The Thrill of It

Chapter Thirteen

Harley

Cam’s towering skyscraper comes into view and memories race back. Day after day I walked into that building, pressed the elevator button for the fifty-fourth floor, put my hand on my belly as that weird twisty feeling from shooting up into the sky kicked in, then told the receptionist I was there to see him. I have no clue if she knew about his side business. Nor did I care. She gestured to his office down the hall and my stomach flipped and wiggled in a different way as I walked to him because he was my power broker, he was the man who set me free from how I’d grown up. He grinned when he saw me. Then shut the door, and gave me the details of the job. Like I was a hired assassin. Like he had a top secret classified file about the target and he was giving me the download.

We were comrades, partners, pulling off heists.

Wednesday was our big day. I’d head straight for his office when the final bell rang at my school, and we’d review the gigs for the next week. Sometimes I’d have one, sometimes several. It all depended on my schoolwork and my mom’s schedule, whether she was in town or out of town chasing a story. But even if she was around, I knew how to concoct cover ups. I said I was at study group, or extra field hockey practice, or I made up the name of a boy I was seeing, spinning my own tales of a date with Cody or Hunter or Jay or some other random nonexistent boy, stories of dates and ice cream and kisses in Central Park. But we always broke up too soon for her to meet this fictional mate.

When I had my regular appointments with Morris, Cam wanted me to prep at his sprawling Upper East Side brownstone, not far from the hotel where I met the political adviser for his doggy trysts. “It’s safer,” Cam said. “Safer for you. I’ll have a car waiting to take you to the hotel.”

We had a ritual before the Morris meetings. Cam took a bath and I polished my toe nails. Cam liked his sea salt crystals mixed with Sweet Lemon bubble bath in his baby blue claw foot tub, filled to the top with scalding hot water that he soaked in for thirty minutes, while singing along to big seventies classic rock, like the Eagles “Hotel California” or Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”

I perched on the closed toilet seat painting my toe nails — a mouth-watering fire-engine red for Morris. Cam chatted about whatever business meeting he was heading to during my session, all while dispensing little tips here and there. “Press hard with the right heel between his shoulder blades while he sucks your left big toe,” he told me. “Call me if there’s any trouble, but there won’t be.”

I looked away as he stepped out of the tub, the water sloshing around and cooled down to lukewarm, then dried off with an oversized white fluffy bath towel. He’d already have his outfit carefully laid out on the down comforter on his king-size Japanese-style bed, usually a suit, along with one of his colorful “cowboy shirts” — as he called them — and no tie. Cam never wore ties.

Then I’d zip up my skirt, slide on my shoes, and he’d give me a peck on the forehead. “Go make me proud, baby doll. Can’t wait for your report.”

He’d head off to a steak and lobster meal someplace, likely to woo a shady businessman into a shady deal that seemed legit – all smoke and mirrors was my man – while I’d let Morris slide his tongue between my toes for $2000.

Sometimes, I’d meet Cam at Bliss after a job and tell him how it went. We’d have drinks – soda and martini – and appetizers, and I felt like every second with him was a fantastic secret. A bubble I lived in that no one could ever touch.

“Who takes care of you? Who looks out for you?”

“You do,” I said poking him playfully in the chest.

“All the time, babydoll. Anytime you need it.”

He was proud of me. Like a proud papa.

I don’t think Cam ever knew how hard it was for me to leave him after those dinners. Every time I did, I felt like black sludge had settled under my skin, because then I had to deal with my mom, my house, the noise. He was the antidote — the only one I ever had — to what awaited me inside my own home.

When I reach Cam’s floor I’m greeted by a crisp, controlled energy in the air the second the elevator doors sweep open. Sharp women in fitted skirts and heels, men in tailored suits, and assistants with headsets melded to their ears pace from cube to cube on either side of the gleaming floor-to-ceiling glass walls flanking the entryway.

I walk inside.

“May I help you?”

I used to be a regular in these parts, but receptionists come and go, and since this one is new she doesn’t recognize me. She’s young and blond, with stick straight hair tucked neatly behind her ears.

“I’m here to see Mr. Cameron Jackson. I have a delivery for him. He’s expecting me. You can tell him Layla is here.” I don’t use my name. Nor do I use my mom’s name. I know better. My mom doesn’t reveal her sources, and Cam would never go on the record for one of her stories. He is all background, all behind the scenes. Besides, I’ve just used the one word that guarantees my entree anywhere Cam is.

Layla.

My name is probably sashaying its way through the air, down to his office, slinking behind the door, reaching his ears, all five letters whispered in that sexy, seductive tone that will turn him into the man he is with me – mesmerized.

“Let me just call him,” she says, then picks up the phone and stabs a finger against a button.

“Hello Mr. Jackson. You have a delivery from someone named Layla?”

I don’t have to hear Cam’s side of the conversation to know what he’s saying right now. He is all yeses.

The receptionist stands up, ready to escort me, but I tell her, “It’s okay. I know the way.”

Cam’s door is ajar. I knock lightly and he calls me in. His smile — that familiar broad grin that reveals all our naughty, tawdry, dirty, delicious little secrets – greets me first.

Then he leans across his desk, taps on the calendar, and pretends he’s deep in thought, his index finger resting on his chin. “Well, that’s funny. My calendar doesn’t say it’s my lucky day. But clearly it’s wrong.” He turns to me. “Because seeing you two days in a row means I am the luckiest son of a bitch in the entire fucking solar system.”

