American psycho_ a novel

Nell’s


Midnight. I’m sitting in a booth at Nell’s with Craig McDermott and Alex Taylor—who has just passed out—and three models from Elite: Libby, Daisy and Caron. It’s nearing summer, mid-May, but the club is air-conditioned and cool, the music from the light jazz band drifts through the half-empty room, ceiling fans are whirring, a crowd twenty deep waits outside in the rain, a surging mass. Libby is blond and wearing black grosgrain high-heeled evening shoes with exaggeratedly pointed toes and red satin bows by Yves Saint Laurent. Daisy is blonder and wearing black satin tapered-toe pumps set off by splattered-silver sheer black stockings by Betsey Johnson. Caron is platinum blond and wearing stack-heeled leather boots with a pointed patent-leather toe and wool tweed turned-over calf by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. All three of them have on skimpy black wool-knit dresses by Giorgio di Sant’Angelo and are drinking champagne with cranberry juice and peach schnapps and smoking German cigarettes—but I don’t complain, even though I think it would be in Nell’s best interest if a nonsmoking section was initiated. Two of them are wearing Giorgio Armani sunglasses. Libby has jet lag. Of the three, Daisy is the only one I even remotely want to f*ck. Earlier in the day after a meeting with my lawyer about some bogus rape charges, I had an anxiety attack in Dean & Deluca which I worked off at Xclusive. Then I met the models for drinks at the Trump Plaza. This was followed by a French movie that I completely did not understand, but it was fairly chic anyway, then dinner at a sushi restaurant called Vivids near Lincoln Center and a party at one of the models’ ex-boyfriend’s loft in Chelsea, where bad, fruity sangria was served. Last night I had dreams that were lit like pornography and in them I f*cked girls made of cardboard. The Patty Winters Show this morning was about Aerobic Exercise.
I’m wearing a two-button wool suit with pleated trousers by Luciano Soprani, a cotton shirt by Brooks Brothers and a silk tie by Armani. McDermott’s got on this wool suit by Lubiam with a linen pocket square by Ashear Bros., a Ralph Lauren cotton shirt and a silk tie by Christian Dior and he’s about to toss a coin to see which one of us is going downstairs to fetch the Bolivian Marching Powder since neither one of us wants to sit here in the booth with the girls because though we probably want to f*ck them, we don’t want to, in fact can’t, we’ve found out, talk to them, not even condescendingly—they simply have nothing to say and, I mean, I know we shouldn’t be surprised by this but still it’s somewhat disorienting. Taylor is sitting up but his eyes are closed, his mouth slightly open, and though McDermott and I originally thought he was protesting the girls’ lack of verbal skills by pretending to be asleep, it dawns on us that perhaps he’s authentically shitfaced (he’s been near incoherent since the three sakes, he downed at Vivids), but none of the girls pay any attention, except maybe Libby since she’s sitting next to him, but it’s doubtful, very doubtful.
“Heads, heads, heads,” I mutter under my breath.
McDermott flips the quarter.
“Tails, tails, tails,” he chants, then he slaps his hand over the coin after it lands on his napkin.
“Heads, heads, heads,” I hiss, praying.
He lifts his palm. “It’s tails,” he says, looking at me.
I stare at the quarter for a long time before asking, “Do it again.”
“So long,” he says, looking over at the girls before getting up, then he glances at me, rolls his eyes, gives his head a curt shake. “Listen,” he reminds me. “I want another martini. Absolut. Double. No olive.”
“Hurry,” I call after him, then under my breath, watching as he waves gaily from the top of the stairs, “F*cking moron.”
I turn back to the booth. Behind us, a table of Eurotrash hardbodies that suspiciously resemble Brazilian transvestites shriek in unison. Let’s see … Saturday night I’m going to a Mets game with Jeff Harding and Leonard Davis. I’m renting Rambo movies on Sunday. The new Lifecycle will be delivered on Monday.… I stare at the three models for an agonizing amount of time, minutes, before saying anything, noticing that someone has ordered a plate of papaya slices and someone else a plate of asparagus, though both remain untouched. Daisy carefully looks me over, then aims her mouth in my direction and blows smoke toward my head, exhaling, and it floats over my hair, missing my eyes, which are protected anyway by the Oliver Peoples nonprescription redwood-framed glasses I’ve been wearing most of the night. Another one, Libby, the bimbo with jet lag, is trying to figure out how to unfold her napkin. My frustration level is surprisingly low, because things could be worse. After all, these could be English girls. We could be drinking … tea.
