Acts of Violet(45)
It wasn’t an ideal situation, but I didn’t want to lose Violet, so it was another one of those things I went along with.
CAMERON FRANK: It doesn’t sound like you were cool with it, though.
BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: I mean, of course I hated the idea, but Violet made it out like we were getting one over on the press, exposing the “reality” of relationships. Society dictates monogamy is the standard, but so many couples, in showbiz and everywhere else, don’t follow those rules. They have threesomes, open relationships, or they just cheat.
Violet thought it would be refreshing for us to publicly show off our open relationship, even though our marriage was still under wraps. Weird how she wanted to expose society’s lies and hypocrisy with more lies and hypocrisy, huh?
CAMERON FRANK: Between the troubles with the show and tensions in your marriage, I could see how a breaking point was inevitable.
BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: Yeah. Her name was Mayuree.
CAMERON FRANK [STUDIO]: Mayuree Sakda is a photographer known for her unconventional and memorable celebrity portraits. She declined all requests to participate in this podcast.
BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: They met on a magazine shoot in New York and hated each other at first. Then they met again in LA a couple years later and started an on-and-off thing. They might’ve been together when Violet and I met, she never told me for sure. Mayuree traveled a lot on assignment—who knows, maybe some of those “confidential” business trips Violet took were to see her. Anyway, our last year in Vegas, all of a sudden Violet hires her own private photographer, though Mayuree insisted on spending half her time in LA.
CAMERON FRANK: Did you have any sense that this was different from the other times Violet dated other people?
BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: She was always upfront about who she was seeing, what she was doing with them, and how she felt about them. Love was never part of it, and most of those side relationships didn’t last more than a couple of weeks. When those weeks turned into months and Violet was still seeing Mayuree—this was before I found out their history together went even further back—I started to worry.
Before I could talk to her about it, the thing with Dominic happened. A week after his funeral, Violet sat me down and told me she still loved me and wanted to be with me, but she was in love with Mayuree.
I filed for divorce the next day. And since she was so hungry for press coverage, I sent a copy of the paperwork to a few tabloids as my parting gift to her. She was already getting headlines for Dominic’s death and her “steamy romance” with her personal photographer, and she got a shit-ton more for her divorce from her “secret husband.” Then a porn actress came forward and claimed I’d been having an affair with her for years, so the narrative became that my cheating sent Violet into these other relationships. I wouldn’t be surprised if Violet or her people paid off the porn star to say all those things.
CAMERON FRANK: And meanwhile, you and Violet were still doing a show together.
BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: Exactly, though I moved out right away. I was in a rage for maybe the first week or two, and then I felt nothing. I was over it. Like that [snaps fingers]. I started counting down the shows until my contract was up. Those were some long months. I couldn’t wait to come home to LA.
Once I got settled in with a new place and steady work, life became predictable again. Which was great. I didn’t have to deal with Violet’s moods or secret trips or publicity stunts—or her superstitions. Jesus, she was so annoying with those, tugging on my ear all the damn time when I sneezed, not letting me whistle indoors, all kinds of other crazy Russian stuff. Oh, like we couldn’t kiss while standing on opposite sides of a threshold because it meant we’d get into a fight.
In the early days, I thought it was cute. When you fall in love with someone, their quirks are charming. Once the novelty wears off, you tolerate them. But when things got rotten, the same quirks I used to find cute made me want to kill her. Toward the end of our marriage, I’d sometimes whistle indoors just to piss her off. I’d cover my ears after sneezing so she couldn’t pull on them.
It’s funny, not long after it ended, I found myself wondering if we’d ever kissed across a threshold without noticing and put some kind of cosmic black mark on us.
CAMERON FRANK: What do you think happened to Violet when she disappeared in 2008?
BENJAMIN MARTINEZ: I think she carefully orchestrated her escape. There was bad shit coming for her.
Violet was more than a skilled performer. She was also very rich and very famous. And when you’re that extraordinary and getting a lot of attention, it can trap you in a circle. Sometimes that circle is a spotlight and sometimes it’s a bull’s-eye target. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.
I think Violet’s circle was closing in on her and she had to step away from it, for good.
I have no idea where she is, but I don’t expect any of us will ever see her again.
Sasha
February 16, 2018
“If I were the only one who saw that photo, I would’ve been asking you to fit me for a straitjacket,” I say to Renatta in our next therapy session, holding on to a throw pillow like I’ve just fallen out of a plane and it’s my sole flotation device. “But Sally saw it first. Of course, when I asked her about it later, she flip-flopped and said it was probably a shadow. But shadows don’t wear red lipstick! I’m so mad I dropped my phone like an utter dumbass. Damn thing wouldn’t even switch on again. It was old, and that’s all it took to kill it for good. Good thing my photos back up to the cloud automatically, right? Except, the salon Wi-Fi is spotty, so that didn’t happen.”