Hooked

by Ruth Harris

  Waiting outside the stage door were a dozen teenage girls who had read about the taping in a story that Cleo had placed in the Daily News. They were looking for autographs and Cleo, who was waiting for him in the back seat of their Mercedes, and could see them crowd around him.

  “One at a time, please,” Gavin said as he stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  “Isn’t he cute?” one of the girls asked as the others giggled and moved in closer.

  “I can’t write with all of you on top of me,” he protested, scribbling in their autograph books.

  “I would love for you to be on top of me,” one of the girls said coldly to Gavin.

  The others tittered and one of them said, “Me, too—”

  In an almost predatory flock, they moved closer.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” said Gavin, holding up his hand. “If you want me to sign autographs, you’ve got to give me some room—”

  “I’m a Virgo and I need to touch you,” came another voice.

  The phrase alarmed Cleo. Every day Gavin had been receiving a new letter addressed to him in care of Image magazine and forwarded to him. “I’m a Virgo, and I need to fuck you,” said each letter. The letters, which never had return addresses, were filled with gutter-level obscenities. After the first few, Gavin had thrown them into the wastebasket unopened. Now Cleo searched the crowd and tried to spot the unbalanced pen pal.

  “I’ve got his shirt,” one of the girls shrieked and ripped a piece of it from his body.

  Cleo, watching from the car, saw one girl who looked to be about five-feet-eight and one hundred and fifty pounds lurch up against Gavin. He staggered backwards for a moment.

  “That’s enough,” he shouted and began pushing through the group to the car. Pieces of his shirt were now hanging from his neck and his chest was exposed.

  “We’re not going to let him get away, are we?” shouted a high-pitched voice.

  The knot of girl erupted in a chorus of No’s and then surged forward, surrounding him. Cleo gasped when she saw that one girl had a razor blade and was attempting to cut off part of his shirt cuff.

  Looking pale and frightened, Gavin pushed his way through the crowd, almost knocking down one of the girls. Cleo opened the door for him and he jumped inside. A moment later they were speeding away into downtown traffic.

  Gavin was safe and Cleo was shaking.

  “Vicious little monsters,” she said.

  “They meant well,” Gavin said.

  “They didn’t mean well,” said Cleo. “They were dangerous and one of them had a razor blade—”

  Gavin was unconcerned. “They were just star struck—”

  Cleo could barely believe him. She looked over at him and saw that he was sitting there, his clothing in shreds, smiling. He had liked it.

  There was something about anonymous sex that appealed to Gavin. When he had been in medical school, he had picked up street walkers now and then but he resented paying for sex. Still, he found it exciting to climb into bed with a woman he had never seen before and would never see again. Not knowing anything about her — who she was, what she thought and felt — gave him license to do whatever he wanted. What specifically he did or didn’t do was insignificant. The important thing was knowing that he could.

  The first time he had sex with a fan was a week after the talk show. She had been standing in front of his office every evening and at first he wondered if she were there to meet someone, because she didn’t say anything and she didn’t approach him. But his instincts told him something different.

  For five days Gavin pretended not to notice her. He walked straight ahead to his waiting car, climbed inside and drove away. On the sixth night, he nodded at her very slightly. He climbed into the car and left the door open. She got in after him and sat next to him. Gavin reached across her to close the door and at that moment she began to caress his groin.

  Gavin drew the shades that covered the windows and the chauffeur drove off. He would know to go around the park until Gavin gave him other instructions. The girl raised her knees and pulled up her skirt. She was not wearing panties.

  Gavin noted her blond thatch, and without bothering to take his trousers off, unzipped his fly and plunged inside. She licked the inside of his ear, nibbled the lobe, and began whispering. She repeated the same sentence over and over, as if it were a mantra that would intensify reality and convince herself of her good fortune: “I’m fucking Gavin Jenkins. I’m fucking Gavin Jenkins. I’m fucking Gavin Jenkins.”

