A Courtesan’s Guide to Getting Your Man (16 page)

The restraining straps had been removed from the bed frame. The room looked as if any respectable guest might occupy it. Mere walls and curtains and carpet told no tales of the wicked pleasure and naked debauchery they had witnessed.

The only evidence that remained lived in my memory.

I sat upon the bed where I had spent so many marvelous, unbelievable hours and stroked my hand down the satin counterpane. Then I lay back upon the pillows and imagined my new lover-to-be, Robert, straining and gasping above me.

The picture did not displease me, especially when I put Robert in a mask.

*   *   *

Warm lips descended upon mine. I opened my eyes to see that the room was dark, with only a single candle lighted upon the mantel.

Sir sat beside me on the bed, a slight smile upon his masked face. He looked thoughtful and a bit … sad? It was as if the mask beneath the mask had fallen away.

Yet before me was a man who could be whatever a woman wanted him to be. He was as skilled a player as the Swan, as I myself hoped to be.

If a woman wished to see love in his eyes, she could convince herself it was there. If she wished to see sadness at a parting of the ways, I knew perfectly well that it would gleam from his dark eyes.

So I banked the girlish romantic coal of hope that tried to glow in my heart and smiled easily up at Sir. “Let the lesson begin.”

He lifted his chin and the trick of the candlelight was no more. Standing, he took my hand and helped me from the bed. Still with my hand in his, he led me across the room where stood a tall dressing-room mirror.

I was placed to face the mirror, while Sir stood behind me and his gaze met mine in the glass.

“The Seventh Sin,” he said in my ear in his husky whisper, “is Pride.”

He undressed me then, removing everything from the pins in my hair to my stockings. He would not let me help, but attended me like a servant—a servant whose touch lingered rather inappropriately! I enjoyed the sensuousness of his gentleness. When I was entirely naked with my hair falling riotously over my shoulders and my nipples crinkled from the chill of the room, he stood behind me once more.

With both hands resting warm on my shoulders, he turned my face toward the mirror. “You are magnificent,” he told me. “Your beauty is undeniable, but you are so much more than milky skin and flashing eyes. In our few days together, you have shown me the wisdom and joy and effortless courage you hold within you.”

His hands slid down my arms. I leaned back into the warmth and solidity of him. He stroked his palms up over my belly, crossing them to embrace my waist. “You are a powerful being, sweet Ophelia, glowing with strength and spirit.” He bent his dark head to kiss my neck. I reached a hand up to bury my fingers in his thick hair.

“I beg of you,” he murmured into my skin, “let no man wrest that indomitable will from your generous heart.”

I turned into him then, intent upon his kiss. I wanted every moment, every taste, every touch of Sir’s I could have that night, for I knew that when our time was over he would return to his patronesses and I would move on to Robert.

Our last lesson.

I was proud. I had become someone I had never believed I could be. I was a scarlet woman, an artist of pleasure, a rebel soldier. I was the sword-wielding insurrectionist of my own life.

I was a courtesan.

*   *   *

In the darkest hours of the night, when the coals had burned down to ash and the candle’s flame had long ago stuttered out in a pool of melted wax, I let out a long sigh of completion.

A large, masculine hand ran up my naked thigh.

“I have taught you everything I can,” he whispered into my ear, his breath hot. “Tomorrow you will choose your first lover.” He kissed me, more tenderly than he had in the last seven nights of exquisite pleasure. “Are you certain that this is what you wish? Once you become a courtesan, you may never return to the life you’ve always known.”

I hooked my arm about his neck and kissed him back with all the skill and confidence that he had given me as he’d instructed me in the Seven Sins of the Courtesan. “I know what I want. Only as a courtesan can I be truly free to decide my own destiny.”

He bowed, a little sadly, I think. “So be it. I shall leave you, sweet blackbird.”

I lay back down in the nest of silken sheets a different woman than when I had first slid between them. I watched him leave with a smile, although I think my heart broke just a little. He had taught me so much, although I had never learned the name of the man I knew only as “Sir.”

The next morning I found a gleaming black feather upon my pillow.

It was time to begin my new life.

The Blackbird had taken wing.