“So!” I say, clapping my hands together, trying to seem alert. “It was hot out today. No?”
“Where did Greg go?” Libby asks, noticing McDermott’s absence.
“Well, Gorbachev is downstairs,” I tell her. “McDermott, Greg, is going to sign a peace treaty with him, between the United States and Russia.” I pause, trying to gauge her reaction, before adding, “McDermott’s the one behind glasnost, you know.”
“Well … yeah,” she says, her voice impossibly toneless, nodding. “But he told me he was in mergers and … aquasessions.”
I’m looking over at Taylor, who’s still sleeping. I snap one of his suspenders but there’s no reaction, no movement, then I turn back to Libby. “You’re not confused, are you?”
“No,” she says, shrugging. “Not really.”
“Gorbachev’s not downstairs,” Caron says suddenly.
“Are you lying?” Daisy asks, smiling.
I’m thinking: Oh boy. “Yes. Caron’s right. Gorbachev’s not downstairs. He’s at Tunnel. Excuse me. Waitress?” I grab at a passing hardbody who’s wearing a Bill Blass navy lace gown with a silk organza ruffle. “I’ll have a J&B on the rocks and a butcher knife or something sharp from the kitchen. Girls?”
None of them say anything. The waitress is staring at Taylor. I look over at him, then back at the hardbody waitress, then back at Taylor. “Bring him the, um, grapefruit sorbet and, oh, let’s say, a Scotch, okay?”
The waitress just stares at him.
“Ahem, honey?” I wave my hand in front of her face. “J&B? On the rocks?” I tell her, enunciating over the jazz band, who are in the middle of a fine rendition of “Take Five.”
She finally nods.
“And bring them”—I gesture toward the girls—“whatever it was they’re drinking. Ginger ale? Wine cooler?”
“No,” Libby says. “It’s champagne.” She points, then says to Caron, “Right?”
“I guess.” Caron shrugs.
“With peach schnapps,” Daisy reminds her.
“Champagne,” I repeat, to the waitress. “With, uh-huh, peach schnapps. Catch that?”
Waitress nods, writes something down, leaves, and I’m checking out her ass as she walks away, then I look back at the three of them, studying each one very carefully for any signs, a flicker of betrayal that would cross their faces, the one gesture that would give away this robot act, but it’s fairly dark in Nell’s and my hope—that this is the case—is just wishful thinking and so I clap my hands together again and breathe in. “So! It was really hot out today. Right?”
“I need a new fur,” Libby sighs, staring into her champagne glass.
“Full length or ankle length?” Daisy asks in the same toneless voice.
“A stole?” Caron suggests.
“Either a full length or …” Libby stops and thinks hard for a minute. “I saw this short, cuddly wrap …”
“But mink, right?” Daisy asks. “Definitely mink?”
“Oh yeah. Mink,” Libby says.
“Hey Taylor,” I whisper, nudging him. “Wake up. They’re talking. You’ve gotta see this.”
“But which kind?” Caron’s on a roll.
“Don’t you find some minks are too … fluffy?” Daisy asks.
“Some minks are too fluffy.” Libby this time.
“Silver fox is very popular,” Daisy murmurs.
“Beige tones are also increasingly popular,” Libby says.
“Which ones are those?” someone asks.
“Lynx. Chinchilla. Ermine. Beaver—”
“Hello?” Taylor wakes up, blinking. “I’m here.”
“Go back to sleep, Taylor,” I sigh.
“Where’s Mr. McDermott?” he asks, stretching.
“Wandering around downstairs. Looking for coke.” I shrug.
“Silver fox is very popular,” one of them says.
“Raccoon. Fitch. Squirrel. Muskrat. Mongolian lamb.”
