The Party

Erin Taylor writes about a reclusive Hollywood couple in a short story from LARB Quarterly no. 45: “Submission.”

By Erin TaylorJuly 15, 2025

• LARB Lit

• Fiction

This story is a preview of the LARB Quarterly, no. 45: Submission. Become a member for more fiction, essays, criticism, poetry, and art from this issue—plus the next four issues of the Quarterly in print.

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THEY’RE A BEAUTIFUL COUPLE, everyone says so. Everyone is always going on about how long they’ve been together, how their clothes kind of match, and even when they were only a few weeks in love they seemed as devoted as any couple together for 50 years! Everyone wants their secret. They see them out on the town holding hands. He buys her flowers just because; she goes on long trips without him, yet he uses the time to write his novels! Yes, her absence only makes him more obsessed! He’s dedicated the last four to her, which if only between us seems a bit excessive. Despite being on the guest list to every party in town, the couple are somewhat reclusive. Nearly no one has visited their beautiful home on Mulholland Drive except, evidently, the gardeners who keep the grounds, and possibly the occasional makeup artist who works on the Mrs. They’re the most mysterious couple in the neighborhood by far, and the most loved in Hollywood with no competition. Even with the economy of celebrity couples getting paired off every two weeks and flooding news cycles with their early public make-outs and eventual public dissolutions, the most interesting couples in Los Angeles by far are those who stay together.

It’s natural, then, that when the flood of iridescent envelopes flowed through town, everyone was curious. Some people sold their envelopes on an online marketplace and made a pretty penny but most held on to them with their lives. It was soon revealed that the most reclusive pair were hosting a party at their home. Now this really shook the social scene, as one half of Silver Lake was invited but the other half wasn’t, and for the whole week leading up to the party, there was a noted increase in fights reported to the Los Angeles Police Department. Throughout the week, the pair were bombarded everywhere they went with questions about their vague party invitation. No dress code. No phones? A strict time?! All of this was unheard of in Los Angeles. The couple were avoidant about their intentions with this get-together. “To our dear friends” along with the address and 7:00 p.m. on the date was all it said. The L.A. Times events reporter hounded the couple at a bar on Sunset Boulevard for his own invitation, but instead of being direct about it, he tried to claim his invite was “still lost in the mail.” The couple smiled politely at him and informed him no members of the press were invited; he claimed he thought he was more a friend than a journalist.

The spectacular mansion on Mullholland is guarded by armed security taking guests’ iridescent envelopes while waving them on as if it were a military barricade. Once through security, one enters the yard that is full of marble statues, a koi pond, and multicolored candles scattered throughout. The couple stand at the marble door that is the entrance to their home. He has a well-kept beard, which pairs well with her well-kept hair. He is slightly balding, but she is beautiful and young. Their guests all wear their best and most designer wear; as there were no instructions, everyone decided to dress for a premiere, and how right they were! The couples’ smiles seem painful, as they are not used to hosting and feigning such enthusiasm for each new guest.

The interior of the house is even more decadent than the outside. Renaissance paintings and imported Italian furniture, each room clearly designated by color. Blue, Red, Green, and so on, all emphasizing the various shades. The clear parlor is the Red Room, where guests gather around a giant projector. Running around the guests is a man in a tight blue suit carrying a bucket and demanding phones, electronic devices, and recording devices be thrown in, promising the anxious guests that they will get all their devices at the end of the party and directing them to enjoy their evenings. The hosts remind people a few times to give their devices to the funny man before the evening can really begin. This creates even more of an uproar because what is so secret? How will they remember this moment if they can’t document it? It’s clearly some sort of rights violation. People mostly hold their tongues for fear of being thrown out by security because nothing is more embarrassing than being publicly disinvited.

People are drinking at the open bar in the Red Room and the Blue Room (which could be considered a hypermodern dining room) when the couple tell them all to quiet down and listen in. They stand in front of the giant projector, smiling out at their audience. “Hello friends, we’re so happy you’re here in our home. We know we spend a lot of our time hiding away. You let us into your lives and well, we don’t really let you into ours. We decided that the next important thing that happened to us, we would throw a party and invite all our friends. We’re tired of these barriers, and true to our word, here you are so thank you.” She sips her champagne and takes the lead. “We didn’t know what that important thing would be, you see, but recently we hit a real landmark as a couple. You all realize we have been together for some time and we want to celebrate that, celebrate our love, and officially making 60 sex tapes together. We have been recording ourselves fucking each other from the very beginning, and I’m not ashamed to say we’re hot. It’s fucking hot. So welcome to the screening of 60 tapes we have made over the last two years.” He joins in. “Thank you, babe, that was so good. It makes me emotional to have you all here honestly, like being naked. Well, enough verbal vulnerability, the first video is honestly just sweet. It doesn’t have much of a theme, but we’ve got that fresh love fucking going on. Anyway, lights.”

