The Glimpsing (2 page)

The closet door stood open just a foot or so, allowing only a small glimpse of the luxurious bedroom outside.  The half portion of an ebony bed jutted into view from the right, a small bookcase stood on the left.  At the center was a large and very elegant vanity, topped with a massive oval mirror.  Cosmetics and pricey perfume bottles bedecked the vanity’s surface.  They gleamed brightly in the warm amber lamplight flooding the bedroom.

Portia slowly strolled into view, passing in front of the bed.  She was wearing an elegant black dress with high heels that knocked pointedly against the hardwood floor.  She was tall (5’ 10” according to most listings), but her delicate features seemed borrowed from someone far more petite.  Her complexion was creamy, smooth, and she had wavy golden hair that spilled well beyond her shoulders. 
Although now thirty years of age, her youthful characteristics seemed to belie that fact.
  She might easily have passed for a woman a full decade younger.

Despite her accomplishments and fame, Portia was strangely superstitious, especially concerning her bedroom.  Never did she allow anyone inside, whether that be acquaintances, relatives, or significant others.  Not even Gabrielle, her best friend since the age of eight, had ever seen it.  And Portia was even more guarded about the closet door.  Never once did she permit it to close, because doing so signaled death, not her own of course, but someone else’s, and this peculiar superstition always proved true.

She moved off to the vanity and sat down on its plush stool.  She reached for a small cloth, looked into the mirror, and began to dab away her lipstick.  But soon the dabbing slowed, and a dawning blankness settled onto her face.  She gazed at her own reflection, and then, in some strange way, far beyond it.  Once more, she remembered.  Once more, she thought of Jack Parke.

She had not laid eyes on him for almost two full months, since the day he had so coldly and cruelly ended their relationship.  He’d said things to her she never thought him capable of, and although she tried to be strong, she broke right there in front of him.  A single tear streamed from her eye.  It simply hurt too much to see the man she was falling in love with, suddenly seem as foreign as a perfect stranger.

Of course, she understood full well why he was bringing things to an end; this was a well-worn path, tread by a number of other men.  But what she could not understand was why he seemed to be enjoying it so much.

She had never taken breakups very well, but this one had managed to summon a level of pain not felt since she was eighteen, since the days of Collin Freely, the first and only man she ever loved.  And just as in those days, the departure of Jack Parke had sent her into a soft spiral of depression.  She had lost almost ten pounds.  Eating had become a mere afterthought, an act engaged in only to keep Gabrielle from bringing up her increasingly gaunt appearance.  Phone calls were rarely answered, and messages never returned.  She spent most of her time locked in the bedroom, staring into the vanity’s mirror, sometimes for hours on end, as if into some black, bottomless tarn.

However, unlike those days with Collin, she had recently begun to feel better.  In this case, time was enough to heal the wound.  In fact, tonight she had just returned from having dinner with friends, the first time she had ventured beyond her front door in weeks.  She supposed that her ability to recover so quickly had to do with the fact that Jack was nothing like Collin.  While true that Jack had ended their relationship for the very same reason Collin had, there was one important difference.  Jack had been faithful to her, and that meant more to Portia than life itself.

A cell phone chimed, rousing Portia from her haze.  She became aware of her reflection again.  Another tear had streamed down her cheek.  

The cell phone chimed again.

Portia stood and walked off, disappearing beyond view.  It was approaching midnight, a very unusual time for a call.

She answered with a cautious “Hello”.   She soon brightened, however, immediately recognizing the voice.

There was an exchange of pleasantries, a brief spat of small talk, and then a long stint of silence.  That was finally broken by the slow, methodical knock of Portia’s heels against the floor.  When she finally spoke again, her tone had become coarse.  She questioned the caller repeatedly, doggedly.  Sometimes she argued, almost desperately, but after another five minutes of conversation, she seemed to give in, and became contrite.  

An apology followed.  She promised to call the person back the next day, and then hung up.

From within the closet, the bedroom outside seemed to take on an unsettling stillness, perfect and unmoving, like a picture.  Then a loud noise erupted.  Something heavy had been tipped to the floor.  A large dresser went sliding past the closet opening, coming to a stop only when it crashed into a wall beyond view.  A lamp smashed against the wall above the vanity, its bulb popping loudly.

It became silent again… and then Portia reemerged into view.  In her right hand, she held a long and silvery stiletto knife.  She was clenching and unclenching it repeatedly.

She moved toward the vanity with deliberate slowness, and eased herself onto the stool.  Once more she considered her own reflection.  The tear had completely evaporated. 
The sanity as well.
  An inner rage had left her chest bruised and splotchy.

Her eyes dropped to the vanity’s tabletop.  Quite suddenly, she swung her hand wildly, sending the perfume bottles crashing to the floor.  She then dropped the point of the stiletto to the vanity’s wood.  She began to carve, the wood issuing a rough, gravelly moan as three jagged letters were etched there.

