Original Sin

‘Listen to me,’ she said evenly. ‘I’m trying to help you. Your business is going to go to the wall, no question. In two, three years’ time, you’ll be back in Miami, some colourist that once used to be big in New York, just another industry casualty. And then all that hard work will have been for nothing.’

For a few seconds he didn’t speak, clearly torn between rage at having been spoken to in such a way and needing Liz’s help. Finally he flapped his arms in surrender.

‘What do you suggest?’ he pouted.

‘My proposal is that I buy out Gary Eisen’s stake. You work two days at your salon, three days here at Skin Plus. Meanwhile, one of my team will manage the Enrique salon, increasing its profitability, and Asgill’s will license your name to produce an Enrique product range that we can get into drugstores by fall.’

Of course, that was only part of Liz’s plan. She was so proud of her full agenda that she almost wanted to blurt the rest out: that in twelve months’ time she would close down the Madison Avenue salon, integrating the entire Enrique salon into the Skin Plus Spa. She already had an idea who would buy the lease on the prime Madison Avenue real estate occupied by Enrique’s salon – and then she could screw him over the licensing deal and send the arrogant little jerk back to Miami with his balls in a sack.

‘I need to think about it,’ said Enrique, trying to hold his head high.

‘How about I give you till Monday?’

Down on the street, Liz watched Enrique disappear into a waiting car. She looked up to the top of Somerset Tower, a shard of illuminated glass stretching into the night sky. Adrenaline was still coursing through her blood; the thrill of a deal always did that to her; there was no way she could go home to sleep. She knew exactly what she needed.

She flagged down a yellow cab, its light spilling a glow onto the puddles on the road. Inside, she told the driver to take her to Clinton. Relaxing into the seat, she pulled a cosmetic wipe from her bag and carefully cleaned make-up from her face. She flipped open a compact and stared at the blank canvas of her features. Her blonde hair was cut into a short bob. Her eyes were small, her nose too narrow from bad rhinoplasty in the mid-Nineties, but she had a wide, sensual mouth and full lips and the overall picture was striking, handsome, and strong. People often compared Liz to her mother when she was younger, which Liz knew wasn’t exactly a compliment, especially as her father Howard was a ridiculously good-looking man. Meredith was several notches down the attractiveness scale, but her family had money. That was just the way it was in their world.

She took out a lipstick and painted a slash of deep maroon across her lips; instantly she looked different, more sexual. Liz smiled at the power of cosmetics to change your face, your identity. She pulled another pot out of her bag. Asgill’s hair wax, which she ran over her hands and through her hair, combing it down severely along the contours of her skull.

She glanced up and could see the taxi driver looking at her, his eyes opening wider at her transformation. In thirty seconds, the smart woman with the smoky eyes and glossed lips – the typical groomed Manhattan businesswoman – had morphed into a futuristic sex kitten. Arriving at her destination, she exited the cab and wordlessly handed the driver a twenty-dollar bill.

Liz stood on the sidewalk and smiled at the neon sign for the Red Legs bar. It really belonged in the old Clinton, she thought. For years Clinton had been one of New York’s most notorious areas: poor Irish gangs and white trash living in comparative squalor. Hell’s Kitchen: that’s what it had been called before Giuliani had cleaned up the city. Now it was becoming gentrified, but the musicians, artists, and students were taking their time moving on and, if you knew where to look, you could still find a taste of down-and-dirty New York, a city that never ceased to excite her. She had spent time in London and Paris for the company, but nowhere had her as entranced as her hometown.

The entrance to the club was a metal door. There were people outside smoking, a transvestite blowing smoke rings into the night air, a couple having an argument, all the usual sights and sounds of the Big Apple. Liz descended the stairway and put her coat in the cloakroom, pausing at the entrance to the main room to check her reflection and compose herself. She knew what to expect; she had been to the club a couple of months before. It was one of her golden rules not to frequent the same place regularly, but she liked this place. A doorman pulled open a soundproofed door and Liz was engulfed by sound. The club was one huge underground space, crammed with sweating, writhing bodies moving to the deafening music as spotlights criss-crossed and whirled. The room was bathed in deep red light and, with the pulsing and shaking of the walls, Liz felt as if she was walking inside a giant beast. Pushing her way through the crowd, she took a seat at the end of the black glass bar, sitting at right angles to the room, where she could observe the action without attracting attention. Nodding at the model-grade barman, she ordered a single-malt Scotch, wishing for the days when you could light up a cigarette.