  She came after a few minutes, slumped back and looked up at him.

  “You’re the seventh guest on that show I’ve fucked,” she announced. “I can’t get to the host,” she continued. “Will you speak to him about me? You’d be doing me a big favor.”

  Gavin had had enough. “Where would you like me to drop you off?”

  For a moment she gave him a beseeching look. Then, resigned, she said, “The corner will be fine.”

  When the car stopped, she opened the door and stepped out without a word.

  Gavin never saw her again.

  But there were other fans he did see. In the back seat of the Mercedes, in the dressing room of a television studio, and once in a dark alley off Sheridan Square. They came into his life suddenly and disappeared just as quickly. They were like the medical school whores except he didn’t have to pay. Giving them Gavin Jenkins was reimbursement enough.

  Yet most of the sex was with his patients. As he became more famous, they were more aggressive.

  “What made you so sure I wouldn’t be offended?” Gavin asked one of them.

  “Because you telegraph that you’re available,” she said. “It’s not what you say, it’s the way you look at me. The way you touch me—”

  Gavin resented that. It was true that he was available to his patients, but only secondarily did that availability have anything to do with sex. His attitude was that he was there not to satisfy himself but to see that other people were fulfilled. He was dedicated to helping them realize their potential and to do that he used all of himself. His intelligence, his personality, his sex and his syringe — all were simply extensions of himself. He believed he made other people come alive because of who he was and what he did for them. Sex was their therapy and his payment.

  There were large breasts that bounced up and down and small boyish ones. There was thick, full pubic hair and sparse hair — blonde and black and red and gray. Sometimes he could see himself moving in and out, his round, hard prick disappearing inside their holes as he gave himself to them, and then emerging again, thick and whole, as he took himself back. Sometimes he watched the movement in a small mirror over the examining table.

  What he liked best of all was their faces. The eyes filled with apprehension and pleasure. The lips, which they bit until blood formed. The hungry throats that gasped for breath.

  He existed only to give people a vision of themselves bolder and more daring than any they would have without him. He enabled them to become themselves. He never doubted himself and certainly never thought that it could be all obscenely self-righteous.

  Cleo noticed that Gavin was becoming more remote. At the time when she had first been getting his name in the columns every day, she waited up for him, lying in bed with a book and looking up eagerly every time she thought she heard his key in the door. When he finally came home, they would be happy to see each other and tell each other what had happened that day.

  In those months the sex had been good. They made love anytime Cleo initiated things. The position was always the same: he lay on his back while she straddled him. Gavin watched as she moved up and down, perspiration forming on her neck, her hair swinging over her face. She followed his instructions as he directed her to move forward a little, to go faster, slower, come down harder. He thought himself a selfless lover who considered only ways to increase her pleasure and he knew even better than she did how to get her excited.

  As he became more famous, he became more withdra
wn. No one knew anything about his visits to Washington except Cleo. Whenever he flew down to treat the President, he wore dark glasses to avoid being recognized. Soon he wore them around the house. Gavin’s expressions had always been opaque but now they revealed almost nothing as he concealed himself behind dark glasses.

  He came home at night, lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling through his dark glasses. Cleo asked him about his day but he didn’t seem to hear her. Sometimes he would stroke his chest in silence as if unaware that she was in the room. When she asked him what he was thinking about, he told her that he had spent the day giving and had to crawl into his shell for renewal.

  Cleo was frustrated and angered by his continual rejection. He refused to deal with the fact that she had far more rights to him as a husband than any of his patients did as a doctor. But he didn’t fully recognize his relationship with Cleo and certainly not with the same clarity that he saw his involvement with his patients. In fact, she came to think, it was probably the only alignment he was truly capable of handling. If someone needed and wanted the one thing he was capable of giving, his services as a doctor, he was comfortable. He was dominant in that setting; they submissive, needy, grateful.

