I check my nails, thinking about the Details reporter, the crouton situation, a conversation I had on a chairlift in a ski resort somewhere that was so inane I can’t even remember what was said. The elevator doors slide open and I lean the bike in the hallway just outside Lauren’s apartment. Inside: all white, an Eames folding screen, an Eames surfboard table, the roses I saw in Damien’s office lie on a giant Saarinen pedestal surrounded by six tulip chairs. MTV with the sound off on a giant screen in the living room: replays of today’s shows, Chloe on a runway, Chandra North, other models, ABBA’s “Knowing Me, Knowing You” coming from somewhere.
Lauren walks out of her bedroom wearing a long white robe, a towel wrapped around her hair, and when she looks up to see me standing in the middle of the room asking “What’s the story, baby?” she lets out a little yelp and falls back a few steps but then composes herself and just glares, eyes frozen, arms crossed, mouth set hard—a woman’s stance I’m familiar with.
“Aren’t you going to bother to hide your annoyance?” I finally ask. “Aren’t you gonna like offer me a Snapple?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Don’t freak.”
She moves over to a desk piled high with fashion magazines, flicks on a crystal chandelier, rummages through a Prada handbag and lights a Marlboro Medium. “You’ve got to get out of here.”
“Hey, can’t we just talk for a minute, baby?”
“Victor, leave,” she warns impatiently and then scrunches her face up. “Talk?”
“I’ll vacate only after we chat.”
She considers this and, grimacing, forces herself to ask quickly, “Okay—how was the Oldham show?”
“Very major,” I say, slouching around the room. “Chatted with Elsa Klensch. The usual.”
“How is Elsa?” she asks, still glaring.
“Elsa and I are both Capricorns so we get along very nicely,” I say. “Is it cold in here or is it just me?”
“And otherwise?” she asks, waiting.
“It was, er, very, very—oh yeah—important.”
“Important?” Lauren asks semi-dubiously.
“Clothes are important, baby.”
“They eventually clean furniture, Victor.”
“Hey,” I exclaim. “Lighten up, baby.”
“Victor, you’ve got to get out of here.”
“What were you doing?” I ask, moving around the room, taking the whole apartment in. “Why weren’t you at the show?”
“I had a photo shoot promoting a terrible movie I’m in with Ben Chaplin and Rufus Sewell,” she hisses, barely able to contain herself. “Then I took a bubble bath and read an article on the impossibility of real emotion on the Upper East Side in New York magazine.” She stubs out the cigarette. “This was a draining conversation, yet one I’m glad we had. The door’s over there in case you’ve forgotten.”
She walks past me, down a hallway covered with a Berber-style woven carpet and Moroccan embroidered pillows stacked against the walls and then I’m in her bedroom, where I flop on the bed, leaning back on my elbows, my feet barely touching the floor, watching as Lauren stalks into the bathroom and begins toweling her hair dry. Behind her a poster for some indie film starring Steve Buscemi hangs above the toilet. She’s so annoyed—but maybe in a fake way—that I have to say, “Oh come off it, I’m not so bad. I bet you hang out with guys who say things like ‘But what if I want a new Maserati’ all the time. I bet your life is filled with that.” I stop, then add, “Too.”
She picks up a half-empty glass of champagne by the sink, downs it.
“Hey,” I say, pointing at the framed poster. “You were in that movie?”
“Unfortunately,” she mutters. “Notice where it’s hanging?”
She closes her eyes, touches her forehead.
“You just finished a new movie?” I ask softly.
“Yes.” Suddenly she searches through an array of Estée Lauder jars, Lancôme products, picks up a L’Occitane butter massage balm that Chloe also uses, reads the ingredients, puts it down, finally gives up and just looks at herself in the mirror.
“What’s it about?” I ask as if it matters.
“It’s kind of like Footloose,” she says, then pauses and delicately whispers, “But set on Mars.” She waits for my reaction.
I just stare at her from the bed. A longish silence. “That’s so cool, baby.”
“I wept on the set every day.”
