Duet Read online

  DUET

  By Jacqueline Walley and Stephen K. Haber

  Copyright 2012 Jacqueline Walley and Stephen K. Haber

  Smashwords Edition

  One:

  Duet, at twenty-two, who had such long dark lashes and flashing eyes she could have been in a harem, was standing up at the powerful mahogany and gold Copley Plaza bar. She ordered an old fashioned, while deftly scooping up peanuts still in their brown casings. She had just finished work at a real estate finance company which had only today promoted her from secretary to writer of investor reports. She wasn’t manager of Investor Relations yet but she could see the masts of that ship on the horizon. I’m on my way, she thought. That is why, when she had started walking home, down Boylston Street, she didn’t feel like going to her nun-like studio in the South End of Boston. It was fun going to a bar because men always stared at and flirted with her. She felt alive, desired, exotic. She had a face that men liked, a way about her both feminine and challenging.

  As always, a man bought her a drink and came and stood next to her. He was tall, expensively dressed, and had lots of thick dark hair that no doubt his mother had not been able to keep her hands out of. He was, apparently, just in from Luxembourg to attend a banking conference. No, she didn’t know Luxembourg was a tax haven, she responded, but wasn’t it where the EU was formed?

  She liked his intensity, his way of smiling when she spoke and she had to admit she somewhat liked that he was from out of town.

  He told her she was beautiful, one of the many preludes to a seduction, and they spoke of Truffaut, Claude Lelouche and Philip Noyce; they spoke of books that were successful on both continents (neither had read the Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons – grounds for marriage, she posited), the Europeaness of Boston, and he spoke of industry coming up in Luxembourg. They spoke very little of themselves. Clearly, they were both taking a break from the limitations of their own lives; in other words, this could be a seemly one night stand for both of them. She just had to decide whether she wanted to.

  When he finally put one long arm round her waist, while his other hand kept gently rubbing up and down the soft skin of her arm, only to stop by locking fingers with her and then eyes, she made her decision.

  “My car is outside,” he said, and his chauffeur, no less, (very unusual, she thought) drove them to her tiny apartment on West Canton Street. It was a newly revamped brownstone in a part of Boston that had once been considered dangerous, the South End. A cross over neighborhood. She was one of the first to cross over because the rent was cheap and the apartments were freshly painted and very tastefully appointed with shining hardwood floors, carpeting, and stylish lamps. The developer had been forced to work a little harder to bring people in. She liked being a pioneer, although she had to admit she’d already been mugged once. (There is always a price for risk, she told herself.)

  The driver left them off. It was strange to see this black limo double parked in front of her building on a street where half the buildings stood handsomely with picturesque gas light lamps out front, while the other half of the street seemed abandoned, gaping, and in total disrepair.

  The limo made her feel glamorous. Patrick followed her up the one flight, past the trendy exposed brick walls. She softly turned the key and there they were crowded into her tiny studio, where there were two pieces de resistance: A big white framed window over an overgrown and untended garden of wisteria and lilacs, and her double bed that was so unadorned, it could have been in a Dutch painting.

  Patrick began undressing her slowly and intently with one hand, while managing at the same time to undress himself with the other. He must be quite efficient at work, she mused to herself. Soon they were naked in her unmade bed. Without much fanfare or pillow talk, he began spreading her legs with his legs, and started rubbing and kissing her breasts with consummate self confidence.

  “My god,” he said, “you’ve got wonderful breasts.”

  Her breasts were erogenous to her, also, and perhaps this was because they were full and bouncy. She rarely wore a bra which often gave her the power of undoing certain men. He was lightly fingering around her nipple, his hand rubbing her breasts in circles which reminded her of being a young girl on a beach and how boys would do that incessantly to get her excited enough to take her top off.

  Then he was kissing her waist, and putting his large hands exactly above where her hips curved out, which accentuated her waist’s smallness. She thought that he was skilled at knowing how to make a woman’s body erotic to himself and to her.

