by Robinne Lee
“You’re making me blush,” he laughed, tipping his head back. His jawline from this angle was well-defined, exquisite, like art. His beauty, like a gift that kept revealing itself.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just thought you should know.”
He was quiet when I took him in my mouth. His hands playing in my hair, gentle. His body tense beneath me. I could still smell the sunscreen on his torso, taste the salt on his skin. This sweet boy.
It did not seem so long ago that the girls and I had flown to Las Vegas. When I could not pick him out of a meet-and-greet lineup. When he was just a pogo stick on a stage amidst a sea of girls losing their minds. And now here we were.
“I don’t know your middle name,” I said, pausing.
“Sorry?” His breathing was fast.
“I just realized I don’t know your middle name.”
Hayes screwed up his face, puzzled. “Is that a requirement of yours or something?”
“If you’re going to come in my mouth, yes.”
“Really?” he laughed. “Seriously? Philip.”
“Philip,” I repeated. It was so charmingly English. “Of course it is.”
“So is that it? Do I pass?”
“With flying colors.”
It happened relatively quickly, which I suppose was a good thing. To wield that kind of power. His breath coming in short, shallow spurts, his hands gripping my skull, his moans deep and sporadic; to realize that I’d done that. Especially having not done it in so long. And to someone whose idiosyncrasies I did not yet know. Like riding a bike.
He shuddered beneath me, his warmth filling the back of my throat. Familiar.
After, when his breathing had returned to normal and I was curled up beside him, my head buried in his neck, he said: “Tell me something, if I’d told you my middle name in Las Vegas, would this have happened then?”
I laughed at that. “What do you think?”
“Because you could have found it on the Internet. It would have saved me a lot of wooing.”
“I like the wooing.”
He was quiet for a moment, his fingers running over my ribs. “I like wooing you.”
The thought crossed my mind that this could be dangerous. Not the ill-advised sex with the just-out-of-his-teens pop star, but the cuddling. The lying there, drinking in his scent, watching his chest rise and fall, allowing myself to bask in my own happiness. I could fall in love this way.
“May I ask you a question?” he asked. It was not his usual starter. “Is Daniel the last person you slept with?”
His query threw me. “Are you lying here thinking of Daniel?”
“I’m lying here thinking of you.”
The sun was shifting, casting the room in a pale pink hue. Like being inside a shell, a watercolor. I wanted to hold on to the moment, paint it.
“Yes … Does that change things for you?”
He shook his head, his fingers moving over the material of my dress. “No. So long as you’re all right with this.”
I probably should have asked him to define “this” exactly. It might have saved us a lot of confusion and heartache.
“I’m all right with this,” I said instead.
“You sure?”
I nodded.
“Let me know if that changes,” he said.
He took his time peeling off my dress, untying my bikini top, kissing and caressing every inch of me. My shoulder blades, my breasts, the dip at the base of my back, my hip bones, my knees, the insides of my wrists. He was so tender, so complete in his lovemaking. Someone had taught him well.
“Is there anything you have that I should know about?” I asked. He had fetched a condom from the canvas bag and was opening the wrapper.
“Other than a few thousand psychotic fans?” He smiled. “No.”
“Only a few thousand?”
“Who are genuinely psychotic? Yes,” he laughed. “Anything you have that I should know about?”
“A twelve-year-old daughter who will disown me when she finds out what I’m about to do,” I said, watching him roll on the condom. Condoms. Right. God, it had been a long time.
“I won’t tell her if you don’t.”
“Good. I won’t tell your fans.”
In that final minute, with Hayes above me, and my mind clear, I recalled an earlier conversation. “So this is just lunch. Right?”
He hesitated, and then smiled. “It might be more than lunch.”
That first moment of entry was everything. And after three years of nothing and ten years of Daniel—who was lovely, but definitely not Hayes—it was transcendent.
He was slow and gentle, and I knew immediately why he’d asked about my ex. Because he’d managed to make me feel like a virgin in his hands, in a way that I had not expected. I wanted to tell him that he need not be so delicate, but I was kind of enjoying it. I was kind of enjoying everything. The weight of him, the size of him, the smoothness of his back, the firmness of his ass … all of it. I didn’t even care that it hurt. Part of me wondered why I had waited so long. Perhaps what I had waited for was him.
* * *
We lay there, after, bathed in fractals of light, watching dust particles dance in the air, spent, happy.
“It’s a pity I don’t smoke,” I said eventually, “because I could really use a cigarette right now.”
“I have gum.”
“Gum?”
“Yes.” He rolled over, to fish through his trusty tote bag. What didn’t he have in there? “Solène, may I offer you a stick of postcoital gum?”
I laughed at that. “Why, yes, Hayes, I would love a stick of postcoital gum.”
“We should hashtag that. #stickofpostcoitalgum. Now trending.”
“Yes, your twenty-two million followers would love that.”
He stopped. “You know how many followers I have?”
I felt as if I’d been caught knowing something I was not supposed to know. Information that might have been valid for mass consumption by his fans, but not general knowledge to those who knew him personally. It was tricky, this celebrity thing.
