Before I'd "taken over" Ali's career, all I'd seen of her life were the days at the crappy diner where she worked, a few gigs, and her apartment. I had no clue what a shambles she was in. Typical young New Yorker, she had no finances to speak of. Everything was a handshake deal, waiting to fall through. She wouldn't have been eating if it hadn't been for men who offered her food.
She wasn't paying rent on her apartment. It wasn't her apartment. It belonged to an older guy, 49, who was the friend of a friend. Ali occupied the couch at night, and kept her clothes in 1/2 of the apartment's only closet. It was a temporary arrangement, they both made sure to point out, but still. She didn't even have keys -- she got into her apartment only when he was home.
I don't know what Harvey was getting out of it, but I could guess what he
thought
he would be getting out of it. Here was a young, pneumatically built young woman, dressing up his apartment. If I'd been him, I would have planned for Ali in a towel walking from the shower, in minscular nighties painting her toe-nails, in bra and panties stalking through the rooms. In reality, Ali was as modest as a nun, she slept in jeans.
She was two paychecks ahead on her waitressing job. The manager, barely civil to her, clearly did not consider her his favorite. She only worked during days, made next to nothing in tips, and so ate many of her meals at the restaurant. Ali mentioned once in passing how Subram didn't like her to eat left-overs off the patrons' plates. Most recently, he'd been leaning on her to work nights, something she couldn't do if she was performing.
The practice space for her band was also unpaid. As such, half the time they were pre-empted by paying clients. Morale was at an all-time low among her band members.
She had no bank account, no cash. Her life was waiting to implode, and when it finally did, she would have to leave New York, return to her parents, and get a job as an un-credentialed office drone. Life over.
As far as Ali was concerned, I was supposed to fix all this.
* * * * *
At Ali's apartment, Harvey let us in. He had a big smile for her, and her little cut-up muscle shirt and loose-hanging boxers. For me, he had blank suspicion. He clearly didn't like sharing her with some guy walking in off the street.
I knew then, seeing his expression, that if I was going to stay in Ali's life, he would be kicking her out. A visiting boyfriend would be the last straw.
He hovered in the background as we organized her new wardrobe. Her half of the closet was cleaned out and tossed on the couch. He was all eyes as she bent and stretched, and squeezed past him in the hall. She naively took his ogling as interest, and told him all about how I was her new manager, and we were rebuilding her career. She held up each outfit in turn, and pointed out its strengths and weaknesses. Harvey made noncommital sounds, rarely meeting her eyes as she talked, staring down her top and her shorts -- not that she noticed.
He finally went to the bathroom. I quickly dragged Ali to the far side of the apartment, where he wouldn't be able to overhear us.
"He's not going to let you stay here much longer," I whispered.
"How did you know? He's already talked to me about it. I'm trying to be extra nice."
"You can't get kicked out right now, honey. You can't afford it."
"I know," she shrugged. "But what can I do? It's his place."
"You have to change his mind," I told her.
"I've tried, but he says he wants his life back."
"It's worse because I'm here," I admitted. "He's actually feeling jealous."
She shook her head. "I'm not about to lose you for
him
."
"We'll make it go away. If he brings it up again, tell him you're getting a place, but it will take 2 months."
"Okay. He might bend. But after two months..."
"I'll tell you how to shut him up. Will you do it?"
"Fuck, yeah," she said.
"It's simple, Ali. He wants a normal twenty-something girl in his apartment. You have to give it to him."
"I'm already in his apartment."
"You have to be
comfortable
in his apartment." I held her eyes, to make sure she was listening. "Anytime after 9pm, and before 9am, you have to be in panties and a t-shirt. That's all you can wear."
"Oh," she said.
"Sleep on top of the covers on the couch. So when he walks out in the morning, you're all shiny and snuggly where he can see you. When you take a shower, wrap a towel around you and come out of the bathroom, to pick your clothes."
"Oh. I see what you're saying."
"These are rules you can't break, at least for the next two months."
"Yeah."
"About 3 times a week, ask him what you should wear. Tell him you can't decide, have him pull hangers out of the closet and hold them against you. On the weekends, you'll be putting on your bikini and tanning on the roof. Hang out, before and after, in your bathing suit."
"Okay."
"Cook a meal once a week, and make some extra for him. You can both eat together on the couch. Can you do all this?"
"Um," she sounded uncertain. "Cooking? I guess."
"You have to. Or else we'll start hearing about how you have to leave again."
"Okay."
"Leave the bathroom door open when you're doing your hair and putting on make-up. If he's in the shower, ask to come in every now and then, to get something. And here's the hardest thing..."
"What's that?" she asked.
"If you need to change and he's in the living room, just turn your back while you change. Change quickly, don't talk about it. Just do it. You know why you're doing all this?"
