Call Me Kay-Z

“Grab our left overs,” says The Boy, soft shutting his Porsche’s door.

“Why?”

“We can’t leave it in the car.” And though I’m not sure why, I take the food and we walk to my building, an Art Deco bit of bricks. “I’m so curious to finally see your place,” says The Boy. “And I’m so ready to crash.”

I realize he wants to spend the night at my place, and though we’ve slept together in over five countries of apartments, hotels, planes, and trains, I go shy and say, “I don’t think you want to.”

“Why not? Is your other boyfriend coming over later?”

“My only other boyfriend is my right hand. And I like to think of it as a hot chick.”

He laughs, and I key open the door for him, leading him to an antique elevator. “This is charming,” says The Boy.

“Get ready. It’s a real shoe box.” The elevator pauses, slow, and we get out and walk down the hall. I unlock the door, and pause: “You ready?”

I flip on the light switch, and The Boy gasps. “You weren’t kidding. It’s really smaller than my pool house.”

“Your pool house has a full kitchen and a marble bathroom,” I laugh. “You still want to stay?”

“I can do urban camping,” he says. “This’ll be like when I slept in my office to shake off a live-in girlfriend. And I slept in a jungle. I can sleep anywhere.”

I grab my pillows, and open a cloud of comforter over my day bed.

“Baby, you could live much better than this.” He slips off his buttondown, and places it on my glass desk, one of my few pieces of furniture — in my kitchen, there’s only a fridge full of vintage fur, and an espresso machine that cost half my rent. “Why are you here?”

“Because three months melted into six, then twelve.” I crack open my laptop, watching him undress. “I thought I’d be back in New York by now, but I blinked and the year’s up. Also, it was between living in a gritty urban environment or alcoholism in order to become the next great American lit girl. And I don’t drink anything but soy lattes.”

The Boy is naked on my bed, body half covered, eyes half shut, though he says clearly, “I’m moving you out of here. You’re never leaving my place again.”

“It’s not that bad.” My declaration is punctuated by a siren, red as the sunset that’s just closing. “Are you comfortable?”

“Yeah, I’ll sleep anywhere. But I’m saving you from…” Soon he’s snoring as I type away, working, writing, watching him rub his face into my pillow, liking the soft, fat white of my down comforter against his lean, tan body. When I put down my laptop it’s almost midnight, and I lie next to The Boy, reading on my iPhone as he sleeps, liking hearing his soft snores. Little pillows of breath, they–

Don’t drown out the helicopters outside. The Boy rolls over on his back. “Do you have to pay extra for this entertainment?” he asks. “Why are you living like this?”

“It’s authentic, like a Fifty Cent music video,” I say, still scrolling my iPhone. “And I need street cred to write about f**k-you shoes.”

“You’ve got to move. Come live near me.”

“I can’t do the suburbs,” I say. “And beach towns give me anxiety. They’re too relaxed. There are too many flip-flops.” I rub The Boy’s back, his neck, until his moans melt into soft snores, and I go back to reading.

It’s a blank black, like my iPhone lying next to my head when I wake up. “I just heard a woman scream,” says The Boy. “Like out of a horror movie. Is my Porsche going to be there when I leave?”

“I didn’t hear her. But want me to check your car?”

“Sometimes it’s better not to know.”

The next time I wake up, The Boy’s looking at one of his cell phones, sitting up. “It’s 5 a.m. Time for me to go to work.” But he crawls back under the covers and pets me heavy, and finally the only noises we hear are the rustling of the bed clothes as we completely unclothe, as we breath off each other’s moans. We’re not quiet until we finish, and our pleasure has us playing on that border between sleep and wake.

“All right.” The Boy kisses my forehead, my closed eyes. “I’m out, baby.” I give him time to take the elevator, to cross the street to his car, and call him. “Is your Porsche riddled with bullets?”

“No, but I have a ticket and it’s like night of the living dead out here.” I direct him how to get back to his place, his nine-bathroom palace with a postcard view of the Pacific, and I don’t fall back asleep until I hear him say:

“It’s so good to be home.”

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