Seven Women: An Erotic Private Investigation

Chapter 12…

“I am getting a little drunk,” Amelia adds, “but not too drunk.”

Tasha sees Slater, too. I don’t need to look at her to know this, I feel it from her body, a wave. I know her well enough to pick up on these things; I know her body, something I possessed, or wanted to possess, as much as I wanted to possess Veronica. Slater is at the far end of the bar, talking to a man in a three-piece Perry Ellis suit. Slater’s suit is a bit rumpled, his tie loosened, his silver hair neatly slicked back. I believe he’s in his mid-fifties, I don’t remember. I don’t think Tasha ever told me. They’d been lovers once, but from what I know, he’s been lovers with many young women in the publishing industry. I’d met him before at publishing parties I had gone to with Tasha, but I didn’t know they’d had sex until much later, when she had sex with him while we were married. It happened right after our night with Veronica. She said she didn’t know how it happened, it just did, probably much like the encounter Amelia had with David. An act without prologue.

The waitress comes to our table just as Slater and the man he’s with leave the bar. He doesn’t notice that Tasha is here, or the other women, and doesn’t see me, either. I’m glad. When I turn back and look at my ex-wife, I see she’s relieved too, judging from the change in her expression, ever so slight, on her face, but — I know her. There is a quick exchange between us. It’s in our eyes, we both recognize it: the secret history of something else.

It’s probably not something Tasha has disclosed to her friends, despite their apparent candor with one another. In fact, my ex-wife has been rather quiet all this time; I don’t know if this is usual for her, or if it’s my presence. She has always been a reserved person. She was that way when we first met. She can have her wild moments of grandiloquence and anger; I have seen her lose control on several occasions. Tasha is a woman who takes pride in control, in a world that runs logically; and when that falls apart, so does she. This is one of the reasons why we are no longer together.

The waitress comes by. Only some of us order more drinks. Amelia does, and so do I, and so does Sheila. Holly, Cara, Lisa, and Tasha aren’t ready for more. Some people drink, and some people don’t.

I’m getting drunk, too. I want to, especially after seeing Slater.

“Married men mean no obligations,” Sheila says. “It’s pretty cut and dried — it’s all about fucking. There’s nothing more to it. There isn’t a future to think of.”

“Not all the time,” Lisa says.

“But most of the time,” Sheila says. “Although I’ve told myself: ‘No more married men, it’s just not right.’ That isn’t a moral statement; I don’t feel any particular obligation to the wife, you understand. It’s just not right for me. It’s okay to play around with them when you’re younger, but now that I’m getting older,” she shakes her head, “it’s just plain stupid. And I always wonder, if I get married — when, if — will I ever be that other woman, will I be someone’s wife in her forties, fifties, whose husband is off having a quick poke with a bouncy twenty-two-year-old?”

Twenty-two. That’s the age Tasha was when she met and slept with Slater for the first time. She told me about it two weeks after our night with Veronica. She came home and said we had to talk. The sound in her voice didn’t make me feel good. It was a bad night, and it had been a bad day. A man I’d served a summons on in the East Side had come after me with a bat and would’ve done some damage if I hadn’t been quick and dodged him. I was drinking beer and watching TV; Tasha came in, put her briefcase down, and said, “We have to talk.” I knew we were reaching the end of something, if we hadn’t already.

“I can’t lie to you,” Tasha told me. “I slept with another man three days ago. In a hotel room, after work — it just happened. It was quick. It was dumb. It’s only happened this once and I don’t think it’ll happen again, but I can’t say for sure because I don’t know what my life means anymore. I don’t know what’s happening in the world. I don’t know anything.”

I just looked at her.

“I didn’t do it in retaliation for anything,” she said. “That would be too easy. I didn’t stop you — didn’t stop us — from what happened. I don’t blame you, and I don’t blame Veronica. I don’t even blame myself. But I slept with this man and I guess you should know about it.”

“You guess,” I said, “that I should know.”

“You have a right.”

I asked, “You couldn’t keep this a secret?”

“Secrets kill you.”

That hurt. I said, “Who is he?”

“Frederick Slater; you’ve met him before.”

I couldn’t put a face to the name. She mentioned several parties and then I recalled. A rugged, energetic older man — and I didn’t have a clue. I never did.

