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.
An excuse is bubbling on his tongue. I snatch his brand-new phone from his pocket. I invite him to my hotel room, tapping my number into his contacts, along with the hotel postcode.
‘Give it half an hour before you come. I don’t want to be seen leaving with you,’ I say.
I do the rounds, the goodbye kisses. People are disappointed all the photos have been sold, but they are not surprised. I direct them to the photobook in the gift shop, my website. I dish out a fistful of business cards. Sera glares at me, and I leave a smudgy red kiss on her cheek.
‘A few glasses of champagne really go to a girl’s head, don’t they?’
I leave.
In my hotel room, I wait, without my dress, but with the letter opener that came with Mr B’s stuffed bear. I carry it with me. It’s proof, isn’t it? Tangible proof. I place it deliberately on the bedside table and play with a silk scarf I plan to use. It is red to match my lipstick, his insides.
He bursts through my door looking smug, just pleased as fucking punch, with no idea what’s coming to him. He tries to kiss me. I tell him to take off his clothes and lie on the bed.
He asks me if anyone has ever told me I could be a model, that he’d love to take my picture.
I tie his hands together, above his head, then to the bed frame. He tells me I looked amazing tonight, and asks if I wore the dress with him in mind. I laugh at him. He keeps fucking talking, so I stuff a pair of socks into his mouth.
His wallet has fallen out of his trousers, and a fat baggie has fallen out of his wallet.
‘Is that coke?’ I ask. He nods. I have a bump, then another, and I straddle him. I stick a fingernail full of coke under his right nostril, and pinch the left shut. Greedily, he sniffs it. Then I slap him. I slap him harder, and harder, till his lip bursts. His eyes are streaming, and he can’t get those socks out of his mouth.
I stop. I take photos on my phone. Blood drips down his chin. I smile at him. I ask him if he’s okay. In what I think is some attempt at bravery （toxic, masculine bravery）， he nods. I lick his chin, and regret it immediately. It’s coppery, sickly, thick, and I gag, tasting blood and cocaine and champagne and bile on the back of my tongue.
His nipples are pink. I poke one with the letter opener, a tiny puncture mark which pisses blood, and he squeaks. I take photos. I prod and puncture his stomach. He has no muscle tone, no fat; he looks fragile and young. His belly wiggles, and flexes away from the sharp point in my hand, his skin sucking in, concave around his ribcage while I jab, and he bleeds. I cut a thin slice from his belly button to the dip of his collarbone. He is whimpering, and crying, now. When I ask if he’s okay, he nods. He’s still trying to hold face, where any woman would be screaming down the hotel.