Abbey Shaine’s one of a multitude of Los Angeles MFA students. She’s fidgeting in an Alvar Aalto chair in a Beverly Hills gallery that’s all windows and white walls.

“So, tell me,” a middle-aged woman with a black bob and tight Balenciaga suit says, “The artists I’m curating into this show utilize utopian strategies in their work, how do you think your practice relates to this concept, I mean, to the idea of utopia, to utopian strategies?”

Sensing she needs an answer fast, Abbey says, “I think art is different from most things, you know, because we’re never really sure what art is. That’s art’s motivating paradox, to me, the thing that makes art baffling, even antagonizing. Some might argue that art is ‘an ontologically unstable category of cultural production,’ but I’d say that art is more like a trinket that we’ve stuffed into our pocket on our way to civilization.”

Abbey examines the gallerist’s expression. It hovers between mild irritation and boredom. She pushes on: “You know, art is like a remnant…a remnant of believing in magic, the incantatory power of mumbo jumbo, stuff like that. Art has its roots in desire and fear made over into stuff, and most of the time, the really powerful art did not even look like art, at least, not at first. I mean if you look back, every important work of art was once hard to even see as art, much less as great art, from Rembrandt to Picasso to Warhol…”

The woman raises her hand, cutting her off. “Okay, okay. That was just a formality. I needed to be sure you know how to talk to collectors, to dealers, that kind of thing.” She pauses, glances down, rearranges some papers on her desk, “So we’re putting you in the show. Take a quick look around. Make sure everything works for you and we’ll be in touch in the next few weeks.”

And that’s how Abbey Shaine got her first art exhibition.

The show opens several months later. The gallery is showcasing eight “emerging artists.” The group exhibition is called “My Parents Destroyed Communism and All I Got Was Art with Utopian Strategies.” The Balenciaga woman doesn’t have much to do with the show. It’s really curated by a smart, burly guy with a beard. He’s named Glenn Phillips, works a day job as a curator of contemporary art at the Getty Museum and lives in West Adams.

Abbey Shaine’s piece is called “Modernism Fucked Me Twice Last Night.” It consists of a long, narrow, rectangular, plywood room. Unfinished, unpainted on the outside, and inside, heavy, black, absorptive felt covers the walls and floors. An overhead device projects Picasso’s painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon on a white wall at the far end of the rectangle. And there’s a motion detector, so whenever anyone enters the room, Lil Jon’s hip-hop anthem Get Low grinds out of four big overhead speakers. Abbey hopes Lil Jon jumps to life and Dmitri will be standing there, but then again, maybe the past is better left in the past. She shrugs off the thought of him and considers the installation’s price point: 5.5K with the buyer responsible for acquiring the rights to reproduce the image and the song, which is the joke of the piece since she figures the rights will never be sold and they’d cost a quarter million minimum if you could buy them.

“My Parents Destroyed Communism and All I Got Was Art with Utopian Strategies” opens in the company of LA’s low key art intelligentsia.

“Hey, Abbey Shaine.” It’s a sweeping arm enfolded around her shoulders and a soft Southern drawl, both belonging to a barrel chested senior curator from a major Southern California foundation. “I’m gonna give you some compliments right now. So how ‘bout you just stand here really sweet and take them? Would that be acceptable to you, Ms. Shaine?”

“I do declare it would,” she mock drawls, grinning, shifting her weight to be more comfortable in his grasp. His hand discretely rests near the ridge of her ass.

“When I look at art, I ask myself questions: Is this piece better than the blank white wall behind it? Is it better than everything else I’ve seen tonight? How long will I remember it? How long will other people remember it? How long do I think I will love it? How many people will love it too? And who are they? How much will I think about it? How much would I miss it? Will it surprise me? How many words could I write about it? How much would I pay for it? How much would I sell it for? What would I trade for it? How much does it matter? How deep is its historical resonance? And to be utopian about it, does this thing make me a better person?” He coughs and adds, “I’m letting you know that I’m answering affirmatively to a lot of those questions when I look at this.” They stand for the next few seconds in silence, staring at a random section of plywood as if it’s real art, while Lil Jon’s chorus booms.

“Now bring yo ass over here hoe and let me see you get low if you want this Thug. Now take it to the floor and if yo ass wana act you can keep yo ass where you at.”

They reflect another few seconds together.

“Thank you,” Abbey says, adding the response she’d memorized for curators and collectors, “That really means a lot to me coming from you”. She smiles, “Excuse me. To be continued!” Abbey gives an apologetic bow.

