Glamorama (5 page)

“Alison, those two little shits tried to kill me,” I point out as she jumps up and wraps her legs around my waist.

“Mr. and Mrs. Chow
aren’t
little shits, baby.” She clamps her mouth onto mine as I stumble with her toward the bedroom. Once there she falls to her knees, rips open my jeans and proceeds to expertly give me head, deep-throating in an unfortunately practiced way, grabbing my ass so hard I have to pry one of her hands loose. I take a last drag off the cigarette that I’m still holding, look around for a place to stub it out, find a half-empty Snapple bottle, drop in what’s left of the Marlboro, hear it hiss.

“Slow down, Alison, you’re moving too fast,” I’m mumbling.

She pulls my dick out of her mouth and, looking up at me, says in a low, “sexy” voice, “Urgency is my specialty, baby.”

She suddenly gets up, drops the robe and lies back on the bed, spreading her legs, pushing me down onto a floor littered with random issues of WWDs, my right knee crumpling a back-page photo of Alison and Damien and Chloe and me at Naomi Campbell’s birthday party, sitting in a cramped booth at Doppelganger’s, and then I’m nibbling at a small tattoo on the inside of a muscular thigh and the moment my tongue touches her she starts coming—once, twice, three times. Knowing where this will not end up, I jerk off a little until I’m almost coming and then I think, Oh screw it, I don’t really have time for this, so I just fake it, moaning loudly, my head between her legs, movement from my right arm giving the impression from where she lies that I’m actually doing something. The music in the background is mid-period Duran Duran. Our rendezvous spots have included the atrium at Remi, room 101 at the Paramount, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum.

I climb onto the bed and lie there, pretending to pant. “Baby, where did you learn to give head like that? Sotheby’s? Oh man.” I reach over for a cigarette.

“So wait. That’s it?” She lights a joint, sucks in on it so deeply that half of it turns to ash. “What about you?”

“I’m happy.” I yawn. “Just as long as you don’t bring out that, um, leather harness and Sparky the giant butt plug.”

I get off the bed and pull my jeans and Calvins up and move over to the window, where I lift a venetian blind. Down on Park, between 79th and 80th, is a black Jeep with two of Damien’s goons sitting in it, reading the new issue of what looks like
Interview
with Drew Barrymore on the cover, and one looks like a black Woody Harrelson and the other like a white Damon Wayans.

Alison knows what I’m seeing and from the bed says, “Don’t worry, I have to meet Grant Hill for a drink at Mad.61. They’ll follow and then
you
can escape.”

I flop onto the bed, flip on Nintendo, reach for the controls and start to play Super Mario Bros.

“Damien says that Julia Roberts
is
coming and so is Sandra Bullock,” Alison says vacantly. “Laura Leighton and Halle Berry and Dalton James.” She takes another hit off the joint and hands it to me. “I saw Elle Macpherson at the Anna Sui show and she says she’ll be there for the dinner.” She’s flipping through a copy of
Detour
with Robert Downey, Jr., on the cover, legs spread, major crotch shot. “Oh, and so is Scott Wolf.”

“Shhh, I’m playing,” I tell her. “Yoshi’s eaten four gold coins and he’s trying to find the fifth. I need to concentrate.”

“Oh my god, who gives a shit,” Alison sighs. “We’re dealing with a fat midget who rides a dinosaur and saves his girlfriend from a pissed-off gorilla? Victor, get serious.”

“It’s
not
his girlfriend. It’s Princess Toadstool. And it’s
not
a gorilla,” I stress. “It’s Lemmy Koopa of the evil Koopa clan. And baby, as usual, you’re missing the point.”

“Please enlighten me.”

“The whole point of Super Mario Bros. is that it mirrors life.”

“I’m following.” She checks her nails. “God knows why.”

“Kill or be killed.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Time is running out.”

“Gotcha.”

“And in the end, baby, you … are … alone.”

“Right.” She stands up. “Well, Victor, that really captures the spirit of our relationship, honey.” She disappears into a closet bigger than
the bedroom. “If you had to be interviewed by
Worth
magazine on the topic of Damien’s Nintendo stock, you’d want to kill Yoshi too.”

“I guess this is all just beyond the realm of your experience,” I murmur. “Huh?”

“What are you doing tonight for dinner?” she calls out from the closet.

“Why? Where’s Damien?”

“In Atlantic City. So the two of us can go out since I’m sure Chloe is très exhausted from all dat wittle modeling she had to do today.”

