Like You (Perfectly Flawed #1)

by Dunning, Rachel

  I knew about freaking STD's. Everyone does. Did I give a shit? Hell fucking no. After Zoey...died...I couldn't speed up the process for myself fast enough. It's the sick irony of life: Those that wanna live end up dying of lung cancer at forty. Those that wanna die end up smoking and drinking and fucking up a storm until they're ninety.

  I'd hate it if I'd been clean all the way until the last few days. Because the last few days is when things started having meaning again to me.

  God.

  I pick up a cardboard box from the kitchen and start throwing shit into it. Middle of the night. Might as well get busy if I can't sleep.

  The place Zoey and I shared used to look so much better than this. And it's not because she cleaned a lot. She didn't. Hated it.

  We shared the cleaning.

  And I cooked.

  And I wore dress shirts and slacks.

  All for her.

  Because life had meaning...

  I see my ugly-ass tweed couch that probably has so many sex stains it would light up like a firefly under black light. I inspect the dirty rug with cigarette holes in it under the table. I kick some beer cans around.

  Hell, that I ever do get laid in this place—and by the hot babes as well—must be a freaking unbelievable testament to my own looks. Because it sure ain't the luxury sofa or the five-star comfy bed that gets them.

  I change my mind. It all must go. All of it. Just burn the lot. Burn the rug, the couch, the freaking table. And the damn bed.

  I pick the couch up and start lugging it outside. Cops be damned if I can't stick it out on the sidewalk tonight. This can't wait.

  An Asian dude shouts at me as I tromp down the hallway, two-seater in my hand. It's banging up against the walls and making a noise so loud I'm sure someone would call the bulls on me if this were another part of town.

  But it's not.

  It's the "less affluent" side.

  I apologize to the dude—he's right after all—and I hear his voice disappear as the elevator door closes with me in it. Couch in hand.

  When I get back into my apartment I yank out the rug, pick up the empty bottles. I actually find an ashtray with cigarettes in it. Are they mine? Oh, no, wait. That punk red-head chick I was with once used to smoke. Right, and I gave her the ashtray.

  Hmmm, she had nice legs...

  I pause and reminisce on them for a second.

  But the picture changes. It changes to someone else's body that I admired. A soft, thin body that didn't look worked out, but natural. A body with gentle skin and rosy cheeks. I think about how Gen drank up a storm and then puked up another one.

  I laugh.

  I suddenly feel the need to take a shower. I long shower with lots of scrubbing and cleaning and wiping and soap. Just to get the shit which is my life, off of me.

  People think only girls do that. They're wrong.

  I really need to get that test tomorrow. And if it's OK, maybe I'll call her. Nothing romantic. But she was fun to hang out with.

  But I'll only call her if I'm clean.

  I promise myself that.

  Then I drop the box with the junk and the dirty bottles and the crushed up beer cans.

  And I jump in the shower.

  And I stay in there. For a while.

  CHAPTER 16

  -1-

  G.

  I hear the sound again.

  Scratch. Thump. Scratch scratch.

  My heart catches.

  Scratch.

  Wait a minute.

  I remember the cat in the note.

  Scratch.

  My breath catches again. No, it must be the cat. I listen more closely.

  Scratch. Scratch. Meooooow.

  I smile. I stride over to the kitchen and open the back door. "Hello, little kitty."

  I hear its purr as it sashays in, meowing and making a sad face, looking up at me like it's the most innocent creature in the world. It licks its lips and wipes its face. Sits. Looks at me some more. Puts a paw on my leggings and stretches out its claws.

  "Hey! You'll ruin them!"

  It's a black cat, except for its paws and snout which are white. Its green eyes observe me carefully. It cocks its head and waits expectantly.

  "No wonder Brooke fell for you."

  I remember there's no milk.

  I close the back door and go over to the fridge to double check in case I missed it. Nope. No milk. "I've got no milk for you, kitty."

  Meow.