The whole room is awestruck. In front of them is a deep view into the vagina of the most private woman in the world, and she’s laughing, smiling, kissing! So happy, you’ve never seen such happiness. Someone in the corner mutters that it is grotesque under their breath; another quickly compares the video to Octave Tassaert’s La Femme Damnée, since the man’s head quickly blocks the viewer in a lengthy act of cunnilingus. Someone responds that it wouldn’t work as a comparison due to lack of two other lovers ravishing the Mrs. Another remarks back that Tassaert later died of suicide, via the same methods of burning charcoal he had portrayed in Une Famille Malheureuse and any discussion of him is an affront to “the good vibe.” The couple finally step in to say they don’t mind comparisons to Tassaert but agree that keeping “death out” is ideal.

The next video is unusual, to say the least, at least to the average audience member. The asshole of the man is covered in chunky peanut butter, of which the woman, staring into the camera, licks up every last bit. The audience decides to ignore the deep-set stare with a thorough discussion about the safety hazards of chunky peanut butter, due to the possibility of choking. Once the woman’s whole mouth is full of peanut butter, her husband shoves his cock down her throat. This leads to the end of the choking hazard conversation and people move on to whispering to one another. Noticing the juxtaposition in energy from the video to the audience, the couple skip forward to the next video, which simultaneously triggers blue lights to flash onto the wall and music to blare.

They are swimming in a pool of water—not just any pool, but a pure glass tank where every aspect of their bodies is on display. Some viewers later remark that they noticed the man pull her closer to him as they watched this particular video, leading to speculation on its importance, and if it was so important why not save it until the end? Swimming up to the air to breathe every once in a while, the couple grasp each other’s hands to keep from drifting away, pulling one another closer, his cock hard yet seemingly soft in the way it floats back and forth from his body yet occasionally inside of her. The heavier conversationalists of the party even have trouble making comments as their mouths are open in awe. This wasn’t sex; this was God. This wasn’t fucking; it was becoming one together. A baptism that ends in a cum shot. They lift their bodies out of the tank, helping each other as they drip and laugh their way out of the water.

The couple leave the parlor, as if it had suddenly grown boring witnessing people witness them. It’s possible many big decisions seem less certain in the midst of their outcome. Once the couple has left the room, the audience becomes rowdier. People don’t know how to handle the destruction of social norms. In moments of such pure chaos, people attempt to define normalcy through a sense of self-superiority. Quickly, people take different strides, from some reacting with horror to the whole ordeal to others following the couple out of the parlor, believing that the hosts clearly will explain more of their vision for this event. Those people are soon disappointed, as their hosts sit at their coffee table and have affogatos served to them.

The couple drink their affogatos in the other room with a clear view of the party guests; they share glances and smiles at different reactions yet are shocked when guests come to make conversation. Clearly uncomfortable, they continue to tell the guests to enjoy the show. The current video takes place in a gas station bathroom off some highway somewhere in Middle America. Most of the guests haven’t even been to the middle of the country, so to them, the whole video has a Sean Baker feel, until they realize that the gross, unkempt, barely cleaned bathroom floor is where the woman put her knees. The man makes himself comfortable on the toilet, no toilet paper next to it yet some brown paper towels, some slightly wet, in the corner to grab. The man calls her a dirty slut and threatens her with opening the bathroom door so everyone can see what a dirty slut she is; in the video, the woman only sucks him off harder, and at the party, one can hear the echo of her laughter. Two young and easily influenceable partygoers decide to act out the scene in front of the rest of the party, and like a wave the realization hits the audience that nothing is being recorded. Anything could happen. A much older couple, one of them an Oscar winner, find themselves joining in with the young couple until no one can tell who started as a couple, or who will be left by the end of the night.

