Bliss Read online

  How many others had there been?

  Didn’t he even care about getting caught?

  He glanced at his phone on the night table, like it explained things. The phone? What did the phone have to do with Demi’s … ohhhhh. Her brain cylinders fell into place. He was tracking her phone’s GPS. She’d left it at work. He thought she was twenty minutes away, and that he’d have plenty of time to get rid of FLIRT! when the GPS dot started to move. Sneaky.

  Svetland had retreated into the bathroom and came back out in a knockoff Versace dress, a barfy pseudo-Chanel bag thrown over her shoulder. Fake, fake, fake. In a perverse way, Demi was disappointed in him. He could do better.

  The girl’s shoulder brushed Demi’s as she hustled out of the room. The contact made Demi feel suddenly, painfully exposed. She reached for her robe on a nearby chair and slipped it on. “How long?” she asked him. “And, more importantly, how many?”

  “Are you really that paranoid and insecure?” he asked.

  “Fuck you. Don’t patronize me! I caught you red-handed.”

  “If you give me five seconds to explain.” He rubbed his forehead, and Demi hoped he had a cracking migraine. “I was nervous about the flight, so I took a couple Ambiens and had a drink or two. I guess I passed out. It’s pretty fuzzy how we got back here, but Svetland told me she practically carried me off the plane and got me in a cab. She asked me if she could take a quick shower here after the long flight, and considering all she did for me, I said yes. If it weren’t for her, I don’t know what would have happened to me. She got me home safe. Nothing happened. As you can see, I’m in no shape to screw anyone, including you. I wish I could, though. You look stunning.”

  Demi was disgusted by the compliment. Did he think he could flatter his way out of this? She pulled the robe tighter. “That girl said the thing about a threesome.”

  “A joke, obviously. Not too funny.”

  Backtracking, Demi replayed the scene with the new info. Svetland’s hair was wet. She had her carry-on in the bathroom, like she was in there to shower and change. James was a mess. He could barely keep his eyes open. She’d seen him dose liberally on flights before. Two drinks on top of an Ambien could drop a buffalo. Maybe she was being paranoid and insecure. If what he said were true, she owed them both an apology. Now I look like a psycho, she thought. She veered from one extreme (it’s a nightmare!) to the other (it’s fine!).

  “You can’t blame me for jumping to the wrong conclusion,” she said. “Finding a strange girl in the bathroom, anyone would freak out.”

  “But you’re not anyone,” he slurred, smiling slow and sexy, the same smile that enthralled her three years ago. “You’re my soul mate.” Even wasted, he knew that meant the world to her.

  Sophia would have vomited; Demi was so relieved to hear it, she rushed toward the bed and climbed in next to him. He opened his arms and she tucked herself inside them. James kissed the top of her head, stroked her hair, and said, “Shhhh.” She hadn’t realized she was crying with relief—and not from his scotch-breath fumes.

  “I just missed you,” she said. “We didn’t have sex the night before you left.”

  “I know.”

  “All week, I’ve been worried you’re bored with me.”

  “Never.”

  She snuggled closer to him, and put her hand on his muscular chest, right on top of his heart. Her fingers fanned to touch as much skin as possible. The sheet over his junk lifted.

  Ignoring his flammable breath, Demi snuggled closer, and dipped her hand under the sheet. He saw what she was doing and shifted away from her, but not before her fingers grazed him.

  It felt strange, gummy, not like normal skin. She started to pull the sheet away to get a look.

  “No!” he said, holding it up.

  They had a tug-of-war with the sheet. Demi was sober, and she had a better grip to start, so she had the advantage. She yanked it away, exposing James below the waist.

  Demi screamed, “Why the hell are you wearing a condom?” His dick was dressed, like a little man in a pale blue slicker. They used them in their earliest days, but they got tested and she went on the pill. “You motherfucker,” Demi blasted, and launched herself out of the bedroom.

  Her clothes. She needed her clothes, and then she had to get the hell out of there. Not only was he a liar and a cheater, he tried to turn it around, and made her feel like a thick-skulled, jealous nag. She had almost apologized!

