by Martin, M.
“My boyfriend is here! David Summers!” Dudi screams from across the room and makes his way to the parlor dressed as Nicholas II, complete with gold medallions and a white uniform that contrasts his black hair and even darker eyes for a gentlemanly first appearance. “And he’s brought a hot woman to make me jealous. How dare he?”
His words linger closer together like the chorus of an Antonio Carlos Jobim song.
“You know how those Summers’ like to work,” Catherine chimes in and makes her way to my side.
“You must be Catherine, the lion tamer.” Dudi touches both of Catherine’s hands with his fingertips and kisses her on each cheek.
“More of a dog trainer according to some people,” I reply.
“David, you look delicious, you lucky bitch.” Dudi grabs me around the hips and lifts me in the air taking a good grope of my nether. “I absolutely love this man, Catherine.”
“He is a charmer, isn’t he?”
“And not that bad on the eyes, either,” Dudi quickly adds.
“We met in Rio, you know, so technically our connection is Brazilian, like you.”
“You two are so hot, it makes me sick. But come in and join the rest of imperial St. Petersburg.”
As we enter, a towering soldier with a boyish face that struggles to be contained behind his Rasputin beard stands in an imperial cloak.
“That two-headed eagle in the middle of your chest is actually derived from the Romans and adapted by Russians,” I say to break the ice, and show Catherine a smarter side, but such trivialities have little interest to an LA crowd and don’t even warrant a reply from the waiter or my date.
Dudi is meticulous about his parties to the point of passing out faux jewels to all the women as another cloaked attendant carefully places a canary yellow bracelet on Catherine’s wrist. On Catherine, the garishness of the piece actually looks fashionable, even real as her poise and grace elevates the crowd almost immediately.
“This is outrageous … are they always so decadent?” Catherine says, eyeing her bracelet as we approach the bar.
“Indeed. This is actually a little tame, but the night is young.”
The bartender, with his rebellious beard and overly gelled hair, gives Catherine the once-over. This staff of straight actor guys trying to pay the bills working for gay guys who will do and say just about anything to get them into bed. The bartenders usually come on hot and heavy with the female guests proving their virility, and letting all know up-front for what team they play. It has to be a tough gig, standing in this iconic setting and so wanting to be part of the action and doing the most menial of jobs standing half-naked in a sparkly frock.
Dudi knows a great group of people who span the world of LA business and the entertainment industry. Catherine seems to come into her own among the crowd, a different side of her than I’ve seen before. She’s emerging herself with full rigor among perfect strangers as I stand and watch in awe. She works this type of crowd better than I do, listening with direct eye contact as this woman named Ana, pronounced ON-uh despite her American accent, goes into a diatribe on how anti-gay Russia has become, and that we shouldn’t be celebrating its monstrous history.
Catherine listens politely without adding or differing, mentioning that the current political empowerment is in fact conservative, but that it’s simply a matter of time before social reform works its way east from Europe. Her kindness seems an annoyance to those listening, these volatile Americans who will fight for any cause as long as it’s illuminated as being good against evil or wrong against right.
I pull on Catherine’s sleeve as the conversation shifts to another social war, namely lesbian mothers, and her cue to exit is more obvious for me than her.
“That’s about to become another revolution right there,” I say, trying to sip out another bit of scotch from my glass that’s long been emptied of all but ice.
“They just want to show their support to your friends being gay. I get it,” she says as we make our way back to the bar.
As we approach the terrace with our refreshed drinks, we see a long table set with about twenty or so settings with plates stacked one atop another and another as crystal glasses crowd a small name card and mask lying over the plate. Each person is given a designated character from the revolution. Mine is a dapper, blondish man named Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia, which is far better than the Trotsky mask laid to the right of me. A card on the back of the mask reveals his tortured life as one of the instigators behind Rasputin’s death and dismissal from Russia that ultimately saved his life during the 1917 revolution that took most all of his relatives left behind.
“At least he was hot,” Dudi says from across the table.
As I look next to me for Catherine’s mask on my left, I realize she’s not seated next to me. I had wanted the dinnertime to connect more with her, delve deeper in her life, and have her close to me since it’s almost impossible to make plans to be together. She makes her way around the table looking for her card before taking her place between two empty chairs. She smiles confidently across the table as if to reassure as she holds up her mask to show me a mousy woman who doesn’t near compare to her beauty at this moment.
“Catherine, who are you, dear?” Dudi yells across the table as everyone buzzes about their own mask and takes a seat.
The seated crowd quiets a bit around the packed table illuminated in dramatic candelabras with the flickering city skyline beneath.
“I’m the lovely Vera Alexeyevna Karalli.” Catherine’s voice cracks on the first word but nails the last name like someone oiled in the language.
“Shhh! Everyone, I can’t hear Catherine. Baby, stand up!” Dudi yells.
Catherine gazes from one end of the table to the other. Not the quiet deer in headlights I would expect from my usual dates, but in the most girlish of excitement with her seat neighbors, who include a well-known TV star and one of Harris and Dudi’s fancier gay friends named Cliff.
