Chapter 23 Lily #2
Fuck off, I texted Matthew, as I climbed down from my barstool.
But I was still thinking about what words I would use to tell him about this experience.
The look of awe and disgust and finally respect coming into his face.
And it would answer Clara’s prophecy: I would hit rock bottom.
I would fall again before I could rise. The bad fate would buy the good.
I pictured all of my misery reversing suddenly and absolutely, like the tipping of a seesaw.
The men lay bills on the bar and led us back through the floor, toward the eastern tower.
Clara edged closer. “Are you sure about this?” she whispered.
“What? You do it. It’s like you said, no big deal. Under control.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“So what did you mean?”
In front of us the men were talking, too—probably about money.
Who could pay for us. How much we would cost them.
Whether they should drop us and head to a strip joint instead.
What was my value, to the dollar? I had wondered this, too, after Matthew’s show, when I read that it had sold out.
A piece of me had been in the offing then, too.
I suddenly had so many questions for Clara.
Would the money always feel paltry, the amount too low?
What did she do if someone didn’t want to pay?
Did she ever sleep with anyone simply because she wanted to?
Or was she ruined for anything like genuine lust?
“It’s harder than that. It takes a piece of you away. And you don’t need to do anything with these guys. You should go. Before we get into the elevator with them.”
“I’m not leaving you alone.”
“It’s fine, Lily. I’ll be okay.”
I nodded at her fingers. “Let’s both leave.”
“I need the money, remember? If I’m going to stop doing this one day, I have to get out of here. It’s a means to an end.”
“Funny, I feel the same way.”
“Stop trying to prove a point you don’t need to prove!” Her voice was loud. The men heard and turned around.
“Everything okay, girls?” Luke asked. He was swaying.
“Yeah, or do you need to kiss and make up?” Rob stepped closer to me. “Bad girls get spanked, you know. Have you been a bad girl?” I tried to imagine what it would be like, a man I hated putting his hands on me. How much different would it feel from being touched by someone I cared about?
“We’re fine, aren’t we, Clara?”
“I thought you said your name was Amanda …” Rob slurred.
“You know what? We have to go. You two have a good time,” Clara said.
“But I thought we were all having fun?” Luke put his hand on my arm. “Come on. It will be even more fun upstairs. We can keep the party going.”
“Come on, Amanda,” I said, imitating Clara when she flirted.
“You’re hurting my feelings.” She bit the inside of her cheek, shook her head.
I wished I could say I felt dread as we approached the bank of elevators, the gold doors throwing back our reflections, but I was empty, cold.
I could watch as Luke extended a hand toward me, grabbed my ass, as though it were happening to another person.
I tried to think of the title Matthew would give this version of me.
Lily Groped. Then I thought of my painter—how the artist would have captured the queasy turn to my mouth, the pallor of my face—but I pushed the image away.
We got into the elevator and Luke pressed the button for the twelfth floor. We were quiet as it rose. The cables squeaked. The car groaned.
Inside the room, two duffel bags were open on the floor, and I saw the sleeve of a Hawaiian shirt peeking out of one of them: attire for tomorrow’s trip to the Swim Club—these guys were walking clichés.
I tried to get Clara to meet my eyes, but she wouldn’t look at me anymore.
Rob made his way to the bathroom. I hadn’t really believed him about the coke until I heard him cutting it, the scrape of a credit card on the marble vanity and the wet sound of his greedy snorting.
Luke came toward me, stroked my back. Clara was standing with her arms crossed, out of his reach.
“Come on, sweetheart. Show your girlfriend here that you’re friends again after your little fight. Kiss and make up.”
Clara raised her eyes. She was glowering at me and I could feel the heat rising from her body.
Luke stepped away from me and pulled her by her belt loop.
I still had the feeling that none of it was actually happening, that there wouldn’t really be consequences for what we had set into motion.
This summer had long since canted into the surreal.
With the liquor, it was easier to tell myself that it was all part of a dream, and when I woke everything would slowly be neutralized by the coming of the day, that I would try to remember the details—the meaty, warm hands on me, the rum breath, the almost melancholy look of the Hawaiian shirt peeking out of the suitcase—and they would already have faded away.
