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  “Excuse you,” she says.

  “Cunt,” I say.

  We both look startled.

  * * *

  At his office the guy who buys me things has a private bathroom. He fucks me in front of his full-length mirror and it makes me technical. I calculate the tilt of my butt and tits. I adjust the angle of my head until my hair falls on my lower back and I am perfectly scooped out. The whole time I grin at him. Afterward I sit at his desk and look at the East River.

  “So what do you think?” he says.

  I shrug.

  “It’s not Goldman Sachs but there’s nothing wrong with this place.”

  * * *

  For the first time we’re lying on the living room couch. It’s chintzy and scentless and I’m looking at a two-man saw hanging on the wall above the mantel. It’s not exactly the same shade of red as the baby coffin.

  “Do you ever have to go into the office? Like when you start to wonder if this art is going to attack you?” I say.

  “Only for board meetings,” the junk-bond guy says.

  “Is it in Midtown? Do you have a view of the river?”

  “It is and we do.”

  * * *

  I wake up and it’s light outside. I wake up and it’s dark outside. Across two razed lots in the midst of construction I can see the 405 East Fourteenth building of Stuy Town, from street to roof, where I used to live. I don’t want to go outside where everything is moving too fast. The snow is the color of cigarette ash and I can’t wear any of my suede shoes.

  20

  The calf’s brain guy is eating calf’s brain again. It makes me feel tender toward him.

  “Okay, one month,” I say.

  The calf’s brain guy flips a shishito pepper on the electric grill before he looks at me.

  “I’m going to take your phone away.”

  I’m trying the Achilles tendon. I chew for a while and then I nod at him.

  * * *

  “15 MIN,” DG texts.

  I don’t text anyone else. I think it is better to disappear and come back and see who stays.

  * * *

  I request the Pierre because its gaudiness reminds me of the Middle East. I shut the gold curtains and sit on the white bed.

  * * *

  The calf’s brain guy tosses me a Wolford bag.

  “Put them on,” he says.

  The tights are black satin, back-seamed. I bend over in front of him and run my hands up the backs of my legs. I laugh.

  “I feel so slippery,” I say.

  * * *

  I get down on my knees, disoriented and groggy. I open my mouth for his cock. He stops me. He pulls my head up by the hair.

  “What are you not wearing?”

  I look at myself between the robe. I’m not wearing anything.

  “Tights,” the calf’s brain guy says.

  “Tights,” I say.

  I go find the tights.

  * * *

  He comes in the morning before work. He comes in the evening after work. The time all around is mine. I decide I will get up and go to the bathroom in fifteen minutes. I look at the clock on the nightstand and it is two hours later.

  * * *

  The calf’s brain guy’s suit has thin stripes. I run the toe of my tights up one line until I get to his butt. I think about the Qatari man who bought me for a year. I was grateful to him. He made it possible for me to wallow in my grief. The calf’s brain guy looks over his shoulder and smiles at me.

  * * *

  I shake my ass for him and drink out of the prosecco bottle. Sometimes he stops me to fuck me but then he sinks back into the armchair and jerks off again. I catch myself in the mirror, jiggling, two beats slower than the music, four beats, and I know me. I have yet to change.

  * * *

  The calf’s brain guy pushes the room service cart in front of me. He sits down in the armchair.

  “You want to watch me eat?”

  “Yes,” he says.

  I’m not hungry at all. I butter a piece of toast. He crosses his legs and sips from his coffee cup.

  “What are you going to do to me later?”

  “None of your business,” he says.

  I think of the next thing I should say.

  “How’s work? Are you merging or acquiring anything this week?”

  “Terrible. Yes.”

  “What did you get on Bonus Day?” I say.

  “None of your business either.”

  * * *

  I nick myself shaving and watch blood pour out of my ankle. I drop my foot in the bathwater so it will stop. When I get out I tape a cotton ball to my leg because I can’t find a Band-Aid. I do it instinctively. The body and brain are every second conniving to stay alive.

  * * *

  I hear the key card in the slot and scramble. I press my face to the carpet. I hear the calf’s brain guy come up to me. He kicks off his shoe. In the crack of my ass his sock foot is icy.

  “Good,” he says.

  * * *

  While he’s fucking me I look in his eyes. It is impossible to remember the first lie I ever told. I don’t know what it was but I know my mother believed it.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “For what?”

  “Now all I have to do all day is think about you.”

  He smirks.

  “You’re welcome,” the calf’s brain guy says.

  * * *

  In this dream the ex-Ranger is wearing the Sheikh’s white suit and he is standing in the middle of many different clubs, spliced together, in Dubai. Logically, the Sheikh was a twitchy wire and the ex-Ranger should be splitting his suit in two, but he’s not. I am myself.

  “What do you do?” I say.

  I open my eyes. The calf’s brain guy is standing over me.

  “Play with yourself,” he says.

  I touch him to make sure he’s really there.

  * * *

  I loll around on the bed and slide my slick satin legs one over the other. He never came back after he slaughtered his cow. I told myself I wasn’t waiting, that year with the Qatari man, but I was. I was waiting even after the man who tried to kill me. I roll myself in the covers and fantasize they are the arms of the ex-Ranger.

