The Rules of Attraction (24 page)

“Jesus,” I mutter.

“Éa va? Ça va?”

I hang the phone up, walk back through the slit in the parachute and lie down. Then it hits me: I remember last night. I moan and cover my head with the pillow but it smells like her and I have to take it off my face. Why in the hell did Judy tell Lauren? What in the hell was going through that girl’s mind when she told Lauren? I tried to talk to the bitch last night but there was no answer when I stopped by her room at Wooley. I moan again and throw the pillow against the wall, depressed and tense and horny. Move my hand over my hard-on, try and jerk off for a little while, reach beneath my bed and pull out the October issue of
Playboy,
reach a little further and find
Penthouse.

I open up the
Playboy
to the centerfold. First I check out the girl’s face, though I’m not sure why since it’s her body, tits, cunt, ass, that seem so much more prominent. This girl is okay-looking; contemptibly pretty; her tits are tan and big and smooth; the flesh looks salty; run my hand over the thick, glossy paper, the small triangle of hair between the legs is carefully brushed and fluffy. I don’t like the legs too much so I fold part of the centerfold over. This girl thinks she’s smart. Her favorite movie is
Das Boot,
which is weird since a lot of these girls’ favorite movie has been
Das Boot
lately, but she’s obviously retarded, even though she does have nice tits. Spitting on my hand I think she might even look slightly horny, and I move my hand faster, but spit always dries up and I can’t find any Vaseline in the mess of my room so I hump the discarded pillow instead and check out her measurements. 35-22-34.

And then I see it: Next to the measurements, next to height and weight (is that information supposed to turn us on? maybe it does) and color of eyes, is her birthdate. My mind does some quick subtraction and I realize that this
girl is nineteen and me, Sean, is twenty-one. This girl is
younger
than me, and that does it—instant depression. This woman, this flesh was always older and that was part of the turn-on, but now, coming across this, something I’d never noticed before upsets me more than thinking about the conversation Lauren and Judy must have had. I have to close the
Playboy
and reach for the
Penthouse
and flip it open to the Forum section but it’s too late and I can’t concentrate on the words and I keep wondering if I really did bite the inside of Judy’s thighs and, if so, then why? I can’t even remember why it happened or how. Was it a week ago? It was the night of Vittorio’s cocktail party. Had there been anyone else since Lauren? Shut my eyes and try to remember.

Throw the
Penthouse
across the room, where it accidentally hits the stereo, somehow turning it on and it’s Journey and then “The Monster Mash” coming from a station in Keene and I have to moan again, my erection completely deflated. I drag myself from bed, put on my underwear, walk to the closet, open it, look at myself in the mirror hung there, finger the hickey Judy (or was it Brooke or Susan who I saw last night after stopping by Judy’s place?) gave me, scowl at the reflection. I reach for a wire hanger, for the tie draped over it, a brown Ralph Lauren tie that Patrick sent me for a birthday I’ve forgotten. I tug it, stretching it, toss it away. Pick up another tie I got at Brooks Brothers and it seems stronger. I tug it, testing its strength, then knot it carefully, making a noose. Take the fern that some girl gave me off the large gold hook that some other girl stuck in the ceiling and place the dead plant on the floor, slip the part of the tie with the knot around the edge of the hook. I go to my desk and hurrying, pull the chair from it, stand on the chair, put my head through the pink and gray striped cotton noose and, about to hang myself, have a memory of a Christmas mass, why? “The Monster Mash” still coming from the radio, without any more hesitation, close my eyes and

I kick the chair away….

I hang there for about a second (not even a second) before the tie rips in half and I fall like an idiot to the floor, screaming “Shit.” Laying on my back in my jockey shorts I stare up at the piece of ripped tie, swinging from the hook. “The Monster Mash” ends. A cheerful D.J. says, “Happy Halloween New Hampshire!” I get up off the floor and get dressed. I walk across campus to the dining hall. Get this over with.

LAUREN
I see the jerk first in the post office where he’s throwing away letters without looking at them. Then he comes up to me while I’m sitting at lunch with Roxanne. Reading
Artforum,
wearing sunglasses. Sharing a bottle of beer someone self-dubbed The Party Pig left. Roxanne probably slept with him. Roxanne’s wearing T-shirt and pearls, her hair heavily gelled. I’m drinking tea and a glass of Tab, unhungry. Roxanne looks at him suspiciously as he sits down. He takes off his sunglasses. I look him over. I had sex with this person?

