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  * * *

  “Did you go to work today? Did you make a lot of money?”

  “Yeah,” he says.

  There is the softest smell of shit as I lick the art guy’s asshole.

  * * *

  “How do you do it?” the ex-Ranger says.

  “Do what?”

  “Fuck for money.”

  We’re lying flat on our backs on his futon. I have a standard thing I say. In Dubai there was an ex-Ranger, but not a Sheikh, regularly.

  “Heroin. Coke is for stripping,” I say.

  * * *

  Earth’s largest flower is a parasite that blooms fifteen pounds of petals that look like rotting flesh. When it is most alive it smells dead. I think I’m the other way. If the stain on my ceiling is a person it is definitely a man. He is wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. He thinks what we have is a symbiotic relationship.

  * * *

  I try to go to the Polish diner. Then I try to go to Duane Reade. I go into the bodega and look at the guy.

  “Why is everything closed?” I say.

  “Christmas,” he says.

  * * *

  I eat a bag of Bugles. I snort a bag of HERMÈS. They text me.

  “Where is my Christmas present, what the fuck?” I text to all of them.

  Then I don’t reply again.

  * * *

  We were on the beach. It was Eid, the first one we spent together. There were fireworks. There were irritating kids everywhere.

  “My sons will never be that misbehaved,” the Sheikh said.

  “Your sons?” I said.

  I laughed.

  “Yeah, when I get married I’m going to have twenty sons.”

  He grinned at me. My face must have betrayed me. It was dark so he kissed me.

  “Baby, you and me are just fantasy,” he said.

  15

  It is open again, the Polish diner. I order a stuffed cabbage to go. I smile at the blue woman and show my teeth.

  “Happy holidays,” I say.

  She just nods at me.

  “Eight dollars,” she says.

  * * *

  I text them all to find out when they will be back in the city.

  “Next week,” they all text, except ER.

  * * *

  The ex-Ranger’s at the cop bar. He flips the hair off my shoulder.

  “Do you hate these forced holidays?” I say.

  He beams at me.

  “Where are the drugs?” he says.

  * * *

  We live in his bed that is not even a bed, combining and recombining into different shapes but staying one thing. I scratch the ex-Ranger’s back. The rhythm saves me from being sick.

  “People think what I do is easy. Actually it’s exhausting,” I say.

  “I don’t think people think it’s easy. I think they think it’s lazy.”

  I keep doing too much so we can both be high.

  * * *

  We rub our itching noses.

  “Stop,” I say.

  “Stop,” he says.

  * * *

  He kisses my pussy forever but I can’t feel a thing. All my nerves are dull. I make my inner thighs shudder. I fake it to make him feel good, not to ensure I get my full rate. I say his name.

  * * *

  “Unaffected,” he says.

  “What?”

  “Everyone else is walking around like they’re unaffected.”

  His radiators rattle and his voice is hoarse like mine.

  “Not you,” the ex-Ranger says.

  I imagine me in a mall in Dubai and him in the mountains of Afghanistan, concurrently.

  “Uninfected,” I say.

  “Okay.”

  I imagine us every day moving in different, useless formations.

  “They’re walking around like they’re uninfected. Everyone else.”

  * * *

  He squeezes our clammy bodies together.

  “You make me feel lucky,” he says.

  I feel a rush of guilt that is another kind of nauseous. I should go, I think. I mean it but I don’t leave.

  * * *

  The ex-Ranger is a security guard at the Bank of America Tower, a skyscraper that didn’t use to exist. He spends his day staring through a glass wall at the street.

  “You are fucking me on NYE,” is a text on my phone from CBG.

  “I have to go home,” I say.

  As soon as I stand up I have to run to the bathroom. I puke twice in the ex-Ranger’s toilet and my throat burns.

  * * *

  Like New York, winter, when you are away from it for so long, can become an abstract thing, a thing that could solve problems. My skin is so dry it’s peeling off. I cover my whole face in Aquaphor. I slather my thigh in vitamin E. Not even the ex-Ranger has asked about the scars. I don’t own a spoon. I stick my stuffed-cabbage fork in my yogurt.

  * * *

  Maybe he thought he knew what he was doing. But the man who tried to kill me missed my femoral artery.

  “You should go home. What is wrong with America?” the nurse said.

  * * *

  It’s late. Duane Reade is closed. Walgreens is open. They have a self-service frozen-yogurt station. They have a selection of toppings. The chocolate pretzels are jammed. I find the security guard and look at him helplessly. Before I leave I steal a lot of spoons.

  * * *

  I hear the other girls screaming. There is screaming everywhere. It must be midnight. I put my foot up on the wall of the bathroom stall and stare at my sparkly tights and drink my champagne for a while.

  “I had to kiss somebody else,” the calf’s brain guy says.

  “Please think of how I can make it up to you,” I say.

  16

  The calf’s brain guy and I both have small spotted quail’s eggs. They are already cracked in half. We pour them into our ramen.

  “I’m going to drop my napkin,” he says.

  When he looks under the table I open my legs. I have chopsticks in one hand, swirling runny goo into my broth. With the other I play with my clit. He sits back up. I lick my fingers.