  “By the way,” he said, between gently kissing her waist, ”I forgot to ask. “

  “What?” she said rather heavily. Her breathing was starting to change.

  “Why a name like Duet?”

  “It has to do with music,” she answered, a little distracted.

  “Ah—“ and then he went back to her body. He kept on kissing her and licking her slightly freckled skin, sliding down now over her stomach and then, again, he kicked her legs wider open, and lowered his head.

  Okay, here we go.

  He continued using his tongue on her, and her body began to soften. He suddenly quickly re-shifted himself so he was fully over her and began kissing her seriously, long kisses, which he began placing on her slim young throat, and then his hands were once again between her legs. He smiled and whispered, “Leaving that bar was an intelligent move on our part.”

  At which he himself moved intelligently back down her body so that his head was between her thighs, well aware of the weakening taking place in her legs, the relaxing of her belly as he began using his mouth. He sucked, moaned, and she began making cooing whispered sounds, and then she thought oh my god, I’m going to—

  Then he screamed. “What the hell is this?” he shot out not expecting an answer or riposte. “Do you think I’m an idiot?“

  She couldn’t quite catch what he meant by that question, why would she think he was an idiot?

  “What the hell are you? I’m not into weird stuff, Melody, or whatever the fuck your name is. “ This he said while grabbing his shirt and fiercely buttoning it unevenly and then roughly pulling his pants on. He stood up, all of this as if he had pressed a fast forward button, his face red and mottled with shock, his eyes darting around the room, everywhere, but at her.

  “What is this?” he continued, spitting his words out to the wall across the room. “Ripley’s Believe it or Not? “

  Duet was horrified and stared at him. Why had she done this to herself?

  “Come on,” he said, “Talk about surprises. This belongs in the Twilight Zone! ”

  By now tears were streaming down Duet’s face and he turned back to her and said in a low and gravelly voice, “Look it’s nothing personal. Last thing I want to do is hurt your feelings but I can’t take this. And to tell you the truth, I feel sick.”

  He now grabbed his cashmere coat from the floor, and almost immediately ran out the door, not even looking back.

  As if she was a monster.

  Duet knew she was flushed, red with embarrassment. It was as though she was a package of chicken parts or veal chops someone had tossed back into the refrigerated section at the grocery store.

  She lay there, in the dark. Well. That’s what you get for taking a risk.

  She lit a candle and thought, This is it, Melody or Duet or whatever the fuck my name is, this is my life. She felt unclean from him and got up and went to the bathroom to take a shower.

  After her shower, she lay back down and thought, I won’t do that again. Not ever. It’s me, no Duet, but solo, and a very, very simple life.

  But, of course, that could never happen.

  Ch 2

  As she hurriedly pushed the revolving door at 317 Madison to go to her office, carrying her coffee, and one f
or Paula, she wondered if life for anyone in New York is ever easy. The sensuality of New York is about the same as what one must feel when jumping onto a speeding train. It had been eight years now since she had left Boston and she still felt like she had only just arrived and was catching up to the city’s unrelenting acceleration. That said, she loved it.

  “Thanks,” Paula whispered, as she held her neo-whimsy colored manicured hand out to Duet for the coffee.Paula sat in the cubicle next to her. Something about the roughness of the grey cubicle dividers reminded Duet of dried toast. Paula was on the phone in a very engaged conversation. Duet was pretty sure it was either Paula’s shaman, her channeler, or a shrink.

  Paula specialized in PR for their client, Shih Enterprises, which was currently in negotiation to be taken over, so Paula had a few days of quiet before she would not have any life at all, what with having to send out myriad press releases, and having to coach the management on how to fend fairytale answers to stockholders and the like. Paula herself looked like a Shih Enterprises model, tall and slender, with long red hair and green eyes. She was from Kansas originally and, even on her farm, with horses and cats and geese, she had always known she should be in New York in fashion. At least she started off that way. Now Paula wanted to be a shaman, and her father owned a bank so sooner or later she was going to get out of PR and go rogue, like everyone else in the office wanted to do. Also, Paula had told Duet that she had been sexually abused by her older brother. For five years. It had started when she was seven. That’s why Paula spent an inordinate amount of time and money talking to people representing other galaxies or lifetimes who said they could heal her.

