back when I’m talking to artists’ agents and dealers, and, do I really need another piece of cake?
At the start, our love life was wonderful, thrilling, unexpected and fresh. Paulie lusted after every part of me, every new situation, and every new possibility. We practically lived our lives in each others’ bedrooms. Lately, what had been lusty, slamming, hot, shouting, soaking wet sex, was now a dry, empty dustbowl. Tumbleweed would have livened it up. Then, last night in the bar, he gave me the ‘we need some space’ speech. FUCKERRRR!
The cracks had been starting to show for a couple of weeks, and at Ak Tung’s opening at the Efluvia gallery, I saw the writing on the wall. It was my networking that got him the invitation, me tweeting about the fact that his blog piece was quoted in Art & Artists magazine.
Me telling Tung’s agent that Paulie is ‘the go-to blog page for the pulse of the TriBeCa art beat,’ or something equally ridiculous. Actually, the more I put that kind of puff around for him, the more he grew into it, and now he really is the go-to blogger for the pulse of the up and coming TriBeCa art beat. For whatever that’s worth.
I never had an easy time with boys or men, and I’ve been wary since school. At high-school you were either called ‘frigid’ or you were called a ‘whore.’ The girls who got a by were the super-popular Miss Perfect cheerleaders, most of whom really did act like whores.
I heard that some of them actually went on to become whores. When guys came up to me, they were usually looking for an easy hookup. One boy, Aaron, he was so cute and I did literally dream about him. He was the biggest in his year and he had shaggy brown hair and sweet, sincere blue eyes.
Well, they looked sincere. Turns out you can’t always tell. He told me all the sweet shit you want to hear and we made out in the back of his daddy’s car. The next morning I overheard him telling his buddies how fat I was and mimicking my voice saying, ‘Oh, Aaron, you’re so big,’ Which I never said.
In the equipment stakes, he was on the smaller side of medium in fact, I just was too devastated to step up and say that to all of his friends, like I know that I should have done.
So Paulie got in under my defenses. He shot me a lot of charming lines and – dammit, if he didn’t mean any of that, if it was all just bullshit, why did he pursue me the way that he did? OK, it’s in the past, but it can still sting.
The minimal, 3 rd floor Efluvia gallery bustled respectably with lively people with edgy hair and makeup, dressed mostly in black. The art crowd was out for Ak Tung’s private view, enjoying champagne and canapés and their brittle laughs, and making me feel dowdy and drab.
Little red stickers appeared by a few pieces to indicate that sales had been made and Colm, the gallery owner, was running about, directing Juliette, his willowy blonde assistant, towards the clusters of potential buyers. At gallery events, most of Paulie’s energy went on cultivating agents and journalists, but this time he spent an unusual amount of his evening with the artist.
I was out among the throng and flying the flag for Paulie’s blog and twitter feed. That involved pretending that I knew what the art was about, which in Tung’s case wasn’t hard. Not compared to pretending that I cared.
Ak is an adorable person, and gorgeous, and she’s making a heroic transition from a shy, geeky boy to a sassy and admirable woman, but her deconstrictivist nihilism – meaning she broke stuff into very tiny pieces then stuck the pieces on cardboard – it went way under my whelm. I was looking at a piece that consisted of sparse, shimmering dust entitled, Manic Monday, when a dark, honeyed voice behind me said, “Now, here is a work of art.”
I spun around so fast, the front of my breasts pressed through my bra and silky top into the crisp white linen on the huge chest of a devilishly handsome man.
David Levithan, Rachel Cohn
Luna Lindsey
Bethany M. Sefchick
H. Badger
Will Chancellor
Aaron Stander
Kaylee Feagans
Barry Eisler
Pat Schmatz
Lisanne Norman