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  Josephine leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you want?”

  “I’m writing a book. About my life.”

  “Autobiography of a whore. Should fly off the shelves.”

  The woman shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe. Maybe not. I just thought you should know that Ras will be in the book.”

  “And we will sue you.”

  “You can’t sue me. I’m not telling lies.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Josephine said, standing up and putting her hands behind her back. “You came to my office this morning pretending to be a client so that you could let me know that you are writing a book about your pathetic, disgusting life as a whore. And that you will be talking about my life in this book of yours?”

  “That is correct.”

  Josephine put her palms down on her desk and stared Cleo down. “I don’t think you want to do that.”

  “I didn’t come here for permission.”

  “How much do you want?”

  The woman shook her head. “I’ve never loved any man before in my life. I’ve fucked half of the rappers on the East Coast. Never felt a thing. For anyone.”

  Josephine stared at Cleo.

  “But I love Ras,” Cleo said. “And he loves me too,” Cleo said. “He told me.”

  Tears began to stream down Josephine’s face. But her expression didn’t change.

  “I want him,” Cleo said, closing her eyes tight. “I want him for myself. I can’t even explain how deep it is. It’s like—”

  “What. Do. You. Want,” Josephine asked through clenched teeth.

  “He won’t leave you,” Cleo said. “So I need to get my shit together. I’m cleaning out my closets, purging my demons. Getting a fresh start on my life. I’m starting by telling my story.”

  Josephine thought about the .38 pistol in her top drawer. Sometimes when she had nothing to do in the office, she took it out and pointed it at the door, pretending an attacker had somehow made his way inside. The coolness of the frame always felt foreign in her hand for the first minute. But then, as her hand warmed the weapon, she would get used to it. Ras had taught her to shoot at the Tenafly Rifle and Pistol Club, just a few miles from their home in Saddle River. She always wondered if she’d really be able to pull the trigger and shoot someone if she had to. As she looked at the woman in the chair across from her desk, she knew she could and would absolutely blow Cleo’s head off her shoulders if she thought she could get away with it.

  “So you want to punish Ras because he won’t leave me for you,” Josephine said.

  Cleo shuddered. “Absolutely not. I want him to be happy. If he wants to be with you, so be it.”

  “I had a miscarriage,” Josephine said.

  “He told me.”

  “I was knocked out on painkillers while you were fucking my husband in my backyard.”

  Cleo was silent.

  “And these are the kinds of things you want to write about. This is how you want to purge yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t want money.”

  “No.”

  “You just want to embarrass him. And me.”

  “That’s not my goal …”

  “I think you just want some attention. That’s what you want.”

  Cleo raised an eyebrow but didn’t speak. Josephine pointed at her.

  “You have no man, no children, no love in your life. So you want to bring everyone down with you. My husband used you like a handkerchief. Blew his snot into you and disposed of you. And now you want him to pay. Well, fuck you, little girl. Fuck you. There. Is that enough attention for you?”

  The buzzer rang and Josephine pressed the button without taking her eyes off Cleo. “Yes, Mali,” she said into the speaker.

  “I have Dylan on the line for you.”

  “I’ll have to call her back.”

  “She said it’s an emergency. About Mr. Bennett’s schedule.”

  “I’ll call her back.”

  Josephine released the button then said to Cleo, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Josephine, I just want you to know that with Ras, it was different.”

  “Different than what exactly?”

  “I can’t explain it. But we have this connection …”

  Josephine rolled her eyes.

  Cleo stood up and brushed off the back of her skirt. “I’m going to go,” she said.

  “Don’t you ever, ever come near me or my husband again.”

  “I can’t promise you that, Josephine. If Ras calls me, I will go to wherever he tells me to. You should get all your promises from your husband.”

  Cleo turned her back to Josephine and put a hand on the door. “I apologize for any inconvenience.”

  “Are you making the rounds with all the wives?” Josephine asked.

  “No. I don’t care about any of them. But I want Ras to know what’s coming. He’s the one who told me I should write my story down.”

