Free Eyes Full of Empty by Jérémie Guez

guys like me. When she reaches out to grab her mascara from a shelf, the arch of her back makes a long arabesque.
    â€œSorry, I’m not ready yet,” she says, glancing at me in the mirror.
    â€œI thought—I’ll, uh, just wait outside.” I chuck the candlestick on the bed, hold my hand out right in front of me. It’s trembling.
    â€œYou OK?” she asks innocently.
    â€œYeah. Where are we going tonight?”
    â€œTo Hugo’s.”
    I don’t even know why I asked her such a stupid question. She comes out in a loose top that stops midthigh, her long brown hair swept back in a big chignon. She’s wearing jeans tight as a second skin and red heels.
    â€œReady?” I ask.
    But she doesn’t seem to want to follow me. Instead, she lies down lubriciously on the bed. “You bring anything?”
    Without fanfare, I dismiss the disappointment. Really, Idir, you can dare to dream—but it’ll never happen . I take the drugs out from under my balls, apologize for how ungentlemanly that is, but honestly, I’ve never understood people who walk around with their stash in their coat pocket, like there’s no such thing as stop and frisk.
    â€œTake your pick.”
    She sits up and points at the pink powder Tarik gave me. What can I say? My man knows his business. She grabs a DVD off the floor. Contempt . It pains me, but I lay a line out for her on the clamshell, thinking her ass is a sure match for Bardot’s. She snorts the powder up diligently, no straw, just holding one nostril closed. A real pro.
    â€œNot having any?”
    I put the drugs away without answering. “We good to go now?”
    She gives a capricious little pout. “I’ll call a taxi.”
    In the elevator, the light from above brings out a slight bruise on her left cheek. Something she could’ve gotten walking into a door. Once we’re in the taxi, I ask her what it’s from. She could tell me to go fuck myself, but she replies quite naturally, as if I’d asked her for the time.
    â€œA guy I see now and then. He has these weird fits.”
    â€œWhat do you mean ‘weird’? He gets violent?”
    â€œNot really. He’s not normally violent, but let’s just say he likes violence when…”
    â€œWhen you fuck,” I finish, not very delicately.
    She looks at me sideways. “Right. But why are you interested?”
    â€œI don’t know. I wonder why a girl like you, who could have any boy she wants, gets herself into these kinds of situations.”
    â€œHasn’t it ever occurred to you I could like it?”
    â€œRight on.”
    She laughs.
    â€œWhat’s so funny?”
    â€œI was thinking about the guy—”
    â€œWho? The guy who hit you?”
    â€œYeah. He likes it when I hurt him too. When I…penetrate him.”
    I wonder how far this chick will go. “And?”
    â€œAnd each time, he starts jabbering about twisted stuff.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œLike—what was that thing he said last time? Oh, yeah: ‘Make me suffer, condemn me to being…condemn me to suffering…’ Something like that, I can’t even remember. Sick stuff. I was dying laughing.”
    The phrase echoes in my head, like I’ve heard it before, somewhere.
    â€œYou OK? You look green.”
    â€œI’m fine. Your boyfriend just sounds like one special guy. Oh, and listen, at this party: we’re friends, OK? I’m your dealer, not your financial adviser.”
    I spend the rest of the cab ride racking my brain to no avail for what that phrase reminds me of. The taxi drops us in the Seventeenth. I should’ve asked where the party was; would’ve saved me crossing Paris twice. The building is very modern. You can hear the bass from the street. Eve taps in the entrance code. The door opens on a large courtyard; at the back are a few apartments whose patios are separated by wooden