A few hours have gone by and they are only 30 videos in. There was no end time to the party listed on the invitation, not even a “till late” or a “till the cows come home.” The incidents of sporadic fucking have only increased with every video, until everyone is in some state of undress or seduction, prey or predator, devoured or voracious. The sex tapes themselves have a certain air about them. Each one carries a unique theme and narrative (regardless of whether anyone talked, there was always a narrative), settings change, and due to the continued use of the same couple over time, even their bodies age and essences transform slightly with each video.

Where their attention and eyes land has shifted; in some of the earlier videos, there was a continued glance of assurance that the other was still there, still obsessed, still hungry for what is in front of them. In the later videos, the circumstances become more extreme and the ordinary less definable. They do not look in each other’s eyes in each video, and if they do, there is a composure familiar to those who lose their virginity. They’re aware of their bodies, at once relaxed and on edge, and the appetite is innate and not a reaction to anything. The couple have finished their affogatos and joined their guests again, this time more refreshed for any fresh surveillance or questioning, and surely delighted at the surrounding sadomasochistic sex acts or the cuckolding ongoing in the kitchen. The fucking stops as every head turns to acknowledge the hosts.

They wave at everyone, their jaws raw from smiling. A doctor standing near the Mrs warns her about hurting her wrist with the velocity of her wave, after which she admittedly puts her hand right down. “Well, we are so grateful you all have come to this. Thank you for speeding through, gosh, 45 videos now?” “I believe so, yes. There’re a few major ones coming up but the early ones are special.” He gets real quiet before adding, “That’s the start of it all, after all.” They share an unusually sad glance for two people celebrating their love, and then ask the audience to keep enjoying the party, but to understand that parties serve as places to reflect. Yes, to them a party is nothing more than a way to understand others, but most importantly ourselves. They view their whole relationship in many ways as one big escapade. Trips to Cairo and the Canary Islands, regular outings to the hottest restaurants, and they were a key set of moving faces in the Los Angeles and New York City art scenes. Seeing intellectual purpose in going out, they also saw purpose staying in.

They further explain that with each raucous fuck, they are able to see the other more clearly. In ways that maybe they couldn’t earlier. Maybe sex deceives everyone until it doesn’t. This is where the biggest bomb of all is dropped: these sex tapes are limited edition. No more are going to be made, which led to an internal fervor within the couple to show them to the world, hence the party. Despite their consistent relationship and clear respect for one another, their time is done. They don’t see any other possible angles they haven’t tried, positions situated into, emotional arguments spewed. They had all been had, so much so that they had begun to calcify into a rote and tired mechanism of reaction. Within their isolation, they had become one another and couldn’t see a way to untangle themselves from each other. Even worse, they knew there would be zero ways to disconnect from Los Angeles. The city loved them! Everyone’s favorite couple, possibly more so for their lack of true vulnerability, yet that all changed tonight. They had realized something incredibly important.

The only way out is through, and if they are breaking up, they are also breaking up with their fans. The clingers-on of their relationship and emotional trials, none of which had truly been witnessed by anyone yet rumored of in some circles, wouldn’t give them up easily. No, they knew they had to trap them. They had to show them who they really were and shatter any healthy perception of them as a couple. They had to detonate their reputations and, even more, had to mutate whatever image had been had of them for all eternity. The Mrs steps forward and thanks them all for joining them this evening, and implores each person present to take part in a toast. Just like that, a stout little man runs around the party offering drinks to guests. Each guest takes a glass, holding it close to their chest. They wait patiently, with a tangibly excited air, for the hosts to define what they are—no, we are—toasting. Is it their love? Is it the fact they’re breaking up? Or the very specific and impressive positions in the 39th video? It’s too difficult to tell. Once everyone holds their glass, the couple raise theirs high into the air.

“To every great vulnerability!”

They all repeat the words back with the enthusiasm of church; they drink the elixir of the couple and their vulnerability. The couple instead sip their drinks slowly, smiling. The bodies begin to drop, one by one, the beat deafening. The partially dressed partygoers fall amid the breaking of glass and the tiny gasps. The hosts lie down together, their last video on the screen. In it, they are fucking but crying, her eyes bloodshot and full of want, yet not for him, and him not for her, but instead for what they had wanted from one another. They nearly fuck out a window but stop themselves. The couple are holding each other in front of the projector, his hands resting on her face as the house echoes with the thud of falling bodies. In the final frames of the video, the woman says, “Let’s throw a party.”

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Featured image: Jonathan Borba. Mansion on Hill Under Clear Sky, 2021. CC0, pexels.com. Accessed July 9, 2025. Image has been cropped.