“Am I dreaming,” Taylor asks me, “or … am I really hearing an actual conversation?”
“Well, I suppose what passes for one.” I wince. “Shhh. Listen. It’s inspiring.”
At the sushi restaurant tonight McDermott, in a state of total frustration, asked the girls if they knew the names of any of the nine planets. Libby and Caron guessed the moon. Daisy wasn’t sure but she actually guessed … Comet. Daisy thought that Comet was a planet. Dumbfounded, McDermott, Taylor and I all assured her that it was.
“Well, it’s easy to find a good fur now,” Daisy says slowly. “Since more ready-to-wear designers have now entered the fur field, the range increases because each designer selects different pelts to give his collection an individual character.”
“It’s all so scary,” Caron says, shivering.
“Don’t be intimidated,” Daisy says. “Fur is only an accessory. Don’t be intimidated by it.”
“But a luxurious accessory,” Libby points out.
I ask the table, “Has anyone ever played around with a TEC nine-millimeter Uzi? It’s a gun. No? They’re particularly useful because this model has a threaded barrel for attaching silencers and barrel extensions.” I say this nodding.
“Furs shouldn’t be intimidating.” Taylor looks over at me and blankly says, “I’m gradually uncovering some startling information here.”
“But a luxurious accessory,” Libby points out again.
The waitress reappears, setting the drinks down along with a bowl of grapefruit sorbet. Taylor looks at it and says, blinking, “I didn’t order this.”
“Yes you did,” I tell him. “In your sleep you ordered this. You ordered this in your sleep.”
“No I didn’t,” he says, unsure.
“I’ll eat it,” I say. “Just listen.” I’m tapping my fingers against the table loudly.
“Karl Lagerfeld hands down,” Libby’s saying.
“Why?” Caron.
“He created the Fendi collection, of course,” Daisy says, lighting a cigarette.
“I like the Mongolian lamb mixed with mole or”—Caron stops to giggle—“this black leather jacket lined with Persian lamb.”
“What do you think of Geoffrey Beene?” Daisy asks her.
Caron ponders this. “The white satin collars … iffy.”
“But he does marvelous things with Tibetan lambs,” Libby says.
“Carolina Herrera?” Caron asks.
“No, no, too fluffy,” Daisy says, shaking her head.
“Too schoolgirl,” Libby agrees.
“James Galanos has the most wonderful Russian lynx bellies, though,” Daisy says.
“And don’t forget Arnold Scaasi. The white ermine,” Libby says. “To die for.”
“Really?” I smile and lift my lips into a depraved grin. “To die for?”
“To die for,” Libby says again, affirmative about something for the first time all night.
“I think you’d look adorable in, oh, a Geoffrey Beene, Taylor,” I whine in a high, faggy voice, flopping a limp wrist on his shoulder, but he’s sleeping again so it doesn’t matter. I remove the hand with a sigh.
“That’s Miles …” Caron peers over at some aging gorilla in the next booth with a graying crew cut and an eleven-year-old bimbo balanced on his lap.
Libby turns around to make sure. “But I thought he was filming that Vietnam movie in Philadelphia.”
“No. The Philippines,” Caron says. “It wasn’t in Philadelphia.”
“Oh yeah,” Libby says, then, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. In fact it’s over,” Caron says in a tone that’s completely undecided. She blinks. “In fact it’s … out.” She blinks again. “In fact I think it came out … last year.”
The two of them are looking over at the next booth disinterestedly, but when they turn back to our table, their eyes falling on the sleeping Taylor, Caron turns to Libby and sighs. “Should we go over and say hello?”
Libby nods slowly, her features quizzical in the candlelight, and stands up. “Excuse us.” They leave. Daisy stays, sips Caron’s champagne. I imagine her naked, murdered, maggots burrowing, feasting on her stomach, tits blackened by cigarette burns, Libby eating this corpse out, then I clear my throat. “So it was really hot out today, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” she agrees.
“Ask me a question,” I tell her, feeling suddenly, well, spontaneous.
She inhales on the cigarette, then blows out. “So what do you do?”
“What do you think I do?” And frisky too.
