by Ava Cummings
Damien hands me a glass of white wine from a bar table set up inside the Carl Fine Gallery. I take in the space, a former warehouse with high ceilings, worn wide-planked wood floors, and sky-high white walls. A gentle crowd of sophisticated downtown arty types mills through the rooms—standing in small groups, quietly talking about the work, pointing and nodding, and looking thoughtful and earnest.
The art, by Damien’s friend John Haines, is almost cartoonish, a nod to the ’60s. The large sculptural paintings are made with Styrofoam in vibrant neon colors, carved and burnt out in bas-relief, creating oddly organic shapes. The opening has drawn an elite crowd. Haines is another rising art star.
Although it’s not Damien’s opening, he’s king here. Everyone from dealers to artists to the hedge fund suits form a large circle around him, waiting to say hello and wish him well. I stand by, nodding my head and smiling as he introduces me to a sea of people, all of whom seem important but none whose names I remember.
“Hey, Damien, haven’t seen you out in a while,” says one guy in paint-splattered jeans, a crumpled shirt, and holding a beer.
“Hey, man, great to see you. This is Anna,” he says, motioning toward me.
“Good to see you, too,” the guy says, lingering on me, wanting more explanation but not getting it. After an awkward pause, he says, “So what have you been up to? Haven’t seen you around lately.”
“Been working like crazy on my next show.”
“What are you cooking up?”
“Taking on the celebrity world.” He smiles. “A commentary on our obsession with it. I’ve been hanging out at all the places that you make fun of. The clubs, the hipster lounges.”
He says it like he’s ready to get a beating.
“All the clichés are true. There’s lots of air kissing but no connection. No heart. I don’t know how people live in that world, but it’s been truly fascinating.”
To an outsider, Damien looks comfortable at the center of attention of the growing swarm around him—commandingly in charge, with everyone in rapt attention as he regales stories from the clubs. But I spot little cracks in my good artist, the nervous shake of his head, the way he rubs his palms together to fill any silence, that reveal a deeper truth.
“I have a show coming up in Cannes during the film festival,” he adds in more quietly, at the end, almost as if it’s a throwaway. “They commissioned me to do a sculpture outside the Palais des Festivals.”
“Holy shit. Congratulations, man,” says the guy in paint-splattered jeans.
Someone else in the crowd then bends over to me to probe on who the girl is with the industry’s hottest art star. With my palm cradled firmly in Damien’s, I tell them about working at Celeb, and they all lean in with interest, even though it’s not cool to be into celebrities. They ask the usual questions: Who’s mean, and who’s actually nice? Who’s really hiding something behind a façade?
“I was at a shoot with Melodie a couple of months ago,” I say, as their eyes light up. “She’s actually really nice. All those rumors about her being a diva…I thought she was totally down to earth. She said please and thank-you for everything. Polite even to us peon assistants.”
It’s funny how even those who claim not to care about the whole celebrity thing, who think star worship is ridiculous, still get enamored and act like fans. I share a few more stories and have the crowd at rapt attention when suddenly Damien cuts in.
“Will you guys excuse us for a minute? Anna, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
He smiles and nods at the crowd and hooks my arm, gently pulling me away.
“What was that about?” I say. Damien continues to pull me along, a little too quickly for my sample-sale Manolos.
“Hey, slow down,” I say, trying to yank my arm back.
Damien grips harder and leads me into a back office.
“You look gorgeous tonight, Anna,” he says with fervent intensity, the passionate artist in him rising up.
He gently pulls me into a corner of the gallery office and tenderly puts his mouth to mine. His hands thread around my waist tenderly, and he begins to kiss me in a way that feels less urgent and more like pure emotion.
I melt into his mouth and his arms, as any annoyance I might have felt vanishes instantly. Gently returning his kisses, I feel the bond we share at this moment in time, and it’s all that I need in the world.
