by Tia Williams
“What are you doing?”
“You know that movie series outside in Prospect Park? They’re playing Butch Cassidy at midnight. It’s not too cold tonight, and it’s dark; no one will see us if we sit way in the back, right? I got us a picnic—everything you like, McDonalds fries and assorted croissants and bagels from the bodega. Sides and carbs, no nutritional value. And Skittles, obviously.”
She burst into tears.
“What did I do?” He dropped everything on the floor, closed the door and drew her into his arms.
“How did you know? One time I tried to…I mean, I’ve always wanted to do this! I never even mentioned it! How did you know?”
“I just did,” he murmured against her hair. “I know you by heart.”
And during the movie, while snuggled up in puffy coats and Eric’s sleeping bag, the crisp midnight air thick with the romantic energy of hundreds of Brooklynites on dates—and while Eric was praising Redford’s mustache with intense hero worship (“That shit is cold, yo! It looks like it has a pulse. Like it has a Zodiac sign and a verified Twitter account.”)—Jenna finally said it.
“I love you.”
Eric looked at her, dumbstruck. He felt that she might love him, but he was prepared to never hear her say it. Well, say it again. Sober. It wasn’t until she uttered the words that he realized how much he needed to hear them.
“You do?”
“Yes.” She palmed his cheek. “I love you.”
“Never unsay that. Okay? Never unfeel that.” And then he attacked her mouth, throat, and cheeks with a flurry of worshipful, happy kisses.
Eric and Jenna made no sense, but they made perfect sense.
And after months, no one in the office had caught on. Jenna and Eric stuck to their office rules, and had successfully managed to do the impossible—carry out a full-blown relationship under everyone’s noses.
There was one rule that they broke.
The no-office-sex thing didn’t even last for two days. After Jenna teased the hell out of him in a meeting—sucking her bottom lip in pretend concentration, sliding her foot up his leg under the table, texting him a filthy, Eric-centric fantasy she’d masturbated to that morning—he burst into her office, clapped his hand over her mouth, pushed her up against the wall and finger-fucked her into a piercing, full-body orgasm.
The next day, while he was waiting for an elevator, she yanked him into the unisex hallway bathroom for a sink-quickie so good, so depleting, that he considered calling out sick for the rest of the day. They realized that they couldn’t not have sex at StyleZine—the rush was too exquisite. And it was easier than they thought. They both learned that even with the evidence right in front of their eyes, people are ultimately too caught up in their own lives to notice anything that isn’t directly pointed out to them.
Terry was a perfect example.
“I’m worried about you, Eric,” she blurted out one day.
She was sitting on the side of Eric’s desk, scrolling through Buzzfeed on her phone. Eric was leaning far back in his chair, his phone in his hand. Jenna stood across from them in the tiny kitchenette, “getting coffee”—and he had his chair angled so that he could see just a sliver of her. They were in the throes of a text thread about Jenna’s New York magazine interview today. In an hour, they were shooting Cara Delevingne for The Perfect Find, and a reporter from the magazine was stopping by.
“How am I worrisome?”
“You’re, like, so closed off. Last week, I introduced you to the hot, black Look of the Day girl, but you were so…stiff. That street style chick we filmed yesterday with the side-bang was way into you, but you didn’t even notice. You used to be so, like, chatty, so charming…”
“I’m no longer charming?”
“…now it’s like you don’t even care about girls anymore. Like you’re unavailable. But I know you’re not seeing anyone.”
He shrugged. “Maybe I’m just maturing.”
They heard a chortle from the kitchen. Eric made a mental note to make Jenna pay for that, later.
“No, I know what the problem is.” Terry, a trendy vision in shiny emerald leggings and a studded denim vest, pointed toward the kitchenette. Jenna sipped a latte, appearing to be embroiled in an ELLE magazine.
“Jenna Jones is my problem?”
“Dude. Yes. You’re madly in love with her. But you won’t do anything about it and it’s killing your spirit.”
Eric exhaled and rubbed a temple. “I’m so tired of running.”
“Let it out, E. Talk to me.”
