Eventually, I sensed that he was getting close. His h*ps were moving up to meet my mouth and his fingers were buried in my hair. He was breathing quickly and heavily through his mouth and I could feel the tension in his body. Suddenly, he froze. “I’m going to come!” he bit out. I kept going and he tried to pull back. “Baby! I’m…” I started to move faster, not letting him escape. He didn’t finish — well his sentence anyway. He groaned louder and let out a ragged breath as his body shuddered. I swallowed quickly and he looked down at me with stunned bliss. “That was so good,” he said, still breathing heavily. “My heart’s beating so fast.”

“You’re not going to have a heart attack or something, are you?” I asked nervously. I could just picture that story on Page Six – senator’s son winds up in hospital…

“No.” He laughed. “But we’ll have to be careful when I’m Mr. Davis’ age.”

“Okay. No oral attention for you when you’re one hundred and five or however old he was.”

“I just said we would have to be careful. Not that we had to stop completely. Now trade places with me because I want to see if you can handle my sharp tongue.” Inner-Gabrielle hit the floor.

We finally made it to my bathroom to wash up for bed. Then we snuggled in together and I thought about how warm he always felt, like my own personal furnace.

“So what did you think of my crazy family?”

“I love your parents. They have a great sense of humor and they seem really down-to-earth.”

“I’m glad you like them. They like you too. I can tell.”

“Well, that’s good. Your other relatives are pretty wild but they’re funny as hell.”

“You say that now.”

“It’ll just make your dad and me closer.”

“He always wanted a son. We should sleep now. We have a big day tomorrow.”

“Good night baby. I’ll dream about you.”

“Me too, Braden,” I said quietly and leaned up to kiss him goodnight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

We slept late, enjoyed some leisurely morning sex, showered together and made our way downstairs, where my parents had set up a nice spread with genuine New York bagels, cream cheese, veggies and fresh fruit. There was also fresh squeezed juice and the nectar of the gods, good hot coffee. After breakfast my dad took Braden out for a walk to show him some more of the neighborhood, and presumably, to get to know him better. I decided to use the opportunity to check in with Jess and find out how Marla night with Cam had gone. I got out my cell and gave her a call. She answered on the first ring. I think she had been waiting for my call.

“You are not going to believe this, Gab!”

“Well hello to you too. The trip is going very well, thanks.”

“Yeah, that’s good. Listen! You are not going to believe this!”

“So you said. What is it I’m not going to believe?”

“I think that maybe she’s a hooker!”

“What?!”

“Well, technically, I guess you would call her a call girl because she met rich-looking guys at the best hotels in Philly. She went in, met them in either the lobby or the lounge, got into the elevator with them and then left again, usually about a half an hour or an hour later. She met four different guys in four different hotels.”

“Are you sure that’s what she’s doing?”

“No. Maybe she’s a freelance chambermaid.”

“Oh wow. Why would Marla be hooking if her family’s rich?” I wondered out loud.

“Maybe they cut her off.”

“That’s an interesting idea. That would make her pretty desperate to land a rich husband, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe even desperate enough to try to scare off someone’s girlfriend.”

“Hmm. I wonder if Marla’s as crazy as everyone thinks she is.”

“We eventually followed her to a drag club called Gili’s Cabaret.”

“Wait! Gili’s Cabaret? That place is supposedly associated somehow with those parties!”

“Well, that makes sense because we saw a flyer for one in there.”

“A flyer? They advertise underground sex parties with flyers?”

“Hey, it’s a business. They might have a Facebook page for all we know. Anyway, there is a party next weekend. And it’s a costume party. You’re supposed to dress up like your favorite sexual fantasy.”

“Well, we can figure out what fantasy a naughty boy might be into.”

“So do you think Marla, the call girl, goes to these parties?”

“Supposedly some pros do, but I don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket. I think we should still treat her as a separate mission, especially since she lives right here in the city.”

“Okay, I hear you. I have to admit to you, Gabrielle, Cam and I have been having fun.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, this is actually kind of exciting. Should we watch her again?”

“I guess so. Maybe we can figure out a way to leave a note for her to reply to at one of these hotels or something.”

“We’re on it,” she said, and hung up.

My mom and I sat down to talk for a little while and she made it clear in no uncertain terms that she and my dad approved of Braden. Dad and Braden got home about a half an hour later and they seemed to be happily bonding. All was well at the Ginsberg residence. Then my dad went to check the mail.

“Gabby! Come here, honey!” he called out in a weird tone of voice. Braden and I glanced at each other and went to meet him in the entranceway. I saw that my dad was holding a letter of some sort.

“What is it?” I asked warily.

“It’s a letter for you, but there’s no return address and no postage.”

“Can I see that?” Braden asked.

“Sure.” Dad held it out to Braden.

“You hold on to it and tear it open carefully. I’ll come over and look over your shoulder. If it’s something suspicious we don’t want too many sets of fingerprints on it,” said Braden, the prosecutor. My dad did exactly what Braden asked. My mind was racing. Maybe it was some kind of marketing gimmick. When I got closer my hopes were dashed as I saw that the handwriting was familiar. It said, “You should stay away from him! Something very bad could happen if you don’t!”

“What the hell?!” my father exclaimed.

“What’s going on?” my mom asked, coming in from the kitchen.

“Gabby got a threatening letter!”

“From who?!”

“It’s not signed and there’s no return address.”

“Oh my God!”

“Mom! Don’t worry! It’s probably some kind of a stupid joke.”

“Threatening someone is funny?”

