Fiction from Web Del Sol|
NEW YORK ROMANCE NOVEL
Kim Addonizio
CHAPTER 1They hate each other.
CHAPTER 2They still hate each other. But now she's aware of him sexually, she tingles when she's near him, her every gesture feels exaggerated, stupid.
CHAPTER 3She hates him even more. She takes two lovers, thinking of him while she's fucking them, swearing he'll never have her. He falls in love with her best friend. She tries to warn her friend against him, but it's no use. Seeing the two of them together at art openings is torture. She tells him so once and he laughs at her. That night, when he fucks her friend, he is ecstatic at the thought of being able to hurt her so much.
CHAPTER 4He begins to feel guilty.
CHAPTER 5She goes to Paris for six months, has an affair with a famous concert musician. When she returns she feels nothing but indifference towards him.
CHAPTER 6His affair with her best friend has gone stale. He's bored out of his mind. How could he have thought he was in love with her? He doubts now that he's even capable of love.
CHAPTER 7She runs into him at a gallery showing his work. He asks her out, thinking she'll tell him how crushed her best friend is and his ego will feel better; none of his work is selling, he's been rejected by the last three women he's tried to talk to. Because she's high on coke she doesn't say what she means to say, that she's not interested, that she could care less if he lives or dies. They agree to meet for a drink the next night.
CHAPTER 8The next night they get drunk together. She remembers why she hated him in the first place: he has no morals, he uses women, he's an art careerist. He realizes that he is totally in love with her. The feelings for her friend, he sees now, were displaced passion. Everything she accuses him of--she's drunk enough to say what she thinks--he agrees is true. He admits he's not worthy of her, actually hangs his head in shame. The gesture so moves her that she slides over next to him in the booth and puts her hand on his cock, through his jeans. It stirs in response. They hurry home to his loft in the East Village and fuck until four in the morning, first wildly, then tenderly. Then they talk and laugh until dawn.
CHAPTER 9She wakes up with a hangover, looks over at his sleeping body, despises herself and him.
CHAPTER 10He wakes up and she's gone. He cracks a beer for his hangover,sits at the kitchen table and composes a letter.
CHAPTER 11The letter, whatever it says (MARRY ME? FUCK YOU? CAN YOU HELP ME GET A SHOW UPTOWN?), gets lost in the mail. She doesn't call. He assumes she hates him. Gradually he begins to hate her, too.
CHAPTER 12She writes a poem in which she praises his talent, his sensitivity, his beautiful cock. When it is published three years later, she sends it to him, but he never acknowledges the gift. |