  * * *

  I sprawl on the floor of the shower while the calf’s brain guy pees on me. His piss is hot and acid like any person’s.

  * * *

  We share a hamburger. I sit on the edge of the bed and he sits in the armchair and we pass it back and forth over the hexagons of the carpet.

  “Why is that a thing with rich men?”

  “What?”

  “Pissing on girls,” I say.

  The calf’s brain guy shrugs.

  “Money gives you choices,” he says.

  * * *

  The calf’s brain guy was just here and now he’s here again. I stare at him. His face is in my face. I put my mouth on it.

  “Who’s the richest man you’ve ever fucked?” he says.

  I giggle at this game.

  * * *

  From the TV I order Hollywood movies. Something is always going to happen next until it’s not, which is the end. I keep hitting the button to see how much time is left. I have to finish a movie, even if I don’t like it, or I can’t stand myself. I lick ketchup off my tights.

  * * *

  “I called him the Sheikh.”

  “Who?” the calf’s brain guy says.

  “The richest man I ever fucked. Remember when you asked me that this morning?”

  I feel his face tense up. It’s in my tits.

  “He was like a prince or something?”

  “He pissed on me all the time,” I say.

  * * *

  His hand on my skull gets tight. I close my eyes. It’s true that there is a moment of suspense.

  “I think about you,” the calf’s brain guy says.

  His fist hits my face.

  * * *

  In the morning he doesn’t show. T
he sun is insipid. I eat a French fry and look at it through the sheer curtain. Winter was wearing me down and I don’t miss it. I do miss that futon with its thin mattress through which I could feel all the slats.

  * * *

  The nail girl has only the most basic shades.

  “Pick a color,” she says.

  “Clambake,” I say.

  I sit on the edge of the bed in the bathrobe and she sits on the other side of a folding table attached to a folding chair that she brought with her. She does not look at my black eye. But when she touches my hands I feel her compassion. I don’t say, “You know what it’s like,” and she also says nothing.

  “Go in my purse and take whatever you want.”

  “What?” she says.

  “For a tip.”

  I shake my nails at her.

  “You didn’t have gel. They’re still wet,” I say.

  * * *

  I ice my black eye with room-service ice: twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off. The nail girl only took five dollars, which was smart. Rich women do not hesitate to complain. I’m in this room so that’s what I am. Tonight it’s just me, no calf’s brain guy.

  * * *

  “What do you do?” I said.

  Because I was not in New York I could not ask right away. This was not even at the Saudi’s party. We were drinking long black coffees at one of Dubai’s Australian cafés.

  “I make bombs,” the Sheikh said.

  I laughed.

  “For the Saudi?”

  He never pissed on me, the Sheikh. He had no money.

  21

  The calf’s brain guy puts his hands on his hips.

  “You need to let the maid in here.”

  “Why?” I say.

  He puts his coat on again.

  “Let’s go downstairs to eat. Whatever that restaurant is. Where’s your dress?”

  I don’t like this.

  “I can’t leave the room. I have rules.”

  He claps his hands.

  “Get up,” he says.

  * * *

  On the way back up, the elevator attendant refers to me as the calf’s brain guy’s wife and I look at the back of his face like it might crack. It is just us. I laugh. He doesn’t react. He’s wearing gloves and when the doors open he turns over his white hand.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  I think I need my pussy waxed. I think that would make the calf’s brain guy happy.

  * * *

  The calf’s brain guy is rough with me. He drags me under the armpit. He holds me down by the neck and fucks me in the ass without any lube. The bathroom floor is wet.

  “Tell me to come,” he says.

  He’s angry.

  * * *

  We split a turkey club.

  “Did you hack my phone?” I say.

  “Why would I do that?” he says.

  We look at each other poker-faced. He lets me eat all the potato chips.

  * * *

  He told me it was good.

  “I’m a professional,” I said.

  His apartment was shitty. The singing of the muezzin was loud, close, dispelling the illusion I sometimes got that I wasn’t really in a Muslim country. I looked at him like he might get up but he stayed between my legs.

  “I’m an infidel,” the Sheikh said.

  * * *

  I haven’t seen the calf’s brain guy since last night. I soak my tights in the sink. I wheel out the old food cart. I make the bed. From room service I order ice cream and a bikini wax.

  “I’ll connect you to a spa we recommend,” the man says.

  “I’m not leaving this room,” I say.

  * * *

  I hear his key. I get just clear of where the door would hit me and sit on my ankles and put my hands on my knees like a pinup. The calf’s brain guy just stops himself from tripping over me.

  “Please fuck me,” I say.

  “Why else would I be here?” he says.

  * * *

  The ceiling of the Pierre is the smoothest paint job in the world. There is nothing on it embossed or painted or stained to interpret. I feel grateful. I run my fingers through his hair and graze his neck.

  “You make me feel crazy,” the calf’s brain guy says.