  I ruffle in the back of the fridge and grab the cream. "Hmmm, you're gonna get spoiled today, little one."

  I go outside the back door.

  The moon is full tonight. It lights up the gray walls of the inner courtyard to make everything look blue. A cold chill runs through my coat and makes my spine shiver. There are interesting shadows in this courtyard. Clothes hang on a line. Ladies' pink underwear and what looks like a very large man's unsightly briefs swing by the wind. A large bra swings as well. The pole from which the clothesline hangs, creaks.

  The cat rubs up against my legs and I jump back. "You gave me a fright, kitty." I pet its back. "Do you know that my last name also means cat?"

  OK, Gen, you're talking to a cat now...

  I think I see something.

  Just nerves, I tell myself.

  I bend over and pour the fresh cream in the cat's bowl. It starts lapping at it right away. Its purr is the loudest thing in this courtyard now.

  That and the squeaking pole as the wind blows the clothes on the clothesline.

  Squeak. Whoosh! Squeak. Whoosh!

  Shutters close somewhere on a higher floor. They sound like a ratchet. The sound echoes up and down the well of walls.

  And then I hear a footstep. Another.

  And I hear my own silent gasp.

  I jump inside and slam the door closed!

  I lock it!

  "Christ, Gen, calm the fuck down!"

  -2-

  I notice I've spilled cream on my dress in the process of running away from the bogey monster and I go upstairs and take it off. I slip into a nighty and am quite surprised at how much the place has warmed up since I put the radiator in the room on. I go over to lower it and see that it's on three and not on five like I had it. I'm sure it was on five, because five is the max, and I was freaking cold when I arrived and remember thinking I needed to crank it up to the top.

  Maybe Axle lowered it.

  The radiators in the kitchen and the gallery itself, however, are at five. Same for the one in the hallway. So I probably just lowered it in the middle of the night when I was dazed and drunk on Sunday.

  I make myself a cup of instant coffee and start thinking about the shots for tomorrow. I rack my brain for a theme, for something classy and yet—how had Brooke put it?—risqué.

  The shots today were OK. But that's all they were—OK. I was out of practice. And the subject matter is nothing out of this world. The model shots are the ones that are gonna do it for me.

  I decide I should sit in the gallery to plan them out. Then I realize I'm in a nighty. "Christ damnit."

  I'm still not used to living in a store-slash-apartment. People walking past the display window might think I'm on display; might think I'm the risqué piece of art for sale here!

  Women for sale. Hmmmm, now there's an idea. A good idea.

  The trick in grabbing attention is irony.

  Then there's the battleaxe, Frau Jaeger—Art Connoisseur Supreme. The Hunter. She'll want a message. A statement. And I'll be damned if I don't give her one!

  Paradoxes. Twists. Things not fitting together. Incongruities.

  And then it hits me. The idea!

  I call Thomas. When he picks up, he's irate. Of course he is. It's almost two in the morning!

  "Did your friend not tell you I don't like phone calls?"

  "Sorry." I explain the idea.

  "Genevieve, you are a genius!"

  I might be a genius. But the idea is only one part. Everyone has ideas. Ideas can't
be sold on their own—at least not in art.

  My mind's in overdrive. Some other concepts pop into it as I speak to Thomas. He's saying something but it's not sinking in.

  I think of incongruities. Nude photography that doesn't treat women as objects. An image of Lizzi Miller hits me, the nude photograph of her in Glamour magazine where her belly fat was untouched by Photoshop and rolled elegantly onto her upper thigh as she leaned forward, smiling without a care. I remember thinking how she looked like the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.

  Because she looked real.

  And real trumps silicone and lipo and Botox—and any of that other crap they have on Nip / Tuck to make people feel uncomfortable about themselves—any day.

  But I could do one better.

  "Genevieve, you are listening, no?"

  "No, sorry, I'm not. Thomas, have you contacted the girl model already."

  "Of course."

  Damn it. "Um, I might need something a little more different. Sorry to do this to you."