Rob returned from the bathroom, grabbed my wrist, and pulled. The effects of that last drink were coming on and I stumbled a little as he pulled me.
I thought about what it would be like to sleep with this man for money—surely I had been underneath enough bodies in college to know what it was like to be an absence, really, during sex.
A man sweating and thrusting but also oblivious to me.
Oblivious to anything but his own pleasure.
But I hadn’t thought that he would want to kiss me.
That his tongue would jab at mine, and how the force and the taste of it would make me feel sick.
Strangely cool. Rum-soaked. The only thoughts I had now were stop, wait.
I pulled away from him and looked behind me, to Clara.
Luke had already pulled her shorts off, and she was in his lap in the chair against the wall.
She looked so small against his big body.
“You don’t like that? Fine,” Rob said. There was anger in his voice.
Was there anyone angrier than a man rejected?
Than a man who had seen repulsion on your face when he had expected to find admiration, lust?
Was there any limit to what that kind of man could do to you, the ways he felt entitled to retaliate?
Rob moved his hand to my shoulder and pressed me toward the ground while his other hand reached for his fly.
Then his fingers were in my hair. He wound them close to the scalp and pulled.
And for a moment, I tried to imagine it, to hover above the scene and wonder, what would Matthew title this one?
Lily Punished. Lily on Her Knees. Lily, Hair Pulled.
He was drunk enough that he was having trouble with the zipper on his jeans, grunting and swearing in one indistinguishable string of obscenities. I rubbed my scalp.
“What’s a matter, didn’t like that? Can talk the talk but can’t walk the walk, huh?”
“I don’t want to do this,” I said. But he was already lifting my dress. I tried to scream but it came out in a strange trickle of sound.
“Hey, stop that!” Clara stood up from Luke’s lap.
“You bitches tricked us.” I tried to break free, but his hand tightened on my arm.
“I said let her go.” Luke rose from his chair, a ridiculous erection tenting his shorts.
“What the hell?” Rob said. “What kind of customer service is this, huh? We pay for what we want, you give it.”
“Just go easy, man,” Luke said. “This is supposed to be fun.”
Clara reached for her shorts, stepped into them.
I thought for a second she was going to put them on and leave.
It would probably be what I deserved, I thought, after instigating this.
Insisting, thinking of it all as an adventure, a kind of game, that I could make into something else—a wild story that I would tell at a bar in a few years.
But then she fingered something in her pocket.
I saw a flash and thought, ridiculously, that it was a piece of jewelry, that she was going to attempt a bribe.
It wasn’t until she had stepped closer to Rob with the blade extended that I understood that she had a knife.
“What do you think you’re doing with that, little girl?” He reached for Clara.
“Get away from her. We’re leaving.”
Rob laughed like a man who had nothing to lose. “No, princess. I’d rather see you try something with that. I can play rougher than you think.” Clara cut her eyes in my direction and a second later she was lunging.
“FUCK!” Rob screamed, and let go of me, moving his hands to his leg. “You stupid little bitch. Are you insane? You fucking crazy bitch!”
“Lily! Let’s go!” The knife was still in her hand, shimmering with blood.
I turned behind me to see Rob holding his calf, blood dripping into his socks.
I grabbed my purse. Rob stood before us, his eyes glazed, his mouth hanging open.
We ran out into the hallway, toward the elevator.
I punched the down arrow over and over with my fist.
“Too slow,” Clara said. “Stairs.” I followed her around the corner to a metal door, pushed through it, and we plunged down, stumbling into the turns of the staircase, the acoustics of the stairwell magnifying everything so that the sound of our pounding feet boomed around us.
We didn’t stop running until we reached the bottom, both of our chests heaving.
“This way,” she said. I could feel my heartbeat in my ears, my breath catching shallow in my chest. It was more than the running—I had the same shaky feeling in my hands as when I had an anxiety attack.
No, I thought, please not now. My sense of proportion was off, and the hallway seemed to press in on us, constricting to a pinpoint far, far away.
No, I told myself more firmly. You are stronger than that.
You don’t have to let this happen. My breathing stayed shallow, but the pounding in my temples eased up, and I followed Clara to the back door near the main lobby.