I feel the heat of his breath in my ear as he tells me, “You seem like a girl who does this kind of thing often.” What a dog. I like it when a boy is a dog. His teeth are white and perfect. He can’t look me in the eyes. His gaze drifts to my chest, my lips, my legs. I like the men who want me so bad they forget I’m a person too. I like the men so consumed by their need they’ll give me all they have. I like the dogs. They listen.
I give him a lazy smile and say, “And you don’t?” We are in a bar in the Financial District. Boys with jobs that pay criminally well will often come after work to spend money for the hell of it, just to feel it burn. I like to come here when the boys stream from their work in thick clots. I never have to pay for drinks. They stare at me with desire tattooed on their face. I like the ones that come to sit with me. The best of them will adore me, worship me, at least for the night.
We have been sitting on these plush stools for some time. This one is a boy doing his best impression of a man. The sleeves of his suit jacket are too long. They overtake his hands. His hair is a messy tangle hanging just above his eyes. But his worries are the same as every one before. The job is so stressful, so important. Years out of college and still unable to make any real friends. So many shallow people, so lonely, so sad.
“No, I really don’t go out too much,” he is saying. “You come out of college, and you know, your dad. Or at least, my dad. Sets you up with a job at an ok firm, helps you find a place to live. And it can be hard, you know. Like, hard to meet new people, break out of your shell.”
“Oh, I know,” I say. This one’s a wealthy one, a cowardly one. What he wants from me is a pretty set of ears. All he wants is for me to affirm his insecurities and, in doing so, assuage them.
“And the people you meet. They all, um, they all want something from you. Like, maybe it’s because I have a certain last name, or I guess since I live where I do, and all the sudden every guy you meet is telling you about his business idea. Or really, I guess, um, it’s just hard to find people I can really connect with.” He shakes his overgrown hair with each confession. We both know his vulnerability is a trap.
“Oh, I know. I felt that too. Sometimes a relationship is some fun and then ends. Most times, even.”
“You think people enter these things. You know, looking for the end? I wonder what kind of fun we’d have together,” he says. “You see that bottle there, the green one?” he says. In the low lights of this fine establishment, the expensive liqueurs glitter as good as gold. “I think, I think that’s green chartreuse. They make it in France. These monks, the monks that live in France, they’re the only ones that know the recipes. It’s all herbs and leaves and things. Tastes like nothing else. And I can’t, I mean, it’s hard to find. We’ll get two shots,” he says.
“You just want to get me drunk,” I say.
“Well,” he says. “I mean. It’s on my tab. Only if you want, I guess.”
The bartender places two glasses in front of us. The liquor is green, the bar beneath a solid mahogany. His wallet snaps and cash appears in front of us. “What do you want to toast to?” he says.
“Oh, that’s easy,” I say. “To us. A new beginning”
We drink the shots in unison. The liqueur is cool, searing down my throat. I cough, so he might hold me. His hand touches the part of my back exposed by my dress. It’s warm and damp from somewhere. “You alright?” His suit is made of a soft, lux wool. “I guess, this is sort of crazed but. Uhm. My parents are out of town. I’m having a little get together at their place tonight. I know it’s sudden, but. You want to come?”
“You like me that much?”
“Oh, uhm, it’s nothing serious. Just some friends from college. A few work buddies. I’m not exactly a social butterfly.”
“What happened to Mr. Lonely?”
“Maybe I’m less lonely. Now. Maybe I like talking to you. So I bring you to a party. That’s not crazy. Is it?”
“No,” I say. “I don’t think so. Where is it?”
“Oh, the Upper East Side. On Madison. Where I grew up.”
“I though all the wealthy lived on Billionaire’s Row.”
“On 57th? No. Well, I know some millionaires. I mean, my set is mostly in the Upper East Side. Maybe Boerum Hill some,” he says.
“If you want to take me, I’d go. You want to call a cab?”
After the cab ride, after the doorman, after the lobby bigger than a home, the elevator opens right into his apartment on the top floor. The reds and oranges of the sunset flame over Central Park. Beyond it, the low buildings of the West Side jut out just so. “A nice view,” I say.
“Sure,” he says. “We own the whole floor. It’s the penthouse I guess. You should see the view from the roof.”