She climbs through the still-building crowd toward the bar. She feels embarrassed. She made something she thought Balenciaga would like. Something trashy and edgy, and intelligent in a kind of paint-by-numbers, easy-to-read way: Picasso’s the greatest artist of the twentieth century not despite being a misogynist, it’s because he’s a misogynist, and a hundred years later, Lil Jon gets labeled crude and offensive, but he’s just rapping the storyline of the most celebrated painting in MoMA. Balenciaga liked this. She liked it a lot and this depressed Abbey. She’s embarrassed by her need to please.

Her cell’s vibration disrupts her self-loathing. Dmitri? Not Dmitri. Loathing sinks deeper yet into the marrow of her being. It’s Alex Ward, an artist, a model, a fashion photographer and off and on friend.

She answers.

“Yo, Abb. Ya free tonight? I got something good here and I need a girl. I mean, like, I need her right now. You available?”

“Ummm. Okay. Come’n get me.”

It’s ten when Abbey says her goodbyes at the opening. She’s not sure what Alex is talking about, but she’s learned to accept his offers and not ask preliminary questions.

A nearby taxi comes to life. Abbey trots across the street. Before she’s closed the door and turned to greet him his hand finds her upper thigh. She tenses on reflex and feeling the muscle twinge, he smiles. The mass of his upper body leans in closer. With an abrupt thrust, Abbey pushes his hand away. He loses balance and redirects himself to the driver.

“Alex, seriously, what are you doing?” Abbey looks at him with immobile eyes. Once a model himself, tonight Alex looks like shit.

“Eh, I figured I’d try. Why beat around the bush, ya know? These days I’m conditioned for rejection.” For an instant he seems small and adolescent. He goes on. “So, you know, Nate’s at the Playboy Mansion. GQ wants a few pages on him, in his gear. He’s doing this whole LA thing with the line. Dressing LA artists, you know, the older crew.”

“Dennis Hopper’s modeling Nate’s clothing line?”

“No… No… eh. Abbey, You’re so literal. No, the guys who were big back in the day, you know, in the sixties, seventies, but who got lost. The old guys who screw around in Topanga Canyon minus the dollars, retrospectives, and monographs. Those guys. Whatever. Trust me, this’ll be good. We’ve got to take some shots. We want Nate, dressed, and some Playmates also in his stuff. Over-sized dress shirts, cardigans, a blazer…but nothing underneath.” He pauses dramatically, “And you play art director?”

They arrive at the mansion. A fresh busload of young girls, aged 18 or 19, have just been delivered from Ohio for what can sympathetically be described as a Playmate internship.

The crowd consists of glad-handing, C-list celebrities, women strategically packaged in intricate bathing suits, and dozens of hungry looking men, eyes wide, mouths open, hands outstretched, ready to consume the carnal fruit of this debauched Eden. A lit bar in the distance compels Abbey through the throng. She tosses back two champagnes, dulling her sensibilities so she can casually lull young women into fine cashmere and trampolining with Nate Ward, Alex’s younger brother.

Alex and Nate appear, clasp each other’s hands chest-high. Brothers, one exceedingly wealthy, the other only commonly wealthy, by two separate fathers (Ward was actually their mother’s name), their relationship goes from supportive to backbiting in less time than it takes a group of aspiring Playmates to compete for attention. A welcoming committee of bunnies, jump up and down, arched eyebrows and rigid, rubbery breasts; they look like a congregation of dashboard bobble-heads.

Abbey approaches them. “Hey ladies. Ooh, I love that!” She says, grabbing a manicured hand.

“Bedazzled. They do the manicure at the same time as the vajazzling.”

“Can’t wait to find out what that is. Look. The young guys, they need some models. It’s for GQ magazine. You just have to tolerate them for a few shots. Interested?” She nods her head backward. “That guy, Alex, he works for Vogue. We’ll be at the trampoline. Get whoever you think would be good for high fashion.”

Tattoos and piercings, tan-lineless bodies, spray tan stained clothing. They approach men like unwitting deer, contentedly peeling layers of cheesecloth-like clothing over their heads, beyond hips, and down their legs, revealing fluorescent, porous underwear. The willingness for subjugation and servitude intoxicates and nauseates.

Abbey witnesses a veteran sportscaster in aviators approach one girl. He comes up close and swats her stringy blond hair from in front of her shoulder to behind.

“Hey, why don’t you take that off?” He says, pointing to her outfit of two indiscernible tubes of fabric, one playing a top, the other a skirt.

“Okay,” she says as though she were the one making the proposal. Abbey is transfixed by the exchange. In one continuous peeling motion the woman rolls both the top and bottom tubes down to her ankles and flicks them aside.

