And so, at 11:47 one night, as Lucas was sitting on the couch, he had Kyle Carter running in the background as he intermittently read the New York Times on his phone. It had been a few days since the new issue of Empire hit stands and Lucas had heard nothing from Carmen. She’d been obnoxious with the Turner & Hooch stuff, but Lucas had to admit that her advice had been good. Even he felt turned-on reading her preferred version of events. Still, he was enjoying a reprieve from her.
And then Carter said something that abruptly drew Lucas’s attention to the show: “… please welcome the editor-at-large of Empire Magazine and the creator of the magazine’s new blockbuster column, ‘Screw the Critics’—Carmen Kelly!”
Lucas dropped his phone. On television, Carmen strode across the stage in glossy heels and a black dress, looking sexy as hell but also as erect and proud as the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation. She leveled her eyes at the cameras as though America were her boardroom and in so doing wilted the egos (if not the dicks) of Carter’s male audience.
Lucas’s mouth dropped open.
“So this column of yours,” Carter was saying, “is quite the rousing read.” The house drummer budump-chinged.
“Tyler!” Lucas shouted. “Get in here.”
Carter continued. “Some people have called you the country’s first sex critic. Others say you’re just the hardest woman to please in America. A lot of people are scandalized—and not just Republicans! In just a few weeks, your ‘Screw the Critics’ column has spawned a million conversations and some very hostile critics who are saying, well, screw you! Can I read from one of them?”
“Please,” Carmen said.
“OK, so this is from the New York Review of Books, which I didn’t know was allowed to print the word ‘sex.’ But here we go. ‘“Screw the Critics” promises unvarnished honesty, but its premise is a lie. It treats sex as a science, with Carmen Kelly holding all the equations. But in truth the only science here is that Carmen and Nice Guy have no chemistry. Sex is subjective. It is art. It makes no sense when held up to the microscope. And the only thing we really learn from “Screw the Critics” is that we should all be so fortunate to never sleep with either of these two.’”
Carter turned to Carmen. “Care to respond?”
“Well, first of all, I know that writer and he would be very fortunate to sleep with me,” she said. Carter chuckled. “But I also disagree with the premise. Yes, sex is art. Hell, art is probably derivative of sex: It’s our shoddy attempt to replicate the same passion and excitement that we feel with another person. But it is also science, because as any woman will tell you, there is absolutely a right and wrong approach. You can turn me on or turn me off, and that’s biology at work. Nice Guy, for all his flaws, could one day turn me on—I really do believe that. But it won’t happen until he learns a few things. Because bad sex is real, Kyle. I think we’re all more or less familiar with the truth of that.”
“I hope you’re not accusing me of anything,” Carter said, hamming up his mock despondency. “But hey, being good at sex is one thing. You say you’re an expert at it. What makes you an expert?”
“Well, that New York Review critic claims to be an expert commentator.”
“So you’re saying an expert is just someone who declares themselves an expert.”
“No, no, it’s more than that,” Carmen says. “They have to have a proven, trustworthy opinion. They have to be able to really show that they know what they’re talking about.”
“And how do we know your opinion is trustworthy?”
“Well,” Carmen said, “how about a demonstration?”
Back in the apartment, Lucas was now on his feet. “Tyler!” he shouted. “Where are you? Get in here right now!”
Carter was loving this. “Surely you’re not going to demonstrate the, um, art of sex on this stage?” he said. “This isn’t HBO, remember.”
“Oh, don’t worry, this’ll get steamy, but it won’t get you in trouble with the FCC,” Carmen said. “I believe you have a production assistant on this show named Adam?”
“We do,” Carter said. “He’s a talented young man. We promised you some airtime, Adam—this is your moment!”
The camera cut to the side of the stage, where celebrities usually made their entrance. Out sidled Adam, a gangly, unkempt young man dressed in ill-fitting jeans, a size-too-large T-shirt, and running sneakers. His eyes were magnified behind a pair of large glasses.
