Unwifeable(63)

“Okay, yeah,” he says. “Yeah . . . and, uh, if you don’t sleep with me . . . I’m going to fucking kill you!”

I fully burst out laughing.

“Okay, maybe not that extreme,” I suggest.

“You’re a whore,” he says.

“Sure,” I say. “That works.”



* * *




DURING THE COURSE of writing the prosti-dude piece, I become friends with one the Post’s top lawyers, and soon, sexual partners with him, too. It’s becoming clearer and clearer what a dangerous game my life is becoming.

Back at his place, as we are sixty-nining in his bed, I whisper in a sickly little girl voice, “I’m going to file a sexual harassment claim against you!”

“Just . . . please . . .” he says, “stop . . . talking.”

Is it fun? I don’t know. Is self-harm fun? You be the judge.

When I leave his place, I limp back home and try to figure out what the hell I’m even doing with all these degrading hookups.

I can’t help but remember what a friend once told me about how he had been sober for several years. At the time, I surprised myself with my reaction. “Huh,” I said, “I should probably do that.” He told me if I ever wanted to check out a “meeting” to give him a call.

This time, I think I might finally be ready.

Because things are getting weird. I can see that. I’m acting rashly. I’m making stupid decisions. Not only have I hooked up with a company lawyer, I have also fooled around with News Corp’s very hot maintenance guy in his giant office (no idea why that dude had such a giant office) while he told me secrets like knowing who was going to get fired first because he handled key card deactivations.

Something has to happen. Otherwise, how long until I’ve worked my way through the entire News Corp building and am fired in some kind of spectacular scene, then carted off to rehab?

Trying not to overthink it too much, I call up this sober friend, and we make plans to go to a lunchtime AA meeting on Houston Street. As soon as I walk into the slightly run-down but very lovingly cleaned old building, I feel like I’m entering church.

These people seem like they’ve seen some shit. These people feel like my people.

Near the end of the meeting, there are only a few minutes left, and while I didn’t intend to speak, I shoot up my hand impulsively. “My name is Mandy,” I say, and then, without even realizing I’m going to, I identify myself for the first time in my life, “and I’m an alcoholic.”

The moment the words come out of my mouth it feels like such a huge weight has been lifted off me. It’s like a different kind of rush. But I don’t treat it with real respect. I don’t think about what it means. And in the days that follow, I don’t actually go to another meeting. After eight days of not drinking, my “sobriety” is starting to feel like something dangerously familiar. It’s starting to feel like one of my stories.

But no matter. All I have to do is just not drink. One day at a time. Everyone knows that.

I even shine a little brighter from not drinking. When I go to a Page Six going-away party, it doesn’t even surprise me when a gorgeous twenty-seven-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio type named Alex starts talking me up for what seems like hours. Everything feels so great and fun and free. Hell, I’m even meeting amazing guys in sobriety.

Alex flatters me by asking me a lot of questions and expressing endless interest, and I launch into my balls-to-the-wall, trying-to-impress, super-extreme-honesty, sexual-anecdotal Tourette’s mode, telling him some of my greatest-hits stories to just do it up, lay it all on the line. My closer is, of course, being on the cover of the newspaper with the gigolo.

“Wow, I love it,” Alex says. “You’re not like a normal girl, are you? You’re unusual.”

I beam proudly. Man, this guy really gets me. I am so cool. It feels so nice to be seen, to be recognized, to be appreciated.

“You know,” Alex says, looking at me with measured intensity, “there are these swinger parties they have. Except you need a woman to go with, and I’ve never met a girl cool enough.”

Ah yes . . . there it is.

I have not been working this guy. This guy has been working me—the whole time. His follow-up statement reveals just how obvious a mark I really am.

“It’s so funny,” Alex continues, “there’s actually a party tonight.”

I look at him and I feel naked already. Like my clothes have been ripped off and every shameful flaw is on display. My heart drops a little. I glare down at the nonalcoholic water I’m holding in my hand and have been dutifully drinking like some asshole. I feel a flash of rage. Who am I kidding? Everyone knows who I am, even strangers I’ve just met.

I’m the girl you take to a sex club.

“All right, you little shit,” I say, harder than before. “I’ll take that drink now. Because I’m not drinking water if I’m going to a fucking orgy.”

Before we reach the club in the Meatpacking District where the dubiously named One Leg Up party is being held, Alex grabs my hand and whispers: “I’m your boyfriend now.”

I laugh, but it also secretly delights me. Of course, I know what he’s doing. He’s just trying to ensure we appear to be a real couple and will be let inside. Versus the reality of what happened, which is that he is a single horny guy who wants in to the party, so he plucked a chick off the street whose self-worth is so in the gutter she’s literally up for going to a last-minute sex orgy—like, within two hours of meeting.