Ruin Me

by Jamie Brenner

  There’s not much to do while I wait. I walk to the windows lining the opposite side of the room, and look out at the High Line. The sound of his brush on canvas makes only the slightest noise—almost as if I’m imagining it. I keep my back to him, knowing he will talk to me only when he is finished.

  I wait. And I wait.

  I tell myself this is part of the dating-an-artist deal. When my mother found out I was hooking up with Brandt, she tried to warn me off getting involved with a painter. But the train had already left the station.

  I told her everything was fine with Brandt—she didn’t have to worry. That he wasn’t a typical, temperamental artist. But that didn’t stop her from rolling out a litany of warnings: “Artists are self-involved and they have to be,” she told me. “They have nothing to give.” Another bit of motherly wisdom was, “They have eggshell egos.” And the kicker, “You’ll never come first.” I found that one especially ironic, because it’s basically how I would describe her parenting style.

  But I don’t blame her any more than I blame Brandt. The cost of greatness and all that.

  And then I hear a tube of paint fall on the floor. I turn around, and Brandt is walking toward me.

  “Stay where you are,” he says.

  I turn back to look out the window and feel him move directly behind me. He pulls up my dress with one hand and slides the other around to pull down my underwear.

  “Brandt … “ I say. We’re in front of a window that has no shades and is in full view from High Line onlookers.

  “Shhh,” he says. “I want you like this.” And I hear the metal of his belt, the soft woosh as his jeans hit the floor. And then he is hard against my bare ass, his fingers parting me, inside me, and somehow my body responds, even though I don’t feel particularly turned on. “Bend forward a little,” he says.

  “Someone might see us … ”

  He pulls my hips toward him, nudging my legs wider apart with his knee. His mouth is open against my neck, and his breathing hard and fast. I’m swept up in the momentum of his desire, and as he eases inside of me I brace myself by holding on tighter to either side of the window. Brandt pumps into me so fast and hard it’s as if I’m not even there. For once, I don’t have to worry about pretending to come. This isn’t about me.

  His hands grip my hips so hard it hurts. I’m about to tell him to let up when he bucks against me with a low keening sound.

  “Fuck,” he mutters, with a final spasm.

  The second he pulls out of me, I whirl around.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “Um, sex,” he says, walking to the bathroom.

  I follow him and grab some toilet paper to clean myself up while he gets in the shower.

  “You think I was into that? You’re not exactly reading the room.”

  It’s hard to have a conversation with a shower curtain, but I’m too pissed off to wait until he’s out.

  He says nothing, until the water turns off. He steps out, wrapping himself in a towel.

  “First of all, ‘reading’ you when we have sex is impossible. You didn’t get off? Because frankly, I can never fucking tell.”

  He has no idea how much his words hurt. I should have been honest with him sooner.

  “What’s bothering you?” I search his face, looking for the boyfriend I love.

  “Nothing. I’m just working. Your mother is coming here on Thursday.”

  “That’s all it is?”

  “Yeah,” he says, brushing past me into the other room.

  I look at myself in the mirror, stalling. My face is shining with perspiration. I pull my long hair into a ponytail. It’s a relief to have the weight of it off of my neck.

  “Did your mother take me on just because you asked her to?”

  I jump. I didn’t realize he was back in the doorway.

  “What? No—of course not. She would never do that.” I’m floored that he would even ask me that. “Why would you think that?”

  He shrugs, walking away again. I follow him.

  “Brandt, don’t stress out. It’s just a studio visit. Don’t let it mess up your head.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You’re on the inside. It’s all right there for the taking.”

  And then it hits me—the unthinkable: Was Brandt with me just to get to my mother? Had it always just been about that?

  “You didn’t seem to mind me being on the ‘inside’ when I introduced you to my mother,” I say quietly, the words catching in my throat as I walk out the door.

  Chapter Eight

  Niffer shakes me awake.

  “Why are you asleep?”

  I sit up, blinking in the darkness. The argument with Brandt comes rushing back to me. I drop back down and pull the covers over my head.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” she says. “I’m leaving in two days. We have to go out tonight.”