“A model?” She shrugs. “An actor?”
“No,” I say. “Flattering, but no.”
“Well?”
“I’m into, oh, murders and executions mostly. It depends.” I shrug.
“Do you like it?” she asks, unfazed.
“Um … It depends. Why?” I take a bite of sorbet.
“Well, most guys I know who work in mergers and acquisitions don’t really like it,” she says.
“That’s not what I said,” I say, adding a forced smile, finishing my J&B. “Oh, forget it.”
“Ask me a question,” she says.
“Okay. Where do you …” I stop for a moment, stuck, then, “summer?”
“Maine,” she says. “Ask me something else.”
“Where do you work out?”
“Private trainer,” she says. “How about you?”
“Xclusive,” I say. “On the Upper West Side.”
“Really?” She smiles, then notices someone behind me, but her expression doesn’t change, and her voice remains flat. “Francesca. Oh my god. It’s Francesca. Look.”
“Daisy! And Patrick, you devil!” Francesca screeches. “Daisy, what in god’s name are you doing with a stud like Batman?” She overtakes the booth, sliding in with this bored blond girl I don’t recognize. Francesca is wearing a velvet dress by Saint Laurent Rive Gauche and the girl I don’t recognize is wearing a wool dress by Geoffrey Beene. Both are wearing pearls.
“Hello, Francesca,” I say.
“Daisy, oh my god, Ben and Jerry’s here. I love Ben and Jerry,” I think is what she says, all in a breathless rush, shouting over the light din—actually, drowning out the light din—of the jazz band. “Don’t you love Ben and Jerry?” she asks, her eyes wide, and then she rasps out to a passing waitress, “Orange juice! I need orange juice! Jesus f*cking Christ the help here has got to go. Where’s Nell? I’ll tell her,” she mutters, looking around the room, then turns to Daisy. “How’s my face? Bateman, Ben and Jerry are here. Don’t sit there like an idiot. Oh god I’m kidding. I adore Patrick but come on, Batman, look lively, you stud, Ben and Jerry are here.” She winks lasciviously then wets both lips with her tongue. Francesca writes for Vanity Fair.
“But I already …” I stop and look down at my sorbet, troubled. “I already ordered this grapefruit sorbet.” Gloomily I point at the dish, confused. “I don’t want any ice cream.”
“For Christ sakes, Bateman, Jagger is here. Mick. Jerry. You know,” Francesca says, talking to the booth but constantly scanning the room. Daisy’s expression hasn’t changed once all evening. “What a y-u-p-p-i-e,” she spells to the blond girl, then Francesca’s eyes land on my sorbet. I pull it toward me protectively.
“Oh yeah,” I say. “‘Just another night, just another night with you …’” I sing, sort of. “I know who he is.”
“You look thin, Daisy, you’re making me sick. Anyway, this is Alison Poole, who is also too thin and makes me sick,” Francesca says, lightly slapping my hands covering the sorbet, pulling the dish back toward her. “And this is Daisy Milton and Patrick—”
“We’ve met,” Alison says, glaring at me.
“Hi, Alison. Pat Bateman,” I say, holding out my hand.
“We’ve met,” she says again, glaring harder.
“Uh … we have?” I ask.
Francesca screams, “God, look at that profile of Bateman’s. Totally Roman. And those lashes!” she shrieks.
Daisy smiles approvingly. I play it cool, ignoring them.
I recognize Alison as a girl I did last spring while at the Kentucky Derby with Evelyn and her parents. I remember she screamed when I tried to push my entire arm, gloved and slathered with Vaseline, toothpaste, anything I could find, up into her vagina. She was drunk, wasted on coke, and I had tied her up with wire, slapped duct tape all over her mouth, her face, her breasts. Francesca has given me head before. I don’t remember the place, or when, but she’s given me head and liked it. I suddenly remember, painfully, that I would have liked to see Alison bleed to death that afternoon last spring but something stopped me. She was so high—“oh my god,” she kept moaning during those hours, blood bubbling out of her nose—she never wept. Maybe that was the problem; maybe that was what saved her. I won a lot of money that weekend on a horse called Indecent Exposure.
