Edge Play X (25 page)

He started
to sob. He wanted her more than he could bear. His desire was rupturing out of
him.
 

“You don’t
know how worried I was about you,” he confessed, exaggerating his concern. “I
didn’t know where you were. We had the whole hotel looking for you. I was going
to call the police if you weren’t back soon, X. I thought maybe someone took
you, that someone kidnapped you.”

Compton
ran his hands through his hair, pulling at it in
desperation, and then he pounded at the door again.

X went to
the door and kneeled just inches away from him as if hearing his confession,
the door the only separation between them, and she was touched by his pleads,
by his apology, by his admission.
 

“I don’t
know what I’d do if something happened to you, X! Maybe you’ll think that I’m
full of shit but I want you to believe me when I tell you that you’re the first
thing I think of when I wake. Nothing else. Only you. I don’t look forward to
anything more than I look forward to just being in your presence.”
 

When men
begged X, it gave her a sense of reassurance that they desired her, that they
loved her. It was as if, in his weakness, that
Compton
was passing a test, a
test that X administered, consciously or not, to every man with whom she had
any kind of extended relations.
Compton
, with his sobs of
regret, with his confession of error, had proven to her that he needed her,
that she was more than just a woman he paid to beat him and humiliate him. X
understood then, completely, that now she could do whatever she wished to him,
treat him in whatever way she fancied. His longing for her was unconditional.
He was at her mercy.

“Just talk
to me, X, God-damn it! Punish me if that’s what you want. I deserve it. I’m a
loser, an idiot, I admit it!” he screamed, as if making the pronouncement to
himself.

She put her
hand to the doorknob, turning it slowly and then opening the door.
Compton
looked up at her, so
happy to see her finally, and a relief swept through him. She existed. There
she was. She recognized that he existed.

X kneeled
down next to him and put her hand to his face. She knew that if she wished,
that
Compton
would take whatever punishment she would give and
take it gladly. Instead, she pushed him back onto the floor and he toppled down
heavily onto the carpet beneath him. He looked at her surprised, unsure what
she was doing.

Then, X
climbed onto him, pressing herself into him, undoing his loosened tie and then
his buttons, their mouths converging and diverging as clothing was undone, as
body parts were groped, caressed, and licked, and there, on the floor, the
television still flickering its spastic light, the two made love
, the boundaries of their bodies dissolving and
fusing as if it were metal being welded together, the purest of rendered
substances alloying and coalescing until the edge of each form was blurred,
forging a sculpture unique unto itself.

The pair
climbed into bed and fell asleep, and then, upon waking, made love again.

And it was
during those sweet hours that
Compton
was able to finally
discern the tattoo that adorned X’s lower back, the image being that of two
crossed whips.

11.

That
morning, after waking,
Compton
and X showered
together and then dressed.
Compton
asked if he could
select X’s outfit from the ones that had been recently purchased and she
reluctantly agreed. One of the directors of the
Louvre
would be leading them on their tour,
Compton
told her, and the man
was aware that he had recently acquired many of X’s paintings. After being
shown her favorite outfits from her shopping excursion,
Compton
chose a scarf-lapel
jacket, silk scoop neck tee, and pleated straight-leg pants.
 

“Do you
like dressing me?” she asked, and he shook his head yes before telling her that
he much preferred undressing her.

Still nude,
he reclined on the bed and watched X as she dressed, watched as she put on her
panties and bra and then pulled the wool and silk over her body.
Compton
left her as she
finished her hair and put on her make-up. He went into the other bedroom where
he put on his own pants and dress shirt, adjusting his onyx cuff-links with
glassine manicured fingers. He slipped his feet into suede and deer leather
sneakers, footwear he had chosen because he knew he would be walking a fair
amount before his business meetings that afternoon.

X and
Compton rode together in back of the private car that the hotel had provided
for them, the driver and bodyguard sitting up front, chatting together about
sports and the weather.
Compton
used the time to talk
to Steinberg on his cell phone. He spoke in a low, reserved voice, one similar
to a physician with an excellent bedside manner, detached and professional,
diagnostic yet not alarming.

As he
spoke,
Compton
watched stock values
slide by on a screen next to him, watched the monitored vein through which
money coursed. With each rotation of data, the numbers changed with such speed
that they were not really numbers at all anymore, but commerce and capitalism
made living entity. They grew or shrank, their expansions and contractions
measured in milliseconds. Values shifted and
Compton
deciphered the meaning
of the changes, determined which transformations might need addressed in terms
of buying or selling. Predicting which of the entities would thrive and which
would perish was a skill that
Compton
had refined over the
years. There was logic to it, yes, but mostly, it was a kind of intuition, a
gift, and he accepted that this was the case.

As they
traveled the busy streets of
Paris
, X eavesdropping on
the conversation, it became clear to X that
Compton
’s time was scheduled
down to the second by Steinberg. Each day was a continuum of meetings and
agendas arranged by Steinberg and spearheaded by Compton, meetings which
focused almost exclusively on money (or capital as
Compton
referred to it), about
where to place it or how to remove it, on how to leverage it, on current asset
values and their liquidity.

