“You do. Good! Then it should mean something to you when I say I didn’t get where I am in life by misjudging people’s motivations. Their real motivations. The ones they don’t often admit to. What I’m trying to say, Emily, is that I only let you get this far for one reason. I’m just dying to know why you’re really here.”
Emily fights the urge to curse. Of course they let her get this far! A house this big, an owner this wealthy; she should have known she was being watched even if they hadn’t let on.
“I told you,” Jonathan says. “She was worried about me. That’s all. Now may we go? Please?”
“Enough, Michael.”
Jonathan’s entire body goes tense, from the hard ridges of his obliques to his sculpted arms, which are both bent now as his hands slowly form matching fists. He is not braced for an impact; he’s preparing a defensive strike on her behalf.
The guards bring their right hands to their holstered guns. Slowly, silently, but in almost perfect unison.
Even though he is outgunned and outmanned, and even though he is practically stark naked, Jonathan takes a single, threatening step toward his angry client. The older man’s eyes light up at the promise of a confrontation weighted in his favor.
The guards take another step.
“Stop!” Emily cries, and miraculously, everything does. She can’t have Jonathan getting hurt on her behalf, not after the way she’s handled this. There were other ways she could have tried to get the truth out of him, more honest, more direct ways.
But Dugas is right. Her reasons for being here are…complicated.
“You’re right. There’s another reason I’m here. It’s kind of a long story, but I’ll tell it to you…”
“If?”
“If you send the guards away. And if you let Jonathan leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Jonathan says. He’s staring right at her and there’s a trace of astonishment in his words, as if Emily is crazy to have suggested something as dangerous as being left alone with George Dugas.
“One out of two ain’t bad,” Dugas says. He dismisses the guards with a fluttering gesture, but the way he meets each of their looks in turn tells Emily they’ll remain just outside the doors. “Come now, Little Miss Emily. Let’s get you out of those wet clothes.”
2
When Dugas allows Jonathan to step into the small changing room with her, Emily realizes there must be no easy escape, no unguarded back door for them to slip through. Despite his sudden good cheer, George Dugas is a captor, not a host, and she will do well to remember this, she’s sure.
As Jonathan struggles to pry her rain slicker apart from her soaked blouse, they begin speaking in fierce whispers.
“I’m sorry,” she offers.
“You could have just asked me.”
“Would you have told me the truth?”
“Please! Like you would have stopped asking until I had. You’re always persistent once you start on something, Em. It’s getting you to start that’s the problem.”
“Really? Now? You’re going to do a psych eval of me right now?”
“Just speaking my mind. That’s all. I never said I was a psychologist.”
“No. You’re just a hooker.”
Jonathan reaches behind her with both arms. It takes her a second to realize he’s unclasping her bra. Her exposed nipples graze his bare chest, sending unexpected shivers of pleasure through her entire, freshly undressed body, then he draws the terrycloth robe up over her shoulders and fluffs its collar, their mouths inches apart suddenly. “The polite term is escort,” he whispers.
“Oh, yeah? Why? Courtesan has too many syllables?”
They’ve been half-naked in front of each other before, but not in such close quarters, and not in this context, with Jonathan’s statuesque body glistening and primed to deliver sexual gratification. Emily blames the evening’s mélange of fear and shock for her sudden arousal—that, and the unexpected touch of his hard flesh against her breasts.
“So what were you going to do?” Jonathan asks. “Take pictures of us? Blackmail me into telling you the truth?”
“I would never blackmail you. Come on!”
“Everything alright in there?” The short concrete-floored corridor between the pool area and the changing rooms amplifies Dugas’s voice, making them both jump.
“Yes!” Jonathan calls back. “We’ll be out in a second.”
“We could just run for it, right?” Emily whispers. “He’s not really going to shoot us, is he?”
As she steps out of her wet panties, Jonathan’s lips are pursed and he won’t look her in the eye, the same expression he always uses to avoid answering a direct question. Sure, she thinks. I should have just come right out and asked you. You would have told me everything.
“Jonathan…”
“Yes.”
“How dangerous is this guy?”
There’s fear in his eyes, and whatever he sees in her expression, it makes him brush several strands of soaked hair away from her forehead.
“Let’s not find out, okay?” he says, and before she can answer he’s guiding her out of the changing room by one hand.
“Comfy?” Dugas asks.
They are all siting in chairs that match the one Dugas has taken to like a king on his throne; large, rattan frames, plush cushions covered in painterly illustrations of jungle foliage. In a city that shimmers with heat for most of the year, Emily is curious to know why Dugas would want an indoor pool. Maybe his assignations with Jonathan are the least of what he gets up to within these walls, walls so white they almost mask the various wood detailing; crown moldings overhead, carved Doric columns running the pool’s length.
Emily has seen photographs of turn-of-the-century gymnasiums that look similar to her current surroundings. But the glittering tile mosaic above the deep end screams, I’m rich, just in case the mansion didn’t clue you in! His trident glistening in a powerful fist studded with jeweled rings, the great god Poseidon rises from frothing, turquoise waves. It takes her a minute to realize Poseidon’s face has been modeled after Dugas. Lord, she almost whispers.