“Well … Hi.” I smile weakly but soon regain my confidence. Alison would never have told anyone that story. Not a soul could’ve possibly heard about that lovely, horrible afternoon. I grin at her in the darkness of Nell’s. “Yeah, I remember you. You were a real …” I pause, then growl, “manhandler.”
She says nothing, just looks at me like I’m the opposite of civilization or something.
“Jesus. Is Taylor sleeping or just dead?” Francesca asks while gobbling up what’s left of my sorbet. “Oh my God, did anyone read Page Six today? I was in it, so was Daisy. And Taffy too.”
Alison gets up without looking over at me. “I’m going to find Skip downstairs and dance.” She walks away.
McDermott comes back and gives Alison, who’s squeezing past him, the once-over before taking the seat next to mine.
“Any luck?” I ask.
“No dice,” he says, wiping his nose. He lifts my drink to his face and sniffs it, then takes a sip and lights one of Daisy’s cigarettes. He looks back at me while lighting it and introduces himself to Francesca before looking back at me. “Don’t look so, you know, astounded, Bateman. It happens.”
I pause, staring at him, before asking, “Are you, uh, like, shitting me, McDermott?”
“No,” he says. “No luck.”
I pause again, then look down at my lap and sigh. “Look, McDermott, I’ve pulled this act before. I know what you’re doing.”
“I f*cked her.” He sniffs again, pointing at some girl in one of the booths up front. McDermott’s sweating profusely and reeks of Xeryus.
“You did? Wow. Now listen to me,” I say, then notice something out of the corner of my eye. “Francesca …”
“What?” She looks up, a dribble of sorbet running down her chin.
“You’re eating my sorbet?” I point at the dish.
She swallows, glaring at me. “Lighten up, Bateman. What do you want from me, you gorgeous stud? An AIDS test? Oh my god, speaking of which, that guy over there, Krafft? Yep. No loss.”
The guy Francesca pointed out is sitting in a booth near the stage where the jazz band plays. His hair is slicked back over a very boyish face and he’s wearing a suit with pleated trousers and a silk shirt with light gray polka dots by Comme des Gar?ons Homme and sipping a martini and it’s not difficult to imagine him in someone’s bedroom tonight, lying, probably to the girl he’s sitting with: blonde, big tits, wearing a metal-studded dress by Giorgio di Sant’Angelo.
“Should we tell her?” someone asks.
“Oh no,” Daisy says. “Don’t. She looks like a real bitch.”
“Listen to me, McDermott.” I lean in toward him. “You have drugs. I can see it in your eyes. Not to mention that f*cking sniffing.”
“Nope. Negatif. Not tonight, honey.” He wags his head.
Applause for the jazz band—the whole table claps, even Taylor, whom Francesca has inadvertently woken up, and I turn away from McDermott, heavily pissed, and bring my hands together like everyone else. Caron and Libby walk up-to the table and Libby says, “Caron’s got to go to Atlanta tomorrow. Vogue shoot. We have to leave.” Someone gets the check and McDermott puts it on his gold AmEx card, which conclusively proves that he’s high on coke since he’s a famous tightwad.
Outside it’s muggy and there’s a faint drizzle, almost like a mist, lightning but no thunder. I trail McDermott, hoping to confront him, almost bumping into someone in a wheelchair who I remember rolling up to the ropes when we first arrived and the guy’s still sitting there, wheels moving up then backing away, up then back on the pavement, totally ignored by the doormen.
“McDermott,” I call. “What are you doing? Give me your drugs.”
He turns, facing me, and breaks into this weird jig, twirling around, then just as abruptly he stops and walks over to a black woman and child who are sitting in the doorway of the closed deli next to Nell’s and predictably she’s begging for food, a predictable cardboard sign at her feet. It’s hard to tell if the kid, six or seven, is black or not, even if it’s really hers, since the light outside Nell’s is too bright, really unflattering, and tends to make everyone’s skin look the same yellowish, washed-out color.
“What are they doing?” Libby says, staring, transfixed. “Don’t they know they need to stand closer to the ropes?”