“Come on, Adam,” Carter said, waving him over. “Don’t be shy. Carmen won’t bite … and if she does, we have a good workers compensation program here.”
Adam shuffled slightly faster to where Carmen was standing. She opened her arms for a hug, her smile big and wide. And as soon as he leaned toward her, she threw herself into him like a reunited lover, kissing him deeply. His arms flailed for a few seconds, as though he’d been electrocuted. Then he settled in and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back. If this was to be Adam’s moment in the spotlight, he was seizing it. The audience went wild.
“Holy fuck!” Lucas shouted at the television.
Carmen and Adam finally disengaged. The poor kid looked disoriented.
“He volunteered for this,” Carter told his audience, “but I don’t think he really knew what he was in for. Did you, Adam?”
Adam shook his head.
“So how was that?” Carter asked.
Carmen nodded, impressed. “Pretty good.”
Adam beamed.
“But the thing is, we don’t want pretty good. Right? I mean, Adam doesn’t just want to be ‘pretty good.’”
She glanced at Adam. Clearly, he had considered the last thirty seconds a lot better than pretty good, but he wasn’t about to argue about it on national television.
“We want spectacular,” she continued. “And luckily, spectacular isn’t as elusive as we may think. Adam, for example, could improve a little bit on his tongue technique. Now don’t get me wrong. It was—”
“Pretty good,” Carter said, exaggerating for effect.
“Right. But if Adam were to put his hands just about here on my shoulder blades, and hold me tight so I feel like he’s confident and in control, and then move his tongue just a little less this way” (Carmen made a flicking motion) “and a little more this way” (she twirled the tip of her tongue counterclockwise) “I think he’d knock it out of the park.”
“What do you think, Adam? You up for another try?”
Adam’s face colored. He nodded, trying to look casual. Really, Lucas thought, he looked like he was about to pee himself.
“OK, let’s give it a shot,” Carmen said, flashing her peppiest smile. She beckoned him with her index finger and the audience began to cheer and holler. Then Carmen and Adam were locked together again, Adam’s hands immediately on her back, just as she’d instructed. He squeezed her shoulder blades and then ran his palms down her back, landing them on her hips. He seemed confident and in control. When they finally pulled apart, Carmen was the one who looked flushed. “Wow!” she breathed. “Now that’s what I call spectacular.” The audience went ballistic. Adam the PA smiled like he’d won the Powerball jackpot, like that kiss had changed his life forever.
“Now, OK, before we let you go,” Carter said, “I have to ask you: In this week’s column, your anonymous partner, Mr. Nice Guy, issued a challenge. He wants you to get good and liquored up before meeting him next time, and writes: ‘Let’s see what you’re like when you’re not thinking so hard about what we’re doing.’ So, what’s your plan?”
Carmen laughed the kind of practiced laugh that presidential candidates use when dismissing an opponent during a debate. “Let’s put aside the fact that Nice Guy’s suggestion smacks of insensitivity, given the important conversations we’re having right now about alcohol and consent on college campuses. In a way, his desire to get drunk is reflective of many young men his age: When they feel intimidated, they look for a crutch to take the pressure off. We women don’t really need that�
�do we, Adam? We’re at the top of our game when we put our brains to work.”
Adam nodded. “You’re a great thinker, Carmen.”
The audience laughed. Adam beamed.
“Now this is the kind of man we all deserve,” Carmen said, and leaned over to kiss him one more time. As the two made out like high schoolers in the back of a movie theater, Carter wrapped it up: “Editor-at-large of Empire Magazine and the creator of ‘Screw the Critics.’ Carmen Kelly, everyone!” he practically yelled, and as the audience cheered, Carmen didn’t even break lips with Adam. Her eyes remained closed. She just raised her hand and waved, and that image—Carmen in full control, her hand conducting an audience while her mouth conducted a man—was the last viewers saw before a commercial break.
And that’s when Tyler ran into the room. “You won’t believe what Carmen Kelly just did,” he said to Lucas, oblivious of the many times he’d been summoned to watch. “Twitter is going insane about it.”