  “I texted you when I got home, like five hours ago. I’m not going out now.”

  She turns on my bedroom light and yanks off my comforter.

  “Niffer, stop! I’m not in the mood.”

  “Are you in the mood for this?”

  She sticks her phone in front of me, a single photo on the screen. I am instantly awake. I grab it from her.

  At first, I think it’s the same painting I saw on Houston Street. But in this one, there is a cameraman behind Snow White. The man is barely detailed—it’s almost a silhouette. Is he a paparazzo? Part of a reality show film crew? Niffer might have cut off the rest of the painting, making it impossible to get any context.

  “Where did you take this?”

  “Mott Street,” she says.

  “Just now?”

  She nods. “Come on. We’re going GoST hunting.”

  *** ***

  Inez went through girlfriends faster than panty liners.

  Her latest was Bianca True, a six-foot blonde. The edges of her waist-length hair were fuchsia, as if they had been dipped in pink paint. Bianca had Angelina Jolie lips, the hips of a ten-year-old boy, and small but perfect tits. She had a five-page spread in this month’s Vogue wearing Oscar de la Renta couture.

  Bianca’s attitude was terrible, but her face was so heartbreakingly beautiful, Inez put up with her. Plus, the stud in her tongue felt fantastic when she was eating Inez’s pussy.

  Tonight, they were at Bianca’s apartment on East Seventy-seventh Street and York Avenue, which Bianca shared with her gay, male-model roommate, Troy. It was a boxy little place in a generic high-rise building. Inez hated going above Fourteenth Street, but this is where the agency housed their models—in social Siberia. But Inez’s apartment in Chelsea was uninhabitable for the next few nights. It was Gay Pride weekend, and her block was already making Mardi Gras look tame. Troy, not surprisingly, was scarce, so at least they had some privacy.

  Bianca was attempting to cook Cuban food for Inez, but whatever was sizzling in the frying pan was completely unidentifiable. Sometimes it was so tedious dealing with women her age. Bad apartments, bad cooking. It all just made her yearn for Anna. Everything was top shelf with Anna Sterling. But Anna was not available to her—had never been available. And worse, now she was casting Inez aside.

  She slipped behind Bianca and ran her hands up to her breasts. Her tank top was damp with perspiration.

  “Take this off. You’re all sweaty.”

  “Don’t mess me up—I have to keep stirring this,” Bianca said, swatting her hand away. Inez reached around her, turned off the burner, and stuck the pan on the back of the stove. Bianca turned around to face her, pouting.

  “I’ll buy us dinner somewhere. If we can find a decent restaurant around here,” Inez said, lifting off Bianca’s shirt.

  She was always amazed by Bianca’s nipples, so small and pink. Inez took one in her mouth, thinking about that tongue stud, already wet.

  Bianca sighed deeply, her failed culinary experiment forgotten.

  Inez’s phone rang. It wasn’t one of her set ring tones, which mean
t it could be one of Anna’s clients. She had to answer it. “Sorry babe.” She retrieved her phone. “This is Inez.”

  “It’s Brandt. You have totally fucked my head up. I can’t paint, I can’t do a fucking thing.”

  “Where are you?”

  “My studio.”

  “Don’t leave. I’ll be right over.”

  She hung up and smiled at Bianca. “Get your clothes on. We have to make a house call.”

  Chapter Nine

  “This is the spot?” Niffer asks. We stand in front of the Nine West store on Broadway. To our right is the Prince Street subway station.

  “Yeah. It was here.”

  “Okay. So … we wait.”

  I told her my theory that there is an emergency exit hatch from a nearby subway station that GoST uses to slip off of the street level unseen.

  “It might have just been a one-time thing. Because the police were chasing him,” I say.

  “The police are probably chasing him every night.” She has a point, and it satisfies me enough to follow her lead and plant my ass down on the sidewalk outside of Nine West.

  “This is a great spot for people-watching,” she says.