  * * *

  I open the gold curtains but not the sheer and stand back from the window at a distance. A month is a twelfth of a year and a year is a hundredth or a sixtieth or a thirty-third of a life. I’m giving myself a sliver of time to wait for true happiness to come again. It’s only a temporary evasion.

  * * *

  I ask the wax lady if she’s from Brazil and she says yes. She’s also wearing all white.

  “Everything?”

  “Everything.”

  “What happened to your eye?” she says.

  The rush of serendipity goes away. I don’t let her take whatever tip she wants.

  * * *

  I do a gradient cranberry smoky eye that is a sexy version of my bruising. I backcomb my hair. When I open the bathroom door I linger in the frame. The calf’s brain guy is sitting on the edge of the bed eating my melted ice cream.

  “Look at you,” he says.

  “Hey,” I say.

  He fucks me in a basic way and after he comes inside of me he rests his head in the space under my chin. I think he’s making this complicated.

  * * *

  He leaves but right away he comes back in. I yank the tights back up.

  “What if I wanted you for a year?” he says.

  “I don’t do that,” I say.

  He goes out again.

  * * *

  He comes back in the morning like he never broke his pattern. Like I’m not being punished anymore.

  “You’re in a good mood,” he says.

  “I’m always in a good mood.”

  The calf’s brain guy makes a face.

  “What?” I say.

  We’re both in the armchair. I’m giving him a lap dance. I stretch my leg so it’s above our heads.

  “Feelings are a weird thing,” I say.

  * * *

  I have the front desk connect me with the Polish diner but they refuse to deliver uptown. I get irate with the blue woman. I would know her voice anywhere. She hangs up on me. I get connected to the closest Duane Reade. It’s obvious that the girl who picks up the phone thinks I’m insane.

  “Do you have spicy tuna or not?”

  “We don’t deliver,” she says.

  “A bellboy’s going to pick it up,” I say.

  A broken pattern is no longer a pattern unless it is broken and picked up again in a consistent way. I hang up the phone.

  * * *

  The calf’s brain guy ties me up in a loose way. It’s easy to twist around and watch. I could get free if I wanted.

  * * *

  I tug on his ear.

  “What?” he says.

  “I think you’re falling in love with me.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  * * *

  I notice his arm around me. The comforter is kicked down to our feet. It feels static like it’s the middle of the night.

  “Is your wife out of town?” I say.

  “No,” he says.

  Earlier he said, “I make the rules.” I laugh in my head.

  * * *

  I can’t find my bathrobe so I drag the comforter off the bed and wrap it around me to answer the door. The bellboy holds out two plastic bags.

  “Cherry vodka and Red Bull,” he says.

  “Yeah, thanks,” I say.

  * * *

  I’m in the bath. The calf’s brain guy is sitting on its edge. A glass tumbler is floating over my stomach. I taste like the ex-Ranger and me.

  “I’m not falling in love with you,” he says.

  “Terrific,” I say.

  I was wrong. He’s not like the Qatari man. He’s like the men who blame me for their own emotions, which is not the worst kind.

  * * *
r />   He punches me in the kidneys and I throw up on him and he leaves.

  * * *

  I snort a bag of SPLENDA that is heroin, not fake sugar. I think fondly of the delivery guy. My brain blooms into the interior shapes of the Pierre, the circles and squares and hexagons. They feed on each other. They spread around corners faster than I can. I watch them unfold like a movie that will continue to play after I’m dead but not perpetually. Here is the burning sun and I don’t feel comforted.

  * * *

  Maybe I have changed. Maybe it’s me who’s fucking this up. Maybe it’s me who’s making this dissimilar to how it was with the man from Qatar. I look at the clock on the nightstand. In four hours I have not changed my position on the comforter.

  * * *

  The calf’s brain guy presses his palm to my pussy.

  “Happy Valentine’s,” he says.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  He doesn’t say, “For what?”

  * * *

  There is a design going through the calf’s brain guy’s skin. His forearms are made of damask. It turns inside of him while he fucks me. I hold him by the wrists. He tells me he’s going to come. I don’t squeeze him. I don’t say, “Fuck me some more,” in order to keep the hallucination from stopping.

  * * *

  The Sheikh blindfolded me and told me how many steps it was from the floor to the bed. He led my hand. But when he came I saw him. I saw his shitty apartment. I saw the wheezy air conditioner. I saw most of all the palm-tree wallpaper ringing his head. I open my eyes and look at the shimmering wallpaper of the Pierre. I think I will never see palm trees again like it’s a discontinued design.

  * * *

  The calf’s brain guy has champagne. I take off his coat for him.

  “Check-out’s tomorrow,” he says.

  The cork flies out violently into the curtains. I am surprised even though I saw it coming. Before I turn around I set my expression.

  “I don’t think it’s really been a month,” I say.

  “Close enough.”

  * * *

  The calf’s brain guy is somewhere behind me doing things to me but I am not with him. Either a month is an arbitrary measurement or it’s not. A year is not an arbitrary measurement if I’m really not the same.

  * * *

  He stays with me again. All night I hide my face in his chest, which is soft.

  22

  The calf’s brain guy throws my phone on the bed. I leave his satin tights on the carpet. I feel dread.