"To shut him up?"
"Well, yeah," I said. "But mostly, what Harvey wants is a roommate. He wants to be one of the guys. Recapture his college days, before everybody turned shy and modest. He secretly wants you to feel comfortable around him."
"I understand," she said.
"Tell him about your life, even if he doesn't seem interested. Just babble. Ask him for advice on sex. Get him into your world. Men like it when women talk, and they don't have to answer."
Harvey exited the bathroom, and started puttering in the kitchen. I dug through the pile of clothes on the couch, and separated out a few old, thready t-shirts. I put them with a package of new thong underwear. "These are your pajamas from now on, okay?"
"Sure," she said.
The rest of the clothes we stuffed into a big plastic garbage bag. Ali watched, half wistful, as I carried it into the hall and threw it down the chute. She was committed now.
When I returned, Harvey was on the couch, silently chewing on a bowl of cereal. Ali was standing in front of him, on the other side of the coffee table, holding up two dresses. She was, with a chirpy open voice, trying to drag an opinion out of him as to which looked nicer.
* * * * *
I was on one end of the couch, relaxing. Ali was lying with her head in my lap, her knees bent and pointed at the ceiling. She looked up at me with wide, trusting eyes. The more I talked, the more she listened. It was exhausting. I had to always make sense. I always had to rationalize what I asked her to do, and weigh it against what it
made sense
for her to do.
It had been a tiring morning -- and it was now only one in the afternoon! I'd stripped her naked in front of the window of my apartment. I'd had her work my cock like a microphone. I'd dressed her in something scandalous and walked her on the street. I'd spent a month's paycheck on clothes. I'd told her to preen and prance in front of a dirty old man (Harvey) so she could keep sleeping on his couch.
"What do you think?" I asked finally. I wanted to hear if she could say anything but 'okay.' "How do you think it's going so far?"
She thought for a while. "I've never been more strung out," she said. She laughed suddenly. "The clothes. The whole new 'look at me' attitude. The thing at the window -- shit! And that thing in the subway with
no
personal space, and those dudes breathing down my chest. Did you know I was pressed right up against the pole? Against their hands?"
I shrugged. "But this manager thing. Do you think it'll work?"
"I do, I really do," she said earnestly. "I mean... I want you to know that I'll do what you say. I won't question anything. I can do it. Just watch. I'll make you proud."
"I know," I said. The weight of her head in my lap was making me a little stiff. My eyes were coasting up and down her body. Ali was nearly perfect, her shape at least. Even as she lay there, relaxed, bonelessly molded to the couch, her neck over my thigh, her breasts pointed at the ceiling without any apparent obeisance to gravity. The suspenders hung from her shoulders, casting complicated shadows on her skin.
"So I guess I feel strung out," she continued. "Nervous, but learning. I guess I always thought -- if I put on an act on stage? -- I guess I thought it would be like, fake. You know? It wouldn't be me, I'd get lost somehow. But, so far, it's
all
me. I don't feel like I'm lost. I feel like I'm magnified. I still have my little voice in my head, and it doesn't change if I'm naked in front of a window, or strutting down the street counting all the guys who look at me. I'm still me, but more so. I shouldn't have worried."
Harvey kept entering the living room, on one pretext or another. I guess he was cleaning the apartment or something. I know he was there to check Ali out, to listen to our conversation. I'd do the same, if a tight, young twenty-something was splayed on my couch. So I didn't mind, and besides, it was fun teasing him.
I whispered, "Don't mind him. He's coming under your spell."
"Jeez," she giggled softly. She crossed her arms under her chest and hugged herself. "I'm just
me
. I'm not putting anyone under a spell."
I felt myself falling into the teaching role again. "Well, you have to try. Everybody you meet should come under your spell. Start being spellbinding. That thing on the subway? You said you had no personal space? Work on that. I want you to have zero personal space around you, okay? You can't be distant."
"Okay," she said again. The word came easily to her, it seemed. Harvey was in the room again, and he heard it. It was simple, unchallenging. Her tone of voice was so tractable it nearly froze him in his tracks.
Then the phone rang. Harvey picked it up off the coffee table and answered.
"Oh. Ali, it's for you," he said. He came around the table to her.
She lifted her legs to clear a spot on the couch. She was so nonchalant about it that he unthinkingly sat before passing the phone to her. When she settled her legs back down, he was stuck there. Her calves rested on his thighs, and her little bare feet pressed against his left arm.
"That's what I'm talking about," I said proudly.
"What?" She glanced around. She had to lift her head to see her legs. "Oh. I wasn't even thinking... Hello?"
Harvey and I paused, waiting. He looked slightly befuddled, like he
wanted
