At last they were alone, the table cleared except for a fresh pot of hot tea, and a plate of thin, rich, dark chocolate-covered peppermint-cream leaves, and a pedestal dish neatly piled with bunches of lightly carmelized white grapes. Rashid placed several chocolate leaves on a plate, then with the ornate silver grape scissors cut a small bunch of grapes and placed it decoratively on the plate. Then he rose from his chair and walked around the table to Tana Dabra, kissed her lightly on the head, and set the plate on the table in front of her. She reached up to touch his arm. A look of love flickered for a moment in her eyes. He avoided her hand discreetly. But she was aware that he had avoided it. Rashid had done that to provoke fear of loss in her so that she might realize how important he already was in her life, hoping that fear would spur her on to say yes, she loved him and wanted to be his wife. Returning to his chair, he placed several of the chocolate leaves on a plate in front of him. He put a leaf on his tongue and then drank
from the teacup, allowing the flavors to melt together. He ate several of the chocolates in that manner, never taking his eyes from Tana Dabra.
There should have been a kind of awkwardness about the silence between them across the table, but there wasn’t. That surprised him. He sensed at once that a magnificent silence was flowing through the veins of this most sensual and exotic woman, a silence such as he had rarely felt in any other living soul. He felt it extending to him, becoming as if another skin. And, instead of it oppressing him, he found it sexual and uplifting. It exuded a quality exciting yet peaceful. Mystery and intrigue, the ethereal, they inhabited the profound silence of Tana Dabra. And Rashid knew he would never let her go: She was already an essential part of his life.
The silence had no effect on Tana Dabra, although she was grateful for it. It afforded her the opportunity of staying close to Rashid and not having to explain her enormous attraction to this most beautiful yet menacing man. Not to him or to herself. She was still pained by his little ploy of not allowing her to make physical contact with him, pained and aware of how much more pain he could inflict upon her. Tana Dabra wished that she had been more experienced and worldly in the ways of love, if for no other reason than to get it right with Rashid. Pained or not, in spite of his less than admirable way of living and working, his life of the paid escort, she knew something important was going on between them. For the first time she was in love, at last.
She pondered, “Is this, then, what your life has been reduced to? That of a poseur for the world and its cameras, a black clothes hanger for haute couture? A sex object to be ogled, kept safely in the public eye to preserve you from political revenge by your own countrymen? The only man ever to love you for yourself, and want to marry you, a paid lover. How can I say, ‘Yes, I love you, Rashid,’ when I don’t even love myself or the life I’m leading? How can I say to a man I have just paid ten thousand dollars to make love to me for three days that something is very wrong? We
are
better than this. We
can
use our minds as well as our
bodies. We
can
rise above what and who we have become. But how, when I hardly understand what and who we are?” With his charismatic presence before her, and in the wake of the profound erotic ecstasy she was certain was shared by both of them, all those questions swiftly vanished. She was happy with him. They were happy. What could be the point of questioning what they had, or looking beyond the three days they were committed to?
She rose from her chair and took a small bunch of grapes from the pedestal dish and walked around to Rashid. He pushed his chair back and she slipped onto his lap. She fed him a grape, then herself one. The sweet carmelized glaze crunched between her teeth and then the succulent grape split and the taste was delicious. She plucked another for Rashid, placing it between his lips. When it vanished into his mouth, she stole a kiss from him.
“What shall we do today?” she asked, a lovely happy smile playing on her lips.
“Make love, have more sex, see Paris, talk to each other, make more love. Behave the way Parisians are supposed to, just as we have been doing since you picked me up at the airport. Appeal to you, does it?”
“Fine, just fine.” She plucked another grape and fed it to him, then whispered in his ear, “I can feel myself becoming more Parisian every moment.”
“Then say you love me.”
She threw her head back and gave her seductive, light-hearted laugh. Her eyes twinkled, and she said in a throaty whisper, “I love you.”
