Julia’s boyfriend was a rock star. He always played his own records when he made love to her, coming just as he sang along to himself in the climax of a seven-minute speed metal anthem to the dark underbelly of middle class youth. Needless to say, this prevented Julia’s orgasms. In fact it made her want to vomit.
But she loved waking up in the morning to their view of central park, sipping a double espresso pulled from his $1500 automatic Saeco machine. She ignored the feeling inside her that reminded her of violation, hugged herself through her terrycloth robe, and soaked in the sunrise. She would work in the second bathroom she’d converted into a darkroom and leave by noon. He awoke at one.
She would walk the 20 blocks home in a different arrangement every day, stretching it to 30, 40 blocks of wandering beauty that she would capture to the best of her ability. At her own home she was afforded the mess of Polaroid transfers and collages and clothes-making and dripping candles and the Smiths.
At seven p.m. she would swear never to see him again, remembering nothing beyond the coffee as a decent reason to. By eleven she was in the VIP room, he with his arm casually draped around her shoulder for a split second until something more important beckoned from across the room or some very important point about the music of 1989 had to be explained with large arm gestures.
And then it was three a.m. for metallic, operatic come, and six for amazing coffee and sunrise, and twelve noon for walking, and seven p.m. for forgetting.
And then it was two a.m. again and she realized, gluing a candy necklace onto an underexposed piece of fiber paper, that she was going to have to go down to the corner for coffee in the morning. And someone softly sang in the background and things scattered about and life…was good.