“Good,” he said. His eyes were still on the water, but I’d heard the change in his voice.
“When do you have to pick up Isabelle?”
“Six. We have a while.”
I watched him stroll across the room.
“Is this a midcentury dining table?” he asked, his finger running along the lines of the oblong Arne Vodder. I’d got it in the divorce—the furniture, the house. Daniel got the cottage on the Vineyard. And Eva.
“It is.”
“It’s nice,” he said.
“Glad you like it.” I made my way to him at the table’s head, where he was once again gazing out at the view: the lawn, the sky, the sea, the dipping sun.
Hayes reached for my hand, and then, without warning, twisted my arm, turning me away from him. He did not speak, letting my wrist loose and placing his palm firmly at the center of my back, folding me until I was bent completely over the table, the rosewood smooth and cool against my cheek.
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 onthe 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 ofSea 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.