  She’s right. But there’s only one person I want to watch, and I’m afraid this is a ridiculous way to go about it. My mood starts to plummet. And once it goes down, it’s a free fall.

  “My mother wants me to move home for the summer.” I had planned to tell her about the argument with Brandt, but this comes out first.

  She looks at me with an appropriate level of indignation.

  “What the hell for?”

  I shrug. “I made the mistake of telling her, after Spain, you’ll be in the Hamptons all of August. She doesn’t want me living alone.”

  “So tell her you’ll crash at Brandt’s most of the time. You can’t live with her all summer, Lulu. Working with her all day is enough. You’ll have no life.”

  “Well, the crashing at Brandt thing is a questionable option at this point.”

  “Why? What’s the problem with boy wonder?”

  “I don’t know. He flipped out on me today.”

  “In what way?”

  I hesitate. “He asked me if my mother is repping him only because I asked her to.”

  “Wow. Insecure much?”

  “I know. I mean, I don’t mind having that conversation. But he was just so … “ I think of the sex, and push it out of my mind.

  Niffer waved her hand like she was swatting a fly. “Men are babies. And add the artist ego on top of it? Forget it. He’ll get over it.”

  “I know. You’re right.” You didn’t get off? Because frankly, I can never fucking tell.

  “You know, it’s not too late for you to change your mind about Spain.”

  “Niffer.”

  “Just sayin’ … ”

  A well-dressed, middle-aged couple walk by. The woman glances at us with pity, as if we’re homeless.

  “How long can we really sit here?” I ask.

  “As long as it takes,” Niffer says, shaming me. She doesn’t even really care about street art, but she has less qualms about this little stakeout than I do.

  We sit. And we wait.

  *** ***

  Inez knocked on the door to Brandt’s apartment. This time, he opened it immediately.

  His eyes locked onto Bianca, taking in her tight little body poured into white cutoffs and a flimsy black tank top.

  “Who’s this?”

  “This is Bianca,” Inez said.

  Brandt nodded to Bianca, who was busy looking at her phone.

  “So what’s the problem?” Inez said, after he ushered them in.

  “Can we talk in, ah, private?” he asked, glancing at Bianca.

  “She’s not in the business and couldn’t care less about your drama. So spill it.”

  Brandt sighed. “I can’t get what you said out of my mind. You know, about Anna only taking me on to make Lulu happy. And if that’s true, then this show is going to bomb. The critics aren’t going to play nice just to make Anna happy. The buyers won’t step up for her.”

  “Oh, they will.”

  “But for how long?”

  “Brandt, you have to chill the fuck out. This is just a game. And I’m telling you how to play it. Now let’s go get a drink.”

  “I don’t want to drink,” Brandt said,.

  “Okay. Well, the work day is over. And you need to find a way to relax.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Well, then watch me and Bianca relax. Maybe you’ll get inspired.”

  She pulled a vial of coke out of her bag. She shook it at Brandt.

  “No, I’m good, thanks,” he said. “Okay, Inez, you don’t have to be here. I’m just stressed out, and I didn’t know who else to call.”

  She found it interesting that he didn’t think to call Lulu. Or maybe he had, and she didn’t help him. Either way, she felt her position solidifying.

  “Well, I’m here now. And I don’t feel like bouncing again. It’s a hundred degrees out.”

  “Yeah,” Bianca chimed in.

  “All right, well—the table’s over there if you two want to party. I should get back to work.”

  “We don’t need a table. Bianca’s stomach is flat as a board. Take off your shirt, babe, and lay down on the floor.”

  Bianca, happy to oblige, pulled off her tank top and didn’t stop there. She shed her tiny denim shorts and stretched out wearing only a pair of black Calvin Klein boy shorts. She was so damn hot, Inez almost put the coke away and went straight to eating her pussy.

  She tapped two lines of coke on Bianca’s taut lower abdomen, and then retrieved a cut plastic straw from her bag. She snorted the first line, then sat back on her heels and looked up at Brandt.