  At first Cleo thought Gavin wasn’t acknowledging her needs because he didn’t see them but soon it became clear that he was well aware of her but choosing to ignore her. He could see the symptoms but didn’t know how to heal the ailment that produced them.

  Cleo couldn’t repair their marriage because Gavin had withdrawn into an impregnable view of himself. She threatened that careful construction because she remembered the “real” Gavin Jenkins and wanted him back.

  She was competing with the only person in the world who could take her husband away from her — Gavin Jenkins.

  29

  President Santana and his wife, Suzanne, flew up from Washington to attend Adriana’s black-tie opening at Carnegie Hall. Their host was Nicholas Kiskalesi who was accompanied by the First Lady’s sister, Gail de Córdoba.

  Nicky had arranged the foursome because he wanted to exploit his Denver oil shale concessions and a subsidy from the American government would vastly reduce the cost of the operation. Nicky was hoping that James Santana would be amenable and, as the dazzling first-nighters gossiped and speculated, the loyal Adriana Partos claque began to chant, “Adriana, Adriana.”

  The star was backstage getting a final injection from Gavin Jenkins. When he withdrew the hypodermic, she sat at her dressing table, checking her makeup for the last time, remembering that she had always been able to channel her pre-performance nerves into artistic brilliance.

  Even Ames, who stood near the door, had the wisdom to be silent. He realized that his star needed to concentrate in the few moments she had left before her performance. Instead of wishing her luck or making a joke to relieve the tension, he rolled up his sleeve and waited for the usual moments of bliss right after Gavin gave him his shot.

  Ames and Gavin escorted Adriana to the edge of the huge curtain. The Steinway, brightly lit by spotlights, stood on the stage backed by thousands of red roses. Adriana took a deep breath, exhaled, kissed Ames first, then Gavin, and stepped onstage for the first time in almost ten years to a wild ovation.

  The audience went mad with ecstasy and when the cheering died down, Cleo, who was seated in the audience next to Gavin, looked over the first-night crowd. She was not surprised to see that hardly a row in this glittering audience was not occupied by at least one person Gavin had treated.

  “You belong here,” she whispered to Gavin. “You’ve earned your way—”

  He turned toward her and smiled as Adriana raised her hands to play.

  Adriana’s tour began as the triumphant comeback everyone had predicted. In the United States, critics had hailed her artistry, citing “the full return of the genius of a decade ago” and “a performance of unforgettable brilliance.” Adoring audiences demanded curtain call after curtain call.

  As the tour went on, critics continued to be respectful: “her power and style are as impressive as ever.” But little by little the reviews were less positive. “A nostalgic shadow of her former virtuousity,” wrote a Canadian critic. Commented another: “A poignant echo—”

  Adriana brushed aside the negative reviews, confident she would prove the nay sayers wrong but in Europe the London Times called her performance “shocking.” Berlin’s Der Spiegel said it was “a travesty.” L’Osservatore Romano remarked that her concert was “a sad reminder of past glories” and called for Adriana to retire permanently.

  Two hours before her scheduled performance in Milan, the concert hall filled with an expectant audience, Adriana turned toward Ames and announced that she wasn’t going to perform.

  “Pearls before swine,” she said, waving dismissively toward the filled auditorium from behind the curtain. “They don’t deserve me—”

  “The critics are full of shit,” said Ames. “You know that—”

  “No, I don’t know that,” she said. “‘A sad reminder—’” She quoted and burst into tears.

  “The house is sold out,” said Ames, turning pale. “You can’t walk out—”

  “Oh, yes I can—”

  “Adriana, please,” begged Ames.

  Adriana shook her head. “I’ll kill myself before I’ll go out there. I’d rather be dead than put up with their sneering—”

  Ames panicked. Adriana was willful, he knew, not a woman given to idle threats, but he had to get her out there on stage. People had paid small fortunes for their tickets and they expected Adriana. Ames could hear the angry muttering and sense the wave of restlessness coming from the audience.

