Sex in the City - New York

by Maxim Jakubowski

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ she waved the woman off as she left.

  ‘Rude!’ the Asian woman hissed.

  Back on the street; a new cold Smart Water in her right hand. She belted some. Nothing like liquids to help you cope during times of relationship stress.

  ‘No, you’re right. You gotta do what you gotta do in financially turbulent times. I’m a big girl, I can look after my own needs.’

  Now there were zapping sounds behind R.B.’s voice; he’d gone straight from the bathroom to his computer game. Very mature.

  ‘Blast a hundred mutants to ectoplasmic bits for me,’ she said. ‘Yeah, love you too.’

  She hit the END button, threw back some more beverage, coughed, and twisted the cap vigorously back on the bottle.

  Maintaining proper hydration: it’s a discipline.

  Down Fifth Avenue to 11th street, then over to Broadway; her annoyance about being abandoned gnawing away at her. Bottom line: if things went on like this she’d have to give her and R.B.’s relationship a reconsider.

  Time for a gay-friend fix. Her fingers flew over the keypad.

  ‘Hey, Geoffrey, it’s me! Whoa! Boompa-boompa-boompa. Could you crank the techno down just a few clicks? You can’t? You’re at a party? Geoffrey, it’s mid-afternoon.’

  Visions of unattainable boys with ideally fab abs whirled through her mind and like her favourite gay porn it left her with a furious longing. But what did Geoffrey care?

  ‘I am not sounding crestfallen, the connection’s just bad. I was just hoping ... Geoffrey? Geoffrey?’ She heard him dancing back into the happy fray. And then her phone went dead.

  She gave her cell phone a savage glance. She would not, would not, burst into tears. She looked up and her reflection in plate glass stared back at her.

  ‘No more denial!’ she cried.

  She looked around abashed, just realizing that she’d spoken the words out loud. How did that happen? But it was okay, everyone else was talking into their phones. She simply had to face the fact that maybe she would be alone tonight. Time to be your own best friend, time to give yourself a treat. R.B. is sweet enough to pretend he likes chick flicks, but he always falls asleep and snores, which spoils things somehow.

  She punched up Mr. Moviefone to see whether he had a new romantic comedy in the theatres. Sure, it would be simpler just to get the information by text, but she loved hearing his voice. As Mr. Moviefone led her through his multiple options, it occurred to her that he was one man who had never let her down. He was there on Saturday night. Even when you were the one who made a mistake, he was sorry.

  She found herself making Mr. Moviefone repeat his sweet apology for not being able to understand what she wanted.

  ‘I’m sorry ... I’m sorry ... I’m sorry ...’

  Over and over. She never let him get to the stage where he asked for her zip code, yet he never got exasperated.

  Mr. Moviefone was the perfect man. Why couldn’t R. B. take a few lessons from him? She listened to his voice grow soft and break up as her battery gasped its last. The moment seemed unbelievably poignant.

  She didn’t realize she had meandered deep into the East Village until she heard a horrible voice screaming at her.

  ‘Do you know what ‘digital’ really means? People from my land aren’t fooled. My people don’t carry cell phones. Is that because they can’t afford them? No. It is because they know whose work they are!’

  It was a hunched-over ancient lady draped in black shawls, crossing herself in the Catholic style, kissing a cross. Some god awful, CNN, tribal-war-in-the-Balkans accent. No one to be frightened of, just a pathetic old soul angry at being lonely and alone. She shivered as she remembered that tonight she, too, would be lonely and alone.

  As she hurried back to civilization she gave the woman one last look in an attempt to reassure herself she’d never become like that. What she saw was a hideous toothless gorge of a mouth. Thank God, we’re barely members of the same species.

  ‘Whew,’ she thought. ‘How did I end up on this block?’

  She headed towards Lafayette Street, keeping her eyes on the sidewalk until she felt safe enough to start shopping for a new battery.

  She looked up and down the block and spotted a tiny wireless phone store jammed between a sneaker outlet and a jeans emporium. She strode over.

