“… he, of course, wants to do the anal thing… but with him, I don’t so much…”
As her cousin went on with a litany of various ways men had entered her and she them, Brooke drifted off into an internal soliloquy of remorse over her own pathetic love life. A few months ago she was blown off a ship and almost died in the ocean. Two years prior, she had nearly been killed in a foiled terrorist plot to launch a poisonous gas cloud over New York City. A brave retired detective had saved her life and the lives of millions in the metropolitan area by sacrificing his own. In another case, she had stared down a mastermind terrorist, the scariest man she’d ever met, and got him to blink first, which led to the unraveling of a nuclear bomb plot. But she had relegated her joy, her happiness, to somewhere after doing the laundry on her to-do list.
Mathilde was now painfully describing her soreness from a well-hung guy who must have been her Wednesday booty call, or was she up to Friday? Brooke had lost count.
“Brooke, Brooke. Are you somewhere else? Did you hear what I said about his — what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I was just thinking — never mind.”
“No, I have been talking all the time. What is on your head?”
“You got me thinking; here you are living a life where you have sex more than I work out, and it just…just makes you think, that’s all.”
“Who is he?”
Brooke didn’t bother to play cute with a, ‘Why, whomever do you mean?’ ploy. Mathilde had broken many barriers tonight. “I met him briefly. He saved my life actually.”
“Ooo this is good! Go on.”
“He is unbelievable; he is the captain of a ship.”
“A big one?”
“Yes, it’s a submarine…”
“No, his cock, does he have a big one?”
“You are unbelievable! When did you turn into such a sex fiend?”
“Right after I started getting my period. I was in school — ”
Brooke held up her hand, “Hey wait, we are talking about me now.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sorry; I will tell you about Claude and Jeremy later.”
Brooke was about to speak when what Mathilde said finally registered, “TWO? At what, thirteen?” The she stopped herself and held up her hand, “Ah no, I don’t want to hear this now — back to me.” Brooke shook off the image of a thirteen-year-old Mathilde kissing two boys under the stairwell between history and math. “Anyway he’s got the most trusting eyes, he’s big and strong, and he just bristles with maleness.”
As she spoke, Brooke realized she sounded like the girl in the hall in high school who was all ‘dreamy’ over some jock, but never so much as kissed him. Here, Mathilde was ready to open the Happy Hooker Ranch and she was still damp over some guy she barely knew and never slept with. Pathetic was the word that kept bouncing off her brain. But still, she kept talking like an infatuated teen. “He is one of a handful of men on the planet who is trusted to command a weapon with the power to destroy dozens of cities and millions of people. Getting close to that kind of power is intoxicating. I tried to deny that but I can’t. He is a rare breed; the Navy makes sure of that and I can’t stop thinking about him.”
“Go to him and fuck him,” Mathilde said as if she were suggesting bringing him a cup of coffee.
Brooke wanted to say something — some objection to Mathilde’s crude suggestion. But she couldn’t. She tried, but no words came out. Was it that simple? Had she miscalculated? Then it hit her. “But what if that isn’t enough?” she said, leaning over the table so as not to broadcast her fear to the entire restaurant.
“If he has a small zizi, better to find out now.”
“No, no, you lunatic, not his thing. What if just ‘doing it’ isn’t enough? What if I want him more, want to be with him, want to make him my world? Where would I go? What part of my world would I have to give up to keep him?”
“My beautiful cousin, you think too much with your head.”
“You obviously don’t have that problem?” Brooke couldn’t bring back the words; she was sorry before she finished the sentence. “Oh, I didn’t mean that, Mathilde.”
“But it’s true; my heart and my pussy are two separate things. I want that kind of relationship you are looking for but it doesn’t always happen. In the meantime, I have fun. I have needs and I make sure they are meeting.”
“Well, just the same, it was an awful thing for me to say.” The moment hung. “Do you really? Do you really want that too?”
Mathilde gestured to their barely eaten appetizers. “It is like food; you want to have a fabulous dinner in the best place in the world with the best wine and the best service. This does not mean you don’t also eat a hamburger when you are hungry?”
“I guess that’s a healthy way to look at it if you make it a veggie burger.”
“Veggie? Oh yes, no meat! That is your problem, no meat!”
They both laughed, and with that, the tension shattered and the night became beautiful again to Brooke. They lingered on till one in the morning, then strolled back up the steep hill, formerly the province of mountain goats, hence the name Chèvre d’Or — Golden Goat. They hugged at the room’s door.
“Oh, it was great seeing you, Mathilde. I love your life. You are happy and doing what you want.”
“Brooke, don’t listen to me too much, I work in a hotel and people are always coming here to find romance. It is all around me all the time. You — you are out in the world, exciting job, FBI, now the Clinton Girl. Don’t let my silly affairs sway you. Your captain will come to you; he may be one-in-a-million, but you, my cousin, are one-in-a-billion. Bonne chance.
“Bonne chance, Mathilde.” Brooke went into her room and out onto the terrace to view the lights twinkling all the way to Nice. A lone airliner was silently lifting into the night sky. She looked out over the sea and imagined that beneath those waves was a trillion-dollar boy’s toy. Her Mush giving orders and thinking of her. Her head was floating; she had drunk more tonight than in a month. She flopped down on the chaise, and with the moon bright overhead and knowing there was no one higher than her perch who could see, her fingers wandered and she visited with Mush once again.
Joey was scanning the London Times, the first English language daily paper available at the embassy each morning, as he sat on the veranda and sipped his espresso. He read about the latest sex scandal to capture the attention of the British. Under the scathing headline, “Saudi Royal Sex Scandal,” he read about the bodyguard of an Arabian prince who had been found dead in Switzerland. Seems the security man had taken to a hooker in a dance club and had been seen following her out of the club. His body had been found in a cheap hotel and the police were assuming he and the prostitute’s pimp had an altercation, during which he was stabbed to death. The article ended with a statement from the royal family. “We regret the death of our trusted and loyal aide. His dalliance into this regrettable incident is not in the tradition or countenance of the Prince or the Royal Family. May Allah have mercy.”
Joey had done some protective service detail as a New York City cop during the General Assembly, and knew the children of the royals were holy terrors. His cop’s sense told him there was no way the prince wasn’t somehow involved in this. In fact, back in the seventies, one of the biggest, loudest playboy “princes” was the son of a big Arab construction tycoon, who burned up the cobblestone streets in lower Manhattan with his Ferrari and held sway over ten of the hottest clubs and their precious female constituents. This privileged offspring started his day at 7 p.m. and ended it in some after-hours shindig in a series of hotel suites about sunrise. He was a playboy of the first order. His name was Osama Bin Laden.