“Jeremy!” another man says. An older one, maybe in his early 30s. His suit shoots off his shoulders. An attempt at bravado to offset his thinning hair. “I didn’t know you were dating a girl.”
Jeremy puts his hand on my shoulder and say, “Neither did I.”
“So you two met recently?” he says. His bald spot gleams in the golden light.
“Yeah, just in a bar tonight. Figured I should bring her. You know, balance the ratio or whatever.”
“So that’s how you meet all the pretty girls. Which bar was it? Maybe she has a sister. You know, the older I get the more I go for the younger ones. I like their energy. You know, their naivety.”
The man with his arms around my shoulders tips his head back. Some laughter. “No sister,” I say. “But my dad is looking for target practice.”
The man across from me lifts his glass. His entire blazer rises with it, as if pulled by a string. “Careful!” the man says. “That one can bark!” What a dog. I like it when a boy is a dog. This one sees me only as a trophy. Something to be wielded, shown off, and discarded when it no longer gleams. These ones can bite, can wrap you up in a fantasy of being wanted that was always end-dated. But oh, the things he would do to claim his trophy. Oh, the fun one could have before he bites.
“Oh, I know,” Jeremey says. “We both better watch out.”
“That’s what I’m telling, that’s what I’m telling you,” this other man says. “You know, these women, Jeremy, they will chew you up and spit you out. Jesus, like my wife. You met her? You know, every time I see her she just wants something from me, wants something from me. ‘Is it ok if I get this ring?’ ‘I was thinking of buying us new sheets.’ What the hell do you want from me?” And now he’s talking like a real mastiff, foaming at the corners of his mouth. “Fuck! Sometimes I see her and I just want to smack the smile off her face. Never marry, Jeremy. If you do, you know, I’ll smack the bi---”
“Alistair,” he says. His voice is calm but the hand on my shoulder has tightened its grip. “I want to show you this vintage my parents just bought. It’ll impress, I think. It’s a good one.”
My heels are clicking on the floor. Jeremy is taking me into the apartment, into his party. There is an embarrassment of men with alkaline colognes and flashy Rolexes. They look at me, in their identical clothes, eyes always slightly downward. Some women stand among them, in our tight dresses and gold jewelry. They cling to arms or stand boldly alone, listening to the chatter with expressions of perfect boredom. Alistair trails behind us like a hurt puppy. Jeremy let’s go of me. Glances back at me. “I’ll get you something from the bar. What do you want?”
“What’s your oldest bourbon?” The walls of the apartment are cloud dancer white. The furniture appears in shades of beige. I want to drink the most expensive thing he owns. I want the pleasure of the taste of it, the joy that comes afterwards. There are pleasures greater than the ones he wants from me. “Or actually, do you have any port?”
He smiles, showing his rows of perfect white teeth. “I like a girl with good taste.”
He leaves me alone amongst the beige, the men, the boredom. It’s spaces like this, places like this that represent everything I want. I want to know what it would be like to wake up each day and see this view. I want to know what it feels like to have all the money in the world and waste it, stupidly, on bland décor. The pleasures of comfort, of ease, of choice. The pleasure of fine wine, designer clothes, social capital.
There was this man last weekend who I met at that Wall Street bar. His head was bald and shone in low light. He told me his wife had left him this morning. “Do you want to be next,” he asked. A few drinks in, glancing at the time, and all together bored out of my mind, I figured, “why not?” The sex was predictably terrible. But it turned out he collected vinyl records. He had original pressings of The White Album, Kind of Blue, The Darkside of The Moon. Impressive, but the real treat were the oddities: a Freddie Redd 7” so obscure it wasn’t even on his Wikipedia; an Elvis album dated 1955 that sounded like a forgotten bootleg; some records from the 30’s with the labels barely visible. We listened to these late at night. When I awoke a few hours later, I took some souvenirs before I left. He blamed his wife, and I listened to the records at home on tinny speakers. God, I want to a record player as lovely as his, that makes the bare experience of placing down the record feel lavish. Oh, to buy speakers as nice as his, beautiful things that enrich the music like his. The pleasure of listening to such special things in such a special way. Perhaps that would make me whole.
