Beautiful Stranger (Beautiful Bastard 2)

“You’re a f**king tosser,” I muttered, stabbing at my chicken.

Will laughed and shoved an enormous bite of his lunch into his mouth. “Is this about my view again?”

“Fucking gross.” I pointed my chopsticks at his face, barely able to understand him around all the spicy eggplant. “Remind me again how you ended up with this office?”

“You were late to the walk-through. I put my name plate on the door. Boom.”

Right. It had been the first time since moving to New York that I shagged a woman at her place and, just as I expected, I got trapped. Normally I preferred sex at my place, where I could always make an excuse that my mother was dropping by or I had somewhere to be. At her place, a woman would want to offer tea, ask me to sleep over.

I wasn’t a complete prick. I had always been as open to a relationship as anyone. I just hadn’t yet met a woman who made me want to skip a night in my own bed. The women I’d met all introduced themselves to me, knew who I was, knew who it was they thought they wanted. For such a big city, New York often felt minuscule.

I looked out the window, at the fantastic view—fuck Will—and thought about Sara. She was my default distraction lately. She was a mystery, that one. If a woman wanted a man to think of her constantly, she should tell him he can only have her once a week and bam—concentration blown.

So here I was wondering, if she asked me to stay over at her place some night, what would I say?

You know the answer to that, you twat. You’d say yes.

I’d had sex with a few dozen women since moving to the States, but lately I’d had a hard time remembering details. Every memory of sex made me think of being with Sara. She was sweet and wild. She hid so much of herself, and yet she let me do f**king anything. I had never met a woman I found so paradoxically secretive and open.

“I met a woman, mate.”

Will shoved his chopsticks back into the takeout container and slid it across the desk. “So you’re going to talk about it now?”

“Oi. Maybe.”

“You’ve been seeing her for a while now, haven’t you?”

“Few weeks, yeah.”

“Just her?”

I nodded. “She’s a f**king stellar lay, and it’s good because she told me she doesn’t want me sleeping with other women.”

Will gave me the holy shit face. I ignored it.

“But she’s different. There’s something about her . . .” I rubbed my mouth, stared out the window. What the f**k is wrong with me today? “I can’t get her out of my head.”

“Do I know her?”

“Don’t think so.” I thought back, trying to remember if Will had actually met Sara at the fund-raiser. I was with him most of the night after I left her to straighten her dress and freshen up, and I don’t think I ever saw them speak.

“So you won’t tell me who she is.” Will laughed, leaning back in his chair. “Has she captured your soul, young lover?”

“Fuck off.” I grabbed the plastic bag and shoved the mostly empty containers inside. “I just like her. But it’s just sex right now. By mutual agreement.”

“Which is good,” he said, carefully. “She’s not a digger then.”

“Am I a wanker for thinking that’s weird? She doesn’t want more. Even if I did, I think that would just make her run off. She’s terrified of being seen in public with me. Do you think I like her so much because she’s so bloody uninterested in anything but my dick?”

And like I always did when I thought of Sara, I began to make guesses about her endgame.

Will whistled quietly. “She sounds fantastic. But I can’t imagine why she’d be interested in your dick. With that tiny thing you’ll never be half the man your mother is.”

“You just insulted Brigid? You’re an arsehole.”

He shrugged, cracked open a fortune cookie.

“You put the seat down to piss, don’t you?” I asked, grinning.

“Nah. Don’t like getting my dick wet.”

“Will. The only way you could give a woman pleasure is by handing over your credit card, mate.”

And somehow, in the flurry of insults that followed, Will made me forget to act like a pathetic arse about the whole thing and I stopped worrying about whether Sara was f**king with my head.

After lunch, I left the office, hailing a cab almost immediately for a quick jaunt to see a new art installation being set up in Chelsea. I’d helped an old client find and open a gallery, and he was showing a set of rare E. J. Bellocq photos for only a few weeks. All it took was a one-line email from him—They’re here—and the rest of my day was shot. I was mad to see the never-before-shown reconstructed pieces from the damaged negatives of Bellocq’s “Storyville” collection. Although I had come to his work rather late in my education, his had been the art that triggered my fascination with photographs of the body, of its angles, its simplicity, its everyday vulnerability.

Though, until Sara, I’d never taken a picture of myself with a lover.

And there was the real rub. My shots of Sara and me together in no way mimicked Bellocq’s art, but still it reminded me of her. Her thin waist, soft stomach, and the gentle curve of her hips.

Glancing down at my phone, I wished for the thousandth time that I had one single picture of her eyes when we were making love.

Fuck.

Having sex. When we were having sex.

It was warm, without being unbearably thick outside, and after viewing the photos, I wanted to walk off my excitement for a bit. Chelsea to midtown wasn’t awful, but around Times Square I realized a man with a camera was following me.

I always assumed that the paps would learn I wasn’t nearly as interesting as they suspected, but that hadn’t yet happened. They stalked my weekend activities, my fund-raisers, every work function. It had been almost four years since anything of interest had happened to me—other than a date with the occasional semifamous woman—but at least half of the time that I dared to walk Manhattan alone, someone found me.

And suddenly my light mood vanished; I was ready for home, for a mindless viewing of Python and a few pints. It was f**king Tuesday and I wanted Sara.

“Piss off,” I called over my shoulder.

“Just one shot, Max. A shot and a comment on the rumor of you and Keira.”

Fuck. This rubbish again? I’d met her once, a month ago at a concert. “Yes. I’m totally f**king Keira Knightley. You really think I’m the person you should ask for confirmation?”