But I know more than anyone that women don’t hire me because there’s no one else. They hire me because they want me to be the empty man, the one who can fuck them the way they want, not the way I want, the one who can act like I love them without feeling a thing.
And I’m good at being that man. Empty.
I scroll back to the top, where a new video has been uploaded since I looked at the page yesterday. This one is titled Over the Rainbow. I press the PLAY button and settle in to watch.
Most of the videos start with music. Only rarely does she say a brief piece before she begins. This time she begins speaking. “I met someone recently, someone who made me think that maybe there’s more to life than what I knew before. Someone who makes me think there’s somewhere else worth going.”
My heart squeezes, because she must be talking about me. I can hear it in the husky bent of her voice, the way she speaks when my mouth is on her clit. Hungry and low.
“Most people would think he’s happy. It feels like he’s full of joy, but there’s sadness, too. A part of him that longs for a world more colorful than this one.”
How does she see inside me, like my skin is made of glass?
“And when I’m around him I long for that world, too. Have you ever met a person like that? A person who made you dream of more?”
There’s a silence in which my mind fills in the answer. You make me dream, Bea. Because it’s not as simple as one direction. It’s what happens when we’re together, the possibilities like sparks in the air, giving us a glimpse of what could be.
“I love doing the new songs for you, but I have this one on my mind. It’s a classic song. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but maybe today it will sound new to you like it does to me.”
And then she plays the song in a slow, sultry, beautiful tune. It makes goose bumps rise on my arms, the deep sound of her breath coming through the small speakers. How does she do this?
By the time she gets to the end, there are tears in my eyes. I do not have the worry that other men have in Tanglewood. That other men had in Tangier, also. That I will not be properly masculine if I cry, but there is very little that can move me. A beautiful painting. A poem. I can enjoy them without being moved, but this is different. It’s like she’s singing to me, and my body responds as if she’s touching me. I want to clench my hand in her wild hair. I want to press my lips against the rapid pulse at the base of her throat. God, she’s perfect.
The notes end in a weighted silence. And then the video ends.
I feel the loss of her, acute and painful.
The video app gives me only a small pause before spinning into another one of her videos. And another, while I sit there, cold as a statue on top of a building, watching the city stream by. Eventually the app moves to play other musicians who share their work. And then pop music published by the major labels.
Still, I cannot bring myself to move.
The notes she played have embedded themselves in my head. It’s all I can hear.
Until the phone buzzes in my hand. An incoming text. I glance down, detached from this ordinary world, disinterested, until I see Melissande’s name. I try to ignore how much anticipation rises within me at the thought of seeing Bea again.
She booked the next three weeks.
A deep breath makes me realize I had been holding it, but for how long? Since I saw Bea perform that haunting melody? Or longer, since I left her bed? I text back, Okay, glad Melissande isn’t here to see me. She would sense that something was wrong, no matter how well I try to hide it.
Your other clients will lose their minds.
My other clients will go back to their regular lives. They will find a nice man in a bar. Or finally approach someone they’ve had a crush on. There’s nothing for them with me.
It’s Melissande who’s in danger of losing her mind. I’m not giving you any more nights, I type.
Three dots hover on the screen for a long time. Either Melissande is typing out something very long or she’s doing a lot of erasing and starting over. In the end her message is brief: I made you.
That makes me laugh out loud, the sound echoing in the large loft. Do you want me to thank you? I type back, before adding, Thank you, Melissande. For making me a whore.
She’ll read the sarcasm fine, because it’s been a very long time since we were friends. A very long time since we were lovers. There must be fondness there, to make me reluctant to ruin her. I’m not in the business of ruining women. Usually I prefer to pleasure them. Could I make an exception for Damon Scott? Would I make an exception for revenge?
It is perhaps ominous that I don’t know the answer myself.
Chapter Fourteen
In my loft I prepare a gourmet picnic with sliced meats and creamy cheeses. There are plump grapes and ripe strawberries. A baguette from the French bakery so fresh it crackles when I place it in the bag. Most of these items are easy to prepare. The only thing I make from scratch is a moist brioche with hints of orange and white chocolate, soft on the inside, the sugar caramelized on the outside. My mother taught me to make this.
She worked twelve hours a day in a hotel that cost more per night than she earned in a month. She did not have money for luxury or time for hobbies. But in the few minutes she had between waking and work, she loved to cook. Recipes handed down from her mother but spiced with what was available in the open-air markets of Tangier. There was ratatouille made with tomatoes and zucchini and bay leaf, but also couscous and ginger. French lentils with fava beans and cumin. She loved to try new things, both of us tasting from the pot while the meal simmered, heating the small room we shared.
I don’t have her level of curiosity or wonder about cooking, but every meal I prepare is an homage to her. If you would have asked me if I loved my mother, I would have said yes. But I spent too much time fighting in the streets to be what you’d call a good son.
She was the one who let me out of the closet, limping and bleeding and crying too hard to speak. Even then I knew that the police would not help us against a rich American tourist. I cooked every day for her for a week, before she was well enough to return to work.
We did not speak of what happened that night. She didn’t wish to, and I was too angry. Too selfish. Too busy fighting in the streets, thinking I would make something of myself in a city that hardly recognized me as human. But somewhere in my chest was the certainty that I would find that man.
After the cancer took her, it became my only purpose.
So when I met beautiful Melissande, when I found out where she came from—I knew she would be the way to revenge. She offered me the chance to come with her. It seemed almost miraculous, that I had fallen in love with a woman and could achieve my goal at the same time.
She kept me in a state of ignorant bliss in her bed for a year before revealing my purpose in Tanglewood. I would be a prostitute, catering to the wealthy men and women of society who wanted a dark-haired fallen angel in their beds. Someone with an exotic accent and very little inhibition.
That’s when I learned that I could not have love and revenge.
There could only be one or the other.
My mind is in turmoil as the brioche cools on the oven, but I move with determination as I pack them with the rest of the picnic. We won’t need Bea’s tiny kitchen tonight, though I still hope to dine with her. The drive to the hotel is done in silence, without the usual joy I feel when driving the Bugatti.