“Can I get you something to drink?” their host asks politely.
“No, thank you,” Emily and Jonathan answer at the same time.
“What a pair you two make,” he says, grinning. “How long have you been friends?”
“Since…forever,” Jonathan answers.
Emily tries not to laugh. He looks comical now, sitting poised and upright in only his tight white briefs—My God, I knew he was big down there. But that bulge is—She silences her thoughts by clasping her palms between her knees and driving her knees together hard enough to send a little painful shiver up both arms.
“High school? Grade school?”
“Well, we attended—”
“Actually, Jonathan, I’d prefer it if Emily answered the questions from here on out.” Jonathan starts to apologize before he realizes the man has used his real name for the first time. “Come now,” Dugas continues when he sees their expressions. “A man with my resources? You didn’t think I’d do my homework? You wanted me as a regular client. I needed to make sure you could be trusted.”
“How much homework did you do?” Emily asks.
“Why do you ask?” Dugas says.
“Because maybe you already know who I am too.”
Dugas smiles. In their brief absence, one of the guards—or possibly some servant she hasn’t seen yet—brought him a mint julep in a tall, round glass. After a careful sip, he says, “And if I do, and I’m asking you anyway, what does that imply?”
“You’re trying to find out if I’m a liar.”
“Clever girl. Very clever girl you have here, Jonathan.”
“She’s not my girlf—”
Dugas silences him with a raised finger. “To answer your question, Miss Blaine—” He allows just the briefest pause to let his knowledge of her full name ripple through the vast room. “—I had Jonathan followed for sev
eral weeks after our first meeting. It was the only way to ensure he wasn’t in the employ of one of my rivals.”
“I see,” Emily whispers.
“So yes, I know full well that your name is Emily Blaine and that you both work for a charming little restaurant in the Quarter called Perry’s. You manage the front of the house, whereas Jonathan is the most sought after…waiter. I also know that when you prefer a nice meal for yourselves, you eat at Tableau on Jackson Square. Of course, every now and then Jonathan drags you Uptown for a meal at Gulfstream. But it takes some convincing. You just can’t see the point in eating seafood from a chain restaurant when you’ve both spent your entire lives living in what is arguably one of the great seafood capitals of the world.” To Jonathan, Dugas says, “I happen to agree with her on this point, by the way.”
“Followed us?” Emily says. “It sounds like you had us bugged.”
“My men can linger rather closely, but I do not bug anyone. I’m not the NSA. Now rest assured, Miss Blaine, I had no ill intentions with the information I gathered. I was simply protecting myself.”
“From what?” Emily asks.
“From those who would judge a man of my stature for enjoying the sight of youth and beauty in action.”
As these words leave the older man’s lips, his eyes return to Jonathan’s bare torso. Emily is suddenly aflame with a curiosity that feels like arousal. She wants to believe it’s some protective instinct, this sudden hunger to know every detail of what Jonathan and this man have done together. Would the information prove useful? Would it help her to negotiate some escape for them both?
Does George Dugas like to watch and nothing more? Is the same true for all of Jonathan’s clients?
She shifts in her seat, her robe brushing against her nipples. Her best friend freed her breasts as if it were a task as ordinary as closing a window on a cold night. In response, she’d peeled off her soaked underwear, but that had been more of a reflex. But why did Jonathan want her naked under the terrycloth?
What had Dugas just said? I like to watch youth and beauty in action…
He is not an unattractive man, their captor. It would take a pool house ten times larger to contain his ego, that’s for sure. But his patient, focused gaze has scanned her chest too many times since she sat down for her to believe he’s exclusively homosexual. Still, he’s made no leering, lecherous comments about what her robe barely conceals. Her breasts are large, but so are other parts of her, parts that make her fiercely insecure when she studies them in a mirror.
Maybe Jonathan just thought she’d make a more convincing case if she showed Dugas a little flesh. Or maybe—
“I also know”—Dugas is looking her in the eye—”your late father left the N.O.P.D. to become security director for one of the richest men in New Orleans. A man whose vast holdings make this place look like…how do you say it? A humble abode?”
“Arthur Benoit.”
“Yes. How is Arthur? Don’t know him very well, but we’ve had a few dealings over the years. He seems like a kind man.”
“He is. He’s a very kind man…” She is seized by a painful, overwhelming vision of the man in question, pale and wasting, shrouded in expensive, silken sheets that do nothing to protect him from the chills deep in his bones, bones that seem closer to the skin on each visit. Arthur Benoit. The man who rescued their family from bankruptcy after her dad was driven out of the N.O.P.D; the man who became her surrogate father after her own dad was fatally sideswiped by a drunk driver a few years before. “He’s dying,” Emily whispers.
“Oh, Em,” Jonathan says softly.
“I’m sorry to hear this,” Dugas says, and she believes him. “How long does he have?”
“Weeks, a month. They’re not sure. So you didn’t know this part?”
“No. Just that you met with him at his home earlier this week.” Dugas seems ashamed to admit this now. “It was after you met Jonathan for coffee so I just had them…” He flutters the fingers on one hand, as if the very revelations of the surveillance he’d used to frighten them just minutes earlier were now entirely irrelevant. He’s embarrassed, she realizes.
