Decadence (30 page)

“I love you. I think I have loved you from the moment I saw you in Trinidad at Zen.”

“And I still want to know about the women you have pleased since you met me.”

“In the morning. I will tell you anything you need to know, all that you ask.”

“Our accountants will have to meet. I'll need full disclosure. We need a starting point. And I am not as concerned with how much money you have, as I would want to know how you budget what you have. I'm not a helpless girl whom you will have to take care of, but I don't need any surprises either. I am a one-woman company. I have dreams. All I can ask is that you realize that I am your equal and respect that.”

“Of course.”

“We will have to take photos and issue a press statement.”

“Why?”

“So that it will be on the record that we are dating. So if anyone googles my name, yours will appear and let all men know that I am taken. Same for you. All women will know you are off the market. And of course I will update my status on Facebook. I will send a tweet and let the congratulations pour in. But if you change my life, then yours has to be modified as well. I am not going to be like, say, R. Kelly's wife, and I know you have no idea who she is, but I am not going to marry a man and no one knows that we are married. I could choose to become someone's mistress, as that would be my choice when it started and it would be my choice when it ended as it would all be under my terms, but I will not be anyone's secret wife. Character is behavior. Change behavior, and character changes. If you are seeking to change my behavior, to tame me, then yours has to be modified as well. We have to be equally yoked, committed in that sense.”

“You're remarkable. The way you think, how you process things, it's astounding.”

“I am impulsive, but I am a thinker. I am a deep thinker. You may see me as wild, or may want to slap some unfavorable label on my behavior, but that's your issue. You can't define me. Ayn Rand. Anaïs Nin. Scarlett O'Hara. Anne Boleyn. My mother. I have great role models. Henry Miller. Salvador Dalí. I have read about the peccadilloes of many men. And I have read them without judgment, without becoming biased and bitter and devaluing the human condition. For every man who has a mistress, there is a woman involved who is behaving as a man. Women hunt too. Married men are the sexual conquests of many women, some foolishly seeking a seat at a throne that is already occupied. Men are selfish and women are selfish therefore we are all of the same cloth. I live in reality, but I have hope, and my hopes are not based on the fantasies of a fool.”

“Nia Simone Bijou.”

“Sorry. I was rambling.”

“I like it when you ramble. Tell me more.”

“From the man who tells me nothing.”

“Tell me more.”

“I think I want to have a baby. I'm getting older. Not old, only older. The thought of it terrifies me, but it intrigues me. My mind is changing. After I am married for a while, after I see what that feels like, being married, after I accept that change, after I see who that makes me become, after the psychological changes that it brings, I want to feel what it is like to carry a child, to be pregnant, to have life inside of me, and to make love to you while I am pregnant, to accept the love and lingam of the man who has impregnated me while I am with his child; for me, my unborn child, and the father to be bonded in that physical way, as I gestate. I want you to be there with me when the child is born. I want what my mother never had. I want what she deserved, what she was entitled to, but was denied. My father was dead before I was born, so my mother had to give birth to me alone. I wondered how torn apart she was to hear my father had been killed, how terrified she was to have me inside of her and be alone living in the dangerous parts of Trinidad. She was alone. There was no man to comfort her, hold her, make love to her, and tend to her needs. Pregnant women are very horny, so I have heard, just have to say. Moody and horny. Anyway. I am not faulting my father because by then he no longer existed. We have never truly existed at the same time. He was gone. His soul was gone but his memory remained. But he no longer existed. We like to say that as long as people exist in our minds they are alive, but that is a lie we tell ourselves. Gone is gone. I have never been in that part of Trinidad. I have passed by, but my mother forbade me to ever go in there. Taxi drivers refuse to go in there, like it's the favelas in Rio or the slums in Argentina. She went back to Trinidad, when she had made her money, and she bought us a family home in the land where we were born, a home that is paid for and there are no property taxes down there, not yet, so it is truly ours, but she never goes back to Laventille, never visits the ward, never returns to Hell Yard, that section of the Beetham Housing Estate, one of the most depressed areas on the island. My mother is strong, brilliant, but I don't want to do it the way she did. I will expect you to be there. Listen to me. I'm telling you what to expect. You have been warned.”

