Excerpt
From the Book:
AUTO-EROTICA
Unruffled wouldn’t be the word for him since
there is nothing on him that could get ruffled. Nothing to stand
on end and need smoothing down. Entirely streamlined: dark hair
shorn close to the skull, placid un-sunned skin lacking
identifying marks, expensive clothing in neutral colors and
crisp lines, the intentionally indifferent mode of dress that
only men of innate style can carry off. A gaze so direct that if
he dozes off, his pupils are in the same place when he wakes up
later, focused with the same intensity, no split second of messy
grogginess. He only dozed off once. He always smokes a single
cigarette afterwards, taking his time in such an
un-self-conscious way that he has to be European. I secretly
hope he’s German, as I have a thing for Germans, based upon one
pathetic fling in college, which even now I re-evaluate in my
head from time to time, trying to find the correct equation of
open-heartedness and catty feminine wiles that would have held
his interest. I admire the German belief in right answers. It’s
very like math, which is my forte. Statistically, there aren’t
enough Germans here to make it worth my time to look for one.
I can’t tell if he’s German because we’ve
agreed not to speak. If I could speak to him, I’d have told him
that I don’t let people smoke inside my house. Frankly, it’s
nicer this way, with him lingering. He never showers after, and
I let myself think wishfully that his acceptance of stickiness
and bedroom stench on his otherwise impeccable form is somehow a
compliment to me.
Following a non-uniform interval of time, he
gently stubs out the cigarette on the sole of his Italian
oxblood loafers. He gets dressed in the same languid manner, and
pecks me on the lips in a gesture he manages to make far more
frigid than a handshake. His car is small and sporty and
aerodynamic to a fault and grey of course, the least needy and
most curve-conscious color. He tears out of my drive in a
conspicuous show of acceleration which makes me believe that he,
too, works for himself. I worry about the neighbors’ impressions
of his lunch hour visits, until I remember that I am in L.A. and
the neighbors are busy manipulating their own affairs, stacking
toxic combinations of people in outrageous circus pyramids. I
can almost hear the hurdy-gurdy urging us all on.
I spend a
week scouring antique shops for the perfect modernist ash tray
to put beside my bed, rectangular and orange and would be miffed
if you told it that it was utilitarian as well as handsome. It
is the sturdiest thing in my house. I stare into its blank base,
willing the week to subtract some of its days so he will return
sooner. The yawning receptacle makes me yearn. I’m not used to
wishing for uncertainties. The ash tray is a set-up. My first
act of betrayal.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Iris is one of the smart ones. More friend
than client at this point, I think, but it’s always some
nebulous combination of the two, never a neatly balanced six of
one, half dozen of the other. You never hear that expression in
my crowd. It’s not Yiddish. Iris is paper doll petite and dusky
and sparkling and delightfully pushy. She produces studio
movies, but her family’s been rich on the East Coast for a long
time, so she understands money. I copy her clothes without ever
asking her where she got them or which designer. I don’t
replicate her look well enough for her to notice, but that is
due only to my fashion incompetence and much larger frame. We
must be friends, because when we talk, we end up complaining
about men.
“Honey,
you’re BRILL-yant. What do you want with a boyfriend? They’re
trouble. They eat your energy.”
“Yeah, well,
at this point, I’ve got plenty of excess energy, if you know
what I mean.”
“That’s why
they call L.A. the auto capital of the world.” She toasts me
with her third cappuccino. Even the dark bags under her eyes
seem to twinkle, seem to be part of a perfectly-conceived
costume. It’s the same quality that makes dapper middle aged men
attractive. Unheard of on a female. She dazzles me.
“Auto
capital? You mean choose a man by his car?”
“Car, schmar.”
She takes me straight to Drake’s on Melrose, conducting a script
meeting over her cell phone while holding up samples from the
vast array of vibrators and dildos hanging on the wall. The
display of members looks clinical yet disorderly, with the
plastic bags and not-quite-matching groups, like finds from a
dig which are catalogued as well as can be, but still puzzle the
archeologist.
I settle on
something largish and sleek and metallic called The Silver
Bullet. Iris “uh huh”s sagely into the phone, then covers the
mouthpiece and whispers to me, “Auto-erotica.”
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