“I see,” Emily says. “So I guess you also don’t know he’s leaving me his entire fortune?”
3
Both men are startled into silence by Emily’s revelation. Jonathan stares at her slack-jawed. After a while, he manages to whisper her first name as if it were a prayer.
“My,” Dugas says. “That is quite a turn of events for a policeman’s daughter. I take it you’ve seen the will. That you’re confident this isn’t some deathbed delirium that’s filled you with false hope.”
“Lawyers were present. Papers were signed.”
“Well, then… Sounds official.”
“And he’s got no family left so I’m not sure who would contest it.”
“There’s no one at all? I find that hard to believe.”
Arthur’s rasping words return to her. I’m a man who has discovered some things too late, Emily. Far too late. Help me make amends while I still can.
“Well…there’s one, apparently.”
“Who?” Jonathan asks, so startled by the chain of revelations he’s forgotten his client’s demand he stay silent.
“Arthur has a son who ran away from home years ago, when he was nineteen,” Emily says. “His name is Ryan. Ryan Benoit. Arthur’s written him a letter and he wants me to find him and give it to him.”
“As a condition of leaving you his fortune?” Dugas asks.
“It’s not a condition. It’s a request. And given that he’s about to change my life forever, I’d say it’s the very least I can do.”
There is more bite in her tone than she’d intended, but Dugas seems more aroused by it than offended. “I see. Have you read this letter?” he asks.
“I have not. And I will not.”
“Well…that is impressive. Certainly more self-control than you exhibited this evening. So you have no idea why Ryan ran away, but you’re expected to somehow find him and bring him back?”
“I’m expected to give him the letter. The letter is supposed to bring him back. At least that’s what Arthur’s hoping for.”
“And Arthur has made no attempt to find his son before now?”
“No…I mean, yes. He has but…”
“But what?” Jonathan asks.
“Ryan ran away so long ago that every few years, Arthur has an age progression done on computer. Then he hires a private detective to go look for him. A few years ago, one of the detectives turned up what looked like a real lead. But at the time, Arthur didn’t want to pursue it. Now that he’s dying, he’s had a change of heart.”
“And the lead was?” Dugas asks.
“The P.I. said a man matching Ryan's general description was involved with some sort of…secret organization called The Desire Exchange.” Emily looks at Jonathan to gauge his reaction to these words. He’s nowhere near as startled as she’d hoped he’d be. “I’ve only heard that name one other time and it was from you. You just sort of mentioned it in passing so I thought if—”
“You thought what?” Jonathan asks sharply. “That I was a member of a secret sex cult?”
“I just thought you might know more about it than you were letting on. But you wouldn’t tell me unless—”
“—unless you caught me with a client and embarrassed it out of me?”
“Children,” Dugas says. “Please.”
“Emily. Come on! Some secret organization that helps millionaires live out their deepest sexual fantasies? It was somebody’s idea of a joke. I thought it was funny. That’s why I told you. It’s not real, for Christ’s sake.”
“It is not a joke,” George Dugas says quietly. His finality silences them both.
The man seems incapacitated all of a sudden. By shock? Memories? Emily can’t tell. If she hadn’t looked to Jonathan so quickly when she said those three shiver-inducing words, she might have picked up on the older man’s reaction before n
ow.
“And it’s very real,” Dugas whispers.
He rises to his feet, takes his drink in hand and strolls to the edge of the pool, as if it’s wavering blue surface were a window onto the past. “The latest age progression. Describe it to me.”
“He was about six feet tall when he ran away, so he should be around that now. Dirty blond—”
“Leave out the things he could have easily changed,” Dugas says.
“Okay…bright eyes that have a kind of slant to them that looks almost Eastern European. I guess they’d make him look kind of angry. Or amused, I’m not sure. Anyway, his facial features, they’re all proportional is what I’m trying to say. Especially his nose. He doesn’t have one of those big Roman noses that can dominate a guy’s face. Everything about him is more…classic. All-American.”
“Any birthmarks?” Dugas asks.
“Yes. A small strawberry-colored one right above his left collarbone.”
This concise description causes Dugas to straighten and suck in a deep breath, as if a wave of pleasure is coursing through his entire body.
“Oh my,” Dugas whispers. Then he takes a quick sip of his drink. “Oh, my my my.”
Jonathan breaks the silence. “Mr. Dugas, are you a…member of The Desire Exchange?”
“The Desire Exchange doesn’t have members. It’s not a club. It’s an experience.”
“An experience you’ve had, apparently,” Emily says.
The older man drains the last of his cocktail with several long swallows. The mint sprig catches on the remaining ice cubes as he drinks. Whatever it is, George Dugas has trouble remembering The Desire Exchange without the balm of whiskey and powdered sugar to soothe the hot fires of his lust.
“Have you seen Ryan Benoit?” Emily asks.
“How about I give you the chance to see him for yourself?” Dugas says. “For a price, of course. Several prices.”
When Dugas starts for Emily’s chair, Jonathan straightens, watching the man’s every move.