Her mochaccino jaw would be grinding and she’d waver between party fatigue, dragging sleepy-time oxygen through her upturned nose, and the desire to sit up and talk. She’d turn away from me, her face burrowed into the pillow, her hair billowing about her like Prada ribbons on a Marc Jacobs maypole. Then she’d sit bolt upright, tucking pillows behind her back, holding her face with her hand so she could have perfect eye contact. She liked to control things. I liked to be controlled.

“Be a honey and get me a bowl of cereal. Make sure the milk is nice and cold and that the bowl is filled to the top.” And I’d do it immediately, balancing the brimful bowl with utmost attention, all the while trying to maintain eye contact so that she wouldn’t turn over and slump into sleep. Taking the bowl from me, she shoveled spoonfuls of cereal past her still-glossy lips, timing the spoon so it would avoid the chomps of her coke-stimulated teeth. Chomp and chomp and spoon and swallow. Chomp and chomp and spoon and dribble. Bored of a bite, I’d have to remind her the food was still on her tongue, as she recalled the electric-blue jumpsuit worn by Leo’s lady friend.

I thought about the girls I was usually put up against in auditions. In L.A., they were slim as pins with soft, fat lips. In New York they were even thinner, with lips to match (which is the New York India scene’s notion of anti-L.A. elegance: thin lips). Cyrinda was lucky that she considered acting so lowly. If she had ever had to put herself through auditions, her belief in her own infallible beauty would have been considerably knocked.

She was gorgeous, touchable. I caught her touching herself once or twice, sometimes in masturbatory poses, sometimes just running a finger across her soft forearm, smiling at the high-quality silk that kept her insides from falling out. It was as if her impossibly rich family had opted for the most expensive materials when conceiving of Cyrinda. It is not just a healthier diet and standard of living that makes rich people appear prettier than poor people. Their parents spend more on them. Her parents knew, perhaps, that they were going to divorce while their baby was learning to toddle, and they wanted to make up for emotional trauma by swapping it for looks, no expense spared.

The first thing that you see about Cyrinda is her skin. Like Marilyn with self-confidence, she has flesh impact. But before you see her, the first thing you smell about Cyrinda is that she never showers. Nobody minds because she is so rich and she smells of the dirt that lines paper money, not the dirt of the streets or the farm. Because she is so rich and so popular, nobody says anything.