Ruin Me

by Jamie Brenner

  “Oh, I think you like it when I boss you around,” Inez said, sitting next to her on the couch and putting her hand on Bianca’s skinny, pale thigh.

  Bianca leaned against the cushions, putting her hands behind her head. Her shirt rode up a few inches, exposing her tight stomach. Inez lightly ran her fingertips over her belly, then unbuttoned Bianca’s shorts, sliding them down over her slim, boyish hips. She wasn’t wearing any underwear. Inez stroked her folds of pale pink flesh, slipping one finger inside her. Bianca moaned, closing her eyes. Inez glanced at Brandt, who watched them slack-jawed. She wondered if he realized that in fucking his girlfriend, she was yet again doing all the work to save his career.

  Bianca spread her legs. More, more—it was the same story with every single one of these people.

  Inez kneeled in front of the couch, between Bianca’s thighs. She dipped her head down, using her tongue to get the job done.

  Her future, her fortune, her destiny, was waiting for her at home.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  The party is on the roof of the hotel, in one of the cabanas. It’s the only place in New York that feels like L.A. Under the night sky, with the leafy plants, and royal blue and white-cushioned banquettes, it has a casual but exclusive and decadent vibe. But my mind—and heart—are far away from this glittering crowd.

  The host is a guy named Eric Druban. He’s a big Brooklyn real estate developer, and it’s his wife’s thirtieth birthday. She’s a tall, beautiful blonde who works at the fashion label Marchesa. Georgina Chapman is here, along with the rest of the New York fashion crowd—journalists, stylists, photographers, magazine editors.

  Yancy Bird, a young editor from W magazine, sits next to me. She uses the votive candle on the wooden table next to us to light her cigarette. I’ve met Yancy at my mother’s parties, and I like her. She was not blessed with a single attractive feature on her face, but she is so eccentrically fashion-forward that it’s impossible not to look at her and experience beauty. She rocks the whole Diana Vreeland/Isabella Blow thing. And from reading her articles, I know she’s smart and passionate about her work. So when she asks me, “Where’s Brandt?” I don’t bristle and I don’t hedge.

  “We’re not together anymore,” I say.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, and it seems genuine. I shrug.

  “It happens.”

  “We’re doing a whole art issue this winter. I’d love to interview you.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I haven’t done anything yet to be the subject of an interview. But maybe I can write something for it?”

  She snaps her fingers. “You know what would be genius? If you would interview your mother.”

  Across the room, Niffer waves me over.

  “Excuse me a minute,” I say to Yancy.

  “Think about it!” she calls after me.

  “I want to introduce you to someone.” Niffer puts her arm around my shoulders. A photographer snaps our photo, and asks Niffer for her name. He seems to know mine.

  Laughter drifts across the wide-open space. The night is breezy but warm. Everywhere I look there are beautiful people, trays of food, bottles of wine. This is my life, and it’s by every measure a dream. But he is not here, and never will be.

  Niffer leads me by the hand to a long, wood-paneled bar decorated overhead with paper lanterns. Waiting for us, drinks in hand, are Umberto and a ridiculously hot guy with dark hair and pale blue, Siberian Husky eyes under thick, expressive brows.

  Niffer says something to Umberto, the three of them laugh, and I experience it all as if I’m under water. I know that this guy is here for me, that I’m supposed to go home with him and let this rugged beauty of a man who belongs in my world erase the marks of the man who does not. It can be so easy if I just let it.

  He hands me a glass of wine, and his smile is so warm it’s hard not to respond. And so I go through the motions. His eyes tell me he thinks I’m attractive. Photographers snap more pictures. Niffer and Umberto hold hands. They kiss. The gorgeous guy puts his hand on the small of my back. Yancy passes by, says hi to him. Winks at me.

  It’s all here, all the pieces of a puzzle that was started twenty-one years ago when my mother and my father pushed their way into a closed, exclusive world. And now I’m here, the gates closing in around me.

  And Rory will never come inside.

  I put the wineglass down on the bar. He whispers in my ear—something about his room downstairs, he’s only here for a week. Business.