  Oops, traffic-fumes alert! She leaped to the side to avoid the smoke from a garbage truck and crashed into some bridge-and-tunnel people. She hated having to apologize to B & T’s.

  Cell Mates. Cute name. She’d never heard of them before, but why should she have? Telecoms were appearing and going under every day. Best strategy: get a good anytime-minutes package that you can cancel at will. And she liked the shop’s elegant storefront, cosy yet chic. Now that was a fresh image choice for a phone company! They’d know how to serve a woman’s needs.

  The door swooshed shut behind her.

  The store was amazingly large, silky-pink, undulant yet refreshing. A young woman in a see-through sari came out from behind the counter, her olive skin glowing, her thick, long black hair swinging free. Even from the door you could see her extraordinary eyes: iridescent, somehow, and more than just one colour. One moment they seemed jade, the next amber.

  Cool! Probably some new kind of contact lens, or something she had done with lasers. The woman’s shirt was cut short to expose her bellybutton and low to expose the tops of her breasts. Her cleavage sparkled. Had she put glitter there? Excellent idea!

  Then the woman was before her, offering to help, and she hurriedly and with some embarrassment brought her eyes up and off the woman’s bosom.

  She felt a sexual rush, which was kind of neat, she had to admit it. It was one of her secret shames that she was the only one of her friends who hadn’t yet had an affair with a woman.

  Maybe there was still hope.

  ‘I know just what you need,’ the saleswoman murmured.

  ‘All I’m looking for is a battery, really. I have this stupid Verizon phone that eats energy –’

  ‘Verizon doesn’t even begin to have what we offer.’ She couldn’t take her eyes off the woman’s lips, which made images of cherries and burgundy swirl in her head.

  ‘Well, actually, I was thinking of heading to the Apple Store in SoHo and getting a new iPhone.’

  ‘And we have way more than Apple will ever come up with.’

  ‘Really?’ She loved being ahead of all her friends when it came to cell phone technology.

  ‘Come with me,’ the saleswoman said, taking her by the hand.

  What a store! In niches on the wall were small sculptures of Indian tantric sexual positions, the kinds of things she’d only seen at that Learning Annex seminar she’d dragged R.B. to. The saleswoman was barefoot and swung her unashamedly fleshy hips like the instructor who led the belly-dancing class at the gym.

  The saleswoman stopped at a wall and gestured towards it. On it were the most delicious cell phone samples. One looked like it was made of abalone shell, another was crusted with sapphires. Another looked like it was made out of that newfangled skintight stuff Olympic swimmers now wore.

  The one that really caught her eye was on the far, far left.

  ‘Mmm, you have good taste,’ the woman said. Was she a mind-reader too? The saleswoman picked up the sample, stroked it, posed it. Then she seemed to run it along her lips, while maintaining eye contact.

  ‘Here,’ the woman said. ‘Now you try.’

  She accepted the phone from the woman. What was it like? Not clammy the way her first cell phone had been. And not steely and cold the way the current one was. No, it was velvety and slick, with a soft give to it, yet surprisingly firm inside. Sensitive, yet with some real spine. She touched her own lips to it, and said some nonsense words into it. Where did they come from?

  She was blushing. There was no ne
ed to look further.

  ‘I’d really like to buy this one,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ the woman said in her softly mysterious accent. ‘And the battery life will surprise you.’

  As they arranged the terms of the service plan, she fingered her new prize. She could swear it was a little ticklish! She didn’t even bother to skim the contract’s fine print, she just signed, then watched as the saleswoman’s long, blood-red fingernails danced over the computer keyboard, typing in her vital stats. She felt renewed, once again eager for life.

  Out on the street, she turned her new prize over and over, getting to know it with eager, happy fingers.

  Checking her watch, she saw that it was finally time to call Terri. She started to punch the number, but, as if thought-activated, her new phone dialled it for her.

  And the cell phone’s buttons! Had they changed? They were tiny odd-shaped things, each one a little different from the others.

  A female voice spoke from the phone.

  ‘Hello, this is Terri Atkins.’