“I think about her day and night,” he whispered. “Other women don’t even register to me. It’s really that obvious?”
“Yes! It kills Jinx.” She leaned in closer to him. “She watches you watching Jenna in the meetings and then binges Pirate’s Booty for an hour.”
Eric looked horrified. “There’s so much struggle in that sentence, I don’t even know how to respond.”
“You have to do something. Tell her how you feel.”
“First of all, we work together. So…no.”
“I mean, it would obvs be a secret.”
“But she’s so out of my league, its preposterous.” Eric shook his head. “Even if it did happen, I feel like she’d boss me around. Older women like to dominate younger guys. She’d make me her little bitch.”
Terry giggled. “You might like it.”
“The truth is, she intimidates me.” Eric’s phone buzzed. “Sorry, let me get this, it’s…um…Mitchell.”
Eric Combs
iMessage
March 1st 11:31am
Jenna: Okay, you’re laying it on thick.
Eric: I want you naked in the 10th floor fashion closet in ten minutes.
Jenna: You sure you’re not too intimidated?
Eric: Go. And leave on those red heels you’re wearing.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I don’t feel like I’d even have the balls to handle her.”
“She’s older, but she’s still a girl! When have girls ever made you nervous? See, you’re not acting like yourself, and…”
Terry stopped talking, because just then, Jenna leaned her head into the cubicle.
“Hi guys,” she said.
“Jenna!” exclaimed Eric. “You didn’t hear anything I said, right?”
“Every word. And even though I think you’re a doll, please know that it’ll never happen.”
“And please know that I’m painfully aware of that fact. This was all coming from Terry.”
“Really, you two have too much time on your hands.” She sauntered away, sipping her coffee.
Eric narrowed his eyes at Terry.
“I thought I was being whispery!” she said. “My baaaad.”
“Whatever yo, I’ll just keep loving her from afar. I’m used to the torture.” He got up from his chair. “I gotta eat something before this shoot.”
“Cool,” she said, sliding off his desk. “But I think Jenna doth protesth too much. Did you see the way she walked away? There was sex in that walk. Just saying.”
Minutes later, Eric cracked open the door to the dark stock room and slipped in.
He turned on the dusky light. The closet was chaos, with racks of clothes shoved up against the walls, bins of shoes and jewelry stacked atop each other, and a table full of next season’s handbags.
Jenna was standing against the wall wearing only her crimson stilettos. Her legs were apart, and she had one hand on her hip.
“It’s such a shame you won’t ask me out,” she said, “and put yourself out of your misery.”
Eric sighed. “I wanna ask you out so bad.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Incurable shyness.”
“Poor baby.”
“Come here.”
She smiled, and then walked toward him slowly, with feline slinkiness. Then she put her hands on the door on either side of him, and leaned her naked body against the length of his.
“How do you want
me?” she whispered into his ear.
“On the table,” said Eric.
Jenna walked over to the table, knocked off the bags and climbed on top. Spreading her knees apart, she arched her back, totally exposed. She shot Eric a wicked glance over her shoulder, peering up at him through her lashes.
He came up behind her, grabbed her hips and pulled her to him. “So if I did convince you to be my girl…”
“Oh sweetie, you have no chance.” Slowly, Jenna grinded her ass against him.
“Why?”
“You wouldn’t know how to fuck me.”
Eric fisted his hand in her hair, pulling her head back. He unzipped his fly, and then sank into her—and she was so wet and he penetrated her so deeply that she forgot she was in the office and cried out.
“Say it again.”
“You w-wouldn’t know how to fuck me.”
He thrust into her again, even deeper. She bit her hand to keep from moaning.
“Will you be my teacher, then? If I’m really, really good?” He hit her with another hard thrust on ‘good.’
“Only if I can make you my little bitch.”
“I already am.”
Eric gripped her elbows, lifting her up to her knees. Jenna’s head fell back on his shoulder, and he ran his tongue along her neck up to her earlobe. As he drove into her, she matched him thrust for thrust, squeezing her muscles around his dick, massaging it, milking it…weakening him.