Lucas turned off the television. He was no longer feeling so relaxed.
CHAPTER 18
The next day at work, Carmen was the sole topic of conversation. Lucas couldn’t bring himself to participate in the gossip fest, but he had nowhere to hide. The Internet was alight with pictures of Carmen kissing Adam. In a moment of weakness, Lucas went to Noser to see what people were saying on that “Screw Off!” column Tyler had launched. It was a mix of Carmen defenders and condescenders—arguments over whether she was exploiting herself or being exploited, if she was a woman in control or just desperate for attention. “Not all heroes wear capes. Some just make out on television,” a person named BklynBabe wrote. Meanwhile, whoever was behind the Rogue Empire account reported that Jays was in his office stewing over the whole ordeal. Apparently, her TV appearance was as much a surprise to the Editor as it was to everyone else. “It’s like the Army just obliterated ISIS,” Rogue Empire wrote, “and the president only found out about it via Twitter while taking a shit in the Oval Office en suite.”
Lucas had to admit: Carmen had pulled it off. By making the column about her—not them, not the magazine, just her—she’d turned Nice Guy into a punching bag. He now existed simply to be knocked down, like the team that always loses to the Harlem Globetrotters. He’d become a stand-in, if only because Carmen couldn’t have angry sex with herself.
His one consolation was a date with Sofia, planned for that evening. And yet as he got off the train in Brooklyn, he couldn’t stop constantly refreshing Twitter on his phone, where, surprise, there was nothing but Carmen, Carmen, Carmen. He entered the restaurant and found Sofia waiting for him with two dozen oysters and a pair of martinis. She seemed to have memorized the best oyster happy hours in the city—one of those small New York particulars with which Lucas had immediately fallen in love.
“Hey,” he said despondently. “Can you believe the shit show?” He picked up a jiggling crustacean from the platter of crushed ice and slid it into his mouth.
“That display on TV last night was a bald-faced publicity grab, a pathetic attempt to inject some excitement and purpose into her otherwise sad little life.”
Sofia’s fervor took Lucas aback. Sure, she didn’t like Carmen. But where had this sudden loathing come from? Was it possible that Sofia was jealous? Certainly not of Carmen’s looks. But of the spotlight and attention? Sofia couldn’t possibly lust after something so crude.
“What you need,” Sofia continued, “is some perspective. A reminder that your life is much larger and more complex than hers. Hold on to that, my friend, and it will buffer you against disappointments large and small.”
Sofia obviously had something specific in mind, but she remained tight-lipped through dinner. Afterward, a taxi whisked them to Red Hook, an industrial neighborhood on the edge of the East River. Lucas knew that hip restaurants and new condos were popping up there. But their destination was a deserted stretch of warehouses, graffitied walls, and uneven, trash-strewn cobblestones.
“I should tell you that I’m doing this because of you, Lucas. Which already makes you about a million times more interesting than Carmen.”
“I d-don’t understand,” he stammered, shivering. It was freezing, perhaps colder given their proximity to the water. “Doing what?”
“You’re the muse for my next project!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him along. There were no streetlights and Lucas stumbled after her, as unsure of his footing as he was of her intentions. And yet: muse. The word was romantic. Thrilling. To be named such by Sofia was almost enough to dampen his increasing anxiety. Because she was now pulling him farther into the darkness, down a narrow alley.
“I think this is it.” Her phone light illuminated a door. “A street artist I know told me about this place. It should be open.”
Who knew what was behind that door! Squatters, homeless people, drug dealers. Lucas scolded himself for thinking like his mother. “But how am I your muse?” he asked, stalling.
“Don’t you remember? When we first met, you said you wanted to go urban exploring. That turned me on to my new series.” She held up her camera bag. “It’s about the contrast between factory and flesh. We’re going to bring abandoned spaces to life.”
“We.”
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll give you the honor of going first.” She nudged him forward.
