Chapters (55)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Cast of Characters
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Part Two
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- A note on the Author
He didn’t like working with actors or actresses he felt were less talented than me, less beautiful. He’d snap at the ones who flirted with him and they loved him even more: the personal assistant who cannot hide his contempt for his clients. He became all the rage. He got a job working for De Niro and he started earning good money, better than he had with me, which he used to blow on clothes. Shopping excited him. He dragged me around SoHo, to Helmut Lang, Prada, and Louis Vuitton. Seeing myself in the boutique mirrors, I looked like a grumpy child being taken to the Museum of Modern Art.
“I don’t get it,” I’d snarl, as he held up a three-quarter-length microfiber jacket for my delectation. “I want to go home.”
Sebastian wanted to be my stylist.
“Sweetie, I thought you’d look so good in this color.”
He’d sling an olive cashmere scarf around my neck and tie it and retie it until he was satisfied it was falling right. It was never falling right.
He bought me a Louis Vuitton traveling bag that had five zips.
“You think I’m going somewhere, Sebastian?”
“God, I hope not.”
“Perhaps it’s a good idea.”
His eyes clouded and he took the bag back to the store and exchanged it for a bikini. He thought I was so much thinner than I was. I took it back and exchanged it for cash, which I put in his wallet that night as he slept. I don’t know if he even noticed it. He never said anything. Most of the places he wanted to go, I couldn’t have heard him anyway.
We went to parties with guest lists. We went to clubs with guest lists, velvet ropes, and VIP rooms within VIP rooms. He took happy drugs, up drugs that made him want to hug and kiss and squeeze me all the more. At every bar, at every club, in each and every VIP room, I made my child-bored-at-the-art-gallery face, until he said we could go home.
For a time, his skin maintained the immaculate glow of the chosen. Infuriated, I decided to suck it out for myself. “Why do you always want to give me blow jobs?” he queried one night, “Not that I’m complaining.”
Not long after, I got carried away and he got frightened. “Ruby. RUBY! That’s too rough. Honey, you’re being too rough on me,” and he pulled away to the other side of the bed.
“Why? Is it that girls aren’t supposed to enjoy doing that? Is that the problem?” I screamed, slamming the bathroom door behind me.
“No, Ruby. No, I love it. I love you. Knowing that you like being with me is the best feeling in the world. But you were hurting me. I had to say something.”