VOLUME II

Twelve

Boston, Present Day

It is only one step, I told myself, a single step forward or a single step back. It was up to me to decide which I would take.

My hand hovered over the latch. My heart beat fitfully. My mind whirled. Hadn’t I longed for this moment? Hadn’t I dreamed of the freedom to determine my own destiny? Of course I had. But in my girlish dreams, I had been unaware that freedom came at a price, and the currency was risk.

So be it. I opened the door and stepped across the threshold, not knowing which world I had entered. Was it the beginning of a life fully lived, or a willful and perilous mistake?

Piper placed Brenna’s checklist on the edge of the bed, right next to the outrageously impractical pale pink bra and panty set, the cost of which could cover a day at the Cape, complete with parking, hot dogs, and butterscotch sundaes from Four Seas.

The underwear was just the finishing flourish of a weeklong consumer orgy Brenna had called Piper’s “Reinvention.” The narcissistic bacchanal had included teeth whitening, a new pair of designer eyeglasses (
plus
her first contacts ever), a deep-conditioning hair color and cut, a facial, an exfoliating massage, eyebrow shaping, a bikini wax, and the purchase of tote bags full of expensive makeup (complete with lessons on
how the freaking hell
Piper was supposed to use an eyelash curler without causing a corneal abrasion). Then there was the new wardrobe—fitted blouses, tailored skirts and trousers, and even a few curve-hugging dresses—complemented by five pairs of impractical shoes, an assortment of statement-making bags (never call them “purses,” Brenna had explained), and accessories such as earrings, bracelets, and scarves.

Piper now understood that the pursuit of beauty was a full-time job. It was a wonder Brenna had ever managed to earn her doctorate. It was a pricey hobby, too. Piper’s makeover required siphoning six figures from Granny Pierpont’s trust fund, a reckless decision as that was her only buffer against poverty should she lose her job. And what did she have to show for all the effort and expense? Piper’s eyes swept to the new full-length mirror bracketed to her bedroom wall. She stared in fascination at her naked reflection.

She still didn’t recognize herself. True, she no longer gasped at the creature looking back at her, but Piper remained cautious of the woman with the killer green eyes, the lustrous skin, and the shiny, bouncy dark brown hair. She was curious as to how long the woman in the mirror had possessed those smooth shoulders and delicate collarbones. She wondered how the woman could have been running around Boston for the last decade with her 36C boobs smushed into a 32B sports bra. She couldn’t remember why the woman had been morally opposed to contacts, lipstick, and mascara.

As for everything below the underwire? She was a stranger to herself, really. Brenna claimed Piper had never allowed herself to bask in her own glory. Though her friend might have found a less histrionic way to phrase it, she had to concede Brenna had a point. Piper had never been the type to spin in front of the mirror in the buff, checking out the curve of her buttock or the slope of her thigh. She’d never been the type to enjoy being moisturized, fluffed, coiffed, and generally encouraged to feel connected to all her body parts.

But if Ophelia Harrington could learn to love it, there was no reason Piper couldn’t. Right?

She sighed.
This had better work,
she thought.
I had better stroll into the museum tomorrow and see Mick Malloy slip in a puddle of his own drool.
That’s what all this was for, after all. She was on a mission of seduction. She was getting her do-over-of-a-lifetime.

Piper was about to reach for her panties when she saw her own sly smile in the mirror. Sir’s words to Ophelia floated through her mind.

“You are alive. Your heart beats. Your skin is hot and pliable and responds to my touch. Every one of life’s pleasures will come to you through this magnificent body, Ophelia. Don’t be afraid to take ownership of this treasure.”

Piper shuddered, the goose bumps visible on her own nakedness.
Holy shit,
but Sir had been one astonishingly sexy man. Yet, even after all her careful study of the journals, so much of him remained an enigma to Piper. She longed to hear his thoughts, to get a peek at the secrets of his heart. Too bad he hadn’t been the diary-keeping sort himself. At least his words lived on through Ophelia.

Still smiling, Piper turned on her heel to check out her own treasures, the voluptuous curve of her ass and the smooth line of her thigh. Not bad, she had to admit. Not bad at all.

