My Body(43)
“I’m sorry, seriously, okay? I got the timing wrong. But I’m here now and I wanted to come home to see you and … have some time,” S said, pulling up my dress without taking his eyes off my face. He kissed my nose, and I giggled and then frowned. “Rude!” I said, and S laughed and began edging his way down my body.
“I’m so happy to see you,” he said, and he sounded so genuine I couldn’t help but feel a wave of love wash over me.
Later, S lay on my stomach and I wrapped my arms around his head, watching his curly hair rise and fall with my breathing. Eventually he got up and went to the bathroom, and I strapped my heels back on. As we headed out the door, switching off the lights and setting the alarm, I threw on a brown leather trench over my dress. “I just don’t want to be cold,” I told myself.
The party S’s agency was hosting was at a big fancy house owned by a former Beatle. Early on in our relationship, I’d told S that I hated parties like this. And he told me he hated agents. “They’re talentless and do nothing and ugh … just the worst.” Still, I struggled to understand his attitude to the film industry. I’d watch him take calls with his wireless headphones, laughing and sucking on his Juul, and I’d wonder: Had he been seduced by Hollywood or was he just working the system to succeed? The voice he used for these work calls was unfamiliar to me; even his laugh was different. The idea that he might actually enjoy the boys’ club of agents, producers, and actors bothered me. I was surprised at how repelled I felt watching him work sometimes. Or is this just him being good at his job? I wasn’t sure.
On the cab ride over, I felt uneasy. “Hey,” I said to S. “Don’t leave me tonight. Like, obviously, we can go have our various conversations, blah blah. But just, like, when we’re walking around? You know?” I put my hand on his knee.
“Okay, sure,” S replied, giving me a kiss on the lips. “No problem.” He looked handsome, dressed down in a crew-neck sweatshirt and black Timbs, the hair on his face at just the right length to accentuate his strong jawline.
One night years ago, before S and I had started seeing each other romantically, he met me and a group of my friends at a hotel party. “Come by and hang,” I remember texting him. It was all casual, but I knew how much I liked him the second he walked in the door. He was wearing black Timbs then, too, the same ones he wore to the courthouse when we got married.
I’d been drinking a lot that night and feeling light and fizzy in a good way. Even though we didn’t look at each other much, I always knew where S was in the room. I could feel his attention on me, even when I stole a quick glance and found him looking straight ahead, talking to someone else. I was shaking my hips to the music, knowing S was watching, when a guy came up and asked to take a photo with me. “Sure!” I said, bending over to put my drink down. He was thin and had an accent. I took him for a European tourist.
I never liked how guys would find ways to touch me when they took pictures with me, but I was used to it, and so I’m not sure if I even flinched when I felt this guy’s fingers wrap around the other side of my bare midriff. My attitude was, Ask them not to touch you and it makes the whole interaction last longer, so why not just get it over with?
“Hey, no touching,” I heard S say from behind us. I swiveled around to see him, leaning against a couch. He shook his finger and furrowed his brow.
“Sorry,” the guy said, dropping his hands from my body instantly. I’d never been with a man who interjected himself in that way before. My boyfriend before S would never speak up when someone approached or touched me. I assumed he meant to be respectful, showing that he knew I could handle these kinds of situations on my own, which I’d always thought I appreciated. In that moment, though, watching S, all relaxed yet assertive, telling this guy to back the fuck off, I thought, Wow, well, this is nice.
In the years since, we’d gotten together and our careers had changed. The movie S had recently produced had been well received by critics and performed well at the box office. People wrote articles about Oscar buzz and, when the film was snubbed, important directors S admired tweeted angrily about the “injustice of the Academy.” When paparazzi pictures of us were published now, they described S as “a successful producer” and even sometimes linked to a trailer for his movie. It was everything S had been working toward for over ten years, and I was proud of him.
I, on the other hand, had decided to stop being an actor, at least for the time being. I’d auditioned for just two roles in two years, a tiny fraction of the number of auditions I’d been doing when we started seeing each other. “I only want to do projects that I can produce or be a part of on a creative level,” I told everyone, which was true, but it was also true was that I no longer knew what the fuck I wanted from Hollywood.
No one in the industry knew why I’d stopped acting, and most assumed it wasn’t by choice. Actors and models couldn’t possibly want something else, they figured. Every woman wants to be rich and famous for being desirable. I couldn’t fault them for thinking that way. Hell, I’d thought that way for most of my twenties.
Despite my better judgment, it bothered me that the people at this party would look at me as a failure or nothing more than a piece of ass. Even though I thought they were assholes, it frustrated me that I’d lost their respect. On a good day, I’d call people sexist who condemned a woman for capitalizing on her body. On a bad day, I’d hate myself and my body, and every decision I’d made in my life seemed like a glaring mistake. Mostly, though, I knew I was a whole, complex person with thoughts and ideas and things I wanted to make and say. I wanted so desperately to prove them all wrong. I just hadn’t gotten the chance yet.