The Woman Before You: An intense, addictive love story with an unexpected twist.... Carrie Blake

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      Morton’s attention drifted back to the men in his group. Matthew led me away.

      ‘Perfect for what?’ I said.

      ‘Huh?’

      ‘He told you I was perfect. As if he had something in mind. Perfect for what?’

      ‘Perfect,’ said Matthew. ‘You’re perfect. How many different things does perfect mean?’

      A waiter put a full wine glass in each of our hands, and I drank mine in a few gulps.

      It was happening. I was here with him. I would try to be what he wanted, if I could figure out what that was. He didn’t seem to expect me to say much as he took me around to groups of partygoers and introduced me mostly to young men, all of whom seemed to work for Val. I smiled. Nice to meet you. None of them was as handsome or as hot as Matthew. We navigated around the circles surrounding the actors and politicians and socialites whose faces were so famous that even I recognized them.

      Glasses of wine kept appearing in Matthew’s hand. He kept passing them to me, and I kept drinking. It helped fuzz out the rest of the room, which was fuzzy to begin with, and it brought him—only him—into focus. After a while he was the only thing I could see.

      ‘Should we leave?’ he said. Together? He’d said we. I could hardly keep my voice steady as I said, ‘Sure!’ That high little squeak didn’t even sound like me.

      ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Let’s blow this clam shack.’

      ‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ I said.

      ‘Brilliant. So do I. I’ll show you where it is. This place is a maze.’

      There was a powder room downstairs off the living room. Matthew tried the doorknob.

      ‘Occupied,’ someone yelled.

      ‘Okay. Follow me.’

      He knew his way around the maze, taking me through one of the closed doors at the end of the corridor and down another short hall where three steps led up to the private wing. How did he seem so comfortable in his boss’s private space?

      He was holding my hand now, friendly but neutral, the way you’d hold a child’s hand, crossing the street.

      ‘Guess how many bathrooms this place has,’ he said.

      ‘Five?’ I said.

      ‘Double it,’ he said.

      ‘Why does anyone need ten bathrooms?’ The question didn’t interest him. I was sorry I asked.

      ‘I’ll show you the best one,’ he said. ‘The craziest one. As long as we’re here, what the hell?’

      I should have known that in order to reach the ‘best’ bathroom, we would have to experience the full pageantry of Morton and Heidi’s bedroom. I don’t know what it was supposed to be. A Renaissance Venetian Vegas palace French bordello with all the modern conveniences. A billionaire’s sex cave. We paused in the doorway, just as we had in what had turned out to be the Mortons’ Brooklyn Heights apartment. We seemed to spend a lot of our time looking at other people’s bedrooms.

      Again, I wondered how he knew so much about his boss’s bedroom and private bathroom? Had he come here with Heidi? Or with Morton? Did they give him orders from bed?

      He said, ‘Managing both apartments, that is, managing the people who manage both apartments, is part of my job. Not the most exciting part, but the buck stops here. And the two of them can be monsters. If Morton runs out of toilet paper, he’s capable of firing every employee down the food chain starting with me.’

      I didn’t want to imagine Morton and Heidi in that beautiful bed. But I wouldn’t have minded lying down. I felt tired and hot and drunk.

      But first, right … the bathroom.

      The bathroom was as large as my entire apartment, a gold-fauceted, marble-tiled, dazzlingly white Roman bath. The toilet, the bathtub, and the steam shower each had its own separate room.

      Matthew showed me to the room with the toilet. I was startled when he followed me in and locked the door behind us. But I was so tipsy, it seemed to make a kind of sense.

      I should have been alarmed, or maybe embarrassed. But it all seemed like fun. Matthew wasn’t going to rape me in Val Morton’s bathroom. If I asked him to open the door, he would. But I didn’t ask, I didn’t want to.

      He stood with his back to the door. Across from the white marble toilet and the bidet was a white marble sink, and behind it, a mirrored wall. Did Morton like watching himself on the toilet? Matthew had said that people could get fired if Val ran out of toilet paper. I tried not to think about that.

      Matthew said, ‘Go ahead. Pee. You first.’

      ‘Okay,’ I said. The wine made it easier, but I wasn’t so drunk that I didn’t know what I was doing. I lifted the hem of my little black dress, pulled down the black lace and red ribbon underpants that had cost half a week’s salary, and sat on the toilet. I closed my eyes and waited for what seemed like forever till I heard the trickle beneath me.

      ‘You next,’ I said.

      I started to pull my underwear up.

      ‘I’m good,’ he said. ‘I can wait.’

      I made a move to get up.

      ‘Don’t put your underwear back on. Take them off and give them to me.’

      I did it. I wasn’t embarrassed. I’d never done anything like that. I was becoming someone else. Definitely not one of the characters I’d played on any of my online dating adventures. And definitely not me.

      He folded my underwear with one hand and put it in his pocket.

      He said, ‘Now lift your skirt over your waist. Lean over the sink.’

      He came around behind me. He kissed the back of my neck. He took his time.

      Finally he said, ‘You were really bad down there at that party. You liked the way those old men looked at you, didn’t you?’

      Did I? I couldn’t think.

      He ran his hand up my thigh and pulled his hand away. He gently slapped my ass.

      I’d never done anything like this. I put my head down and moaned.

      I was learning too slowly. I didn’t get it. If I showed him that something gave me pleasure, he would stop. He stopped.

      He backed away, closed the lid of the toilet seat, and sat down.

      ‘Come here,’ he said. ‘Sit on my lap. No. Here. Pick your dress up more.’

      I sat on his lap, both of us facing the mirror. The cloth of his suit felt great against my ass and my bare thighs. He held me by both hips, shifted me and held me just over the hard-on I could feel inside his pants. I reached down and touched it through his pants. It felt good, СКАЧАТЬ