He slowly pulls back, holding my face in his hands, and, as if our thoughts were merging, says, “I needed that.”
He pulls me in for a hug. When our bodies touch, I feel an energy course through me, making me almost dizzy. The puzzle again, fitting together so perfectly.
“I guess I don’t want to share you so much just yet,” he says, smiling, laughing slightly. “They were all so fascinated by you.”
“Not me, Damien. My stories.”
“No, Anna. You. Everyone is. You just don’t see it.”
He takes my hand in his, threading his fingers through mine, and we walk side-by-side back to the bar table in the main gallery. Damien grabs two glasses of white wine and we stroll to an empty corner. Damien keeps his back to the room—to keep people from noticing him, I think.
And we talk.
And he asks a lot of questions.
He sees me hesitate. As usual, though, he reads me like he’s known me all my life.
“Tell me more. Be brave. I promise you won’t break. And if you do, I’ll be here to pick up each and every piece and put you back together.”
What if he doesn’t like what he hears? What if I say the wrong thing? I take a deep breath and, with the exhale, turn off my head and give in to my heart.
“I’ve never been in love.” I let it drop.
Damien grabs my hand and squeezes it, sensing my need for reassurance.
Instead of feeling frightened, I feel lighter, emboldened, unburdened. “It wasn’t that I didn’t like anyone. I just couldn’t let anyone in. It was like my heart was…dead. I don’t know how else to put it.”
With him, I feel I can be emotionally courageous in a way that’s never been possible or even imaginable before.
“My dad leaving was so…I don’t know. I’ve always felt like half a person or something—like my emotional side got amputated.
“It worked for a while. I didn’t get hurt. But then all my friends started falling in love and pairing off. They’d have someone to snuggle on the couch with, eat Sunday dinner with. I’d see how the guys would look at them, with total admiration and devotion. I wanted that, too. But it never found me. I couldn’t understand why. Instead, I would end up with guys who treated me like shit.”
I think briefly of Alec, who figured he had the perfect set-up: a discreet side dish content to hang on the arm of a Master of the Universe.
“I saw it in you,” says Damien. “I remember the first night I saw you at the Bubble Lounge. I could read your face, every emotion. I could see the fear, the strength, the hurt, the ambition. I saw it all. You were the most beautifully complex person.”
Like a floodgate that’s been opened, I pour out more, reaching back further.
“I always did the right thing growing up, what I was supposed to do, what was expected of me. We all assume roles in our family. I was the good girl. In so many ways, my mom is the reason I am who I am. She’s the sweetest, most caring, sensitive person in the world, but she’s also broken. When my dad left, she never recovered. I saw what being sensitive and open did to you: It made you hurt.
“I could do nothing more than offer support and be the good kid. I wanted to cause no trouble, so that my mom could have it as easy as possible in such a difficult situation. So I kept my emotions packed away neatly inside and went along, trying to be as perfect a child as I could manage.
“But I never got to blossom, to find myself, who I really wanted to be. Moving to New York was essential for me, so that, separate from my past and my family, I could explore who I really wanted to become.”
“I ca
n relate,” says Damien, with an intimate tenderness. “I didn’t have a father, either.”
Damien’s art dealer swoops over and whisks him off to meet a collector before I have a chance to ask any questions. My heart breaks for him. We have almost too much in common, and not the right things. The emptiness. The hole that’s never filled. The sense that you had something to do with it, that the problem lies with you. Walking through life feeling like damaged goods.
I need to know more. I’m so hungry to make sense of all the pieces I don’t yet understand. This is all new to me—digging deep inside, sharing, being vulnerable, and creating intimacy with another human being. The complexity of this dance of emotion, and finding that balance between being open and feeling safe, is uncharted territory.
I grab another glass of wine and take in the show. The art scene is a breath of fresh air after the ego-fueled world of nightlife and celebrity. Powered by innovation and creativity, this is what built the real New York—the place where you could be the person you needed to be, express your true self, and find fame and success in that expression. This is the original scene that told the world what was in, what was out, and what was next, spawning such talents as Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Cindy Sherman.
