Author's note: This is part one of potentially many. Curious to know what people think and if anyone wants more.
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The Thwaites glacier broke off the Antarctic four days ago, paving the way for an unprecedented amount of ice--a so-called river of ice--to begin flowing to the ocean. The largest glacier in the world is thought to have irreversible ramifications, with sea level rise expected between six and twenty feet in the next decade. We now turn to Dr. Aysha Bektar, a scientist leading a research team on the continent--
Alyssa closed the window playing the six o'clock news on Youtube before snapping her laptop shut. Standing in her floor-length hallway mirror, peering past the dust--she really ought to clean it--she examined her outfit. Jeans, expensive hoodie, puffer vest, Docs. Semi casual vibes as per usual. Whatever. She rolled her eyes at herself. Glancing at her phone before tossing it in her bag, she knew she would be about an hour late to the party. Perfect.
It was raining outside. When hadn't it been raining lately? Dreary and gloomy all summer long. Soon it would be fall, too cold to do anything besides run from work to gym to restaurant to bar, on repeat. Drops spattered her hair, making it even straighter and flatter than it ordinarily was, ruining her attempts at a self-administered blow out.
But her rideshare was waiting outside, right on time. "Heyhowyadoin," she muttered, sliding onto the leather seats. One of those artificial air fresheners, or his last passenger's overzealous perfume application, hung thickly in the air.
"Going somewhere fun?" the driver asked.
"Is anyone anymore?"
He gave a knowing nod, not taking his eyes off the road.
She watched the rain-slicked world slip by. 8:30pm. The sun was setting somewhere up there. Above the clouds, where it was always sunny, before the endless void.
"Here we are," he said, catching her eye in the rearview. "Have a good night."
"You too," she said, thumbing through the app to give him his hoped-for 5 star review. She was feeling generous tonight.
The place looked nondescript, one of those brownstone-yet-not-exactly-brownstone affairs. Some corrugated tin was tacked onto one side--an attempt at modernity?--set beside giant square windows that gaped onto the street. She could make out the party from here.
A friend of a friend new this guy. Some rich crypto dude. New money. Not that she could judge; she wasn't new or old money. Middle-aged money, she mused, her job at a marketing firm paying well. Maybe not well enough for all the soul-sucking it did of her. But at least she got to live in an apartment with a private terrace and left enough over for her to blow on her significant entertainment expenses. What's the point of saving, this late in the game?
She knocked on the door. After a few moments of standing, hearing the music thump through the walls, she tried the doorknob. Open.
Inside, the place was pretty much what you'd expect from someone who was trying to show off. Ultra modern furniture. A hired bartender in a poncy embroidered vest. Art hanging from all the walls. Oh god... was that a Beeple? She couldn't decide what was more repellent--something so repellant hanging on the wall, or the fact that she knew what it even was.
Getting a drink from the bar, she faced a selection of crowded rooms to choose from. None of them would contain anyone she knew. It's not that she wasn't invited--not exactly. She was her friend's plus one, but her friend got sick, or was hungover, or was going on a date or something...
There just wasn't any way Alyssa was going to stay home on a Saturday night. She was a firm believer in yolo, especially these days. She also had a nasty case of the fomos.
She inserted herself into a conversation with a group of attractive enough people who were, as she found out too late, unfortunately talking about politics. Instead of dipping out, she sipped her spicy margarita to tired old words like fascist, and gerrymandering, content with staring at these people, nodding, pretending to listen while she silently invented stories about who they were and why they were at such a weird party.
When the conversation moved onto art, she perked up. Last summer she and some girlfriends went to Art Basel for no particular reason. They didn't give a fuck about art, but why not check it out, they figured. They were all young, hot. They could mingle with artsy douchebag narcissists and then get drinks on the beach.
In spite of herself, she ended up absorbing some knowledge. Carla Accardi, Maya Stovall, David Hammons. Weird stuff. Kind of pointless. But... rich? She ended up leaving the trip understanding, for the first time, what art really was: a big old capitalist money-laundering scheme for the mega-wealthy. Did she think about changing careers? She hadn't
not
thought about it.
That's why this guy's apartment intrigued her. She'd heard he hired plainclothes security guards to protect his stash, and she could see why. Her little group stood in front of a Damien Hirst statue, a dead pigeon preserved in formaldehyde. Probably worth at least a couple hundred grand. A woman who'd been standing just to her right stepped away to look at another piece, revealing a small work hanging on the wall she'd not noticed yet. She cocked her head to the side, unsure what she was seeing at first.
"Magnificent, isn't it?" said a woman beside her, admiring it also.
"Is it a..."
"Vulva? Yep." The woman smiled, her arms crossed, a wine glass dangling out of one hand. "Quite a close study."
That it was. It was a clay model, fired and carefully painted. It seemed to glisten, parts of it coated with a transparent paint that made it seem... wet. She scoffed, turned away to face the room again. Amateur. Obvious. She strolled amongst the crowd.
But her disinterest was feigned. It was as though she could feel the thing's presence over there, hanging on that wall. Like it was living, throbbing. Beckoning.