“How?” I said.

“I’m not sure.” She didn’t look at me — the floor was apparently a better place. “We happened to have lunch,” she said, “and we talked about old times, and then we went to a hotel room. It was like I wasn’t even really there.”

“Old times?”

“We were lovers once,” she said. “At least, I was one of the young women he seduced.”

“You never told me this before,” I said.

“I never told you about a lot of things before,” she said. “Leonard.”

I nodded.

So she told me. She’d come to the city freshly graduated from the University of Colorado for the summer publishing program she’d been accepted to, which assured her an entry-level position into the profession she dreamed of. “I was so convinced,” Tasha narrated, “that one day I would discover and nurture great writers.”

She met Slater during the fourth week of the program, when there were a lot of guest speakers from the industry attending. She came in late, while Slater was speaking. She’d been up till two A.M. the night before, reading, and cursed herself for her tardiness, promising herself to re-adjust her sleeping schedule. She wanted a good start in this field; she felt she needed to motivate herself better.

Slater stopped his lecture when she barged into the class. Slater looked at the clock, then smiled warmly in her general direction. He had the touch. She smiled back, embarrassed. All eyes in the class were on her. Tasha took her seat and Slater continued with his lecture on the mechanics of publishing, from handling writers’ manuscripts to dealing with the marketing department. “You want to set your own standards and not fall into the footsteps of others,” Slater told the class. To be a great editor you need to make up all new rules that fit into your personal vision of what this damn industry is going to be in the future.” He frowned as if to give his own words some thought. Tasha thought he was a handsome man, for his age.

Later that day she saw Slater sitting in a bar near the campus. She was walking down the street and happened to look in the window while passing, and stopped. Was that him? It was. He was alone, with a mug of beer in front of him. She went into the bar, wondering why a man as acclaimed as Frederick Slater was alone. Then again, he was only extolled in the small circle of publishing people and the writers who were hopeful that he’d take them under his wing. She was almost too timorous to approach him, and nearly left the bar; but Slater looked up from his beer and saw her, recognized her, and smiled. Tasha pushed herself in his direction, pulling her black cardigan around her body.

“Hello,” he said, looking up.

“Hi.”

“Please, sit down, join me,” gesturing to the empty chair across from him.

She felt funny, but sat down anyway. Slater had a weary expression. Tasha liked the creases around his eyes and mouth; they were signs of age that signified experience, knowledge, accomplishment — all things she wanted (but not the wrinkles).

She couldn’t look at him for long; she had to glance around the bar. She said, “You’re alone here.” She thought she was acting rather aggressive, which was unusual for her. She knew what she was getting at, she knew what this would lead to — it was all a matter of playing the game. There are always games to play.

“I didn’t feel like putting in half a day at the office,” Slater said, “and I didn’t feel like going home, so I decided to stop here and have a couple of beers.”

She nodded. She wanted to ask him how old he was exactly (she would have guessed early fifties), and why he didn’t want to go home — she heard he had a place in the best part of the city. She looked at his hands: rough and gentle-looking at the same time. They’d been around, those hands; they’d probably touched many women. She saw he wore a wedding band.

“Can I get you a beer?” Slater offered.

“Sure.”

Slater started to get up.

“Wait,” Tasha said, touching his arm. “Make that wine, white wine please.”

Slater smiled and said, “I didn’t think you were the beer-drinking type.”

He got himself another mug and a glass of white wine for her and returned. He asked her name. She told him.

“And I bet you want to take Publishers’ Row by storm,” he said. “Go out and find the new Kerouacs and Updikes. And whomever else.”

She didn’t know what to say; it was as if he’d read her mind. He’d probably heard the same story many times before.

“If that’s what you want, it’s advisable,” he continued, “to set your standards as high as possible. Never accept anything less than damn good or perfect. Don’t go for the mediocre even if it’s the only offer on the table. You must always demand the best. How old are you?”

She told him.

“That’s a good age,” he said, suddenly grabbing her hand. “Twenty-two. And your hands. Such soft hands. Soft, pale skin. You’re a lovely young woman, Tasha Ticknor.”

She couldn’t look at him.

“You don’t mind my saying that, do you?”

“No.”