“Did you just break up with someone?”
“You—are—a—dunce.”
“I’m waiting to see if I’m getting a role in Flatliners II,” I mention casually, stretching.
“So we’re in the same boat?” she asks. “Is that it?”
“Alison Poole told me you were doing pretty well.”
She swigs from a nearby bottle of Evian. “Let’s just say it’s been lucratively tedious.”
“Baby, I’m sensing that you’re a star.”
“Have you seen any of my movies?”
Pause. “Alison Poole told me you were doing—”
“Don’t mention that cunt’s name in this apartment,” she screams, throwing a brush at me.
“Hey baby,” I say, ducking. “Come here, baby, chill out.”
“What?” she asks, irritably. “Come where?”
“Come here,” I murmur, staring straight at her. “Come here,” I say, patting the comforter.
She just stares at me lying on the bed, my shirt pulled up a little, showing off my lower abs, my legs slightly spread. Sometime during all of this my jacket came off.
“Victor?”
“Yeah?” I whisper.
“What does Chloe mean to you?”
“Come here,” I whisper.
“Just because you’re a gorgeous guy doesn’t give you any more rights than … ,” she falters, picks up: “ … anyone else.”
“I know, baby. It’s cool.” I sit up, gazing at her, never breaking eye contact. She moves toward me.
“Come on,” I say. “That’s it.”
“What do you want, Victor?”
“I want you to come over here.”
“What are you?” she asks, suddenly pulling back. “One of the fringe benefits of being a pretty girl?”
“Hey, I’m a stud muffin.” I shrug. “Take a bite.”
A flicker of a smile that tells you she will probably do anything. It’s time to relax and play it differently. I reach into my jeans, lifting up my shirt a little more so that she can see the rest of my stomach and spreading my legs even wider so she can spot the bulge in my jeans. I offer her a Mentos.
“You really look like you work out,” I say. “How do you keep in such buff shape, doll?”
“Not eating helps,” she mutters.
“So you’re refusing the Mentos?”
She smiles, barely, and nods.
“Are you coming to the club tonight?” I ask.
“To the Copa? The Copacabana? The hottest spot north of Havana?” she asks, clapping her hands together, eyes wide with fake delight.
“Hey, don’t be dissing me, sistah.”
“Where’s Chloe now, Victor?” she asks, moving closer.
“Who was your last significant other, baby?”
“An ex-rogue trader I met at a screenplay-writing seminar, then Gavin Rossdale,” she says. “Oh, and Adam Sandler for three days.”
“Oh shit.” I smack my forehead. “Now I know who you are. Now I remember.”
She smiles a little, warming up. “Who are you dating now, Victor?” She pauses. “Besides Alison Poole?”
“Hey, I thought that name wasn’t allowed in this apartment.”
“Only someone who owns a voodoo doll of her with five hundred pins stuck in its head and an extra-large Snickers bar strapped to its ass can,” she says. “Now, who are you dating, Victor? Just say it. Just let me hear you say a name.”
“Four that wanna own me, two that wanna stone me, one that says she’s a friend of mine.”
> She smiles now, standing over the bed.
“Can I ask you something?” I ask.
“Can you?”
“You won’t freak out?”
“It depends.”
“Okay. Just promise me you’ll take this within a certain context.”
“What?”
“It’s just that …” I stop, breathe in, laugh a little.
“It’s just what?”
Now, playing it very seriously, I say, “It’s just that I really want to stick my tongue up your pussy right now.” I’m squeezing my dick through my jeans, staring straight at her. “I promise I won’t do anything else. I just have this urge to lick your pussy right now.” I pause, shyly. “Can I?”
She breathes in but doesn’t move away.
“Are you going to complain about my behavior?” I ask.
“No,” she says.
“Come here,” I say.
Her eyes move over my body.
“Come here,” I say again.
She just stands there, deciding what to do, unmoving.
“Is there a … dilemma?” I’m asking.
“Victor,” she sighs. “I can’t.”
“Why?” I ask. “Come here.”
