Pleasure Seekers (16 page)

A
smile replaced Enid’s frown the moment she detected the scent of the familiar cologne. She didn’t have to turn around to know who’d come up behind her, although the gallery was a bustle of activity with the caterer and his staff setting up a bar and several tables with platters of finger foods.

“What do you think of this one, darling?” She pointed to a matted black-and-white photograph of a Japanese woman holding her toddler daughter.

“It’s nice, but I never figured you for cute.”

She’d asked Marcus to meet her at the Madison Avenue art gallery. The owner of the gallery, a P.S., Inc. client and former celebrated photographer in his own right, had opened the gallery an hour early for his elite customers to view a collection of black-and-white prints Peter Janus had taken during a year-long stint in Asia. Art critics were now comparing the up-and-coming photographer’s work to that of Ansel Adams. She owned several Janus photographs, and when she had them appraised, she found that her investment had increased appreciably.

Enid moved closer to Marcus, looping her arm through his. “What’s wrong with cute?”

Lowering his head, he pressed his mouth to her ear. “Didn’t you say you don’t like photographs or paintings with children?”

Tilting her chin, she met his honey-gold gaze. They’d been living together for almost a month, and she had to admit the experience was most enjoyable. However, it hadn’t been that way with her ex-husband. She’d married the insurance executive, eighteen years her senior, not because she’d been in love with him but because he’d helped her attain a social plateau she’d always dreamed about. She would’ve been content to give her twice-married older husband an heir, but fate intervened on her behalf. What she hadn’t told her husband was that she didn’t like nor want children.

“They are scene stealers, darling.”

“Scene stealers or you don’t like children?”

“Both,” she admitted. Enid had been forthcoming with Marcus early on in their relationship when the one time they’d made love and he hadn’t used a condom she told him that she couldn’t get pregnant because of a surgical procedure, and even if she could, she didn’t want children.

Enid glanced at the catalog, taking note of the price. The print was reasonable, compared to one of the others she’d selected. “Despite the child, there is something I like about the photo,” she admitted.

“If you like this one, then you should see two others.” The gallery owner had overhead her.

Pulling her arm from Marcus’s, Enid turned to find Stephen Jacobsen standing a few feet away. Tall, slender,
with a pockmarked face, Stephen had affected a short blond beard to conceal the aftermath of adolescent acne that had continued well into his twenties and thirties. His lament was, “Where the hell was Proactiv when I was a teenager?”

“Which ones, Stephen?” Enid asked.

“Six and ten. Six is a photo of the grandparents, and ten the little girl’s great-grandparents. You can hang them to form a triptych.”

Enid and Marcus moved over to view the photos. The great-grandparents wore traditional Japanese garb, and the grandparents a mix of Japanese and Western, while the young mother and child were resplendent in what Enid recognized as Dior and Ralph Lauren.

“How much for the three?”

Stephen angled his head as he mentally tallied the price of the three photographs. Enid was one of his best customers, so he decided to offer her a discount. He quoted a price, his expression registering anticipation. The figure was high, but not so high that Ms. Richards wouldn’t at least consider it.

“Take ten percent off and I’ll take it,” Enid said smoothly.

“But I’ve already discounted ten percent.”

“What do you think, darling?” she asked Marcus.

Marcus had watched the interchange between his lover and the gallery owner with what appeared to be bored indifference. He was hard pressed not to laugh. Enid had played this game so well that he knew she didn’t actually need his opinion.

“Thirty-six fifty does appear to be a little steep for three photographs,” he drawled, sighing as if totally bored.

A flush stole its way up Stephen’s neck to his flaxen hairline. “I’ve already taken nine hundred off the catalog price.”

“Nine hundred is nothing when I’m willing to pay ten thousand for the one with the Kyoto teahouse.”

Stephen had to admire Enid Richards. Not only was she exquisite, but she was a shark when it came to business. She wanted something the gallery owner had, and he wanted something she had.

“I’ll give you the four of them for ten but…”

Enid’s pale eyebrows lifted. “What do you want, Stephen?”

“I want you to arrange for me to photograph Ilene Fairchild.”

A knowing smile touched Enid’s lips. Stephen was as sly as a fox. “I can ask whether she’d be willing to sit for you, but I believe you’re going to have to deal with her agent who still handles her modeling jobs.”

“I don’t want to deal with her agent.”

“What do you plan to do with her photos?” Marcus asked, deciding it was time he became involved in the discussion. After all, he was responsible for Ilene becoming a social companion for Pleasure Seekers.

“I’d like to exhibit them here at the gallery.”

“Do you plan to sell them?” Enid questioned.

Stephen nodded. “I will if Ilene signs a release.”

“What’s her take?” Marcus asked.

