Read an extract from The Work by Bri Lee.
1
They signed MoMA’s acquisition contract and got drunk to celebrate. By the end of the second bottle, Lally felt like she was flying. You really could mix business and pleasure. You really could make money and art.
‘Come here,’ Joseph said to her, putting his flute down and pulling her to him.
They’d been dancing across her small living room, knocking down lamps. She was breaking her own rule— never sleep with your artists— but this was different. She had feelings for him. That hadn’t happened in a long time. ‘Shall we consummate it?’ Lally grinned and kissed him.
He reached around her head and took out the hairclip, throwing it onto the couch, and her brown waves fell down past her shoulders. At first he was stroking her hair, but then his kiss got harder and he pulled it. She made a noise.
‘Yes?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Yes what?’
‘Yes please.’
He turned her around and pushed her towards the bedroom. She pulled her dress up and over her head, felt his hand on her back, pushing her forward over the mattress, pulling down her underwear. All the lights on, all the blinds open. There were hundreds of other apartments lit up outside across East 12th Street, and she looked out at them as she touched herself, listening to the clink of his belt buckle, startling at his hand grabbing the place where her thighs met her hips. She turned around to face him, and he looked disappointed for a millisecond before she opened her legs and reached up for him.
‘Do you like my nice apartment?’ she asked.
He responded by going all the way in.
‘Do you like my nice wine?’
He reached up and pulled the hair at the back of her neck again.
‘I’m gonna make you rich, Rivera.’
He sped up. ‘How rich?’
She laughed. ‘Rich enough to make whatever art you want, do whatever you want.’
‘Do whatever I want?’ He slowed down again and looked at her.
She met his gaze. ‘Whatever you want.’
He pulled out and grabbed at her hips, pushing her onto her knees and pulling her back to the edge of the bed. She knew he wouldn’t come until she had. He knew she liked it hard sometimes, especially when she was in a chatty mood. They’d been here just enough times to flick each other’s switches. Not enough times to be sure what might happen next.
Lally let her head drop forward and savoured the moment. One of his hands was leveraging her, the other was . . . where? About to smack her? She felt pleasure rippling through her just thinking about it. She’d ride him and look out these windows.
At the snow falling. At the miracle of a good day at work and a good fuck. A light came on in the distance outside. She watched it, wondering if maybe she was into voyeurism somehow, listening to the smacking of his skin on hers. But actually the light wasn’t like the others. She tried to focus her eyes. The light wasn’t from another apartment at all. The light in the window was a reflection of something in the room. The light was coming from right behind her, from the phone Joseph was holding, in his free hand, pointing down at her naked body.
Lally froze, trying to understand. Maybe she’d just drunk too much and was mixed up. But then she watched his reflection in terrible slow motion as he noticed she no longer had her back arched for him, and he followed her gaze out, and their eyes met in the reflection of the window.
‘What the— ’ she started, moving forward up the bed.
His laughter cut her off. ‘Just a little something for later.’
She turned to face him, pushing through the powerful drive to freeze on the spot, grabbing a pillow to cover herself. ‘What!’
‘You said whatever I want. It’s just for me.’ He moved towards her.
She screamed. ‘Don’t!’ She couldn’t formulate more than that.
The shock of it. Her pulse.
‘Woah.’
‘Don’t you come near me!’
‘Lally, calm down.’
‘Fuck you!’
‘It’s okay.’ Joseph moved slowly towards her again and she scrambled off the side of the bed, still holding the pillow in front of her.
‘I’ll delete it,’ he said, making a show of deleting the file then tossing the phone onto the bed. ‘There.’
‘Get out,’ she ordered.
‘Oh, come on now,’ he said, acting hurt, his erection still strong. ‘You’re drunk, just take a deep breath.’ He reached for her arm and she smacked his hand away, hard. ‘Jesus!’
‘How could you do that!’ she yelled.
‘Do what?’ he yelled back, his arms out like a baller appealing an umpire.
