The Blue Room Vol. 7 Page 3

  She looks up at me in confusion. “What are you talking about? We didn't send anyone to Mr. S. tonight...”

  “Then who was the girl in his room?”

  Mrs. Walters stares at me. “He took...another girl to Blue Towers?”

  “Look, she had big bambi eyes. Dark hair. Maybe a 32C. About 5'8. She was new – I haven't seen her around before.”

  “We haven't done an intake lately,” Mrs. Walters says. “We haven't had a new girl come here to register since...you know.”

  I say nothing.

  “I can't think who this girl could be,” says Mrs. Walters.

  “She's not here?”

  “No,” she says. “Nobody has come.”

  This is getting strange. This mysterious woman – come from nowhere, vanishing into the night – with the big doe-eyes and the innocent stare. But if she wasn't a Blues Girl, what was she doing with Mr. S? And why did Mr. S. let me think she was a working girl?

  I'm utterly baffled. But I can't stay. I have to go see Staci. My mind, my body, my cock ache for her. And if she's freaking out as much as Terrence says she is, I'll need to go calm her down. Explain everything...

  I give off a cynical little laugh, airing the thought to myself. Explain everything? Like there's something to explain. Like there's a single fucking thing I can do right now other than lie my ass off unless I want her to see me for the dangerous man I am. The man who swore to destroy her. And yet I can't lie to her any longer. I can't let her love a man who doesn't exist – if she even loves me at all. I have to tell her the truth.

  I have to lie to her.

  You see my predicament, don't you?

  I head to Staci's room and knock. Terrence answers the door.

  “Thank goodness you're here,” says Terrence. His arms are crossed. He has a melancholy smile on his lips. “This is a nightmare.”

  Danny is sitting on the sofa with Staci. He's holding her hands. For a second I'm jealous, but the scene looks anything but romantic. Danny is trying to get her attention. His whole body is stiff and sick with worry.

  “Staci...” he says. “Staci – Staci – Staci – listen to me. Staci – please...”

  But she is sitting straight-backed in her chair. Her beautiful dark eyes are vacant. She's practically catatonic. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't even register my presence. She just sits there, staring into space, her lips hardly moving, trembling.

  “Jesus, what happened to her?”

  “Nothing. We just tried to stop her from leaving – we didn't hurt her or anything – we couldn't let her leave...” Terrence is looking panicked. “And then she just...like...shut down.”

  “Liars...” Staci is whispering under her breath. “All...liars.”

  You're not wrong, Staci.

  But my heart drops anyway within my chest as I wonder. How much does she know? How far along down the rabbit hole has she gone? How sure is it that I will lose her, this time?

  I go to her.

  “She doesn't want to talk.”

  Terrence is all sweaty. He's stammering; he can barely even speak. He's clearly freaked out.

  Christ, what a child. What is he doing with a girl like Staci? I look at him, but avuncular concern mingles with jealousy. The kid's only a few years younger than I am, but he's got...something. Some quality that makes him seem like a boy of eighteen. He's handsome enough, and good-hearted, but it's clear he's too young, too immature, to have a real relationship with anyone, let alone handling a complicated woman like Staci.

  “You two go away,” I say. “I'll deal with this.” I lower my voice so. I speak to Staci as gently as I can. “Listen, Staci – you've had a bad shock. I get that. But I can explain. I can explain everything.” The words taste hollow in my mouth. Can I explain everything?

  She keeps on shaking, keeps on staring at me with those vacant eyes and hollow cheeks. “Liars...” she says, over and over. “They're all liars...”

  “Leave her to me.”

  Danny gets up to go but Terrence stays there, staring at me, with his arms crossed. Like he doesn't want to leave.

  “Come on, Terrence,” says Danny in a low voice. “We’d better go.”

  Terrence shakes his head. “I'm staying,” he says.

  “I need to be alone with her,” I explain.

  “I'm staying!” He sounds more like a petulant child than ever.

  Sometimes, being the Chairman of the Board comes in handy. “Listen, Terrence,” I say. “I hate to pull rank on you. But right now, as Chairman of the Blue Room, I'm officially ordering you to leave...”

