“Yeah, I know,” I say to Yasmine resignedly. “I know I could make him happy though.”
“You did from the moment he met you, now that I’m remembering that far back,” Yasmine says.
That stops me up short. I look at her and lean in closer.
“What are you talking about, Yas?” I ask.
She’s silent. I wait. She looks at me. Finally she sighs. “Alright, fine,” she says. “You know that Arsen’s dad used to own the club before he died. He started the whole empire.”
I nod to Yasmine. Arsen has told me all this.
“Well, Arsen used to come in and fuck the girls if they wanted a ride, you know? Kind of like a welcome committee. Not all of them, and not every time. But he’s been known to wet his whistle with a Scorcher’s girl quite a few times,” Yasmine says. What she’s saying isn’t a secret. I used to hear girls talk about Arsen in the dressing rooms. About his body. His appetites. His giant cock. “But what you don’t know is that the night you left early, like a week later he came back.”
Now I’m curious as Yasmine continues. “Comes in and I think oh, maybe it’s time for me to finally take big boy for a ride, and I’m flirting with him.”
I wince as I think about Yasmine sharing the same man that I love but she continues. “Motherfucker completely shot me down,” she says. “Instead asks me if I knew where that pretty blonde haired girl with a nice tits and hot ass and blue eyes went. I told him she didn’t work at Scorcher’s no more. That I sent her over to work at Simulated Pleasures.”
I freeze. Arsen had seen me at the club. And he had been looking for me. He had singled me out. And he had wanted me.
“Guy didn’t even touch one hair on all this,” she says, using her hands to gesture to her body. “I was ready to suck his cock right there on the main floor too – it was one of those nights. But alls he wanted was you, babe. Haven’t seen him inside the club since.”
“He just wanted me…” I say to her softly, but I’m speaking more to myself.
“Since the moment he met you, girlfriend. So I’d go a bit easy on him,” Yasmine says, finally taking a bite out of her chocolate croissant. "If anything, Arsen was trying to protect you."
"How's that?" I ask.
"Well, he sold his company in chunks to the Russian mob. I'm sure he was trying to protect you for as long as he could. They probably would have pressured you for sex or something to keep working there."
Her words stun me. What if that's true? Could that be it? Was Arsen just trying to keep me safe and protected?
I ask, "How do you know all this?"
"I have my ways."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
She thinks for a moment, as if she's not sure whether to say anything or not, but then continues, "Do you remember that slightly old lawyer who always hangs around Mr. Arsen Hawke?"
"Vaguely," I say, thinking of the times I’ve seen him on the video conference screen or he’s come by Arsen’s One57 apartment. ‘Gerard?”
"Well, he's the lawyer Arsen uses for everything, including selling the pieces of his company to the Russian mob. And he’s held out selling Simulated Pleasures as long as he can because he’s worried about how the mob is going to treat the girls that work there."
"How do you know that?"
"Let's just say I've seen him—both inside… and outside of the club."
"No—you two are having an affair?"
Yasmine motions her fingers over lips, as if she's zipping them shut.
"Fine, don't tell me," I say. But as soon as I say it, I realize that I may have everything wrong—yet again. If Yasmine is right, then Arsen hasn’t just loved me. He’s protected me. And all I’ve done is to repay him with scorn.
60
Arsen
I look out the window of the limo as it's drives down 8th Avenue toward my club, a hopping spot named Climax. It’s on 31st Street and 8th Avenue and I can see that the line to the fucking club goes nearly one fucking city block.