“Do you follow me?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I follow about two hundred people. And they’re all in my industry.”
“Huh,” he said, watching me and doling out his postcoital gum. Hollywood, a French brand. So apropos.
“Would it be weird if I followed you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He lay back then, interlacing his fingers with mine, holding our hands up toward the light. “Then again, I pursued you rather earnestly, so maybe not.”
“Rather,” I repeated. “My very posh Hayes.”
“Yes, well … It worked.” He looked over to me and smiled, one of his huge disarming smiles. “Because if you had told me that night in Las Vegas that I’d be lying here with you, naked, in a hotel room, in the South of France, in two months’ time … I would have told you, ‘No, it will probably take three.’”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I can’t even fuck with you properly,” he laughed, rolling into me. “You’ve totally thrown me off my game.”
“I know you too well.”
“Already, right? That happened surprisingly fast.”
“Don’t go falling in love with me. Hayes Campbell.”
“I’m not gonna fall in love with you. I’m a rock star. We don’t do that.”
“You’re a boy band member.” I smiled, fingering his hair.
His eyes widened and his mouth formed this perfect O. I assumed he was going to scold me, but then he stopped himself, his face settling into a wry smile. “Well,” he said, “I guess all bets are off then.”
west hollywood
“I met someone.”
It was late on Wednesday, the following week, and Lulit and I were winding down our June show. We had the long holiday weekend ahead of us, and the install of July’s joint exhibit, Smoke; and Mirrors. But in that dead period, coming down from the Base
l high, the gallery was relatively quiet and I thought it might be the right time to broach the subject of Hayes.
“What? No. Who? When?” Lulit shut the office door. Matt and Josephine had already gone for the day, so I don’t know from whom she was hiding exactly.
“You have to promise me you won’t judge.”
“Judge? Why would I judge? He’s not an actor, is he? Please say no.”
I smiled at that. “No. But possibly worse.”
“Worse than an actor?” She was leaning against the wall, her long arms crossed before her narrow frame. “What? An artist?”
We both laughed—a shared joke. Artists: dashing, brilliant, crazy. We’d both gone down that road before and vowed never to return.
“Do you remember in the spring when I took Isabelle and her friends to Vegas to the August Moon concert?”
She nodded. I could see her focusing, trying to follow the thread. There was no way she could have predicted the direction in which it would go.
“Well, I kind of met one of the guys…”
“One of which guys?”
“The August Moon guys.”
Her eyes widened. “The boys? The boys in the band?” Coming out of her mouth it sounded dirty, wrong, possibly illegal. “I am going to need some wine. I’m going to the kitchen. You stay right here.”
She returned shortly with two glasses and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. “Start at the beginning. Don’t leave anything out.”
And so I recounted the story of Hayes. Right up through the thirty-six hours we’d spent locked in the hotel room in Cannes. Only stepping out at dusk on Wednesday to walk the Croisette and dine at La Pizza because I insisted we get some fresh air. But he’d have been just as content to stay in our lair and fuck.
“Is he the cute one?” she asked now.
“Aren’t they all?”
“No, I mean the sexy one.”
I must have made a funny face because she followed that up with “The really sexy one.”
“The swagger one?” I smiled.
“Yes! With the dimples?”
“Yes. That’s mine. The swagger one.”
“Holy fuck,” she said, sitting on the floor with the bottle. She rarely cursed. “That is pretty impressive.”
“Thank you.”
“Does he know you could be his mother?”
“Yes,” I said. Lulit was not one for sugarcoating things. “And apparently he’s okay with that.”
“Is Isabelle okay with that?”
I swiped the glass of wine she’d poured and downed a mouthful, Hayes’s watch sliding over my wrist. “Isabelle doesn’t know.”
I still hadn’t told her. Not during the overnight at my parents’ in Boston; not during the nearly three-hour drive up to Denmark, Maine; not when she emptied her backpack and placed the framed photo from the meet-and-greet upon a shelf beside her bunk. And there he was: smiling wide, hugging us both, shaming me from the confines of a five-by-seven.
“Oh my God, you met them! I love them! I saw them at the Garden,” one of Isabelle’s bunkmates, a sporty brunette from Scarsdale, had said. “We were on the floor. Who’s your favorite?”
Isabelle had shrugged, noncommittal. “I don’t really have a favorite.”
Thank God.
“I love Ollie.” The bunkmate’s eyes had gone all googly. “I know people say he’s gay, but I loooove him.”
People said he was gay? This was news to me. Although it might have been my initial impression, I’d rethought it when he mentally undressed me in Vegas. For a split second I considered telling the bunkmate that, but then decided it was best not to engage at all. At that point, I excused myself and stepped outside the cabin.
“I don’t imagine she’s going to take it very well,” Lulit said to me now.
“I was waiting until I knew what it was that I was telling her.”
“That you’ve made an arrangement to meet Swagger Spice in various cities around the world and have sex with him.” She’d said it with a wry smile, but the reality of it deflated me.
“I’m going to need a better explanation than that.”
