Liaisons Read online

  ‘You’d rather have one right out of the showroom?’ Dry humour resonated in the stranger’s voice. He’d nailed Todd’s style in a heartbeat.

  ‘Do you work here?’ I recognised Todd’s tone from the way he sometimes asked, ‘You’re going to wear that?’ when we were getting ready for a party, sending me scurrying back to my closet to replace my first outfit with something less dramatic, more acceptable – taking off the collection of sparkly rhinestone pins adorning my collar, or slipping on standard opaque hosiery rather than fence-net stockings.

  The man smiled and I saw the crinkle lines at the corners of his grey eyes, noted the scuff of shadow on his jawline. Suddenly I placed him. He’d outbid me at an auction in a warehouse downtown several months previously, snagging a brass headboard I’d had my eye on. I’d moaned about the loss for a week, but had blocked out the winner’s good looks with the sour grapes’ sensation of being outbid. Now, I thought about Todd’s comment from a moment before. The term ‘broken in’ perfectly suited this man, from his faded Levis to his well-worn leather belt, which he stroked with his thumb when he saw me watching. Fuck, did he guess what I was thinking when his hand worked the leather? That, in an instant, I’d imagined him bending me over and tanning my ass with the strip of hide? This was a fantasy I’d never confessed even to Todd, and yet I felt unexpectedly naked before the dark-haired man.

  A shiver ran from the nape of my neck to the base of my spine, and I had to direct my focus to the nearby trio of nesting tables in order to hide my flush. My fingertips travelled the length of the top table, making curlicues in the thin layer of dust.

  ‘Just a fellow junker,’ the man confessed, and Todd immediately turned his back, ending the conversation without another thought. I could see my boyfriend looking for a way out of the store. One Man’s Trash was jammed with so many oddly shaped items that there was hardly space to walk. But I caught the man’s eye in the ornate mirror on the far wall, saw him watching me, taking in my mod dress, white go-go boots, and the tortoiseshell hair band I’d used to scrape the curls off my face.

  Pushed past the edge of his limits of patience, Todd grabbed my hand and dragged me forcefully through the labyrinth of sofas and breakfronts and grandfather clocks out onto the crushed-glass glittery sidewalk of lower Fairfax.

  ‘We tried it your way,’ he said. ‘Now, let’s do it my way.’

  How I wished he were talking about fucking rather than furniture. But what would ‘my way’ be in bed? Rougher than we usually had sex. Dirtier. There’d be a spark of pain involved, a power exchange, a heat that would leave me melting in the centre of the mattress, my body limp and liquid. We’d fuck at 2 a.m., or right after work, or meet in the middle of the day for an illicit liaison between two of his appointments. Anything other than the minty-fresh, lights-off sex Todd and I currently shared on a twice-weekly basis.

  The man in the furniture store would have understood. He wouldn’t have had a problem getting busy on that sofa, pulling down my knickers, kicking my polished white boots apart. He’d have his belt off in a flash, binding my wrists together over my head, fastening my body to the coat-rack on one wall, whipping me with the cord from one of the 1950s-style lamps.

  As I stared through the picture window at the stranger, I let myself be led to Todd’s convertible silver BMW, with the rhinestone-studded ‘Dentist to the Stars’ circling the vanity plate: TM DDS for Dr Todd Mitchell, Doctor of Dental Surgery. I didn’t say a single word when he pulled in front of the high-end furniture store on Beverly Boulevard, a place filled with furniture so new that the air smelled only of plastic particles.

  The next time I saw the stranger was at the world famous Rose Bowl flea market in Pasadena. Like me, the man was one of the early birds. He appeared aimless, not on an obvious mission, like the couples you’ll see out to buy a bookshelf, or a new bunk bed, but walking in a semi-trance, the way I do. That’s the only way you’ll ever find true treasure. Although today I actually had an agenda.

  My best friend Katea and I were officially on the lookout for a coffee table. Todd had won the sofa war, purchased from a saleswoman who looked so freshly scrubbed I thought she must keep her pussy encased in Saran wrap. To even things out, I was allowed to choose the table – but I’d been given a list of rules to follow:

  Nothing too dinged up

  No 70s styles

  Nix on a kidney shape from the 50s

  Bamboo was a deal-breaker

  If I didn’t score today, Todd was going to buy the one he’d had his eye on at the furniture warehouse, anonymous in its ugliness, but one the chirrupy salesgirl had assured him was the height of fashion.