“Stop,” he groaned. “No,” she breathed. “Come.”
“You.”
“No.”
“Aww baby, you can’t hold it can you?” she whispered. “Only little boys come first.”
No more games for Eric. Grabbing her wrists, he planted her palms down on the table, so she was all fours. He gripped her throat with one hand, and with the other, pulsed his middle finger over her clit—and drove into her.
There was no hope for Jenna after that. She broke first, but Eric was a millisecond behind her, their almost-simultaneous orgasm powerful and mightily long.
When it subsided, Jenna collapsed on the table and Eric flopped down on his back next to her. As she tried to catch her breath (quietly, which was a challenge), he pushed her sex-tousled hair aside and kissed her damp neck, just under her ear.
“My favorite spot,” he murmured.
“Of all the spots?”
“It’s so good. I feel like it has special shamanic properties. Like if I had mono and put my face right here I’d be instantly cured.”
“If you ever lose an ounce of weirdness, we’re through.”
“Same,” he said, kissing her deeply. “We gotta go.”
“Right. Who first, me or you?”
“Me, I’m already dressed.” Eric laid there for thirty more seconds—until he felt pulled-together—and then headed out the door.
Jenna waited ten minutes. Then, she threw on her clothes, putting all the handbags back on the table and hurried downstairs on legs that were jelly-wobbly. It was fine. She’d mastered the art of post-orgasm nonchalance.
Minutes later, in her office, Jenna was reapplying her lipgloss, trying to remove all traces of sex before running to Cara Delevingne’s hotel room. She was about to go meet Eric when her phone ring.
Jenna was so taken aback by the name flashing on her screen, that it took her five rings to answer. It was Anna. Anna Stein, Brian’s mother. She hadn’t spoken to her since she fled for Virginia.
“Anna Banana?”
“Doll! It’s me!”
“I know!” She was so excited. “I’m so happy to hear from you. I always want to call, but it seemed inappropriate…”
“You’re like my daughter. I will never forgive you for leaving us. Oh my,” she said, sucking her teeth. “Listen to me! I stopped taking my mood stabilizers, and it’s making me such an ornery jerk-off.”
“Why aren’t you taking your medicine?”
“Because who cares if I have mood swings? All my boyfriends are dead and the two friends I authentically liked moved to Miami. I don’t have a career to throw myself into. Never had one unless you count being a Denny’s waitress, where my proudest accomplishment was racking up the most ‘Nice tits, toots’ tips during Sunday brunch hours. And I’m on my deathbed. Do you have a shrooms dealer, my love? Hashish? Dying would be bearable if I could do it with a proper 1968-era high.”
Jenna sighed. Ever since Anna’s bout with breast cancer ten years ago, she’d been fatalistic. Several times, she’d been tested for SARS, AIDS, herpes—even scurvy, which no one had gotten in, like, centuries.
“First of all, you might’ve worked as a waitress, but you’re also the most brilliant craftswoman I’ve ever met. You made every window dressing in my house, and Barneys wanted to carry your embroidered Sevillana scarves. You just never pursued these things. Secondly, you are not on your death bed, Banana.”
“This time, I am. I’m gonna die without ever seeing you again.”
“Please don’t even talk like that, okay?” Jenna felt incredible sadness at being estranged from the woman who’d been her New York mommy for so long. Her own mother had never fully understood her whimsy—but Anna did, because she was a kook, too. She’d fed her, assimilated her into her Former-Hippie-Turned-Park-Avenue-Matrons book club (Erica Jong, Joan Didion and Eastern erotica, only), and regaled her with tales from her days as a beautiful runaway teen, making candles in Manhattan’s East Village for Sixties revolutionaries. Toward the end, she gifted her with a wooden chest stuffed with some of Brian’s infant clothes and toys, in the hopes that this would bring Jenna pregnancy luck.
“God, I miss you,” she said.
“Me too, JJ. Want to go to lunch?”
“I’d love to, but Brian’s in a new relationship…I don’t think it’s right.”