  The wine is doing nothing to erase Rory. I wonder if this guy can, his hands, his lips.

  The room is like an extension of the rooftop cabana, with its views of the Hudson, blue couch, round, nautical windows, and Japanese spherical ceiling lamps.

  From the terrace, I can see the High Line. It reminds me of the view from Brandt’s apartment, and I have a terrible feeling of déjà vu.

  “Excuse me for a minute.”

  The bathroom is pale marble, and I close the door, lean on the counter, and look in the mirror.

  “Stop being such a pussy,” I tell myself.

  He’s waiting for me on the couch. More wine. I can’t remember his name but it’s too late to ask now.

  He takes my wine and puts it on a glossy wood table decorated with a model ship. I feel lost without something to hold onto, something to do with my hands. Then he kisses me, and I feel nothing. It’s so familiar. It was the soaring, ecstatic happiness I felt with Rory that was so foreign.

  His hands are on my breasts, over my shirt, his touch so assured I know it’s just a matter of minutes before he wants me naked.

  I’m so tired of it all—my mother, Brandt, Rory, myself. I’ve never had a one-night stand, but for the first time I really understand the appeal. If I don’t know this guy’s name, what are the odds he remembered mine? Nothing exists outside of this room— fucking him has no yesterday and no tomorrow. I don’t have to figure it out, I don’t have to want anything, and I don’t have to be disappointed.

  He puts my hand on his cock, over his pants. I feel a pang of guilt, but I push it away. Rory will never change, and I can’t change who I am. Let it go, let it go, let it go.

  My phone buzzes from inside my bag.

  I pull back, hope soaring inside of me. It has to be him, it has to be!

  I mumble a quick apology, digging through my purse.

  The number on the phone is unfamiliar, and I’m so crushed with disappointment I almost ignore the message. But I see the word GoST, and I keep reading.

  The right question deserves the right answer. I’m hoping you’ll pass this on to GoST.

  Heart racing, I click on the link. Damian’s blog fills the screen. It only takes me a few seconds to skim the article, and another few to text it to Rory.

  I toss my phone in my purse, pull it over my shoulder, and apologize as I run out the door.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  I call Rory’s phone before I even leave The Maritime, and an automated message tells me it’s been disconnected.

  It’s the last thing I want to do, but I know my first stop has to be the underground. I won’t go down, but I’ll open the hatch and call out for him. I can’t believe things are so bad that he’d ignore me.

  But when I get to the spot on Broadway, it’s as if I’m on an entirely different block. My stencil has been painted over and the hatch is gone—sealed up with cement.

  The underground was the one spot that gave me a sense of orientation when trying to reach him. Without it, I feel hopeless. He is a needle in a haystack.

  I turn and look around, then up at the sky. Now that I’ve made the decision to follow him—to go to him wherever it leads, I need him to be someplace that lets me meet him halfway. Maybe he’s there already. Or maybe it’s a place we’ll have to find together.

  I hail a cab. “Bushwick.”

  *** ***

  Inez got back to Anna’s place a little later than she’d planned. The sex with Bianca had been surprisingly good,
and while peaking on the MDMA it was all so warm and fuzzy she didn’t want to leave Brandt’s apartment. The next thing she knew, four hours had passed.

  “That was a bit more than a ‘making an appearance,” Anna said. She was dressed in a black La Perla robe, smoking on the couch with a Baccarat ashtray in front of her.

  Inez was still a bit hazy—too hazy, if Anna was going to grill her. Best to stop the talking as soon as possible. Besides, all she wanted to do is crawl into Anna’s lap. She had the urge to be stroked, like a cat.

  Anna looked at her expectantly, arms crossed.

  “Sorry,” Inez said, sitting next to her on the couch. “You know how it is—once you’re all the way out in Brooklyn it’s like, well I’m here so might as well have a few drinks.”

  Anna leaned close to her, and for a minute, Inez thought all was forgiven. She had another pill in her pocket—took one for the road, just in case. If Anna wanted to go a few rounds in the sack, Inez would be happy to oblige her.