“Mmmm. I like that. Oh boy, I like that a lot,” the sportscaster purrs as he steps back to get a better view of the young woman standing naked on a slatted wooded walkway, dramatically lit by garden lighting. He smiles and walks away.

Lacking the grace and arched back with which she removed the fabric, she squats, retrieving the outfit and begins the process of rolling the skirt over her hips.

“Hey. How about taking that off?” Another, younger man has approached.

Abbey watches the exchange remaining still. She’s perfecting gender neutrality, a baggy sweater now hangs over her skinny jeans and a see-through tank, in the hope this will exempt her from wandering eyes. She watches, body rigid. The girl is still bent over weighing her options of taking off or putting on. Abbey grabs one of the line’s dress shirts. “Hey! We’re ready for you.” Abbey throws the shirt at the girl. “Put this on and forget about the skirt.” Abbey walks back to the trampoline, hoping the girl follows.

Several young women readily slip into Nate’s designs. He watches enthralled by their ready flesh and industry specific lingerie. They begin to jump. Nate stands in the middle of the trampoline dressed in a tux of his own design. As the girls jump the cashmere wafts up and dress shirts part revealing the white soft underside of breasts against tanned mid sections and belly button rings.

Alex takes a few photos as Nate stands dumbly in the middle of the Playmates. One is sent high in the air just as another is landing. The trampoline reaches a level of rowdiness that Nate is not prepared for. “Am I going to get hurt?” He cries out from the epicenter of Playmate activity.

Abbey dresses the girls and tells them they look beautiful, or sexy, or both. They are younger than her by maybe five years. Nate is loosing interest in them and asking for help getting off the trampoline. The directions Alex is giving the girls are escalating in vulgarity. From playful jumping, to suggestive posing, now on to pornographic vignettes.

Nate looks on uncomfortably as Alex’s fantasies are enacted.

“Lie down dead center. Undo the tux shirt. Let it fall open. Crawl over her. No! Slower! Again! Really slow. Now rub it. Okay. Okay. Yeah, now use your tongue. Good. Play with her! Pinch her nipple! Now suck it. Right. Right.”

“Christ! Alex, ENOUGH!” Nate yells.

Alex lowers his camera, shoots Nate a What The Fuck look, then dismisses the group, “Okay, ladies, thanks, really, thanks for your help. You’ll all have tear sheets for your portfolios.”

Abbey strides back towards the bar. The boys catch up to her and pull her away towards the valet. She doesn’t resist. They pile into Nate’s black Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows.

They pull up to a squat, brick building painted a mottled black, scarred from graffiti. No lights. No signs. No windows. A vertical, narrow yard of soft purple neon is the only marker. Once close, the light emits just enough illumination to make out a handle-less door. They climb out. Alex leads the way, his white silhouette strikes Abbey as the crisp introductory cadence to an overture of malevolence.

He pounds on the door. It cracks open.

“Okay, yeah, now?” Comes a hollow voice through the inch of space.

“Yeah, Terry Richardson sent me. He’s here tonight. It’s me plus two.”

Abbey rolls her eyes.

Terry Richardson is a New York photographer famous for grainy snapshots of naked girls. Abbey had been to his studio on Bowery tucked in amongst the kitchen supply shops and lighting fixture places. She walked in, shut the door behind her, and followed him to a desk.

“My mom said shutting doors behind you signifies denial.” Terry said looking her up and down and taking her modeling portfolio in hand.

“Maybe the token is more like ‘Find it shut, leave it shut,’” Abbey suggests.

Terry exhales. “Fair enough. Okay, let’s do some Polaroids. Take your clothes off.”

At seventeen, it was a defining experience.

So, Alex, Nate, and Abbey file in. Incandescent red bulbs light the space. They confront a mirrored, raised gangway with polished brass poles. The place’s identity is schizophrenic. The look is low budget cabaret, the sound 80’s speed metal, and the clientele’s from Shaft.

Alex takes her to a banquet by the stage, and there’s no Terry Richardson. A naked Latina hangs, inverted on the pole, head inches from the stage floor, back to the audience. Her legs fly apart in a violent split, then come together to hug the pole between her thighs. With balled up fists she strikes at her bare ass to a black metal soundtrack.

There’s a commotion stage right and Abbey is pulled away by shrills of laughter and muffled sounds of struggle.

Behind a black curtain, Abbey sees two strippers preparing to go on. A short brunette with surgically-enhanced breasts, is bending down, fooling with her footwear. She’s naked except for a long black cape and thigh-high black boots featuring a gauntlet of clasps. A tall blond wears a nurse’s uniform with a nun’s habit askew on her head. The brunette is giggling, the nurse-nun’s face is contorted by genuine anxiety over her misplaced nurse’s cap.

