The brutal mind attacks and the messages of stupidity and self-judgment were relentless. It was far worse in the morning after a night of booze. Jimmy’s voice screaming at me: “Coward! Fool! You screwed that skinny, crippled bitch again! You’re using her. You’re a pussy. A needy cheesedick. You can’t manage this company. Koffman knows it and Portia will know it soon too and even your drivers think you’re a nutjob. Just wait. This’ll cost you. I promise. You’re on your way over the fucking edge!” We were having sex three or four nights a week but I had to be buzzed to do it so the drinking and madness had risen back to an unmanageable level. Though the woman grated on me with her high-flung, know-it-all snootiness and nonstop mouth, like an addicted fool I continued the affair, getting drunk and pulling her into the chauffeur’s room or up to my bed, or leaning her over an office chair to hammer her from behind, or demanding that she suck me off. The only thing that made it bearable was that when Portia got drunk too she could be funny, imitating different English accents and telling me crazy tales about the paramedic company in New York and plastic surgery doctors and her philandering cop ex-husband and his friends harassing the transvestite hookers in SoHo.
