Sex and the City (13 page)

A man came up to her. Expensively tailored suit. Okay, he wasn't exactly a man because he was only about thirty-five. But he was trying. She was making the bartender give her a double vodka tonic, and the man said, "Thirsty, eh?"

"No. What I really want is a steak. Okay?"

"I will get you one," the man said, and it turned out he had a French accent.

"I will let you know," she said, and tried to walk away. She didn't want to have anything to do with the party. She was tired of feeling like she didn't fit in, but she didn't want to go home, either, because she was tired of being lonely and she was a httle drunk.

"My name is Guy," he said. "I own a gallery on
79th
Street."

She sighed and said, "Of course you do."

"Perhaps you have heard of it." "Listen, Guy . .

.," she said. "Yes?" he asked eagerly.

"Can you touch your asshole with your dick?"

Guy smiled slyly. He moved closer. Put his hand on her shoulder. "But of course."

"Then I suggest you go fuck yourself."

"A come-on!" Guy said, and Miranda wondered if he was really that stupid, or if he just seemed stupid because he was French. He grabbed her hand and began pulling her up the stairs; she went along because she figured that any guy who could keep his cool after being insulted couldn't be that bad. They ended up in the rich old guy's bedroom, which had a red silk cover on the bed, and then this Guy character had some cocaine. And then, somehow, they ended up kissing. People kept coming in and out of the bedroom.

For some reason, they went into the walk-in closet. Old pine paneling, racks for jackets and trousers, shelves for cashmere sweaters and shoes. Miranda checked the labels: Savile Row—

boring. Then she turned around, and Guy was standing right there.

Then there was the groping. The leggings came down. Out popped the bold fellow.

"How big?" Carrie asked her on the phone.

"Big. And French," Miranda said. (How could she?) And then, afterward, he said, "Hey, darling, you'd better not tell my girlfriend." As he stuck his tongue in her mouth one final time.

It all came spilling out: the girlfriend whom he'd lived with for two years, and they were engaged, sort of, but he really didn't know if he wanted to get married, but she was living with him, so what could he do?

And then it was Glenn Close without the rabbit.

The next day, Guy tracked down Miranda's number and called her, wanting to see her again. "And this is what we have to choose from," Miranda said.

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At noon, Belle's husband, Newbert, called Carrie to see if she'd seen Belle.

"If she were dead, I'd know about it," Carrie said.

Then there was Sarah, who, according to Miranda, went rollerblading in her basement at four
A.M
. Drunk. Thirty-eight years old. A grown woman clinging to the role of ingenue. Is there anything less attractive? I don't think so.

But what is Sarah supposed to do? She is 38, and she's not married, and she'd like to be with someone. And men, as we know from this column, are attracted to youth. Even the women at the bridal shower, older than Sarah now, were younger than she is when they got married. It may not be an option for her anymore. So she rollerblades with a twenty-five year old in her basement. Instead of having sex with him. He wants to; she is afraid he'll think her body's too old.

"Oh hi-i-i," Sarah says, when Carrie calls her in the afternoon.

She's laid up on the couch in her tiny but perfect one-bedroom apartment in a high-rise just west of Second Avenue. "Oh I'm fi-i-i-ne. Can you believe it?" she sounds unnaturally cheerful. "Just a httle broken ankle. And the cutest doctors in the emergency room.

And Luke with me the whole time."

"Luke?"

"Lucas really. The cutest guy. My httle friend." She's giggling. A horrifying sound.

"Where did you get the rollerblades?"

"Oh, he came on them. To the party. Isn't that cute?"

The cast comes off in six weeks. In the meantime, Sarah will have to hobble around, running her PR business as best she can. She has no disability insurance. The business runs on a shoestring.

Is this better or worse than being married and living in the suburbs? Better or worse? Who can tell.

Belle calls from the Carlyle. Mentions something about a wide receiver from the Miami Dolphins. At Frederick's. Mentions something about her husband, Newbert, and some spaghetti sauce.

"I make great spaghetti sauce," she says. "I'm a great wife." Carrie agrees.

Anyway, after she got home from the bridal shower, she and Newbert had a fight. Belle ran away, went to Frederick's, the nightclub. The wide receiver was at Frederick's. He kept telling her that her husband didn't love her enough. "He does. You don't understand," she said. "I'd love you more," he said. She laughed, ran away again, booked herself a suite in the Carlyle. She says,

"Cocktails are being served. Now."

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She says she thinks maybe Newbert is upset because he's just sent out his novel. She thinks maybe Newbert is upset because she doesn't want to have kids. Not until he sells his novel. When she gets pregnant, it will all be over. So better to have a good time now.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO BABY DOLL

After the bridal shower, and after checking in on the phone with her new boyfriend, Mr. Big, Carrie went to Bowery Bar. Samantha Jones, the fortyish movie producer was there. Carrie's best friend.

Sometimes.

Barkley, the twenty-five-year-old up-and-coming artist and model chaser, had inserted himself at Samantha's table.

"I'd love it if you'd stop by my loft sometime," Barkley said, flipping his blond hair out of his eyes.

Samantha was smoking a Cuban cigar. She took a drag and blew the thick smoke in Barkley's face. "I'll bet you would. But what makes you think I'd like your little paintings."

"Well, you don't have to like my paintings," Barkley said. "You could just like me."

Samantha grinned evilly. "I don't bother with men under thirty-five. They're not experienced enough for my tastes."

"Try me," Barkley said. "If not, at least buy me a drink."

"We're leaving," Samantha said. "We have to find a new hangout."

They found one. The Baby Doll Lounge. Strip joint in TriBeCa.