“I can’t,” I call back. “I’ve got to get to bed early. I’m skipping dinner. I’ve got to go over—oh shit—seating arrangements.”

“Oh, but baby, I want to go to Nobu tonight,” she whines from the closet. “I want a baby shrimp tempura roll.”

“You
are
a baby shrimp tempura roll,” I whine back.

The phone rings, the machine picks up, just new Portishead, then a beep.

“Hi, Alison, it’s Chloe calling back.” I roll my eyes. “Amber and Shalom and I have to do something for Fashion TV at the Royalton and then I’m having dinner with Victor at Bowery Bar at nine-thirty. I’m so so tired … did shows all day. Okay, I guess you’re not there. Talk to you soon—oh yeah, you have a pass backstage for Todd’s show tomorrow. Bye-bye.” The machine clicks off.

Silence from the closet, then, low and laced with fury,
“Seating
arrangements? You—have—to—go—to—bed—
early
?”

“You can’t keep me in your penthouse,” I say. “I’m going back to my plow.”

“You’re having dinner with
her
?” she screams.

“Honey, I had no idea.”

Alison walks out of the closet holding a Todd Oldham wraparound dress in front of her and waits for my reaction, showing it off: not-so-basic black-slash-beige, strapless, Navajo-inspired and neon quilted.

“That’s a Todd Oldham, baby,” I finally say.

“I’m wearing it tomorrow night.” Pause. “It’s an
original,”
she whispers seductively, eyes glittering. “I’m gonna make your little girlfriend
look like shit!”

Alison reaches over and slaps the controls out of my hand and turns on a Green Day video and dances over to the Vivienne Tam-designed
mirror, studying herself holding the dress in it, and then completes a halfhearted swirl, looking very happy but also very stressed.

I check my nails. It’s so cold in this apartment that frost accumulates on the windows. “Is it just me or am I getting chilly in here?”

Alison holds the dress up one more time, squeals maniacally and rushes back into the closet. “What did you say, baby?”

“Did you know vitamins strengthen your nails?”

“Who told you that, baby?” she calls out.

“Chloe did,” I mutter, biting at a hangnail.

“That poor baby. Oh my god, she’s so stupid.”

“She just got back from the MTV awards. She had a nervous breakdown before it, y’know, so be
reasonable.”

“Major,” Alison calls out. “Her smack days are behind her, I take it.”

“Just be patient. She’s very unstable,” I say. “And yes, her smack days
are
behind her.”

“No help from you, I’m sure.”

“Hey, she got a huge amount of help from me,” I say, sitting up, paying more attention now. “If it wasn’t for me she might be dead, Alison.”

“If it wasn’t for you, pea brain, she might not have shot up the junk in the first fucking place.”

“She didn’t ‘shoot’ anything,” I stress. “It was a purely nasal habit.” Pause, check my fingernails again. “She’s just very unstable right now.”

“What? She gets a blackhead and wants to kill herself?”

“Hey, who wouldn’t?” I sit up a little more.

“No Vacancy. No Vacancy. No Vac—”

“Axl Rose and Prince both wrote songs about her, may I remind you.”

“Yeah, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and ‘Let’s Go Crazy.’” Alison walks out of the closet wrapped in a black towel and waves me off. “I know, I know, Chloe was born to model.”

“Do you think your jealousy’s giving me a hard-on?”

“No, only my boyfriend does that.”

“Hey, no way do I want to get it on with Damien.”

“Jesus. As usual, you’re so literal-minded.”

“Oh god, your boyfriend’s a total crook. A blowhard.”

“My boyfriend is the only reason, my little himbo, that
you
are in business.”

“That’s bullshit,” I shout. “I’m on the cover of
YouthQuake
magazine this month.”

“Exactly.” Alison suddenly relents and moves over to the bed and sits down next to me, gently taking my hand. “Victor, you auditioned for all three ‘Real World’s, and MTV rejected you
all three times.”
She pauses sincerely. “What does that tell you?”

“Yeah, but I’m one fucking phone call away from Lorne Michaels.”

Alison studies my face, my hand still in hers, and smiling, she says, “Poor Victor, you should see just how handsome and dissatisfied you look right now.”

“A hip combo,” I mutter sullenly.

“It’s nice that you think so,” she says vacantly.

“Looking like some deformed schmuck and suicidal’s better?” I tell her. “Christ, Alison, get your fucking priorities straightened out.”

“My priorities straightened out?” she asks, stunned, letting go of my hand and placing her own to her chest. “My priorities straightened out?” She laughs like a teenager.