  "No apology. What you need?"

  "Not a model."

  "Not a model?"

  "No."

  "Then what?"

  "A real woman."

  "Models are not real woman?"

  "It seems that way sometimes. Look, I need a girl with a little cellulite on the back of her legs. And some on her butt. I need one with breasts that sag slightly or not so slightly. I need one with belly fat and lack of muscle tone and who isn't tanned. But most of all, I need one who believes she is beautiful."

  "You need a physically imperfect girl who believes she is beautiful?"

  "Yes."

  "And you want her to take her clothes off in front of a man, and a woman."

  "Yes."

  "For no money."

  "Yes."

  "And then you want to take photographs of her."

  "Yes."

  "Sacrebleu! You want a miracle!"

  "So it seems." Or, more accurately, I need a miracle.

  "OK, I do my best. Lucky I know a lot of women. And all are perfect in my eyes."

  I can just see him smiling smugly. "Thank you. I really owe you."

  "Your time will come."

  "Oh, Thomas, you are such a flirt."

  "Thank you. I try. Now let me get beauty sleep because if I tell woman tomorrow she need to take off clothes and have photos taken of her, I need to be looking very beautiful to convince her."

  He clicks the phone off.

  When did I get such good friends?

  A tear almost breaks loose.

  Things are really happening. They really are changing.

  I thank Brooke in my mind. I thank this battleaxe called The Hunter who makes me tremble when I think of her but who is giving me a chance. One chance. And I thank Thomas.

  It's official: I'm babbling and going gaga and I need to come back down from the clouds and focus.

  Something tells me I won't be getting any sleep tonight. That's how I get when I'm in the creative zone.

  There's one more person I need to call. Because I'll need his help for this new idea.

  I want to call him so badly now. I check the time. Two A.M. No, too late. Or is it?

  Maybe he's with a woman. Yes, that's very likely.

  I'll call him in the morning.

  I need him to be there when I do photos at the Red Light District.

  CHAPTER 17

  -1-

  A.

  Wed. 12, 2013 — Around seven A.M.

  I'm pissing into a cup when my phone buzzes. I try and figure out how to hold the cup, and my cock, and pick up the phone at the same time and all I manage doing is sprinkling a bit of piss on the toilet seat and cursing.

  Now I'll have to clean that shit up.

  I close the plastic cup, get outside the toilet, piss in hand, and look at the missed call on my phone. I don't recognize the number. Must be work. Especially for it to be this early in the morning. Must be urgent. And when it's urgent, the money's always good.

  I dial the number back.

  "Axle, hi!"

  I drop the piss cup. "Shit."

  "Is it a bad time?"

  I thank God for German engineering, because the piss-cup stays closed! "Uh, no, no, not a bad time."

  I bend down and pick up the piss cup. A young and curvaceous Turkish nurse looks at me from behind the counter. I see the faintest hint of a flirtatious smirk on her face.

  Aw, hell, can't these freaking women just leave me alone!

  "Um, look, I need to ask a favor," Gen says. Then she quickly corrects herself the way people do when they're too damn afraid to just come out and ask directly for something. "But only if you can! I mean, if you can't, then—"

  "What's the favor?"

  I hand the piss cup over to the male intern who's attending to me and indicate I'll be a minute. He nods professionally and leaves me be. You gotta love German professionalism.

  "Um, look, I'm doing a photo shoot—"

  "You're a photographer?" OK, that sounded way too interested. But I am interested. Zoey used to do a little amateur clay sculpting. She used to go on and on about clay coils and protuberances and testing for wetness of the clay... Damn, I loved it. Even if I didn't understand shit about it.

  It's funny what you take for granted when you have it. And what you'd give your left limb for once you've lost it.

  "Um, sort of. I'm sort of a photographer."

  "You're 'sort of' a photographer." I'm doing it again, falling into that quick banter when I talk to her. Short answers, easy talking, like there's no care in the world.