“You would give me a son.”

“If you promise to give me a daughter. I will be with her the same way my mother and stepfather were with me. God, I couldn't listen to N.W.A or 2 Live Crew or any music like that, or see movies like
Boyz n the Hood
or
Menace II Society
or watch
Def Comedy Jam
. But if it's a son, it will be your call. A real man is supposed to raise his son.”

“Compromise at its best.”

“Yes. Compromise at its best.”

He kissed me, long and soft, and then he let me go and smiled.

I said, “I want to have sex over twenty-one times.”

“In a month?”

“Over a weekend.”

“Twenty-one times?”

“No.
Over
twenty-one times.”

“More than.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“To see what that is like. Let's meet in Paris. Or Switzerland. Or Dubai. We could vanish from the world for a weekend and make love.”

“Are you trying to break a record?”

“Yes. I suppose that I am trying to break a record.”

“Whose?”

“Can you accommodate me?”

“Have you done that before?”

“No. But I want to know what it is like. To be with someone in that way.”

“I can try.”

“Don't try, do.”

“In that case I will.”

“Whatever pills or magic potion you need to make it happen is fine by me.”

“Just have plenty of orange juice and water.”

The light side of Gemini would've driven to Vegas and married him at that moment, would've let the windows down at a drive-through chapel, said our vows, then pulled over in Barstow and commenced our honeymoon at whatever motel was closest to the highway. The dark side offered no objections. The dark side bowed out. Submitted.

I said, “Prada, to be understood. You're my boyfriend.”

“Yes.”

“We're exclusive.”

“Yes.”

What I felt was what I imagined women felt when they were finally engaged. I understood that rush of emotion. The games were over. The chase was over. No more living day to day in the unknown. She could rest. She could build a real world. I was a whisper away from telling him that I loved him. One whisper away from singing him a love song that thanked him for his patience and told him I was ready to play for keeps. I wanted to erase all memories before him and leave the pain and fall into him, let him be everything I needed in a lover.

I said, “Trust me. Tell me about your women. Tell me of your whores. Tell me now while we are in this moment, not in the morning.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know. Because I want to know right now.”

“That is not something a man tells a woman.”

“I won't stop asking until I know. We will not rest tonight.”

“You want to know.”

“
I want to know
.”

“Why?”

“I want to know the things that men do, what it's like to do them so freely with no consequence to character. I need to hear of your freedom. I want you to be human to me, not a shroud wrapped in a mystery. I want to know the things about you that will never be posted on your company's webpage, I want to know what can't be found out about you in newspapers or on Google or Wikipedia.”

A moment passed.

He shifted.

He opened his mouth.

He told me. First he told me of his old girlfriends, of losing his virginity at the age of twelve to a girl who was three years older. Told me of a prior engagement, to a Turkish woman, an affair that had ended two months before I had met him. He didn't tell me why. Then he told me of the whores. His first encounter was when he was sixteen. A Hindu who had sex with him for what would have been the equivalent of buying one cigarette. He told me of the beautiful whores whom he had encountered, whores who were sent to his hotels when he was on business trips, the unasked-for perks that came with the business between men, the perks of powers, of the unnamed whores who gave him after-meeting blow jobs in taxis, in boardrooms, told me of one who traveled with him for a few months, paid for by a company that wanted his business, told me of being with women of the night in Dubai, Rio, and Monte Carlo. Stunning whores in Saint-Tropez, Cannes, Nice, Côte d'Azur, and even once Ezé. High-priced call girls were all over, especially in Monte Carlo. They were gorgeous, charming, clad in haute couture. Beautiful women impeccably dressed and flawless, women who reminded him of Audrey Tautou in the film
Priceless
, women who lusted for luxury and were very expensive.

