Surrender to Mr. X by Rosa Mundi Page B

£320. Response to the butch-fey contrast of winter boots with a flimsy dress never fails. If I was to buy clothes to “model” for Alden, who was paying, the least I could do was coincide my taste with what he liked—which I inferred was tasteful-and-expensive nuanced with a little vulgarity: good girl plays the tart.
    I left all my packages to date with the girl in the shoe department, and took the escalators to the sunny Fifth Floor Bar and drank a glass of chilly Pouilly Fuisse, refusing the eyes of all the men who were trying to meet mine.
    Instead I meditated upon Alden, his long strong cock, blushed and seasoned from use, lolling across the poor puny leg, and exulted in the feelings of my body, aching here, sore there, which are the reward of good sex and keep the memory of it alive. I wondered what Alden had meant about “modeling,” and had a fit of nerves that it might be just that: literally, and without the sex. But I took a grip on myself: I didn’t quite think it would be. Some girls don’t mind it: being hung in slings and bonds and left to dangle and twist, get whipped a bit, but just be observed, and not getany penetrative sex—but that seems totally pointless to me.
    And I wanted to know more about Alden; one side of him seemed so open and friendly, honest and frank, with his bright eyes and floppy hair, traumatized, wounded, secretly vulnerable. He needs me. But he needs me—helpless. And, if he keeps an artist in the attic, what does he keep in the basement? Is he the new Bluebeard—or Bluetooth—seeing sex as technology: one half man, one half sexual pleasure by remote control …?
    He longs for acknowledgment as a creative genius, to be known as a great musician, respected not by the vulgar mass, not as a sing-along celebrity but up there in the ethereal zone of the avant-garde, ahead of the game with a fusion of the aleatory and techno-minimalism. His tastes and influences were catholic, from Webern to Satie, Ives to Várese, Cage to Reich and Terry Riley, Brian Eno to Iggy Pop, all coming into full frontal and final flood in Alden, worshipper at the shrine of the Golden Dawn.
    My brain is running hares again. I’ve been staring into space, but I notice a man across the circular bar from me who supposes my attention is fixed on him. Shit! He’s an Arab in a very good suit and rather too much gold jewelry. He will have a very fast car and a tasteless flat somewhere behind Harrods, with a drinks bar and a water bed. He will have a long penis, will take Cialis every day for breakfast and be determinedto get his money’s worth before it wears off. The ghost of a smile, and he nods toward the door: I must say I am a little tempted. It would be so excellent to be free of thought, just for a time.
    But I move my head from side to side, and look down at my glass. No. No one else in the bar will have noticed the exchange, it is so fast, but certain. I look around the bar, finishing my wine, and catch his little shrug—her loss, not mine—and he turns his attention elsewhere. It’s a near thing, though. Fucking bipolarity: my doctor says if I won’t take lithium, Valium is the next best thing in emergencies, and after that sex, and after that shopping.
    I’ve left the Valium at home, declined the sex, and spent all I was going to part with of my allocated money. On my way out of the store to the Lowndes Square side where the taxis wait at the round hotel I see a little last year’s Marc Jacobs purse, orange with buckles, knocked down to nothing—£103—and use my one working credit card. That takes it up to its limit. I’ll pay some of the Jung money into the account tomorrow, I promise myself. It’s there for emergencies, but this sort of was one. A kind assistant from the Trish McEvoy counter helps me with my bags to the taxi—one shopaholic recognizes another, I suspect, or maybe she wanted to get out in