  Wow, talk about sound quality! Terri’s voice was coming through as though it was on the soundtrack of a movie at a stadium-seating multiplex!

  ‘Hi, this is –’

  ‘Oh, darling! I knew it was you,’ Terri said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to our talk.’

  ‘Really?’ she said. She glowed, yet also felt bashful, and furious with herself for feeling bashful. Her career would go nowhere if she continued having feelings like that.

  ‘We’ve just been talking about you. Wasn’t I?’

  ‘Yes we have.’ It was a male voice from somewhere behind Terri.

  ‘Could you do it a little harder over here?’ Terri said.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Oh, forgive me,’ Terri said. ‘I’m talking to my masseur.’

  Is this what power had come to mean in the new New York City? Sign her up! ‘Anyway, I love your work and I want you working for me. For me, and for no one else. Do you understand? Those boxes you do – fantastic. The graphics, the tints, the bleeds. No one else in the city has your touch with dropped initials,’ said Terri. ‘Oh God! Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!’

  Her cell phone seemed to be gyrating uncontrollably in her hand. Or was it just her own excitement at this sudden glimpse of power and glamour?

  ‘Um,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure what you want from me. But I do like working in Design and Quark, and I’m so enthusiastic.’

  ‘No, right there. Don’t do it harder. Just like that. Around and around. Steady. No speeding up. If you speed up I’ll kill you. There! There!! There!!!’

  Her hand gripped the phone sweatily, and shook and shook. Then it stretched, yawned, and calmed. The phone just lay there in her palm. Was that static hiss or was it panting?

  ‘Well, thank you. When should I start?’

  ‘Tomorrow. You’ll start tomorrow. I’ll fax you your assignment. Oh, God! Whew. I’m so glad you’re on board with us.’

  That was one happening business meeting. She was really feeling the heat now. So much so that she needed a little something cooling. Another deli visit where she surveyed the low-carb frozen treats and decided on a healthy-seeming pomegranate fruitsicle. She was good to go.

  But there was still a long, lonely tonight to contend with. A DVD evening it would have to be, she sighed, so she steered herself into an independent rental store on 1st Avenue and 37th that was selling off all its merchandise.

  As she perused the $1.99 porn bin, she nearly bumped into a man her age who was talking on his cell phone.

  ‘Are you telling me that none of these titles does it for you?’ he said to whoever, with a tone of disbelief.

  His wedding ring flashed as he rolled his eyes.

  ‘There’s always Buttman,’ he was saying. ‘Well, of course he’s gross, he’s the Buttman! But back before we were married you said you liked his oeuvre.’

  Her own phone gave a ring. ‘Hi,’ said a male voice, and she knew it was meant for her alone.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘How’d you like your meeting with Terri?’ the voice said.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘You can’t tell me you don’t know.’

  And she couldn’t. She knew perfectly well it was the voice she’d heard behind Terri, the voice of that perfect masseur, a man who knew how to give pleasure.

  ‘How’d you get my number?’ she said, hoping he’d ignore the question.

  He did. ‘I was thinking about you the whole time I was getting Terri off,’ he said.

  ‘You shouldn’t be calling me,’ she said.

  ‘That’s why I am.’

  She glanced around her.

  ‘But you don’t know me.’

  ‘I know that you have luscious thighs,’ he said. R.B. never appreciated the work she did to keep in shape. ‘Do you know what I want to do to them? Do you know? I want to press them down and run my tongue along them and then roughly turn you over and spank you the way R.B. never has –’

  She dropped her fruitsicle. This was not a good conversation. Hot, but she was horrified at herself for letting it go this far, and scared that it might hurt her chances of working for Terri.

  ‘You shouldn’t be calling me!’ she said.

  ‘And that’s exactly why I am calling you,’ the masseur’s voice said.

  ‘You are disloyal, disgusting and disgraceful,’ she said.

  ‘And you are thrilled,’ the masseur’s voice told her.

  She jabbed at the END button, but the phone continued to rant.

