27. Zoe
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ZOE
T here is something about icons wearing iconic outfits to the Met Gala that always has the media whipping around their pinky fingers for months. But there are a few appearances that have broken the internet and still cause an uproar years later.
Like Cher in the first-ever Met Gala in a naked dress with a glittering sheer design by Bob Mackie. Then there is Princess Diana wearing that daring navy blue Dior dress in 1996. Or the bold statement Rihanna made with Guo Pei in 2015 in that canary yellow cape gown.
The stars will no doubt have the media spiraling. However, a nobody in the creationof a legend will have the people's hearts reeling.
I, the nobody, am producing the exact effect I predicted in a piece of art created by the fashion goddess herself. The same impression it made when Ettore first saw me wearing this ombre dress.
“Shall we?” Ettore husks, standing just outside the limousine, staring at me like there is something other than the fact that I have transformed into Cinderella.
My prince has a warm smile on his face. He is dressed in one of the suits I made for him, which Valerie had to help me finish up so it matches my overflowing ball gown.
He is in his nightly color.
It's a complete suit; only the jacket has a cape extended from one shoulder down. On the cape are the same pearly glittering stones on the bottom of my dress. He wears it so well that people are already whisking heads our way.
I place one foot down on the extended red carpet, and he stretches his hand to me. I take it gladly, trying to steady myself in the firmness of his hold.
My heart is a raging beast at the sight of flashes of cameras, media teams seeking attention from Met Gala attendees, and celebrities that I have only ever seen on TV or in magazines.
I am here.
Sweat breaks out onto my skin and the hair at the nape of my neck spikes.
Ettore aids me as I step down from the limousine, and Valerie's apprentice marches out from another car to help straighten the rim of my gown so it overflows in its full glory.
The dress is surreal.
A mixture ofblack and whitereminiscent of a charcoal painting on canvas. The dress'corseted upper section is a thick, flavorful black that looks to have been hand-dyed rather than produced by an industrial machine. Additionally, the lower part, which extends below my knees, is white, the fabric's originalcolor.
I have been styled by a god, accompanied by another, and the effect will be heads turning in my direction.
Ettore leads me down the red plush carpeted aisle, with flashes of cameras swinging about and people calling from different directions to ask who I’m wearing.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is in a frenzy with a spritz of elegance and artistry. The museum is vibrating with competitive muses out to show off through the art of fabric fashioning.
Ettore leads me to the platform where we stand and take pictures. He is a natural, and I’m a mess, but the dress cloaks me well.
We answer a few questions, because that is inevitable. People want to know who I am and what I am wearing. I stick to the half-truth I was asked to go with and hope none of those men are alive and fancy entertainment gossip.
“You are easily the most beautiful woman here, Zoe,” Ettore leans, his mouth brushing my ear as he mewls his velvety words into me.
I smile, blushing hard, and he does something so surprising I’m stunned for a quick second. He leans forward and presses a kiss on my forehead before stepping back to lead me into the hall.
The butterflies in my stomach buzz frantically like they are intoxicated. It’s a crippling feeling.
I’m at the Met Gala.
Dreams do come true.
But will this go as I’m hoping or will the universe pull the rug from under my feet?
A few minutes have gone by, or maybe even an hour, but I still cannot stop gaping at the hall and the people in there. It’s easy to handpick me as the odd one out. I feel like I don’t fit. But then again, I feel like I’m fifteen years late to this event.
The hall is a sprawl of glitter. The color palette is gold, black, and red—simple but not at all basic. The music is from an orchestra playing a string quartet of famous songs. High ceilings and enchanting chandeliers.
“Is that Valerie Moore?” The one person I have been avoiding, and for good reasons, is Sabine Johnson, Valerie’s protege. She sways to us in her tropical-evoking floral motif on dusty cream canvas, hair in a twirling updo, and heavily studded jewelry.
She knows damn well that this is Valerie Moore.
“Sabine, right?” I clear my throat, my body picking up the signals in the viciousness of her brown eyes. “Yes, it is,” I answer politely. Ettore’s arm around my waist clips tighter, and I use it as an anchor.
“You must be the legendary Zoe,” she feigns a fawning expression, “showing up after fifteen years with such an entree, I must say that is one media stunt.”
I gulp, the air around my lungs feeling clipped at the fact that she would think I disappeared for fifteen years just for a media stunt. “I’m happy you are back, and we will be seeing more of you,” she lifts her wine glass in the air, making a toast with the wind. “I was your understudy when you vanished, and not a minute went by without the constant reminder that I was just that and would only ever be more than that—an understudy.”
“It must have been worth the things you eventually learned from the whole experience,” I indicate, pointing my chin at her outfit, “I’m sure Valerie said those things to get the best out of you.”
She clips a smile on her face. “Yeah, sure,” she glances at Ettore. “Enjoy the night, and I hope we can see each other after this so I can pick your brain on a few things.” She throws her arms open for an embrace, and when I don’t make a go for it, she scoffs.
She leans forward to embrace me regardless and spins too dramatically. She misses a step, sending the wine in her wineglass spilling on my dress, precisely on the white canvas.
“I am so sorry,” she places a hand on her chest, her mouth ajar in pretentious shock, “I need to stop drinking and put this away…” She bats her lashes. “I’m so sorry,” she spins, grunts at herself, and swings away and onto the next person without a care in the world that she has ruined my dress.
