Read Online Kamikaze Lust by Lauren Sanders - Free Book Online

her cry—not even recently, through all of the doctors and chemo, did she shed a tear in front of me—and I knew she thought I was honoring the memory of my grandfather, the newspaper man of Lodz. Although this was partially true, the means by which I secured my Columbia scholarship were questionable enough to weigh heavily on the mind of this “good girl,” who needed Aunt Lorraine’s approval. I wanted her to be proud of me so I kept quiet about the loose ends.

    After a few circles around the neighborhood, I landed an unmetered spot a block away from the East Village address Alexis Calyx had given me. A deep breath. The click of my keys in the door. I hiked my bag over my shoulder and walked beside a row of brownstones in the nip of the afternoon, wondering about Alexis Calyx. What if her office were a sexual heroin den, like something out of Caligula, where upon entering she made you remove your clothes as casually as you had to relinquish your shoes in those Japanese restaurants I always avoided? If I wanted to eat with my shoes off, I would stay home. Neither were my clothes coming off. But what if she were the dominatrix type? If she locked me in a pair of handcuffs? Or taunted me with a rattan cane in a game of Singapore sling? I might be forced into something dangerous, like taking the job.
    I thought about climbing back into my jeep and going home, although I knew I couldn’t. Ethan would kill me, and though I had fantasized about killing him since our unenchanted evening, I couldn’t afford him thinking me irresponsible. Pragmatism in personal relationships was a key to success. I believed strongly in not breaking badly, in keeping all files active; you never knew where you might end up, whom you might need.
    Case in point: I was walking down the cracked, concrete stairs into the basement storefront that was home to Zipless Pictures. I pressed the doorbell, and it bounded back with a loud ring like the sound from an old rotary phone. Someone buzzed me inside.
    She spoke my name, and I recognized her voice, although the woman coming toward me with her hand extended was hardly the sexual commando I’d imagined. Alexis Calyx had thick, dark hair like mine, but pulled to the side with a fashionable clip, and a sweet, omniscient smile which, oddly, made me think of Aunt Lorraine. She wore a black, tailored suit with no shirt underneath and formidable platform boots that gave her about a foot on me. Her skin was a few pigments darker than mine, leading me to believe her roots were Mediterranean, and her body…for the first time in my life I was tempted to say built like a brick shithouse, although I had no idea what a brick shithouse was, let alone what one might look like.
    Poised, as if my heart were not pounding like a cement drill, I exchanged formalities with her, and followed her past the cluttered desks and shelves stocked with video boxes, around a group of young women, all fully clothed, sitting in front of a TV screen, eating burritos out of aluminum containers and wielding telephones in exasperated importance. They ignored us as we made our way through the railroad flat, passing colorful, geometric spray-paintings, framed movie posters, a few closed doors, and ended up in a small office.
    “I’m sorry, I’m a little frazzled,” Alexis Calyx said. She sat down behind a functional, Plexiglas desk and sighed. I took one of the leopard-skin chairs on the other side. “I just came from the set. It’s a total zoo, my A.D. had a fight with my male lead and bolted. Okay, so Blink can be a prima donna, but this is news? Now I’ve got to find her, like I’m the goddamn missing persons bureau. If you want something done do it yourself, I know, I know…anyway, it’s just one of those days. Coffee?”
    “No thanks.”
    “Good because that machine drives me nuts, you fill it to five, and it gives you two and it tastes like a burnt bagel, I don’t know. We don’t want coffee, right? What am I going on