  ‘Fuck me, let me explore your cunt, you whore, your ass is so fine ...’ the masseur’s growly voice made her gasp for breath.

  She poked again and again at the cell phone’s buttons, and with her final blow it let out a humongous ‘Ugh!’ sound. Then the voice said, ‘That was so good. Don’t you want some for yourself?’

  There was a large purple, plasticky stain on the video store rug. Had it been there before? She careened out of the store and onto the street, dialling her boyfriend as fast as she could. All she got was a message on her phone saying it couldn’t pick up a signal.

  After a number of blocks she managed to get hold of herself. The clouds had cleared and a dry cool breeze lifted her spirits. She stopped for another water purchase, this time treating herself to a new gourmet Scandinavian brand.

  Despite her fears, she had to admit that there was something wild and exciting about connecting intimately with a man who’d so recently been with Terri.

  When she looked up, she realized that she’d walked all the way to Times Square. The sidewalk was jammed with what had to be tourists, although it was harder and harder to tell the out-of-towners from the true Manhattanites. The rubes now dressed in black clothes and affected New York attitudes that they copied off of sitcoms set in the city.

  The towering billboards and signs were an orgy of movement and colour.

  On one of the screens, a hunky male model flashed his six-pack, which made her feel better. He was playing with a cell phone, dancing with it, pretending to use it as a roll-on deodorant, yeah, yeah, real funny, and now – could this be happening in the New Times Square? – he was sticking his butt out and pumping the cell phone against it.

  She looked around her. No one else seemed to be taking note. Groups of people were scurrying into theme restaurants. Others were taking photos.

  She looked warily back up at the enormous screen. The hottie in the ad was touching his phone with his middle finger, making the standard obscene gesture at the same time.

  Her phone rang. She picked up the call.

  ‘Hello, babe.’ Another male voice, a new one this time.

  ‘Who is this?’ she said.

  ‘You say you don’t know but you do,’ he said. ‘Look up.’

  She did. Th
e model was smirking at her.

  Then his lips moved. ‘Can we continue? I’m recharged, and ready to go again. How many of your boyfriends have been able to come back to life this quickly?’

  ‘I’m taking you back to the store,’ she said in a fury, turning away from the LCD billboard.

  Her cell phone whimpered.

  ‘Don’t do that!’ she said, shaking it, poking it for information. ‘I hate it when men whimper.’

  ‘What listing?’ the computerized voice asked.

  ‘Cell Mates.’

  ‘What city?’

  ‘New York. It’s a business. On Broadway.’

  ‘There’s no listing for Cell Mates.’

  ‘It’s a new store,’ she said. ‘It’s in Manhattan. On lower Broadway. I was there no more than thirty minutes ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the voice said, ‘but I can’t find any listing. You’ll just have to keep me, Babeski.’

  She squinted at the phone. ‘Oh no, you don’t. No cell phone is stalking this girl!’

  Then a little boy was pointing at her and saying, ‘Mom, look, look. That lady’s hitting her cell phone against a wall.’

  She caught herself. This wasn’t right.

  The phone was screaming, ‘Stop it! Please stop it!’

  She took a deep breath.

  The phone’s bedroom voice came back on. ‘Oh come on, hit me one more time. Please. I was just kidding about stopping it! I crave your abuse.’

  ‘Do you want to stay with me?’ she said. ‘Then don’t make a sound, not one little peep, not unless I command you to.’

  The phone didn’t respond.

  ‘And don’t sulk!’ she said. ‘I hate a man who sulks. Talk to me! Tell me you understand!’

  The phone continued to pout silently.

  ‘You’re outta here,’ she muttered. ‘I’m the one who gets to have the emotions.’

  She threw the phone into a trash can and turned to walk away.

  Then she heard the phone’s voice, as though over a loudspeaker. ‘I know your credit card number!’ it said. ‘And I know when it expires.’

  She kept walking. Heads were turning.

  ‘I have the last four digits of your social security number! I know your date of birth. I’ll give them to anyone who wants them – not that there’s much to steal!’