“Louder,” he demanded. She repeated the words louder, and again even louder, and threw her head back and gave him that same seductive laugh once more. He removed the bunch of grapes from her hand and placed them on the plate in front of him. Then he kissed both her hands and eased her off his lap, saying, “I knew it. I knew you loved me. Come on, I want all Paris to know it.” And, taking her by the hand, he started for the door. He hardly gave her time to get her jacket and her handbag. Once out of the suite, he pinned her against the wall in the corridor and
said, “I promise you the most wonderful wedding any woman ever had.” He kissed her passionately.
She placed a hand on his arm. “Did I say I would marry you? I said I loved you, and I do, and I don’t say that lightly. In fact, you’re the first man I have said that to. We have two more days together, and I don’t want to think beyond that. I want to live and enjoy every minute of these three days we agreed to have together. I don’t even know if a committed love is for me, whether I could be happy in a marriage. Let’s take it as it comes, and let it go if we have to let it go.”
“But you do love me?”
“Yes, I do, that’s what I told you.”
“Then you will marry me. You’ll see. I am as sure of that as I am of anything.” He gathered her up in his arms and he kissed her, pressing her to him until she went limp in his arms, dropping her handbag, the black-and-mocha-checked linen jacket slipping off her shoulders.
Rashid retrieved her bag for her and, giving her barely time to recover, helped her on with her jacket and pulled her along by the hand. He laughingly turned around and said. “That old, beat-up cliché, ‘There’s no fool like an old fool,’ is getting to me. I feel almost as young as you are, younger even. You’re good for me, Tana Dabra, my Sheba.”
At last he slowed down to her pace and, with his arm through hers, they walked down the stairs and into the lobby of the Ritz. The concierge greeted Rashid effusively. The manager saw him and the two men shook hands. He snapped his fingers and, from nowhere, the housekeeper materialized. Rashid exchanged greetings with her while the manager asked, “I had heard that you were a guest, sir. I hope all is to your satisfaction? May I offer you a boutonniere?” and the housekeeper held up a tiny exquisite white gardenia, which she pinned to his lapel. “And for the lady, if it pleases her?” Tana Dabra accepted a small bunch of white violets and allowed the housekeeper to pin it to her jacket.
Tana Dabra watched the obvious fuss that was being made over Rashid, and she was both puzzled and amused.
She thought he was behaving more like a spoiled and pampered VIP than a handsome gigolo whose room was being paid for by a woman, in this case herself who was more then eclipsed by her escort. Several guests turned to watch the couple as they walked toward the door. Suddenly Tana Dabra felt vulnerable to the eyes of strangers, one of the things she could not get used to and enjoyed least in her new role as a celebrity mannequin.
“A telephone,” Rashid suddenly said. “I must get to a telephone for just a few minutes.” The manager offered to have one brought for him. Or would he graciously use the manager’s office? Rashid chose a settee in a secluded corner in the lobby, and he and Tana sat down.
“Do you mind?” he asked, kissing her hand which he seemed determined not to let go of.
“No, of course not. You’re not my prisoner, you know. Just my lover. You seem very well known here, Rashid. Do you often stay at this hotel?”
“Sometimes. Yes, I suppose I do use the Ritz often.”
“Where else do your ladies keep you, Rashid?”
“In bed. Mostly in bed. The way you do,” he teased, and then laughed. He felt her bristle.
“Jealous of those other women?” he asked. “You needn’t be. I never asked one of them to marry me.”
Before she could answer, the telephone was brought to them. Rashid made his first call.
“How is she?”
Tana Dabra watched the change in his expression while he listened to the person on the end of the line.
“Why are you letting her suffer like that? All these hours in labor, she must be exhausted. The terrible pain. Can I speak to her. I am desolated not to be able to be with her.”
There was a long pause, and then his face lit up. “My darling, what can I do to make this birth easier for you? I wish I could bear the pain for you. I wish I could hold you in my arms, caress your breasts and kiss you, and make love to you, ease your pain with ecstasy.”
Tana Dabra was shocked by what she heard. He was seducing a woman in labor, and with such panache that she herself was beginning to feel aroused. She tried to pull
away from him. He held her tight by the wrist. For several erotic minutes he continued his telephonic seduction. She blocked everything she was hearing from her mind and, forced to sit where she was, seethed with anger for having been taken in by her lover, for believing that he loved her.