Has it been less than twenty-four hours since I’ve seen him? Since last night at Bliss? So much has happened since then, but so little too. Last night with Trey, the talking, the drinking game, the time on the couch, and then this morning and that dismissive denial from his mouth. I feel as if my world has been tugged, pulled and twisted through the smallest eye of a needle, and parts are bunched up on one side, left behind in a mess.

Cam walks over to me – no, he struts, because there is nothing subtle about this man. Not the five o-clock shadow, not those big eyes twinkling, and not his green shirt, so rich, so opulent in its shade, he could be wearing a button-down made out of emeralds. This man is flash personified. He might as well wear a gold chain around his neck, but that’d be trashy and Cam’s not trashy.

He wraps his arms around me, runs his nose over my hair, my neck, my shoulder. “Mmm….dee-li-cious,” he says.

I push him away, shaking my head. “Stop it. I’m only here to bring you this.” I reach into the front pocket of my jeans to hand him the thumb drive. As he takes it, I wonder briefly what my mom is working on. My mind flashes back to the stories she mentioned on our phone call.

He eyes me up and down, surveying my jeans, t-shirt and sneakers. I touched up my make-up before I left my mom’s. Applied mascara and a fresh coat of lipstick. “What’s up with the outfit? You slumming it today, Layla?”

I sneer at him. “Oh ha ha. It’s called casual Friday, Cam. Ever heard of it?”

“I had no idea you owned sneakers.” He gestures to the couch in his office. “Sit for a minute. We can catch up, my baby doll.”

“I believe we are fully caught up,” I point out, giving him a saucy stare, and I love everything about being with Cam, because I can say these things. I can sass and tease and be as snarky as I want. I can toss out barbs and heated remarks, and it’s like tasting freedom and power on my tongue, like little sugar crystals are dissolving, leaving behind a wonderful flavor that only makes me want more of them.

That makes me want to lap up more of this secret life of mine.

“Then stay standing, because I want to show you what I might have for you.”

“I told you I needed a week. Don’t make me walk out of here. If you’re going to be pushy I will walk so fast. Wait. I will run,” I say and it’s true because I can speak the truth to him. I can say all my truths that I can’t voice to my mother. “And I don’t feel like sitting.” I jut out my chin, and back up against the bookshelves stacked with his law tomes. He slinks over, like a smooth, agile cat.

“Sit. Stand. Run. It’s all good with me, baby. Don’t you know that? With me, you can be whoever you want. You can be anybody. You can do anything. And I will always love you.”

“What? You don’t love me. This isn’t about love. Don’t say love. Love is a dirty word,” I tell him.

“I love you in my own way and sooner or later just accept it. I’m proud of you and I always will be, and I will always take care of you. So listen, I got a businessman coming in from California. This is easy. So easy. I slide you back in, baby, with the simplest of jobs. All he wants is dinner. He’s the honored guest at a swank charity dinner. A tux and evening gown shindig on the town, five hundred bucks a plate kind of thing. And he wants the most beautiful woman at his side. All you have to do is wear a gorgeous dress and smile and say you’re his girlfriend. He wants to introduce you to everyone as his girlfriend. That’s it. An easy one. I told you we’d get back in nice and smooth.”

“How much?”

He rattles off a four-figure number as he stalks closer.

“For that? Just for the girlfriend experience? Seriously? Where do you find these men?”

He shrugs and grins. “What can I say? When you are known for having the best, all the men pay top dollar.”

Cam is a foot away from me now and he leans in close, pressing a hand against the wall, half-pinning me. “You’ll do it, won’t you?”

“I have to think about it,” I say.

“C’mon. What do I have to do to convince you? You know you love it. You know how much you fucking love the way they fall at your feet. Even the freaks. You love all my freaks.”

He’s right. He knows he’s right. I love his freaks because they own their freakish ways. Because they know who they are. They might be fucked up fifty ways to Sunday, but they let themselves have their freak. In the most honest way. By buying it.

When you live with someone and she is a freak in front of you but paints her ways as normal, that’s how love becomes a filthy thing.

Maybe that’s the truth about love. It’s only for sale. It’s only an exchange.

“So you’ll do it,” he says and puts his other palm against the bookcase. Now I’m not half-pinned. I’m all pinned. But I’m not scared, because he’d never hurt me, never ever in my whole life, and there’s a part of me that’s still bewitched by his promises, that’s still drawn to all that we were together. “I’ll beg you if I have to, babydoll,” he says playfully. “I will, I swear I will. I will get down on my hands and knees for you.”

“Stop,” I tease. “You’ve never begged for anything in your life, Cam.”

“I’d beg for you though. Say yes.”

He wants what I have. My words, my yes, my no, the permission slip I was never allowed to sign with my mom is what Cam presents to me, always has, always will. Never changes. He is the rock. He is solid and steady and reliable, and he will always be there for me.

And I love him – a dirty and filthy, a true and pure kind of love.

But I also love what he gives me.

He lets me hold the cards for the first time. Holding them feels so good, so unusual, so fucking great. So I play them. “Tell me what the story is my mom is working on. She said she was working on a blackmail story.”

He twines a strand of my hair around his finger, and raises an eyebrow. “This file she sent over is for a congressman tip she’s looking into. But blackmail? Isn’t that your thing?”

“Yeah,” I admit.

He shoots me a quizzical look. “You don’t think she’s looking into something involving you?”

“No. How could she?” I say.

But then…

Could she? Could she somehow have heard Miranda is blackmailing a former call girl?

No. That would be too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?