Episode 3: Any Woman He Wants

All the way home, Nuria was suffused with a warm glow that even the cold January wind could not entirely break through. She hugged Sean's manuscript to her chest while she walked the three blocks from the subway station to her apartment. The sky was a matte gray, threatening snow, the sidewalk still slushy from the snow and freezing rain of a few days before. The sun was only a white blur against the gray, hovering just over the skyline.

She hummed a wordless, little tune to herself in the elevator, reveling in the pinched stare of the other passenger, a wiry, stern-looking old woman she dimly recognized as living on one of the higher floors. Despite the fact that they had spoken on maybe a half dozen occasions, Nuria didn't know the woman's name. She was familiar with the look on the older woman's face, though. It was the one she gave Nuria whenever anything she disapproved of came up in conversation or into her line of sight. She wore it most of the time. Strangely, she had always smiled at Nuria and generally presumed her to be a co-conspirator in disapproval.

Today, though, she frowned at Nuria and didn't speak. Nuria glanced at herself in the reflecting surface of the elevator doors. She was still dressed respectably enough for the first day at a new office. She'd even put her hose back on, even though Sean had snagged them in his ardor and they were almost certainly damaged beyond repair. But, the snag wasn't anywhere old pruneface could see.

Then, she saw her hair. She had tied it back by feel into an uneven ponytail, but a half dozen wisps had conspired to escape and make it clear to anyone looking at her what Nuria had been up to.

Nuria shrugged and smiled at the old woman. Let her get a good look. Nuria had nothing to be ashamed of.

When she opened the door to her apartment, Nuria thought for a moment she'd walked in on a seduction. Carla was kneeling on the couch next to a man, staring at him in rapt attention. Pearl was curled up in the overstuffed chair, chin on one hand, similarly attentive. Nuria almost excused herself and went to her room before she realized that the man they were fawning over was Quentin.

He rose to greet her, smiling, "Nuria." His arms started to go out to hug her, then stopped for a moment as he got a good look at her. It was only momentary and, if not accompanied by a deep frown, Nuria might have thought she imagined it.

Still, the frown disappeared as quickly as the pause and he hugged her warmly, "I brought you the latest complete draft of my novel. I've made some extensive changes since this one was written, but I thought you would want to see the shape of it."

"Great," said Nuria, putting down the box she was carrying to take off her coat.

"Oh," said Quentin, "I see that Sean got to you first."

Nuria had already spun to face him, her heart sinking, unsure of how to respond when she realized he had only been speaking about the manuscript. Honest confusion was replaced with dawning realization on Quentin's face. He said, "You'll probably want to get to his first. It's far more polished and closer to publishable. Mine's just a rough cut."

Nuria said, "Everyone at Aqueduct is anxious to see what you've written."

Quentin winced, "I hope you won't show them that. It's really just a first draft that Mayumi has gone through and pointed out some grammatical and continuity issues. I normally wouldn't show it to anyone, but you've seen me write far worse."

"I'm looking forward to reading it," said Nuria. "I won't show it to anyone until you say so."

Quentin looked back at Carla's pleading eyes and laughed, "You'd better let Carla and Pearl read it too or you'll never hear the end of it." He pointed a stern finger at Carla, "Just don't tell anybody what it's about. It's supposed to be a secret."

Carla nodded eagerly, "I won't tell nobo... anybody anything."

Quentin said, "Well, I really should be going. I just came over to drop that off. Nuria, will I still see you tomorrow night?"

Nuria nodded and said earnestly, "I would like that."

Quentin nodded again, taking his coat off of the coat rack, "I have tickets to Tosca at eight and dinner reservations at Cafe des Artistes. I'll pick you up at seven thirty."

Impulsively, Nuria hugged him fiercely. He hugged her back with one arm, kissing the top of her head, gave her a somewhat melancholy smile, and left. Nuria leaned back against the door. Suddenly, her knees seemed a bit wobbly and she wasn't sure if they would hold her up.

Pearl was up and walking towards her. Carla asked, "Oh my God, Miss D. What did you do?"

"Let her sit down and catch her breath," said Pearl, leading Nuria to where Quentin had been sitting.

When Nuria had sat down, but not caught her breath, Pearl asked, "Miss Delgado, you didn't already... at the office?"

