The Flirt (2 page)

L
eticia Vane jangled the set of keys in her hand and sauntered down Elizabeth Street. She was the kind of girl (and even nearing her mid-thirties, she still thought of herself as a girl) who was aware of how her body looked and the shapes it made when she moved. Even though there was no one about much before noon in this part of the world, she liked to think she was being watched and that people noticed in her a certain dangerous pleasure.

And indeed, Leticia Vane was in many ways her own finest creation. She’d taken what little rough material nature had allotted her and molded, shaped, hacked away at it as a sculptor chips away at a hunk of marble.

Nothing remained from her previous life as Emily Ann Fink of Hampstead Garden Suburb. The uni-brow that God had seen fit to adorn her with was gone, plucked into two slim, expressive arches; the overbite long replaced; the dull, brown hair dyed a gleaming black that brought out the color of her eyes. Her face was pleasing but, understanding that she was no beauty, she’d taken a great deal of time over her figure. She ate once a day and smoked the rest of the time. Dying young was far preferable to dying fat. It had taken a lot of hard work to make Leticia Vane, the kind of work not a lot of people appreciated.

And of course there was the back story, too. One of two children of a chartered accountant and a depressed schoolteacher wouldn’t do. Leticia wanted something more fascinating. So she transformed her parents into diplomats, serving in faraway countries. She’d been raised in a series of exotic locations; learned languages (she was far too polite to show them off in public); had affairs at a preternatural age; been doted upon but still suffered from a past too secret and too painful to reveal to anyone.

She’d always longed to be exclusive. Rare. And now she figured she probably had another ten years to really enjoy the fruits of her labors. However, the fragile nature of her accomplishments made them all the more dear.

And so she sauntered, just in case someone was looking out of the window, wondering what that fetching young woman was doing up at this time of day. And with a swagger, she twisted the keys in the lock of the tiny shop.

Bordello was a lingerie shop but it had no shelves, no long lines of silk nothings swinging on rails, no emaciated mannequins with stiff nipples adorned in lace thongs. In fact it looked more like a small, turn-of-the-century Parisian drawing room than a shop. The walls were papered with fine black-and-white stripes, the Louis Quatorze
fauteuils
were covered in ivory raw silk; a rare, cobalt-blue chandelier sent beams of azure light darting around the room. Leticia offered a bespoke service. There were no samples. There were, however, yards and yards of the most exquisite aged silk and satin in the palest colors: champagne, dove gray, pearl and thumb-nail pink. Bolts of filmy organdies were piled into corners and there were baskets with drifts of lace—antique, handmade, tiny works of art she’d collected from all over the globe. On a round mahogany table in the center of the room, her sketchbooks were piled high, full of her latest creations. There were no changing rooms, only a luxuriously appointed bathroom to the rear,
complete with an antique slipper bath, next to a narrow workroom.

Leticia was selling a sexual dream in which each of her clients starred. So she created a stage setting of subtle erotic chic; just glamorous and sensual enough to stir the imaginations of the women she catered to.

And Leticia Vane didn’t cater to just anyone. Clients had to be referred. Exclusivity wasn’t a matter of money nowadays; everyone and anyone had money. In order to be desirable, you had to be unavailable. Celebrities were the kiss of death to any business; as they went out of fashion, so would you. And she didn’t make anything for women who’d had breast implants. Leticia’s objections were purely aesthetic. They simply ruined the balance of her creations. She prided herself on being able to lend a hand where nature had been careless or abrupt. Her nightdresses all had inbuilt bras which she fashioned from plaster molds of her clients’ breasts. Discrepancies in size and shape were all catered to and gently adjusted. By raking the insides of each cup, she made the breasts fall forward, spilling recklessly, yet never fully escaping, bound by tissue-thin layers of sheerest net.

She didn’t make anything as vulgar as crotchless panties or cut-out bras, but she knew how to heighten the coloring, hand tinting the fabric of each design so that the nipples appeared pink and slightly swollen. And her famous French knickers were so silky and loose that they could easily be pushed to one side without ever completely removing them.

