The Upper East Side town house Nate had grown up in was four stories high and had its own elevator and a twenty-four-hour cook. But Georgie’s Greenwich, Connecticut, mansion had something his family’s town house didn’t—vast amounts of space inside, and acres of land around the house. It was like a city unto itself, and Georgie had her own private borough where she could do absolutely whatever she pleased while her ancient English nanny was in bed watching BBC America and the other servants were doing their jobs in the other boroughs. Georgie’s bathroom even had a Roman daybed in it for lounging on while she waited for her twelve-foot-wide marble Jacuzzi to fill up.
“Or we could have crazy loud sex on the stairs,” Georgie added. “That would really drive the staff nuts.”
Nate leaned his head back against the footboard of Georgie’s four-poster king-sized bed and put the joint they were sharing to his lips. “Let’s just watch the snow fall for a while.”
Georgie rolled over on her back, resting her head on the leg of Nate’s navy blue Culture of Humanity ripstop trousers. “God, you’re mellow. I’m not used to hanging out with someone so mellow.”
“What are your friends like?” Nate asked, sucking hard on the joint. Pot seemed to taste and feel better now that he’d gone without it for a while.
“I don’t have any friends anymore,” Georgie answered. “They all kind of gave up on me because I’m so nuts.”
Nate put his hand on her head and began stroking her hair. She had incredibly soft, luxurious hair. “I hang out a lot with these three guys in my class at school,” he said, referring to Jeremy, Anthony, and Charlie. “But I went for a few days without getting high and I didn’t really want to hang out with them, you know?”
“That’s what Jackie calls a ‘negative friendship.’ A ‘positive friendship’ is when you do fun, constructive things with your friends like baking cookies, making collages, and climbing mountains.”
“I’m your friend,” Nate offered quietly.
Georgie rubbed the back of her head against his leg. “I know.” She laughed, her not-too-small chest jiggling up and down inside her tight white T-shirt. “Want to bake some cookies?”
Nate combed a lock of her hair up into the air with his fingers and then let it fall, strand by strand, back into his lap. Blair had long hair, too, but it wasn’t as straight or as silky as Georgie’s. It was funny how girls could all be so different. “Can I kiss you?” he asked, not really having intended to sound so formal.
“Okay,” Georgie whispered.
Nate bent over and brushed his lips against the bridge of her nose, her chin, and finally her lips. She kissed him back hungrily and then pulled away and sat up on her elbows. “This is what Jackie calls ‘feeding your craving.’ You’re doing something that feels good temporarily instead of ‘healing the wounds.’
Nate shrugged. “Why is it temporary?” He pointed up at the skylight, which was completely smothered in snow. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Georgie scooched her feet up under her and stood up. She disappeared into the bathroom and Nate could hear a cabinet door open and the sounds of pill bottles rattling and water running. Then she came out, brushing her teeth, her light brown eyes all lit up like she’d just had an epiphany, or at the very least a good idea. “There’s an old carriage up in the attic. We can go up and sit in it,” she announced with her mouth full of toothpaste. She went back into the bathroom to spit and then came out again, holding a pale hand out to Nate. “Are you coming?”
Nate stood up and took her hand. His body was humming from the pot and the intense smoothness of Georgie’s skin. All he really wanted to do was to kiss her some more. “Can I ‘feed my craving’ when we get up there?” he asked, feeling very stoned indeed.
Georgie cocked a thin dark eyebrow at him and licked her dark red lips. “I might even let you ‘heal my wounds.’”
Nate grinned his lopsided stoner grin. Who’d known rehab psychobabble could be such a turn-on!
“My hand is getting tired,” Jenny complained to Elise after she’d painted Elise’s head and neck. “I’ll do the rest tomorrow.”
“Let’s see,” Elise said, sitting up. Her chest was so small Jenny couldn’t help but stare at it. Her breasts were like the little new potatoes her dad had grown when they’d rented a house in Pennsylvania one summer. Small, hard, and beigey pink. “It looks good,” Elise said, squinting at the canvas. “But how come you made my face green?”
Jenny hated when people asked her questions about her art. She didn’t know why she did what she did, she just did it. And her dad always said, “The artist doesn’t have to answer to anyone but himself.” Or
her
self, in her case. “Because I was in a green mood,” she answered, annoyed.
