Sex in the City - New York

by Maxim Jakubowski

  ‘Don’t be afraid, querida. ‘

  ‘Get away from me!’ She huddled against the headboard, a tangle of perfect limbs, trying to put as much distance as possible between us.

  ‘It’s me. Miguel. Don’t you remember? I won’t hurt you. I love you.’ I reached for her. She cringed. My fingers stopped inches from her face. She dashed them away.

  ‘Forget that. It was nothing. Comfort, revenge. Nothing! You took advantage.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Get out of here or I’ll call the police,’ she yelled. ‘I’ll bet you’ve been stalking me ever since that day.’

  ‘No, no, it’s not like that! But I missed seeing you.’

  ‘Get out!!’ She threw a pillow. I batted it to the floor. She glared at me. Unshed tears made a lump in my throat. How could I convince her?

  My cock screamed for my attention. It reared up from my crotch, red and angry. I realized that I could take her, if I wanted to. She was tall and strong, but no match for me. I could hold her tight and slide into that channel of delight I’d briefly visited, months ago. The pleasure would win her over. Once we were joined, she would understand.

  She lunged across the bed and grabbed the cell phone lying on the opposite table. ‘Fuck off, shitface,’ she hissed, flipping it open. ‘Before it’s too late.’

  Her curses drove me out, not any fear of the law. I gathered my clothes and ran into the hall, fleeing from the terrible truth. She didn’t want me. She had never wanted me.

  It’s a kind of miracle that I didn’t break my neck, hurtling down the stairs. I dragged my coveralls from their hiding place and pulled them on over my naked limbs.

  When the nylon brushed my swollen cock, I exploded. Even despair couldn’t drown my desire.

  I quit both my jobs. I couldn’t stand to be anywhere near Grand Central. I hung out around that building on East 38th, day and night, praying for one more glimpse of her. I never saw her again. Julio got one of his compinches to pose as a delivery man. The doorman said that Miss Abernathy didn’t live there any more.

  I toss down my tequila and order another. The merengue is almost loud enough to drown out my heart. I leave tomorrow morning. Whatever waits for me in Santa Domingo can’t be worse than the nightmare of my life here.

  I feel in my jacket pocket for the tattered scrap of lace-trimmed silk. I’ve tried to throw it away many times. I know now that I’ll be taking it back with me. It’s all that I have left of my woman in white.

  About the Story

  Eight years ago I got a temporary consulting job in Stamford, Connecticut. My husband and I decided to rent an apartment in Manhattan; it was no cheaper in Stamford, and obviously living in New York would be far more exciting. We found a studio on East 38th Street that was just about big enough for the two of us and our cats.

  Every morning I would walk four blocks uptown to Grand Central Terminal to catch the 8:03 Metro North train to Stamford. Every day I’d buy a New York Times from the black vendor who crouched on his plastic milk crate outside the entrance to the station. Sun, rain, sleet or snow, he was always there, surrounded by stacks of newsprint. In the evening, when I returned home, he was gone.

  I wondered about the man who sold me my daily paper. What did he do after rush hour ended? What did he think about? What did he desire?

  When I saw the call for Sex in the City, I was reminded of this nameless individual whose path intersected mine so reliably. That was the genesis of Woman in White.

  Other experiences from that nine-month sojourn in the Big Apple also fed into the story, particularly the proud and stunningly beautiful black women I’d see on the street. With their elaborate braids and their golden bangles, they were the epitome of sexiness, without looking cheap. The story also tries to capture my persistent wonder at Grand Central’s magnificence and the thrill I felt pondering its history. Finally, one of my co-workers during that period was Dominican. Knowing him gave me a bit of insight into that culture.

  I’ve never had any sexual adventures in Grand Central. But I’ve often considered the possibilities.

  Manhattan Booty Call

  by Thomas S. Roche

  The Beaumont Fifth Avenue reputedly has the best mojitos in midtown; open any number of recent fine-dining, living-the-good-life guidebooks or in-flight magazines and you can read an interview with the place’s unbelievably pretentious bartender, a guy named Spike; some shit about fresh mint properly bruised, single-origin cane sugar and single-origin Dominican lime juice, locovores be damned. He’ll also hold forth on which rum he ‘always’ uses, which has changed three times in three years based on which distiller has paid for his celebrity endorsement.