Or the boy from a few weeks ago. I didn’t meet him at a bar, but on the street near Herald Square. He said he liked my shoes and I lied and said I was a tourist. He insisted on showing me all over town. Our date spanned across a day or two. The joy of it was pretending that it was all new. First was this sex dungeon, a bold first stop. He handed me a flogger. I had to hold it meekly, hit him softly, as if I didn’t know what I was doing. I wouldn’t let him hit me though. Bruises are so passe. Afterwards, he took me to a rave that started sometime just before dawn. I was very good and did not reveal that I knew his coke was very good too. But the music, I must admit, was only so-so. Afterwards, we lunched at a viral bistro in the West Village. He rattled off the wines in a bad accent. I had great fun butchering my French. Around 3 or 4, I decided I was through. I had gotten all the fun I would get from him. The only thing left to do was leave. After he paid for my dinner, I revealed I had a flight to catch at 11. And then, I left him for good.
There are other men. Always, there are other men. Their faces, their dicks, their desires blur together. Not one more complicated or unique than any other. The game of it is to figure out how each one ticks. What is it that they want most of all. What are they willing to surrender for it. One gives me some records, another bankrolls a day or two of my life. Perhaps a third would buy me an apartment, though the big surrenders require so much work. I could coast off these pleasures, sweeten my life with them. One could profit from them, for a decade or two at least. And when time passes and I get to that age where the hungry men, the powerful men no longer look for me; when I am forced to pay for my own drinks and spend all evening at my bars alone, what will I hunger for? Who might share my appetite? Yes. But there are years before I must think of all that.
And now at this party that some other man has taken me to, I have realized too late that a pack of boys have encircled me.
“Do you have a name,” a guy asks. I can tell right away each one wants their nip.
“Would you remember it?” I say. Boys like these like the mean girls. They smile at me with identical grins. Each one reveals a single goal: not the capture, but the chase; not my legs around their back, but my heels clicking towards their car.
Another attempts: “Where could a beautiful woman like you have come from?”
“I think it was your father’s bedroom,” I say. “Or was that your boss?”
“Are you here with anyone,” one tries.
I know the worst thing to say. It’s the truth. These boys would scatter if they knew I was the arm candy of another man. From trophy to leper in so many words. I like teasing these ones. I decide to lie and get in a few more jabs.
“Let’s cut the chatter,” the first one says. I don’t even get a word in. How ghastly. “Let’s see, let’s see, let me tell you something.” I can see that this one could talk for hours non-stop. God, at least Narcissus was beautiful. “I need to show you something gorgeous. I’m something of a Renaissance man. Growing up on 5th Avenue, you know, you end up at the Metropolitan often. Really, I think that was the most important part of my education. One of the best museums in the world. So, I know a good view when I see one. I really do. And the thing about a penthouse like this is that it comes with the roof.”
And suddenly, we’re moving. Just like that, a consensus has been reached amongst the pack. Someone grabs my hand. We are walking up a short flight of stairs. I could pull away, turn around, find Jeremy. Really, whatever paltry future our relationship would have will shatter when I fuck these men. I remember the hopeful look in his eyes, the desperation with which he wanted my affection. I see everything he will ask me to do, every pleasure he can give me. But it’s true. I really want to see the view.
A summer breeze tears through us on the roof. The whole city is spread out and small. A prop of itself. It turns out the first man is the one who has my head. He is letting my hand go, standing back. He spreads his arms wide to take in the whole of it. “Now this is the 10-million-dollar view,” he says. “Can you believe they spent all that money in one place?”
I step towards him. “I think it’s worth it. It’s beautiful,” I say. I know how our conversation will end. He thinks he has won his little game, that he has me hook line and sinker. His next words are the height of his pleasure.
“I’ll tell you something,” he is saying, the collar of his shirt so white and crisp and rich. He has stopped speaking to me. His words are now only for himself. “I have seen the great works of the European masters. I have seen the ruins of Machu Picchu and of Giza, the snow that lies crisp on the heights of the Pyrenees, the grand mists of Victoria Falls. I have traveled the world in search of the most gorgeous, beautiful things. And you—“
I put my finger to his lips and my mouth to his ear. The sky tilts before us. I could not suffer a single second more of his monologue. “If you want to fuck me, bark.”
What a dog. I like it when a boy is a dog.