Mason's Secret Agreement Pt. 02

PART TWO OF A FIVE-PART SERIES

JAQUELINE

Friday's editorial board meeting starts off surprisingly smooth. I announce the new direction the magazine is going to take, and there is little reaction from the staff. They're all sitting around the conference room table with poker faces, worried that the slightest transgression will cause me to call Mason and have them summarily reamed-out on speaker phone. Their carefully calculated facial expressions remind me of that famous novel about communism where citizens could be arrested for committing facecrime--having a facial expression that the government deemed threatening or offensive. But could you blame them? They had every right to be afraid. Rumor had it Gwen Reese's lawyer made a feeble attempt to sue Mason for wrongful termination and verbal assault, but that Mason's team of attorneys were not only denying the claims, but were in the process of counter-suing for defamation, throwing an insanely large amount of litigation at Gwen Reese and her lawyer, Reginald Bixby, litigation that would take years of their lives and hundreds-of-thousands of their own dollars to fight in court.

Still, I enjoy the power I now wield in the board room. After I announce that Chantel is going online fulltime in January, I explain that the inaugural online-only issue is going to feature Paris Hightower on the cover, and that the theme of the issue is going to revolve around the little known but fully thriving underground Manhattan sex club scene. I explain that it's no secret that Paris Hightower is a big proponent of BDSM, and that it's Chantel's new mission to court Hightower, and to possibly get her to agree to appear on the cover in something controversial--perhaps a leather dominatrix outfit, or holding handcuffs or a flogger.

The staff reactions to my proposal are the same as before: carefully calculated poker faces. Gustav Ulrich, Chantel's photo editor, is the only one with the balls to express his reaction. He seems tickled by my proposal, as if he's amused or even aroused by it. I can see the way he looks at me as I talk about handcuffs and whips. I can sense his mind is picturing all kinds of things about me and Paris Hightower, some of them probably X-rated. And this isn't wishful thinking, or the result of an overactive imagination. Even now, as I'm talking about the need to contact Paris' agent, there's a look he's giving me, a look that says, I'm trying my hardest to be professional here, to keep my hormones in check, to view you as a professional and not as a sex toy I'd like to stick my dick in. I know that look. Stefan had it in his eye for 7 years.

Stefan.

Holy shit, that's it. That's why Gustav Ulrich seems so creepy: he reminds me of Stefan Vonnegut. It's his muscular build and shaved head, and the fact that he's around Stefan's age--close to 50. His bulky neck is just like Stefan's, too, and so are his forearms, although Gustav doesn't have any tattoos. He doesn't have any earrings, either. Not in his ears, or eyebrows, or I'm assuming, in the head of his penis.

Wow. His body, even his mannerisms, are Stefan. It's uncanny.

"So that's where things stand now," I tell my staff, some of them actually sitting at the table with their hands folded. I check my watch. "Unless anybody has any questions, that about wraps things up."

There are no questions.

The meeting ends, and everyone starts heading out for lunch. It's Friday, which means lunches will be a little longer, with maybe a martini thrown in the mix for good measure. I tell Gustav I'll meet with him later that afternoon, to finalize the photos for next week's print issue.

"Sure thing Jaqueline," he says, and goes down the hall into the elevator.

I go back to my corner office overlooking Times Square, oddly bummed-out. It's not that I'm alone on Friday afternoon, eating my homemade chicken Caesar salad and diet iced tea by myself, or that everybody in the entire building hates me. It's the fact that my relationship with Stefan is back on my mind, a period of my life I've been spending the past six-and-a-half years desperately trying to forget. It's over, I say to myself, he's gone and you're finally free. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Look around you, for Christ's sake. You're eating lunch in the Applegarth Media Building in a corner office with a breathtaking view of Midtown Manhattan! And you're the editor in chief of Chantel magazine, of all things! Stop worrying and be happy! It's time to forget the past! Stefan is gone, and can't hurt you anymore!

I can't forget though, that's the thing. When you've spent seven long years being controlled by someone, it's hard to just let that go. Especially when that person takes you in at the impressionable age of 19, and systematically molds you into a professional dominatrix by day, and makes you his personal BDSM slave by night. That's a crazy way to live, let me just tell you.