  The damn things also cost more than Meadow’s Prius; but then, Jeanette was paying, so who gave a fuck?

  At the time the topic of Dr Jerome Cosgrove came up, it was seven hours after the seminar ended and Meadow and Jeanette were well in their cups. Jeanette had put away five of those top-notch mojitos, commenting each time on how exceptional they were and how single-origin lime juice was really the best, and Meadow was nursing her fourth and thinking, ‘single origin lime juice?’ But she had to admit the drinks were pretty damn good, if you liked that sort of thing, and to Meadow the company (Jeanette) was barely tolerable for the moment

  Jeanette Parnell had been Meadow’s boss for the last nine months and a major player in the pharmaceutical communications industry for almost two decades. Jeanette was a Certified Meeting Planner and certifiable lunatic. From a hip home office in a converted San Francisco live-work loft, Jeanette hired an endless parade of female apprentice meeting planners fresh out of Berkeley, Davis, or USF, and with her magnanimous tyranny of mentoring, turned them into shuddering traumatized husks of human beings, miserable empty shells primed for careers at Starbucks or as much graduate school as their hapless parents would pay for.

  Jeanette saw herself as a den mother to a small cadre of elite feminine commandos in the cut-throat world of pharmaceutical communications, except that no one in their right mind ever seemed to apprentice to her for longer than six months before saying ‘Welcome to Cinnabon, how may I help you’ all day seemed like a great fucking idea. ‘It’s so hard to get good help!’ Jeanette was fond of observing, having, apparently, no idea what a total bitch she was.

  Meadow was, by her own internal yardstick, not in her right mind. She had made it nine months, longer than about two-thirds of the apprentice meeting planners in Jeanette’s past. Her employment history had prepared her for some challenging situations.

  After a four-day industry-thought-leaders’ round-table discussion on Developing Modalities in Recombinant Supportive Care for Colorectal Cancer – the only example of which happened to be manufactured by the event’s big-ticket pharmaceutical sponsor, a Japanese giant with a name Meadow still couldn’t pronounce – Meadow figured she deserved a couple drinks. In fact if Jeanette hadn’t been buying, Meadow probably would have been putting away minibar scotch in her room on the 10th floor while waiting for 9:30 to roll around.

  Nine-thirty: that was the time Meadow hoped to be doing something filthy.

  ‘One more mojito, Meads?’ said Jeanette, waving the waitress over. Jeanette always insisted on calling Meadow ‘Meads,’ which was far from her most annoying affectation.

  ‘I’m still nursing this one,’ Meadow sighed with extreme patience. Jeanette was a lush, and disapproved of women in her employee ever turning down a drink under any circumstances.

  ‘Just one more for the road,’ pleaded Jeanette with a bestial passive-aggressive growl lurking under her whine; Jeanette the den mother baring the fangs of the were-grizzly.

  ‘For the road? I’m not going anywhere,’ observed Meadow.

  ‘I am,’ Jeanette said. ‘Ugh, don’t remind me,’ she added, which Meadow had not; Jeanette had reminded herself. ‘I fucking hate late-night flights. I’m flying into San Jo
se. It’s, like, a hundred dollar cab ride. It was the only flight out tonight for under $500.’ Jeanette looked Meadow up and down. ‘You get to stay the night, you lucky dog. Order porno on cable or something.’

  ‘Jeanette!’ snapped Meadow, doing her best to imitate either offence or embarrassment; she was never that good at understanding the difference between the two. She almost said, ‘I would never!’ but she figured that might lead to a discussion of Jeanette’s porn-viewing habits, which was the absolute last topic she wanted to get into at the moment. So, instead, ‘When’s your flight?’ she asked mildly.

  ‘Ten-twenty. What is it now, about eight o’clock?’

  ‘Um ... nine,’ said Meadow. ‘You’d better go.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ Jeanette waved her hand dismissively. She was known for pushing every trip to the airport till the last possible moment, and claimed, in almost twenty years in the meeting planning industry, to have never missed a flight. (‘Caught the last flight out of Kennedy before 9/11; got the first one out of Denver when it was all over!’ she’d been known to brag, no doubt hyperbolically.)

  Jeanette made a ‘2’ sign with her fingers, which Meadow mused looked like a peace sign or the V for victory. The waitress had the drinks there inside a minute, not even bothering to clear the table littered with empties. They were apparently stacking up mojitos behind the bar, even though Jeanette and Meadow were the only patrons in residence: it was the Sunday night slowdown.