“Hi, Roxanne,” he says.

“Hi, Sean.” She gets up. “FU talk to you later,” she tells me, picks up a book, leaves, comes back for the beer. I nod, turn a page. He takes a sip from my Tab. I light a cigarette.

“I tried to kill myself this morning,” he says, offhand.

“Did you? Did you really?” I ask, taking a long satisfying drag from the cigarette.

“Yeah,” he says. He’s nervous, looking constantly around the room.

“Uh-huh. Right,” I skeptically mutter.

“I did. I tried to hang myself.”

“My my.” Yawn. Turn a page. “Really?”

He looks at me like he wants me to take my sunglasses off but I can’t bear to look at him without the bluish tint. He finally says, “No.”

“If you did try,” I ask him, “Why did you do it? Guilt?”

“I think we should talk,” he says.

“There’s nothing to say,” I warn him and what’s sort of surprising is that there really isn’t. He’s still looking nervously around the big open room, probably on the lookout for Judy, who after breaking down and telling me left for New York with Franklin for the Halloween party at Area. He looks sad, like there
is
something on his mind, and I cannot understand why he doesn’t comprehend that I want him to leave me alone, that I don’t care about him. How can he still think I really like him? That I ever liked him?

“We’ve got to talk,” he says.

“But I’m telling you there’s nothing to say,” I smile and sip the tea. “What do you want to talk about?”

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Listen. You fucked Judy. That’s what.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Did you or didn’t you?” I ask, bored silly.

“I don’t remember,” he says after a while.

“You don’t remember?”

“Listen, you’re making too much out of this. I realize you’re hurt and upset but you’ve got to know that it didn’t mean anything. You want me to admit I feel shitty about doing it?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “I don’t.”

“Fine. I admit it. I feel shitty.”

“I feel humiliated,” I say, half-sarcastic, but he’s too dumb to catch on.

“Humiliated? Why?” he asks.

“You went to bed with my best friend,” I say, trying to
act angry, clutching at my teacup, spilling a little, trying to elicit some feeling.

He finally says, “She’s not your
best
friend.”

“Yes, she is. Sean.”

“Well,” he says. “I didn’t know that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say loudly.

“What doesn’t?” he asks.

“Nothing.” I stand up. He grabs my wrist as I reach for the magazine.

“Why did you still sleep with me if you knew?” he asks.

“Because I didn’t care,” I say.

“I know you do, Lauren,” he says.

“You’re pathetic and confused,” I tell him.

“Wait a minute,” he says. “Why should it matter how many I fucked? Or who I fucked? Since, like, when does having sex with someone else mean, like, I’m not faithful to you?”

I think about that one until he lets go of my wrist and I start laughing. I look around the dining hall for another table to sit at. Maybe I’ll go to class. What day is it?

“You’re right, I guess,” I say, trying to make some kind of exit.

Before I walk away from him wondering about Victor still (not wondering anything in particular, just vague nothing wondering) he asks, “Why don’t you love me, Lauren?”

“Just get out of here,” I tell him.

SEAN
The rest of my day.

Me and Norris are in Norris’s red Saab driving into town. Norris is tired and hungover (too much MDA, too much sex with various Freshmen). He’s driving too fast and I don’t say anything about it; only stare out the window at the gray clouds forming above red and green and orange hills, “Monster Mash” blaring on the radio bringing this morning back.

“Lauren found out about Judy,” I tell him.

“How?” he asks, opening the window. “Is my pipe in the glove compartment?”

I check. “No. Judy told her.”

“Cunt,” he says. “Are you kidding? Why?”

“Can you believe it? I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head.

“Christ. Is she pissed?”

We pass a sexy townie girl selling tapestries and pumpkins near the high school. Norris slows down.

“Is who pissed?”

“Anyone,” Norris says. “I could’ve sworn my pipe was in there. Check again.”

“Yes. She’s pissed,” I say. “Wouldn’t you be pissed if the girl you loved fucked your best friend?”

“I guess. Heavy.”

“Yeah. I’ve got to talk to her.”

“Sure. Sure,” Norris says. “But she went to New York this weekend.”

“What? Who? Lauren?”