“What do you think of John’s work?” Damien is suddenly back by my side.
“It’s crazy. So trippy and organic, yet modern…”
“John’s out there, thanks to years of working around fumes from melting Styrofoam. It actually helps the creativity flow.” He smiles. “So, where were we?”
“Well, you had just told me…” I say, hoping to venture back to the topic of his dad.
Damien looks down. He’s trying to play it cool, but he’s freaking out. As someone who has the same thick shell built around her, I know. He doesn’t let people in easily.
“Don’t worry. We’ll keep it light. And maybe a little sexy?” I decide to change the mood. I sense that he’s uncomfortable. I don’t want to ruin the night. I don’t want him running away. I can’t take another scene like the one we endured at the Met.
I tell myself again to take it slow with Damien. With a little patience on both sides, we can make this work.
He glances up, relieved, and gives me the cutest look, eyebrows raised and mouth curled into a smile. I think his eyes actually twinkle. God, he’s so handsome.
“I think I need another drink for this.”
He strides over to the bar table and grabs two more glasses of white wine. I haven’t eaten much today, and the buzz feels warm, good—not angry or angst-laden like so many other nights. Here by Damien’s side, I feel so…content. Yes, that’s the word.
“Have you ever gotten a massage at a spa?” I ask, tentatively.
“Yeah,” he answers, questioningly.
I think I understand now how my good artist needs to know me—all facets, sides, and angles. The bumps, the highs, the lows, and the breadth of experiences I’ve had that form me. I think it’s the fuel for his work, his creativity. It’s like he soaks it in, absorbs it into his pores, and then it comes out on the canvas. “I had one a while ago, my first, and something happened that was weird, and maybe a little inappropriate. But…maybe it kind of turned me on.”
“I like where this is going,” he says, taking a long, slow sip of his wine.
I explain that about halfway through the treatment, the masseuse, a young Latin guy named Jose, started working his hands up under the towel and massaging my butt. “He kept saying it was tense.”
“Hands directly on your ass?” he asks, leaning in. When I nod, he continues, “Were you wearing any underwear?”
I explain that they told me to take them off. “To be honest, it felt good,” I admit, “even though it didn’t seem like it should be part of your standard massage.”
Somehow telling him makes it okay, even a little sexy.
“You know, I’m pretty good with my hands, too,” he says, showing his hands, and taking one of mine in his and gently squeezing. “Now that we’re on the subject of crazy experiences, there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you.”
I’m reveling in the intimate bubble we’ve created around us.
“Where’s the craziest place you’ve had sex?” he says.
My mind reels, thinking about the night with Alec in Bernie’s office. Her desk, with me sprawled on top of it for the whole city to see. It was the craziest place I’ve done anything—and quite possibly the craziest thing I’ve ever done.
Now it’s my turn to clam up. That night was wild. I got swept up in Alec’s needs and desires, pleasing him and making him happy. I tend to transform myself to meet the needs of those around me—friends, family, and especially men—losing myself in the process. It soothes me in a way, because I know the person I’m with is happy, but it’s so often at my own expense.
“This must be good, Anna. I can see you have something to say, but you’re holding back.”
God, he can read my face instantly. “Well….”
“Out with it,” he commands.
Suddenly, the synapses in my mind fire, and my thoughts begin to line up. All of the intimate conversations Damien and I have had come flooding back to me—at Il Buco, at his studio, even at the Whitney, when we hugged outside after talking for five minutes. I can talk to Damien. I can tell him anything, and he’ll support me. He wants to know and understand me deeply. I take a centering breath and resolve that if I tell him and he drops me, then it wasn’t meant to be.
I also think he likes hearing about my sexual exploits.
“Well, you can’t tell anyone, because I could get into big trouble if this got out.”