  ”Adriana, please,” he begged. “Let me give you a shot. You’ll feel better—”

  Gavin had taught Ames how to give an injection in preparation for the tour. Ames practiced on grapefruits until he had perfected the technique. Adriana held out her arm, but even after the shot, she refused to go onstage. Ames, desperate, found a doctor who examined her and swore to the press that Miss Partos was suffering a viral infection and was running a fever of 103. She was physically unable to play, said the doctor.

  Backstage, as the shot had its effect on Adriana and she became more reasonable, Ames injected himself from the kit Gavin had assembled. It contained needles and syringes and vials of injectable drugs. Gavin had written prescriptions for each drug, and in addition, prepared a letter, should any customs inspector become suspicious about the quantity of medication carried by the noted producer and world-famous pianist.

  “Mr. Bostwick has been instructed in the proper use of intravenous injections of Methedrine (metamphetamine hypochloride). Methedrine in ampules of 1cc. (20mg.), other medications (listed below) together with disposable syringes, has been prescribed for use as needed….”

  Adriana canceled Brussels the morning of the concert. This time Ames was unable to dig up a “friendly” doctor and the headlines flashed around the world.

  Adriana blamed Ames and had a raging back stage temper tantrum. She threatened suicide and broke the mirror in her dressing room. After Ames calmed her down, he took a shot to steady himself and added an extra-strong dose for good measure.

  He planned to stay in his room and lose himself in pleasant oblivion, but after a while, he changed his mind. Suddenly energized, he went to the bar downstairs, sat down, and ordered a glass of water.

  “Perrier?” the bartender asked.

  “What are you, some kind of wise guy?” snapped Ames. “I asked for water so move your ass—”

  The bartender didn’t say anything, but filled a glass and put it in front of Ames.

  At the other end of the bar was a tall, strapping man, about twice Ames’s size. A half-empty bottle of Johnnie Walker stood in front of him. The woman with him had short, curly red hair and looked to be thirty pounds overweight. She was drinking a brandy alexander.

  The man glanced over when he heard Ames speak to the bartender.

  “What are you starin
g at?” Ames asked. “Haven’t you ever heard anyone ask for a glass of water before?”

  “Cool it, buddy,” the man said in a heavy Southern drawl and continued talking quietly to the woman.

  “Don’t you ignore me,” Ames said, getting up and grabbing the man by the shoulder. “I’m not one of those nigguhs you good ol’ boys like to push around—”

  “Look, asshole, I don’t want trouble, and you don’t want trouble,” the stranger said, removing Ames’s hand from his shoulder. “Just drink your water and leave us alone—”

  Ames didn’t answer but made a sudden lunge toward the the bar and grabbed the bottle of Johnnie Walker. He smashed it against the edge of the bar, soaking the carpet and his own suit with Scotch. He held up the bottle, the sharp, broken edges pointing at the stranger.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” Ames screamed. “I’m not afraid of anyone—”

  With that, the hotel manager appeared along with two beefy security guards. “Mr. Bostwick, we’re going upstairs now.”

  Ames suddenly turned docile and, flanked by the two security guards, was escorted to his room.

  The next day, when Ames and Adriana checked out, there was a substantial charge on the bill to cover the cost of damages the night before. Ames didn’t remember the incident but he didn’t question the bill. What did he care? It would be forwarded to Nicky Kiskalesi anyway.

  In Stockholm, Adriana walked off the stage after playing only the first few bars of a Beethoven sonata. The stunned audience gasped in shock. Again, the headlines.

  Ames, seeing his future go down in flames, injected himself with a double dose and proceeded to wreck the hotel lobby. He smashed the glass tops of the cocktail tables and used the sharp letter opener at the registration desk to slash the lobby’s leather sofas and the floor-to-ceiling draperies. When a bellboy attempted to disarm him, Ames knocked him out and it took the police to end the rampage.