  “You can't...”

  I see the envy in his eyes. The poor boy is jealous of me. Hell, maybe he should be.

  “You need to go, Terrence,” I say.

  He glares at me before storming out of the room with Danny in tow, slamming the door behind them both.

  And then I'm alone with her. With my Staci – my beautiful, precious, stunning Staci. The Staci that my lies, my secrets, have turned to stone.

  “I'm so sorry, Staci,” I say. I feel so hollow saying those words but they're all I know. They're all I know how to say right now. It's all I can do. “I promise you – I promise you – every moment we spent together. They were real. I don't know how they were but they were. I didn't expect that. I admit it. But I swear to you...Staci...Staci. I'll never let you down. I promise. I promise you. Nobody's going to hurt you. Not me. Not Danny. Not Terrence. Nobody's ever going to hurt you again.”

  Promises I would give the whole world to be able to keep.

  Promises I knew in my heart I never would.

  Chapter 4

  “Staci?” I whisper. “Staci – can you hear me? It's me, Xander.” I don't know how that's supposed to help. I don't know anything anymore. All I know that this pale, fragile, waif-like creature sitting in front of me, huddled in her chair with her arms folded against her chest like she's huddling against the cold used to be Staci Atussi: the woman that I love.

  Love. It's not a word I've used before today, at least not in the sense I'm feeling it now. But as I gaze upon her splendid, shivering form I find myself realizing that no other word is appropriate. My heart is overflowing in a way that is at once new and strange: exciting and terrible. I feel so much for this creature that sits traumatized, refusing to meet my eyes. Not just lust. I have left lust behind long ago. The feelings I feel now are more complicated. Richer. Deeper. What I feel now for Staci is a passionate desire to see her happy, to keep her safe. I want to dress her mental wounds. I want to take her in my arms and keep her there: holding her close so that I can feel her heart beat next to mine, so that she can hear my heart beat faster at her presence.

  I've never felt this way about anyone before. Perhaps my wife – my late wife – but I do not remember. Those days were so long ago, and that was another lifetime. One I hardly can remember. Those memories, that love, seem to have happened to somebody else long before I was born. The woman I loved then now seems to me a mirage, or an image from a dream. After all, I was a different person then, so greatly did her death change me.

  But whether or not I felt it before, I feel it now. For Staci Atussi. And what I want, what I feel, overwhelms me.

  But Staci doesn't say anything, at first. She just keeps staring straight out into space, her lips trembling. Only when I take her hands into mine and press them against my cheek does she venture a single word: a single phrase. “Liars. Liars.” Then, at last, she gains strength. “They're all liars...” she whispers. “All the Blue.”

  I've seen it happen before in boardrooms. Panic attacks. Nervous breakdowns. Even the most confident, cocksure businessman can turn into a melting Jello bowl of a man in ten seconds flat. You can never tell what will set one off. Sometimes it's stress. Sometimes it's a great shock, or emotional turmoil, or pain. Sometimes it's nothing at all. But whatever it is, whatever is going on, it's happening to Staci. She must have found out something, I think: something about the Blue Room. Maybe about Terrence
. Maybe about me. One of the many secrets we tried so hard to keep from her for her own protection, and for ours. Was it my biggest secret? I am not sure. But I know that the words she is whispering – Blues. Liars. Liars. Blues. All.-- are true.

  We are a sick family: my nephews, my much older half-brother Clarence, and I. We have many secrets and we know how to keep them, and the keeping of them often entails new secrets that men who are unlucky enough to come across us often take to their graves. While we’ve owned several honest businesses, the Blue Room’s money was filthy: lucre shining by spit and the sweat of those we oppress. And yet here I am: spending it like everybody else. Although I have my own successful companies outside of Blues Enterprises and this Blue Room partnership I have with Clarence, it appears the Blue Room lend itself to me buying a shining beach house on the coast, a nice car, the affection of a beautiful woman. As I look at Staci: as I take in what I and my family and the Blue Room have all done to her, I think: I would trade all this away for a second of making you happy again. I would give up all the riches in the world for your smile. And do you know what? I really mean it. I surprise myself, sometimes.