She savoured the heat of the liquor in her throat and watched. She only vaguely listened to the music; that wasn’t why she was here. It was ten minutes before she saw him. Tall, handsome, a little dishevelled, a painter perhaps. But when their gaze met, he had a look in his eye that Liz recognized.

‘Can I buy you a drink?’ he said over the music.

She gave a small smile, shook her head. ‘I’m not staying.’

He took a seat next to her and propped his elbow on the bar, just looking at her. Liz didn’t mind such a brazen approach; in fact she enjoyed it. She uncoiled slowly, watching his reaction as she crossed her long legs. Liz might not be beautiful in the way her sister Brooke was, but she had always been sexy. Her hardness, her cleverness, her sexual experience – who knew what drew men towards her? But Liz had an aura, a scent that only the right – or the wrong – kind of man could pick up.

‘I’m Russ. Russ Ford.’

‘Hello Russ,’ she said, staring off across the room, feigning indifference, even mild irritation. It was all an act, a game. She knew men well; she had been in this situation many times before and experience had taught her that men as good-looking as Russ liked to be treated like this. She waited, savouring the moment. He will speak, she thought, any moment … now.

‘Are you ignoring me?’

Exactly, thought Liz.

‘What are you looking at?’ she asked, still not looking at him.

‘The cleft on your chin,’ said Russ, ‘I have one too. I wonder where they come from?’

‘It’s where the right and left side of your jawbone hasn’t fused completely. It’s a Mendelian trait.’ She took a drink and watched his reaction.

‘A what?’

Liz touched the small dimple at the base of her face. ‘Genetics. It’s a dominant gene. I was unlucky. My sister escaped it.’

‘Mendelian trait, you say?’ he laughed slowly. ‘You’re a smart girl.’

Choate Rosemary Hall. Princeton. Wharton Business School, thought Liz. He didn’t know the half of it.

‘Sorry, I missed your name,’ said Russ.

‘I didn’t tell you it.’

Now she turned the full power of her eyes on him, looking at his face in detail, feeling a growing dampness between her legs. He was good looking, really good looking, like a greeter at Abercrombie & Fitch. No more than twenty-five, twenty-six. Tanned skin, a smudge of stubble over his chin. He seemed self-assured, arrogant even. Keen to challenge her, banter with her. She knew she had chosen well; this was exactly the sort of man to respond to her.

‘So what should I call you?’

She paused, a hint of a smile. ‘Lisa.’

‘Okay, smart, lovely Lisa,’ he said. ‘Forgive the corny question, but what are you doing in a place like this?’

‘A place like this?’

‘A place full of hookers and transvestites?’

‘Is that right? And which category do you fall into?’

He chuckled.

‘Neither, I’m afraid,’ he smiled. ‘I live round the corner. It’s cheap and I’m broke. Bars like this suit me. What about you?’

‘I work nearby,’ she lied.

‘What do you do?’

She stifled a smile, wondering what he would say if she told him she had just come from the twenty-five-million-dollar spa she was about to launch; wondering whether it would make her more or less desirable to him.

‘Things I like to forget about by drinking Scotch.’

He laughed. ‘I like mysterious women. So can I buy you that drink now?’

What was the point of stringing this out any longer, thought Liz. More games, more Scotch? Why not move in for the kill?

She looked at him directly. ‘Only if you’ll fuck me.’

His eyes seemed to shine a little brighter in the dark redness, his face showed no surprise except for a slight pull of the right corner of his lip. Liz stood up and, as she moved, she ran the tip of her finger across his jeans. She simply turned and began to walk towards the exit. She didn’t need to turn round to know he was following her. Since her divorce from Walter Baker, a hotelier she had known since her teens, Liz found that she had no need for relationships. She had no interest in the complications, cluttering her life with thin emotion. But she wanted, she needed sex. It charged her.

He caught up with her as they left the booming main room of the club.