  Demi’s knees buckled as she ran into the living room. She tried to keep calm. Her clothes and bag were in the kitchen. She threw off the robe and scooped up her dress. As she was pulling it over her head, James stumbled through the kitchen door, his blue penis bobbing like it had a life of its own.

  “Get out of my way,” she said.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  She struggled to get on her jacket. One of the sleeves was turned inside out. Legs shaking, she could barely step into her shoes.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “You have every right to be upset. But it’s not my fault. When I get fucked up, the drugs take over. I’m not responsible for my actions. And, believe me, Svetland is no innocent girl. She was all over me the whole flight.”

  Rage ripped the roof off Demi’s head. The bloody veal shanks were relaxing on the counter in front of her. She grabbed one in each hand, getting a firm grip with a thumb in each bone ring. Nostrils flaring, she said, “Move!” He backpedaled into the living room, hands up, eyes on her, dick bobbing. She thought, That would make a great GIF for Insta.

  Double fisting the veal steaks, Demi slapped him across his face with the meat. Unsteady on his feet, James went sprawling on his back in front of the TV. Demi advanced toward him on the floor and, with a blast of adrenaline-fueled fury, slapped his junk with the shanks. He rolled onto his side protectively. “Stop it, Christ!” he yelled, cycling his legs to get away.

  Demi dropped the shanks and lunged back into the kitchen for her purse, quickly rinsed her hands in the sink, emptied out the catchall drawer cash stash, and banged out of the apartment. She pounded the elevator button, and said, “Come on, come on!” This didn’t make it come any faster.

  * * *

  The twenty-minute drive to her office was dicey since she was practically blind from crying. Fortunately, her boss at the tiny marketing operation had gone home, and she was alone. The first thing she did was delete the Find My iPhone app from her phone, block James’s number, and delete his contact info. Then she used her desktop to call Sophia in Toronto via Skype. When her friend’s beautiful face filled the computer screen, Demi wailed.

  “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” asked Sophia.

  Pretty fucking far from okay. “James and I broke up.”

  There was a gasp off-screen.

  Sophia said, “Leandra’s here.”

  “Hi, Demi,” said Leandra as she came into view.

  Once her friend, now an enemy. They pretended to be civil, but loathing roiled just under the surface. When Leandra got into Trinity College in Toronto, Demi was thrilled. But then Leandra sold the city hard to Sophia, and lured her away from Demi as if she’d planned it that way all along. If Sophia hadn’t been so brokenhearted about Jesse, maybe she would have stayed in Vancouver. Demi was left behind without a college, a job, or a clue. She thought about moving to Toronto, too, but then she met James and you couldn’t have dragged her out of Vancouver after that.

  “Did he dump you?” asked Leandra, that bitch.

  “N-no,” Demi’s diaphragm spasmed embarrassingly from sobbing. “I dumped him.” Sort of.

  “What happened?”

  Demi took a few ragged breaths. Usually, she tried to minimize her problems—she couldn’t stand the idea of Sophia and Leandra talking about what a fuckup she was—but there was no way to sugarcoat this steaming pile of horseshit. She told them everything, stopping occasionally to blow her nose.

  “You hit his penis with raw veal?” Leandra’s nose crinkled in disgusted confusion.


  “I don’t think I broke it.”

  “That’s one way to beat his meat,” said Sophia.

  Demi barked a laugh … but then cried again. “This girl, Svetland whore face, she was a younger version of me. Really, James? I’m twenty-one!”

  “You were eighteen when you met him,” said Sophia.

  “Did it ever occur to you that James might, how to put this gently, like jailbait?”

  “Leandra,” said Sophia. “Not helping.”

  “This is good news, Demi. Now you’re done with him. From what Sophia tells me, he’s a sleazy drunk. What? Don’t deny it now, Sophia.”

  Demi started sobbing again. Sophia had tried to clue her in about James. Their New Year’s Eve fight about him was brutal. It seemed insane now that Demi had thought Sophia was jealous of her glorious pure love with James when she accused him of touching her under the table. Sophia had been right all along. Her parents had been right. Demi should have listened to them. That was the worst part of this whole shit storm. She was so far gone in the lavish lifestyle, her instincts had gotten soft.