He replaced the receiver in its cradle and sat quietly for a few seconds. When he turned back to Tana Dabra, she saw a sadness in his eyes. “It’s not my baby. She’s not my wife. But she is an important woman in my life, and always will be. You’ll have to learn to live with that. There are others. There will always be others, monogamy is not possible for me. But I don’t believe it is for you either. I never thought marriage was for me until I met you. It never ever occurred to me to marry any of them. They know that. And now so do you. Did you hear her begin to scream? I find even her pain of giving birth erotic. I wanted so much to share this birth with her. She wouldn’t have it, and I can understand why. I made love to her all through her pregnancy and found it thrilling. So did she, and so will we when you are carrying our baby. Why do you look askance?”
“You were sexually seducing a woman in labor without realizing it was natural to you, a part of your whole being. Being a whore comes naturally to you, and you will never give up wanting to seduce.”
“That’s very astute of you, Tana Dabra. Except for one thing. It is being a libertine that is second nature to me, and the most important thing in my life. A libertine, dear, not a whore or a gigolo. I don’t believe you have that quite worked out yet. You show me a man or a woman of any age who wants to surrender the urge to seduce, and I’ll show you a dead person. The act of seduction is something I enjoy, whether it comes to anything or not. I had my first sexual experience at the age of ten, and it left me hungry for more, for women of all types, and it made me the libertine who is sitting here with you now, who is not afraid to tell you that I am grateful — and so should you be — that I am what I am. One more phone call, and we’re off to conquer Paris.”
With that he drew her hand to his lips and kissed her
fingers. Then he quickly grazed her cheek with his lips and whispered, “It won’t be easy, our life together, but it will always be new and fresh and an adventure, and we will build something wonderful out of our years together. Just you wait and see. My God, I can hardly believe my own words. Destiny has caught up with us, Tana Dabra. I pray to God we’re strong enough to ride it out together.”
Oh, he was marvelous, thought Tana Dabra. Worth every penny. To live and make love, to enter the world of sexual ravishment and depravity with. And to have him throw in romance, for three days, as well. A woman’s dream, a fantasy come true. The gods must be blessing her for wantonness and protecting her. Otherwise she might have met a man like Rashid and not seen him for what he was, and not paid him for her weakness. If he were not a middle-aged gigolo, she might fall in love with him and give herself hope for the open-ended future he had sketched for them. Where would she be then? Brokenhearted, and at the mercy of his whims and fancies. Never. Three days would do just fine for her, thank you.
“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I know I am strong enough for anything with you.” Then they both smiled at each other, and he dialed a telephone number.
“
Bonjour. Monsieur Orloffsky, s’il vous plaît
.” Then he switched into English. “Serge, it’s Rashid. Are we all set?” There was a pause in the conversation, and then Rashid spoke again. “Do you think it’s possible to bring our schedule forward to sometime this evening?” Another pause, then Rashid spoke again. “That’s just fine. Great. I assume you will be waiting in the usual place. Thanks, Serge.” After Rashid hung up, he turned to Tana Dabra, excitement and pleasure shining in his eyes.
“A surprise for you, for us.”
“Rashid, that’s sweet of you, but one of the reasons that I hired you was to escort me to a black-tie affair this evening. We don’t have to stay long, but we do have to make a spectacular entrance. I don’t want to go, but I must.”
“It’s a long time to this evening. Let’s just see how our
day goes.” Before she could say anything more, he had her on her feet and across the Ritz lobby.
At the entrance of the hotel, two chic French women greeted Rashid, and he introduced them to Tana Dabra. Then, for the first time, Tana Dabra wanted to know more about this man she had picked up. They were far from the sort of women who would ever know a gigolo, no matter how chic, successful, and discreet he might be.
She was relieved when she and Rashid glanced only briefly in Cartier’s and Van Cleef & Arpels’ windows, and Rashid made no attempt to enter the shops. She was not surprised when both doormen greeted Rashid but then, a few minutes later, was puzzled when he left her on the pavement to dash back and have a word with one of them.
When he returned to her, all he said was, “Just checking on closing time. If they are still open when we return, I might buy you a bauble. I like buying jewels for the women in my life.”