His grip tightened. He opened her palm, caressed it. The sensation sent tremors into her, setting off her most remote fears. She didn’t know what she was doing, but she didn’t want to back off. She had gone this far and she was ready for anything. She imagined herself with this man, naked with him. She hated herself for this — hated her own trepidation. She hadn’t had sex with anyone in more than a year.

“Where do you live?” he asked her.

“This summer,” she said, clearing her throat, “I’m here on campus, in the dorms.”

“Roommate?”

“Single occupancy. Private.”

“Will you take me there?” It came out as a mumble as he looked at his beer.

“What?” she said.

He let go of her hand and smiled. “Never mind.”

She gaped at her hand and blurted, “Don’t stop.” She was surprising herself.

Slater laughed. “You must think I’m some dirty old man.”

She said, “No.”

*****

“All I kept thinking was ‘I’m surprising myself, I’m surprising myself,’” Tasha told me as we sat in our apartment.

“You took him to your room,” I said.

She nodded. “I did. There was no time wasted. We both knew…in a city like this, it’s always rush-rush, never time to play around.”

She could taste the beer on his mouth when he kissed her. She was apprehensive at first, then she relaxed. Her year-long hiatus from sexual intercourse was going to end here, and she was glad it would be with this man.

He touched her breasts, feeling the nipples through the fabric of her blouse and bra. “Tell me to stop if you want me to stop,” he said. She didn’t say a word. She reached to loosen his tie. On the small dorm bed, he caressed her between her legs as she stroked his erection. He moved down and put his mouth to her. She had to let go of his penis and she missed it: she liked having it in her hand; she liked the way it curved; and she thought she would like it in her mouth. He entered her, whispered a few nice things she didn’t really hear. She was too caught up in having a man inside her after so long. She let out a hiss as he went in deeper. It hurt a bit, but she had expected it to. After a little while, Slater turned her over on her stomach. He entered her from behind, caressing her buttocks. She came with what sounded to her like a horrible cry, one she knew her neighbors could probably hear. Slater laughed softly, grabbing some of her hair, kissing her on the cheek. “I certainly felt that,” he said.

She was trying to catch her breath, saying, “It’s — it’s—”

“I’ll make you come more,” he whispered.

Slater moved up, placing his legs on either side of her. He made love to her slowly, gently spreading her ass cheeks with his hands, and rubbing his finger in a spot that made her quiver. He pulled out, spreading the juices of her sex onto her anus. He asked her if she’d ever had sex this way. She told him a few times. He asked if she liked it and she didn’t answer. He inserted a finger; she hissed again. With his finger he softly tugged, opening her. She could feel the cold air of the room go inside her. Her skin began to form goose bumps. Slater fit in a second finger, jerking patiently at her flesh; with an experienced tenderness, she thought.

Her body was shaking; his cock was in one place, his fingers in another. He talked to her as he made love to her, saying, “This is nasty, very nasty, Tasha. I always like the nasty side of things. The extremes. But if this were a sex scene in a book — I don’t know, I would probably have the writer tone it down some. You can’t always give every little detail. But what the heck, eh? Sex is what gets people to buy books these days. Everyone loves to read a vivid, graphic, steamy sex scene now and then.”

She was about to say something, but Slater removed himself from her vagina and went into her asshole. She cried out, muffling the sound by biting the pillow. “How is it?” he asked. She mumbled, almost asked him to stop. He fucked her. She breathed deeply. Slater removed himself, went back into her cunt. He did this for a bit, then went back to anal sex. She wondered whether this was healthy or not, then realized she didn’t care. “Nasty,” Slater moaned, “nasty.” Tasha looked at the clock on the nightstand. She watched the clock for nearly forty minutes as Slater went back and forth between her openings, and she reached two more orgasms.

The one she had while he was in her ass was much different than any other, and this was something new for her. Slater turned her around, moved on top of her, his crotch close to her face, offering his glistening member to her mouth. She almost rejected it. He grabbed her hair. She took it, the taste causing her to gag at first. She lay there and let him fuck her mouth. His body spasmed and there was a new taste, his come filling her mouth, warm and salty, flowing easily. He caressed her face and said, “Nice.”

*****

“It was dirty sex,” Tasha told me as I listened, “but it turned me on. I’d never done anything so dirty and — and I don’t know. It got dirtier. Maybe I’m talking too much. I’m sorry, Leonard.”

