The Breakup and then some Ex Sex
For the first day after their breakup, Jada couldn't concentrate on anything. She had felt sick when Bruce left her apartment, after he did it. She was glad she didn't raise her voice, she didn't cry in front of him. All she could do was wonder why and hurt. It hurt the pit of her stomach, her head, her jaw, her chest. She had Marcelo run the gallery for the next two days, during which she left her apartment exactly once, still in her pajamas, only to buy shitty bodega food.
Bruce had somehow forgotten about an AIDS benefit Thursday night. He had to attend and attend alone, which got the gossip blogs talking about the fate of Mr. Wayne and his lady love. After all, the press got a few photos of them together and he hadn't been photographed with any other woman. Jada would have liked to refrain from post-breakup googling, but it proved too difficult to resist. She read all the stupid articles hinting that they broke up and all the stupid reasons they speculated could have been the cause.
The next day was Saturday. She came into the gallery dressed to the nines: a black leather midi skirt with fishnet stockings and high heels and a blue-green long sleeved crop top. Her long hair was down, curled into loose ringlets. She had bright red lipstick and cat-eye makeup. This could get her through one day at work, she knew it.
Unfortunately, the outfit wasn't enough to hold her together. When she saw some heiress types whispering together in front of some new arrivals, she was sure that they had heard that Bruce Wayne had broken up with her. Her employees had gathered what had happened and avoided the subject at all costs. Jada thought she was going to make it without crying at work, but when an employee played a new Lenny Kravitz center on the sound system, she discreetly started walking to her office.
"All of my life/ Where have you been/ I wonder if I'll/ ever see you again."
It was sentimental, drippy, but just the thing to set her off. She closed the door. After a good cry, she cleaned up, grabbed her purse, and left without saying a word to anyone. She had stormed down five or six blocks when she decided to go to the nearest bar and get smashed. The closest one was a low budget concept bar with a weird Twin Peaks feel. It had a small stage and dance area.
She drank gin drinks. She hated gin and only drank it when she was miserable. Gin had always felt sad and bitter to her. A band was setting up on the small stage as she finished her second drink. Jada saw a tattooed bass player and his pierced, pink-haired girlfriend. They were trouble and had drugs, Jada could sense it. She walked to their table and acted cute enough that they asked her to sit down. By giving the impression that she was harmless, happily single, and had a secret wild side, she ended up doing lines of speed and bumps of oxycontin in the bathroom. The bassist was named Dave and his girlfriend was named Nikki. They were always named Nikki.
The oxycontin was supposed to just be a painkiller, but Jada thought it had something else in it, too. Maybe a touch of some psychedelic club drug? Or possibly, Dave had forgotten what he had brought. Regardless, the drugs made it easier to absolutely love all of the new friends she met in the next two hours. She felt wild and euphoric. The feelings she wanted to feel would soar on command and the feelings she wanted to ignore were nowhere to be found.
When Dave's band went on, she danced with a few of their scenester Gotham friends. She took off her long-sleeved top, wearing a small black cropped tank top underneath. It was hot and crowded dancing in front of the band. She took a break and sat at the bar for a minute. She was ordering her third?-- no, fourth-- drink when a man behind her paid for it, along with his, a vodka on the rocks. She spun around to see Ayano beside her, looking devastatingly handsome.
She hadn't seen him since they broke up, almost a year ago. He was wearing an expensive looking, well-tailored black jacket that was shiny, with a hood. Beneath, he had a grey T-shirt and black jeans. He had a thin goatee and had grown out his black hair, wearing it tied back. Jada was frozen to the spot. What was she supposed to do?
"Jada, hello. You look beautiful," he said in his thick Eastern European accent. He smiled, almost eating her with his eyes. She looked straight ahead, took the drink the bartender had set down, and told him to get lost: go walk a bear.
"
Plimba ursu
," she muttered drunkenly. It was the first Romanian expression that came to mind. That's the thing about drugs- they will always bring the wrong information to the table, like an incompetent office temp. A funny Romanian phrase was kind of useful, but she could have benefitted from any one of the several bad memories of him and their time together.
"That's right, you do know Romanian. I had forgotten," he said in a gracious tone. "
EΘti singurΔ?
" He asked if she was here on her own.
"I have some friends waiting," she said, gesturing to the musicians and their friends. Maybe he would go away, she hoped. Maybe he was with someone. If she had been less high, less drunk, or less heartbroken, she almost certainly would have ran in the other direction. Her relationship with Ayano had taken months to end. She had worked so hard to get him out of her life.
Ayano pulled out some large bills and bought a good bottle of vodka. It wasn't the kind of place that did bottle service, but his cash was persuasive. The bartender also handed him a bucket of ice and some clean glasses. He gestured at them, telling Jada to pick them up.
"Let's go," he said in that unbelievably confident way of his.
Jada followed him, but wasn't quite sure why. She was having a good time with the group at the table and she wasn't about to start an argument and cause a scene. And nobody wasn't happy to see a guy with free booze. He introduced himself. Jada sat a few seats away from him, at least having enough sense to not trust that he could keep his hands to himself. Jada's new friends quickly distracted her from the fear that should have been setting in.
The band had finished their set, so a couple of them joined the table. Jada saw Ayano whisper something to the band's lead singer and the two disappeared for a few minutes. Thick as thieves. Ayano, in his typical manipulative fashion, was clever to offer the lead singer some of his cocaine first. Soon, he had the whole table coked up and won over. Jada had some in the bathroom with Ayano and Nikki. She had to. What if she sobered up eventually? Fuck that. Ayano's presence bothered her less and less, especially since he hadn't tried to fuck her and Nikki in the bathroom. That was a good sign, she thought. Maybe everything would be fine, the drugs told her.
Around midnight, Ayano bought some bottles of the nicest champagne this bar had for the table, which was Korbel. Jada was not thinking about how he had ended up in the same bar as her or what he was up to. Nikki asked her to dance and they did so, affectionately, not because they were particularly interested in each other but because it was fun, men were watching, and it made them feel desirable. Ayano made no effort to conceal that he was tracking her closely.
Jada could not hear all of what he had been talking about with the others at the table over the loud music, but whatever they had been chatting about left everyone with the impression that Ayano was awesome. No one to be concerned about. Had Jada been at the bar with coworkers or anyone she had known longer than a few hours, she might have been looked after more carefully. Towards the end of the night, Jada was wasted, leaning on her new best friend Nikki, saying how she ought to go home. Ayano conveniently overheard and offered to give her a ride.
"We're old friends. I'll get her home." he told Nikki. And Nikki knew no better than to let them go.
