Chapter 27 #3
“My grandfather had it built for Stella. She’s read every book in here. Many of them are first editions.”
“She must have missed it so much.” I breathe in the dusty air. “When your father kept her from here.” I don’t say more than that, afraid I’ll reveal something that Matthew hasn’t told me himself.
My footsteps echo on the shiny parquet floor as I approach the nearest shelf. My fingers trip over a leather spine embossed with gold French text, so old the letters have nearly worn away. A first edition Voltaire, it looks like.
I feel Matthew approaching behind me. Now that I’ve seen the room, I’ll need to deflect his affections for now.
The plan is to bring him back later. The safe isn’t obvious at all, but I know it’s behind a very particular row of books that includes Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir, and Flora Tristan.
“All books my stepson would never take off the shelf,” Stella had snorted when she told me. “By women, for women, about women.”
I slip seductively out of Matthew’s reach and search the shelves for the names, knowing that if I take the books from the shelf, I’ll see yet another secret panel that will open to reveal the safe.
I’ve never seen a safe, much less opened one. Stella’s given me the code. I won’t be breaking into anything and yet it still feels illicit.
Here it is, a much-loved copy of de Beauvoir’s The Woman Destroyed.
I’ve never read it, but Stella quoted from it by memory during our last night together at the cottage on the island: “My worst mistake has been not grasping that time goes by. It was going by and there I was, set in the attitude of the ideal wife of an ideal husband.” It has become clear to me that despite loving Maxwell intensely and adoring the lifestyle he afforded her, Stella has regrets about not being more proactive in telling him what she wanted from him and the company.
I’ve started to think that’s what she meant when she told me that being rich is a terrible thing.
It may have blinded her to many things over the years, kept her from many ambitions.
She’s making up for lost time now that time is running out.
Next to it I find Tristan’s Peregrinations of a Pariah and Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Men.
I replace The Woman Destroyed as Matthew clutches my waist.
“Find something you like?” he whispers in my ear.
I wrap my arms around his neck and gently kiss the edge of his jaw. “I found something I want,” I purr. “I was thinking we could come back here, a little later, maybe. When everyone is more distracted down there.”
“During dinner?” His breath is coming heavy. I know he doesn’t want to wait, but he will.
“Yes.”
“We might be missed if we both slip out, but when dessert comes, before dancing?”
“Even better,” I agree.
“But we could also stay up here a little longer now.”
I slip away again. “No. Let’s wait. We’ll have more time during dessert.” Build the anticipation. It’s all part of the plan. I need a reason to come back here alone.
His hand slides over to the thigh-high slit in my dress. “Couldn’t I do something for you before we go back down?”
I can’t let his fingers wander. I slap him away like he’s a naughty child. His grin shows me he likes that, a lot. Then I turn from him and walk purposefully toward the hidden door.
“Come,” I command, feeling a surge of adrenaline. I am enjoying this. I’ve never barked orders at a man before.
“As you wish.”
We leave and slide the panel back in place, stroll into the backyard, and take our seats for dinner.
I’m at a table with Matthew; Caroline; the preeminent art dealer Barbara Gladstone, who I’ve been told represents Matthew Barney; and none other than the shock artist Damien Hirst, who recently floored the entire art world when he won the Turner Prize for an installation featuring a cow and a calf sliced in half and displayed in formaldehyde-filled glass tanks.
Hirst is already quite drunk by the time dinner starts and keeps trying to convince Roberta Smith from The New York Times to take tequila shots. So far she’s refused.
Maxwell and his latest wife, a British model rumored to be best friends with Winona Ryder, according to Matthew, are strangely sitting at a sweetheart table in the front of the room as though they’re at a wedding.
Matthew points out the twins at a table across the room, each of them flanking a statuesque blonde in her early fifties, who I assume is the Siberian Ice Princess, their mother and Louis’s wife number two.
As Yoshi mentioned, all of them are practically translucent.
They must never go out in daylight. The twins are indeed identical, like matching bookends on either end of their beautiful mother.
