Page 6 of Fallen Angel

She strides into to the bathroom, washes her hands, and repacks her bag. By the time she returns to the living room, her client has transformed from a sniveling sex slave to media mogul. The entire countenance of his face is different, and he’s changed into slacks, a jacket, and pinstriped Thomas Pink shirt.

He hands her an envelope that contains five hundred dollars in cash.

“See you next week,” he says. “Oh, and I’m sorry I couldn’t get you into the party at the Blue Angel tonight. But to make it up to you, inside the envelope you’ll find a few tickets to a private screening of the new Jarod Marks movie.”

Jarod Marks is a gorgeous young actor, the latest protégé of director Martin Scorsese. Billy knows everyone. And his connections should really be paying off more—for her.

“You know, you should own a club,” she says. “Ever think about it?”

“Not really. Few are truly profitable. I’ll stick to media domination.”

She can’t help but smirk at the word domination. For a magazine editor, he should have a better sense of irony.

She shows herself out.

Chapter Four

Billy Barton wonders if his hair is thinning, then decides it doesn’t really matter.

As editor-in-chief of the pop culture magazine Gruff (within the office, they have branded themselves as “Vanity Fair with balls”), he has power. And as the son of a 1980s Wall Street mogul, he has plenty of money. In this town, that’s all that really matters.

His assistant buzzes in from his desk outside his office: “Alec Martin is here to see you.”

Billy says to send him in. Alec is, at the moment, his most valuable asset at the magazine. The cover story he wrote last year about the city’s burlesque scene was one of his best-selling issues to date. It was a rare bright spot in an overall dismal few quarters for magazines. Sure, he’d known going in that it was a tough business. But lately, he feels a sense of doom. The media landscape is shifting, and he’s afraid of getting buried. Billy does not like fear. No one does. But Billy, unlike many people, spent most of his childhood mired in it. Homosexuality was not considered a viable life choice in the Barton household. He always felt that if the truth about him were discovered, he’d be cut off. That fear, and subsequent shame, are something he’s still working out. He tried therapy, but that was a useless waste of time and money. But his sessions with the dominatrix are helping. A lot.

“Come in, come in. Close the door,” Billy says when Alec walks in. “Have a seat.”

Alec settles in and Billy relishes the delicious moment before delivering good news. He enjoys few things more than doling out plum writing assignments to his favorite staff. He feels like Santa; every new issue is Christmas morning if you’re one of the chosen few.

“We’ve confirmed Emma Holland for a cover.” Emma Holland is a gorgeous young starlet who just shot a breakout film that insiders whisper will make her the next Meryl Streep. “I need you to fly to L.A. next week to do the interview.”

As expected, Alec’s face lights up at the news. He’s a handsome guy, even more so when he’s pleased. Fortunately, Billy has never been particularly attracted to him. He never sleeps with “civilians,” only actors and models.

“Fantastic,” Alec says. “It’s gonna be great. I promise.”

Billy nods. He has no doubt. “Oh—and apologies for missing Mallory’s birthday bash. I had a late business meeting.”

“No problem,” Alec says.

But Billy is starting to wonder if maybe it is a problem. He’s started to feel addicted to his sessions with the dominatrix. And this would be okay—despite her exorbitant fees—except for one thing. She’s started performing at the Blue Angel. It’s a little too close for comfort. He’s all for worlds colliding—it makes things fun.

Except when one of those worlds is his deepest, darkest secret. With Violet at the club, he’s afraid it will all come to light. And that would destroy him.

Mallory steals a glance outside the twentieth-floor conference room window of the law firm. Park Avenue is lined with traffic, but rush hour is technically over. She’s looking at Friday night, out-on-the-town traffic, and this means she’s late for the club. Extremely late. Again.

But despite Agnes shaming her to the contrary, Mallory does actually need a day job. Her mother used to say, “Love doesn’t pay the rent.” Well, neither does burlesque.

Last year, she thought her legal career was over before it even really began: First, she failed the bar exam. Then, employed as a junior associate at a white-glove firm pending her retake, she got busted for performing at the Blue Angel. And was promptly fired. It was shocking, and not something she wanted to happen, but it was in many ways a relief. For months, she’d been second-guessing her decision to become a lawyer. It had been her parents’ ambition for her, not her own. So in that sense, losing her job was liberating.

But she quickly realized that dancing at the Blue Angel as her sole means of employment was not financially viable. And a headhunter found her a paralegal position at a boutique firm specializing in divorce law. While she’d been trepidatious about stepping back into a corporate environment, it proved to be a good decision; she’s been pleasantly surprised by how much she enjoys working in the law without the pressure of making it her entire identity.

The conference room where she’s been working all afternoon has a long walnut table, Aeron chairs, and a statement light fixture overhead. A wall of built-in shelves holds legal reference books, while another is filled with abstract prints in bold colors.

Across the table, her boss flips through the files she had spent all week painstakingly organizing.

“I think we’re in good shape,” he says, moving the color-coded manila folders into a box. Gavin Stone is in his early thirties, with a thick head of chestnut brown hair and the ice-blue eyes of a Siberian husky. He’s undeniably attractive, but the fact that he’s her employer makes it easy to forget that.

“We’re done?” She fidgets with the handbag on her lap. Inside, her phone has been vibrating with messages; she imagines they’re something along the lines of Where the fuck are you?