"It's for real," Jake replied. "It's the first time he's ever been in a relationship with a woman for more than three sexual encounters, so it has to be real."
"You'll excuse me for berating your friend, Jake," Greg said, "but I find it quite appalling that anyone would date a woman who has sex on film for the entertainment of the lower classes. It's just gauche."
"So you're saying," Celia said, "that it would be acceptable to you if she was having sex on film for the entertainment of the middle and upper classes?"
Greg gave her a look that was part amused, part irritated, and part exasperation. "You know what I mean, Celia," he said. "Having graphic sex on film is quite uncouth. I can only imagine the personality of a woman who is willing to do such a thing."
"Actually," said Helen, "that was kind of the way I felt at first. And then I met Kim in person, and..."
"Who is Kim?" Greg asked.
Helen giggled a little. "Kim is Mary Ann Cummings' real name. Kim Kowalski."
"Ahh, a Polish woman," Greg said, his tone implying that that explained everything.
"Yes... well, anyway," Helen continued. "She really is a very nice girl. She's smart, funny, and she knows how to stand up for herself."
"Are those orgasms she does on camera real?" Celia asked.
Greg looked at her with wide eyes. "Celia," he said, shocked. "Don't tell me you've actually seen one of those vulgar productions!"
Celia blushed. "Well... I might've caught a glimpse of one once when I was walking through a room out on tour," she said.
Jake and Helen laughed. Greg simply shook his head in consternation.
"She assures us that the on-screen orgasms are one hundred percent fake," Jake said.
"She's a pretty good actress then," Celia said. "The... uh... one that I saw fooled me."
"Please," said Greg, rolling his eyes. "Do not insult my profession by referring to a porn star as an actress. That would be like calling Weird Al Yankovich a musician."
"Oooh," said Celia. "I have to say that that's a good analogy, Greg."
"I think Kiss would've been a better analogy," Jake said. "At least Weird Al is slightly entertaining."
"Doesn't Matt have a problem with the fact that his girlfriend is having sex with other men while she's dating him?" Celia asked. "Men with... you know... bigger equipment than his?"
"It doesn't seem to bother him," Jake said.
"Besides, he's still having sex with other women," Helen said.
"He is?" Greg asked, aghast.
"Matt is Matt," Jake said. "Fidelity, to him, is some vague notion he heard about once on a television show. In a way, Kim is the perfect girl for him. She's nice, but she can be just as crude and vulgar as Matt. They kind of compliment each other."
"So you think he's growing up a little?" Celia asked.
Jake shook his head. "Not really," he said. "He still likes to live his life on the edge. He drinks like a fish, snorts coke like Al Pacino in Scarface, and smokes about an eighth of greenbud every day he's not working. He drives like a maniac. I got in his Maserati with him a couple of weeks ago and he scared the living shit out of me."
"What did he do?" Celia asked.
"We were driving from his house to San Diego to go check out a new night club he'd heard about," Jake said. "We were on I-5, on that stretch between San Clemente and Oceanside. You know where I'm talking about?"
Helen and Celia both nodded. Greg shrugged. He didn't do much driving.
"So anyway, it's pretty empty out there since there's nothing but the marine base. All of a sudden, he asks me how fast my plane flies. So I tell him that the cruising speed is one hundred and twenty knots. He asks me to convert that to some fucking system of measurement that he understands, so I tell him it's roughly about a hundred and forty miles per hour.
"'Yes, ' he says, 'but how fuckin' fast can it go when you're going balls out?' And I tell him that the maximum, never exceed speed of my aircraft is one hundred and sixty knots, or, in terms that he can understand, about one hundred and eighty miles per hour.
"He scoffs at me and says that that ain't shit, that his fucking car can go faster than that. That's where I made my big mistake. I told him there was no fucking way his car went faster then my plane."
"Uh oh," Celia said.
"Uh oh is right," Jake said. "He just gives me this weird smile, reaches back and pulls his third beer of the trip out of the ice chest, and says, 'watch this'. He put the pedal down and that engine started to scream. We'd already been going about ninety, which is Matt's usual freeway cruising speed, and that speedometer shot up over a hundred and twenty in a matter of a few seconds. Before I even had time to get properly terrified, he pegged it out at a hundred and eighty-five."
"Jesus Christ," Greg said. "He's a lunatic."
"You could say that," Jake said. "I've never gone that fast in a ground vehicle before. It feels like you're going three hundred the way the engine is screaming and the scenery and the other cars are shooting by you. He kept up that speed for almost five minutes, just to show me that it wasn't a fluke, that his car could maintain that speed."
"You could've been killed, Jake," Celia said, alarmed.
"Yep," Jake agreed. "After that, I vowed not to get in that Maserati with him anymore. Hell, I don't get into any vehicle that's he's driving if I can help it."
"That sounds like a wise decision," Greg said. "The man is a menace."
"He's a menace all right," Jake said. "He's also quite possibly the best guitar player in the history of rock music."
"I will agree with you there," Celia said. "I loathe him as a person, and my brother still wants to kick his ass, but I have to respect his musical abilities."
This discussion led to another discussion in which both Jake's and Celia's musical abilities were praised as well. And this led to the suggestion by Greg that the two musicians put on a little performance for the enjoyment of the non-musicians in the crowd.
"A performance?" Celia asked.
"Sure," Greg encouraged. "Go get a couple of guitars out of the music room and play for us. I'm sure Helen would love to hear it as well as me."
They looked at Helen, who was nodding enthusiastically. "That would be great," she said. "I've never seen Jake in action before. And I'd love to hear Celia unplugged."
Jake and Celia looked at each other.
"What do you say?" Jake asked. "Do you have a couple of acoustics lying around?"
She smiled. "I think I could dig some up," she said.
She dashed upstairs and returned about five minutes later with two acoustic guitars in hand — a Brogan six-string and a Fender twelve-string. She held them both up by the neck. "Choose your weapon," she told Jake.
"How are you on the twelve-string?" Jake asked her. "I haven't played one in a few years."
"I do a lot of my compositions on the twelve-string," she told him.
"I'll take the Brogan then," he said.
"I was hoping you'd say that," she said, handing over the six-string. "You go first, Jake."
"Okay," he said. "What do you want to hear?"
"Point Of Futility," Helen said at once. "I just love that song."
"You realize it's a song about breaking up, don't you?" Jake asked her.
"Yes, of course," she said. "That's what I like about it. It's so sad, so melancholy."
"Well, all right then," Jake said, pulling a pick from a small pile Celia had set on the coffee table. He checked the tuning of the guitar — it was perfect, of course — and strummed a few times to get the feel of it. He then launched into the original version of his most popular ballad, the version he'd originally come up with shortly after breaking up with Michelle Borrows — future hypocritical magazine article writer. Helen, Greg, and Celia all stared at him with rapt attention as he sang and picked. He didn't miss a note. They applauded with sincerity when he finished.
"All right, my turn," Celia said. "What'll it be?"
"Let's hear Caribobo," Jake said. "I'd love to hear the strict acoustic version on the twelve-string."