Brunette says, “Well, you’re Catholic guilt personified aren’t you?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah right. I look ridiculous! I told you I look stupid!” The half-nurse half-nun squats over the box, rummaging through sex toys and erotic paraphernalia. “Help me find the cap! C’mon, I’m next…!”

Abbey speaks up, “Just draw a nurse’s cross on your forehead with some red lipstick and really fuck up your eye-makeup. You know, go goth.”

The nurse-nun turns sideways toward Abbey.

Abbey asks, “You have a lip brush? What about an eye pencil?” On cue, without a pause, Abbey sits the tall woman down. She has the build of a Slavic model, sinewy and thin. Abbey admires the efficient and strong construction. She paints the cross and rings the woman’s eyes in heavy black shadow and liner. She looks like Death’s Slutty Handmaiden.

Abbey rejoins Alex at the banquet where he’s finished both their drinks. Nate’s already left, retreating back to Malibu. Alex’s slurring and aggressive. Abbey leads him out of the club, loads him into a taxi and calls Nate: “Have cab fair ready,” she instructs. She sets him upright in the taxi, holds a clammy white cheek in her hand momentarily, then lets out a sigh, “No expectations from this one.” Abbey retrieves a small ziplock bag from Alex’s breast pocket and directs the taxi. She stands back, shuts the door, and doesn’t watch it drive off.

Back in the club, the black metal nurse’s routine climaxes with an explosion of whip cracks and pelvic thrusts. She exits the stage, her body covered in a thick coat of sweat mixed with runny red and black makeup. At first, Abbey follows her with her eyes, but then she chases after her with her whole body. Slipping behind the black curtain, Abbey grabs the end of the stripper’s whip. The tall woman turns and laughs, gathering in the leather lashes, pulling Abbey into her. Their lips meet. Abbey leans backward and pulls out the baggy of blow.

“So where’s the party tonight, lady?” asks the Nurse, her hands planted firmly on Abbey’s hip bones, rocking them side to side to the opening chords of Misty Mountain Hop.

“Hamster’s Nest at the Chateau. Let’s go.”

Knowing the date and locale of Dash Snow’s hamster nests was like a supercool international Morse code in 2007, and through her network of connected friends, Abbey had somehow gotten the message. Though Dash Snow’s hipster cachet wasn’t what it used to be, what with The New York Times Magazine recounting his exploits. Quoth The Times: “You may not be able to find him, but you can hear his name, that zooming syllable—Dash!—punctuating conversations in galleries, coke parties and art fairs from Miami to Berlin. In a uniform of tight black jeans, a ripped T-shirt, and a black leather Martin Margiela vest. Dash looks like the son of Jim Morrison and Jesus Christ.”

Abbey and the Nurse climb up the narrow staircase to the Chateau Marmont lobby and down a red carpeted hallway, drawn by the intensity of a subwoofer.

Thin women run in the opposite direction with burly, bearded, tattoo-ed men chasing them, they leave a wake of excited cries and laughter. One man catches the woman in front of him by the waist and they both land hard on the floor, rolling around in shrieks of laughter.

Abbey leads the Nurse, hooking a finger through the denim belt loops of her booty shorts. They push through a thickening crowd of dishevelled, grungy, youth. The room’s entry pulsates with a traffic jam of bodies. The Nurse grabs a fistfull of Abbey’s hair, stopping their forward momentum and spinning her around. She kisses her. Abbey kisses back. She places a small pill on Abbey’s tongue and offers her mouth again. The kiss is intercepted and the girl is lifted away, disappearing into the throng.

Abbey wades into a sea of shredded paper and miscellany up to her knees. A strobe light is the only illumination of graffiti strewn walls, broken windows, furniture piled in one corner. Abbey is absorbed into the moving, running, dancing mob. Music is pumping from multiple speakers, which propel the crowd into a centripetal motion. The air stinks of malt liquor and smoke and everything is heavy with the oil of bodies and the strata of newsprint. Objects and people vanish and emerge with regularity.

A man leans against the wall. One leg raised, bent at the knee, a boot clad foot visible. The strobe light punctuates movement. In this world of continual turbulence he is a fixed point. Bottles and blunts occupy Abbey’s hands and then are passed along with the casual anonymity with which they arrived. Between the stuff Abbey is ingesting and the post-apocalyptic psychedelia of the environment, confusion and disorientation take over. Abbey knocks hard against something and tumbles into the detritus. She’s tripped over a squatting woman, skirt hiked, urinating. Abbey lies, splayed, and allows her head to fall back into the mess, lost in the fog of the mosh pit.