  “You smell like pussy,” Anna said.

  Inez froze. Had she somehow forgotten to clean up after her romp with Bianca?

  “No I don’t,” she said.

  “Don’t add insult to injury,” Anna said, distressingly calm.

  Inez inched slowly away from her.

  “Look, I’m sorry I got home later than I expected. Next time you can totally come with.”

  “I’ll pass. Three-ways hold no appeal to me.”

  Inez started to deny that another woman was involved in the evening, but she knew it was pointless.

  “Please leave,” Anna said icily. Inez panicked.

  “Don’t do this … ”

  “Do what? I’m just expressing my preference to be alone tonight. You don’t live here. So I’d appreciate you leaving.”

  Inez heard the subtext loud and clear: You don’t live here. And now, you never will.

  “Oh, and before you leave, I wanted to make sure you saw the latest news flash from that fuschia-haired freak you’re so fond of.”

  Anna’s razor-thin laptop was open on the far end of the sofa. Inez faced it with dread.

  Anna turned the screen so that Inez had a clear view of the blog post—a post accompanied by an incredibly hot photo of Bianca.

  Word on the street is that Brandt Penn’s sterling reputation is a bit tarnished now that he’s ditched his art world princess for a blond catwalk queen.

  “She looks quite familiar. One isn’t likely to forget that face.”

  Inez turned away so that Anna couldn’t read her expression, a muddled mask of guilt and fear. What could she say? It’s just a coincidence that Brandt is hooking up with the woman she brought to the MoMA party last month—the same night Lulu caught him cheating?

  Anna picked up her phone and dialed.

  “Brandt, it’s Anna. Is Inez still there? Oh, she left a half hour ago? Thanks. Now get your beauty sleep. We have lunch with the Roths tomorrow.”

  Anna smiled.

  Inez collected her things from the bathroom, and let herself out the front door into the dark, unwelcoming night.

  *** ***

  The warehouse where Banger and Rory painted the boxes looks completely dark, but I don’t let that deter me.

  The night we painted the boxes seems so long ago. I remember the exhilaration I felt, still buzzing on the adrenaline from the club, wondering if the paparazzi were going to use the photos of us.

  Tonight, the area feels completely desolate. In the distance, I hear a loud crack, like a firework or a gunshot.

  I knock on the front door. No response. This doesn’t surprise me. I try the latch, and the lock must be broken because the door opens easily.

  “Banger?” I call out. My heart thuds. I’m so scared it feels like the hairs on my arms are standing on end. It’s too much like the night I got attacked. My chest feels tight, and I can’t breathe. I feel around for a wall, and scrunch down against it.

  I need to get out of here. I feel around for something to force myself up. My legs feel weak, numb. I need a ledge, but the wall is smooth, the floor is smooth.

  I crawl a few feet until I feel metal—maybe a water pipe. I pull on it to hoist myself upright, but instantly realize that whatever I’m pulling on isn’t attached to the wall. I crash back to the ground, along with the object. It makes a shockingly loud sound, a splintering collision of metal onto the cement floor.

  Lights flood the room.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  It’s Banger. But I barely look at him, because I’m struck by how much the space has been transformed.

  One entire wall is covered in a mural—a re-creation of the Snow White painting that was covered up on Houston. Underneath her, a FreshDirect logo melting into a sewer grate. Next to it, a stencil of my father’s No. 2, behind prison bars. I try to take the inclusion of my father’s sculpture in the mural as a sign that he doesn’t hate me.

  The art blogger inside of me springs to life, and I start snapping photos with my phone.

  “Lulu get lost,” Banger says.

  “Is Rory here?”

  “No.”

  “But he’s staying here. Obviously.”

  The sight of Rory’s work fortifies me. I’m not afraid anymore, and I’m fueled with an intensified need to see him. I need to make sure he reads Damian’s article—to know that his work is being discussed in the way he wants, and that it’s worth it to come forward and be part of that conversation. But that if he doesn’t want to, I’m okay with it. I won’t bring it up again. I will accept him for who he is.