In spite of herself, Nuria laughed, "No. No. After I left the office, I had lunch with Sean, my other student. I did not expect... things to progress the way they did."

Pearl sat down next to her, leaning in, "Maybe he didn't notice. Men aren't always as observant as..."

"He noticed," said Nuria. "I saw it in his face."

"Well," said Pearl, "he still wants to see you tomorrow. That's good. Right?"

Nuria nodded, "I hope so. But, he and Sean were inseparable when I knew them in school. I have a hard time seeing Quentin seeing me as available if he thinks I'm with Sean."

"So, are you with Sean?" asked Pearl, "What exactly happened?"

Nuria gave them the short version. Then, to Carla she said, "He mentioned that he'd worked with you. I saw a photograph he'd taken. You photograph very well."

"This wouldn't be Sean Riley, would it?" Carla asked.

Nuria nodded. Carla gave her a sidelong glance, "He was a student of yours?"

"Yes," said Nuria, "why?"

Carla shook her head, "Never mind. I didn't know him very long. He just seemed kind of freaky, you know, like intense."

"Well," said Nuria, "he was always very intense, even in the eighth grade. Is there something bad you need to tell me?"

"No," said Carla, "Like I said, I only knew him for like a week or two. We worked together on a single project. I haven't seen him since. Have you thought about what you're going to wear tomorrow?"

Nuria sat back, sighing, "I have no idea."

"I've got just the dress," said Carla.

"I..." said Nuria.

Pearl gave a warning glance to Carla, then turned to Nuria, "What do you want the dress to say?"

"I don't know," said Nuria.

"All right," said Pearl. "I want you to answer a question without agonizing over it. Are you ready?"

Nuria nodded.

"Do you want Quentin?"

Nuria opened her mouth to speak. Then, she caught herself, paused, started to say something else, then said weakly, "I... don't know."

"Yes you do. What were you going to say first?"

Nuria lowered her head in embarrassment, "I was going to say, 'Hell, yes.'" She looked up at her roommates' grins, "But, it's not that simple."

Pearl cut her off, "Does he want you?"

"I don't know..." Nuria felt frustration rising in a tight knot in her chest.

"Yes you do," said Pearl emphatically. "Don't think about the externalities yet. Just answer the question at hand or you get blocked up and can't solve your problems."

Nuria nodded, feeling like a chastised student.

"Does he want you?"

"He must," said Nuria.

"Are you in a relationship with Sean?"

Nuria shook her head in the negative. Pearl watched her, not speaking. Finally, Nuria said, "No."

"Do you have any other interpersonal obligations that preclude a relationship with Quentin?"

"Da-a-amn," said Carla, making it three syllables. "Lissen to the perfesser here."

"You hush," said Pearl gently. "Miss D, do you have..."

"No," Nuria said, shaking her head.

"So, tell me why this problem is complicated."

Nuria looked up. The pressure in her chest seemed to have gone away. In fact, the warm afterglow that she'd felt on her way home seemed to be suffusing her again. When she spoke, her voice was clear and even.

"It isn't."

"So, what do you want the dress to say?"

Nuria smiled, then flushed, then lowered her head and put her hand over her mouth.

Pearl reached over and rubbed Nuria's shoulder affectionately, "Go ahead, Miss D. You can say it. You're not going to shock me or Carla and we're the only ones here."

This time, Nuria's voice was barely above a whisper, but she managed to get out, "I want it to say, 'fuck me.'"

Pearl grinned widely, "Carla has plenty of dresses that say that."

-=-

As it turned out, Carla had a lot of dresses that said that. Unfortunately, they also tended to say, "I have bigger breasts than Nuria." Even the bra she'd borrowed previously didn't help.

"There's no help for it," said Pearl. "We're going to have to get you something new."

"Not bad," said Nuria. "I almost believe that you're remorseful."

Pearl ignored the comment, jumping up from her place on Carla's bed, "Come on. Get your coat. We want to get there before the nine-to-fivers start showing up in droves."

-=-

"You know," said Nuria as their cab pulled away from the curb, "you really seem to have your head together. How did you figure all that out so young?"

Pearl laughed, "Truth?"

Nuria nodded. Pearl leaned in conspiratorially, "I joined a cult."

