Chapter Two❖ZionI told Alain not to bother. He annoyed me when he presumed to know my style, my tast

Chapter Two❖ZionI told Alain not to bother. He annoyed me when he presumed to know my style, my tastes. But he could not help himself, he said. It excited him, this process of buying a condo for me. I waved him off. I did not care about his excitement. I cared about his money. When he brought me to the condo, I was surprised. He was nervous. I was never rude, he said, but there was something about the way I spoke, the way I held my body, the way I would almost never make eye contact, and refused to hold his hand in public that shamed and embarrassed him. That aroused him. The condo was large but outdated. The carpet was thick and brown. Sandy brown in some places. The color of dirt in others. I did not want to think about what could make a carpet that dark. The kitchen was cramped and there were too many walls. But I saw it. I saw it as soon as I walked into the building. Turn of the century and it remained in that era with pride. Marble and gilt. Shine and quiet, good manners. Elegant without gaudiness. The condo board  was run by artists,  free-spirited types, the realtor said. They were a little kooky but they meant well and they kept the building up to date. The realtor saw it as a potential negative but I heard her words and smiled. Artists and free-spirited types wouldn’t wonder why a sixty-something  year old white man was buying a condo for a twenty-something West African woman. They would only care that the check cleared. Alain, the realtor, and I walked through the apartment. I kept my face passive. Alain asked the realtor to give us a few moments.“Well?” Alain said as soon as we were alone.“What would you like me to say?” I turned from the window and its sweeping view of the City.Alain crossed the floor to me and grasped my hand. “Say anything. Say you like it. It’s in the neighborhood you like and close to your favorite things. Say you’ll take it. The mortgage payments are negligible to me.”I pulled my hand from his with a sigh. He forgot himself and the rules I set in place so often and I never did have enough patience for him. Then I realized what he said.“Monthly payments? It is a gift. I thought it was a gift. Why would my gift have monthly payments?” I took a small step closer to him.“That’s what buying a piece of property entails, gorgeous.” He started to reach for me and stopped. Good boy, I thought. “Can you not afford it? Is that why you wish to pay over time?” Alain’s neck erupted with red splotches that spread to his chin and began to turn purple. “Of course, I can afford it. You spent far less than I thought you would. I could buy the damn place outright at this very moment if I wanted to. And didn’t you hear me when I said I bought a jet?” “Then I do not think I want this place or for you to buy me any place for that matter.” I raised my hand in a request for silence. “We have what we have because we are equals facing life together by choice. We each know our worth and value and that we could find much of what we seek in another. We choose each other. These payments would take away my choice. We would no b longer equals. I would be dependent. No, I will preserve what we have. Tell them I do not want the condo.” I left the condo and walked past the realtor without a word. She later told me she walked back into the condo to see Alain wipe the last of a trail of tears from his face. The deed for the condo, paid in full and in my name, arrived to my cramped apartment two weeks later. I read it with detachment then called Alain and asked him who he hired to do the renovations. I fired the team he hired and instead brought in the architecture and design firm that created three of my favorite boutiques. I brought Alain the invoices. He paid them without complaint.I worked with the architect and designer to create an airy but modestly sized apartment complete with a bedroom and bathroom in one-third of the space. In the other two-thirds of the space, I let my imagination be free. This life presents itself as one of glamour. Private jets and private fittings for clothes worn once in small, dark restaurants where no one can see. Beneath it is the hard work, the silence when you would like to yell and romps through city after city when all you need, all your body desires, is rest. It was good for me to have the pretense: a kitchen I would never use, a living room with a TV I would never watch, that small bedroom. But pretense was not what I needed. I needed a sanctuary.   Heavy double doors to act as barricade and beyond them an oasis. A place to refresh and revive me. A place for me to see what ten years of access to other people’s money bought me. I needed a closet. It was larger than my favorite boutiques and better organized. Pale rose light fell over the space and reminded me that no matter what front I put on for a man I was still soft, feminine, and deserved every luxury I demanded. It was in this place, at a small desk that held my favorite jewels, that I planned my week.  Alain was assigned Wednesday afternoons and Thursday evenings unless he displeased me. We would be taking a trip to the mountains. A discussion about what I was supposed to wear, how much the clothes would cost to buy, and how soon the money should be in my account was in order. I made a note to discuss that with him on Wednesday at lunch. The hedge fund manager could have Tuesday afternoon. I did not date hedge fund managers as a rule. Men in those occupations never felt the need to stop being adolescent boys and Delia taught me that you could not expect a hedge fund manager to have a decent sized cock. But this hedge fund manager was sensitive, a sculptor obsessed with all things exotic, including women. He splurged as much on travel as he did clothing and food. A man like that deserved at least an initial meeting.Gregory, my architect, could have Monday evening. Gregory did an excellent job with the design of my condo but he was absolutely horrible at remembering to pay my bills on time. A firm reminder of my expectations was in order. Friday. Errands or any activities that caught my fancy. Saturday morning