  Jeanette sipped her fifth (or was it sixth?) mojito and shot Meadow a grin so lascivious it might have gotten her slapped by a less patient friend.

  Then she said it: ‘So how ‘bout that Dr Cosgrove?’

  Meadow felt a wave of meeting planner panic: in an instant, she saw Dr Cosgrove not as the hot doctor she had been flirting with, but as a name on an Excel spreadsheet, with arrival dates and times, Towncar pickups and SURF & TURF under the meal column. Dr Cosgrove’s departure tomorrow morning was the whole reason Meadow was staying in New York overnight; Jeanette was so anal retentive she wanted every single VIP out of the hotel before her last employee vacated the premises, in case anything goes wrong.

  The information came out of Meadow’s mouth in a rush, as if it had been rehearsed a hundred times: ‘Dr Cosgrove departs for ASO at 5:07; room service has coffee and rolls scheduled for 2:30; Towncar pickup at three.’ She exhaled.

  ASO was the American Society for Oncology, the next place Dr Jerome Cosgrove had a presentation scheduled. It had been Meadow’s job to set up all the travel arrangements for the VIPs on this trip, and Cosgrove, the last to leave, was no exception.

  ‘Bell desk?’ Jeanette growled.

  ‘They’ll be there at two-fifty-five,’ said Meadow.

  Meadow thought her voice sounded savagely deceptive, as if her nose ought to be growing.

  ‘Departure gift?’ snapped Jeanette, a sudden unexpected challenge.

  ‘Four Roses 20 Year bourbon,’ bleated Meadow, heart pounding.

  ‘Sex?’ said Jeanette.

  Meadow stared blankly. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Sex,’ said Jeanette. ‘Is he sleeping alone tonight?’

  ‘Jeanette!’ said Meadow. ‘How ... should I know?’ She’d had to work at it to not say ‘How the fuck.’ Since starting this job, Meadow was trying not to say the F-word constantly, since Jeanette seemed to think she was bloody innocent; and that could prove useful.

  ‘He was flirting with you at the faculty dinner.’

  Jeanette, ‘He’s, like, forty!’ She tried to seem offended.

  ‘Closer to fifty! And I’m, like, forty,’ barked Jeanette angrily. ‘How old are you, anyway, pipsqueak, twenty-eight?’

  Meadow choked, gasped, sputtered.

  ‘Ooops,’ said Jeanette.

  ‘Twenty-three,’ said Meadow through gritted teeth.

  Jeanette shrugged. ‘Well, Dr Cosgrove was definitely interested, and it’s been known to happen,’ said Jeanette.

  ‘You’d fire me,’ smiled Meadow mildly.

  ‘Not if you give me all the details,’ purred Jeanette, her voice like melted chocolate. ‘He’s from New York originally.’ Jeanette said those words as if she were telling Meadow the guy had a twelve-inch penis.

  ‘Oh, he’s from New York?’

  Jeanette smiled savagely.

  ‘You’ve never been with a New Yorker?’

  Meadow had been with about a dozen. In fact, one guy had once flown her out here; oh, that one was a story, all right.

  But Jeanette didn’t need to know that, so Meadow shrugged, shook her head, and said ‘No.’

  Jeanette looked Meadow up and down like she was appraising a side of beef found of substandard quality. She sipped mojito and chuckled knowingly.

  Meadow thought, Christ, is this woman the biggest cunt in the world?

  Jeanette, a Long Island native, had been a meeting planner for the largest firm in New York for ten years before leaving to start her own firm in San Francisco, servicing west coast and Asian pharmaceutical companies.

  Every chance she got, Jeanette would hold forth to anyone who was listening on how much better everything in NYC was compared to San Francisco. The food, cabs, the hotels, the nightlife, the museums, the liquor, the wine bars, the cocaine, but most of all the men, whom Jeanette often bragged of sampling with phenomenal appetite during her ten years here. ‘Get enough cocaine in me,’ she’d been known to brag, ‘and, whoo! Studio 54 was a sex central back then!’ Jeanette was 42, so Studio 54 had closed when she was 16, but she never let reality get in the way of a good story, which was why she was so good at pharmaceutical marketing.

  ‘What time is it?’ asked Jeanette.

