Executive Engagement

He would press me against the wall and bite my ear.

“Come for Daddy, baby girl,” he would whisper, and I would whimper and hold onto the wall.

He took me to Bloomingdales and sat down in the man chair as I traveled the lingerie section with the sales lady. Then we went into the fitting room where he had me try them on. He made me bend over and would slap my ass if he approved. When the lady thanked us as he paid, he looked over to her, grabbed me by the small of my back, and responded back with, “No. By the end of the night, we’ll be thanking you.”

We would go to dinner where he’d order for me when I told him what I was in the mood for.

My feet never touched the ground when I was with this man. He kept me cocooned up in a haze of pleasure.

I was his. And he was mine.

“You’re my queen, baby,” he would tell me.

I would nod.

And then he would tell me to come for him.

Margarita

“Hello,” the pajama-wearing young woman says, her breathing nervous and heavy. “You must be new to the neighborhood.”

There are some sights you expect to see in an old walkup somewhere down in the depths of the West Side. An aging tenement building on Eighth Avenue, perhaps. One that’s falling apart and carries the stink of neglect and decay going back decades.

This is one such sight, I’m sure of it. Except this sight isn’t in some rundown flophouse by Penn Station.

This sight is unfolding, as clearly as my eyes can see it, right here in what’s supposed to be the Upper East Side.

In what’s supposed to be a luxury building, complete with a doorman.

In what’s not only supposed to be, but very much is, the hallway just outside my apartment.

An apartment that’s goddamn supposed to be protected from this sort of thing. Both by geography and by a security staff who must’ve decided it was high time to stop taking their jobs seriously.

“Who are you?” I’m being calm, calmer than any rational person should be given such chaos. “What are you doing here?”

“My name is Mary. You must be new to the neighborhood!”

Oh, dear Lord and Taylor, this is what I get for living west of East End Avenue.

How did I ever let that walking sweater vest I call a husband talk me into it?

“I’m not new here, Mary. Are you?”

“I like to go skiing!”

“I hope you don’t wear those pajamas to your chalet in the Poconos. At least not until you get inside.”

“My name is...bye!”

Goddamn it—what’s really going on? Is she okay?

“Mary, are you…”

She’s already skipping down the hallway at quite a clip. Daring to poke my head out the door for the first time, I look down the corridor see several other young women waiting for Mary by the elevator.

All of them wearing cheap, drab pajamas.

And all of them giggling as she skips over.