  While Katea and I shopped, Todd remained home, ostensibly awaiting the arrival of our new sectional sofa – but also, I knew, avoiding his nightmare of a way to spend a weekend. ‘Surrounded by other people’s junk? Thank you very much, but no. I’d rather inspect the corners of the condo to see if the maid missed any stray specs.’

  He’d said that in a sarcastic tone, yet part of me was sure he actually would look to see if she’d remembered to clean the inside of the bathroom cabinets as well as the mirrors on the exterior.

  What Todd didn’t understand – or could not seem to fathom – was that junking turned me on. The concept of finding a jewel amid the rubble made my heart beat wildly. At least, that’s what I told myself as I stared hard at the stranger.

  ‘Look over there,’ I said, motioning to Katea.

  ‘You like that lamp?’

  ‘No, the man.’

  ‘I like the lamp,’ she said, admiring the sleek silver swanlike neck, suspending the round cantaloupe ball of a lantern like one lone Christmas bauble. Katea shared my passion for vintage – we’d met at a swap meet years before – so shopping with her was dangerous. In a one-of-a-kind world, passions can run strong. Friendships have been destroyed over a tug-of-war for the perfect La-Z-Boy. Luckily for us, we had different tastes.

  ‘But the man, he’s the one I saw at One Man’s Trash. Do you remember? The one who liked the 60s sofa, while I was mooning over the velvet leopard-print.’

  ‘How on earth could you let a couch like that go?’

  ‘Todd wasn’t into it.’

  ‘He’s not big on fur,’ she smirked. ‘He forced you to get rid of your coat, didn’t he?’

  ‘It wasn’t that he forced me …’ I trailed off, thinking of the three-quarter-length coat with obsidian buttons. Todd had made an offhand remark about the jacket looking like something his grandmother would have worn with an eau du mothball perfume, and I’d tucked the coat into a box for storage.

  Katea cocked her head, and then whispered, ‘Todd wouldn’t be caught dead wearing jeans like that.’

  She was right. Todd’s $300 jeans lasted only until the first sign of wear. In fact, sometimes he ditched a pair when he simply thought they were about to fade, locking onto a hint of gradation in denim colour that nobody but he would notice. The stranger’s were threadbare in the knees and seat, but they fitted his toned body to perfection. I would have spent a happy afternoon trading places with those jeans, wrapping myself around this man’s body, my skin to his.

  Why did this man make me want to change places with inanimate objects – first fantasising about becoming that Nauga sofa, and now dreaming of being turned into a pair of Levis?

  He was perusing items in a stall ten feet away, looking at coils of dull silver chains, bundles of rope. I saw his hand reach out to touch a heavy padlock, and I noticed the fact that he didn’t wear a ring.

  The thought brought me instantly back to Todd, and guilt coloured my cheeks. The two of us had been together for nearly a year, and the month before he’d invited me to move into his condo with him – thus starting the hunt for new furniture. I had been sad to leave my apartment in Hollywood, with the scrolling metalwork on the fire escape outside the window, the black-and-white tiled kitchen, the touches of 40s you couldn’t find in most apartments any more. Especially places like Todd’s, a
sparkling condominium in the recently refurbished heart of downtown L.A.

  But I’d been afraid to admit that I’d consider choosing cornicing over a chance at marital bliss. That’s the sort of concept that lands you all by yourself in your old age, sharing your cheery yellow Formica table with seventeen cats. At least, that’s what I told myself as I tried to accept my new digs. Besides, I’d dated my share of fixer-uppers in the past. Sure, my previous beaus had looked perfect. One had favoured suspenders and Zoot suits. Another had channelled James Dean from his clothes to the silver Spyder he drove. But all had been lacking in one way or another. Liam didn’t understand that being exclusive meant not occasionally fucking cute actor boys at the Y. Thad was missing the all-important work ethic. The James Dean lookalike had left me for a girl who resembled Natalie Wood.

  Wasn’t it time for me to be with a man who had all his parts in working order?