“It may not even be meant as a threat. It’s completely ambiguous. You can’t tell if they’re trying to warn me off because they like me, or trying to warn me off because they don’t.”

“The fact that there’s no stamp means it obviously didn’t come with the rest of the post. It must have been hand delivered,” Braden added, making even me a little weirded out. If this had been a movie, lightning would have streaked across the sky and thunder would have boomed just as he said that.

“Who even knew you were here?” my dad asked.

“Just our closest friends and Braden’s family. Nobody else and I’m sure that none of them would play this kind of joke.” I told myself firmly that it couldn’t be Cam.

“We need to report this to the police,” Braden said, sounding authoritative.

“Yes! Of course!” my father agreed. “Maybe the FBI too. If someone followed her here they crossed state lines.”

“Let’s not go crazy here, J. Edgar,” I said, rapidly feeling like this situation was getting out of control. After all, it wasn’t a death threat – at least not an explicit one. Maybe my job had made me a little numb to crime but this just didn’t feel all that serious to me.

“Gabby, this sounds threatening to me and I would rather be safe than sorry,” my mom, who had come over to read the letter, chimed in.

“I agree,” Braden added.

“That makes three of us,” my dad said. “You’re outvoted. We’re going to report it to the police and to the FBI. We’re also going to need to take precautions. We have an excellent, state of the art alarm system here. Gabby, you’re going to need something like that too.”

“I live in a secure building,” I reminded him.

“It couldn’t hurt. I’m buying you a dog too.”

“Dad, I don’t need a dog. I don’t even know if I’m allowed to have a dog in my building.”

“I’ll get her a dog,” Braden assured him.

“Thank you, Braden,” he said gratefully, patting him on the back affectionately.

“Oh my God.” I rolled my eyes.

“Of course you know that we want you two to stay together no matter what this crazy person says,” my mom said, looking almost imploringly at Braden.

“Mom, we’re not breaking up because of some stupid letter!”

“If anything, we feel like she’s safer with you, Braden. If you had been dating longer I would suggest you move in together,” my dad said with a sigh.

“You sure you didn’t send this?” I asked dryly.

“That’s not funny, Gabrielle,” my mom chastised. She was “Gabrielling” me. Ma was stressed.

“Maybe you should spend more time at my place,” Braden suggested.

“Should I bring my dog?” I asked with a smile.

“Alright, I’m going to go call Lou,” my father announced.

“Why are you calling your lawyer? Do you need investment advice?”

“I just feel like he should be in on this. Maybe he knows some cops.”

“Dad, he’s a corporate lawyer. Braden here is a prosecutor. Don’t you think he might get a little further?”

“Good point. Braden, let’s go into the study and make some calls.”

“Okay, Ben. I’m going to call some people in Philly too and have them coordinate with New York.”

“Good idea.”

Ben and Braden were on it. I went off to find the crossword puzzle. I’ll be honest, I did find it very annoying and maybe a little unnerving that someone had gone through the trouble to schlep an hour and a half from Philly to New York, but I still thought it was probably one of those three losers and I couldn’t see any of them being all that dangerous.

An hour later an NYPD detective and an FBI special agent were sitting in my parents’ parlor. I couldn’t believe that the FBI actually sent somebody. I suspected it had more to do with the fact that Braden was the son of a senator than the possibility that some schmuck had crossed state lines to harass a public defender.

I answered all of their questions but I was careful about what I said. I stressed the fact that it was very ambiguous and said that for that reason I really didn’t know who it could be. I simply wasn’t ready to start accusing people just based on guesswork and without any evidence. Maybe I had been a defense lawyer for too long. Mostly, I just didn’t want Braden or I getting in hot water if it turned out I accused an innocent person. After a couple hours of my life that I’ll never get back, the law enforcement type people left.

“So, where are we going for dinner?” I asked.

“We’ll eat in,” my mom announced, heading toward the drawer with the take-out menus.

“Why?”

“I just think it’s best if we stay in, sweetheart.” She took out a stack the size of War and Peace.

“All night? No Shakespeare in the park?” I knew that I was whining, but come on!

“Honey,” my dad chimed in. “Let’s just stay home and relax. Come on, we’ll watch a movie. We still have to show Braden your baby pictures anyway.”

“You’re going let some cowardly letter writer make you lock yourself in the house?”

“Gabrielle, I came to spend time with your parents anyway. We can have a nice time just staying in,” Braden said. They were all against me. I knew there was no winning this. I went over and sat down rather ungracefully on the sofa.

“Okay, fine, but order really good food and let’s watch Manhattan or something. I want Braden to have some kind of New York experience beyond bagels and Bubbe.”

We ended up having Indian delivered and watching Sex and the City: The Movie, which I had obviously already seen, but as far as I was concerned, one could never get enough Sex and the City. After the movie, my mom and dad flanked Braden on either side and showed him every embarrassing picture of me they could find. If I was doing something incredibly awkward, had a really bad haircut or was wearing amazingly ugly clothes (or no clothes) it had been captured and preserved. The best ones were where all of the above applied, like at that damned birthday party.

Eventually Braden and I turned in and I had come up with something else that I had never offered but that I suspected would be a big hit. I locked my bedroom door again.

“Come over here and get na**d with me in bed,” I said without preamble.

“I love it when you say things like that,” he said, yanking off his shirt and tossing it onto the chair. His jeans joined it seconds later. He wasn’t one to waste time. I pulled off my own clothing and went to sit back against the pillows. He crawled onto the bed with me and the Harvard endowment was already looking very interested in finding out what I had in mind.