, but you
know what it’s like–they’re the ones at the top. Now you seem like
a clever girl and he thinks you’ve got a lot of potential. You want
my advice?”

I nodded
silently.

“Don’t screw
this up.”

“I’ll think
about that.”

“If you’re okay
with his fooling around, it’ll be ten times easier for you.” It was
just an insinuation, but it sounded like it fell out wrapped in
barbed wire. In the melee of lies that stalked us that afternoon,
if Joseph and I were dating, then of course he was cheating. He was
the Chairman of the Whored. The idea hurt her more than me–that
there were men like him, that her Kenji might still be that man,
that women like me would surpass enabling to
defend
it–and
she couldn’t just eject it. She had to spit it out.

“Just because
Kenji was like that before, doesn’t mean he is now,” I said. “He
isn’t Joseph.” And he wasn’t–far from it. He was a shadow, a
spectator. Kenji had asked Elise to marry him, but Joseph had
refused Isobel that courtesy and severed their relationship with
the same knife he used to lure me.

“I know that.”
But she didn’t believe it.

“He wouldn’t
propose just for the sake of it, and he wouldn’t stick around after
you said no if he didn’t think you were special.” I nudged her
hand. “You’re allowed to marry him because you love him, you know.
It doesn’t have to be a strategic decision.”

Her posture
softened. “Yeah.”

“And you do
love him. The two of you are quite sickening.” The smile crept up
on me and wouldn’t be tamed, and like all wanton creatures, its
teeth were sharp. Kenji was the Matt that fit her. “He trusted you
enough to tell you his fantasies. That’s huge. Be flattered.”

She swallowed.
“Even if they weren’t all about me?”

“It’s sex. It’s
fleeting, momentary. Marriage…isn’t.”

“So when did
you get so clever about all this stuff, huh?” She gave a mock tut.
“Do they teach sexual politics along with British law?”

“I. Um.” I
fucked men for money and saw this entropy all the time. “I did a
night class.”

When I got back
to the hotel, a note lay on the dresser from Joseph, stating a
change of venue for dinner. He would send a car at eight. The
address appeared to be an apartment–if it was, I’d be seriously
overdressed.

As beautiful as
the Leger dress was, as much as I loved its subtle suck at my
hips–it didn’t feel right. I twisted in the mirror a dozen times
and all I saw gazing back was a creature like Elise, thinking of
offices in frosted glass and desks in shiny mahogany because they
were the things easiest to get.

I was not that
girl.

Somewhere
behind the wardrobe door, blue silk whispered. Beckoned me. I still
don’t know why I packed the dress I’d first worn for Charlie–one of
the oldest things I owned–but it made sense. I slid into stockings
and suspenders, draped the cool fabric of the skirt so it skimmed
midthigh. I didn’t need a bra beneath the crossover bodice, but
then Joseph appreciated such touches. The shoes went on last.

In the mirror,
I smiled at my reflection in relief. Those were my red curls
tumbling down to lick at a pale slither of cleavage. No Charlotte
here. On the other side of the world and dabbling with a man I
barely knew, it was too easy to forget who I was…and I had to cling
to something.

* * * *