Stephen shrugged a shoulder under his black silk and wool jacket. “Fifty.”

Enid and Marcus exchanged a glance. “Give her sixty,” Marcus said, “and I’ll talk to her. I know a way we can get around her agent.”

Grinning broadly, Stephen offered Marcus his hand. “Deal.”

Enid wanted to throw her arms around Marcus’s neck and kiss him. There was no way she or her partner would permit the gallery owner to exploit their social companion. “I’ll draw up the agreement and you can have your attorney look it over before Ilene agrees to sign your release.” Without warning, she’d gone into legal mode.

“No problem, Enid.” Stephen wasn’t going to argue with her when there was the possibility that he would photograph one of the most beautiful faces to ever grace the cover of a fashion magazine.

Opening her purse, Enid took out her checkbook and business card. “Please have them delivered to my office.” Sitting at a small table, she made out the check to the gallery.

Bowing elegantly, Stephen took the check. He beckoned to Marina, his assistant. He gave the woman the check and business card. “Please place Sold stickers on numbers six, ten, eighteen and thirty-two.”

Reaching for an envelope in the pocket of her slacks, Marina put the check and card inside and wrote down the numbers of the prints on the front. It would be another forty minutes before Jacobsen Galleries opened for the Janus showing, and seven of forty photographs in the exhibit were already sold.

Enid offered her hand to Stephen. “Thank you. It’s always a pleasure doing business with you.”

He took the proffered hand, kissing her fingers. “Aren’t you going to stay and have some champagne?”

Easing her hand from his gentle grip, Enid smiled at him from under her lashes. “I’m sorry, Stephen, but not this time. Marcus and I have an engagement at Lincoln Center in less than an hour.”

Stephen inclined his head to Enid, then Marcus. “Anytime you want a private showing, please call me or Marina.”

Looping an arm around Enid’s waist, Marcus led her to the entrance. One of the employees opened the door, but before they exited, a man and woman entered. He felt Enid stiffen before she relaxed against his arm. Bartholomew Houghton had come to the private showing with Faye Ogden on his arm.

Initially, Marcus had thought the man much too old for Faye, but after seeing them together he realized they were a striking couple. Both were fashionably dressed, quite tanned and, from the way they were smiling, obviously got along well. The two couples exchanged polite nods as they passed one another.

Verbal acknowledgment between clients and social companions was not an option because P.S., Inc.’s ongoing success was based on the utmost discretion.

Marcus escorted Enid to where their driver waited to take them across town for a concert at Lincoln Center. “Your exotic jewel looks wonderful.”

Enid nodded. “She looks happy.”

His fingers tightened on her waist. “Don’t tell me you’re matchmaking, darling.”

“You know I’d never advocate a companion falling in love with a client. That would be bad for business.”

“Do you ever stop thinking about business?” he teased.

“Of course I do,” Enid countered.

“When is that, Enid?”

There came a prolonged pause before she said, “Whenever you make love to me.”

Marcus smiled. “I rest my case, Counselor.”

I
lene straddled a chair with a delicate stainless-steel frame, a profusion of sea foam–green silk flowing around the ties encircling her slender ankles in a pair of matching stilettos; she lifted her hair off her shoulders and stared directly into the photographer’s lens, forcing a smile. She’d learned quickly to give her clients her undivided attention. After all, that was what she was being paid very well to do.

“Lift your chin a little to your right, Ilene,” Stephen Jacobsen crooned as he got off three more frames in quick succession. “That’s it, baby.”

He lowered his camera but couldn’t pull his gaze away from the woman on the chair. Although he’d found Ilene Fairchild a little thin for his personal taste, as an artist he appreciated the perfect dimensions of her slender body. Besides, his camera would add the extra pounds that would make her spectacular looking in print.

“Would you mind joining me for dinner?”

Ilene wanted to say no, not because she was exhausted, and not because she wanted to go home and get a few hours of sleep before heading to the airport for a flight to a private island in the Caribbean. Working as a social
companion was like being on a runaway train. She’d been working nonstop, every night with a different man from a different country.

She’d likened modeling to a roller-coaster ride, up, down, around and around, speeding up, slowing until it came to a complete stop. But times had changed, because she was no longer on every designer’s wish list to model their creations. That aside, she had yet to be relegated to over-the-hill or has-been status. If Stephen Jacobsen had asked to photograph her, then her supermodel standing was still bankable.

Stephen’s photographs were first exhibited at a Greenwich Village gallery at the tender age of twenty-two, and over the next two decades art critics compared his genius to that of Richard Avedon and Diane Arbus. Then without warning, forty-two-year-old Stephen packed away his cameras and lenses and opened his own gallery, becoming a preeminent collector of black-and-white photos.