“No. Judy.”

That’s not who I was talking about but I’m relieved anyway. “Really?”

“Yeah. She’s got a boyfriend there.”

“Terrific.”

“He’s a lawyer. Twenty-nine. Central Park West. Name’s Jeb,” Norris says.

“What about Frank?” I ask, then
“Jeb?
”

“The guy knows Franklin,” Norris says.

Maybe it isn’t over with Lauren, I’m thinking. Maybe she will come back. Norris parks the Saab behind the bank on Main Street and looks for the pipe himself.

At the drug store. While Norris picks up a prescription for Ritalin, I browse through the porno magazine rack that’s placed next to the Oral Hygiene section. Open an issue of
Hustler—
typical—exclusive nude photos of Prince Andrew, Brooke Shields, Michael Jackson, all of them grainy, all of them in black and white. The magazine promises nude pictures of Pat Boone and Boy George next month. No. Put it back on the rack, open the October issue of
Chic.
The centerfold is of a woman dressed as a witch, her cape flung open, masturbating with a broomstick. She’s better looking than Lauren but in a sleazy way and it doesn’t excite me. Somehow the centerfold comes loose and slips to the floor, open, next to the feet of a blue-haired granny, who’s reading, not looking, not glancing, but fucking
reading
the back of a bottle of Lavoris. She looks down at the centerfold and her mouth falls open and she quickly moves away to another aisle. I leave it there and walk back over to Norris who’s at the checkout stand with his prescription and tell him, “Let’s get out of here.” I sigh and look over the racks of candy below the cashier’s station. I pick up a pack of Peanut Butter Cups, finger it guiltily and remember last night, but only vaguely. What was it we fought about? Was there any real emotion there? Any raised voices? Or was it just a general feeling of contempt and betrayal and incredulity? I ask Norris to buy the candy for me and a tube of Fun Blood. Norris pays and asks the shy, acne-scarred cashier if she knows who wrote
Notes from the Underground.
The girl, who’s so homely you couldn’t sleep with her for money, not for anything, smiles and says no, and that he can look in the bestseller paperbacks if he’d like. We leave the store and Norris sneers a little too meanly, “Townies are so ignorant.”

Then it’s The Record Rack. Norris pops some Ritalin. I stare at the cover of the new Talking Heads. Wasn’t that
playing last night somewhere, during our talk? It doesn’t depress me, just makes me feel weird. I put it down and decide to buy her a record. I try to remember who her favorite groups are but we never talked about things like that. In vain I pick up an old Police record but Sting is too good-looking and I start looking for albums by groups with no good-looking guys in them. But then maybe the Peanut Butter Cups are enough, and I walk back to Norris who winks at me, purchasing some old Motown collection and he hands it over to the fat blond girl behind the counter who’s wearing a green ski-jacket and a .38 Special T-shirt. As she rings up Norris’s stuff, he asks her if she knows who wrote
Notes from the Underground.
She laughs at him with contempt (a Lauren laugh) and says “Dostoevsky” and gives Norris back the album and no change and the two of us drive back to campus, mildly surprised.

Sitting in class. It’s something called Kafka/Kundera: The Hidden Connection. I’m staring at this girl, Deborah, I think, who’s sitting across from me at the table. I cannot concentrate on anything and have only shown up in class because I don’t have any pot left. She has short blond hair, stylishly shaved in back and up the side, moussed, still has sunglasses on, leather pants, high-heeled police boots, black blouse, heavy silver jewelry (definitely rebellious Darien, Connecticut, material) and she reminds me substantially of Lauren. Lauren at lunch. Lauren not taking the shades off. Lauren’s peg pants high, the ankles showing sexy and golden, the low-cut V-neck blue and black sweater. Look at the essay, Xeroxed, in front of me but I can’t read it. I’m insatiably horny since I didn’t finish jerking off this morning. When’s the last time I have? Four days ago. The words I pretend to be interested in
make no sense.
I look back at the girl and start to fantasize about having sex with her, with her and Lauren at the same time, just her and Lauren naked, on top of each other, pressing their cunts together, moaning. I have to shift in the chair, my hard-on actually feeling not good, stretched tight against my jeans. Why does lesbianism turn me on?

The teacher, a large, friendly-looking woman (but not fuckable), asks, “Sean?”