Boy Parts(73)

I bang through the doors of the gallery. No one turns to look at me, which is kind of annoying, because I had this image in my head of taking off my coat while everyone was looking at me, and people being like, woah, who’s that?

No one looks at me but the attendant of a small, makeshift cloakroom. I hand her my coat. There’s a boy in a waistcoat carrying a tray of champagne, and I wink at him when I take a glass. I find Sera, who is on the first floor. I haven’t seen her piece yet, actually. Another film. It’s her in Central Park, with some girl she’s tying into shibari bondage while a crowd watches. She’s all done up in fetish gear. It’s a little lazy, to be honest.

I see her chatting with a dumpy woman in the corner of the room. Sera is wearing makeup today, and it takes years off her. Her lipstick is awful, though. It’s the same colour as my dress, and it makes her teeth look yellow.

‘I love your work,’ I say.

‘I love your dress, oh my God.’ She looks at the dumpy woman, and points at me. ‘Supermodel, I told you, didn’t I? Marnie?’ I go to hand Marnie a business card, but she tells me she’s the gallery owner.

‘I know, take it.’ She takes it. Sera makes a face at me. ‘What?’

‘Haha, honestly, her sense of humour, Marnie. She’s so dry,’ Sera says. She pulls me away, and leans in close. ‘Please don’t get hammered,’ she says. ‘The dress is very on brand, but like… oh my God, your tits are basically out. I can see the wardrobe malfunction coming from a mile off?’

‘What, are you my fucking mam now?’ I snap. She rolls her eyes at me.

‘I’m not going to bring this up again, but… just remember why you’re here? If you look bad, I look bad, and I do want to move back to London, so…’ She pats my hand. ‘Behave, please.’

‘Fair enough,’ I say, with a shrug. I neck my champagne as soon as she turns around, and immediately pick up another glass.

I head back downstairs, drink more champagne, and stand by my photographs. Uncle Stephen comes over with a lecherous smile, and takes me by the waist over to some other red-faced old men, who collect art, or own galleries, and are amused and/or bewildered to receive my business card. Uncle Stephen laughs, and compliments my sense of humour, my northern charm.

He also drags me over to Cam Peters, who makes a weird dig about having to share the screening room with me and acts too grand to be here. He probably is, to be fair to him. I slip a business card into the pocket of his baby-blue suit – he doesn’t seem to notice. I am whisked away to receive more champagne, and to be introduced to Laurie Hirsch, who is sharing the first floor with Sera. She’s wearing a suit, and her hair is short, so I’m already sold. Even though I’m caught in Uncle Stephen’s sweaty grasp, I wriggle free to tell her I love a butch girl. I tell her my phone number is on my business card, which I press into her sensibly manicured hand. She tells me she’s married, and her wife is, like, two yards away.

‘What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.’

‘Um, okay?’ she says. I float back to Uncle Stephen.

While he does drag me around the gallery like a handbag, he’s surprisingly respectful. He hands me champagne, he lets me give out my cards, and he chuckles, like it’s our little joke. He keeps his hand to my waist, or the small of my back, and never dips lower, even when we’re in corners or side rooms and he could easily get away with it.

He leaves after an hour. I’m drunk and alone. I get pulled into photos with the other artists, with Marnie, and then I drift to the darkroom where my video is playing. I hit the bench with a thud and pop in the headphones.

I’ve watched this so many times now, I know where every little sound comes. Every twitch.

An older woman sharing the bench with me gives me a nudge. ‘The way you’ve played with consent here is wonderful,’ she whispers. ‘Critical, bold, a wonderful actor, your boy. Discomfort radiates from the screen.’

It turns out she writes for the Observer – so there’s at least one good write-up for me. I smile at her and empty my glass. Another materialises in my hand. My seventh? My eighth? Who knows? Eddie from Tesco snivels in my ear.

If he had a problem, he should have said something. I’m there on the screen. That’s me. With the bottle, the power, a great big camera and bigger hair. I want to slip into the screen.

I feel hollow, but hot. I squirm where I’m sat, and I watch, and I watch, and I watch. I hear a bell, which makes me pull the headphones off and whip my neck around. No bell, just Remy.

He has lost the toothbrush moustache and shed his polyester skin, emerging in a fitted tartan suit, and no glasses. Lit in the soft glow of the film, he looks good. I imagine him shorter, and darker.

He sits beside me, tells me he’s been watching me: with his uncle, with Laurie, with my business cards, and the silk of my dress clinging to my hips. He’s sorry. He’s seen my work, and he understands it now. He says he gets the hype.

He puts his hand on my knee, to test. I let him. I let him slip his hand past the dangerous slit of my dress and run his fingers along the inside of my thigh. He brings his lips to my neck, and his fingertips scratch at the delicate mesh of my new thong, suddenly hesitant.

He hadn’t thought this through, had he? Poor thing. He looks like a frightened rabbit.

Do I get him right here? Do I smash my glass into his skull? I don’t know what came over him – he grabbed my neck, he put his hand up my dress.