  “I’m going to piss on you later.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  * * *

  We sit on the benches across from MoMA smoking cigarettes and watching clenched people pass.

  “I remember when most women in New York had frizzy hair.”

  “I grew up in Greenwich. Everybody has the same hair always,” the art guy says.

  I turn my freezing face to his. I kick him with my bootie.

  “That was touching,” I say.

  * * *

  “Who were you with on New Year’s?”

  “What day of the week was that?” I say.

  The ex-Ranger’s chewing a toothpick. He looks at the bartender and points the toothpick at me.

  “Cherry Bomb for her. She’s exhausted,” he says.

  * * *

  I draw my finger down the center of the ex-Ranger’s face.

  “I’m not lazy,” I say.

  “I am,” he says.

  * * *

  As soon as I walk into the gym I see the TODAY girl. She is using a machine that is rowing in place.

  “Hey,” she says.

  I have my headphones in and I walk past her like I didn’t hear. In the yoga class we are supposed to be thinking nothing. I’m thinking I can feel the liveness of everyone in this room, flat on our backs, in tight new-year rows, and it is a very strong vibration.

  * * *

  After I made a man come many times in one night I got what I thought was a great compliment.

  “You are life,” he said.

  It made me feel purposeful.

  * * *

  I crawl across the hotel bed. The guy who buys me things is sitting up with his legs wide. I stand up on my knees and put my hands on my hips.

  “What?” he says.

  “You haven’t bought me anything today.”

  He slaps me har
d across the face.

  * * *

  The junk-bond guy picks up my furry purse from the living room floor. He weighs it in his hand.

  “What’s in here?” he says.

  “A gun. This is a dangerous business,” I say.

  * * *

  My Christmas gifts are mostly cash. I like the ex-Ranger more because he got me nothing. I text DG.

  “15 MIN,” DG texts.

  I watch a Portuguese movie that’s as at rest as a painting. I text DG.

  “15 MIN,” DG texts.

  * * *

  “Who comes up with the stamps?” I say.

  “Me,” the delivery guy says.

  I shut the door in his face. It’s a picture of a passenger plane plus DRONE.

  17

  A pattern is not like an echo. Each subsequent repetition is not less than what came before it.

  * * *

  The hot tub in the floor is full of naked girls. They look stocked, though it is meant to be spontaneous. The water looks green. Like it’s infected, I think, and they’re pretending not to notice. I’m standing at the edge with the calf’s brain guy. I can’t hear anything. He says something.

  “You’re right,” I say.

  He moves his drink to his other hand and threads his fingers through mine.

  * * *

  “Look, my new coke guy has business cards.”

  He shows me. It says RON’S LIMOUSINE CAR SERVICE 9 P.M. TO 5 A.M.

  “That’s funny,” I say.

  The art guy has already told me he’s been up for three days. I think about how he’s never going to come.

  “Take off everything,” the art guy says.

  I grab the hem of my dress and peel it over my head.

  * * *

  “I’m going to come,” the art guy says.

  I roll my eyes at the city. My hands are pressed against his glass wall and more than I see the Con Ed stacks I see my face, superimposed.

  * * *

  At one point I get a lot of satisfaction from tweezing my eyebrows and at another point it’s from flossing my teeth. Fucking cocaine, I think.

  * * *

  We were in the bathroom and then we were in the bedroom. We were in the kitchen and then we were in the living room. I’m on my hands and knees on his shiny floor. I need to smoke. I need to pee.

  “I’m going to come,” the art guy says.

  * * *

  I come out of the bathroom and the zombie girl is standing in the art guy’s kitchen.

  “You remember Louisa?”

  “No,” I say.

  * * *

  The zombie girl crouches at my feet and licks my pussy. I squeeze my tits and stare in the eyes of the art guy. He’s on his black couch, frantically jerking off. I refuse to come.

  * * *

  I’m out on the balcony with the zombie girl. She pops a cube of bubblegum in her mouth, though she’s still smoking a cigarette.

  “Shit,” she says.

  Inside, the art guy finally gets his projector working. Speeding cars flash onto the white wall. It’s specially painted to sharpen the picture. He went on and on about it one time. In the glass room he shoots his arms up. He’s naked. The zombie girl turns her head back to me.

  “Barnard is really expensive.”

  “I don’t care,” I say.

  * * *

  It was purely for financial reasons that he funded the insurgency. It was an investment in future governments where he could control the purse strings. It was about doubling his money like anything else. The Sunni thing was just a cover, or a tool, or a manipulation. He went on and on about it, this coked-up Saudi. I don’t think the other girl was listening. I was listening. Doubles were competitive and I had to be the best.

  * * *

  The zombie girl is gone and I’m still here. I look at the art guy’s dick. I hate it. I put it in my mouth.

  * * *

  I text GBT and JBG to cancel. I text ER: “I know I wasn’t at the bar. I was at work.”

  * * *

  The art guy shows up in the mirror behind me. He bends me over at the waist and sticks his dick in me. He comes almost immediately and kind of softly. He drops his head on my back, breathing hard. I put my hands down on the lid of the toilet and let him lie there for a while.