Nuria furrowed her brows in puzzlement. Pearl laughed and clapped her hands, "I love that reaction."

"What do you mean you joined a cult?"

"I know this guy, Doug Fischer," said Pearl. "We used to temp together. He was the guy everybody asked for first when they called the agencies. I was the one the agencies sent when the client said, 'Just send somebody over.'"

Nuria smiled at how animated Pearl was getting over the subject. Pearl went on, "Just so you understand, I was not the confident, well put-together young woman you see before you today. I'd just finished high school, dropped out of community college after one semester, and was only able to temp like two or three days a week because I was out partying constantly."

"Anyway, I'm temping with Doug and he's a great guy. Everybody likes him. He picks his assignments. He tells clients which temps they should bring on to work with him. The clients are working him hard because they know there's no way he's staying a temp for very long. It seems like once a week, he's turning down permanent job offers. Even though my work isn't great and I know he could say one word and the agency would tell me not to come in the next day, he keeps me on this huge document conversion project that's got like twenty temps working at any time of the day or night."

Pearl took a deep breath, "For some reason, this drives me absolutely insane. Every time he smiles at me, I want to claw this little fucker's eyes out."

Nuria tried to stifle a laugh, but it escaped before she could.

"It's all right," said Pearl. "I'd laugh too if it weren't me. But, at the time, all I can think is that this guy is showing up at work on time, getting along with everyone, and doing a great job just to show me up--just to demonstrate what a fuck-up I am."

"This goes on for about two months. The bank puts him in charge of the whole project, allegedly so that the doc-proc manager can focus on new document creation, but really because everyone knows that Doug is doing her job for her on the conversion. I can't take it anymore. So, I start taunting him, trying to find a niche in his armor. He never rises to the bait. As far as his behavior indicates, we're just exchanging pleasantries. I escalate. Nothing. I start leading him on, trying to get him to be inappropriate in the workplace. I get nothing. It's like he's dead, gay, or made of stone. One day, I corner him in the copy room. We're alone and anything that happens is his word against mine. I lay it on super-thick. Nothing."

The taxi stopped. Pearl paid the fare and got out. Nuria followed her. They were on a street full of boutiques somewhere below Houston Street.

"This is the shop," said Pearl, pointing. She took a step forward.

"Wait," said Nuria, grabbing her arm. "Finish the story."

Pearl grinned, "So, I'm finally incensed. The more he resists me, the more I want a rise. So, I reach down next to the copier and I grab it."

"You grab what?" Nuria asked. Even as the last word was out of her mouth, she knew the answer and flushed beet red.

Pearl nodded slowly. "Yup. And it's rock hard--so hard I'm surprised it's not peeking out of his pants. When I grab it, he looks down, looks at me, and says, 'Pearl, this is not the time for that, ' takes my wrist, and removes my hand from his crotch."

Nuria laughed, "What did you do?"

Pearl chuckled uneasily, "Strangely, it got through to me. In that moment, I knew how fucked up my behavior was. I didn't know why, but I knew something was wrong. But, this is when the weird part happens."

"That's not the weird part?"

Pearl shook her head, "No. We go through the rest of our shift that day and I just feel like shit. I want to quit or apologize or... something. We get to the end of the shift and we still haven't said a word to each other. We're getting our coats and he gets just close enough to me so no one can hear and says, 'Pearl, I want you to come home with me today, ' like he was saying, 'Pearl, I want you to make fifty copies of this, ' or 'Pearl, I want you to convert this to HTML.'"

Despite the fact that it was cold out, darkness was falling, and it was starting to snow again, Nuria made no indication that she intended to go into the store. Instead, she asked, "So, what did you say?"

"I said, 'okay.'"

"And what happened?"

"We got in a cab. It took us to his apartment. We went upstairs. And, he fucked the shit out of me."

Nuria stood, stunned. She tried to formulate a question. Nothing came to mind. Pearl seemed to pick one of the possible questions and answer it, "It was amazing. In some ways, it was like a continuation of the way we were in the office. He was completely in control and I was refusing to relax or surrender even a hint of my autonomy. And, it made no difference. It was amazing."

