The Dirty Ones

He shakes from a silent laugh. “Camille isn’t even published. She’s not in your league.”

“You don’t even know her,” I say. “In our dirty little world she’s a very big deal. And people love her for many different reasons. And not all of them have to do with her books. She does good deeds and shit.”

His guffaw echoes off my ceiling. “Camille?” He laughs again. “Camille DuPont? That Camille? Because I just want to make sure we’re talking about the same girl.”

“Yes,” I say. “If you only knew. She’s not who you think. Her secret life is quite altruistic.”

“OK,” he says, still chuckling. “I feel like I’ve entered an alternate universe now.”

I flop back into the pillow and shrug. “Maybe you have.”

“And Sofia? Is she some shining example of good deeds now too?”

“No,” I say, unable to stop the smile. “She’s still Sofia. But she was nominated for the Women’s Opportunity Award in Literature six years ago. She’s legit, ya know?”

“And yet you’re telling me she writes smut on the side?”

“Is that weird?”

“Uh… yeah. I just can’t picture Sofia writing that shit.” He regrets his word choice immediately. I can tell, because he sighs. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Whatever. I’m good at it and it pays the bills.”

He ponders this for a few moments.

“So that’s why you feel inferior? Because this… career you have is more of a job than a life’s work?”

“I never said I feel inferior. And I’m certainly not putting down my talent. I’m quite talented in my own sphere of influence. I’m just saying that what happened back in school wasn’t because of me, that’s all. In your sphere of influence I’m pretty much a nobody.”

“I don’t know.” It comes out tired. “For some reason I think we’re missing something. Some hidden knowledge that could explain all this bullshit.”

“Look, it’s really not that complicated. You guys—you, Bennett, Hayes, Sofia, Camille, and Louise, but before her, Emily—you guys come from families that matter, OK? You guys are the princes and princesses of Old Money America. This is not hard to understand. Whoever made us do all that shit did it to control you guys.”

“OK,” Con says, holding up a hand. “I get that. Hell, I even accept it. But there’s more to it than that. There has to be, right?”

“Why can’t it just be greed?” I huff. “I mean, greed accounts for almost every bad thing that ever happens in life. Whoever is pulling our strings, they want the power you guys represent. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.”

“But why you?” I laugh. “And I don’t mean that in a mean way, Kiera. I’m just saying, of all the people we went to school with, why did they choose you?”

“Who knows? They knew I come from a family of writers. And not just any writers, erotic writers. My grandmother wrote smut, for fuck’s sake. And I’m pretty sure her mother wrote it too.”

He turns to me, and this time he’s the one propping himself up on an elbow. “Wait. What? What the fuck did you just say?”

“You didn’t know that?”

“No. You come from a long line of female erotica writers? This is a real thing?”

“Yes, my grandmother was Nicole Baret. She wrote this weird urban legend, subculture book called The Longing back in the day.”

“Where is this book?”

“I dunno. There used to be a copy in the attic up at the main house. I found it once when I was a teenager.”

“And your mother? She knew about this book?”

“Knew about it? Hell, modeled her whole career on it. Did you ever hear of a book called The Seduction of Sadie?”

He smiles and flops back down into his pillow. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“Yeah, that was her.”

“Your mother? That woman with the apron who worked in the kitchen at school?”

“She only did that for special events. You know that. And only because she likes to bake sexy desserts.”

“Oh, my God. My world has been upended.” He laughs. Loud.

“Why?” I laugh with him.

“I mean, actually… I can picture your hot mom writing erotica, but holy shit. I’m so glad I didn’t know this before now. I read that book. Like, us guys used to sit up in our rooms at boarding school and read parts of it out loud trying to make the girls horny.”

“Did it work?” I ask, unable to hide my smile.

“Fuck, yeah, it worked. Trying to get a group of girls to look at porn was like pulling teeth. But read them passages from The Seduction of Sadie…” He stops to chuckle. “Fuck, yeah, it worked.”

We lie there in thoughtful contemplation for a little while. I don’t know what he’s thinking about, but I’m busy picturing a fifteen-year-old Connor Arlington sitting up in a boarding-school dorm room, pulling out The Seduction of Sadie as his A-game.