‘Keep walking,’ he whispered into her neck. ‘I know somewhere downstairs.’

He steered her into a corridor and down a short flight of steps ending in a door marked ‘Staff’. Inside was a dark six-foot-square room lined with black. In one corner was a Formica stall and a white ceramic sink. She heard the click of the door being locked behind her and then felt his hands snaking round her waist. His lips sinking into the warm skin of her neck. She spun around to face him and his lips brushed her ear lobes before they came crashing down on her mouth. His tongue slid into hers and she could taste her own lipstick. He was a fantastic kisser, his touch almost as expert as her own. He rucked up her dress and peeled down her hose and thong in one movement. His lips heavy and urgent on hers, he pushed Liz up against the edge of the sink, raising her feet off the floor, and then spread her thighs with his hands.

Liz groaned as she unzipped his jeans. He pushed his hand under her top and bra until her breast sprang free. Desperate, Liz pulled the fabric over her head. Russ had unhooked her bra so it fell to her waist. He circled one breast in his hand and lowered his lips onto her brown nipple, which grew bigger and harder in his mouth. After pulling a condom out of his pocket, he pushed his own jeans down to the floor, as if they were white-hot against his skin.

Wrapping his hands under her buttocks he pulled her closer. She could feel the roughness of his fingertips on her skin. Blue-collar hands she had felt many times before. She moaned as she felt his thick hard cock enter her, his hands holding her steady as he deepened his quick thrusts.

Biting into his shoulder, she responded by pulling her knee up and back so he completely filled her.

She cried out, barely registering that his urgent hands had turned on the taps behind her. Feeling the water pouring on her back, she reached behind her to grab at the cold liquid. She stroked the water across his face, letting him suck her fingers.

‘Faster,’ she groaned, tipping her head back until it knocked against the mirror. Her breathing quickened as she was about to come. As she grabbed his thick, coarse hair she felt spasms swell from her core to every nerve ending in her body.

‘Shit,’ he winced, his body shivering as he exploded inside her.

As he slid slowly out of her, Liz inhaled deeply to regulate her breathing. She shut her eyes to enjoy the sensation of his thickness retreating, until the tip of his cock just tickled out of her cunt.

Slipping off the vanity unit, she picked up her discarded tights and thong and slipped on her shoes. She looked at him, all excitement gone, like air from a deflated balloon, the electricity in the room unplugged. All that was left was a panting twenty-something with his pants down and a rolled condom still on his cock. She almost laughed. So he was good-looking. Usually it didn’t matter. She wasn’t after someone she had to look at for the rest of her life.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, rolling down her dress.

He touched her arm as she tried to walk past. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Not tonight.’

‘But, but where do you live?’ he asked. ‘Let me come with you.’

She smiled slowly and shook her head. As she opened the door she turned to look at him one last time. Her third nameless, faceless fuck this month. He had been good, very good. What a shame she would never see him again.

4

Paula Asgill smiled to herself as she lay back in the soapy water, gazing through the open bathroom doorway at the luxurious guest cottage on the Billingtons’ exquisite country estate, Belcourt. At first she had been disappointed not to be staying in the main house, which she could just glimpse in the distance through the cottage’s pretty leaded windows, but now she was here, she knew she’d hit social gold. For years she’d been forced to listen to her connected Upper East Side friends boast about the legendary parties they’d attended at Belcourt: how they’d marvelled at the seventeenth-century chandelier in the ballroom, swayed on the polished dance floor suspended over the Olympic-sized swimming pool, or visited the 50,000-bottle wine cellar, from which endless glasses of Château Pétrus, Mouton Rothschild or d’Yquem flowed. For years, she’d had to stand there and take it, but now it was time for revenge.

Paula stepped out of the roll top bath and wrapped a fluffy white towel around her pale, lithe body. Tomorrow she could talk about all those things and more. Yes, her friends were familiar with Belcourt’s interiors and furnishings, but how many of them were au fait with the grand estate’s guest cottages, the twelve sumptuous mini-mansions dotted around the thousand-acre grounds, all exclusively reserved for Billington family members. How many of her tormentors could describe the exquisite Stubbs paintings over the fireplaces? The Cornish pottery in the petite, handmade French kitchen, the lavender-scented Porthault linens on the sleigh beds or the view of the cherry-blossom trees from the east window? Not one. It was priceless social ammunition, and Paula could barely wait to use it back in New York. She would almost pass up tonight’s party to see their faces. Almost.