"I don't go in to work the next three days. I go out and party more or less seventy-two hours straight. I sleep with five people in that time, including my best friend and her fiancee. But, I need money, so I go back to work."

"The next time I do, it gets to the end of the day and he says to me, 'I want you to come home with me tonight.' And, I say, 'No, ' like I'm angry, which maybe I am."

Pearl looked up like she'd completely forgotten where they were and said, "We should get inside. People will be running over with their paychecks any minute." Before Nuria could protest, Pearl was dragging her inside.

Nuria thought she understood the game. She didn't get the rest of the story until she found something to try on. Impulsively, she pulled a few dressed off the rack. Pearl vetoed a few out of hand. Eventually, Nuria had three over her arm and was headed back to the dressing room.

As soon as they got into a private area, Pearl continued the story as if she hadn't been interrupted.

"So, he gets a disappointed look for a second, but then it's gone. And, he says, 'okay.' I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but for the next two weeks, I party as hard as I ever did. But, I'm also coming in to work five days a week for the first time. Doug continues to talk to me like a coworker, making no mention of anything that happened. For some reason, I can't talk about it either. Finally, Friday of the second week, he calls me into his office at the end of the shift. I'm sure this is the big blow-off or confrontation, but I don't know which."

She looked over Nuria's shoulder at the first dress, "Nice lines, classical. Probably too conservative. It says, 'respect me.' Wrong message."

Nuria sighed in agreement and began to strip out of the dress. Pearl went on, "So, we're sitting across his desk from each other and he's got one of the documents I checked off earlier in the day and there are a half-dozen red marks on it from the proofreader. He turns it towards me so that I can see it. I figure this is going to be his excuse for getting rid of me. Instead, he looks me right in the eye and says, 'Pearl, you can't keep living your life like this.' And, for a half-second, I'm furious. How dare he judge me? Then, a second later, I've got my head in my hands and I start crying like a baby."

Nuria looked up from her dress, "What? Why?"

"Because he was absolutely right. And, he had been for a long time. Some time around sixteen, I'd decided that I wasn't going to college, I wasn't going to amount to anything, and I might as well party until it killed me. From that point on, I worked hard on letting it."

"Doug and I had never talked about it. We'd never discussed what I did when I wasn't at work, never discussed anything but work. And, he knew. As soon as I started crying, he was hugging me and kissing away my tears, and comforting me. I didn't need to explain. He took me home with him again and we stayed up all night talking. And he knew things that I'd never told him. Once I got over being freaked out about it, it was amazing. He was telling me everything I needed to hear. After that, we were inseparable. I became like an entirely different person with him."

"What happened to him?"

Pearl shrugged, "Somehow, it was great, but I always knew it was temporary. Eventually, it was just over. It's more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it. Now, we're just friends."

Nuria stood in front of the mirror, "What do you think?"

Pearl looked her over. The dress was a silky material a shade darker than primary blue with a deep decolletage and a slit up one leg. She frowned, "It's probably too cold to go backless, huh?"

Nuria shrugged, "The dress I borrowed from Carla was backless."

Pearl nodded, "But, you'll probably be waiting around outside Lincoln Center for a while looking for a cab afterwards. You don't want to expose more skin than you have to in order to get the message across, even under your coat."

Nuria frowned, "You're probably right."

"It's too bad. You have an amazingly sexy back."

"I..." said Nuria. "Wait a second! You're trying to distract me. You never explained how you wound up out of all of this joining a cult."

"Oh," said Pearl. "After he quit temping, he started teaching a class at the Learning Center called the Cult of Success. It's got a huge underground following and a lot of graduates have gone on to big things. There's going to be a big write-up on it in a couple of weeks in the New York Press. We always joke that I was his first cult member."

Nuria laughed, "I can't imagine he uses the same method on all of his students, though. What's his shtick?"

Pearl counted off on her fingers, "The first class, he says, 'Accept what is. Know what you want. Do what you want.' Then, he spends the rest of the classes explaining what those three rules mean. In my case, he explained that it would have been easy to delude himself into thinking that he wanted to drag me across his desk and fuck me. But, that was only if he denied the truth of the situation, which was that he would probably get us both fired. I would probably fight him off. And, then, he would never see me again. What he really wanted was to get me outside of work so that he could fuck me. Once he came to terms with that, he did what he wanted to do."