She stared at them with wicked affection, the shadow of a smile brushing onto her face.   Then, with sudden and disturbing violence, she slammed the stiletto into vanity’s surface.  It plunged in to the thick wood all the way to the hilt, neatly dissecting the centermost letter.  She then relinquished the blade and stood.  

She approached the closet, putting a hand to the knob and pulling the door fully open.  She stepped forward and removed a painting hanging from the wall inside.  She beheld its canvas, peering at the image of the woman painted there.  She then backed out.   

Grasping the door by its edge, she stood there for a timeless moment.  She recalled the vile superstition haunting the door… then violently hurled it shut. 

Jack Parke was lying in bed on his side, gazing deep into the face of the woman sleeping quietly beside him. The soft moonlight seeping in through the windows illumined one side of her face, casting its pale hue on her long brown hair and the rise of her shoulders.

He was doing his best to suppress it, but he was being overcome with an inexplicable urge to reach up and caress her.
 
He thought that odd.
 
Very odd.
 
Such urges rarely seized him, especially after intimacy, and even when they did, he’d easily snuff them out long before they had a chance to germinate and grow.
 
But not this time.
 
Strangely, the urge was not only persistent, but insistent.

He brought his hand up and, as carefully as he could, smoothed back the hair curling along her cheek.
 
He then let it rest there.
 
She was soft and very warm.
 
He waited to see if she would be roused from sleep, but she did not move.
 
Slowly, very gently, he began to caress her.
 
He kept eyeing her face, ready to yank his hand away at the first sign she might be stirring.
 
She did not.

His hand kept moving, gliding over the woman’s dark and supple skin.
 
He was keenly aware that he should stop this foolishness, but he was no longer certain that he could—or that he even wanted to.
 
With every stroke, a perplexing bliss seemed to radiate more brightly within him.
 
For the first time in his thirty-eight years of life, Jack actually felt like he was encountering something bigger than he was.

And perhaps that was why he failed to see that one of the woman’s eyes had slipped open.

She watched him, at first in drowsy confusion, and then, when she realized what he was doing, with utter astonishment.
 
She had longed to see a moment like this, a day when the hard shell softened and the soul inside bared itself.
 
A part of her had always feared what she might find, but looking deep into those startling blue eyes, what she thought she saw there—could in some way almost feel with every pass of his hand—made her almost tearful with joy.

Then she saw his eyes cut toward her own, and the hand abruptly stopped.
 
Surprise suddenly marked his face.
 
He had realized she was awake.

He watched dumbly as the woman’s lips thinned to a pretty smile.
 
He made a clumsy attempt to pull his hand away, but she quickly reached up and clasped it in her own.
 
She gave the hand a soft kiss, cradled it in her bosom, and, clearly contented, closed her eyes once more.

Jack cursed inwardly.
 
What the hell had gotten into him?
 
What was it, the excitement of the party?
 
Fatigue?
 
Stress?
 
He lay there brooding for several minutes more.
 
When the woman’s breathing had returned to the steady rhythm of sleep, he slowly eased his hand from between her breasts.
 
He rolled over and gazed at the answering machine on the end table.
 
1:05am.
 
Then
he noticed the mostly empty bottle of wine sitting nearby—and a fitting explanation for his blunder.
 
Too much wine, he thought.
 
Just too much damned wine.

He slipped from bed and moved through the bedroom, pawing murky objects in search of his robe.
 
He found it slumped haphazardly over a chair and put it on.
 
He stepped into a pair of slippers.

He was about to depart when he heard the woman rustling behind him.
 
He looked up, catching her reflection in a large mirror mounted high on the wall opposite the bed.
 
She was groggily rolling onto her stomach.
 
Some of the covers had pulled away, offering him the teasing burlesque of a nude back and the length of a leg.
 
He stared at her, baffled.

Jack Parke was owner of the top modeling agency in the world.
 
It was his company, Parke
Studios, that
represented no less than six of the world’s top ten supermodels.
 
Three of those Jack had discovered himself: one while having lunch at a market in Napoli, the other in a New York subway station, and the third on a crowded hospital elevator while visiting a sick friend in Rome.
 
Because of this propensity for discovering gorgeous women, the industry now referred to him as the “Man with the golden eyes.”

To some, however, particularly those who worked for the gossip rags, Jack’s eyes were not the only golden part of his anatomy.
 
Rumors were rampant that he had bedded most, if not all of the models he signed.
 
Both the Enquirer and Globe, every three to four months, found it profitable to run feature stories detailing his libidinous doings.
 
Most of these tales were stretched to the point of absurdity, but that did not mean they lacked a morsel of truth.
 
No, Jack did not make it a point to sleep with every model he signed, but neither was he immune from occasionally sampling one of them.

In most cases, his dealings with signees never went beyond a handshake and a business contract.
 
To those, he showed no signs of being anything more than the consummate professional: kind, courteous, and at all times brutally honest.
 
This tendency had far less to do with some deep-rooted ethical drive within him, and far more to do with his excessive tastes in beautiful women.
 
The average model simply could not attract him.
 
There had to be something unique about her appearance, something exotic or special; the elusive color of her eyes, or perhaps the seductive shape of her
lips.
 
