S&M

Saturday night, I met up for a quick drink with new artist friend Khrushchev, a good friend of my boss Neo’s.

I became acquainted with Khrushchev recently, as he’d come in to help me develop a design for the Badvertiser office space. Maybe he liked my design ideas, or maybe despite my office attire he sensed I was the nude model type, but he insisted we meet up after business hours.

Over a pair of frozen margaritas on Spring Street, the conversation strayed to him snorting “K” in the bathroom of some hotel bar and proceeding to accost some notable Rushdie-type celebrity, an encounter during which he’d made a total fool out of himself—I know “K” is some sort of cat-tranquilizer-turned-recreational drug, only because Mikki is studying to be a vet and is schooled in these things. Not a snorter of drugs myself, I laughed warmly, but quickly changed the topic to something we might both relate to.

I showed Khrushchev the bruises on the inside of my wrists that I’d sustained moving an unimaginably heavy table for Alen MacWeeney, the photographer who has been photographing me of late. Alen is old and has a bad back, and his wife just recently broke her ankle, so I, the nude model, have to toplessly move around heavy shit for him.

“I feel like people see these bruises and get the wrong idea…” I joked, exposing my inner forearms to Khrushchev. He agreed that the bruises did look suspect, asking if I wasn’t sure I had just been doing photos for some new S&M campaign. Which reminded him of the time that he and both of my bosses, Istanbul and Neo, took him to and S&M party.

I was agog and beside myself, and for a moment, Khrushchev hesitated. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this…”

No, Khrushchev, you definitely should continue. I asked him what Neo had been wearing. Black jeans, a leather vest—nothing gimpy, but I was rapt with attention nonetheless. Something about using someone’s belt to strike someone’s bare asscheeks…

A few days later, I am at Café Gypsy, on a mission to acquire a couple of paper cups; I aim to illegally drink some wine I’d just purchased on a stoop nearby. As I am pouring out the contents of the bottle, I see that Neo also happens to be at Café Gypsy at this exact moment, watching me from the curb. I say hello, and raise my full cup at him in salutation.

Any other day, I would be mortified to have my boss see me guzzling wine from the bottle, then from paper cups, on a stoop, wearing the same outfit I plan to wear at work the next day because I'm not planning on sleeping in my own bed tonight.

But today, I know his little secret.