Ilene flashed her dimpled smile. “I can stay for an hour.”

“Why the rush, beautiful?”

Rising to her feet, she shook her head, the fall of hair settling around her shoulders. “I have to go home, pack and grab a few hours of sleep before I head out early tomorrow morning. I have a 7:00 a.m. flight out of Kennedy.”

Stephen set his camera on a nearby table and closed the distance between them. He stared at the catlike eyes staring back at him. He hadn’t lied when he called her beautiful because she was. Ilene Fairchild was more than beautiful—her face was perfect.

“I have something that will make you feel good, Ilene.” A hint of a smile tilted the corners of his mouth upward. Reaching into a pocket of his jeans, he took out a tiny bottle filled with a white powder. “It will make you forget about sleeping.”

Ilene’s impassive expression didn’t change. She knew Stephen was talking about snorting coke. “I don’t do drugs, Stephen,” she lied smoothly.

He traced the contour of her cheek with his free hand. “That’s not what I heard.” His voice had taken on a crooning quality, his gaze inching from her mouth to the soft swell of flesh rising and falling above a demibra.

Ilene did not drop her gaze. “Whoever said that was a liar.”

“Come on, baby. Try it.”

Her delicate jaw tightened. “No. And even if I wanted to I can’t. Enid Richards conducts random drug testing, and if I come up dirty then I’m out of a job.”

Stephen’s hand dropped. “You believe working for Enid is a job?”

Bending over, Ilene untied the satin ties around her ankles and stepped out of the stilettos. “It pays the bills, Stephen.” Then she took off the dress, leaving it on the chair. Clad only in a bra and thong panties, she reached for her jeans and tank top.

“I’ll pay your bills.”

“That’s not enough,” she said, zipping her jeans at the same time she pushed her bare feet into zebra-print mules.

“What more would you want?”

Ilene pulled the T-shirt over her head, flipped her hair, then reached for a hobo purse that had been a gift from her Nigerian client. “Marriage, Stephen. I want to settle down, become a wife and a mother.”

“You want to ruin
that
body with stretch marks?”

“It’s not about my body anymore, Stephen. It’s all about me, what I want for me and my future. I want someone to love me for me, and not because I have a marketable face and body. I want financial security so that I don’t have to fill up on tuna when I want caviar. And I want to grow old with someone who I know will be there for me in sickness and in health, in the good
and
the bad times. Am I asking for too much?”

“No, Ilene, you’re not. It’s just that I can’t give you what you want.”

Ilene brushed a kiss over his bearded cheek. “That’s okay, lovey,” she said in her best Cockney accent. “I hope this means we can still do business together.”

Stephen nodded. “Of course.”

He returned the tiny bottle to his pocket, crossed his arms over his chest and watched Ilene Fairchild strut out of his loft as if she were wearing a Valentino gown instead of a pair of faded hip-hugging jeans and a tank top.

I
lene lay on a blanket on the fine white sand on Pine Cay under the fronds of a palm tree, eyes closed. She’d left New York earlier that morning on a commercial jet. She’d been content to deal with the crowds waiting to get on the 757 aircraft because of her first-class standing. After landing at Miami International she was met by a man holding up a sign with her name who’d escorted her to a charter flight to Grand Turk. From there she’d boarded a catamaran for the private island of Pine Cay.

She was scheduled to spend a week in the Turks and Caicos as a guest of a trio of businessmen who were purported to be members of a larger group who controlled the White House irrespective of the president’s party affiliation. Astrid had informed her that her hosts were celebrating the success of a film they’d financed that had grossed more than half a billion in box-office receipts in less than three months. The action sci-fi flick was estimated to surpass
Titanic,
the all-time, top-grossing American movie.

Ilene could care less how much the movie backers made. Their success had become her success. She would earn a
cool forty thousand for an all-expenses-paid vacation to a private island hideaway that was a virtual Garden of Eden. Pine Cay’s peaceful atmosphere was preserved because of a no-automobile rule. The normal mode of locomotion was either by bicycle, golf cart or on foot. She planned to take a tour of the eight-hundred-acre island at another time. Right now all she wanted to do was relax.

“Don’t you think you would be more comfortable in your room?”

Ilene opened her eyes to find a woman standing over her, recognizing her as the hotel owner’s daughter. A profusion of black curly hair framed a rosewood-brown, heart-shaped face.

“Thanks for asking, but I’m good here.”

“If you need anything, anything at all, I’m here for you.”

“Thank you again.”

Ilene wanted to ask the woman, whose name tag identified her as Amelia, why would she make herself available to fetch for hotel guests when there was a full staff made up of a bell captain, concierge, kitchen, housekeeping and maintenance personnel.

Amelia smiled, nodding. “You’re most welcome, Miss Fairchild.”