  “How did I read James so wrong?” she asked.

  “He was great in bed.” That was Leandra.

  True. “Irrelevant,” said Demi, wishing Leandra would shut up and go away so she could talk to Sophia alone.

  “If a man is amazing in bed, you can rationalize just about anything to keep him there,” espoused Leandra.

  “Where are you now?” asked Sophia.

  “At the office.”

  “Where are you going to sleep tonight? Can you go to your mom’s or dad’s?”

  No way. They’d be smug about the breakup. Her father would immediately push her to move back home and work for him. She’d feel like an infant.

  “Go to the airport,” said Sophia. “Come here for a long weekend.”

  Demi shook her head. “I have to work,” she said. Plus, she had to pull herself together, get her stuff out of James’s apartment, and find a new place to live. “I’ll just go home and admit they were right all along. It’ll be like giving my dad an early Christmas present.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine,” said Demi. Sophia’s concern was starting to irritate her now, too. Did she think she couldn’t take care of herself? On screen, Sophia stared at Demi. A feeling passed through the cyberspace between them. Sophia knew Demi was lying about going home, but by tacit agreement, she wasn’t going to push it.

  “Okay,” said Sophia. “I’ll call you later. At your dad’s.”

  “Call my cell,” said Demi. “Or text.”

  Leandra waved. “Bye! Feel better!” Bitch.

  Demi clicked “end.” She spent some time cleaning up her face. What now? Get wasted, she thought. With whom? She’d sort of alienated herself from her friends and didn’t feel like calling any of the couples they hung out with. I’ll make new friends. In their relationship, Demi was the designated driver, the sober partner. Before him, she was the life of the party. Well, tonight, she would be again.

  She would spend the night in a hotel, and belly up to the bar there. Thank god she snagged some cash on her way out. She counted it at her desk. Whoa, almost $3,000. “Hello, bar tab,” she said, and it did make her feel better seeing all that money on her desk. He’d miss it, for sure, the asshole.

  She drove straight to the Pacific Rim Hotel in Coal Harbour across the city; it was only ten minutes from Yaletown, but James would never look for her there. The receptionist registered her with an open checkout. He didn’t ask questions when she forked over $2,000 in cash for the room and incidentals, just gave her a room key and a receipt. The room was first class and cozy. She lay on the bed, chronicling every moment over the last three years that, in hindsight, pinged her radar. The nights he stayed out until dawn with friends she didn’t know. Conferences that sprang up out of the blue, requiring weekend trips. What conference was impromptu? Now she could see her willful delusion plainly. Was she really that stupid and needy?

  Playing rewind on the entire relationship was too wrenching to handle, so Demi went down to the hotel lounge and ordered a drink. It was bumping. There had to be some corporate event; she counted suit after suit after suit. An older man caught her eye from across the bar and smiled. She tried to send off “don’t even think about it” vibes, and tap into her single-girl persona: the rebel warrior who took no shit and didn’t need anyone. It was the opposite of her relationship persona, when she turned clingy and dependent, almost overnight.

  Sophia had theorized that Demi’s fierce-to-fragile transformation had to do with her parents’ divorce when she was ten. They fought a lot before the split, but always promised her they’d stay together, until they didn’t. Hello, trust issues. When a boy broke through Demi’s defenses and she let him in, on some subconscious level she was just waiting for him to betray her, so she did whatever it took to keep him happy. Cook brilliant meals. Believe his lies. Sex on demand. Would she ever find a guy she could love and trust, and not turn into a sniveling, pathetic cling-on?

  Hugo Boss was still watching her. He was kind of hot, actually. Salt-and-pepper hair with a sharp jaw and good shoes. Let him come. When she didn’t care about a man, she was in complete control. When she cared, she lost herself. Demi had let James control everything—her life, her surroundings, her friendships—and now she felt like she had nothing.

  Only one drink down, she turned maudlin. She ordered another.