“Because it’s like you’re back from … outer space or something,” she says. “And I don’t know you.”
“You’re a little hard to unwrap too, baby.”
She lets her robe drop.
“I think we should maybe end the conversation here,” I say.
She kneels over me, pushing me back down on the bed, straddling my waist. I work one finger into her pussy, finally just easing it in, then two fingers, and her own fingers are rubbing her clit and I sit up and start licking and sucking on her breasts. I take my fingers out of her pussy and put them in my mouth, telling her how much I want to eat her pussy, and then I easily flip her onto her back and spread her legs wide apart and push them back so her whole pussy is spread out, available, and I start fingerfucking her while licking and sucking on her clit. I stick another finger in my mouth and slip it in between her legs, lower, until it touches her asshole, pressing lightly against it. I’m rock hard and I’ve pulled my pants down to my knees, my ass sticking up in the air, stroking myself off, my tongue way up her cunt, but then she pulls me up to her breasts, urging me to suck her nipples, and still stroking my prick I immediately move up and we start eating each other’s mouths, sucking hungrily, and she’s gripping my cock and rubbing it against her lower lips and then my cock’s sliding up into her without any effort and she starts humping hard on it and I start meeting her thrusts and she’s coming and then the intercom buzzes and the doorman’s voice announces, “Lauren—Damien Ross is on his way up,” and we both freeze.
“Oh shit.” She stumbles up and grabs her robe off the floor and then she’s running down the hallway, calling out, “Get dressed—Damien’s here.”
“Oh shit, baby.” Panicked, I sit up, misjudge my place on the bed and fall off. I immediately pull my pants up and tuck my boner, aching and still stiff and wet, back into my Calvins.
“He’s early,” she groans, racing back into the room. “Shit!”
“Early for what?” I ask.
When I turn around she’s at the closet, tearing through dresses and stacks of sweaters until finally she finds a black ladies’ hat—cool-looking, with a tiny red flower embroidered on its side—and she studies it for a nanosecond before shoving it at me. “Here.”
“What?” I’m asking. “This is your idea of a disguise?”
“Tell him you came by to pick it up for Chloe,” she says. “And wipe your face off.”
“Lauren, baby,” I say. “Chill out.”
“You shouldn’t have come over.” She starts moving down the hallway. “I’m an idiot for not throwing you out.”
“I thought we were having a pretty good time,” I say, following her.
“Well, that’s not what we should’ve been doing,” she yells. “That’s not what we should’ve been doing,” she whispers.
“Hey, don’t say that.”
“Let’s just find a place to stand and call it a weak moment,” she says. “You shouldn’t have come over.”
“Baby, you’ve established that—I get it, okay?” I follow her into the living room and find a casual place to position myself.
“No, stand here,” Lauren says, tying the sash on her robe. “As if we’re—oh god—talking.”
“Okay, what do you want to talk about?” I ask, calming down. “How hard you make my dick?”
“Just give me that damn hat back.”
“Chloe would more likely wear a rotting log around her neck.”
“She dates you, so what do you know?”
Damien walks in, holds up the cigar in his hand and says, “Hey baby, don’t worry, it’s not lit.” They don’t bother to kiss and in a really serene way Damien nods at me, gives a cute little wave and says, “Hey Victor.”
“Hey Damien.” I give a cute little wave back.
“You’re everywhere today, huh?”
“Everywhere at once—that’s me.”
“Victor,” Lauren says. “Tell Chloe she can return this to me anytime, okay, Victor?” She hands me back the hat.
“Yeah, sure, Lauren. Um, thanks.” I look at the hat, turning it around in my hands, inspecting it. “Nice … hat.”
“What’s that?” Damien asks.
“A hat,” Lauren says.
“For who?” he asks.
“Chloe,” Lauren and I say at the same time.
“Victor came by to pick it up for her,” she finishes.
“When’s she gonna wear that?” Damien asks. “What’s the urgency?”
“Tonight,” I say. “She’s going to wear it tonight.”