It’s fascinating that Louis would invite two ex-wives to the holiday soiree, but it also tracks with his love of creating fiefdoms out of his various family units.
“Of course Father chose to sit alone with Maxine,” Matthew whispers about his twenty-year-old stepmother. “She hates us.”
“Any particular reason?” I say breezily.
“Mostly greed. We were here first. There will be less for her to inherit eventually. Also, one of the twins tried to snog her at Easter.”
The three-course dinner goes by much faster than I expected. As the dessert course is served, I whisper into Matthew’s ear, “I’m going back up to the library. Give me some time to freshen up and meet me in twenty minutes.”
Beneath the table he squeezes my hand and nods so eagerly I almost feel guilty.
I skip up the stairs like I own the place even though my heart is threatening to pound right out of my ribs.
I make my way down the long hall, into Stella’s former bedroom, and close the door.
I want to be able to hear Matthew coming.
The more doors he has to open, the better.
Then I push on the hidden panel and make my way into Stella’s inner sanctum.
There’s no time to waste. I remove the books from the shelf and feel along the wall for the other panel that will reveal the safe.
Panic makes my hands go cold as I start to worry.
What if I can’t find it? There’s less than fifteen minutes left.
I run my shivering fingers along a thick layer of dust. Stella says she hasn’t been into this safe in years.
There’s nothing here. Nothing at all. Fuck.
I’m about to give up when I feel it, a small indentation in the wall.
I push. Nothing. I try slightly more pressure and nearly scream as it gives and the wall swings out toward me.
The safe is small, not at all like the massive one I pictured.
It has a combination lock on its face. I enter the numbers Stella gave me.
There’s still blessed silence from the hallway outside.
It’s dark inside the safe, but it doesn’t matter.
I’ll empty it and go through the contents later.
My fingers grasp at velvet boxes, envelopes, photographs, and what looks like a bundle of letters.
Curiosity gets the better of me, and I open one of the jewelry boxes with a click that seems slightly too loud.
I have to put my hand over my mouth to keep from gasping at a massive diamond ring surrounded by tiny emeralds.
It’s as large as a nickel and gleams even in the library’s dim light.
At the very back there’s a stack of crisp American five-hundred-dollar bills.
I didn’t even know they printed these. I shuffle out of my enormous-but-useful underwear and fill the pockets like it’s a satchel.
Footsteps echo down the hall. I quietly close the safe, replace the books, and stow the treasure-laden undergarment behind a floor-length velvet curtain.
Then I unzip the back of my dress and let it fall to the floor.
By the time Matthew clicks on the panel to enter the room, I’m perched on top of the massive mahogany desk in nothing, my bare back facing the entrance to the library.
His hands are cold on my skin, but his lips are warm as he presses them to the nape of my neck.
From here I can stare down at people streaming out of the tent to begin dancing in the ballroom.
It’s thrilling to watch them as Matthew wraps his arms around me and pulls my thighs apart.
He expertly moves his fingers inside of me, slowly at first and then faster and deeper in exactly the right spot.
I moan low and deep as I lean my back into him.
Just as he’s about to take me over the edge, he spins me around to face him.
Matthew barely removes his tuxedo, only lets the pants fall to the floor.
I hear the quiet rip of a condom, then I grasp his firm ass in both of my hands as he slides himself inside me, stretching me open in a single thrust. A raw sound escapes my throat.
I arch into him, my thoughts and fears fleeing my addled brain.
I feel the pressure building inside me, slowly at first and then all at once.
It’s the perfect release for both of us only moments apart.
We’re trembling, clutching one another while splayed out on Stella’s desk. He cups my chin in his hands and kisses me tenderly.
“I didn’t know how much I needed you,” he utters so sincerely I almost tear up. He’s sweet. Too sweet for his terrible family.
“It’s exactly what I needed too.” It’s the truth. “You should head back downstairs. Give me a few moments to get myself back together,” I whisper.
“Can I stay? We could…I think I could…” He glances down. “Again?”
“Later. We have so much time. Your family will miss you.”