I remember the first day Stefan came into my life. He said he was going to make me a fashion model, of all things. No fucking shit. I was standing in a line outside Take Two Productions, a small-time Manhattan talent agency on W 23rd St., when Stefan pulled up in a shiny black convertible wearing an expensive suit and designer sunglasses. I figured he was someone important, because a bunch of the girls waiting in the line started making a fuss, going up to his car and talking with him. He didn't seem impressed with them, though; he had his eye on me.

Finally, I went over to his car, and asked him who he was.

"I'm Stefan Vonnegut," he told me. "A talent scout here in New York." He handed me his card and told me to call him, that he specialized in grooming young fashion models into international superstars. My first reaction was that he was full of shit. He looked like he was full of shit. I mean, what kind of businessman has piercings all over his face, and tattoos all over his body? Sure, he was vaguely handsome in an action hero sort of way, but I didn't believe a word that came out of his mouth. I was a freshman at Northern Manhattan University at the time, majoring in journalism, and was definitely not your typical young female idiot. The only reason I was in line at that talent agency to begin with was because I was looking for a part time job to help supplement my student loans, and figured modeling was easy and paid decent money. Plus, like most girls, it had been a childhood dream of mine for as long as I could remember.

I kept the card but never called the number. Not for almost a year. Then, during my sophomore year at Northern Manhattan, my entire world fell apart. In October, my mom passed away from cervical cancer, and six weeks after that, during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, my dad dropped dead of a stroke in the stands of a pro football game. It totally blindsided me, and knocked me through a loop. After the fall semester I withdrew from school, unable to keep my student loans without a cosigner. Both my older brothers were out of the house and in the military, one stationed in California, the other in North Carolina. I had no money, no job, and not really much family; I stayed at the houses of a few relatives on and off, but nothing permanent.

Then I found that card with Stefan's number on it. I was totally miserable and depressed, and thought, Screw it, Jaqueline, you have absolutely nothing to lose. So I gave the number a call. And the crazy thing was, things started to get better almost immediately. The very next day, Stefan called me back and said he was hiring me as a "utility girl," which meant I was going to be a jack-of-all-trades kind of model.

"We'll sign a contract later," he said, and started paying me enough money that I could move out of my aunt's house and get my own apartment in Bay Ridge. At first I didn't do anything at all, not any modeling, nothing. Stefan told me to just wait and be patient, that the modeling gigs would start to come.

They didn't come. Stefan, however, did. He started coming over to my apartment and hanging out with me. I welcomed his company, because I'd lost touch with most of my friends from school. And back then, Stefan was leaner, in better shape; I'll admit I had a small crush on him. He'd bring over wine and Chinese takeout, and we'd eat dinner, drink, and then end up having sex. I enjoyed fucking Stefan for that first year, and thought for a while that I might even be in love with him. He was older, mysterious, and got rough with me in a way that turned me on. And interestingly, I could manipulate him. I could get him to give me money and buy me things.

Eventually, I started going to BDSM clubs with him. Shitty ones at first, then higher class establishments, like Constantine's. I not only loved the lifestyle right off, but I was good at it. So good, in fact, that I became a professional dominatrix, with Stefan as my manager. We were great partners in the beginning--splitting everything 50-50, with Stefan handling the business end, and me entertaining the clients. We slowly built up a very profitable business that was in high demand. At one point I was charging married, 50-something businessmen a gratuity of over $750 an hour. In August of 2006, when I was 22, I was able to reenroll in Northern Manhattan University and continue working on my journalism degree.

This is when things started to change with Stefan, however. He started getting jealous of all the attention I was getting from other men, and over the fact that I was back in college and didn't need to depend on him as much anymore. This wasn't totally true, however; he was still my sugar-daddy, paying for all the playroom rentals at Constantine's, and even a chunk of my tuition at Northern Manhattan--which was being covered without any students loans. I'm not sure where he got his money, but I'm pretty certain it was from some kind of illegal activity, either drugs, prostitution, or some combination of the two.

To be honest, I didn't know and didn't care to ask. We coexisted for much of our relationship, and gave each other lots of space. Still, about four years in, when I was back in school, Stefan started acting funny. Our sex got rougher, more perverse. He started abusing me physically, slapping me across the face, punching me in the kidneys, and even choking me. He left bruises on my skin that my BDSM clients and college professors started asking about. And this was totally separate from our roleplaying sessions at Constantine's. This was just regular life with him, which was becoming more miserable by the day. And when he did take me into the dungeon for a play session, I have to be honest, I was scared shitless. I never knew what exactly was going to happen, if I were going to end up in the hospital, or even the morgue.

