I was a little smug with Stanford Dane at that point; his comment on the arrogance of youth held true. I had assumed that what I knew that he didn't made all of the difference—that I was going to New York with Alec Cotton. That Alec Cotton was my sponsor lover now and would take care of me. And Dane didn't even know about Alec Cotton. But Dane did know about Max Trudeau.
The first week in New York City was fine. Actually, it was awesome. And I'm not writing about the sex with Alec Cotton. That always had been a bit strange and hit or miss according to his muse—or lack of muse for the times he paid more than perfunctory attention to me in bed.
It was New York City itself that was awesome. I, of course, had never been to a city that large or cosmopolitan. Alec's rooms were in the Village, so each day he would take me out into the city in a different direction and would show me the city that he clearly loved.
I loved it too; its excitement nearly overwhelmed me. But only nearly. What meant the most to me at that point, however, was that Alec said that a major editor in publishing loved my book,
The Boarding House
, and wanted to help me get it into print—a work of mine that wouldn't have Stanford Dane's gilded signature and personality overwhelming it.
Well into our second week together in New York, Alec was facing another deadline on a novel he had nearly completed but couldn't quite top off, and he'd slipped into our old relationship to churn up his muse. He no longer took me out of his rooms. In fact, we didn't leave his rooms at all. A friend of his sporadically brought food into us, and I was trapped in his bed—to be there whenever Alec's brain locked up and he needed a boost of frenetic sex to break through the barrier.
All good and fair for Alec's writing. But what about mine, I increasingly was asking myself—until I couldn't help it anymore, and I asked Alec.
It was when I heard him curse and ball up the sheet of paper he was writing on and stand up and look over to me on the bed. I knew better than to break into his concentration after sex—that's when he had a chance to rejoin the threads of his novel, and there would be nothing but anger and frustration from him if I broke into the mood with concerns of my own.
But now, his muses were locked, and he was focused on me—he wanted me.
As he approached the bed, I held out my arms, not in welcome, but in a gesture of fending him off.
"No, sit first, Alec. We must talk."
"Talk?" he asked, in a fog of confusion at the breaking of a routine that worked for him so well.
"Yes. You are nearly finished with your work on this novel. But I am here because you said a famous editor wanted to work with my novel manuscript. When does this happen? When is my time?" I almost went as far as to point out that I was no less of a slave whore to him in this arrangement now than I had become to Stanford Dane at Oberlin—and that I hadn't come away with him for just more of the same exploitation without concern for my writing future.
"Trudeau is a very busy man. Praeger is a juggernaut in publishing—they churn out several books a day, and Max is at the center of that. He knows you're here. He will call for you when he's ready. And the time will not be long—it will be too short."
There was a catch in his voice, and I looked at him sharply. His face bore a sadder expression than I had ever seen before. And he was running his hand down my belly and then farther—and driving me crazy with his attentions. I shuddered, wanting to give into my own arousal and also wanting to take the sad expression off his face—and yet wanting an answer to my question.
His sad face and what he was doing with his hand won out.
And then when Trudeau did summon me to his offices two days later, the sad expression returned to Alec's face, and he seemed to be reluctant and to be dragging his feet in taking me to Trudeau. His hug and handshake as we stood in front of Trudeau's office door seemed more of a farewell than a beginning of a new phase of our lives.
I couldn't understand what his problem was. He had been the one to send my manuscript to his editor. He had shown no evidence beforehand of wanting anything less than literary success for me. He never before had portrayed a moment of professional competition or jealousy. Indeed, I assumed that when I was published, we would have a life of sharing each other's successes and playing off each other's revealed inspirations in discussions that benefited us both. That's what I'd been told could happen in writers' liaisons—the synergy of the muses of both enhancing the creativity of both.
All Alec said before he withdrew, leaving me alone with Maximilian Trudeau, was "Here he is, Charles Bairr," when we opened the door after a gruff voice answered our knock. We had walked to and stopped at the threshold of the dimly lit office stuffed with manuscripts and flecks of dust floating in the beam of light coming through one tall window some dozen stories off the ground and grimy with grease from the fumes of the horseless carriages bustling by on the narrow city street below.
I looked to the desk to the left of the door, but the "Come here and sit beside me" command came from the right. I turned there. A large man, perhaps pushing fifty, and obviously an avid and frequent diner on fine foods, was folded into a heavy, horse-hair-covered Chesterfield sofa that sat in front of a fireplace, blocking it, with towering bookshelves on either side stuffed with manuscripts. My first thought at seeing the piles of manuscripts strewn about was to wonder how Trudeau got to the furniture, the fireplace, or the shelves—or, indeed, how he knew where anything could be found on demand in the room. Intuitively, though, I knew that he could place his hands on anything in the room. Including, now, me. My second thought went back to when I first saw Stanford Dane in that dimly lit office at Oberlin, and I shuddered at the realization that this would be a déjà vu moment.
Alec had told me what working with Trudeau would require. In fairness, he told me before we left Oberlin. But letting men fuck me had become my lot in life. I wasn't a fool of my circumstances. My life had been moving from the cock of one patron to another, starting on an hourly basis and eventually moving to liaisons that had greater rewards for me. I appreciated that the progression was going in this direction.