  “Did he really?”

  “Yes, when we were in France.”

  “You went to France with my husband?”

  “He took me to Peau de Ville. It’s very beautiful there. I told him everything about my life. Everything. And he hugged me tight and told me I could redeem myself. He gave me permission to tell my story and start over. I don’t think Ras really believes I’m going to do this. So I needed to tell you myself.”

  “Did you say he took you to Peau de Ville?” Josephine asked, her voice a whisper.

  “Last spring,” said Cleo. “You were in Bruges.”

  “He told me he was doing a food drive in the capital.”

  “He was. I helped him. But after, we went out to Peau de Ville.”

  “Where’d you stay?”

  “La Chambre de L’amour.”

  “I see,” Josephine said.

  “I better go.”

  “Why?” Josephine whispered. “Why you?”

  “I don’t know,” Cleo said. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Cleo left the office, closing the door softly behind her. As soon as the outer door clicked, Mali’s face popped in Josephine’s doorway.

  “I heard everything,” Mali said, one hand on her chest. “Should I call the police?”

  Josephine shook her head from side to side.

  “But she pretended to be someone else to gain access to you,” Mali said. “That’s a crime.”

  “No, Mali. We’re not calling the police. We’re calling my husband. Tell him to meet me at home. Now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  WHEN JOSEPHINE WAS A FRESHMAN AT NYU, SHE LIVED UPSTAIRS FROM a boy named Joseph McCallister, a white boy from Closter, New Jersey, who’d never gone to school with anyone but white folks. The night before the first day of classes, he invited her and her roommate, Luciana, down to his room for beers. Joseph had one too many beers. He tried to grab Luciana and pull her in for a wet and sloppy kiss on the mouth. Josephine grabbed Luciana, smacked Joseph away from her, and hauled ass out of his room.

  “Fine. Get out,” Joseph screamed, his lips twisted in an ugly sneer. “Fuck both of you. You ugly nigger bitches!”

  Josephine and Luciana had frozen in place, their jaws slack. Josephine had been unable to speak. The only sound that came out of her mouth was a gurgle, a soft sputter that sounded like she was choking.

  And as Mali closed the door behind her, Josephine felt herself once again struggling to speak. The enormity of the visit from Cleo hit her all at once. It was like when your plane lands and speeds down the runway and in that moment you realize how fast you were going in the sky.

  All she could do was sputter, like she did that night in Joseph’s room, as she imagined her husband, the only man she’d ever loved, sleeping with a random woman in her father’s hometown, in the very hotel where they had spent their wedding night.

  CLEO GOT OUT OF THE TUB AND RUBBED HER BODY DOWN WITH BABY oil from her shoulders to her toes.
In a clockwise pattern, she made slow circles with her hand, massaging the oil into her skin. Every minute or so, she would stop and refill her palm with oil, close her eyes, and return to her body. She took slow and steady breaths.

  “Fuck you doing in there?”

  The man’s voice made her jump. She’d almost forgotten she hadn’t come to this hotel alone. For five minutes her mind had allowed her to believe she was on vacation—Cleo went to the door, pulled it open a half inch, and brought her face close to the small opening.

  “Be out in two seconds,” she whispered.

  Before she could close the door, he was there, ripping open the door and grabbing her wrist.

  “Fuck that,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Come. Now.”

  He was naked. Cleo didn’t like that. She liked to undress her men. It was a powerful feeling to reduce them from construction boots and stiff jeans to a caramel or vanilla cream or plum purple body, vulnerable and nude before her. But he had undressed himself. His penis was flaccid and swinging between his legs as he half dragged her to the bed.

  “Baby, slow down, take your time.”

  He glared at Cleo for three seconds and then let go of her hand. He picked up a crack pipe from the bedside table, lit it, and inhaled deeply. Cleo discreetly covered her mouth and nose with one hand. She could take the smell of just about anything—except crack smoke. It made her stomach do somersaults. She rolled her eyes. Who did crack anymore, anyway? Even Bobby Brown had only smoked weed all three times she’d slept with him.