They couldn't shake Barkley, so they let him come along. It might be good to have a guy with them at a topless bar. Plus, he had smoke. They smoked in the cab, and when they got out at the Baby Doll Lounge, Sam grabbed Carrie's arm (Sam almost never did stuff hke that) and said, "I really want to know about Mr. Big. I'm not sure he's the right man for you."

Carrie had to think about whether she wanted to answer or not, because it was always hke this between her and Sam. Just when she was happy with a man, Sam would come along and insert those doubts, hke driving a crowbar between two pieces of wood. She said, "I don't know. I think I'm crazy about him."

Sam said, "But does he really know how great you are? How great I think you are?"

Carrie thought, "Someday, Sam and I will sleep with the same man at once, but not tonight."

The bartender, a woman, came over and said, "It's so nice to see women in here again," and began pouring them free drinks. That was always a problem. Then Barkley was trying to have a discussion. About how he really wanted to be a director and how that was what all the artists were doing anyway, so why shouldn't he just skip the boring artist part and start directing?

Two girls were dancing on the stage. They looked like real women, and they didn't look so good—small saggy breasts and big bottoms. By now, Barkley was screaming, "But I'm better than David Salle! I'm a fucking genius!"

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"Oh, yeah? Says who?" Sam screamed back.

"We're all fucking geniuses," Carrie said. Then she went to the bathroom.

You had to walk through a tiny slot in between the two stages, and then downstairs. The bathroom had a gray wooden door that wouldn't shut properly, and broken tiles. She thought about Greenwich. Marriage. Kids.

"I'm not ready," she thought.

She went upstairs, and she took her clothes off and got up on the stage and started to dance. Samantha was staring at her, laughing, but by the time the
b?
tender came over and politely told her to get down, Sam wasn't laughing anymore.

The next morning, Mr. Big called at eight
A.M
. He was going to play golf. He sounded tense. "When did you get home?" he asked.

"What did you do?"

"Not much," she said. "Went to Bowery. And then this other place. The Baby Doll Lounge."

"Oh yeah? Do anything special there?"

"Had too much to drink." She laughed.

"Nothing else you want to tell me?"

"No, not really," Carrie said in the little-girl voice she used when she wanted to soothe him. "What about you?"

"I got a phone call this morning," he said. "Someone said they saw you dancing topless at the Baby Doll Lounge."

"Oh. Really?" she said. "How did they know it was me?"

"They knew."

"Are you mad?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked. "Are you mad?"

"I'm mad you didn't tell me. How can you have a relationship if you can't be honest?"

"But how do I know I can trust you?" she asked. "Believe me,"

he said. "I'm the one person you can trust." And he hung up.

Carrie took all their pictures from Jamaica (how happy they looked, just discovering each other), and cut out the ones of Mr. Big smoking his cigar. She thought about what it was hke sleeping with him, how she would sleep curled around his back.

She wanted to take the pictures and glue them to a piece of construction paper and write "Portrait of Mr. Big with His Cigar,"

across the top and then, "I miss you," with lots of kisses at the bottom.

She stared at the pictures for a long time. And then she did nothing.

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Skipper and Mr. Marvelous

Seek Hot Sex in

Southampton Hedges

Maybe it's just the indisputable fact that most people really do look better with a tan. Or maybe it's proof that the sex drive is stronger than ambition, even for New Yorkers. In any case, there is something about the Hamptons that lends itself to meaningless sexual encounters, the kind of embarrassingly brief couplings that most people don't necessarily want to acknowledge in the morning.

Call it a combination of skin (the topless women on Media Beach), geography (it takes sooooo long to drive from Southampton to East Hampton, especially if it's four in the morning), and topography (all those high hedges where couples can hide).

But figuring out how to work all those elements to one's advantage, especially if you're a man, can take some finesse. And youth is not necessarily an advantage. You have to know the ropes and how to get out of them gracefully afterward. Otherwise, you'll end up with something, but it might not be what you expected.

Here's a cautionary tale about three hopeful bachelors in the Hamptons during Fourth of July weekend.

But first, meet our contestants.

Bachelor No. i: Skipper Johnson, twenty-five. Preppy.

Entertainment law. Boy wonder. Plans to run one of the big studios someday, which he says will be in New York. Beach toys: small Mercedes, Brooks Brothers clothing ("I have a Brooks Brothers body"), and cellular phone, of which he makes constant use.

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parking lot at the beach, on the phone, doing a deal. "It's such a waste of time going to the beach," Skipper says. "Besides, I don't like getting sandy." Is worried about his recent lack of sexual success. "Do women think I'm gay?" he asks, earnestly.

Bachelor No. 2: Mr. Marvelous, sixty-five, says he's sixty. Square jaw, silver hair, bright blue eyes, athletic—all parts work on demand. Married (and divorced) five times. Twelve kids—wives number two, three, and four all good friends. Buddies wonder what his secret is. Beach toys: none. But can talk about penthouse apartment on Park Avenue, house in Bedford, apartment in Palm Beach. Staying with friends for the weekend on Further Lane in East Hampton. Considering buying a place.

Bachelor No. 3: Stanford Blatch, thirty-seven. Screenwriter. The next Joe Eszterhas. Gay but prefers straight guys. Long, dark, curly hair; refuses to cut it or put it in a ponytail. Will probably get married and have kids someday. Stays in Grandmother's house on Halsey Neck Lane in Southampton; Grandma lives in Palm Beach.

Beach toys: doesn't drive, so convinces family chauffeur to come out on weekends to drive him around. Best beach toy: has known everybody worth knowing since he was a child, so he doesn't have to prove it.