My whole world quiets and whatever confidence I had from earlier evaporates like sweat out of me.
My hand folds into a fist, and if I were courageous enough, I would have loved landing it on her face. I sneer at her as she swings from person to person, and it is the gasps and pairs of eyes turning in my direction that make me fold.
I don’t belong here.
I should have known this would end up being another trick by some cosmic force. To get me out and fill my head with dreams only to leave me drowning in shame.
Tears sting my eyes as more pairs of eyes tilt in my direction and the whispers grow louder.
I have seen gossip spread like wildfire.
It takes me back to high school and how quickly speculations made the rounds.
“Hey,” Ettore comes to stand in front of me, and for a minute, I let the iciness of his eyes roll over my clattering nerves. “Let’s get you a drink,” he comes back to circle my waist.
“What a mess,” I hear a masculine voice say from behind him.
I am a mess.
How did I ever think I could act the part and blend in? It’s impossible. No matter how hard I try, I am a mess. I will always be reminded of this simple truth and I can never escape it.
What was a work of art, a masterpiece, now looks like something impaired by the drunkenness of the artist. Like an artist completing their work and spilling paint on it out of clumsiness.
If there is anything socialites like, it is good gossip, especially one that makes them feel like the new wannabe will never measure up to their grace.
“Please,” my word is breathy. I sniff, failing at reining in the tears swelling in my throat. “Get me out of here, please.” I close my eyes to keep my tears locked in until I have a safe space to unleash them but one slips.
“You can ask for her head, and you will have it,” he is teasing, I guess. But his tone and cryptic expression are anything but.
“I just want to go home,” I inhale sharply, my body now shuddering, my hands sweaty, my heart heavy, and he nods.
“You were joking, right?” I sniff, coming around after being allowed to cry out some of my frustration and shame. Ettore shrugs.
We are back in the limousine on our way home.
Another scar to add to the many I have been marked with.
“You weren’t going to give me her head on a pike like some Neanderthal, were you?” My voice is small and I’m still hiccupping from sobbing hard.
“You would rather I chop her into tiny pieces?” He slings his brow. “Brutal.”
“I never said such a thing,” I scrunch my nose, “It was just wine.” My eyes water, blurring his handsome face out.
“Was it?” He stares down at the spot and my mood dips. “It’s still a beautiful dress. Like a fairytale princess stepped into a cave to wrestle dragons and came out with their blood on her dress and no single scratch on her skin.”
I chew on that for a minute. “If you put it that way.”
“I know a beautiful thing when I see it,” he clips, and I nod. He pats his lap, and as if it were all I had been waiting for, I spring up and go to him.
“Thank you for making this possible for me,” I gulp, my stomach weaving into tangled threads as he spreads his legs for me to sit on one of them.
“It’s nothing I wouldn’t do again.”
“Normal people would say ‘you are welcome.”
“Hmm,” it’s a vibration that I somehow feel deep in my pussy amidst the heavy layering of my dress.
“I don’t mean there is something wrong with you or anything like that…” I clamber with words to explain myself because I don’t want to join the host of people who have ever made him feel out of place. I know the feeling all too well and it’s a bullet through the heart.
“You think my sense of humor is as low as my tolerance for humans?” He holds my gaze, and I see a glint before his lips curve in a smirk. No, not a smirk. A smile. The side of his face that isn’t marred by the scar.
“That would mean it existed at some point,” I bite, and he chuckles, dropping his eyes.
“Zoe,” he lifts his eyes back up, and they smolder like hot stones. “Kiss me,” he drawls the command, and my body falls in line before my brain processes his words.
I needed an escape. I needed to go home. And I’m finding out with each moment I spend around him that home is not a place, it’s a person.
I drop my face and seal my lips to his. His response is a throaty sound, edging me on. I press, trying to deepen the kiss, tasting the saltiness of my tears. But in a switch, his hands cusp my face, and his tongue is diving into my mouth, stretching down my throat as he takes control of the kiss.
He kisses me with force, groaning into my mouth, his hands now moving to gather up my dress and get the fabric out of the way so I’m sitting bare on his lap.
He pulls away from the kiss, and we are both breathless, our chests swelling and leveling like roaring waves on the Pacific.
“Don’t look away,” he croons, his hands working on his pants. With our eyes locked in searing gaze, and my heartbeat roaring, he lifts me with one arm around my waist, “Open up for me, Zoe,”
I part my legs, never taking my eyes off him. He lowers me back on his lap and has me sitting on his cock.
“Take me in,” he bites his lower lip, his voice, and eyes straining with each inch he pushes inside of me. I rasp, and my mouth stays open, my chest heaving with clambering breaths.
He pushes fully inside of me and then starts to move. I brace my hands on his shoulders, ruffling and grappling the fabric of his suit jacket as he pummels inside of me. His hand finds a way under my dress, etching fingerprints on my butt as he clutches it in a firm grip.
He pulls my face down to him and interlocks our lips as he keeps ramming inside of me. It doesn’t take many pounds for my orgasm to wrack through me in a rhapsodic sensation. Soon after, he is spilling inside of me.
I melt as the colossal wave of my orgasm mellows. I throw my arms around his neck, and he snakes his hands around my waist.
We stay breathing, understanding what we have become to each other without needing to say a word about it.
A lifeline.