  The man inhaled again, shuddered, and dropped the pipe. Then he pushed her down into a seated position on the bed. He put one hand on the top of her head and with the other he held his penis and began to rub it across her lips.

  Cleo didn’t like his smell, musky and sweet, like the Obsession cologne her high school boyfriend used to wear. Ras always smelled like freshly laundered T-shirts hung out on a line to dry. She tried to pretend this man was Ras.

  “Why don’t we just take our—”

  He stuffed his penis inside Cleo’s mouth until she gagged. She rolled her eyes, though it was dark enough that he couldn’t see, and forced herself up.

  “Lie down,” she said, pushing his shoulders until he was on his back.

  She was familiar with his type. They wanted to just fuck her and kick her out. And although they wanted to do it right away, their bodies wouldn’t always cooperate. He couldn’t get hard for the same reason she couldn’t get wet: he needed to be turned on. Most men felt it was a sign of weakness or a lack of virility if they couldn’t get it up immediately. But Cleo knew different. Some men, like Ras, were sensitive and needed affection. Even from jump-offs.

  “You are beautiful,” Cleo said, before kissing his nipples and then his belly. She looked up at him. He was still glowering at her. He wanted to hate her. But he didn’t. And they both knew that. He tried to push her head down between his legs with his hand again but Cleo pushed his hand away and then held it down.

  “Don’t do that,” she spat. “I’m not a blow-up doll.”

  He relaxed, putting his hands behind his thick, bushy afro and closing his eyes, waiting. Cleo bent down between his legs and took him into her mouth. He started to groan and shifted his buttocks, trying to manipulate himself deeper into her mouth.

  As soon as he started to pant rhythmically, Cleo quickly nudged his legs apart, took him out of her mouth, and slipped lower, putting her tongue inside him.

  “What the fuck you doing!” he yelled, reaching out to stop her and trying to scramble higher up in the bed to escape her.

  Cleo held his arms fast and licked faster, until his protests became a slow, furtive whine.

  “Aw sheeeeeiiiiit,” he moaned. He spread his legs wider and allowed Cleo to cup her hands under his buttocks.

  “Say you like it,” Cleo said, using one finger, and then two, instead of her tongue. “Say you like that shit, nasty motherfucker.”

  “I like that shit, I like that shit, I like that shit,” he sputtered, one hand covering his face in shame.

  Cleo climbed on top of him, keeping her fingers inside him.

  “I know you do,” she said. She bent down and kissed him on the mouth. He arched his back and legs up in the air to keep her fingers in the forbidden place. Cleo pulled out of him abruptly and scrambled to position her lower body over his mouth.

  “Eat me,” she said, lowering herself down to his waiting tongue. He began to lick her.

  Cleo planted both feet on either side of his head and leaned over to grab the headboard. She turned to look behind her. On the table a few feet across from her, there was an alarm clock radio facing both of them. She saw the tiny red light and smiled for the camera hidden inside the radio, then turned back to her lover and continued grinding her hips on top of his face.

  CLEO STIRRED HER COFFEE SLOWLY, TOOK A SIP, WINCED, AND ADDED another packet of Splenda. She stirred, sipped, and winced until she got the flavor just right.

  “Nothing like a hot cup of coffee,” she said to Alex, before breaking into a wide smile.

  “You still haven’t told me why you’re writing this book,” Alex said.

  “Because I want to. And because I can.”

  “Is that a reason to ruin marriages?”

  Cleo laughed. “Who’s ruining marriages? Me? I did not steal anyone’s husband. They all came willingly.”

  Alex looked down into her coffee cup. “So you don’t take any responsibility for your role in any of this?”

  “You’re not writing a story on me for Vibe. You’re ghostwriting my book. Why are you giving me the third degree?”

  “I can’t ask your motivation?”

  “You can. But you can’t be judgmental about it.”

