Emily’s Diary – Entry 31

Private Quarters

I still can't believe it's over. Not just the job, but this whole week.

I'd hoped to finish at a decent hour on Friday. My plan was to call Ben and moan into the phone how badly I wanted him. He'd come racing over, of course, and take me in every corner of the apartment. Instead, at ten to midnight, eyes swollen from crying, I managed to send off the last batch. I was tired, furious, and so sorry for myself that I didn't want anything. Least of all to get undressed.

All I texted Ben was:

Done. Tomorrow I finally get to see you and feel you…

I didn't wait for a reply. I went to bed. Sleep, of course, wouldn't come. My brain was racing, and I tortured myself with every kind of crap.

What if I'm not good enough for Ben? After all, he's the one who said men dream of rich, gorgeous women. He must have figured out by now that I'm neither. He knows how I live, and that I've worked myself to the bone for the past six months, which rich people hardly ever have to do. Why does money even have to come up?

What if he does marry me? Will I have to sell my apartment and put the money into the joint pot? And if we get divorced? Will we split everything, or will I only get back what my apartment was worth? By then I might only be able to afford some hole in a slum. Will I have to take the kids there? Will he support them? Or will his beautiful, rich younger sister show up, turn up her nose at me, and then drive him away from me?

Who the fuck is that talking in my head? And why does it only ever come up with horrors like this? We've been together barely a few weeks, and I'm already terrified of ending up out on the street with nothing to my name if we split up.

I got up and poured myself a glass of wine. That'll make me sleepy, I thought. I went out on the terrace and watched the city lights. And the lit-up riverbank. I love water, but of course that only made me think of Ben's boats and his business worth millions.

That long-awaited night I'd been fantasizing about for half a year had turned out awful.

Ben's surprise had landed a solid punch to the gut, too. He'd organized a get-together in my honor with his closest friends. He couldn't have come up with anything worse. I admit, when he first mentioned a surprise, I thought he meant something intimate, just the two of us, preferably behind four walls. Lots of touching and tenderness.

Well, I got the four walls. Only they belonged to Ben's house, where I'd never been before.

He lives in one of the nicer parts of the leafy suburbs, in a single-story, Mediterranean-style house. A cream-colored facade curves toward the street, with narrow windows and a terracotta roof. The building stretches far back into the lot, but from the outside it gives nothing away about its real size. At first that actually put me at ease.

But when we made it through the narrow entryway, my jaw dropped. Not that I'd expected a modest bachelor pad, but past the entryway the living room, dining room and kitchen opened into one enormous space. The wall facing the yard was almost entirely glass, so the house seemed to flow straight out onto the light stone terrace and into the garden.

Everything looked lifted out of an interior design catalog. Little furniture, airy, bright spaces, a few perfectly placed designer objects. In the kitchen, the latest and probably most expensive appliances sat flush between the built-in cabinets. Hazelnut-brown wood, cream textiles and white walls everywhere.

It didn't come across as cold, exactly. It felt even less like a home. Not a single sweater tossed aside, no half-read book, no forgotten mug.

It was beautiful, no doubt. It just looked more like a perfectly furnished showroom than a place where someone actually lives. Not long after, I found out why.

Ben had invited four married couples, plus a friend of his who owned a restaurant and had catered the whole dinner as head chef. The friend had come without a partner but brought three waiters. They set the table, arranged the food and everything else that was needed, then discreetly vanished.

I didn't get to escape Cecilia, though at least she'd arrived sober.

"So, how do you like his little private place?" she asked the moment she saw me.

She jerked her chin toward the far side of the yard. I followed her gaze like an idiot. The house wrapped around the yard in a U: opposite the big glass-walled living room, a much smaller wing stretched out toward the garden. Until then I'd assumed it was a garage or a guest house. Only now did I notice the wide terrace door on it, and that the corridor starting at the end of the main wing led straight there.

"It's nice…"

She let out a grating giggle.

"You haven't even seen it, have you?"

I stared at her, confused. In my discomfort, I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

"This is my first time here."

She laughed even louder.

"Oh shit, don't tell me this girl isn't even allowed in there!"

With that she turned away and, as if her body had already gotten used to the unsteady gait, swayed off toward Ben.

Then I understood that the huge living room, dining room and kitchen were only the social part of the house. Ben's real living quarters began somewhere at the end of that corridor. Maybe that was where he kept his half-read books, his tossed-aside sweaters and his forgotten mugs. If he had any, that is.

I glanced around desperately. The chef must have noticed, because a hand beckoned me over from the kitchen.

"Come see what I've made."

In my head, I clung to my savior with all ten fingernails. The chef seemed to have no one either. Even though he looked like a fashion-magazine cover.

I don't get it.

Cecilia caught up in no time. Before long she was entertaining the other wives in a honeyed, slurred voice. She made sure to position herself so that I had no chance of joining them. Not that I had any intention of it.

The other three women weren't drinking. One of them had long black hair and glasses, the textbook literature teacher. She looked like she was permanently wrinkling her nose, and she used almost no adjectives except awful, dreadful, terrible, trashy and appalling. I wouldn't have wanted to be near her anyway.

Another looked like an old lady, though there wasn't a single wrinkle on her skin. Even her thick, curly hair seemed to have been left behind from another era.

Funnily enough, the one I ended up liking best was the woman who'd been surgically sculpted to within an inch of her life. Not just her voice was kind, but every gesture, every movement, even her gaze. Unfortunately, the surgeons had carved her a blasé face, though she probably wasn't blasé at all.

Until Cecilia knocked herself out completely and slumped into the corner of the sofa, I couldn't talk to any of them. I didn't much want to, but for Ben's sake I had to make an effort.

It turned out the surgery woman was a pharmacist at a private clinic. Her husband owned a car dealership. She wasn't especially impressed that I'm a professional translator. Or maybe her face just couldn't convey any emotion anymore. Mostly she asked how I'd met Ben and how long we'd been together.

After the last guest had left and we were alone, I felt a little awkward. Ben behaved completely differently among his friends than he did one-on-one with me. Suddenly I didn't know how to act around him.

He took my hand and led me toward his top-secret quarters.

"Come on. I've missed you so much."

It felt good to feel the strength flexing in his arm as he practically pulled me along. I love how assertive and masculine he is.

His bedroom is huge, two of its walls almost entirely glass, and yet it feels cozy. After the bright social area, I was surprised by the darker wood, the thick rug and the heap of soft pillows piled on the bed. Modern, but homey. A walk-in closet and a fabulous bathroom open off it.

God, I'd love to live in this house!

"So this is the place you can't just walk into?" I whispered in his ear, then took his earlobe between my lips.

"Mm-hmm," he growled. "I don't let anyone in here. These are my private quarters."

"Then it's a big deal that I'm here, if I've guessed right."

He kissed me.

"You bet it is… Especially for me."

I don't know if it's true or if he's just sweet-talking me, but in that moment I nearly burst with pride and happiness.