He took his time.
His hands: climbing the sides of my thighs, lifting my skirt, peeling off my underwear. I could hear him unfastening his belt, unzipping his jeans, and then the maddening lull. My eyes were on the Cho piece, the colors blurring, evocative, while I anticipated the crinkle of the wrapper. It did not come. I felt him against me suddenly: hot, swollen.
“You’re not wearing a condom.”
“I’m not.”
I lifted my head to look back at him, but did not speak.
“I made a choice,” he said. His words sat in the air, heavy.
I didn’t stop him when he slid it in. Thick, smooth, deep. The feel of him, unadorned, raw, sent me spinning. Hayes, filling me. He pulled out for a moment and waited, teasing, before gliding it back in, slow. Deeper. And then withdrawing again.
The third time he did it, he spoke, low, “Do you want me to put one on?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
I could feel him at the opening, tempting. Fuck. Me.
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said, and then drove his dick in so hard and so fast, I bruised my cheekbone against the table.
In the middle of it—with his hands gripping my hips and the sound of his balls slapping up against my skin—I had the thought that perhaps this table had experienced this before. Some Danish 1950s housewife, her pale thighs banging along the smooth edge, making the most of the Scandinavian design, with a casserole in the oven and the kids upstairs in the playroom.
Hayes’s hand was in my hair, yanking my head up from the table. His breath hot on my neck, his teeth on my shoulder, his dick so deep it hurt. His arm wrapped around my ribs then, his fingers grabbing me through my blouse. And just the sight of the veins in his forearm, his watch, his rings, the size of his hand, was enough. I was done.
After, when he’d collapsed atop me and I was once again lying with my face on the cool rosewood, so close I could count the striations in the buffed grain, I had the realization: this was what it was like to be fucked, on art.
* * *
Joanna Garel was a Filipina model turned actress turned fine artist whose Pop Art–influenced pieces centered on Los Angeles beach culture. She’d created a series of iconic lifeguard towers in mixed media that was the basis of Sea Change, her first solo exhibition at Marchand Raphel. The turnout was impressive. Even before my boybander was added to the equation.
That night the gallery overflowed with Joanna’s photogenic multiracial family and model friends and an eclectic mix of our usual diverse clientele. And to me, it was the most lively, colorful crowd anywhere on our stretch of La Cienega. At some point early in the evening I hugged Lulit and thanked her again for birthing this idea. The desire to shake things up.
Hayes arrived to what I hoped was little commotion. I had told Isabelle that he was planning to attend, but to not set her mind on it. And yet still she spent countless hours on the phone with Georgia and Rose, scheming about what they were going to wear (jeans, not dresses) and how they were going to act (cultured, not crazy) and where they would all gather after for a full postmortem (Georgia’s for a sleepover, which I encouraged for obvious reasons).
I knew he was there before he’d made his presence known. I sensed it: atoms shifting, heightened excitement, a variation in the volume. People change when they’re around celebrities. First they become quiet and murmur among themselves. Then they talk louder as if they want to be overheard. They become bubbly and jovial and terribly witty. I’d seen it at Starbucks with Ben and Jen, and at the premiere for a film Daniel worked on with Will Smith. I’d seen it at SoulCycle and at yoga and Pilates. I’d seen it at Whole Foods. This kind of bizarre, forced “see, we’re just like you, our lives are just like yours” behavior. But I never imagined someone so close to me would inspire it.
“Mom, he’s here, he’s here, Hayes is here.” Isabelle found me in the kitchen, where I’d been instructing one of our servers.
“Did you say hi?”
“No, I didn’t say hi. He won’t know who I am. I can’t just go up to him and remind him I met him once, that’s so embarrassing. Please come and reintroduce us.”
“I’ll be right there,” I promised. If she’d had any idea that only yesterday he’d been lying on her bed, she would have died.
She led me to him, in the front room, where the crowd was thickening. Where chatter was loud and wine was being swilled and Georgia and Rose were lurking off to the side, trying to play it cool while waiting for their introduction. Lulit was showing him one of Joanna’s pieces: a bold lifeguard tower, shadowed by Ben-Day dots in sunset colors, rendered on a large slab of wood.
I caught his eye as I approached him, and the expression on his face was pure sex, and I knew we were not going to make it through the night without one of us fucking up.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” He smiled.