“Well, green is my favorite color,” Elise responded happily. She pulled on her turtleneck and underwear but left her jeans and bra on the floor. “Oh my God. I have that book, too!” she squealed, pointing at a thick, heavy paperback on the bookshelf behind the TV. She walked over to the shelf and pulled the book out. “But yours is so new. Don’t you ever read it?”
Jenny bit off the top of an Oreo and read the title on the spine of book.
The New This Is My Body for Women.
“My dad bought me that last year. I think he probably thought that if I read it, he wouldn’t have to explain anything to me about sex—I could just look up the embarrassing stuff.”
“But have you ever actually looked at it? Some of it is really
graphic
.”
Jenny had no idea. She’d immediately shelved the book behind the TV along with the other random books her father had given her that she never intended to read, like
Breathing Room: A Buddhist’s Guide to Living Creatively, Mao’s Secret Seven: The Women Behind Chairman Mao,
and
Finding the Dragon Within:What Is Your Art?
“Like, graphic in what way?” Jenny asked, intrigued.
Elise carried the book over to the worn leather sofa and sat down, crossing her long bare legs dramatically. “I’ll show you.” She opened the book and Jenny sat down next to her and leaned in close to see.
The first thing Elise turned to was a detailed diagram of a woman on her hands and knees bent over a man lying on his back. The book had been written in the nineteen-seventies and the text had since been updated, but the diagrams hadn’t. The man had hair down to his shoulders, a full beard, and was wearing beads. His penis was sticking straight up and it appeared to be in the woman’s mouth. The two girls erupted into giggles.
Ew!
“I told you,” said Elise, pleased with herself for opening right up to such a gem.
“I can’t believe I never saw any of this,” Jenny exclaimed. She grabbed the book away from Elise and rifled through the pages. “Oh my God!” she gasped when she saw a diagram of the same couple in another position. The woman still had the long-haired guy’s penis in her mouth, except this time she was lying alongside him with her feet up around his head and her legs splayed so that he could do the same thing to
her
. Jenny didn’t even know the name for
that
. “I thought this was just a boring book about getting your period and all that stuff. But this is, like, a real
sex
book for
women
.”
“I think there’s a teen one, too, that’s totally boring, but my mom got me this one by mistake. I couldn’t believe it when I started reading it!”
The two girls pored over the pages until they stumbled upon a section called Same-Sex Relationships.
“Like Ms. Crumb,” Jenny observed, reading. The introduction was long and started with the line, “Your feelings are genuine and not to be ignored. . . .” Outside she could hear the grating sound of a snowplow driving by. She looked up to watch the snow falling steadily through the grimy living room window.
“Hey. You want to try it?” Elise asked.
Jenny turned back to the book. “What?”
“Kissing,” Elise answered in barely a whisper.
Your feelings are genuine and not to be ignored.
Yes, but Jenny didn’t really have any feelings for Elise. She liked her and everything but she wasn’t
attracted
to her. Still, kissing a girl sounded exciting. It was something she’d never done before, and if it felt uncomfortable, she could always pretend to be kissing that tall blond boy she’d spotted in Bendel’s.
She closed the book and folded her hands in her lap. Her face was only inches away from Elise’s. “Okay, let’s do it.” It was just an experiment, something new to try on a boring, snowy night.
Elise leaned forward and put her hand on Jenny’s arm. Then she closed her eyes and Jenny closed hers, too. Elise pressed her lips against Jenny’s tightly clenched mouth. It wasn’t a kiss exactly—it was too
dry
. It felt more like a nudge or something.
Elise pulled her head back and both girls opened their eyes. “It says in the book to relax and enjoy yourself, especially when it’s your first time.”
What, had she, like, memorized the book?
Jenny pulled her curly brown hair up on top of her head and blew a big breath out through her nose. She didn’t know what she was so nervous about, but she would have preferred it if Elise had still been wearing her pants. “Do you mind putting your jeans back on?” she asked. “I think I could, you know, relax more if you were like, dressed.”
Elise hopped up and scooted into her jeans. “There, is that better?” she asked, leaving them unbuttoned as she sat down on the sofa again.