The three of us look at each other and something weird, something a little too intimate, passes between us, so we all look back at the hat.
“I can’t look at this hat anymore,” Lauren says. “I have to take a shower.”
“Baby, wait,” Damien says. “I’m in a real rush. We have to talk about something.”
“I thought we already discussed what you want to discuss,” she says tightly.
“Victor,” Damien says, ushering Lauren out of the room. “We’ll be right back.”
“No problemo, guys.”
I check my messages: Gavin Palone, Emmanuelle Béart, someone from Brillstein-Grey, someone else who I’ve decided looks good with his new goatee. It’s freezing in the apartment. Everything suddenly seems slightly exhausting, vaguely demanding: the lifting of a spoon, the draining of a champagne flute, the glance that means you should go, even pretending to sleep. There’s a room somewhere and in that room all the tables are empty but all of them are reserved. I check the time. Next to my watch is a stray piece of confetti I’m too tired to brush off and I could really use some chips and salsa since I’m famished. I know who you are and I know what you said.
At the bar Damien pours himself a shot of Patrón tequila and stares forlornly at his cigar. “She won’t let me smoke in here.” He pauses. “Well, not cigars.” I’m aware for the first time that Damien’s actually sort of really good-looking and in this light I can’t even tell he has extensions; his hair looks thick and black and strong, and I’m touching my jaw, limply, to see if it feels as hollowed out as Damien’s looks.
“It’s cool,” I say.
“Victor, what are you doing here?”
I hold up the hat.
“Yeah?” he asks. “Really?”
“Hey, I heard about Junior Vasquez DJ’ing tonight,” I say, elegantly changing the subject.
Damien sighs tiredly. “Great. Isn’t it?”
“How did that happen?”
“On the record?”
I nod.
“Some special-events impresario called,” Damien says. “And—voilà.”
“Can I ask you a question?” I start, feeling daring.
“What is it?”
“Whe
re did you guys meet?” I ask. “I mean, you and Lauren.”
He downs the tequila, gently places the glass back on the bar and frowns. “I met her while we were both having dinner with the world’s richest people.”
“Who?”
“We’re not allowed to give out those names.”
“Oh.”
“But you’d know them,” Damien says. “You wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Cool.”
“Hint: they had just spent the weekend at Neverland Ranch.”
“Would you like a Mentos?” I ask.
“I need a favor, Victor.”
“I’d do anything for you, man.”
“Please don’t grovel.”
“Sorry.”
“Will you take Lauren with you to the opening tonight?” Damien asks. “She won’t come otherwise. Or if she does she’s threatening to come with fucking Skeet Ulrich or Olivier Martinez or Mickey Hardt or Daniel Day-fucking-Lewis.”
“That would be cool,” I consider. “I mean if we could get Daniel Day-Lewis—”
“Hey,” he snaps. “Watch it.”
“Oh yeah. My apologies.”
Damien still has traces of this morning’s mud mask next to his right ear. I reach out and flick a speck gently away.
“What’s that?” he asks, flinching.
“Mud?” I guess.
He sighs. “It’s shit, Victor. It’s all shit.”
I pause. “You had … shit on your face?” I ask. “Whoa, dude. Don’t go there.”
“No. My life, Victor. My whole fucking life. It’s all shit.”
“Why, guy?” I ask. “When did this massive dumping occur?”
“I have a girlfriend, Victor,” Damien says, staring straight at me.
“Yeah—” I stop, confused. “Alison?”
“No. Alison’s my fiancée. Lauren’s the girlfriend.”
“You guys are engaged?” I gasp involuntarily and when I try to hide the gasp, I gasp again. “Oh, I knew that, dude. Um, I knew that.”
Damien’s face hardens. “How did you know that?” he asks. “Nobody knows that.”
Pause, then semi-effortlessly, in a tight voice while holding my breath, out comes: “Man oh man this town, guy.”
Damien seems too depressed to not accept this. A long pause.
“You mean,” I start, “like getting-married engaged?”
“That’s usually what it means.”