“You came.”
“I came.”
Lulit smiled knowingly. “I am going to leave you two alone, yes. I have people to flatter, art to sell. Hayes, can I get you a drink? Wine? Water?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
“Well, if you need anything, don’t be shy. Although I’m sure this woman will take good care of you.”
“I don’t doubt she will.”
I leaned in to kiss him the second she stepped away, one of those double-sided French cheek kisses, which was something I’d never done with him before and which felt so awkward and foreign that we both started to laugh. But I could feel it: people watching him, watching us. Including the newly minted teenager just beyond my shoulder. The one who would later sleep at her friend’s house, completely oblivious to the fact that her mother was engaging in unspeakable acts with one-fifth of the world’s greatest boy band, just down the hall from her pink-and-white bedroom. Keep calm and carry on, indeed.
“Hayes, do you remember my daughter, Isabelle?”
“Isabelle. I believe I do.”
“Hi, Hayes.” Isabelle was divided between offering up the biggest smile of her life and hiding her braces.
“How have you been?” He hugged her, and she visibly turned to mush, her arms folding in at her sides, her hands not knowing quite where to go.
Oh, if she knew … If she knew …
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
“I’m here.” He placed his hand atop her head. “I think you’re taller. Are you taller?”
She nodded, beaming up at him.
Something fluttered in my chest. Something like betrayal.
“And you brought your friends?” Hayes continued, sticking to the script.
Rose and Georgia had sidled up to us. I reintroduced them to their idol and watched as they fawned.
“Congratulations on your VMA,” Georgia blurted.
“We were really hoping you would perform,” Rose chimed in, flicking her red hair over her shoulder. According to Isabelle, she’d had it blown out earlier that day, signifying just what a big deal this evening was.
“They teased us and made us think you were going to be there, but you weren’t really there, so it was just a whole lot of Miley.”
“Ah, yes, Miley.” Hayes smiled.
“My mom doesn’t approve of that video,” Rose said. “She says she’s a bad influence and she’s putting ideas in our head.”
“Is that what Miley’s doing? Okay, then you should probably listen to your mum. And stay away from construction sites and such.”
“But it’s a great song,” Isabelle added.
“It is a great song.”
“Are you guys still recording your album?” Georgia asked. How they managed to know everything going on in these guys’ lives and still live their own was fascinating to me.
“We’ve just now finished it. They’re still doing some mixing, but we’ve done our bit.”
“I can’t wait to hear it.” Isabelle smiled, her hand hiding her mouth. The ring from Eva was twinkling on her middle finger. She had not taken it off since camp.
“I can’t wait for you to hear it.”
I took my cue when Georgia crossed her arms over her breasts (dear God, when had that happened?), cocked her head, and very seriously said, “So, Hayes, are you into contemporary art?”
I gathered this was all part of their “act cultured” plan and so I politely bowed out.
“I’ll be wandering about, should you have any questions,” I said. “If you can’t find me, check my office.”
He smiled, nodding. Rakish Hayes with his silk scarf, his gaggle of pubescent girls, his perfect hair, his fetching smile. “I will,” he mouthed. It was a promise.
Josephine had assembled a playlist for the opening, and Ed Sheeran’s blue-eyed alternative hip-hop acoustic soul pumped throughout the gallery. It was the perfect complement to Joanna’s serene pieces. Pop Art done in unexpected muted shades of sun, sea, and sand.
“Your boyfriend.” Lulit approached me in Gallery 2, the middle room. “Wow.”
“Please don’t call him that.”
“He’s killing me with the puppy dog eyes. The way they follow you around the room. What did you do to that poor boy?”
“I have no idea,” I said, waving off a server with a passing tray. “We just … click. It’s terrifying actually.” I turned my body into her and away from those surveying the art. “You know why he’s not drinking anything? Because he can’t.”
Lulit’s eyes widened, and we both started to laugh. “Oh, Solène. That’s bad.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. I have no idea where this is going. I’m just enjoying the ride.”
“I bet you are … You are like the poster woman for reclaiming one’s sexuality.”
I laughed at that. “I didn’t know I’d disclaimed it.”
“I think it was lying dormant, and now it’s back in full force. Lest anyone think we women of a certain age were no longer sexually viable.”