  I caress Staci slowly, softly. I do what I can to calm her down. I'm careful, as gentle as if I were trying to approach a startled deer. Her clothing is soaked through with sweat, so I gently peel it off her, trying not to frighten her. She does not stop me. She looks up at me with those big deer doe eyes of her as I wrap a dressing gown around her. I can't stop myself from pressing my lips to her forehead.

  “Listen, Staci,” I say. “I don't know what happened with Terrence and Danny. But I can keep you safe, I promise you. I care for you, I really do. I think I...” I swallow. Even now it's hard to find the words. “I know the Blue Room has a lot of secrets. Hidden depths that frighten both of us. But I promise my feelings for you are true.” I stroke her hair.

  I call room service: have them bring up her favorite foods: romantic stalwarts like oysters and strawberries, Staci's own favorites like macaroni and cheese with havarti, the way her mother liked to prepare it.

  Staci lets me feed her, make her tea. She doesn't say anything. She just stares at me with those same wild, questioning eyes. I know what she wants to know: what am I doing here? Can she trust me? Can she trust anybody?

  I run a bath for her: scattering lavender that makes the mist that rises from the tub smell like a fresh Provence field on a summer's day. I lift her up into the steaming bath and bathe her, slowly. I don't let my eyes linger on her naked form: not now. Right now, lust is second to my desire to make her happy. To keep her safe. To make her understand just how precious, just how special she is to me.

  When she's done bathing I lay her out naked on the bed. I cover her with a towel. I find some massage oil in the bathroom and I rub it into her flesh. I can feel how tense her body is, how worn out by worry. I want to knead all her stress away.

  “Tell me if this is too much,” I say.

  In the darkness of night Staci sits up. She looks straight at me. I can see her big, questioning eyes grow blazing with desire. Then she takes my face between her hands and kisses me. It's a decisive gesture: full of desire. She takes one hand and moves it to my cock; she can feel how hard I am, although I've tried not to focus on my own needs. She begins to stroke me and then I am hers, utterly. I can't think about anything except how good she makes me feel.

  She leads me into the large bathtub. She strips me of my clothes and brings me into the spa-like tub with her. The water is so warm and arousing around us.

  “Do it,” she whispers.

  And I do. I can't stand holding back any longer. I enter her, and her cries are the cries of true ecstasy. I can feel her tight around me. I can feel the way her nails dig into my back. Signs that this, this is what she needs right now: whether to make her feel good or to make her feel safe or to make her forget I don't know. We come together,

  “Listen,” I whisper to her, so quietly I wonder if she can even hear me. “I want you to know how much you mean to me. How much I want to be with you. It's taken me a while to realize how much I would do for you. I'd do anything to keep you in my life, Staci. After my first wife died, I thought I'd lost this part of me forever. I focused on building up my empire: on building a name for myself. But now I want more than work, Staci. I want love. I want a woman I can share everything with.”

  She is loving my every touch, kissing me passionately. Still she says nothing. Does she feel the same way about me, too?

  My road is clear. Gloria Tannenbaum is dead now, God rest her soul, and she can have no hold over me. All the information I have about Staci – everything I found out after I hired that PI to trail young Tannenbaum on his visits to Genevieve Atussi – I need to bury it.

  At first I'd been so shocked to learn the truth. That my beloved Staci, the Blue Girl we were using as bait, was the very same Tannenbaum girl my godmother had made me promise to destroy: for the sake of the Tannenbaum fortune.

  And I had promised. Why wouldn't I? I was her favorite godson, after all – even more than Clarence, so much older, so much less malleable. And I was barely older than a boy when I made my promise. I didn't really understand the situation, then: what the commotion was that so disturbed my godmother. I was too young to realize that the “threat” I swore to eradicate was a child. I never realized what my beloved godmother was capable: sending men to threaten a woman into giving up her child. I had not even been capable of imagining such ruthlessness. But before Gloria died, on her deathbed, she reminded me of my promise.

  And that was when I found out that Staci was Genevieve Atussi's daughter. Tannenbaum's daughter. She'd been away at the time, visiting her mother in Vegas.

  Then all the pieces had fallen together in my head. And everything had made sense. And everything was more confusing than ever.