I asked, “Have you bedded many?”

“I suppose that I have. I guess that I have bedded many models.”

He told me of his adventures, some of his adventures, adventures that took place along the French Riviera, adventures in lesser-known towns, escapades in cities that were spotless and admirably maintained, cities that had self-cleaning bathrooms and delicious cuisine.

I said, “More. I want to know more.”

“That's enough.”

“More. Tell me of other places, of other women.”

He told me of whores. He kindly referred to them as models. He called them models. Czech. Hungarian. Swedish. Jamaican. Nigerian. Indonesian. Bolivian. Models who accepted donations for time spent. Sex was free. He paid for the time. As I rested in his arms, he took a deep breath and opened that part of his world, of his life as a man, of his privileges of being a man, of the perks that came with being both drop-dead handsome and a rich man, a man of credentials and means.

His words took me around the world, took me behind his closed doors. Behind the doors of those who would never be judged. His words revealed one of his compartments. The things that I had done, even tonight, didn't compare to his conquests. His lovers had been amazing.

I asked, “How much money have you spent on yoni?”

“I'm feeling guilty. I feel uncomfortable telling you these things.”

“You run a conglomeration. You talk in front of thousands. People bow at your feet. This is just you and I having an adult conversation.”

“Sometimes it's easier to talk to thousands than it is to talk to one. It is easier to talk business with many than to communicate on this level with one. I prefer the former. That is what I have done my whole life.”

“You hide. You hide behind your work. Your job is your shield.”

“I have been with many, many models.”

“No reason to be humiliated.”

“I hadn't really given it much thought, not until this moment. I am ashamed. They have no names; barely have faces. I am feeling guilty.”

“Paid for or gratis, each experience should be a celebration.”

“But I did not love them. Each woman . . . there was no love. When you do not love someone they are not worth remembering. We forget those who are unimportant. We remember those whom we love.”

I said, “We're alike, Prada. I struggle. I feel lost. Only I am not ashamed of who I am. I used to be when I didn't understand me, when I didn't understand that I wasn't alone, that there were many like me.”

He was a beautiful man. What he had done before was irrelevant.

At some point, we could move on, marry, adjust, make babies.

I asked, “Are you okay?”

“I did love one. I did love one of them.”

“One of the whores?”

“Years ago. I met a whore in London. I was walking the red-light district. I was on Berwick Street. There was a French whore and her friend was an African whore. The French whore was a smart woman. She was a polyglot. As was the African. I was with them. I would go to my meetings at the Gherkin, then return to them. I had them meet me at my hotel every evening. I was with both of them for four days. We went to the aquarium. We went to the theater. But one of them, I did feel love for. One I lusted for; the other I felt I could have loved.”

“Which did you love? The French woman or the African?”

“This is starting to feel like a confessional. The room is shrinking and it feels like an enclosed booth for Sacrament of Penance.”

“It's okay, Prada. Love does not have to be a totalitarian country that does not allow free speech. I ask to understand you, not to judge.”

He shifted. “I am exhausted. I need to sleep.”

“Then sleep. We can continue this later. It's fascinating.”

His eyes remained open. He didn't blink for a long time.

I said, “Tell me that you love me.”

“I love you. I love you as I have loved no other woman.”

I smiled. Eventually, he closed his eyes. His breathing became heavy. His body was relaxed. I whispered his name. No response.

I used the bathroom. Took a quick shower. Rinsed my mouth with hotel mouthwash. I looked at my left hand, imagined it decorated with a ring. As I stood in the doorway, skin damp, hair pulled back from my face, I stared at him. I told him then. That was when I told him. I had not said that to any man in forever. As he slept like a man exhausted, a man thoroughly drained, a man suffering from jet lag. I said it then. I said the simple phrase that owned so much weight and power.