  * * *

  Coke is feeling everything. Even feeling one thing is unbearable. On my couch I look at the twin airplanes on my kneecaps, where the two DRONE bags are flat. For a while the earth might drift after the black dwarf that used to be the sun. I see the Sheikh point his finger and follow its trail.

  18

  It is snowing again. I wander Midtown at night in the muteness.

  * * *

  I steel myself while the nail girl massages my feet. When we get to hands I ask her what to do. She says letters, like knuckle tattoos.

  “Two four-letter words or one eight-letter word. That’s best.”

  “Okay, wall and door,” I say.

  After a second the nail girl laughs like she is truly happy.

  * * *

  At the Polish diner the blue woman is taking orders. The new waitress is nowhere. I decide to stay. I sit at a table and wait for her. For a while she ignores me.

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you remember me?” I say.

  Her eyes are squinty like mine and when she narrows them they seem to go away. Briefly it’s like a bluebird died on her face. She flicks her hand at me.

  “I see a lot of people,” she says.

  I flick my hand at her.

  “Bigos,” I say.

  * * *

  When I was a little girl my mother dressed me up in outlandish outfits and walked me down the street. Sometimes older girls laughed at me.

  “They’re jealous of your confidence,” my mother said.

  They’re jealous of my confidence, I thought. Confused because it was not mine, it was hers.

  * * *

  On the train platform all the women look at me hurtfully and I know I look good today.

  * * *

  For the sake of the calf’s brain guy I’m pretending like I’ve never been to this play. I go off alone again. The top floor is the infirmary. There are rows of hospital beds. I take off my mask and lie down. It’s cool and there is the ambient sound of distant wailing. I wake up surrounded. People with the same white face are staring down at me. They are waiting silently like I’m one of the actors and they are expecting me to lead them somewhere. They want me to advance the story. If I just sat up they would follow.

  “Guys, I’m going to lie here for a little while longer,” I say.

  * * *

  The art guy is at that coke point where he’s talking about his father, who is his boss, the manager of the hedge fund.

  “He thinks I’m a drug addict.”

  We both sniff up our drip reflexively.

  “You should fuck me on his desk,” I say.

  The art guy laughs wildly. I laugh, too. I feel jittery. I want to change locations. I jump off his crooked balcony onto AstroTurf.

  “Let’s go now.”

  “Not now,” he says.

  * * *

  The ex-Ranger runs his thumbs over my fingernails.

  “WALL and DOOR?”

  “It’s an inside joke,” I say.

  “What’s the joke?”

  I jerk my hands away.

  “You don’t get to know that,” I say.

  * * *

  I come out of the bathroom and the guy who buys me things is getting dressed. A pale blue Tiffany box is on the hotel bed. I suddenly remember I didn’t see him last week, that he must think I’m pissed about some unknown thing. I think I could ask him for something else. He looks sideways from knotting his tie.

  “Today was Bonus Day,” he says.

  * * *

  I sit on the edge of the baby coffin to pull on my thigh-highs. I’ve already told the art guy where I grew up so I answer the junk-bond guy’s question.


  “Sacred Heart, on scholarship.”

  “I went to Collegiate, full tuition,” the junk-bond guy says.

  “I get to ask you something. Not now but later,” I say.

  “Deal.”

  * * *

  I dig my nails into my legs until my eyes open.

  19

  In the bathroom of this restaurant I suck the dick of the calf’s brain guy. I wet my finger and swirl it indolently around his asshole. I don’t ask what his bonus was even though I want to know.

  * * *

  I look at a life-size woman sewn from inside-out coyote skin. I look at the white card: COYOTE’S SUIT TO DISGUISE HIMSELF AS ME. The next booth is only tinfoil animals.

  “They’re solid all the way through. The artist just keeps wrapping and wrapping. He starts out with a whole room full of tinfoil, like a whole warehouse, and he ends up with just this.”

  A gallery guy is talking to the art guy.

  “How much do they go for?” the art guy says.

  I wander over to a wall of pinned-up baby dolls. They have knitted face masks and doors cut into their stomachs with other, tinier babies hidden inside. I feel surrounded by sickness. The art guy comes up behind me. He puts his two palms on my ass.

  “This is shit you shouldn’t fuck with, like those African fetish things you have to menstruate on every month or they’ll kill you,” I say.

  The art guy points across the art fair.

  “Those are over there.”

  * * *

  I wake up scared. I touch the futon beside me and there’s no one there. I find the ex-Ranger in his bathroom. He has shaving cream all over his face.

  “What are you doing?” I say.

  I squint at him. I took out my contacts because I felt safe and now I can’t see.

  “Shaving,” he says.

  In the sink are all the black cuttings of his beard. I’m worried about the shape of his chin. I’m worried he will no longer remind me of the Sheikh.

  “Why?”

  “I can’t sleep,” he says.

  * * *

  I met the Sheikh through the coked-up Saudi. He was at one of the parties. There was something cheap about him that I liked immediately.

  “You don’t look like you belong here.”

  He was at the sushi buffet only eating the cucumber rolls.

  “You do,” he said.

  * * *

  An ancient woman bumps into me. She’s wearing the same color lipstick as me, which is neon pink.