Small Town

What she couldn’t get over was that she felt sexy all the time. She couldn’t credit this entirely to the physical changes she’d recently made. That was a part of it, but there’d been something going on before or she’d never have even considered the piercing in the first place.

Every day, some thought or presence would trigger an impulse not unlike the one that had put her on her knees under the dinner table at L’Aiglon d’Or.

But she wasn’t crazy. She could have an impulse without having to act on it. She could imagine herself doing certain things — and her imagination, she was just beginning to realize, was as vast and as eccentric as the imaginations of the artists she was drawn to. But she could enjoy the fantasy without having to transform it into reality.

And wasn’t that how you distinguished the sane from the insane? Not by their thoughts but by their actions.

In her imagination, for example, she seduced Chloe.

She couldn’t believe it would be terribly difficult. Come into the back office, she’d say. There’s something I’d like to show you. And, with the door closed, she’d open her blouse. She’d have gone braless that day in preparation for this, or she’d have ducked into the loo and removed her bra, so she could bare herself as artlessly as Chloe had when she pulled down her scoop-necked blouse and showed her treasures. Look what I’ve done, Chloe! You inspired me. I kept thinking how lovely your breasts looked and the next thing I knew...

Or she’d say, Do you like the way they look? Yours are bigger, aren’t they. Could you show me yours again, Chloe? And she’d make a fuss over them, and maybe reach out and cup the girl’s breast, she could feel it in her hand right now, just thinking about it. Or she could lean forward and press her breasts against Chloe.

And she’d say something like, Oh, do you know what else I did? And she’d drop her skirt and step out of it, and take off her panties, or better yet have removed them in advance, or not worn them at all that day. And she’d show herself to Chloe, and Chloe would be stunned, she wouldn’t know what to say or do or even think, but she’d be turned on a little, even if she’d never done any girl-girl stuff, even if she’d never even thought about it.

Now show me yours, Chloe.

Oh, I couldn’t.

Oh, please, I want to see it.

But I have hair.

I don’t care, I want to see it...

And she’d have her, right there in the office.

Except she wouldn’t. None of it would happen, she wouldn’t allow it to happen. She’d be inviting disaster, ruining a satisfactory working relationship, and, if by some chance life didn’t happen to follow her script, messing things up with results she could only begin to imagine.

And you didn’t have to seek adventure. If you prepared yourself for it, it would come to you.

Days after her waxing, the phone rang, and it was the man from Detroit, in town overnight for a closing. He knew it was short notice, but was there a chance she was free for dinner. “Someplace terrific,” he said. “Price no object, because I’ll expense it, and it damn well ought to cost them when they tell me at nine in the morning to be at the airport by ten.”

They met in SoHo and had the world’s most expensive sushi. She sat across the little table from him and pictured him spread-eagled on her bed, his hands and feet fastened to the bed frame with cords of rawhide. His head hooded, but the hood a modification of the one she’d worn at Medea’s, with an opening for the mouth as well as the nose.

He couldn’t see, wouldn’t know what to expect, and she’d lower herself onto him. He’d smell her sex first, and then she’d be sitting on his face...

“You’re different,” he said.

The words startled her, fitting in so perfectly to her reverie. She recovered and asked what was so different about her.

“I don’t know, Susan, but something’s changed. Is your hair the same? You’re smiling, you look like the fucking Mona Lisa. It’s not your hair. You look sensational, but you always look sensational. What is it?”

“You’ll see.”

He was staying at the Pierre, as usual, and they went straight back to his hotel. She told him she had a surprise for him, that he had to play along with her, had to do as she said, had to keep his eyes closed until she said he could open them. She had him undress and lie down on his back on the cool sheets. She undressed and sat on the bed beside him and stroked him with one hand and herself with the other.