The last straw, though, was when he told me he had decided to start selling me.

"I have a new job for you," he said one day when I had come home from class during my final semester as an undergraduate at Northern Manhattan. He was sitting on my living room couch, drinking vodka straight from the bottle. "I owe some friends some money. A lot of money, actually. And you're going to help me pay them back."

"Oh yeah? And how am I going to do that?"

"I'm going to sell you to them," he told me, taking a swig of vodka. "You're a pro dominatrix, now you're going to be a pro submissive."

"I'm nobody's slave but yours, Stefan. You know that. I'm not going to start renting out my body to your friends."

He shook his head. "Oh yes, babe. You are. I have debts to pay. I'm going to start selling you."

"Selling me?"

"Yes. Did I fucking stutter?"

I walked over to my apartment door, opened it. "I think you'd better leave now. I'm done with this bullshit. All of it. The clubs, the clients, the deals. All of it. And I'm done with you."

He laughed. "Sure you are. Like you were done with me last time, and the time before that? You need me. You can't survive without me."

"The fuck I can't," I said, holding the door. "Get out."

He stood there, laughing at me.

"Get out! Now! You fucking degenerate scumbag!"

"What did you call me?" he said, getting up from my couch and walking over to where I was standing. He raised the vodka bottle in the air, pretended like he was going to hit me with it, then threw it against the kitchen wall. It shattered and chards of glass flew everywhere, some of them hitting my cat in the face; she screeched and ran under the couch.

I screamed, and threatened to call the police.

"You need me," he said, pounding his chest. "You fucking need me!"

"Get out!" I shouted.

He punched the wall and finally left.

I called the police and filed a restraining order against him. For a few weeks he tried calling me, and even showed up on campus once. Then, about a month later, he just disappeared. Poof. Gone. I heard rumors that he either went back to Germany, where he was originally from, or that something had happened to him. That the "friends" he owed money got to him--either killed him or beat him so bad that he had to go into hiding.

Either way it was a relief to me. He was finally out of my life, and I was free to live a normal existence. I graduated Northern Manhattan with a bachelor's degree in journalism, and went right back and got my master's degree a year later. Then I landed the job at Cashmere & Silk, where I'd done my graduate internship. Sometimes, on a rare occasion, I'll be reminded of Stefan and miss him. Well, not exactly miss him, but wonder where he is, and what ever happened to him. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that I'll feel sorry for him; you can't spend seven years with a person and eradicate all feelings you once had.

I take a bite of my homemade chicken Caesar salad, sip my iced tea. I'm going to sell you, Stefan had said. Yeah right. Never in a million years. The day a man tries to sell me, is the day I walk out of his life for good.

But that's all in the past. Thank God.

I look out the window of my corner office, admiring the view of Midtown Manhattan, congratulating myself on just how far I've come.

***

MASON

"You like salsa dancing?" I ask Jaqueline, calling her on my hands-free on the way home from the office on Friday afternoon. Today's been a total shit storm, with constant trouble popping up on Fashion Space, my bread-and-butter social media network for entrepreneurial clothing designers that's worth more than all my other investments and projects combined. Apparently, users are all pissed off because they're just now realizing that I have access to a boatload of their personal information, and that I've been selling this information to advertisers. Well, dah. Of course I am. How do they think anyone makes any money? How do they think I was able to take the company public in 2012, with an IPO valued at $980 million?

"Salsa dancing?" Jaqueline asks.

"Yeah, salsa dancing."

There's silence on the line. Something's not right.

"Hello?" I say.

"Yes?"

"You okay? You sound sad. Did something happen at work today? Did Gwen Reese show up again? Is she starting more shit with her lawyer?"

"No..."

"You sure? Because if she's badgering you, I can file another lawsuit against her in your name. You want me to do that? You want me to call Tommy Cordell?"

"No," Jaqueline says. "It's fine. Really. I'm just a little tired. It's been a long week."

I honk my horn at some asshole on a bicycle who cuts me off turning onto E 62nd St. He's lucky I didn't run him over, the moron. "Hey! Watch where you're going!"

He gives me the middle finger.

"Yeah, and fuck you too, jackoff!" I turn into the driveway of my 5-story townhouse. "Jesus. These fucking people. Where do they come from?"

"I don't know," Jaqueline says.