“Libby, come on,” Caron says, pulling her toward two taxis at the curb.
“McDermott?” I ask. “What in the hell are you doing?”
McDermott’s eyes are glazed over and he’s waving a dollar bill in front of the woman’s face and she starts sobbing, pathetically trying to grab at it, but of course, typically, he doesn’t give it to her. Instead he ignites the bill with matches from Canal Bar and relights the half-smoked cigar clenched between his straight white teeth—probably caps, the jerk.
“How … gentrifying of you, McDermott,” I tell him.
Daisy is leaning against a white Mercedes parked next to the curb. Another Mercedes, this one a limo, black, is double-parked next to the white one. There’s more lightning. An ambulance screams down Fourteenth Street. McDermott walks by Daisy and kisses her hand before hopping in the second cab.
I’m left standing in front of the crying black woman, Daisy staring.
“Jesus,” I mutter, then, “Here …” I hand the black woman a book of matches from Lutèce before realizing the mistake, then find a book of matches from Tavern on the Green and toss them at the kid and pluck the other matchbook from her dirty, scabbed fingers.
“Jesus,” I mutter again, walking over to Daisy.
“There are no more cabs,” she says, hands on hips. Another flash of lightning causes her to jerk her head around, whining, “Where’s the photographers? Who’s taking the pictures?”
“Taxi!” I whistle, trying to wave down a passing cab.
Another bolt of lighting rips across the sky above Zeckendorf Towers and Daisy squeals, “Where is the photographer? Patrick. Tell them to stop.” She’s confused, her head moving left, right, behind, left, right. She lowers her sunglasses.
“Oh my god,” I mutter, my voice building to a shout. “It’s lightning. Not a photographer. Lightning!”
“Oh right, I’m supposed to believe you. You said Gorbachev was downstairs,” she says accusingly. “I don’t believe you. I think the press is here.”
“Jesus, here’s a cab. Hey, taxi.” I whistle at an oncoming cab that has just turned off Eighth Avenue, but someone taps my shoulder and when I turn around, Bethany, a girl I dated at Harvard and who I was subsequently dumped by, is standing in front of me wearing a lace-embroidered sweater and viscose-crepe trousers by Christian Lacroix, an open white umbrella in one hand. The cab I was trying to hail whizzes by.
“Bethany,” I say, stunned.
“Patrick.” She smiles.
“Bethany,” I say again.
“How are you, Patrick?” she asks.
“Um, well, um, I’m fine,” I stutter, after an awkward byte of silence. “And you?”
“Really well, thanks,” she says.
“You know … well, were you in there?” I ask.
“Yeah, I was.” She nods, then, “It’s good to see you.”
“Are you … living here?” I ask, gulping. “In Manhattan?”
“Yes.” She smiles. “I’m working at Milbank Tweed.”
“Oh, well … great.” I look back over at Daisy and I’m suddenly angry, remembering the lunch in Cambridge, at Quarters, where Bethany, her arm in a sling, a faint bruise above her cheek, ended it all, then, just as suddenly, I’m thinking: My hair, oh god, my hair, and I can feel the drizzle ruining it. “Well, I gotta go.”
“You’re at P & P, right?” she asks, then, “You look great.”
Spotting another cab approaching, I back away. “Yeah, well, you know.”
“Let’s have lunch,” she calls out.
“What could be more fun?” I say, unsure. The cab has noticed Daisy and stopped.
“I’ll call you,” she says.
“Whatever,” I say.
Some black guy has opened the cab door for Daisy and she steps in daintily and the black guy holds it open for me too while I get in, waving, nodding to Bethany. “A tip, mister,” the black guy asks, “from you and the pretty lady?”
“Yeah,” I growl, trying to check my hair in the cabdriver’s rearview mirror. “Here’s a tip: get a real job, you dumb f*cking nigger.” Then I slam the door myself and tell the cabdriver to take us to the Upper West Side.
“Didn’t you think it was interesting in that movie tonight how they were spies but they weren’t spies?” Daisy asks.
“And you can drop her off in Harlem,” I tell the driver.