  ‘Nine-fifteen,’ said Meadow brightly, feeling a sense of accomplishment.

  Jeanette waved obnoxiously for the check and drained the last mojito. The waitress brought the check; Meadow caught a glimpse of it: $120 plus tip, holy crap! Jeanette signed with a flourish, practically stiffing the waitress.

  Jeanette stood, bent low, kissed Meadow on the forehead, and said ‘Be good.’

  ‘I will,’ said Meadow.

  Jeanette cackled evilly.

  ‘Yeah, I know you will, you little librarian.’

  Meadow glared.

  Jeanette turned, swayed drunkenly out to the bell desk. The bellman had her luggage ready. Jeanette stumbled out to the hotel turnaround. Meadow looked at the signed-off check again, stared at the waitress sadly, opened out her purse and got a twenty. She left it smooth and crisp on the table and planted a bleeding mojito glass atop it so it wouldn’t blow away.

  Meadow was not as drunk as Jeanette, but she was quite considerably less than sober. Nonetheless, she managed to keep it together as she slung her purse over her shoulder and trotted to the doorway between the bar and the lobby.

  Meadow lurked in the shadows, watching Jeanette wait for her cab to the airport. A garish pink monstrosity pulled up; the trunk popped. A uniformed valet held the door and Jeanette poured herself into the back seat. The bellman hefted Jeanette’s enormous overstuffed Rollaboard; it took about seven tries as traffic crept by on Fifth Avenue, headlights glinting off every silvered surface. Jeanette stuck her head out the window and gave him a glare. What the fuck was in that thing? A suitcase full of tiny minibar liquor bottles, no doubt, charges ready for pass-through to the Japanese client. The bellman finally got Jeanette’s suitcase in the trunk and slammed the lid with an angry CHUNK that Meadow could hear through the Beaumont’s airtight doors.

  The hot pink cab peeled out and raced out onto 5th Ave, evoking a chorus of loud honks. Meadow let out a sigh as her boss disappeared from her life. She stretched languidly, looking around at the opulent lobby; the Beaumont had four stars, going on five. She took in a deep draught of the fresh flowers that endowed the lobby, year round; with Jeanette finally gone, Meadow felt like she’d just smelled flowers
for the very first time.

  She glanced at the clock: 9:20. She stood there with the tension flowing out of her, nervously waiting for Jeanette’s cab to race back into the turnaround; she might have ‘forgotten something.’

  When five minutes had passed, Meadow decided her boss was not coming back. It was 9:25. She took a deep breath and walked into the lobby ladies’ room, surrounded by opulent floral scents and glistening golden surfaces. Meadow looked into the mirror with mild approval; after four days of hell, she didn’t look that good. She could have gone up to her own room on the tenth floor, but if she did that she’d be late. Instead, she opened her purse and touched up her make-up a little, smoothed down the front of her businesslike blue skirt, checked the hang of her white silk blouse, adjusted her navy blazer. She unfastened one more button. Nice. She turned and went into a stall.

  Meadow took her panties off.

  The VIP floors had an express elevator. Meadow took out Dr Cosgrove’s glistening black key card; nowadays hotel keys were midway between a library card and American Express. She had to ease the black VIP card into the slot before ‘35’ lit up and the bright brass doors slid shut, showing her a perfect, luscious image of herself.

  She fluffed her meeting-rumpled silken curtain of blonde hair, ran her hand down her silken blouse where the firm peaks of her nipples tented the diaphanous fabric, and thought:

  That is one damn fine piece of ass. I would fucking pay for that.

  Her stomach dropped away, and she rocketed to Heaven.

  The whole way up – thirty-five floors, like half a minute or so – Meadow was thinking, I’m about to turn a trick. I’m about to get paid for sex. I’m about to fuck this unbelievably hot guy I barely know and get paid for it. Why did I ever get this stupid fucking day job again?

  How exactly Jeanette had decided that her apprentice was a naïve librarian type, Meadow couldn’t fathom. There was the degree in Library and Information Sciences, but Meadow couldn’t possibly be the first LIS major who was a total slut. Probably not even the first one who had sex for money. But then, role-playing had always rather been Meadow’s forte, and it appeared she did it pretty fucking well. Walking in to the interview with Jeanette nine months before, she’d played it completely innocent. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in job interviews when you’ve spent a year being a whore?