Sometimes it was the alluring tone of a woman’s skin, or the gracefulness of her limbs.
 
But there always had to be something, some element that punctuated her appearance.
 
For Jack Parke, mere beauty simply wasn’t enough.

Jack Parke wasted little time bedding those he did find attractive.
 
But a serious relationship with the man was virtually impossible to attain.
 
Because for him, the appeal of those marvelous eyes, those seductive lips, those perfect limbs, was always short-lived.
 
The moment they lost their luster, Jack’s interest faded.

None of that, however, seemed to apply to the woman now occupying his bed.
 
She had no unique or defining physical traits, nothing that stood out enough to attract him.
 
Yes, she was beautiful, but not exceedingly so, at least not in his eyes.
 
More than that, she wasn’t even a model but an actress, and Jack despised actresses, self-serving prima donnas that they were.
 
And yet there she lay, sleeping soundlessly in his bed, perhaps the greatest anomaly of his entire life.

Why, he wondered?
 
What was it about her?
 
How was it true that even after two months his interest in her was actually growing, not fading as it had with all those who preceded her?
 
Clearly she possessed something he had never encountered in a woman, but he had no idea what that something was.
 
It puzzled him.
 
He thought about it frequently.
 
And all he could come away with was that she was different.
 
Not special.
 
Not unique.
 
Just
…
different.

He turned from the mirror and departed the bedroom.
 
He moved down the hallway toward a lavish bathroom on his right.
 
Reaching it, he turned and descended a long, elbowing staircase.
 
He went through the foyer and entered an elegant living room.
 
A few party streamers dotted the floor, which he angrily kicked aside, making his way to the center of an enormous bay window.

He stared meditatively out into the late-August night.
 
It was oddly quiet: no wind, no cars,
no
movement whatsoever.
 
Even the blue-black sky, which stretched above the silhouette of houses on the horizon, seemed strangely devoid of stars.
 
He wondered at the silence, the darkness, the remarkable stillness of it all.

He was startled when he saw the woman standing on the path outside his house.
 
Shadow and moonlight had leeched her skin of color, leaving behind only an eerie ashen hue.
 
She seemed to be staring up at him, brandishing a smile so ghoulish it made his skin crawl.

He squinted, taking note of the woman’s long blonde hair, her peculiarly youthful face, and the elegant black dress clinging to her tall but slight frame.
 
He relaxed a bit, now realizing who she was.
 
None other than Portia Childress.

Ordinarily, he would not have been surprised by Portia’s arrival, even at such a late hour.
 
A number of former lovers had made virtual fools of themselves with their surprise late-night showings.
 
They would arrive either drunk, or angry, or just lonely
and in need of Jack’s greatest gift: temporal comfort.
 
And whether drunk or angry or lonely, Jack would gladly oblige them for the night, promise to call the next day, and politely never see them again.

But this time it was Portia.
 
And this time it was different.

He and Portia had dated for four very long and torrid months—dating being her term, not his.
 
Undoubtedly, she had thought him the perfect gentleman: caring, considerate, and unusually romantic.
 
What she didn’t know was that the whole thing had been a ruse, a carefully conceived stratagem to get her in bed.

The ploy did not work, however, because he had so grossly underestimated one facet of the woman’s character.
 
Portia Childress, the renowned former supermodel, fantasy of literally millions of men, was something he could never have believed true.
 
Portia Childress was a virgin.

In the beginning he thought it was all just part of some sexy game, a hard tease meant to make the taking of the pearl that much more difficult, and, consequently, that much more pleasurable when it finally occurred.
 
The very notion that a woman of such extraordinary beauty could live on this planet for thirty years without ever once being touched, struck Jack as the height of absurdity.
 
She simply had to be lying, toying with him, teasing.
 
But after a full month, without event, without consummation, he realized the inexplicable truth.

He had remained undaunted, however.
 
He’d seen this before, the proverbial good-girl routine.
 
Such women, usually because of religion or upbringing, always made rigid claims about their commitments to chastity.
 
Without fail, however, through a campaign of slow but persistent seduction, he was able to prove just how flimsy such claims really were.

He had expected Portia to be no different, but the woman showed unusual tenacity.
 
Each time the heat rose and a hand roamed along a thigh or inched too close to a breast, she would push him away, sometimes standing and excusing herself.
 
Still, he loved the challenge.
 
He saw her virginity as a huge, wooden wall that he’d someday send crashing to the ground.
 
He soon found, however, that the wall was not wooden.
 
It was cast iron.

At some point he began to lose patience.
 
Although he was making some progress, it was coming in insultingly small increments.
 
Controlling himself was growing difficult, and he was becoming unruly during their so-called “kissing sessions.”
 
In the day, he found himself fantasizing about her (something he hadn’t done toward anyone since puberty), and at night he was plagued by a recurring, increasingly erotic dream.
 
Portia was now an obsession, an all-consuming vision that made his loins ache, tore at his mind, and made him more desperate than a penniless addict.