“Lily L’amour.” She spat this, like she was affronted by the audacity of this woman to exist. “Or is it Celeste? At least she’s passably pretty. I couldn’t bear it if his rebound relationship was with a troglodyte. Frankly, I’m destroyed that you and Bri cheated me out of my gorgeous, mixed-race grandchildren. Beautiful Baracks and Halles with a Jewish last name. Superhumans!”
“Banana, I’m so sorry, I have to run to a shoot. But let’s…”
“I was calling for a reason. Check Forbes.com. They did an interview with Bri where he’s talking about his financial wizardry.
But he mentions you. And it’s romantic.” Jenna’s stomach dipped. “Romantic?”
“Maybe you guys will get back together and give me some mulattos and mulatresses before I die.”
“You’re not dying. I won’t let you.”
“Just do me a favor,” she said, sighing. “Take care of yourself. And call me sometime.”
Jenna smiled. “I will. I love you.”
“I love you more.”
She sat at her desk, her fingers hovering over her keyboard. What could Brian have said about her that was romantic? And publicly, no less! He was the king of unemotional men. And what about his girlfriend? Jenna was bristling with curiosity—but also scared that reading the piece would send her down a rabbit hole of suppressed Brian baggage. And that wasn’t the only reason she couldn’t click on Forbes.com.
Tapping into an emotional discipline she didn’t know she had, Jenna shut her laptop. She’d check later. Maybe. After all, nothing Brian could say had the power to affect her anymore.
As she walked down the hall, she repeated this to herself over and over again in her head, like a prayer—until she saw Eric and knew it was true.
CHAPTER 22
Jenna, Eric, and a small crew (the bigger The Perfect Find became, the more people it took to pull it off) were assembled in British It-model Cara Delevingne’s plush suite at The Standard Hotel. The wild child was in town to shoot a Burberry campaign. With her bushy, dark brows, gritty downtown/underground persona, and rumored cadre of beautiful lesbian lovers, Cara was the supermodel queen of 2012. Where the rest of her peers tried to cultivate a look, she was stau
nchly anti-glamour and looked fresher than all of them. Cara was the only supermodel backstage at the Paris collections in a Hello Kitty sweater and dirty Adidas.
When New York magazine reporter Andrea Granger walked in, she was tapped out on the The Perfect Find story. She and her photographer spent forty-five minutes interviewing and shooting Darcy Vale, who’d only delivered dry, media-conscious quotes. Andrea felt like she was talking to a publicist—she couldn’t find the story.
Andrea decided to approach her interview with Jenna differently. Before interviewing her, she’d hang out at the shoot, eavesdropping to gather clues about the creation of this thing. She spotted Jenna across the room at the craft services table, chatting with her partner, Eric Combs. She casually headed in that direction and pretended to serve herself some fruit salad.
They were having a rapid-fire fast conversation.
“I want it to have a late Seventies, early Eighties New York feel,” said Eric. “You know, BCBG, punk, early hip hop…”
“Basquiat, Danceteria…” continued Jenna.
“And who’s the chick with the white hair? She had a band? She reminds me of Cara.”
“Debbie Harry! Blondie. Have you ever seen her in that Fab Five Freddy movie from 1982?”
“Wild Style! We need to shoot her somewhere that looks like the East Village in the ‘80s, like maybe Bushwick? Somewhere with a…”
“Dirty-cool aesthetic.”
“Lo-fi. Graffiti.”
“Which would be flawless, since her Perfect Find is slim-slouchy jeans that fit somewhere between boyfriend jeans and skinny jeans—the kind you can’t find anywhere—and she’s attacking them with spray paint.”
“Graffiti jeans?”
“Graffiti jeans.”
“We read her mind! We’re too good at this! Her video’s gonna be like the film version of throwback Shelltop Adidas.”
“Of course you needed a sneaker reference. Wait, let me find some Grandmaster Flash on iTunes…maybe ‘White Lines.’ Should I channel my inner Debbie Harry?” Jenna started singing “Rapture.”
“If you sing, I’m gonna pop and loc.” And then Eric bust out in a quick robot to prove it. “I love this. I want it to look like a vintage 80s Interview cover, like, maybe even an old school…”