Valentine’s Day is fun, but this week the Cut is celebrating self-love: We’re indulging all our whims, desires, and worst impulses. Join us for five days of ME ME ME ME ME.
In that spirit, we’re reviving Celebrotica, with one of our favorite celebrity couples.
Robert Pattinson had arrived at last. Maybe you thought he was already here?
Sure, R-Patz once topped all the paper magazines’ “Best-Dressed” and “Hottest Young Star” lists. Introduced to the viewing public as Harry Potter’s doomed Hufflepuff crush Cedric Diggory, Rob soon won the coveted part of Bella Swan’s sparkly vampire beau Edward in Stephenie Meyer’s popular supernatural Mormon saga. His pale, bloodless pout came to dominate 2008 through 2012, the Twilight/recession years.
Tragically, the media rankings and to-scale boyfriend pillows failed to translate into feature films that actual people saw. Rob went on to vamp for Cronenberg and Herzog, and braved the sunlight as a regular at indie film festivals. But the box-office returns fizzled like Champagne bubbles, and with them, his Hollywood dreams. Yet while his career was in flux, Rob was in his element again — in love, paired with a powerful, give-no-fucks woman: the inimitable FKA twigs.
No matter where they went as a couple, hand-in-hand, the paparazzi trailed and left behind photographic evidence of their infatuation. His new lady was incandescent in her indifference to the media swarm, and Rob adored her.
He let his haircut speak for itself: He didn’t abide by Hollywood’s rules anymore. No art was like the daily masterpiece he and FKA made. Being with her was the best thing that ever happened to him. Before FKA — he dared not call her Twigs until the lawsuit was settled — Rob was as lost as a centuries-old vampire.
In his darkest hours, he admitted to himself that he was just another once-promising heartthrob glaring at Zac Efron across Harvey Weinstein’s front office. He and Efron would each choose a doughnut, size each other up, then go into the great man’s office to act the part of a luminary junkie with big eyes and a slack jaw.
Those were the dark days. Now, with a chance at love, Rob was hopeful again. Though an Oscar eluded him, Rob swore to turn in his best performance in real life, to be the best Robert Pattinson there was.
FKA dazzled him. She was independent, self-made, self-assured — everything that Rob was not. She was stunningly beautiful, with braids that went on forever and lips the envy of her fans.
But her fans on the internet were normal, appreciative, and made the expected kind of vulgar comments. Her fans didn’t wait for them around street corners with underpants to sign. Rob’s fans were intense, so the couple took to staying inside his lavish London flat. FKA rigged up the harness from her “Pendulum” video just for fun in the living room, and Rob kissed her and thanked her for not making them go outside.
The truth was that despite his varied and critically acclaimed cinematic performances, Rob was somewhat inexperienced. Out of his depth, he excused himself. In the enormous glittering bathroom, he crouched from the light behind the shower curtain, as a vampire might, and he swiped for Kristen Stewart. Their chat history went deep.
Rob watched her tiny sunglass-wearing avatar turn green.
Bless her, Kristen picked up on the third ring. She did not engage video, which meant she was naked or wielding a bong or both — crouched in the bathtub, Rob did not blame her. They did not need video; after half a decade of being forced to stare into each other’s eyes, they got the picture.
“‘Sup, Eddy?” said Kristen.
Rob explained his predicament. That he had found a wonderful woman who was talented and who embodied edgy-cool, everything he was not, and that he did not know how best to serve her. FKA was hip and modern and liberated — nothing like the Bella Swan whom Rob was raised to carry around.
Kristen heard him out. They laughed about the olden days, and Rob could hear an echo of feminine laughter behind Kristen. Then she went about setting him straight. She described exactly what he should do, where and how to touch and press and lick. Rob sat cross-legged in the tub, running through a memory retention exercise recommended by top gurus so that he would remember her instructions.
Listening to Kristen feed him lines through the tinny tablet speaker was just like being on set or trapped in the dubious relationship they’d sustained a tenuous façade of for years. At length, Rob thanked her, said hey to her roommate, and ended the call. With newfound direction, he pushed the shower curtain aside and went to attend to his true lady-love.
He found FKA in a robe of gold, lounging in the living room, the harness abandoned. Rob was relieved; that was Fifty Shades of Grey stuff and he was trained in the original material. Moving as fast as an immortal being from the 1800s obsessed with an average teenage girl in rainy Washington state, Rob dropped to his knees before her. She was so much more than any part he’d ever played; with her, he was a work in progress, no one’s heartthrob but his own.
Rob took all of Kristen’s advice combined with his training, pleasuring FKA with his mouth as though they were alone under a starry sky at the end of the world. They were past vampires; they were the primordial mercury bubbling in FKA’s sexy video. Kristen had told him all the best places, and Rob obeyed. Before they talked, he did not know that fingers could be thus employed, that his mouth was half so useful.
When FKA swooned at last and made the sounds Kristen swore she would, Rob knew what to do. He gathered her in his strong arms and bore her to the bedroom.
Some assistant had scattered pink rose petals across the quilt after a Valentine’s Day Google reminder. Rob lowered FKA to their feathery bed, careful to attend to her every whim. He had done it Kristen’s way, and now it was his turn to show what Robert Pattinson could do on his own. Here, at last, with a woman who liked him outside contractual obligations and with no expectations to make any lists at all in 2015, Rob made love like a movie star for his audience of one.
He thought his performance award-winning, but to his delight FKA indicated that they had only just begun. Rob took to the harness like he was born to play a tragic acrobat. Suspended from the ceiling, he had time to look back upon his life, with hanging upside down by bondage straps as an apt metaphor.
FKA was his future, Rob knew then; he loved her, more than a 100-year-old creature of the night could ever love an awkward high schooler carrying their messianic demon child. This was it; she was his heart’s desire, and he would follow FKA — Twigs, copyright law be damned — to the ends of the Earth.
Just as soon as he’s cut down.