Leticia’s greatest asset was that she understood men and sympathized with women. The difficulty with most lingerie was that it repelled the very thing it claimed to enhance. Not every man was thrilled to arrive home after a long day to find his wife trussed up in three hundred pounds’ worth of bizarre, lurid corsetry—trying to act sexy in a get-up that had taken her a full half-hour to wriggle
into. Both of them would be embarrassed by the effort of such a blatant overture; unsure of how to work various snaps and ties. Then there would be added pressure of having an unprecedented sexual experience that would warrant the expense. Leticia understood that when a woman went to such trouble, it was usually because her sex life had reached a crisis. But the very unfamiliarity of such a costume could make her feel ridiculous and, even worse, desperate. A deliberate performance always increases the possibility of sexual rejection.

Leticia firmly believed that quality was the result of quantity. Good sex was simply a by-product of having a great deal of all sorts of sex; rough, slow, quick and to the point or dreamy and drawn out, random gropes, teasing touches, full-on oral feasts—all these things qualified as sex to her. And so, to facilitate an unconscious air of sexual susceptibility, she created heightened versions of everyday pieces; deceptively simple white nightdresses, only fashioned from such sheer material and cut so cleverly that they draped the body in a provocative, filmy gauze, accentuating the peek of nipples, hugging the curve of hips, lengthening legs; billowing beguilingly with each movement. Because they appeared so innocent and unassuming, they were undeniably erotic. Instead of shouting, “Fuck me!” they whispered, “Take me…see…I’m not even looking!” The cleverest bit was that, while a man couldn’t help but be hypnotized by the erotic undertones, the idea of sex would be his. The pieces compelled a man to act, and made the woman feel languid. She could lie back and lure her husband into action. And a man who initiates sex always feels more virile than one who has it thrust upon him.

Leticia had been taught this invaluable insight along with the rest of her trade by her godfather, Leo. He’d been a West End theatrical costume designer. And like Leticia, he was entirely self-created. He smoked thin, black Russian cigarettes, probably had
his nose done back in the sixties and wore his beautiful silver hair loose around his shoulders. His uniform was what he called “an Audrey”—a black cashmere polo neck, black tailored trousers and soft, leather slippers he had specially made. He laughed often and firmly refused to countenance any form of self-pity or pessimism.

He came from a different world—not just a theatrical one but from another age entirely—an age that had no qualms about artifice; that had no desire to appear natural, and understood that a little sleight of hand was nothing to be ashamed of. He’d been a dresser to Marlene Dietrich when she used to pin her scalp back under her wig; had sewn sweat guards into Julie Andrews’s gowns in
My Fair Lady
and even adjusted the sleeves on Vivien Leigh’s costumes so that no one could see her hands shaking after a bad night.

Leticia slipped off her jacket, hung it up on a hook behind the door and looked round with satisfaction. Leo was retired now but he adored the shop. The slipper bath had been his idea. (It shuddered violently if you turned on the taps but it looked exquisite.) He was the only other person who really appreciated her collection of lace or the rare quality of the bolts of beautiful fabric.

If it hadn’t been for him, she might still be languishing in Hampstead Garden Suburb. He gave her a subscription to
Vogue
when she was eight. When she was ten, he presented Leticia with a little work table all her own in his studio. There she sat, making sketches, watching carefully as the greatest stage divas of the day were transformed from frightened, self-obsessed neurotics into creatures worthy of universal adoration. In her teens, he took her to the theater, bought her her first cocktail in Kettner’s, showed her how to pluck her eyebrows and move in a way that commanded attention. He taught her the difference between presence, which includes everyone in its warm glow, and attitude, which keeps the whole world at bay.

There was nothing Leo couldn’t render magical. Nothing he couldn’t fix.

She opened her appointment book and examined the names. A romance novelist, a duchess and a rich American woman from Savannah. She didn’t like more than three appointments a day and nothing before 11 a.m. Early morning wasn’t sexy; once you were out of bed and dressed, the weight of the day pressed too hard on everyone’s conscience.

Her phone buzzed. She flicked it open. It was Leo.

“Angel, how are we this morning?” he purred, his voice tempered by thousands of cigarettes.