Nuria looked at the third dress, "I think we have a winner. Do I even need to try this one on?"

Pearl shook her head, "No. You've been very well-behaved. If you don't want to, you don't have to."

-=-

Nuria stayed up late into the night reading Sean's manuscript. The next morning, she woke up with a stomach ache.

"I can't be sick," she moaned over a breakfast of toast and tea. "Not today. I can't cancel on Quentin."

"It's probably just tension," said Pearl. "You're so conflicted, you don't know whether to look forward to this date or dread it."

Nuria knew Pearl was right, "Was Doug as annoying as you are when he came up with stuff like that?"

"She finally told you the Doug story?" asked Carla. Nuria nodded.

"Good. Now you know why she's crazy."

Pearl stuck out her tongue. Carla leaned over and licked her, which led to Pearl making a great show of wiping herself off as if repulsed.

As it turned out, Pearl was right. Nuria was feeling much better after her shower. After that, Pearl insisted on rubbing her down. Nuria didn't protest much. By the time Pearl's hands had finished their work on her, she felt better than she had for a long time.

"Feeling better?" Pearl asked.

"I think you made me drool," said Nuria drowsily.

"Involuntary and embarassing physical responses are what make this job worthwhile," said Pearl. "Now, let's get you in the kitchen so that Carla can do your hair."

"Mmmmm... what?"

"C'mon. Up."

Nuria looked up through slitted eyes, "What's wrong with my hair?"

"Nothing, sweetie. It's beautiful. Carla just wants to give it a little bit of oomph."

Nuria considered Pearl's hair, which Carla cut on a fairly regular basis. Pearl smiled at the scrutiny, "Trust Carla. Ever since I let her start cutting my hair, guys have noticed and my tips have gone way up."

"Their eyes go that high?"

"You wouldn't think so, but apparently they do."

Nuria wrapped herself in her robe, "Actually, a new haircut would be perfect."

They exited the bedroom. Carla was sitting at her desk, typing away at the computer. "Hey, C," said Pearl. "Nuria wants a haircut."

Carla's eyes got wide with excitement, "Oh. I've been waiting for this. Miss D, have a seat in the kitchen. I'll go get my tools."

Nuria shot a nervous glance at Pearl, "What you gotten me into?" Pearl just smiled and guided her to the kitchen chair.

Carla emerged with a plastic tackle box and a barbershop drape, "I been wantin' to get at that hair ever since you moved in."

"You used to do this professionally, right?" Nuria asked.

"Yeah," said Carla, affecting a low-class Southern accent. "But, I ain't done it since I started gettin' the shakes. Fortunately, the drinkin' cuts them way down."

"Very funny," said Nuria.

"Don't worry, Miss D. I take my work seriously. I won't make any radical changes."

"Actually," said Nuria. "I think something radical might be just the thing."

"Really?" asked Carla. Her eyes lit up, "Please tell me you're not just saying that so you can crush my dreams when you sit down."

"No," said Nuria, sitting down. "I think it's time for a change."

Carla opened her tackle box, revealing a bewildering array of tools of the trade, "So, what do you want me to do?"

"I want something that would look out of place on a schoolteacher," said Nuria. "But, not on a sophisticated New York City editor."

Carla thought for a minute, walking around Nuria and looking at her hair.

"Miss D, do you trust me?"

Nuria laughed nervously, "Not entirely. But, I'm in your hands."

"Fair enough," said Carla. "I want to do a cut that you can wear to work, but also out on a date. The way I would do it today would never do for the office, but you can wash it, blow dry it, and wear it differently at the office and no one would ever guess what it looked like on the weekend."

"Sounds high-maintenance," said Nuria.

"It is," said Carla. "On the dating side. But, it shouldn't take you any longer to get ready in the morning than it would now."

"All right," said Nuria, sitting back and relaxing. "I'm in your hands."

Carla went to work. There were no mirrors in the kitchen, so Nuria had to judge the progress of the haircut by what wound up on the drape. She did her best to keep up a light chatter with Pearl, but couldn't keep a note of concern out of her voice.

"Okay," said Carla, producing a mirror from her tackle box. "This is what we're starting with. From this point on, I won't cut more than maybe an eighth of an inch in places."