“This is the amazing Vera Alexeyevna Karalli, who, unlike so many of her contemporaries in St. Petersburg and Moscow at the time, lived to the ripe old age of eighty-three.”
A louder, more confident voice prevails as she continues. “She fled the country following the revolution and was unfortunately linked to a man named Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich who was corroborated in the death of Rasputin.”
As her delicate hand yields the mask from right to left for all to see, Dudi interrupts. “And that terrible man would be you, David.”
Startled while looking at Catherine instead of my mask, I jump to my feet. “Indeed, that lovely lady was involved with this unfortunate chap, who despite his wise looks was implicated in the disappearance of cleric Grigori Rasputin.” I mouth a drum roll.
“Now, the empress, wherever she is tonight, loved her witch doctors and didn’t take kindly to the loss of her Rasputin, whom I believe is also here tonight. So your dear Dmitri, or I for the time being, had him sent to the Persian front of the war and worst of all, away from my great love.” I gesture to Catherine.
“Oh yes, she was also an accomplished ballerina who danced with Mikhail Mordkin,” Catherine adds, ignoring my romantic cue.
“Another hot man … that’s you, Paul,” Dudi interrupts again. He motions to an older gent named Paul, who holds up an image of the famous ballet master and does his best interpretive grande pose with his arms.
“Vera also went on to star in several silent movies as well as assist Russians in exile, but sadly never returned to her home.”
Catherine misses her beat to remain silent before retaking her seat in a cackle of table chatter that erupts around her.
My side of the table, however, isn’t nearly as amused or amusing. I’m sitting next to a woman named Beth who is also from London, but now works her dream job at a Hollywood agency managing reality TV shows that gets her backstage access; her
head of hair is more befitting a European prime minister than an LA creative type. Boring as paint drying but entirely harmless, on my other side is a far more curious character named Mitch. His first sentence revealed he was straight like me, but also an actor and here with an older gentleman named Arthur seated next to him. I’d say Mitch is no older than twenty-five, and likely doing everything he can to get through the night without putting out to Daddy.
“So how did you end up here, Mitch?” I say after taking another sip of my pink rosé that reveals itself as Dom Pérignon. A half-naked Russian soldier fills up my champagne flute even though it wasn’t even half-empty.
“Arthur asked me to join him for the night,” he answers.
Arthur introduces himself, a well-spoken man whose grayed temples lend an air of sophistication, and his rounded belly shows he’s either too old or too successful to try to compete on visual terms.
“We met through work a year or so ago, and we’ve become really good friends. Arthur and I travel a lot together; actually we just got back from London.”
“And how was that for you both?” I ask without really caring.
“It was terrific. We stayed at the Mandarin Oriental, went to Harrods, and saw this great play; I forgot its name, with Jude Law in the West End.”
I hate the Mandarin Oriental in London, Harrods is a tourist trap, Jude Law hasn’t been good at anything since Sienna Miller, and even that is questionable. The relationship of Arthur and Mitch appears to be something that lingers in friendship and sometimes peaks in situations that are more romantic that Mitch likely fends off, but only so much that he keeps Arthur hopeful and the invites coming.
“My girlfriend was a little weird about it at first, but now she’s totally cool.”
Cool with what, I wonder. Not wanting to put off my seatmates prior to the appetizers, I defer to more polite conversation and ask what Arthur does for work, but my ears transition to the other side of the room despite my agreeing nods and one-syllable responses that keep the conversation going without actually having to participate.
Catherine is seated next to a famous production designer named Clifford Morris, who’s one of the better social litmus tests a person can have in LA, carving the fat from the meat with his slicing words that seemed to have evolved into a natural connection with Catherine as he mouths to me the words “I love her” across the table.
To her other side is some well-known TV actress who chats away with the young boy next to her as if displaced from Cliff and Catherine’s more intimate and convivial conversation that I’m sure she’d prefer if not rejected from it almost immediately upon sitting. I’m sure it was Cliff and not Catherine, likely asking her about the day’s headlines that she’s oblivious to unless it was on some blog or a bold-font TV headline she saw at the gym.
The two women sitting next to each other offer a glimpse of me and my love life in time—one, a woman I would have chased endlessly only to have a short, unfulfilling relationship with, and the other a woman who makes me feel like a better person, a better man. There’s more than just the sexual chase to Catherine; there’s an emotional component she invests in people that makes you want, actually need, the more you are with her. As I sit here, I’m almost jealous of the people next to her. The more I watch, the more I realize how fortunate I am that a woman such as Catherine would choose to spend time with me, and that I’ve finally arrived at a point in my life where it means something.
Dinner is perfection, even if I enjoy it for no more than a few bites between the glasses of rosé poured like Diet Coke among a now fully blanketed LA sky. As the waiter clears my dinner plate, I notice the actress next to Catherine rise to her feet. I take the moment to swap spots and rejoin my date.
“Clifford Morris, I cannot believe I was seated away from you. Have they no idea?” I plead to him.
“Tell me about it. I was stuck near Gayzilla over here and your lovely date.”