“Go on,” I said, even if I didn’t want her to. “I want to know everything.”

The next day she called the publishing house where Slater worked, asked for his extension.

“Yes—” he said, sounding rushed.

“It’s me.”

“Who?”

“Tasha Ticknor.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, and then his voice lowered: “So what can Frederick do for you?”

She thought his referring to himself in the third person was strange. “I thought,” she coughed, “I thought maybe we could get together when you get off work.”

“Umm,” he said, “no, but I will put in a good word for you with personnel.”

“A job there?” she said.

“Yes, of course.”

“As your assistant?” She perked up.

“No, no, I have one of those. But thanks.”

“Oh.”

“There are plenty of departments here, plenty of imprints. This is a goddamn conglomerate, as you know.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointed.

“Look, so much to do, I have to let you go.”

She asked, “When — when will we see each other again?”

He said, distantly, “Dear, I’m a married man.”

“That didn’t seem to concern you yesterday.”

“I’ll call you,” he said.

“You don’t have my number here.”

“Give it to me.”

She recited her number and wondered if he was actually taking it down.

“I could call you later,” she offered.

“Do that,” he said, and hung up.

She didn’t hear from him for a week so she took a day off from the program and went to the publishing house Slater was at. It was near a lot of other publishing houses.

Slater’s assistant was a young woman, maybe two or three years older than Tasha. Tasha felt jealous. She wondered if Slater did nasty things with his assistant. She felt awful. Slater agreed to see Tasha, ushered her into his office, although he looked uncomfortable about it. His suit was rumpled.

“You should’ve called first,” he said.

His desk was cluttered with manuscripts, magazines, galleys, other odds and ends. There were boxed and twined manuscripts all around his office. She wondered where he found the time to handle all of it.

“I mean,” he added, “I’m always quite busy, but—” He smiled.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll go if you want.”

“No, no,” he said, looking at his desk.

“I was just passing by, I thought—” No, she couldn’t lie.

“Why aren’t you at the school?” he asked.

“I can afford to miss a day.”

“Could be an important day.”

“I’ll take the risk. I’m a — risky person.”

“I’m meeting with an agent for lunch,” he told her. “Do you want to come along? It could prove interesting, from the standpoint of your education.”

She nodded.

The agent was a man in his thirties. He talked about several of his clients to Slater with fervor. Slater seemed uninterested, but nodded his head and went, “Yes, yes, wonderful, yes, let old Freddy take a look, I’d be happy to.” Tasha felt excluded. These men were talking a different language. She started to wonder if she’d ever fit into this business, wondered if she shouldn’t just go back to Colorado.

After lunch, the agent shook her hand and said, “I do hope we meet again.”

“You should come to my dorm,” Tasha suggested in the cab she and Slater shared.

He shook his head. “I have to tell you. The other day — well, last week — was it last week? — was a mistake.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked, too loudly. She saw the driver look at her briefly in the rearview.

“Hush,” he told her. “I was in one of my moods that day. You were there, so pretty. It was great, my dear, great; you’re a marvelous young woman. But I’m a married man, I have two kids in college — well, from my previous marriage, but I have kids almost your age, a daughter who’s twenty. Not that that means anything. I love my wife.”

“You do this a lot, don’t you?”

“What?”

“You like to ravish girls, don’t you? Give them one beautiful time and never come back.”

He laughed. “I’m hardly the Svengali type.”

She bunched up her nose.

“I’d like to see you,” he said, “but I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“No platitudes, please.”

She sneezed.

“Come to my home for dinner,” he said abruptly.

“Tonight?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Why? I—”

“Do you accept or decline?”

“Accept.”

*****

“So I went,” Tasha said.

“Was his wife gone?” I asked.

“No, she was there.”

Tasha took a cab to Slater’s uptown condo. He was on the eleventh floor. She knew these were very expensive homes; she thought one day she might own one, too.

She was nervous. She wore a short black skirt and blue blouse, overcoat and scarf. She’d spent an hour on her make-up and hair, wanting to look her best for him, her long legs in black stockings. Slater answered his door. He was in khakis and a turtleneck. She liked him out of the suit. “Ms. Ticknor,” he said loudly, “Come in, come in,” and he quickly whispered to her, “Follow my lead, play the game.”