  That didn’t mean I fell naturally into Todd’s universe. Everything here seemed antiseptic to me, which made sense, I supposed, as he was a celebrity dentist. He’d want to project a clean-cut image. But I’m second-hand to the core – the owner of a tiny vintage boutique in the heart of Hollywood – and, as such, we’re not the type people would automatically put together. Because of my business, I’m allowed to be creative with the way I dress. My boyfriend traded in his car every two years for a sleeker model, the same way he’d moved from girlfriend to girlfriend before he met me – the bikini model, the airline stewardess. Once I’d learned his history, I was surprised he even sent me a drink at the bar where we met. I had been flattered when he wanted to take me out, and fell more than a little over my head when he started showering me with presents.

  ‘Opposites attract,’ Katea said after meeting Todd for the first time. Did she believe we made a good team, or was she waiting for Todd to tire of me and drop me in a bin outside the nearest thrift store? Because, recently, I had begun to think that he liked me in spite of my style, that if I were a doll, he’d strip off my clothes and dress me up right, in matchy-matchy clothes like the girl in the furniture store had worn: white on white on white.

  ‘What’s he doing with all that rope?’ Katea said, shaking me from my reverie.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I told her, ‘but I’ve got first dibs on the record player.’

  We both ran towards the old GE together, my hand touching the turntable first.

  ‘You bought a what?’ Todd asked when I arrived home.

  ‘A Wildcat.’ I swallowed hard. I hadn’t thought ahead, too delighted in my purchase to consider what he might say.

  ‘Is that another word for record player?’ He looked incredulous.

  ‘Not just a record player, but a Wildcat,’ I said, talking quickly. ‘This one’s from about 1974. Built-in speakers. And the arm is automatic. You know, so you can put on the record, and –’

  ‘And –’ Todd interrupted me, ‘where’s the coffee table?’

  ‘You don’t understand the first thing about junking,’ I teased, trying for light and airy. Who did I think I was? The sing-song hostess from Trading Spaces? ‘You might go looking for one item, but chances are you’ll find six other treasures instead.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you bought six record players?’

  I’d had a Silvertone in my Hollywood apartment – gun-metal grey with built-in speakers – but movers had dropped the box containing the precious player, and I hadn’t found a shop able to do the necessary repairs.

  ‘We have a state-of-the-art stereo system.’ He pointed to the nearly invisible speakers mounted in the wall, and the furrow in his brow deepened noticeably. He’d seen my record collection, hadn’t he? The albums took up two shelves in the closet of the spare bedroom. He’d known I would replace the broken one, hadn’t he?

  Apparently not.

  He didn’t move as I started to set up the player in the corner of the room.

  ‘Just wait,’ I told him, sprinting up the stairs in search of one of my favourite records. I came back clutching The Police, ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’. I set the record down, placed the needle on the outer groove, and felt Todd watching me as the arm slid right over the record and knocked brutishly against the paper label.

  He laughed dismissively, and a weight settled hard in my stomach. But then I remembered. Quickly, I grabbed up my straw bag and dug out my wallet. Feeling Todd’s brown eyes on me, I carefully placed a quarter, a dime, and two copper pennies on the top of the needle. When I started up the record player a second time, the machine worked. There was that crinkly whisper at the start, then the sound of Sting belting out one of my all-time favourite songs. Immediately, I felt like I was twelve again, listening to The Police in my bedroom, sprawled on my floral comforter and staring at the posters on the walls. I turned to look at Todd, who didn’t have the same lost expression on his face that I felt on mine. He lifted one of his many remotes from the line-up on the mantle. In seconds the exact same song was issuing from the speakers, a few bars behind mine.

  ‘That’s been digitally remastered. How can you argue with quality?’

  I wanted to ask him the same thing.

  ‘I only have seven bucks on me,’ I heard a man nearby say the following weekend. ‘Can’t we make a deal?’

  When relationships start to go south, some people head to the bars. Others seek solace in a stranger’s arms. I spent all day Saturday and Sunday at different garage sales, driving to Silver Lake, Venice Beach, or even the Valley if the write-ups in the paper sounded promising.