"I don't know either. Just another Friday afternoon in Manhattan rush hour, I guess. So do you want to go salsa dancing, or what?"

"I'm tired, Mason. I might want to go home and go to bed."

"Go to bed? Come on, Jacks. Snap out of it. It's Friday night. You have all weekend to lay in bed."

"Did you just call me Jacks?"

"I don't know, did I?"

"Yes, you did."

"So sue me," I tell her. "Like Gwen Reese. But seriously. Get home, and get your shit together. You're going salsa dancing with me tonight."

There's a long pause on the line. "Okay, fine. I'll go salsa dancing with you."

"Nice!"

"What do I wear? I've never salsa danced before."

I park my car in the driveway--a silver luxury SUV 8 speed automatic--and cut the engine. "Wear something nice, but comfortable. Something you can dance in."

"A cami dress?"

"Yeah, that could work. Something like that. Sexy but loose and comfortable. I'm going to be whipping you around on the dancefloor, so be prepared to get hot and sweaty."

"I like hot and sweaty."

"I know you do."

"How about shoes?" Jaqueline asks me. "Maybe a sandal with a small heel?"

"Sure."

"Strappy or plain?"

"Who are you talking to, Jacks? Strappy, of course. That's a no-brainer."

"Strappy it is."

"Awesome," I say. "We're going to have some fun tonight. And don't worry about how good you are. Most people at the Five-Spot are beginners, like you. We'll get there early so we can practice. There's a free beginners' class from 8:30 to 9:30, run by this guy Alonzo--who's pretty cool. He's gayer than a three dollar bill, but he's still the man. He could fucking dance circles around me any day of the week. Shit. I've seen that dude make the hottest women in the city melt like butter. Anyway, we'll take a quick salsa lesson from him, and we should be good to go."

"Okay," Jaqueline says, sounding more like herself again. "Let's do it. I'm game. Where is this place, and how am I getting there?"

"It's in the East Village. I'll meet you there at 8:15. Here, let me text you the address." I punch the info into my cellphone, hit send.

"Got it," Jaqueline says.

"Cool. See you later tonight, Jacks."

"Okay. See you then."

***

I'm in the restroom of the Five-Spot, splashing water on my face. Holy shit, Jacqueline Singletary can dance. Big time. Apparently, she did a bunch of ballroom dancing in college--the tango, rumba, and cha-cha--and according to Jaqueline, the timing and steps are close enough that she was able to pick up the basics of salsa dancing in a little over an hour: 1, 2, 3, pause, 5, 6, 7, pause. Pull on 1, push on 5. Back, forward. Forward, back. 1, 2, turn on 3, pause, 5, 6, 7...

I wipe my face with a paper towel, glance at myself in the mirror. The music from the dance floor is vibrating the glass. I run my hand through my wet wavy hair, teasing it out and letting it fall in short, loose curls on my brow. My silver dress shirt, undone to the third button, is damp with sweat, as are my black jeans. I blow my nose, check for boogers, wash my hands. I pop a piece of gum in my mouth, then head back into the club.

The music is loud, the air humid. The Five-Spot only holds about a 100 people, and it's fully packed. I go to the bar and order a beer, waiting for Jaqueline to finish dancing with Alonzo, who's been monopolizing her for the better part of an hour now. This is their fifth or sixth dance tonight, and every time they go back on the floor, Jaqueline's salsa moves get sharper and more fluid. I'm quite frankly stunned by her talent. She's a natural, no doubt about it. I've been salsa dancing for five years, on-and-off, and Jaqueline's already surpassed what I can do in one night.

The bartender hands me my beverage, points to the dance floor. "Check that out," he says, staring. "Fuck. That chick's a dancer. I've never seen her here before."

"She's good," I tell him. "And sexy."

"Oh yeah," the bartender says.

I take my beer and sit down at a cocktail table by the dance floor. Alonzo and Jaqueline are sizzling, doing a lock-twirl hand switch, and the room erupts in loud cheering. The two are a work of art, they really are. Alonzo in his black muscle shirt and vest, and Jaqueline in her red, backless cami dress with the flared bottom. Watching them--no, watching her--is mesmerizing. She's just so... what's the word?... rhythmic. Her body so symmetrical: tall and slender, thin waist, swiveling hips. It's completely seductive, the way her long hair whips around when she spins, the way her red dress flares, the way she flicks her wrists, stepping back, then forward, turning on a dime.