“Now this is getting interesting.”
“Seriously, you have to promise me that your lips are sealed on this one.”
I tell him everything, starting from sitting in the audience at the Victoria’s Secret show to Alec tearing my panties off at the Oak Room afterward to him ripping my shirt off on Sixth Avenue to the wild sex we had on top of Bernie’s desk after hours.
“I think I kind of like the thrill of being watched,” I say shyly.
“I think I already knew that, Anna,” Damien says, grinning. “The Plaza?” He pauses a beat, never taking his eyes off me. “I liked that you liked it—a lot.” Damien offers me that devilishly handsome grin, the one that makes me melt.
There’s a crazy energy pulsing between us; my knees go a little weak and I feel dizzy. I look around the gallery for the first time in what seems like an hour. The opening is winding down, and there’s only a small crowd left.
“Anna, listen, I have to go to this party tonight. It’s part of my research for the show in Cannes. I wasn’t going to ask you to join me, and I’ll explain why, but I don’t want to say goodbye yet. I’d really like you to come with me.”
I don’t want this night to end, so there’s no way I’m leaving his side. I don’t care if it means going to Staten Island.
“I would love to.”
“Well, you might not when I tell you where we’re going.”
We stop at Lucky Strike for dinner before heading out. Over steak frites and wine, I finally get him to tell me where we’re going: porn king Bob Stracciato’s SoHo loft. The creator and publisher of the Pourhouse empire, Stracciato is known for indulging in drink, drugs, and women. And his infamous parties are part of that. He draws a wild, hard-partying crowd.
“You sure you’re up for it?”
“I hung out with a drug dealer, remember?”
26
Uncovered
Stracciato lives on the top two floors of an old SoHo loft building. As we ascend the steep, uneven stairs of the former warehouse, my stomach clenches and I smooth my coat against me. Damien fills me in on the legendary porn king. How he dislikes condo and co-op buildings, presided over by doormen, where your every move is tracked. And that he sold his apartment uptown to live more uninhibitedly in SoHo.
The door opens to a sprawling space with hardly a si
ngle wall. The modern design, in tones of brown, slate gray, and black, screams with jagged masculinity. The room is sectioned off by various arrangements of couches and chairs. The low lighting obscures things even more, as if he wants things to be hidden, as slow, clubby lounge music wafts through the space.
In the center stands what must be many an evening’s main attraction: a gleaming metallic stripper pole.
“Nice,” I say, turning to Damien.
“What’s wrong with having a stripper pole in the middle of your living room?” he says quietly, in his sweet sarcastic tone. “It’s great when granny and gramps come to visit, too—keeps them steady on their way to the kitchen.”
“And of course, it’s cleaned on a regular basis, I’m sure.” I shudder to think what’s been on it.
Small groups of people cluster on the various couches. A few guests play pool at a table in the corner. Near us, a bunch of guys sit around while a girl in a micro-dress half hanging off her shoulder wobble-dances, teetering on sky-high platform heels.
A short, stocky man with plaster-colored skin and a creepy sheen of sweat on his forehead comes striding up to us with his hand out. “Damien, you made it. So glad you could come.”
“And who is this lovely gem?” he says, turning to me with an unpleasant smile, looking me up and down, appraising me like a piece of meat.
Heat flames into my cheeks, and I feel overcome with awkwardness.
“I’m Bob.” He holds out his hand.
“Hi, Bob. Nice to meet you,” I say haltingly, trying to process this odd creature of the night.
“This is Anna. Anna Starr,” Damien cuts in, rescuing me as he gently wraps his arm around my waist. “Thanks for having us.”
“The name suits you well, Ms. Starr,” says Bob, as he continues to leer. “Well, mi casa es su casa. Make yourselves at home. We’re all hanging out. Grab a drink, a seat, and do as you please,” he says, smiling again, lingering too long and then nodding at Damien.