Always a game.

She nodded, but didn’t understand.

A woman came out from another room. Tasha’s heart sank; she’d hoped to have Slater all to herself. This other woman was in her early forties; she had a grave air of elegance — Tasha knew she’d come from some well-off bloodline, had probably been educated at Vassar or Sarah Lawrence. So this was Slater’s wife, the woman she had to compete with.

“Adrienne dear,” Slater said, “this is Tasha — Tasha Ticknor. Our new junior publicist. Ms. Ticknor, I would like you to meet my wife, Adrienne Slater.”

Adrienne’s grip was firm but feminine. Tasha felt like a child in her presence.

“Ms. Ticknor,” Adrienne said. Vassar.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, and looked at Slater.

“As I was saying,” he said, “Ms. — Tasha here, she’s going to be handling some of the promo for my acquisitions, getting those writers, those little rascals, those decrepit scalawags, to their readings and interviews. We’ll be working closely together to make sure all my wonderful little storytellers get the attention they so richly deserve.”

“So their books will sell,” Tasha said emptily. “Sell, sell, sell.”

“Yes!” Slater looked pleased; she was playing along.

Adrienne Slater was a marvelous cook. This didn’t make Tasha feel any better. No wonder Slater had no intention of leaving this lady. Tasha didn’t know how to cook anything beyond a hot dog or a can of soup. The wine she served was rich and strong, and after a few glasses, Tasha’s head began to feel light. She actually felt happy, as if she didn’t give a damn anymore. She felt she didn’t care whether or not she received the affections of Frederick Slater, the worldly lover.

*****

“He led the conversation at the dinner table,” Tasha went on, her voice monotone. “Telling jokes and anecdotes about the publishing business and what he called his ‘nasty writers.’ ‘Those rascals,’ he would say of them, some of whom were famous, ‘those scoundrels!’ He talked and talked and talked, he just wouldn’t stop.”

“Maybe he was nervous having you there with his wife,” I said.

“No. He’s always like that. I didn’t know it at the time, but maybe he was afraid that his wife would ask me a question I wouldn’t be able to answer. She was quiet the whole time; I noticed she looked at her husband with endearment; each time she and I traded glances, she gave me a warm smile.”

“She had to have known,” I said.

“I don’t know; I was getting drunk.”

After dinner, they had some more wine. Demurely, Mrs. Slater yawned, said to Tasha she was an early retiree, and that it had been nice meeting her. Mrs. Slater excused herself and went off to bed.

“Tasha and I will be working in the study,” Slater called after his wife.

Now she was finally alone with him. He took her to the study. He had an electric typewriter on an old oak desk. There were shelves and shelves of books; hundreds, maybe thousands. Tasha had never seen so many in one room, except in a library. She wondered how many of these books Slater had edited; many bore the imprint of the conglomerate he worked for. She envied him, she wanted to be him. She also wanted to suck him again. She giggled when she thought this, but knew it was true.

Slater sat at his desk. He opened a drawer, produced a bottle of scotch and two glasses; he poured some of the scotch into both.

“Why am I here?” she asked.

“To show you what a great wife I have,” he said, “how happily married I am.”

“Then why did you fuck me the other day?”

“I needed it. I gather you needed it, too.”

“Do you like playing with people’s feelings?”

“Look, dear — look, hear, listen, I speaketh,” he said. “We both got laid and it was fun. You must leave it at that. I know you’re pristine to the city, it’s not like that mountain place you come from. But I imagine things are pretty much the same everywhere. If you’re going to go into the book business, you must know that this sort of thing happens all the time. You’re going to have to get used to it.”

“Sleeping around?”

“It’s inevitable when people are constantly intermingling. The writers, those darn ruffians, live secluded lives. They write about people, but go without seeing them for weeks at a time. But those of us behind the books are always around people, as you shall see.”

“A lot of young women come into this field,” Tasha said. “Young women like me. I bet you have quite the pick.”

“Here.” He held out a glass of scotch.

“I don’t usually don’t drink hard booze.”

“You do tonight, dear.”

She was elbowing the seducer again. She took the glass, poured the alcohol down her throat, not thinking. She gagged, coughed.

“Not so fast,” Slater laughed, and drank from his own glass.