  “How will you prove any of your stories? Everyone you talk about is going to want to sue you.”

  Cleo smiled and took her laptop out of an oversized leather carryall. She turned it around so that the back of the monitor faced the restaurant and both she and Alex could see the screen. She looked behind her before she turned on her computer. She clicked on a file on her desktop and a screen popped up. She was naked, her back to the camera, on top of a brown-skinned man.

  “Holy shit!” Alex said, covering her face with one hand and then peeking through her fingers. “Is that—”

  “Yes, it is. He likes it up the ass. Started with fingers. Within a week, he let me put vibrators and dildos up there.”

  Alex wiped her brow and sat back in her seat so that she couldn’t see the monitor.

  “That can’t be legal. Did he know you were taping him?”

  “Yes. He likes to be taped. And he likes to watch afterward.”

  Alex let out a long, low whistle. “And you’re using real names in this book.”

  “I’m sparing a few. But yeah, real names.”

  Alex’s face was lined. She put her fingers on her temples and rubbed them slowly. “You really want to do this?”

  “Yes.”

  “I just wish I could understand why.”

  “There was only one I wanted for myself,” Cleo said. “The rest of them were just for fun. I only wanted one to claim me.”

  “And he won’t.”

  “He can’t.”

  “So now everyone has to pay.”

  “No, now I need a paycheck so I can move on.”

  “Do you consider yourself a prostitute?” Alex asked.

  “Sure, if you want to call me that.”

  “Do you get money for sex?”

  “It’s never that simple.”

  “But your relationships with rappers, producers, executives—it’s been profitable for you.”

  “It’s been profitable for all involved.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m a benchmark. Like going platinum.”

  Alex rubbed the back of her neck. “I feel weird about this.”

  Cleo sucked her teeth and pulled a magazine out of her bag. “Did you write this story?” she asked, hol
ding up a glossy magazine with a close-up shot of Mariah Carey on the cover.

  “I did,” Alex said. “So what?”

  “She’d never really talked about her marriage to Tommy Mottola before this story. You got her to talk about it. It was a big deal.”

  “It was a juicy story. But it didn’t ruin anyone’s marriage.”

  “How do you know who was affected by it? Your job was to get Mariah’s story across. Did you talk to Tommy Mottola?”

  “There’s no way I could have—”

  “Did you even reach out to his people? His new wife?”

  “No.”

  “No, you didn’t. You had your own agenda. So did Mariah. You got a story that got picked up by all the blogs and I’m sure your editor was thrilled. Yes?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “So save your moral-high-road shit. You’re getting twenty percent of the royalties on this book. And I promise you it will put your children and maybe your grandchildren through college.”

  “I don’t work just for the money.”

  “Is Alex your real name?”

  “Alexandria. But I write under the name Alex. Why? Is Cleo your real name?”

  “No. It’s Patricia. But I fuck under the name Cleo.”

  Alex rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Nice. Real nice.”

  “Let’s meet here tomorrow at ten,” said Cleo. “Bring your recorder.”

  BUNNY COULDN’T STOP TOUCHING THE BACK OF HER NECK. EVERY five seconds, her right hand flew up to her neck, caressing the exposed skin.

  Bunny’s stylist took two steps back and then circled the chair, looking at her client’s hair from every angle.

  “It’s hot, Bunny. It’s very, very short. But it’s hot.”

  “Gimme a mirror.”

  Mirror in hand, Bunny smiled slowly. For the first time since she had left Port Antonio, she felt free.

  “Did Robert say it was okay to cut your hair?”

  “No. He’s going to have a heart attack.” Bunny looked up at her stylist and grinned. “I can’t wait.”

  ALTHOUGH SHE HAD BEEN GIVEN KEYS TO THE SEVEN-BEDROOM MANSION in Greenwich, Bunny never used them. She always knocked on the door and waited for someone to let her in. Every time, Robert and his wife, Sal, would shake their heads and say, “Bunny, you live here. Use your key!”