“Don’t you understand?” I get up from the bed, lighting a cigarette, pacing. “Shit.”

“Victor, tell me what you’re so worried about.”

“You really want to know?”

“Not really but yes.” She walks over to the armoire and pulls out a coconut, which I totally take in stride.

“My fucking DJ’s disappeared. That’s what.” I inhale so hard on the Marlboro I have to put it out. “No one knows where the hell my DJ is.”

“Mica’s gone?” Alison asks. “Are you sure she’s not in rehab?”

“I’m not sure of anything,” I mutter.

“That’s for sure, baby,” she says faux-soothingly, falling onto the bed, looking for something, then her voice changes and she yells, “And you
lie!
Why didn’t you tell me you were in South Beach last weekend?”

“I wasn’t in South Beach last weekend, and I wasn’t at the fucking Calvin Klein show either.” Finally the time has come: “Alison, we’ve got to talk about something—”

“
Don’t
say it.” She drops the coconut into her lap and holds up both hands, then notices the joint on her nightstand and grabs it. “I know, I know,” she intones dramatically. “There
is
a compromising photo of you with a girl”—she bats her eyes cartoonishly—“supposedly moi,
yada yada yada, that’s going to fuck up your relationship with that dunce you date, but it will also”—and now, mock-sadly, lighting the joint—“fuck up the relationship with the dunce
I
date too. So”—she claps her hands—“rumor is it’s running in either the
Post
, the
Trib
or the
News
tomorrow. I’m working on it. I have people all over it. This is my A-number-one priority. So don’t worry”—she inhales, exhales—“that beautiful excuse for a head of yours about it.” She spots what she was looking for, lost in the comforter, and grabs it: a screwdriver.

“Why, Alison? Why did you have to attack me at a
movie premiere
?” I wail.

“It takes two, you naughty boy.”

“Not when you’ve knocked me unconscious and are sitting on my face.”

“If I was sitting on your face no one will ever know it was you.” She shrugs, gets up, grabs the coconut. “And then we’ll all be saved—la la la la.”

“That’s not when the picture was taken, baby.” I follow her into the bathroom, where she punches four holes in the coconut with the screwdriver and then leans over the Vivienne Tam-designed sink and pours the milk from the shell over her head.

“I know, I agree.” She tosses the husk into a wastebasket and massages the milk into her scalp. “Damien finds out and you’ll be working in a White Castle.”

“And you’ll be paying for your own abortions, so spare me.” I raise my arms helplessly. “Why do I always have to remind you that we shouldn’t be seeing each other? If this photo gets printed it’ll be time for us to
wake up.”

“If this picture gets printed we’ll just say it was a weak moment.” She whips her head back and wraps her hair in a towel. “Doesn’t that sound good?”

“Jesus, baby, you’ve got people out there watching your apartment.”

“I know.” She beams into the mirror. “Isn’t it cute?”

“Why do I always need to remind you that I’m basically still with, y’know,
Chloe
and
you’re
still with Damien?”

She turns away from the mirror and leans against the sink. “If you dump me, baby, you’ll be in a
lot
more trouble.” She heads toward the closet.

“Why is that?” I ask, following her. “What do you mean, Alison?”

“Oh, let’s just say rumor has it that you’re looking at a new space.” She pauses, holds up a pair of shoes. “And we both know that if Damien knew that you were even
contemplating
your own pathetic club-slash-eatery while you’re currently being paid to run Damien’s own pathetic club-slash-eatery, therefore insulting Damien’s warped sense of loyalty, the term ‘you’re fucked’ comes vaguely to mind.” She drops the shoes, leaves the closet.

“I’m not,” I insist, following her. “I swear I’m not. Oh my god, who told you that?”

“Are you denying it?”

“N-no. I mean, I
am
denying it. I mean …” I stand there.

“Oh never mind.” Alison drops the robe and puts on some panties. “Three o’clock tomorrow?”

“I’m swamped tomorrow, baby, so spare me,” I stammer. “Now, who told you I’m looking at a new space?”

“Okay—three o’clock on Monday.”

“Why three o’clock? Why Monday?”

“Damien’s having his unit cleaned.” She tosses on a blouse.

“His unit?”

“His”—she whispers—“extensions.”

“Damien has—extensions?” I ask. “He’s the grossest guy, baby. He is so evil.”

She strides over to the armoire, sifts through a giant box of earrings. “Oh baby, I saw Tina Brown at 44 today at lunch and she’s coming tomorrow sans Harry and so is Nick Scotti, who—I know, I know—is a has-been but just looks
great.”