The effect hit her like a numb slap. Her body tingled, and so did her face. She thought how she would like Slater to take her on his desk, enter her all over, even hurt her if he wanted to.

“I’m too sensitive for my own good,” she said.

“What’s that?” He took her glass, poured her some more.

“I can’t be distant and have sex just for the sake of doing it and nothing more,” she told him. “I want meaning.”

“Meaning is a good thing to have.”

“You’ve been my first lover in over a year.”

“A year?” He looked as if he didn’t believe her.

“Yes.”

“Are you telling me that in the past year you have had no desire to sleep with any men? I doubt a beautiful woman like yourself would be lacking in opportunities or suitors.”

“I had no desire for anything, really,” she said. “Except for books. I love books. I was completely unaware of my physical needs.” She crouched before him, her hands on his legs. “Until now,” she said.

“Drink this,” he said.

“I’m already drunk.”

“Drink it,” Frederick said.

She snatched the glass and this time the scotch went down smoother. She put the glass on the floor. She ran her hands up and down Slater’s legs. He didn’t object. She purred. She rested her head in his lap. She could feel the hardness of his erection.

Slater touched her hair gently, but his voice was brash. “Tasha, I want you to suck me off.”

She quickly unzipped his pants, tugged at them, then at his underwear, released his cock. It looked bigger than she recalled, but this could have been the alcohol.

What was it with this man? He gets her drunk and talking and then he demands a blowjob like some — scalawag, to use one of his words?

She took him in her mouth. She did, after all, want to eat him. He had a strong smell and taste. She reached under her skirt to touch herself.

Slater was quick. His semen gushed forth like a preacher’s sermon, loud and strong. Some of it flowed out of her mouth.

Slater grabbed her head. “Tasha, dear, don’t swallow it. Don’t ingest my seed. I want you to keep it in your mouth. I want you to keep it in your mouth as long as you can, all night if you can. I want you to swish me around and taste me in your mouth for hours. It means a lot to me. Can you do that for Freddy?”

She had swallowed some, but she nodded.

He pulled her to her feet, his eyes intent and small. “Open your mouth.”

She did, showing him she was keeping his essence there.

“I want it there forever,” he whispered.

She swished the semen around, got most of it under her tongue; it was easier to manage that way.

“Don’t talk,” Slater said, and snapped his pants. “Don’t say anything. You have to go now.”

She frowned.

“You have to go. Go home and go to bed, and keep me in your mouth all night long.”

*****

“He showed me to the door,” Tasha told me, staring at her feet. “But I saw Adrienne standing in the hall, in a nightgown, looking at us. There was a quick exchange between us and I shivered. She knew. She knew very well what had happened; she knew about all the young women he’d had. I felt dirty, and that’s what he wanted: he wanted me to feel dirty, like something bad, like maybe a whore, that was his way of getting rid of me, so I wouldn’t come back, so I wouldn’t be dirty again. He helped me with my coat and scarf and told me good night, good-bye. He was blasé about it, as if I didn’t have his goddamn come in my mouth.

“Outside, it was cold. He hadn’t even called me a cab, the asshole. I had to wave one down. When I got into the cab I knew I couldn’t do it and didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to hold his come in my mouth all night, so I swallowed and told the driver my address and looked out the window. I could still taste him when I got home and the taste didn’t entice me any longer because now I knew the truth. I wanted to wash my mouth out a dozen times. I think I even hated him.”

“But you went to him again,” I said, “and slept with him.”

“Not until three days ago.”

“And we’re married.”

“I’m screwed in the head,” she told me. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t know what I’m doing even now.”

I felt angry, finally. I had been waiting for that feeling. I asked, “Was the sex dirty? Did you do those things with him?”

“It wasn’t dirty,” she said. “It was — regular, normal, stupid. I felt stupid, and I think he did as well. I wasn’t a fresh conquest, I wasn’t as young as before; he was treading old ground and I wanted to do something crazy, because everything seems to be falling apart. You know what I mean, Leonard, but I don’t think you understand.”

“Are you going to fuck him again?” I asked.

She said, “How do I know who I’m going to fuck anymore?”

I jumped at her and slapped her. There was blood at her mouth. I wanted to taste her blood. I wanted to do something horrible, to remind myself I was real.