Walking into the pastel-peach bedroom she let the towel drop to the floor and slid into her black lace Dior lingerie and silk robe, then reclined on the crisp sheets, luxuriating in her good fortune. It was very nearly a perfect moment; the only niggling annoyance was a small fly buzzing around the room. She flapped her hands at it and shuddered. The thought of insects or germs of any kind made Paula feel physically sick. She pulled her robe around her tightly and hurried to open the window, but recoiled when she touched the metal handle. What was that? Rust? Not wanting to take a risk, she ran to the dresser and pulled a bottle of hand-sanitizer from her wash bag, scrubbing her hands thoroughly. By now the fly was gone, but it had ruined her mood.

Walking back to the living room, she took a sip of camomile tea to settle herself, wondering why she felt so jumpy at the moment, so nervous. It couldn’t just be the prospect of Brooke and David’s engagement party tonight; after all, it was only a night out, wasn’t it? At least she had the dress, the killer dress, she smiled, glancing back at the long pale-violet gown hanging by the door. The moment the Belcourt party had been announced, Paula had dispatched her personal shoppers at Bendel’s and Bergdorf Goodman to find something wonderful, something elegant, something absolutely nobody else was going to be wearing. It was Cheryl, a friend from her modelling days who had reinvented herself as a celebrity stylist, who had finally come up trumps with a McQueen sample that had not gone into production. Cheryl had warned her that violet was a difficult shade to wear, making brunettes look too sallow and blondes too garish. But against the alabaster paleness of Paula’s skin and the rich red of her long, straight hair, it looked magnificent. A small size eight, Paula was slim enough to squeeze into the sample size, although the cut made no concessions for bumps of any kind. Paula had therefore spent the past week on a rigorous diet and had let nothing but the tea past her lips in the last twenty-four hours.

Looking good meant hard work, thought Paula, but converting those looks into success was even harder. She had learnt that hard lesson from her mother, Helena. A sunny blonde with perfect features, Paula’s mother had once been an incredible Southern beauty, but she had sold herself short by falling head over heels in love with Samuel, a trucker and dedicated alcoholic who had been killed drink-driving on a long-distance job when Paula was nine. With a grieving heart and a young daughter to support, Helena had taken on three jobs, in a launderette, the general store, and the local bar to pay the bills. She had been trying to break up a brawl at the bar one night when an enraged hooker had smashed her glass into Helena’s face. With an ugly six-inch scar across her cheek, all work except the launderette shift had quickly dried up. It had broken Helena. She worked hard, and where had it got her? When the MS had kicked in, it had ravaged Helena’s body quickly; she simply seemed unwilling to fight it. By the time Paula was nineteen, her mother was dead, but she hadn’t missed the point of the life lesson.

Paula worked damn hard to make her own beauty count. When she moved to New York to model, she was not the most beautiful or even the most interesting girl on the circuit; otherworldly-looking girls like Karen Elson and Erin O’Connor were making their mark. But Paula was not disheartened, even when a booker at Ford had told Paula that Julianne Moore had cornered the market in pale, interesting redheads. Paula simply put in twice as much effort. She never arrived late for a job, never had sex with a photographer or a client, never took drugs or drank too much. Instead of partying, she perfected a regal bearing that made her stand out in a city awash with young exotic beauties. Even so, Paula was never quite flavour of the month, but shoots for St John and Escada kept her in work until she met William when she was twenty-three. That was when all the hard work had paid off.

Just then, husband William walked in and dropped his overnight bag on the floor with a grunt. A tall, athletic-looking man with a full head of sandy hair and an open face, he looked tired and slightly world-weary; inevitable, thought Paula, considering his job as CEO of Asgill Cosmetics. It seemed a thankless task.

William moved behind her and nuzzled his lips into her neck. She giggled, genuinely pleased to have him there, holding her. It was getting dark and it felt a little isolating to be on her own on the estate.

