He puttered in the kitchen for a while and then retreated to his studio. I shoved the box back under the bed and stayed where I was, feeling too heavy to stand. Even after the thirty-minute shower, even after I put on my softest pair of yoga pants, my ass cheeks still hurt and I could still feel W on me. I wondered if he ever used drugs. I tried to imagine him slurring his words and twitching the way Simon did when he was really high. No. I couldn’t imagine W giving up control in that way. Or maybe I didn’t want to think about W not being in control.
I didn’t like that W was so much in my thoughts, especially when he gave me nothing in return.
Oh, he gives you something, my conscience whispered. Just not the something you want.
I tried not to want anything from clients, except money. I tried not to get involved, but W made me feel involved. Since he wouldn’t tell me his name, or let me see how he looked, I desperately wanted to know his name, and I was dying to see how he looked.
And the worst part of it was, he knew I felt that way. He enjoyed fucking with me. I didn’t believe that he would eventually reveal himself to me, but part of me still wanted to meet him again just in case he did. Because never knowing the name and face of this man—that seemed an impossible burden to bear.
Speaking of impossible burdens to bear…
“Chere!” That was Simon’s angry voice. He came into the bedroom, his hair disheveled, his shirt undone, revealing his chest but not his arms. He never let me see his arms. “Chere, I need money.”
“For what?”
“For life,” he spat back. “I know you just got back from a date. Don’t be a bitch.”
I drew back a little on the bed. “I don’t get that money right away. Henry has it.”
Henry had a lot of my money now, and deposited it in a secret account for me. It was his suggestion, since he knew about Simon’s “problem.”
“I won’t get the money for this date until tomorrow,” I said. “I only have sixty bucks.”
“Well, I need it.”
“Where’s your money? When are you going to sell something?”
He was purposely tuning me out, looking around for my purse. “You went on a date two days ago. You have money.”
“I need that money for rent. Jesus, Simon, you’ve got to stop this—”
He charged at me. I flinched. He saw my bag by the nightstand and grabbed it, and dug for my wallet like the junkie he was.
“I need to eat,” I yelled. I pulled at the purse straps like an old lady being mugged. “You need to eat too. Let’s go to dinner.”
“I don’t want fucking dinner. I need to work, I need to paint something.”
“You need drugs.”
He took my sixty dollars and threw the bag back at me. It was okay. I had money hidden everywhere. That’s what the significant others of drug addicts did. They hid money. They maintained. They walked on eggshells.
“I need to work,” he said, glaring at me. He didn’t look like an angel anymore. He looked like a devil in withdrawal. “I’m going to get off the drugs, so you can stop looking at me that way. But it doesn’t just happen like that.” He snapped his fingers in my face, a sharp, bony click. “I need to build up some work first, so I can take a break and go into treatment. I need to have one more show, to make money, to keep the momentum going while I get clean. I have a career to think about. Why can’t you understand that? Why don’t you fucking give me some time to organize my shit?”
Because your career is dead in the water, and you’re going to die if I give you any more time…
“I’m going to leave you,” I said.
He laughed, knowing me for a liar. “Not if I leave you first.”
He took my money and disappeared. The elevator hummed again. I wasn’t invited anymore when he went out to do whatever he did. Party. Mingle. Sleep with other women. When I confronted him about his clinging art groupies, he silenced my complaints by pointing out that I slept with other men. Sometimes, in his rages, he called me a whore, and I thought, I am a whore. Even if I’m classy and high-priced, and pretty on the outside, I’m still a whore.
And he was a drug addict and a user, so I guess we deserved each other, for better or worse.
The Park Hyatt Session
I went back again for more, in the same fucking amber-beige dress. The Park Hyatt this time, across from Carnegie Hall, because I needed the money and W tipped twice as much as my other dates.