  Demi believed in happily ever after. Her parents had both found love again, and she admired their second marriages. Mutually supportive, balanced relationships did exist in the world. But apparently not for her. She was probably destined to be a lone animal, roaming the world, not happy or unhappy, just surviving.

  “Hello, beautiful,” said Hugo Boss, now standing next to her, offering his hand to shake.

  “Hi, Hugo,” she said.

  “It’s Pete.” Rhymes with “meat,” she thought, laughing. Oh, shit, I must be drunk.

  “Hi, Pete. I’m Demi. You can stand there, sit down, shut up, fuck off, or buy me a glass of wine. But hurry up. You’re making me nervous.”

  “Another round,” he said to the bartender, and took the seat next to her.

  * * *

  When Demi woke up, it took a second to remember she was at the Pacific Rim. She rubbed her eyes and looked around. It was another few seconds before she realized that this wasn’t her room. She was in someone else’s room.

  Her phone was on the table next to the bed. It was six-thirty A.M. Whew, she didn’t have to be at work until nine.

  “Come here, you beautiful thing.”

  She jerked at the sound of a man’s voice. Who the fuck … Demi slowly turned around. It was Hugo … Pete? Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me” started playing in her head. Making out at the bar. Buying a round for everyone there. Going up to Pete’s room, and assorted other sordid bits and pieces.

  Oh, fuck. What have I done? she thought, and covered her face with the covers.

  2

  good for you, now shut the fuck up

  The Skype call with Demi came at a bad time and now Sophia had to rush. “You think she’ll be okay?” she asked Leandra, who was sitting at her desk, applying her makeup.

  Leandra said, “She’s a mess. I’m sorry, but that girl is a walking disaster.”

  “You don’t have to sound so happy about it.” Sophia still had no idea what happened between Demi and Leandra. One day, they were BFFs. The next, they could barely stand to be in the same room. They both told her they had a fight at a party—Sophia missed it to have a mandatory dinner with her grandparents. It was just bizarre. She pushed them hard for info, but a few days later, Jesse broke up with her, and that was the only thing she could deal with. That had been four years ago. After she and Leandra moved to Toronto, the tension between the formerly inseperable best friends wasn’t an everyday issue. She gave up prying for details about Demi and Leandra’s breakup, and just accepted
that they now merely tolerated each other’s existence for her sake.

  “I’m not happy. I’m worried about you,” said Leandra. “You did notice that Demi didn’t even ask how you’re doing, right? Does she even know you have an audition today?”

  Sophia didn’t take the bait. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “Do I look okay?”

  Leandra appraised her “not trying too hard” audition look of black JBrand jeans, black patent Jimmy Choos, and a purple off-the-shoulder top from Equipment. She’d been painstaking with her hair—bouncy, side sweep, so long it went on for days—and makeup, emphasizing her dark eyes. “You’d be gorgeous in a garbage bag,” said Leandra. “I hope you break every bone in your body! And don’t forget the party tonight.” Then she took off, heading back to her dorm at Trinity.

  Sophia quickly finished her makeup and gave herself a few minutes to stare at the vision board tacked to the wall by her bed. It was covered with photos cut from magazines. A beautiful home. The Hollywood sign. A surfboard from the Teen Choice Awards. A photo of sunset on the Sahara. Another of a beach in Bali. A white Range Rover. The collage was her inspiration, what she always relied on to remind her of her long-term goals. Recentered now, Sophia told herself, “Walk like a star,” as she always did when she went into the world. Sometimes, when she was with Demi, they’d say, Strut Like a Star, and stallion it out, howling with laughter.

  Sophia tried to push Demi’s issues out of her mind as she rode the bus to Casting Central in Toronto, a facility used by TV, film, theater, and commercial producers to hold and record auditions. Today, she was reading for a new TV show, a Degrassi rip-off called Niagara. Her agent, Agnes Chen, had set up the audition and had been checking in repeatedly to make sure Sophia memorized the sides (aka her lines). She was a bit OCD about checking in. But better than having an agent who never did. Agnes got Sophia dozens of auditions, but callbacks were few and far between. In three years, the only acting job Sophia actually landed was as a model at a car show.