Ilene closed her eyes, not opening them again until someone shook her gently. “Miss Fairchild. Dinner will be served within half an hour.” It was Amelia, again hovering above her.

Rousing from what had become the best sleep she’d had in ages, Ilene stood up and headed toward the plan
tation house–style hotel and her room. Private bungalows, several hundred feet from the hotel and occupied by those hosting the week-long festivities, were ablaze with light in the encroaching darkness.

Three-quarters of an hour later, Ilene made her way down to the beach in a flowered bikini with a matching sarong. She’d braided her hair into a single plait that fell down her ramrod-straight spine. She was more than fifteen minutes late, but her tardiness was carefully orchestrated to make for a more dramatic entrance. She recognized the faces of several Hollywood power brokers but not their names until she was formally introduced to them.

Again, as with all of her former clients, none had come with their wives. How, she thought, was she to find a husband if her clients were already married? What she refused to be was a kept woman—again.

Like the diva she believed she’d become, Ilene handed out air kisses like a monarch acknowledging her adoring subjects. She was seated next to Demetrious Reyniak, the son of an immigrant Armenian businessman who’d made a small fortune in the commodities market. Demetrious had become a very wealthy man in his own right when he bought government leases to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. A waif-thin actress with oversize fake breasts that made her look as if she would fall on her face at a moment’s notice clung to Demetrious’s arm as if he were her lifeline. And from the way his right hand caressed her bare back and hips, it was obvious they were more than acquainted with each other.

But, for Ilene it was different. She’d come to Pine Cay to enjoy herself and not to sleep with any of the fifteen men in attendance. More than half were close to sixty, all were married and, even if they hadn’t been married, none were her type. She’d lived with a man much older than her at one time in her life; however, the arrangement had proven beneficial to the seventeen-year-old girl from the Mississippi Delta who up until that time had existed in a world of poverty from which, at her tender age, there was no escape.

She recognized an A-list heartthrob actor who’d come to the island with his partner, a very pretty young man who doubled as his manservant. A director who was touted by
Variety
as the next Spielberg was accompanied by one of his daughters. Why the man wanted to expose his adolescent daughter to an environment where depravity was certain to be the rule rather than the exception was beyond Ilene.

It wasn’t until hours later, after platters of jumbo prawns with accompanying piquant dipping sauces, and broiled and fried fish, fresh and roasted vegetables, and tropical fruits indigenous to the region were consumed and washed down with libations from an open bar that Ilene discovered the girl wasn’t the daughter but the latest in a string of young girls who were paid to sleep with the director.

Dessert was served in two bowls: one filled with cocaine and the other with colorfully wrapped condoms. A small silver plate, a tiny silver spoon and a straw were also placed on the table in front of each dinner guest.

Less than twenty-four hours before, Ilene had turned
down Stephen Jacobsen’s invitation to indulge, but something made her throw caution to the wind to top off a sumptuous meal with a high she couldn’t get from marijuana or alcohol. After all, she was on a private island with people who had as much, maybe even more, to lose if the word leaked out that they were snorting cocaine.

She inhaled the white powder and within seconds she was somewhere else, sailing high above the ocean, high enough to touch the clouds. The setting sun had turned the sky into a kaleidoscope of the most awesome colors in the spectrum.

Music blared from hidden speakers and Demetrious eased her up to dance with him. She found herself in his arms, his hands undoing the clasp on her suit top, and she was unable to stop him. The top fell to the sand, followed by her sarong, and finally her bikini bottom. When she opened her eyes it was to find everyone naked and gyrating to the driving rhythms that made her want to whirl faster and faster like the dervishes she’d seen in Greece.

It didn’t matter that she was kissed on the mouth, breasts and groped between the legs. All she knew was that it felt good and that she didn’t want it to stop. Laughing uncontrollably, she stumbled and fell backward, the soft sand cushioning her fall. Ilene closed her eyes, smiling when she felt something warm and rough between her thighs. It wasn’t someone’s hot breath but the profusion of hair on her belly that prompted her to see who lay between her legs. It was Amelia.

Her dark eyes sparkled in the remaining daylight. “Come with me to my room,” she said in British-accented English.

Ilene was too high to protest. Rising from the sand, she followed Amelia around the side of the hotel to a door that led directly into her private suite.

They shared a shower, splashing water on each other like children. Their playing stopped when they took time to dry the other, then hand in hand they made their way to a king-size bed. Ilene couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept with a woman, but when Amelia made love to her it was if the other women never existed. Her mouth and hands worked their magic and for the first time in a very long time Ilene experienced multiple orgasms.

Hours later they made love again; this time it was Ilene’s turn to bring Amelia to climax before they fell asleep, limbs entwined and in each other’s arms.