  “You sure you don’t want some?” she said.

  “I’m … no, I’m good,” he said, his eyes glued to Bianca.

  Inez licked her finger, then soaked up some of the second line. She held her finger to Bianca’s mouth. “Open up, baby.” Bianca parted her pillowy lips, and Inez rubbed the coke on her gums. Then she snorted the rest of the second line.

  She sat back for a second, then moved back down to Bianca’s stomach, this time licking the spot that had been covered in coke seconds ago. She trailed her tongue lower, pulling Bianca’s black panties down, baring her pussy with its tufts of blond hair.

  Bianca spread her legs and Inez licked her pussy. Then she looked at Brandt.

  “You sure you don’t want some?” she said, her voice low.

  He didn’t answer. His wide eyes darted from Inez, to Bianca, and back to Inez. Slowly, he shook his head no. Inez knew he probably didn’t trust his voice.

  She bent down again, her mouth between Bianca’s legs.

  She knew it wouldn’t be the last time Brandt called her in a moment of crisis—creative, or otherwise.

  Chapter Ten

  I wake up to Niffer shaking me.

  “Miss, you have to vacate this spot.”

  But it’s not Niffer. It’s a very pissed-off-looking police officer.

  “Oh my god.” How could I possibly have fallen asleep on the street? I’m¸ like, one bad decision away from doing crack. I look around—Niffer is gone. She ditched me!

  “Please stand up,” the policeman says. I scramble to my feet.

  “Have you been drinking?” he asks.

  “No. I was just … waiting for my friend. And she was late so I sat down and … I guess I fell asleep.”

  He’s scrutinizing me, and I must pass the eyeball sobriety test, because he waves me along.

  Damn Niffer! She drags me out here and probably goes off for cigarettes or something stupid, and ends up wandering into some bar or party because she spots a guy or someone she knows. I’m better off not going to Spain. I’d be spending the entire trip wandering the streets alone while she bangs Claudio.

  I check my phone for a message from Brandt. Nothing.

  My stomach does a little lurch.
This is ridiculous. We’re fighting for no reason, and it feels like shit. I should never have left before we hashed it out.

  I look at the time. One-thirty in the morning.

  We need to talk. And, as my mother would say, no time like the present.

  I start looking for a cab.

  *** ***

  The driver is riding the brake and making me feel ill.

  “I’ll just get out here, thanks,” I say, three blocks from Brant’s apartment building.

  As I walk west, my irritation with Niffer grows with each step. What the fuck? Where are u? I text her.

  Sorry—bumped into that guy from the other night …

  I don’t bother asking what guy from what night. I really don’t care.

  I almost got arrested—again.

  She texts back: There’s no secret handshake. There’s an IQ prerequisite, but no secret handshake.

  It’s our favorite quote from Reality Bites.

  I type back, Define irony. Another favorite.

  It’s impossible to stay mad at Niffer.

  When I reach Sixteenth Street and Tenth Avenue, I realize I should text Brandt and see if he’s even home.

  Are you home? I’m coming over?

  I stand in place, waiting for a reply. And that’s when I see him.

  He’s ten stories up. He is spray-painting the north side of a brick building. The image is a blond woman in a blue ball gown, a gown as recognizable to me as the American flag. It has capped sleeves and a poufy skirt and is equipped with elbow-length white gloves. Cinderella. But her yellow hair is not piled into her usual 1940s-style chignon with her matching blue headband. Her hair is messy, spilling over her face. She is bent over with her glass slipper in her hand. The glass slipper has tube in the front, and she is smoking from it.

  A crack pipe.

  My eyes grow wide and I quickly snap as many shots with my phone as I can until GoST maneuvers his rope and harness to step onto the metal fire escape. I run across the street. This time, there aren’t any police to get in the way.

  I see him, just a few yards away. He’s walking quickly, wearing jeans and a gray t-shirt. He is long and lean, taller than I realized the first time I saw him. Again, his face is covered in a ski mask. He bends to the ground, and I see him pull a bike upright.