I’m in my bathroom, shirtless in front of the Orobwener mirror, debating whether to take a shower and wash my hair since it looks shitty due to the rain. Tentatively I smooth some mousse into it then run a comb over the mousse. Daisy sits in the Louis Montoni brass and chrome chair by the futon, spooning Macadamia Brittle H?agen-Dazs ice cream into her mouth. She is wearing only a lace bra and a garter belt from Bloomingdale’s.
“You know,” she calls out, “my ex-boyfriend Fiddler, at the party earlier tonight, he couldn’t understand what I was doing there with a yuppie.”
I’m not really listening, but while staring at my hair, I manage, “Oh. Really?”
“He said …” She laughs. “He said you gave him bad vibes.”
I sigh, then make a muscle. “That’s … too bad.”
She shrugs and offhandedly admits. “He used to do a lot of cocaine. He used to beat me up.”
I suddenly start paying attention, until she says, “But he never touched my face.”
I walk into the bedroom and start undressing.
“You think I’m dumb, don’t you?” she asks, staring at me, her legs, tan and aerobicized, slung over one of the chair’s arms.
“What?” I slip my shoes off, then bend down to pick them up.
“You think I’m dumb,” she says. “You think all models are dumb.”
“No,” I say, trying to contain my laughter. “I really don’t.”
“You do,” she insists. “I can tell.”
“I think you are …” I stand there, my voice trailing off.
“Yes?” She’s grinning, waiting.
“I think you are totally brilliant and incredibly … brilliant,” I say in monotone.
“That’s nice.” She smiles serenely, licking the spoon. “You have, well, a tender quality about you.”
“Thanks.” I take my pants off and fold them neatly, hanging them along with the shirt and tie over a black steel Philippe Stark clothes hanger. “You know, the other day I caught my maid stealing a piece of bran toast from my wastebasket in the kitchen.”
Daisy takes this in, then asks, “Why?”
I pause, staring at her flat, well-defined stomach. Her torso is completely tan and muscular. So is mine. “Because she said she was hungry.”
Daisy sighs and licks the spoon thoughtfully.
“You think my hair looks okay?” I’m still standing there, in just my Calvin Klein jockey shorts, hard-on bulging, and a fifty-dollar pair of Armani socks.
“Yeah.” She shrugs. “Sure.”
I sit on the edge of the futon and peel off the socks.
“I beat up a girl today who was asking people on the street for money.” I pause, then measure each of the following words carefully. “She was young and seemed frightened and had a sign that explained she was lost in New York and had a child, though I didn’t see it. And she needed money, for food or something. For a bus ticket to Iowa. Iowa. I think it was Iowa and …” I stop for a moment, balling the socks up, then unballing them.
Daisy stares at me blankly for a minute, before asking, “And then?”
I pause, distracted, and then stand up. Before walking into the bathroom I mutter, “And then? I beat the living shit out of her.” I open the medicine cabinet for a condom and, as I reenter the bedroom, say, “She had misspelled disabled. I mean, that’s not the reason I did what I did but … you know.” I shrug. “She was too ugly to rape.”
Daisy stands up, placing the spoon next to the H?agen-Dazs carton on the Gilbert Rhode-designed nightstand.
I point. “No. Put it in the carton.”
“Oh, sorry,” she says.
She admires a Palazzetti vase while I slip on the condom. I get on top of her and we have sex and lying beneath me she is only a shape, even with all the halogen lamps burning. Later, we are lying on opposite sides of the bed. I touch her shoulder.
“I think you should go home,” I say.
She opens her eyes, scratches her neck.
“I think I might … hurt you,” I tell her. “I don’t think I can control myself.”
She looks over at me and shrugs. “Okay. Sure,” then she starts to get dressed. “I don’t want to get too involved anyway,” she says.
“I think something bad is going to happen,” I tell her.
She pulls her panties on, then checks her hair in the Nabolwev mirror and nods. “I understand.”
After she’s dressed and minutes of pure, hard silence have passed, I say, not unhopefully, “You don’t want to get hurt, do you?”
She buttons up the top of her dress and sighs, without looking over at me. “That’s why I’m leaving.”
I say, “I think I’m losing it.”