When
Compton
hung up finally, X
asked him, “You just move around money, don’t you?”

He smiled,
his eyes twinkling at her understanding.

“Essentially.”

When they
arrived at the museum, X and Compton, the pair shadowed by the bodyguard, did
not enter through the famous pyramid. Instead, they went to a side door where
Compton
was greeted by a
uniformed guard who allowed them to enter the building. After the man had
radioed the director’s secretary to let her know that the expected guests had
arrived, the trio was told to please wait a few minutes and that the director
would be right with them.

A few
minutes later, one of the museum directors came to greet them. The older man
had the appearance of an old fumbling professor—the man’s tie was slightly
askew and his white hair sat in whipped peaks atop his freckled head. The
Englishman shook
Compton
’s hand and then
Compton
introduced X.

“It’s a
pleasure to meet you,” the director said as he shook her hand vigorously. “From
what I have heard, you have quite a career ahead of you.”

X, unsure
how to respond, simply smiled.

The man
started to walk, X thinking that at any minute he might topple over his own
feet and down onto the floor.

“Well,
we’ll start with the Greeks, then visit the French wing, and finish off with
the Italian Renaissance. There is so much to see, it could never be
accomplished in a few hours time.”
 

Tourists
streamed past them, and X, impeccably dressed and feeling for the first time in
her life that she did not fit in with the proletariat, the people whom she loved,
felt that somehow she had crossed the line of class and entered the realm of
the bourgeoisie, felt as if she had entered a time and space where she had
become robotic, distant, as if her movements were not controlled by her, but
instead by some alternate force. It was something other than the clothing and
special treatment that was making her feel like a marionette, she realized, but
she was unable to pinpoint the exact source. Like a word that almost comes to
one’s mind, the reason dangled just out of reach.

“We are
going to be restoring some of our paintings soon, paintings that were given to
the museum recently as a gift, and once the project is completed, some of the
paintings will be housed in Italian wing.”

The
director was aware that
Compton
would be making a
donation to the museum that day, aware because Steinberg had informed him weeks
ago. And
Compton
, carrying a neatly
folded check in the pocket of his shirt, a check made out to the museum for a
jaw-dropping amount (but ultimately mostly tax-deductible), was proud that this
piece of paper and its abstract numbers could elicit such a response, that it
could garner such respect. The professorial man recognized the power of
Compton
’s presence. The
director respected him in the same way that a dog respects that its master can
enter a grocery store as it waits in the car and somehow come out with a full
cart of food. There was a mystery behind the numbers, a power greater than
their sum.

They toured
through the different areas, X spending particular energy circling the Venus de
Milo, a sculpture that previously she had only seen in books, orbiting it and
noting its opposites, the way the statue’s head turned, the thrust of the hips,
the overall curve of it creating the shape of an
s
, balanced and beautiful.
 

As they
continued through the museum, X and Compton were aware that the works that they
saw were a representation of the history of society and culture, an illustrated
history. Quietly and reverently, they viewed the images of the goddess in her
many forms, from the crude fertility idols to the ethereal paintings of the
Italians.
 

X felt
promiscuous as they toured the building, believing that she should be devoting
more time to each work. She was ashamed to admit to herself that museums gave her
a greater feeling of peace and divinity than cathedrals. Compton, an atheist,
had come to terms with that feeling long ago, an epiphany which had prompted
him to begin his art collection.

They ended
their tour at the Mona Lisa. The painting was smaller than X had imagined. As X
looked at it, and then looked at
Compton
looking at it, she
wondered to herself if
Compton
was a Venus de Milo
man or a Mona Lisa man, and guessed to herself that he was the latter. He was
with her; certainly he was the latter.

Compton
gave his check to the man then, thanking him for
the guided tour. The director shook his hand again, telling them to return
whenever they liked, and wishing that their remaining time in
Paris
would be pleasant, a
remark which garnered
Compton
’s gentle and confident
smile.

12.

They spent
another hour in the museum. The bodyguard allowed a decent enough space between
them so that they were able to talk to one another without feeling intruded
upon. Even so, the pair did not say much to one another, often spending the
time looking at separate paintings or sculptures, periods of time in which the
bodyguard simply ignored X and stayed closest to Compton.

The
tourists were there as well, speaking softly to one another for the most part,
the children being told to keep their voices down and not to run around.

Finally,
Compton
said to X that his
meeting would be coming up soon. They better get going.

The car
took X back to the hotel. She said goodbye to Compton who stayed behind in the
car with the bodyguard. He told her that he would be back to the hotel room by
six o’clock
, and that he would arrange for them to eat dinner
in the limo. He handed her an envelope which he told her contained a gift
certificate for the hotel spa, said that he hoped that she would use it and
relax that afternoon while he was away.

She decided
to take him up on the offer and she went directly to the spa.

After
speaking with the receptionist, X was escorted into a dimly lit treatment room,
its walls papered in a similar golden tone to the cashmere blanket which
covered the massage table, a room so minimalist yet comfortable as to give the
same feeling of holiness that one might experience when entering a shrine.