‘What kept you?’ she asked, turning to kiss him.

William sighed. ‘I would have been here an hour ago, but I was waiting for Liz. Then she decided she was going to make her own way here.’

‘Typical Liz,’ snorted Paula; her sister-in-law’s selfishness was one of those things that made William’s job that much more difficult than it had to be.

‘Well, David’s mother called two hours ago wanting to know if we want to take a couple of horses out,’ she continued, gesturing towards the window. ‘Apparently from the ridge over there you can see the whole Manhattan skyline. Do you think it’s too late?’

‘We can go tomorrow morning,’ smiled William in his easygoing, almost placid way. ‘Besides, I think it would be wise to check with security. There were already extra guards on the gates when I came through, and I’ve heard a couple of choppers already. I’m not sure whether it’s paparazzi or party guests arriving.’

Paula sat down in front of an antique dressing table and began to pad the underside of her eyes with foundation. She had always been skilled with cosmetics; she could do it better than any makeup artist.

‘Great place, isn’t it?’ said William appreciatively as he looked around the cottage. ‘We should do this more often: get away for the night without the twins.’

Paula shook her head. ‘I hate leaving them,’ she sighed.

‘Honey, it’s just for the night.’

She gazed at her reflection in the mirror.

‘I think it would do wonders for the twins if we had a place in the country. Somewhere with stables where they could keep their own ponies,’ she said finally.

‘We’ve got our own place,’ said William, referring to Parklands, the Asgills’ country place in Bedford, New York.

‘Oh, that doesn’t count,’ she pouted. ‘Parklands is your mother’s.’

William stood behind her, gently running his fingers though her hair. Irritated at the way he had ducked the issue of the country retreat once again, she pulled away.

‘Please, honey. It was blow-dried this morning.’

William held up his hands. ‘Hey, I’m sorry. I like my wife’s hair. Sue me.’

She pulled her stool forwards. ‘Can you just pass me my bristle brush? It’s in the cream suitcase. No, not the paddle brush. The round one.’

As she watched him in reflection, she felt a little pang of affection. For all his faults – I mean, how many CEOs with a multimillion-dollar shareholding would think twice about buying a weekend retreat? – William Asgill was loving, loyal, and decent, all of which were rare attributes this high up in society and, for Paula, they were the glue that held their marriage together. It was, however, an unfashionable point of view among Paula’s circle of friends, most of whom had one eye on their current marriage and another eye on someone else’s more successful husband. Five years ago, such trading up had been rampant. In fact, it had been one such adventuress named Lynette who had married and divorced William when he was in his early twenties. His first wife now lived in Scotland, the consort of a handsome fifty-something duke.

However, the world had changed rapidly since then. With the implosion of the hedge funds, there was a comparative paucity of genuinely wealthy men in New York, whereas each passing day seemed to unleash more and more beautiful girls into fashionable Manhattan; the competition had become cut-throat. These gold-diggers were no longer just the usual Park Avenue Princesses, but models, celebrities, and ambitious suburbanites seeking their fortune in the Big Apple. This was all very bad news for Paula’s friends, meaning slim pickings on the next rung of the ladder and danger from below. After all, any self-respecting thirty- or forty-something Wall Street player would be looking to upgrade too, and those buxom, smooth-skinned, pre-child bitches would look mighty appealing.

For herself, Paula had always been pragmatic about her love life; if relationships were a game of poker, she was not going to cash in her chips now when there was a strong chance of losing everything. So William and Paula’s sex life limped along, getting the odd boost when her diets allowed her to feel good enough about herself to put on the Dior lingerie, and their relationship chugged along in what could be best described as remote companionship. However, Paula did not fear the predatory females she knew William encountered in the city; she knew he wouldn’t stray. Perhaps it was the sting from his first marriage that had made him less demanding, much happier with his lot. In her gut, Paula felt that their marriage was not a question of resignation but expectation: expectation that the other would not stray. It was why she trusted her husband to be faithful and stand by her side. She walked over to the door and unwrapped her dress, slipping it over her lithe body. She didn’t need to look in the mirror; she could tell she looked stunning from the expression on William’s face.