Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
It was a warning.
“I won’t,” I said. “I swear I won’t.”
*** *** ***
I returned home to find Simon in a tempestuous mood. He was painting, which was good. He didn’t like what he was painting, which was bad. He was on some kind of stimulating drug, which was worse.
“Where were you?” he asked as he stabbed at the canvas with his brush.
“Meeting with Henry.”
“You weren’t with one of your men?” He flipped some of his hair over his shoulder, getting paint on his shirt with the jerky movement. “Tell me about your last one. Was he any good?”
We used to do this. I used to tell him about my clients to amuse him. I didn’t do it anymore because he was rarely amused. More often, he used it as an excuse to lose his shit and fight with me.
“My last client was very boring,” I lied.
“Oh, yeah? You didn’t come home that night.”
“You don’t come home every night either.”
He smiled like that was funny, but it wasn’t a nice smile. I felt the warning systems go off. Tread carefully, Chere.
“But hey,” I said to soothe him, “here’s some good news. Henry’s giving me a raise, so I can see less clients and still make the same money.”
I wasn’t going to tell Simon I was going exclusive with one person, not in his current, edgy mood. But he’d wonder why I wasn’t going on as many dates, so I lied. I lied to Simon all the time these days. The lies felt more comfortable than telling him the truth.
“Less dates for the same money?” Simon said. Stab, stab, stab, still stabbing at his canvas. “Why don’t you keep seeing the same number of guys and just make more?”
Why don’t you make more? I thought to myself. Why does your art suck? Why are you blowing our savings on drugs? Why can’t things be the way they used to be?
“Or are you losing clients?” he said, turning to me with an accusatory stare.
He was worried about the money. He knew his comfortable drug-addict existence was dependent on my career. If I stopped escorting, he wouldn’t have the money he needed for narcotics and partying with his lemming-artist friends.
“My work is going fine,” I said coolly. I wondered if he read my tone, the tone that said Unlike yours.
Apparently he did, because he came at me, stalked across the studio, his dripping brush pointed at me like a weapon. He jabbed the brush toward my face, his features screwed into a furious mask. I was terrified he’d try to take out my eyes. I told him to fuck off, and pushed him away. The brush flew across the room and then he was attacking me, slapping me, pushing me down on the floor. I rolled away from him and ran, but he caught me before I got to the door. I hit, I punched, I kicked, but he was stronger, and whatever he was on made him stronger still.
“What’s wrong with you?” I shrieked, although I knew what was wrong with him. “Let go of me. Let go!”
“You cunt. You bitch. You think you’re so much better than me.”
“No, I don’t!”
“I talked to Boris White. Boris White, you fucking cunt. I’m going to do a show next month, so fuck you.”
“Let go of me.”
I screamed no and stop, and pushed at him, but when he wigged out like this, there wasn’t any way to calm him. You asked for this, I thought. You set him off. As quickly as he’d attacked me, he was gone and I was gone, running out the door, not looking behind me. I ran into the guest room and slammed the door and threw the lock. This was my safe room. It had a dead bolt, because Simon had these druggie freak outs now and again.
A moment later he was back, banging on the door like a maniac.
“Don’t lock me out!” he yelled.
“Go away!”
He started kicking the door so hard I was afraid the frame would give way. I stood with my back against it and prayed for it to hold.
He finally stopped kicking, and I slept and cried, and slept and cried some more, and waited for whatever he’d ingested to wear off. Whatever he’d taken, it had made him into that person. Not Simon, but that monster who was erratic, heartless, terrifying.
I had to leave him.
I knew I had to leave Simon, but after a decade together and so much history, how did that leaving start? How did you forget all the memories and cut those ties? And what would happen to him when I was gone?
I stroked my face where he’d slapped it, and wondered if there’d be bruises. My mother had always had bruises. Her partners always slapped her around, and I had always thought to myself, not me. I’ll never put up with that when I’m in a relationship.