  I walk around the pillars at the back of the room, stepping around paint containers, roller brushes, spray cans, reams of paper, acetate, scissors—every type of art supply I can imagine. I follow them, like a trail of bread crumbs, to the bend in the room where we painted the FreshDirect boxes. In their place is a fledgling sculpture, a geometric tower of copper and brass.

  “Oh my god.” I walk closer. It’s nothing like my father’s work, but the influence is undeniable. The spirit of it.

  I sit down at the base of it.

  “Seriously, Lulu. Get the fuck out.”

  “I’m waiting for Rory.”

  “No, you ain’t. Leave. This is private property.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not your private property. What are you going to do—call the police and tell them you’re a squatter who’d like to report a trespasser?”

  I put my handbag in my lap, cross my arms, and look at him defiantly. He glares at me.

  “Fuck it—this is his problem,” he says before stomping away. I hear his footsteps on the stairs leading to the upper floor. I feel relieved until he turns the light out. The darkness is not my friend. But I’m not leaving.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  The sensation of his body against mine pulls me from sleep.

  My side hurts from hours on the rock-hard cement, and when I feel him against my back, his arms circling me from behind, I am almost too stiff and sore to move. I sense him and smell him and hear him whisper my name before I actually see him. But I manage to shift around, rearranging myself in his arms, my bleary eyes taking in the beautiful sight of him in the early morning light.

  Before I can speak, he kisses me.

  He pulls off my tank. The room is hot and still, and we are both sweaty as we wriggle out of our jeans, pressing our naked bodies together. He moves on top of me, cradling me against one arm. I open myself to him, guiding him inside, lifting my hips greedily until I know he can’t go any deeper.

  His thrusting is harder, faster, more urgent than ever before. I can only give myself up to the frantic pace he has set and let it carry me. Usually quiet during sex, he is already moaning, a low, primal sound that signals how close he is to ecstasy. As for me, there is no greater pleasure than knowing how good he feels. All I can think is that I will do anything to make us whole.

  He shudders, throbbing inside of me as he peaks. His orgasm triggers my own, and my thoughts scatter. We
writhe together, screaming each other’s names, the sound of our shared rapture echoing through the cavernous space.

  After, Rory holds me against his body so that I’m resting on him, not the concrete.

  “I’m sorry for pushing you,” I say. “It’s your work, your life, your name. It’s just that I love you and I want you to have all the recognition you deserve. But if you don’t care about it, I’ll let it go. I just want to be with you.”

  “Sssh,” he says, kissing my forehead. I hold on to him tight. I knew I was miserable and lost and empty without him, but I didn’t realize how bad it was until this moment. I don’t want to ever feel that way again.

  I look up at the majestic metal creation beside us.

  “It’s good, Rory. Really good. When did you start it?”

  “A few days after I saw your stencil on the building. It really hit me. I’ve been wanting to sculpt for a long time. I was avoiding it, pretending the other stuff was more important. But it’s not. I think that’s why I’m not fighting for GoST recognition. I’m pretty close to shedding that skin.”

  I try not to show my excitement. I don’t want to scare him away again.

  “I’m not done with painting,” he says.

  “What?” I’m already excited.

  “I have to show you.”

  *** ***

  Inez sat at the long white table in her office, looking over the latest tear sheets from aspiring artists. She sipped her Starbucks, and ignored the morning papers in favor of getting right down to business.

  The work submitted was dramatically different from anything she’d ever been given for consideration at the gallery, and it was exciting. The Sterling Gallery’s association with GoST had triggered an influx of edgier, more street-inspired work. It was exactly what the gallery needed.

  Still, it was difficult to focus under the cloud of what happened last night.

  Inez’s only consolation was that Anna was mature enough—and professional enough—not to let her personal feelings interfere with work.

  She heard the front door open, followed by the sound of Anna’s high heels on the polished wood floor of the hallway outside the office suite. Then another door opening and closing. Inez pictured Anna behind her neat, spare desk, turning on her computer, tucking a lock of her dark hair behind her ear as she put on her glasses and opened her laptop.