“Brilliant. Are you coming in today? Please say you’re coming! I’ve got an order for a silk kimono I can’t make drape properly for love nor money. The woman has a bust like a mountain range. I promise to buy you a long, boozy lunch if you can fix it.”

“Would love to but I can’t. Feeling a bit rough this morning. Truth is I was up late last night playing strip poker with Juan. You remember Juan, don’t you?”

“That male nurse from Brazil?” She riffled through the morning post. Another postcard from her parents in Israel. More brown envelopes. How boring. She tossed them unopened into the bin. “Didn’t you decide he was too young for you? Does he even speak English?”

“Don’t be catty, darling. His English has come on a treat. Besides,” she could hear him lighting a fresh cigarette, “we don’t waste our time on conversation.”

“Please! I don’t want to know all your secrets!”

“You know them all anyway.”

She smiled. “I have one.”

“Really? What or rather who is it?”

“Now who’s being catty? His name’s Hughie and he’s delicious!”

“How old?”

“Oh, I don’t know…early twenties?”

She heard him exhale. “You need a real man, Leticia. Not some boy.”

“This from you!” She closed the appointment book firmly. “Real men don’t exist. Or haven’t you noticed? Besides, he’s only a fling.”

“They have feelings, you know.”

“I doubt it. All men want is sex. Especially young men.”

“And what about you? What do you want?”

Her fingers ran over a particularly exquisite and costly bolt of French blue silk organdy. “Who cares what I want? It’s what I can have that matters.”

“Emily Ann…”

She winced. “You know I hate that name; it’s so impossibly ugly!”

“Emily,” he repeated firmly, “I’m concerned. These flings are getting to be a habit with you.”

“And why not? We live in a disposable world. There’s no point in investing yourself too heavily.”

“You’re too young to be so cynical.”

“Oh, please!” She sighed. “Let’s not do serious today! I can’t; I’m not in the mood. I just want to have some fun. And Hughie’s fun.”

“He’s also real.”

“What am I now, some corrupting influence? No lectures—not today.”

“I’m only saying that you’ve got to be careful.”

“Stop, Leo,” she warned.

He ignored her. “You pretend to be tough but we both know you’re not.”

“I have to go.”

“Darling, I love you and I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“What? By Hughie?” she laughed. “See, that’s the whole point! He can’t hurt me! And I can’t hurt him. We have rules, Leo. It’s strictly sex…nothing more.”

“I’ve got news for you, sunshine. Rules or no rules, you’re not in control of your heart. No one is.”

“Listen, I’ll call you later. I have heaps to do and if you’re not coming round I’ll have to try to sort out this kimono monstrosity by myself. Speak later? And no more hot Brazilians, understand?”

She clicked the phone shut, pressed her hand over her eyes.

He was being so difficult.

And suddenly, it was back again; the dull ache, pressing hard. It was an ache now, but for at least a year it had been a searing, slicing pain across her whole chest, like someone performing open-heart surgery without an anesthetic. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep…

Damn him! Why did he have to be so…so judgmental?

She took a deep breath.

It didn’t matter. It was all over now. She was on her feet again, better than ever.

In her workshop, Leticia put the kettle on and lit a cigarette. There was time between the duchess and the novelist to have Hughie come round. And leaning her back against the counter, she inhaled deeply and closed her eyes.

Hughie was so tall, so young, so classically handsome. And so easy to control! There were no power struggles, no coy dating rituals or manipulations. She rang, he came, they fucked. And then they fucked some more.

It was a simple relationship and, in a way, beautiful. There was something different about Hughie: a freshness. No deep thoughts or dark moods interfered with his performance. Of course, he had a lot to learn; a diamond in the rough. But that was exciting. And the best part was, he was insane about her. It was only a fling, but
in every relationship there was the one who adored and the one who was adored. She’d done the adoring and preferred by far when it was the other way round.

The kettle boiled. Spooning the loose leaves of Earl Gray tea carefully into a Tiffany blue pot, she poured in the hot water. The aroma of bergamot filled the room.

She stared out of the window into the small garden at the back.

Leo was wrong. No one could hurt her again; she wouldn’t let them.