She didn’t say the second half: How could you do that to me when I liked you? She couldn’t explain it through the hyperventilation. Couldn’t understand how he didn’t understand. Didn’t he understand? She was sweating, a lot. He wasn’t. He was walking over to the bottle of champagne on the side table, bringing it straight to his mouth, tipping it up and gulping it down until it was done. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and dropped the empty bottle onto the mattress.
‘Get out.’
‘Oh, come on, we’re having a good time, let’s— ’
‘Get out.’
‘Lally . . .’ He moved towards her and she flinched away, grabbing his phone where he’d left it.
‘Get out!’ she screamed again, still not able to formulate much else. Brain still flatlining. She held the phone up between them.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Get— ’ she keyed 9-1-1, the tone of the numbers instantly recognisable, and hovered her thumb over the little green phone symbol— ‘out.’
‘The police!’ He laughed, maniacally. ‘For what?’
‘For an aggressive Mexican working on a tourist visa, you piece of shit.’
His face turned nasty then, and his dick went limp nice and quick. She watched him gather his dirty work clothes, tripping as he tried to pull up his pants, all the while she was holding the pin in the grenade in her hand. He was mumbling cruel things in Spanish, banging the bathroom door open to find his shirt, and then when he’d gathered it all and made for the door, he froze. Lally saw the wave of panic cross over his body.
‘Lally, come on.’ He reached for her again.
She started crying when she saw his face. He had realised he’d made a mistake. Maybe he would say he was sorry. He could hold her. He could make some promises. Breathing in deeply, finally, the panic began to subside and a glimmer of the possibility of survival appeared. The phone was so heavy in her hand, the temptation to drop it was enormous. The temptation to drop all of it . . . Her chest heaved as she looked to him, wanting so badly for this to not be a serious thing. They would both feel better if it wasn’t a serious thing. They could go back to the track they were on, of being together for real, not just for work.
He placed his hand on her forearm so gently then, and she let him take the phone from her and put it on the table. ‘See,’ he said, using his other hand to wipe her cheek, giving her a gentle smile. ‘I told you,’ he whispered, ‘just calm down. Nothing’s wrong.’
She screamed and slapped him across the face, and when he stumbled back, stunned, she shoved him as hard as she could in the chest, and he caught his foot in the leg of a chair at the dining table, falling backward. ‘Get out! Get out! Get out!’
‘You crazy bitch!’
‘This crazy bitch is cancelling your show, motherfucker! I will sink you! Sink! You!’
He grabbed his wallet from where it sat in a little dish with hers, then yanked the door open and stormed out. Crazy fucking bitch! she heard him yell in the stairwell.
She tried taking deep breaths but could only pant. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. His shoes still sat by the side of the couch where he’d kicked them off. He’d left without them, in the snow, and she worried for his feet, then worried more that he would come back for them. It was enough to un-anchor her. She went to the bottom drawer of the kitchen cabinet, ripping a trash bag off the roll, and went room by room. Every thing of his he’d left there in the weeks of them getting closer went into the bag, and she put it by the door with another bag of actual rubbish.
The rest of the night shat on by. She called Gen, who came over and helped take care of things. They went around the apartment, scouring it for any evidence of him. They changed the sheets. Gen put Lally in a hot shower.
‘I didn’t tell you,’ Lally said to Gen, stepping over the side of the tub. ‘I was . . . God, this sounds so fucking stupid— ’
‘You liked him,’ Gen said.
Lally nodded and cried.
‘I’ve just had an excellent idea,’ Gen said, leaving the bathroom and returning with Joseph’s phone, which she held out under the water until the screen showed a technicoloured freak-out and shut off.
When Lally got out, Gen poured them both tequilas. She gestured to the garbage bags. ‘Do you want to send this stuff back to him, or is it going in the trash?’
‘Trash.’
‘Good girl.’
They did their shots and poured two more.
The Work
by Bri Lee
A stunning debut novel about art, power, love and money from the acclaimed and bestselling author of Eggshell Skull.
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