She was quiet for a moment, contemplating. “Is he kind?”
“Kind? Yes.”
“And you like him? Not all the hoopla that accompanies him.” She waved her arms in the air—her gesture for “hoopla,” I gathered. “But him.”
I nodded.
“And he makes you happy?”
“Very.”
She smiled then, easy, her brown eyes squinting. “Then I don’t think it’s a bad thing. You deserve to be happy, Solène. Go get your rock star.”
“Thank you.” I did not need Lulit’s approval, per se. I’d already decided that I would not be thwarted regardless of her opinion. But it was nice to know I had it.
“You’re welcome,” she said, rising from the floor. And then as she was heading back into the gallery, she added, “I assume there are others.”
“What?”
“Other women…” She had said it offhandedly, but boy, did it land.
I had not assumed so. I assumed there were several before. I assumed there would be several after. But I had not allowed myself to imagine that there were others concurrently. And the realization that I had not even considered it made me suddenly ill. When? How? Where was it happening? Was he flying them to the cities that I’d declined? What was it: Seattle, Phoenix, Houston? And who, who were they?
“Did that not cross your mind?” Lulit’s voice jarred me. “Solène, he’s twenty. He’s in a boy band. There is like pussy falling from the sky. And every time he steps outside, it’s raining.”
My forehead suddenly felt clammy, my throat dry. The walls had begun to bend.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” I pushed past her, rushing to the toilets in the rear of the gallery, where I promptly threw up my Sauvignon Blanc and the salad from lunch.
“Are you okay?” She was standing at the bathroom door, a concerned look on her face.
“No.”
“You’re not pregnant?”
“God, no.” I was laughing even as the tears were running down my face.
She stood watching me while I washed my hands, rinsed my mouth, and made myself presentable. And then, when I could, I faced her again. “Fuck. I like him.”
Lulit began to laugh.
“It’s not funny.”
“Oh, sweetie.” She embraced me. “This is good. You haven’t liked anyone since Daniel. And you haven’t liked Daniel in years.”
“That’s true,” I laughed.
“I think Hayes could be a nice distraction for you. Just don’t mistake it for more than it is…” She sounded so levelheaded, like my mother. “And use a condom … always.”
* * *
The following week, Hayes came to town for a series of meetings. He arrived late on Wednesday, but I would not see him until the following night. “I have an early dinner, but I’ll rush,” he’d said on the phone. “I can come to your place.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I’d said. I was still perturbed about the conversation I’d had with Lulit: the possibility that I was one of many.
“You don’t want me to see where you live? What are you hiding over there? Another boy band?”
“Yes. You’ve found me out. I’ve got the Backstreet Boys in the attic.”
He paused for a second and then began to laugh. “The Backstreet Boys? How old are you again?”
“Shut up, Hayes.”
“You sure you don’t have the Monkees over there as well?”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Chateau Marmont. Tomorrow. Nine o’clock. I’ll leave a key for you at the desk.”
* * *
On Thursday, I met Daniel for lunch at Soho House. I dreaded the place. For all its aesthetic appeal, I couldn’t help but be aware of everyone checking everyone else out, calculating one another’s box office, posing, judging. The air of self-importance. Daniel had joined
when it first opened despite my many pleas, and conducted almost as much business there as he did at his firm in Century City. He called it a necessary evil of being an entertainment lawyer. But I knew that deep down he enjoyed it.
I was already planning my escape as I made my way down the narrow corridor to the rooftop restaurant. The walls famously covered with black-and-white Polaroids from the club’s photo booth, various members having immortalized themselves for posterity. Many of them drunk.
Daniel had birthday gifts for Isabelle that he wanted me to deliver Parents’ Weekend. I was okay with the handover, but I feared he was going to use this opportunity to inform me about him and Eva. It was just like him to choose someplace public and impersonal where he could avoid any show of emotion.
I spotted him immediately, staked out at his favorite table in the southeast corner of the room. It really was a beautiful space: wicker lanterns dotting mature olive trees, potted herbs and floor-to-ceiling windows offering up the best of West Hollywood and the Sunset Strip. And my ex-husband.
He was buried in a New York Times. It was one of the things I still liked about him. That he hadn’t given over completely to the digital age, that he didn’t have to fill his silences with an iPhone.
I’d begun snaking my way in Daniel’s direction when a large table near the koi pond in the center caught my eye. There were eight of them, loud. I did not recognize the faces in my line of sight, but the back of one head struck me as familiar. And then I heard the laugh.
My chest tightened. I had ceased to breathe, inching around the perimeter of the table. And as I arrived on the opposite side he raised his head, his eyes meeting mine. The two of us, paralyzed.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” Hayes’s lips curled into a wide smile. “What are you doing here?”
“Meeting … I’m meeting … someone…” I was tripping over my words. I could not even register the others at the table. It was just him and me. In this space. And yet I was painfully aware that I could not touch him. That people would talk, that people would judge.
He stood, pushing his chair back.
“No, don’t get up…”
“Where are you sitting?”
I gestured vaguely toward the corner.