  Duet turned on her email. An email from a guy she used to know in Boston, David, who was not at all like that terrible man, Patrick, she had picked up at the Copley Plaza a month before she left. She remembered how obscenely handsome David had been when she had dated him. He was tall, had a strong body, blue ocean eyes, chiseled face, and a great sense of humor. She liked hearing from him, it was light hearted, but what did he want? He had got in touch with her over Linked In. Years ago, he had ended up in prison for ten years for statutory stupidity, in other words, marijuana possession. She had often sent him money and books when he was on his federal vacation in Fairton Correctional Facility. Now he was out. First he was locked in, she smiled to herself, and now he’s on Linked In. Typical. “Would you like to join my professional network?” No, she wrote back, smiling. I do not. But how are you doing?

  She scanned the other emails, can you meet at 11 not 10 on Tuesday not Wednesday, can you take on this editing job, can you help with this essay for GQ, and then she heard “Oh my god” and loud screaming from the women down the hall. Except for finance, all the businesses in New York – publishing, advertising, journalism – seemed to be women dominated. Her father used to say to her, “New York is where women can extend themselves.” Perhaps.

  She turned toward the exclaiming and giggling and shouting from the other offices and then turned back to Paula, “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Sondra. She’s pregnant. “

  “Oh. Great,” Duet said rotely and turned back to her pc.

  “Are you ever going to have kids?” Paula asked, with her back to Duet.

  “I don’t know,” Duet said too quickly. “Maybe not.”

  “Me too.”

  Ah, we are allied, Duet thinks. We are the wounded. We are not meant for normal happiness, even if Freud did say there is no such thing. There is only ordinary unhappiness, he said. Well, if Freud had encountered my kind of wound, he would have written about uncommon unhappiness.

  “How come you don’t date?” Paula turned around, smiling. “You’re sexy. All the guys mention it.”

  “All the guys who come in are gay.”

  “They still notice,” Paula said.

  “Who has time to meet anyone?” Duet answered, making a list of what she had to do today. She was extremely task oriented. Even she knew it was a way to hold herself back. Keep focused on the small. Tasks, she knew, distract from and kill desire.

  “Oh come on,” Paula said, “You’re a man magnet. You can’t go down for coffee without someone trying to pick you up.”

  It was true. Duet did appeal to men. She shrugged. “Never amounts to anything.”

  “What about going online?” Paula ventured.

  “No way,” she said, turning around to face Paula.

  “I am not kidding. There are great guys on line. They don’t have time to meet anyone either.”

  “Not for me. You try it.”

  “What makes you think I haven’t?” Paula said, turning back to her PC and, at imperceptible speed, typing in match.com . “The truth is I did sign up. Come see who I might meet…”

  Duet walked into her cubicle and leaned over Paula’s slender shoulders and saw an endless parade of clean cut smiling men, posing as if they were auditioning for FRIENDS or the cover of MEN’S HEALTH. Duet turned away, saying “Not bad.“

  Paula swiveled her chair around. “When are you going to try seeing one of the hundred guys who ask you out?”

  “I don’t know,” Duet answered, gathering her blackberry and notepad. “I’ve got a meeting in three minutes,” as if that was all she could say to the problem of men.

  Paula turned back around, intently scrolling down her Match inbox. And then, on a whim, turned back around to Duet. “I get this feeling,” Paula said, “I get this feeling you’re about to meet someone.”

  Paula was always getting “feelings.” Duet smiled at her and said, “What’s he like, this imaginary guy?” She just wanted to hear what Paula would come up with.

  Paula squinted her eyes as if seeing into the far off distance. “He’ll understand you, be loving, able to commit. But…he’ll have complications.”