with my parents and younger siblings. I would ignore my mother’s pointed hints about grandchildren and my father’s speculations on where my money came from since I disgraced the family by not finishing college. As if I were an American girl. Sundays. Brunch. I set my pen down and stared at the rows of clothing racks in front of me. I could not quite believe that there was not just one but two women in my life I could trust. To be a part of their lives and have them be a part of mine was something I craved and resented. “I heard something so disturbing I thought about fighting you.” Damon, my roommate, strolled into my closet, hands in his pockets.I did not need a roommate. But appearances must be kept up. What would a single woman need with a three thousand square foot condo? In a neighborhood as nice as mine, how could I afford it and all of the designer clothes, shoes, and bags I kept bringing into it? I do not like to be asked questions, to be wondered about, so I asked Damon to move in with me. With a Korean mother and Nigerian father, Damon was striking and knew it: high cheekbones, slanting eyes, full lips, hair that would curl if it wasn’t cropped so close to his head, skin the color of cream with a splash of coffee. He also expected to be paid for it. He became a model when he was a teenager and after he made his first million, admitted to his parents that he was gay and moved out of his childhood home. Damon and I met at a club a few weeks after he moved to the City. A gentleman insisted, knife in hand, that Damon take off his pants in an alley behind the club. I tased the man until he passed out, kicked him, and invited Damon out for pancakes. Damon got me front row tickets to every show he walked in and told his agency to stop asking: I did not want to be a model. I showed him how to invest his money and stay away from drugs. “I do not fight fair,” I said. “That’s why I only thought about it.” Damon leaned a hip against the desk then sat on it. I moved to the settee nearby. “Tell me what you heard.”“I heard you went to brunch looking like sex.” “This is not news,” I said. “No,” Damon said. “The real news is after bribing you for years with clothes stolen off the backs of models before they made it off the runway, you have a fourth person eating brunch with you and it isn’t me.”“Oh, you have heard of Nadia.”“That’s the interesting thing. I haven’t heard of her. Someone said something about her being a party planner which sounds absolutely awful. But no one could tell me who her sponsor was.”I tried to keep the smile from spreading across my face. I failed. I smiled then I laughed.“Zion. Princess, ruler of everything around you, why is a nobody at the war meetings when you could have me?”“It is easy, always, to assume. I look like sex and so it must be all I have to offer. Designer clothes so men know I must be paid. I am a luxury that most will not be able to afford. To become such a thing, a symbol and a trophy, an orgasm or a tease. It was supposed to teach me who I was. The travel and the experiences were supposed to teach me who I was.”It should not have been said and it was not an answer to his question. It is best to be seen and not heard. There is power in mystery and a fortune to be made for those comfortable with being unknown. But I had begun and there is nothing I hate so much as a task undone. Damon carried questions in his eyes. I would answer them and curse brunch, O’Shea, and Delia for the changes they made in me. “No,” I shook my head. “It has not helped. But this life is mine now and I have gotten so comfortable in it that I have stopped trying to understand myself. I only understand men.”Damon wrapped his fingers around the edge of the desk and leaned forward. Pretty fingers, I thought. My mother would have taken one look at them and forced him into piano lessons. “Do you know anything about yourself?” Damon said.“Seeing Nadia, a woman that must have had a normal life, has reminded me that I do not. There were no friends, no sororities, no boyfriends, nothing until O’Shea and Delia entered my life.”“You’re lonely.”“Yes,” I shrugged. “I think I have been for some time and did not want to admit it.”“Easy fix. We’ll dress you up and take you speed dating and to this lounge that I heard-”“And I will still be lonely. How many women in my position, with this life, have a normal boyfriend? How many of them can be seen as people? How many of them can sustain a relationship that is not based on money and sex?”“If anyone could do it-”“No, I do not get to be the exception. I am not special. I know that to have that type of relationship I would have to give up my career and I would resent any man that would expect me to do that. Or worse, I would have to give up some part of myself. I would have to be vulnerable, open. I do not know how to do these things and I am not sure I want to learn.”I stretched on the settee. Damon watched me, his eyes sad. It is best to be seen and not heard. It makes others happy to put us in boxes. It makes them comfortable. It brings order to their lives. Then we reveal our true selves and their routine lives are thrown in disarray. They must re-box us and do not know how, do not know why they should try. So they resent us, leave us, because there are only so many places and areas in one person’s life where they will be willing to work hard, to sacrifice, to learn.  “Come,” I said. “We will watch one of those action movies you love and eat ice cream.”Damon walked over to me and took my hand. “I don’t want you to be lonely, Zion. You deserve more-better- than that.”I waved my free hand towards my closet. “I am surrounded by the things I deserve. And loneliness is an old friend. I do not fear it even if I do not want to admit it is there.”“Ice cream.”“And a movie.”I did not eat ice cream but I did sit beside him and watch the TV in the living room for the first time. I laughed when he needed it, offered support when he needed it. He put me back in the box he made for me. His quiet satisfaction and denial, the dismissal of my earlier words, pleased me. He was not the only one comfortable with the box he put me in. Continue Reading -- source link

More pics about