Page 90 of Original Sin

Draining off the last of her freshly pressed mandarin juice, she bent down and slipped on her running shoes. She had already showered, put on her white tracksuit, and was now ready to go. Her tennis lesson, aimed at brushing up her second serve, was at six thirty and she liked to get there early. But before she could leave the apartment, there was one thing she needed to do first.

Standing up, she noticed someone hovering in the doorway.

‘Hey. I was just about to wake you,’ she said in a polite but not too friendly way.

Liz had met Rav Singh, a thirty–three–year–old banker at one of the big investment houses at a drinks party at the Downtown Association, a private members’ club on Pine Street, the night before. He was half–Indian, half–Swedish, with latte–coloured skin, long almond–shaped eyes and an interesting perspective on global capitalism, having spent eighteen months in Mumbai. She had already gleaned that his father was a well–off Indian businessmen living in London, although she had no idea if he was simply one of Mumbai’s newly wealthy middle–class, or whether he was one of those Asian billionaires, with interests in steels and manufacturing that marked them out as the new titans of the business world, who lived in London for tax purposes.

They had caught a cab together uptown, had a late supper and too many caiprihinas in a Brazilian restaurant on Broadway and ended up at her apartment drinking a good Château Mouton Rothschild until midnight. When Liz had kissed Rav, and she had made the move first, she had almost laughed at loud at how proper her seduction had been. The sex had lacked the raw, drug–like excitement of her usual encounters with men she met in bars, but there had still been an urgency, a need to feel a man inside her. Regardless of the disdain she felt towards Dana’s Shapiro’s therapy, Liz had still avoided any more random one–night stands since Russ Ford. The restraint had made her irritable and easily distracted, even at work. It had driven her back to smoking, which she had quit after business school, and her alcohol consumption during her sexual abstinence had been high.

‘I’d like to see you again.’

‘I’m not the relationship kind,’ she replied in an amused, detached way. She had no doubt given Rav the fuck of his life; no wonder he wanted to come back for more.

‘Because of the divorce?’

‘You’ve been swotting up on me,’ she said, raising an eyebrow.

‘Just something I heard. It was eighteen months ago, Liz. You know, it might be time to move on … ’

She found herself nodding slowly. Maybe it was time for a new strategy. This much she knew; she wanted sex. The incident with Russ Ford had frightened her. No–strings sex was now simply out of the question. And she could hardly pay for it for exactly the same reasons, although she heard about one Chinese masseur who offered ‘extras’. But, try as she might, (the urban myth was that he had brought one Park Avenue Princess to orgasm half a dozen times in a one–hour session), Liz could not track him down, not knowing whether she had been too discreet in her investigations, or whether he simply did not exist. A relationship was beginning to look like an appealing option, if she could control it in the right way.

‘I have to go,’ she said quickly. ‘I have to lock up.’

‘You going running?’ asked Rav, fastening the buttons on his shirt.

She pointed at her racket bag in the corner of the room.’

‘Tennis.’

‘Where are you playing?’

‘Sutton East.’

He nodded. ‘Do you want company?’

‘Why? Do you play?’

‘A little. But mainly squash and court tennis down at the Racquet and Tennis Club.’

Her interest in Rav suddenly moved up a notch. Liz longed to play at the prestigious Park Avenue club, one of the few social–sporting establishments yet to extend their membership policy to admitting women. It gave Rav immediate social clout.

‘Okay. You’re on.’

‘Let me swing by my apartment and pick up my stuff. I’ll see you there.’

She smiled sweetly and watched him go. He would do. He would do for now.

*

‘Tess Garrett?’

Tess leant over her desk to peer at the caller ID window. ‘Unknown number’, it read. She didn’t recognize the voice, either, but after Brooke and David’s Key West coup, her phone had been ringing off the hook.

‘It’s Sean Asgill.’

‘Oh,’ she said, instantly pulling a face, aware that her voice had betrayed her disapproval.

‘Hey, great to speak to you too,’ he said sarcastically.