  “Like what?” Duet said, laughing.

  “He might be on the cruel side.”

  “I think I’ve dated him already,” Duet said. ‘You know, Paula, you should start writing novels.” And then Duet left the cubicle for her meeting which, if this was a novel, she’d excise from the book.

  Chapter 3

  Paula was right. She was about to meet someone, but he wasn’t cruel. She was about to meet her father.

  Duet packed her Dell laptop and papers up quickly, while looking out at the weather from the one office window near where she and Paula sat. It was dark out and the snow had let up. She could see people on phones or standing talking to one another in the offices in the buildings across the way. The quiet somberness and time of day made her feel lonely.

  She was supposed to meet her father at the Waldorf. He was in town on business. He had enough money to retire, she thought, her parents seemed to be well heeled, had always given her money when she needed it, but she thought he couldn’t give up the action of his job at Microsoft. She couldn’t see him playing golf or staying home and following her mother around. For that matter, her mother refused to retire, also. Although Duet found that absolutely confounding because she could think of nothing she would like less than angsting about clients’ cases, paperwork dockets, the endless pressures of a lawyer’s life. Bad enough making sure your clients are always in the news, like Duet had to do. Some musician gets a semi-impressive booking and it was Duet’s job to make it seem worthy of front page coverage.

  Duet went into the ladies room and tied her long hair in back and she put on pointy high heels, Jimmy Choo’s, shoes that almost compensated for her self-imposed solitude. She remembered so long ago David handing her a magazine page of Manola Blahniks, pink high heeled mules, and saying, “If you buy these, I’ll marry you.” She had bought them, even though they were $500. And he had wanted to marry her, but it was she who said no. She had got scared. The way she explained it to herself was he was not smart enough for her. He was a flim flam man. Which was true for a time but he seemed to have grown up. He’s built a good business, apparently, turned into a good father, a loving person, once he did his time. Maybe people
can change. Maybe she had just been frightened to be with someone.

  She kept the Jimmy Choos at the office for whenever she went out. She and Paula endlessly talked about the moral value of buying a Prada handbag at $1500 when people in the Third World didn’t earn that much in a year. Duet still hadn’t bought one, she never had that kind of money and anyway for a handbag? but Paula had succumbed to a Hermes Birkin bag and often took a break from the stress at her desk by sighing lovingly at her big yellow leather work of couturier art strung behind her chair.

  Duet’s father wasn’t there when she arrived at Harry’s Bar, which looked like a British millionaire’s hunting room, with its dark tables and green lamps and prints framed in mahogany. She sat down at a table and a row of men seated at the bar hoodedly looked her over in the dark. She quickly glanced at the row of men, sitting as if in an aviary at the zoo, when she inadvertently caught one of their eyes. He smiled charmingly, and when she looked away, embarrassed, the lightbulb on his face switched off.

  The waitress arrived with a tray full of salted nuts to make sure she and her father would keep ordering drinks and asked if she wanted anything while she waited. Duet ordered an old fashioned, a drink her father got a bit nervous about. “Aren’t girls your age supposed to order trendy white wines?” he’d ask.

  She’d sip her old fashioned, “I prefer bourbon soaked oranges and cherries. Think of it as a grown up Shirley Temple, Daddy,” and she’d smile mischievously at him. There is a particular thrill for a girl when she gets to shock her father. When Duet thought about it, it probably is a safe way to erotically connect. Probably best not to mention that insight to him. He’d be even more shocked.

  That’s when she saw her father at the doorway striding over to her table. She admired that he was a dapper dresser, always an expensive shirt, sleek dark suit, his grey hair impeccably cut even though he claimed he cut it himself. Her father was attractive, she knew that. He kept his body in great shape by playing tennis. She briefly wondered if he cheated on her mother. Most likely not. Too busy with work and her mother would commit some kind of Laura Bobbitt act of emergency surgery if she found any sign remotely incriminating.