  We make love in the tub a second time. Then I dry her off. I carry her to her bed and rub her back as she quietly falls asleep. She still doesn't say anything, but she seems calmer now. Her body seems more pliant: more willing to take my touch.

  I want to tell her all about me. I want to let her know I know who she is. But it's too dangerous still. I may have made that promise to my godmother, but she wasn't known for putting all her eggs in one basket. There were others of her “set”, as she called them. Her pupils in cruelty and ruthlessness. Doubtless some of them had already visited Staci's mother and house in Vegas. No, I can't tell her any of this. If I do, she'll never trust me again. She'll run away from the Blue Room –where at least me and my nephews can keep an eye on her, make sure she is safe, or at least as safe as anyone can be here – and go somewhere where she might be in even more danger from the Tannenbaums.

  Oh Staci, I whisper, as I watch her sleeping form. What am I going to do with you?

  I hate to leave her, especially now, after mind-blowing sex, but soon after she falls asleep I realize that I cannot sleep beside her. My mind is racing. I still have to figure out the case of the mysterious brown-eyed girl and how she ended up with Mr. S. when by Mrs. Walters' account there's no record of her. Who could be behind such a ploy: compromising the discreetness of the Blue Room's clientele by assigning a girl like that to Mr. S?

  I leave Staci a note:

  Forgive me, darling, it says. I want to see you soon when you're better. I need to tell you something important. There's so much you need to know about me.

  I love you.

  I will not ask you if you love me until I tell you everything there is to know about me. Then, maybe you will love me, maybe not. But you will know the truth.

  I leave it on her nightstand

  I blow her one last kiss as I go.

  Chapter 5

  I hate to leave Staci behind. I'm still not sure what's going on with her: how she is, what she's feeling, what she's thinking. It feels like she has gone somewhere I cannot reach: a depth of despair or fear that is beyond anything I have ever known myself.

  No, that's not true. I have known it once. When I
learned the news of my wife's death, I was just like Staci. Completely catatonic. I shut down, just as she did. I sat in a chair just the way she did, immobile, not speaking, trying to shut out the outside world, trying to deny that it even existed. Just like her. I wanted to die in those days. I felt so betrayed by life, by all of existence. How could the world bring such a beautiful, sweet, smart, perfect girl to me and then take her away again, in a single heartbeat? I remember the despair I felt in those days. That's what it was like: watching Staci. That's what it was like: holding her.

  Did I do wrong by having sex with her? I don't know. She initiated it, to be sure: but then again we never spoke, not once. Was that goodbye sex, then? Her bidding farewell to me in the midst of her hatred for me? Or was it something else, something more? Was she holding on to me for dear life as the only safe thing in the midst of all her chaos: the one thing she could rely on in a world where you can't rely on anybody? I don't know. All I know is how beautiful it was to hold her in my arms, to kiss her, to caress her. All I know is how paramount it is to me that Staci feels safe.

  I check my phone. There's one voicemail: from Mrs. Walters. Saying something very strange indeed.

  “Mr. Blue, this is Josephine Walters. I'm just calling to let you know that the girl you mentioned never showed up. It's like she's vanished into the night. She's completely gone. I don't know what to tell you, sir. We've never had something like this happen before.”

  This is getting stranger and stranger. Who could this mysterious brown-eyed girl be? And what was she doing with Mr. S.?

  I head to Mrs. Walters' office, but it's already shut. I guess even Mrs. Walters has to take some time off eventually. I realize I never even imagined her sleeping. In my mind Mrs. Walters is a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week institution, a venerable cog in the Blue Room Machine. But even she has to sleep sometimes, I guess.

  Luckily for me I have the master key. I enter Mrs. Walters' office and turn on her computer. I'm able to login; part of being the chairman means getting a list of all server passwords in the building. I start going through the records, looking for something, anything, a clue. I see STACI ATUSSI in bold black letters. I see her bookings with me, Mr. X., and I smile inwardly. Then I see her other bookings: Mr. O. Blocks of time when she's with another man, lying in another man's arms. I shake my head, trying not to think about that. I can't focus on that now.