As she slipped into the bra and panty set, she went over the agenda in her mind. Today was to be her trial run. She’d have coffee with Brenna at L’Aroma, followed by a visit to her parents. The coffee had been Piper’s idea. The parents had been Brenna’s. As she’d fearlessly pointed out to Piper, her parents’ home was the one place her transformation would likely meet with resistance, if not outright scorn. If Piper faced her mother and father first, Brenna reasoned, any snickers or stares doled out by her coworkers on Monday would be a snap to handle.

As usual, Brenna probably had a point.

Once Piper had finished dressing in a casual skirt and a stretchy cotton blouse, carefully made up her face, and put the finishing touches on her hair, she left her apartment and waited for the elevator. That’s when she discovered that the changes reached beyond her own bedroom mirror. Apparently, there’d been a cataclysmic shift in her world.

When the elevator door opened, three men greeted her. She knew two of them—the retired medical illustrator who lived on the sixth floor and the somnambulant med student who lived on the tenth. When Piper said hello, two sets of eyeballs expanded and two mouths gaped. The men looked too shell-shocked to speak.

The other guy was a thirty-something jock who’d never uttered a word to Piper in the three years he’d lived in the building, not even when the two of them had awkwardly ended up in the tiny basement laundry at the same time. But today, he smiled and raised his eyebrows, coming alive like someone had just plugged him into a generator.

“Hawh ah yah?” he asked, unabashedly letting his eyes roam from her face to her sandals and back up again. “Going down?”

Piper spun around to face the elevator doors, feeling little needles of anxiety prick at her skin. The jock seemed dangerously hungry, like how one of her parents’ calorie-restricted friends might look if confronted with a deluxe burger with fries from Mr. Bartley’s.

She stared ahead, breathing hard and telling herself to calm down. After all, what was the point of looking hot if you were still scurrying around like a scared mouse? She consciously relaxed her shoulders, softened her stance, and remembered Brenna’s instructions: “Let the feminine energy flow through you. Feel the power. Loosen your hips and rock it.”

After that uncomfortable interlude on the elevator, the world-shifting moments just kept coming. A teenager got up and gave her his seat on the T. The old man at the fruit stand on Newbury smiled and said good morning, then handed her an orange. A man exiting L’Aroma held the door open for her, even though he had to juggle a to-go box filled with drinks and baked goods to get the job done.

Piper smiled shyly at him and ducked into the air-conditioned coffeehouse, where she was promptly rewarded with the attention of every male in the place. It made her involuntarily gasp and clutch her purse—no, wait, her
bag
—to the front of her body. She walked as fast as possible on three-inch heels to reach Brenna.

Piper fell into the chair and leaned over the small table. “My God, Brenna! Is this what your life’s always been like? How do you do it? How do you live this way?”

Brenna slid a hot and foamy café au lait toward Piper and smiled softly. “You simply accept it. You appreciate it. And you go on about your business.”

Piper shook her head. “I feel like I’m on exhibit. Like I’m advertising myself.”

“Well,
duh.
” Brenna’s smile widened. “That’s what women have always done, from courtesans to curators and everyone in between. When you present yourself in the best possible way, you’re telling the world you know you’re beautiful and valuable and that you deserve the best. And that’s precisely when the best starts to come to you.”

“But—” Piper dared take a quick peek around the room to reassure herself that men had stopped staring. No such luck. “Why would I want a man who’s only interested in what I look like?”

“We’ve been over this a thousand times,” Brenna said, chuckling. “Mick Malloy is a lot of things—academic, adventurer, owner of one fine ass—but first and foremost, he’s a man. Men are visual. They notice the outside package first, so that’s where we have to start. Do you want Mick Malloy or not?”

The question jarred Piper. Of course she wanted Mick. She’d always wanted him, whether she’d admitted it to herself or not. Ophelia’s journals had given her the courage to face her own desires. They’d also given her the clarity to see that her desires began and ended with Mick Malloy. And now, for the first time, she believed she just might have a shot at getting him.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Okay,” Brenna said. “Then you can either sit around complaining about nature or you can use it to your benefit. It’s your choice.”