I knew I had to tell him these things one day. Maybe not today, but someday I wanted to explain the ways he’d changed me and improved my life.
His roughness, his violence had cracked me open somehow, made me all new and better, and his kisses had made me realize I was more than a whore. The first day, the very first day, he’d rejected Miss Kitty in favor of the real me. He’d preferred the real me, and was, in fact, the only client who’d ever wanted the real me. Somehow, he’d made me want the real me too.
More than that, he’d helped me find the strength to leave Simon. My ex’s gallery show was about to close. I wondered if he’d thought any more about rehab, or if he was going to continue along his self-destructive path. If he was, I wasn’t going with him. I was on a new path now.
After twenty minutes, I looked at my watch, and the room number Henry texted me. I would have liked to see W arrive, but he must already be waiting upstairs. Was he getting ready for me, thinking about me? Feeling hot for me?
I tucked my bag under my arm and sashayed across the elegant space, smiling like a minx. The hotness came first. I had to let W run roughshod over my body and exorcise all his demons before I said anything about how much he’d come to mean in my life. That was the type of conversation to save for afterward, when he held me and gazed into my eyes, and made sure, with his gruff and awkward questions, that I was okay.
I’m very okay, thanks to you.
I took the elevator to the tenth floor and took a deep breath as I walked down the hall. He gave me the best butterflies. When I got to the door I raised my hand to knock, then I realized it was cracked open, propped on the bar lock.
I double-checked Henry’s text. This was definitely the right room. I pushed it open a little, bracing for W to pounce on me and do something scary.
“Hello?”
The room was moody and lush, done in dark velvet and mahogany wood. I tiptoed inside, looking around. “Hello?”
When I was finally convinced he wasn’t going to jump on me, I noticed the dress on the bed, and an envelope with my name on it. I let the door close and walked across the room. I stood beside the bed and drew my fingers along the dress’s neckline. It was a replacement for the one he’d cut up last week, new with tags.
I was grateful for the dress, but I didn’t want to touch the envelope. I felt afraid.
“Hello?” I called again. “Are you here?”
I strained to hear him speak back to me, to breathe, to growl, to make that low, derisive laugh. I went into the bathroom. Nothing. He wasn’t here. No one had been here in a while now. There wasn’t the faintest whiff of his cologne.
He’s going to knock in a minute, I told myself. He’s fucking with me. No, he wouldn’t knock, he’d just sneak in and scare the shit out of me. I spun around, the hair prickling at my nape, but he wasn’t there.
“W,” I said softly, knowing there’d be no reply.
I went back out into the main room and pulled the drapes open. The room looked down on the treetops of Gramercy Park. A park view, of course. Always the best. I looked back at the bed. The dress.
The envelope with Chere written on it in W’s blocky script.
I went and picked it up, and walked back to the window, unfolding the white paper and angling it toward the light. There was no greeting, no date or name, just one line in the middle of the page.
Good luck, starshine.
I stared at the words a long time, rereading them, trying to understand them past the roaring panic in my brain. He couldn’t mean…goodbye? He wouldn’t just leave me like this, without saying goodbye. He wouldn’t just end us.
I sat in a chair in the still, lush room, and looked at the paper, and the dress, and I knew with a sick, sinking dread that I wasn’t going to see him again. He had chosen, for some reason, to terminate our relationship: our working relationship, our emotional relationship, our connection, all the experiences that had helped us bond.
“Why?” I asked, but there was no answer. I covered my face with my hands and leaned over, devastated by emotion. “Why, why, why are you doing this?”
I thought back over our last few sessions. What had I done? Was it because I’d talked about leaving the business? I thought I’d made it clear that I’d be happy to keep seeing him.
I wasn’t listening for a knock anymore, or the sound of his footsteps behind me. I knew he was gone, and that this beautiful velvet room was the last room he’d ever reserve for us. I held the paper to my nose and thought I smelled the faintest note of him. In a day, perhaps as little as an hour, it would be gone. Why hadn’t I asked what kind of cologne he wore? He might have told me that, if he wouldn’t tell me his name.