Lucas swallowed. He did not feel comfortable about this. Not one bit. When he’d offered to join her on such an adventure, he’d been three cocktails deep into a cushy media event. He never thought he’d actually end up trespassing. But he wasn’t about to give Sofia a reason to doubt him, so he pushed the door open and led them into a room that was as cold and dark as it was vast. By their phone lights, Lucas could make out long production tables and rusted machines of indeterminate purpose that hulked ominously in the corners. The air smelled strongly of wood dust. Lucas moved his light slowly around the perimeter. And then, suddenly, he cried out. Because there, propped against a wall, were rows and rows of caskets.
“You found them,” Sofia said blithely. “Excellent.”
Lucas’s heart pounded, his body buzzing with adrenaline. “You could have told me we were breaking into a coffin factory!” he snapped. Sofia had been setting up some battery-powered lights, but she went to him and pulled him close. Her warm body and earth-like smell calmed him. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “That came out wrong.”
“No one said being a muse is easy.” She kissed him deeply and it was like an infusion. His heart slowed; his body relaxed. Then she handed him the camera. “Point and click,” she said. “Just wait until I’m totally undressed.” She scampered over to the coffins. The next thing Lucas knew, Sofia had shucked off her coat and sweater. Off went her bra, followed by her shoes and pants. “Factory versus Flesh!” she called out as her panties landed beside her.
Lucas raised the camera to his eye. There she stood, bared to the dark, beautiful before those coffins. She’d chosen him, of all people, as her witness and recorder. Taken him to the threshold of an unknown door and urged him to open it. Appointed him her muse. Snapping away, watching Sofia laugh at the bitter cold, Lucas saw that she’d been right earlier. He’d needed a whole new perspective on things, and now he had it.
CHAPTER 19
Lucas came into work the following day feeling as though he’d been shot up with a confidence-boosting drug. He felt invincible against anything Jays—or Carmen—might throw at him. In fact, the day unfolded as though Carmen’s media stunt hadn’t happened. And then, in the midafternoon, something completely unexpected happened. An email arrived, directly from the Editor. It read: “Tonight, Wild Boar. 8 P.M. Much to discuss.” It was the most coveted invitation he could have received—and not to a party in the Editor’s stead but to dinner with the man himself.
* * *
The Wild Boar was a restaurant on one of the most beautiful blocks in the West Village. According to Franklin, it had been Jays’ first major investment a few years back and was now a kind of vassal
state to Empire’s capital at One World Trade. It’s where Jays held court; his private dining room was an after-hours office. “Nobody from the office can eat there without an invitation,” Alexis had once told Lucas. “I mean, it’s not illegal. It’s a free country. But if Jays found out, or if you ran into him…”
“Then what?” Lucas had asked at the time.
Nobody had an answer for this, because nobody had attempted to eat at the Wild Boar without an invitation.
But when Lucas arrived, safely invited, he was not directed to the private dining room. Instead, the hostess escorted him to The Gallery, a wide balcony overlooking the restaurant’s sweeping floor. From here, Lucas could look down upon the walls bedecked with Basquiats and Mondrians and Warhols—could they possibly be real? He’d been expecting taxidermy, for some reason. There was none, not discounting the stiff hair confections and shellacked faces of the wealthy patrons.
And then there was Jays, just sitting at a table. It reminded Lucas of running into his grade-school teachers after school—when they were just out in the world, shopping or eating or doing other normal-person things, no longer on the clock in the role he defined them by. The Editor was just here. Eating. It was remarkable as it was unremarkable.
“Lucas,” Jays said, waving him over. “It’s good of you to join us.”
Lucas had been so focused on Jays that he hadn’t realized there was, in fact, an us at the table. Jays’ dining companion looked somewhat familiar; the man had thinning hair and a fake tan and extended his hand to greet him. “Jason,” the man said by way of introduction, and shook Lucas’s hand firmly. A thick gold band flashed on his pinky.
“Jason’s an old friend,” Jays said, motioning for Lucas to sit. Lucas did, and a server promptly appeared. “You drink scotch, Luke?”
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