'That seems.…" Anne starts.
I hold my breath, my face tight with tension.
"…low," she murmurs.
I exhale. "It is. But I got a fabulous deal," I say, gulping.
"But fifty thousand?" Scott asks suspiciously.
"Well, I think his work… it has a kind of… wonderfully proportioned, purposefully mock-superficial quality." I pause, then, trying to remember a line from a review I saw in New York magazine: "Purposefully mock…"
"Doesn't Luis own one, Courtney?" Anne asks, and then tapping Courtney's arm, "Courtney?"
"Luis… owns… what?" Courtney shakes her head as if to clear it, widening her eyes to make sure they don't close on her.
"Who's Luis?" Scott asks, waving to the waitress to have the butter the busboy recently placed on the table removed – what a party animal.
Anne answers for Courtney. "Her boyfriend," she says after seeing Courtney, confused, actually looking at me for help.
"Where's he at?" Scott asks.
"Texas," I say quickly. "He's out of town in Phoenix, I mean."
"No," Scott says. "I meant what house."
"L. F. Rothschild," Anne says, about to look at Courtney for confirmation, but then at me. "Right?"
"No. He's at P & P," I say. "We work together, sort of."
"Wasn't he dating Samantha Stevens at one point?" Anne asks.
"No," Courtney says. "That was just a photo someone took of them that was in W."
I down my drink as soon as it arrives and wave almost immediately for another and I'm thinking Courtney is a babe but no sex is worth this dinner. The conversation violently shifts while I'm staring across the room at a great-looking woman – blonde, big tits, tight dress, satin pumps with gold cones – when Scott starts telling me about his new compact disc player while Anne unwittingly prattles on to a stoned and completely oblivious Courtney about new kinds of low-sodium wheat-rice cake, fresh fruits and New Age music, particularly Manhattan Steamroller.
"It's Aiwa," Scott's saying. "You've got to hear it. The sound" – he pauses, closes his eyes in ecstasy, chewing on corn bread – "is fantastic."
"Well, you know, Scottie, the Aiwa is okay." Oh holy shit, dream on, Scot-tie, I'm thinking. "But Sansui is really top of the line." I pause, then add, "I should know. I own one."
"But I thought Aiwa was top of the line." Scott looks worried but not yet upset enough to please me.
"No way, Scott," I say. "Does Aiwa have digital remote control?'-"
"Yeah," he says.
"Computer controls?"
"Uh-huh." What a completq and total dufus.
"Does the system come with a turntable that has a metacrylate and brass platter?"
"Yes," the bastard lies!
"Does your system have an… Accophase T-106 tuner?" I ask him.
"Sure," he says, shrugging.
"Are you sure?" I say. "Think carefully."
"Yeah. I think so," he says, but his hand shakes as it reaches for more of the corn bread.
"What kind of speakers?"
"Well, Duntech wood," he answers too quickly.
"So solly, dude. You've got to have the Infinity IRS V speakers," I say. "Or–"
"Wait a minute," he interrupts. "V speakers? I've never beard of V speakers."
"See, that's what I mean," I say. "If you don't have the V's, you might as well be listening to a goddamn Walkman."
"What's the bass response on those speakers?" he asks suspiciously.
"An ultralow fifteen hertz," I purr, enunciating each word.
That shuts him up for a minute. Anne drones on about nonfat frozen yogurt and chow chows. I sit back, satisfied at having stumped Scott, but too quickly he regains his composure and says, "Anyway" – trying to act blissfully uncaring that he owns a cheap, shitty stereo – "we bought the new Phil Collins today. You should hear how great 'Groovy Kind of Love' sounds on it."
"Yeah, I think it's by far the best song he's written," I say, blah blah blah, and though it's finally something Scott and I can agree on, the plates of blackened redfish appear and they look bizarre and Courtney excuses herself to the ladies' room and, after thirty minutes, when she hasn't reappeared I wander into the back of the restaurant and find her asleep in the coatcheck room.
But at her apartment she lies naked on her back, her legs – tan and aerobicized and muscular and worked out – are spread and I'm on my knees giving her head while jerking myself off and in the time since I've started licking and sucking on her pussy she's already come twice and her cunt is tight and hot and wet and I keep it spread open, fingering it with one hand, keeping myself hard with the other. I lift her ass up, wanting to push my tongue into her, but she doesn't want me to and so I raise up my head and reach over to the Portian antique nightstand for the condom that sits in the ashtray from Palio next to the halogen Tensor lamp and the D'Oro pottery urn and I tear the package open with two shiny slick fingers and my teeth, then slip it, easily, onto my cock.
"I want you to fuck me," Courtney moans, pulling her legs back, spreading her vagina even wider, fingering herself, making me suck her fingers, the nails on her hand long and red, and the juice from her cunt, glistening in the light coming from the streetlamps through the Stuart Hall venetian blinds, tastes pink and sweet and she rubs it over my mouth and lips and tongue before it cools.
"Yeah," I say, moving on top of her, sliding my dick gracefully into her cunt, kissing her on the mouth hard, pushing into her with long fast strokes, my cock, my hips crazed, moving on their own desirous momentum, already my orgasm builds from the base of my balls, my asshole, coming up through my cock so stiff that it aches – but then in mid-kiss I lift my head up, leaving her tongue hanging out of her mouth starting to lick her own red swollen lips, and while still humping but lightly now I realize there… is… a… problem of sorts but I cannot think of what it is right now… but then it hits me while I'm staring at the half-empty bottle of Evian water on the nightstand and I gasp "Oh shit" and pull out.
"What?" Courtney moans. "Did you forget something?"
Without answering I get up from the futon and stumble into her bathroom trying to pull off the condom but it gets stuck halfway and while easing it off I accidentally trip over the Genold scale while also trying to flip on the light switch and in the process stubbing my big toe, then, cursing, I manage to open the medicine cabinet.
"Patrick what are you doing?" she calls from the bedroom.
"I'm looking for the water-soluble spermicidal lubricant," I call back. "What do you think I'm doing? Looking for an Advil?"
"Oh my god," she cries out. "You didn't have any on?"
"Courtney," I call back, noticing a small razor nick above my lip. "Where is it?"
"I cannot hear you, Patrick," she calls out.
"Luis has terrible taste in cologne," I mutter, picking up a bottle of Paco Rabanne, sniffing it.
"What are you saying?" she cries out.
"The water-soluble spermicidal lubricant," I shout back, staring into the mirror, searching her counter for a Clinique Touch-Stick to put over the razor nick.
"What do you mean – where is it?" she calls out. "Didn't you have it with you?"
"Where is the goddamn water-soluble spermicidal lubricant?" I scream. "Water! Soluble! Spermicidal! Lubricant!" I'm shouting this while using some of her Clinique cover-up over the blemish, then combing my hair back.