And why shouldn't I go over for another look, she thought, checking herself. Its hung up on the wall for that exact purpose, isn't it? It's probably the most interesting thing here, all people included. She did a few turns of the room, pretending to examine other paintings, other obscene sculptures, other useless swaths of paint. It wasn't like she'd never seen explicit art before. Hell, there were at least three pairs of naked breasts she could see from where she stood.
So what was it about that piece that held her interest?
She casually meandered over to it again, waiting patiently for a group of women to move aside. They pointed, put their hands to their mouths. "You know the artist is here?" she overheard one of them say.
Coming before it again, she tried to understand what made it different than other works of art. What was so evocative about this small assemblage of painted material. Something about the shape of it, the rounded contours, the transparent sheen that coated it.
It's aroused, she realized. Very aroused.
She went to the bar, feeling as though she could no longer justify standing before the thing and not look like some kind of pervert.
She faced the room, leaning her back onto the long bar. The owner of the house walked by. She'd never seen him, even a photo. But she knew because this man was short, a distinctly unappealing, self-satisfied air to him, and he was flanked by two gorgeous women and trailed by even more sycophant leeches.
Laughing to herself, she wished her friend had come, since there was no one here with whom she could point and laugh with. She scanned the crowd again. There were some hot guys here for sure. Suits and ties, the kind she liked. The ones who had their shit together. Or at least who had daddy's credit card and someone to pay to tell them what good taste is.
She noticed a man ordering a drink beside her. He was one of those artsy types. Wearing all black, a bunch of weird necklaces and big silver rings. Had that roughened, I've been in the studio all day don't mind the mess look to his hands. They were nice hands, though. Strong looking.
"What do you think?"
He must have sensed her attention. Maybe she wanted him to. "That this place is filled with insufferable douchebags, including you." She cocked an eyebrow at him.
He chuckled, unphased. "I mean about the sculpture."
She made a sweeping gesture. "Which one? There are so many priceless pieces of shit to consider."
He only smiled at her, taking a sip from his drink. Waiting, like he'd told her a riddle she needed to figure out.
Those overheard words passed through her mind.
The artist is here, you know
. Her head rocked back ever so slightly in surprise. "Oh," she murmured, suddenly embarrassed. "
That
sculpture."
So he'd seen her contemplating it. Was that it? Did he know she revisited it? Was he watching her the whole time?
"Let me guess -- you're the artist?" she said, rolling her eyes.
"Cyrus," he said, nodding as he extended a hand. "Pleasure."
"Is all mine," she finished, but immediately regretting her clumsy attempt at being clever -- she wasn't going for a double entendre. She shook his hand with a strong grip. It was one of her policies to never let a man crush her hand bones.
"Don't you need an NC-17 warning on that or something?" she asked.
"Well, no galleries have bitten on them yet," he said wryly. "Private showings only."
"Them? So you've made more than one? What are you, the vagina guy?"
He smiled, looking down at his drink for a moment, before meeting her eyes again. "I didn't start out as the vagina guy. I used to do watercolors mostly. I still do. But I'm an artist, and sex sells, and watercolors don't, as it turns out."
"Did you need an arts degree to do that math?"
He held up his drink, pointing in the sculptures' direction. "That one went for thirty grand."
She nodded coolly, deftly hiding her surprise. "You might be a better salesman than an artist."
He smiled again, giving her what she wanted. "I am definitely a salesman," he said thoughtfully.
He seemed nice. Or was it intense? He had strong features, those thick dark eyebrows that were en vogue. Good cheekbones. Sort of feminine, with an edge. She liked the way he smiled with his lips closed, one corner tugging up. Like he wanted to say something but was holding back. She also liked how his teeth would show when he laughed at things she said. Take off those weird chains and lose the mysterious attitude, and he might even be the kind of guy she would be into.
They chatted, eventually moving to one of the deep, plush couches that must have cost a fortune. She told him about her life, moving to the city five years ago, making a go at being a career woman. He told her about his fancy arts college, how he grew up in the city. He didn't mention a trust fund, but she decided it was implied.
They both silently wondered at each other's age, surmising she to be a little older, maybe a few years.
The conversation was natural, flowing. She was clever. Snarky, even. He liked that. He also liked her body, which he snuck glances at whenever she wasn't looking, and sometimes when she was. Measuring, assessing. He could tell she was aroused by him by the dilation of her hazel eyes, the way she licked her lips frequently. The way she'd lingered at his sculpture; gone back for a second look. The telltale sign.
She was hungry.
Soon they were three drinks deep. He wasn't much bigger than her, lean but muscular, so unless he was some raging alcoholic, she surmised he must be feeling the buzz just like she was. At least they were on equal footing. The part of her--admittedly a quiet part--that would tell her to slow down, be alert, stranger danger and all that, was effectively silenced. She was having
fun
. She might leave the party with him, if he asked. Why not? She wondered what those talented hands would feel like on her.
Wherever their bodies met, there was electricity. Thighs touching, his hand over her shoulders on the couch, standard fare. But when he placed a hand ever so lightly on her knee, she knew it was over.