Cliff refers to the overweight gay man next to him as Gayzilla, the man still fully immersed in his dinner but not so much that he didn’t hear the comment.
“But this one, this one is sheer perfection,” he says, squeezing Catherine’s shoulder.
“I hear you; I don’t know what she ever finds in me.”
“Yeah, just look at you.”
“He is a beautiful man, though, isn’t he?” Catherine confides.
“But listen, honey, I want you to take my number because I want us to stay in touch once he breaks your heart.”
“Cliff, I mean really.”
“No, I’m serious. I’m in New York all the time, and I think we have a similar groove … you and me.”
Cliff grabs Catherine’s hand as she gazes over at me. She takes the wine goblet in her hand and puts it up to her mouth.
“Cliff, why would you say that?” I say, realizing it likely hurt Catherine.
“Oh, calm down girl. I was just kidding. But in all seriousness, you and I are meant to be friends, Catherine.”
“She needs another swallow, and these servers are over waiting on us.”
Cliff rises from the table, comes over, and gives me a hug before moving toward the bar.
“He was just kidding. You know that, right?” I try to say to Catherine without her neighbor hearing now that a waiter has cleared his plate.
“David, how can you break my heart when you don’t even possess it?” she says with a smirk.
The tone in Catherine’s voice makes me realize the sting of Cliff’s words was maybe far greater than I realized, or perhaps his candidness simply caught her off guard.
“Now, is that very nice?” I say, attempting to soothe her wound.
Words are like gas on a flame with women at this point. I can plead my case harder, but the fact is I’ve typically been an unreliable lover who is prone to leave a relationship with little more than a phone call.
The music suddenly changes as a moody Hollywood version of Bewitched comes from the parlor sung by a black woman. Built like a fire hydrant, her voice justifies whatever she lacks in looks from her proud perch at the piano. Her voice silences the crowd that circles around the glass doors to watch.
We linger at the table; Catherine appears captivated by the music. I turn to the side of my chair, and from under my napkin, I hesitantly move my hand over to her and softly touch the inside of her thigh. She sits in silence looking around the room and avoiding eye contact with me. I wait for her to pull away or even stand up, but her leg relaxes as I caress it ever so softly.
She continues to look away but moves closer to the table as if to conceal my arm that has inched its way to the top of her knee and slowly up her leg. She doesn’t push it away as it continues up, caressing the familiar skin just below the outer lining of her underwear and scratching the lacing that separates us like an animal at the gate to create the softest of vibrations.
“Did you forgive me yet?” I ask as we both continue to look away from each other.
She still doesn’t say a word. My hand pulls inside her undergarments and makes its way around her smooth hair and soft lips that are already wet as I slide my index finger in without any tepidness or hesitation. The force sends a jolt up her body that startles her neighbor, but not so much that either of us wants to stop.
Alas, I quickly pull my hand away and her gaze finally returns to me, those greenish eyes that enter my own as we stare in the night. I take my finger and lick it as she watches, salty and sweet to the taste that I take to the depth of my mouth and then again as she watches my every move, that’s otherwise indistinguishable to the crowd. As she stands, my hand quietly inches up her skirt again as I reenter with my finger that reveals she’s come alive.
A cloak of privacy masked in clattering plates, busied waiters, and a crowd captivated by the piano singer allows me to continue as she repeatedly leans into my hand. I steal glances into her face that strug
gles to remain calm, intact, and normal. Inside she’s anything but as my movement becomes more specific, ebbing the spot that sends her over the edge; her knees buckle and for a moment, I think she might fall to the ground in ecstasy.
Catherine takes me by the hand to the door, and we slip out from the terrace and make our way to the staircase. She grips my hand as she raises it in the air to make the tighter corners between floors. We arrive on my floor, although I was hoping she would take me back to her room and avoid the guilty discomfort of having such a woman as her in a space that Jamila was in just a day ago.
My familiar hotel room door embarrasses me in this instant as regrets of the previous day fill my head. Life is so different with Catherine near, so much more complete, and yet, I would risk everything for the momentary distraction. I have shamed her, even if unknown to her, a feeling I don’t ever wish to feel again. There’s virtue in being with her. Holding her hand is as comforting as kissing her soft lips; the prospect of entering her is as enticing as imagining waking up softly by her side to smell her morning scent and see her eyes struggling with the day’s early light.
There’s a harmony between us, like a familiar couple who knows the rhythm of the other even after this short amount of time between us. While some women would have lingered in the doorway of an unknown room, Catherine makes herself comfortable. She roams the space and takes in the neon-lit terrace from a spot at the window that couldn’t have been framed any better by the best of artists. I approach her from behind and wrap my hands around her waist, softly kissing the back of her neck and nibbling ever so slightly down the shoulder.
“You know, it was modeled after the royal Château d’Amboise in the Loire Valley where da Vinci died,” she says.
“What’s that, you mean Sunset Boulevard?”
“No, this hotel, the Chateau, it’s really just a knockoff of some palace in France. It’s so weird that despite its aristocratic ambitions it became this icon of pop culture and rock and roll.”
“That famous comedy guy died here, right?” I say.