  This time I don't even resist it. It makes me feel good to engage in some "repartee" with someone. See? I'm get all arty already.

  "Well, I haven't photographed in over a year—"

  And why not? I think.

  "—and I have an opportunity to get into it for real but I have less than two weeks to put together a portfolio for one of the biggest names in art in Germany and..."

  She explains it all to me. And I get its important.

  Then she tells me her idea, and why she needs me.

  "You're crazy," I say.

  "Maybe."

  "But you're doing it anyway."

  "It's art."

  "They'll arrest you." Trust me, I know about getting arrested for public nudity. OK, I was doing a little more than that last night. "Well, maybe they won't arrest you. I don't really know what the rules are for public nudity here." I know what they are for public sex.

  "He won't be nude. Not for the street shots. The photos will be sensual, but not over-the-edge."

  I wonder to myself what "over-the-edge" means to her. I realize that people have different edges. I think that if Gen hangs out with me she'll go tumbling down my end of the earth's edge within only a few minutes.

  "I see," I say.

  "Thing is..." She hesitates.

  "Yes?"

  "I, um, can't pay you for it."

  "So, you want me to be a bodyguard for your Red Light District photo shoot...for free."

  Pause. "Yes?"

  "Sure." I think I spoke too fast. I stunned her.

  "Sure?"

  "I think that's what I said."

  "Yeah, I'm just making sure."

  "That I'm sure?"

  "Yeah."

  "I'm sure."

  "OK. It'll only be two or three days."

  "OK."

  "Maybe four!"

  "Whatever."

  "And I'll pay you as soon as I can."

  "I'm counting on it, but not insisting on it. But, um, how about you pay me by joining me for another beer after the first shoot?"

  Um, hello! Earth to Axle! Do these things just come out your fucking mouth without you thinking?

  Apparently so.

  I bite my lip and punch myself in the forehead several times.

  And in all this time, Gen hasn't replied.

  Now I punch myself for embarrassing myself.

  "Um, well..."
/>   Ahhh, the renowned hesitation when asked out on a date. Because that's what I just did. Like a fucking idiot, I asked this girl on a date while I'm standing here waiting for Venereal Disease test results!

  "Not after the first night," she says, "but maybe after the portfolio is finished? If the offer is still up?"

  She's asking me. And now, because I asked her first, I can't say no to her offer.

  Oh, Christ. This feels so much like high school.

  "Great," I say.

  "Great."

  "OK then."

  "Alright. I'm still not a hundred percent certain about when. You're free all day?"

  "I can be." I can clean my damn place up some other time. Somehow, hanging out with Gen seems like it'll be so much more fun.

  "Great."

  "Great."

  We hang on the phone a second too long.

  Oh God, I'm going to make myself sick...

  "Bye then," she says.

  "Bye."

  I click off before this gets any more mawkish and "Macaulay Culkin in My Girl"-like.

  I'm smiling ignorantly at my phone's screen.

  The doctor arrives next to me. Piss cup in hand.

  I stop smiling.

  -2-

  The doc inspects my tool and moves the man around, up and down, and feels my ball sack, first the left ball then the right, then combs me for lice.

  Thank GOD this is not a woman doing this...

  I look up at the ceiling and wait for it to be over.

  He takes some blood for me.

  I'm still staring at the ceiling, now sitting on the hospital bed, and waiting for the excruciating moment of the dude sticking a Q-Tip inside my cock. I haven't been afraid of physical pain for one helluva long time. But I confess that I'm stressing now.

  But he doesn't do it.

  "OK, Mr. Rhodes, just a few questions."

  I look down from the ceiling at him. I feel the cool wind on my brow from the sweat. Earlier, I asked the doc to speak English because, even though I've been in this country for eight years, when it comes to discussing the operating state of my junk, I don't want any misunderstandings!

  "Have you noticed any sores around your genital area?"

  "No."

  "Any pain urinating?"

  "No."

  "Any rashes? Swelling?"

  "No."

  He makes notes on a clipboard.