  Todd wasn’t waiting at home for me anyway. After losing too many weekends fighting over our very different ways of relaxing we’d decided to take separate but equal days off. Todd would satisfy his needs in the ultimate mall experience, while I went junking. Todd was undoubtedly right at this minute at a Best Buy, pricing out state-of-the-art flat-screen televisions. Or maybe he was at Verizon, drooling over the latest in cell phone technology. If he had finished at those two stores, he’d be buying a Grande Frappuccino at Starbucks to take home with him, where he would spend the rest of Saturday afternoon polishing his glossy appliances and making sure I hadn’t left any knick-knacks on the window sills.

  I told myself I was working. Scouting for hidden finds for my store. But I was lying. ‘Seven dollars, my ass,’ I whispered to the stranger, thrilled to see his face once more. ‘You’ve got a twenty tucked into your boot, or my name isn’t Fiona.’

  He shook his head, but the corners of his lips turned up.

  I’d told him my name. I could see that fact register in his chrome-coloured eyes. ‘It’s here in my wristband,’ he said, unzipping the hidden compartment on his thick leather cuff to show me I was right: crisp, folded Jackson. ‘For emergencies only.’

  I grinned and moved away, losing myself in the tables of odds and ends, but thinking of the way he smelled. Like old leather. Like used bookstores. Like a promise.

  My James Dean lookalike had fucked me bent over his convertible. He’d dress me up like a 1950s femme fatale in hot pink jodhpurs and a sleeveless black-and-white checked shirt. Chartreuse chiffon kerchief at the neck, cork-soled espadrilles. He’d pretend he just won a street race, and to the victor went the spoils.

  And I was the spoils.

  We’d fucked after watching Rebel Without a Cause. And after watching Giant. And East of Eden.

  The sex had been so good that I’d stayed with him longer than I should have. Even when I knew he was straying, even when I knew his eye had wandered, I’d slip on that outfit and arch my back.

  But when I tried to get Todd to do me on his car, he gave me a pained look. ‘Just got the Beamer detailed, Fifi,’ he said, shaking his head sadly, and not noticing me grimace at his pet name for me. ‘I wouldn’t want to smudge the sheen.’

  I reached for the paper to hide my disappointment, grabbing a pen and starting to circle the promising garage sales for the next week. Hoping against hope that I’d run into my stranger again.

  ‘We’ve got to
stop meeting like this, Fiona,’ the stranger said over a tangle of vintage scarves at a church rummage sale in North Hollywood. My hand was on a red silk one, and my heart throbbed at the way my name sounded in his low, rumbling voice. He could blindfold me with the blue one, use the emerald to bind my wrists, the long lilac one on my ankles. He’d start with me face down, and spank me hard with his hand, getting me so wet, so juicy that, when he retied me face up, I would be dripping. He’d slide right in, driving hard, keeping me off balance with the blindfold still in place. I wouldn’t know what he was thinking, wouldn’t be able to see his eyes.

  God, what a vision. And all from simply touching an old-fashioned scarf.

  ‘We do,’ I agreed, and then let the statement hang between us.

  Until he said, ‘Killian. My name’s Killian.’

  His fingers met mine just as Katea yelled out, ‘I think I’ve found your coffee table!’ When I turned to glare at her, the man snagged the collection from out of my grasp and headed towards the cashier at the front of the sale.

  ‘Save some for the rest of us,’ she hissed to me.

  ‘Scarves?’ I asked dumbly. I wondered if anyone else in the church parking lot had panties on as wet as mine were.

  ‘No, men. Besides, isn’t he a bit scruffy for your newly upscale tastes?’

  ‘There’s a fine line between “broken in” and “broken down”.’

  ‘Which one is Todd?’ she teased.

  ‘Neither,’ I sighed, wondering if maybe that was our whole problem.

  At work, my new record player sat on a shelf by the register, albums lined up underneath. I put on Empty Bed Blues and wondered what mess I’d got myself into.

  Why would I go for a brand-new model when I was so used to second-hand? Because I’d been burned by one too many fixer-upper types, men I’d snagged at half-off sales, sure I could get replacement parts for them, and who ended up as broken inside as they were out. Shouldn’t have been a shock to Katea that I would be interested in trying a boy still wrapped in the box. We were two of a kind in that way, weren’t we? Todd had grown tired of the synthetic princesses he’d dated, and I’d become immune to the scruffy men in loose-soled shoes.