“Okay. Let’s try it again,” Jenny replied, revving herself up. She closed her eyes and slid her hands under Elise’s hair and around her neck, trying to be less of a prude about the whole thing.
After all, she was an artist, and artists did all sorts of crazy things.
the next keats meets his next muse
After the Better Than Naked fashion show, the candles lining the runway were removed and red and blue strobe lights began to zoom against the black velvet walls. DJ Sassy broke out the phat French house beats, and the Harrison Street Club was transformed into a seventies European disco full of half-naked ninety-pound models drinking Cristal champagne straight out of the bottle.
Dan stood alone by the bar, sipping his Red Bull–and-who-knew-what-else cocktail. It tasted exactly like baby aspirin and he was only drinking it because the bartender had promised him it was loaded with caffeine and something called taurine, which was guaranteed to keep him hyperawake all night.
All of a sudden he noticed a violently tall woman wearing a flaming red bouffant wig—it
had
to be a wig—neon pink lipstick, and
huge
tortoise-shell sunglasses standing in the middle of the packed room with her hands cupped around her mouth. “Daniel Humphrey? Calling Daniel Humphrey!” she shrieked.
It was Rusty Klein.
Dan tilted his head back and downed his drink, blinking his eyes as the caffeine and whatever else was in his drink rushed to his brain all at once. He stumbled over to the woman, his heart thumping even faster than the music. “I’m Dan,” he croaked.
“
Look
at
you
! Our new
poet
! You’re
adorable
!
Perfect
!” Rusty Klein pushed her enormous sunglasses up on top of her head and jangled the enormous gold bracelets covering her long bony wrists as she grabbed Dan and kissed each of his cheeks. Her perfume smelled oily and acidic, like tuna fish. “I love you, honey,” she purred, squeezing Dan tight.
Dan shrank away, unused to being manhandled by someone he’d only just met. He hadn’t expected Rusty Klein to be so
scary
. Her eyebrows had been dyed to match her wig and she was dressed like a sword fighter, in a form-fitting black velvet Better Than Naked puffy-sleeved jacket and matching black velvet bullfighting pants. A rope of black pearls clung to her pale, bony cleavage.
“I’ve been trying to write more poems,” Dan stammered. “You know, for my book?”
“Wonderful!” Rusty Klein shouted, thrusting her lips at him again and probably smearing bright pink lipstick all over his face. “Let’s make a lunch date sometime next week.”
“Um, I’ve got school all day every day next week, but I get out at three-thirty.”
“
School!”
Rusty screamed. “You’re so
cute
! We can do tea then. Call my office and have Buckley, my assistant, set it up. Oh, fuck me!” She clasped Dan’s arm with a clawlike hand. Her fingernails were at least three inches long and painted orangey pink. “There’s someone here you absolutely
must
meet.”
Rusty let go of Dan and held out her arms to receive a frail-looking girl with a long, sad face and dirty blond hair. The girl was wearing only a see-through light pink slip over her gaunt frame and her lank, waist-length hair was uncombed, as if she’d just gotten out of bed. “Mystery Craze, this is Daniel Humphrey. Daniel, this is Mystery,” Rusty purred loudly. “Mystery, honey, you remember that poem I gave you to read? The one you said . . . Oh, fuck me. I’ll let
you
tell him what you said. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go lick my favorite designer’s ass so he’ll give me some new free clothes. Love you both. Ciao!” she added, before striding away in her five-inch black stilettos.
Mystery blinked her huge, tired gray eyes. She looked like she’d been up all night cleaning floors, like Cinderella. “Your poem saved my life,” she confided to Dan in a low, husky voice. A tall, narrow glass of something bright red was wedged into her frail hand. “It’s Campari,” she said when she noticed him looking at it. “Want a taste?”
Dan never drank anything that wasn’t caffeinated. He shook his head no and tucked his black notebook under his arm. Then he lit a Camel and took a long drag. There, that was much better. Now at least he’d have something to do, even if he couldn’t think of anything to say. “So, are you a poet, too?” he asked.
Mystery stuck her thumb into her drink and then licked it off. The corners of her mouth were stained red with Campari, making her look like a little girl who’d just eaten a cherry Popsicle. “I write poems and short stories. And I’m working on a novel about cremation and premature death. Rusty says I’m the next Sylvia Plath,” she answered. “What about you?”