Sex and the City (23 page)

"What's up?" Carrie asked, and Stanford said, "Oh, you mean with this? It's the Goose Guy's fault." The Goose Guy was a man who liked to have his neck wrung during sex. "Which was fine,"

Stanford said, "until he tried it on me.

The next night, she had dinner with Rock McQuire, a TV actor.

"I really want a boyfriend," he said. "I think I'm finally ready for a relationship."

"You're such a great guy," Carrie said. "You're smart, cute, really successful. You shouldn't have a problem."

"But it's not that easy," Rock said. "I don't want to go out with a twenty-two-year-old pretty boy. But if I go out with someone in file://D:\Bushnell, Candace - Sex and the City.htm 2008.09.06.

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their thirties, they have to be really successful, too. And how many guys are there around like that? So instead, I end up going to a sex club and having an encounter and going home. At least it's not, you know, emotionally messy."

The next morning, Miranda called up. "You'll never believe what I did," she said, and Carrie said, "What, sweetie?" while her right hand curled into a fist, a gesture she's been repeating a lot lately.

"Got a second? You're gonna love this."

"I don't, but I'm dying to hear it."

"I went to a party with my friend Josephine. You know Josephine, right?" "No, but. . ."

"I introduced you. At that party that my friend Sallie had. You remember Sallie, don't you? Motorcycle Sallie?" "Motorcycle Sallie."

"Right. There were all these baseball players there. And guess what? I made out with one of them, and then I went into a bedroom with another and we did it, right at the party."

"That's incredible," Carrie said. "Was it great?"

"Awesome," Miranda said.

Something's gotta give, Carrie thought.

"Let's go to some clubs," the Girl said. They were sitting on a banquette. Carrie, the Girl, and the Girl's friends, who turned out to be unattractive guys in their twenties with short, frizzy whispered, earlier, but Carrie thought they were completely forgettable.

Now the Girl was pulling her arm, pulling her to her feet. She kicked the guy who was closest to her. "C'mon, asshole, we want to go out."

"I'm going to a party in Trump Tower," the guy said, with a fake Euro-accent.

"Like hell you are," she said.

"C'mon, sweetie. Come out with us," she whispered to Carrie.

Carrie and the Girl crammed into the front seat of the kid's car, which was a Range Rover, and they started going uptown.

Suddenly the Girl yelled, "Stop the car, you shithead!" She leaned over and opened the door and pushed Carrie out. "We're going,"

she said.

And then they were two girls running down the streets west of Eighth Avenue.

They found a club and they went in. They walked all through the club holding hands and the Girl knew some people there and Carrie didn't know anyone and she liked it. Men looked at them, but they didn't look back. It wasn't like two girls going out looking for a good time; there was a wall up. On the other side of the wall was freedom and power. It felt good. This is the way I'm going to be from now on, Carrie thought. It didn't feel scary.

Carrie remembered that at a party recently a woman named Alex told her a story about a friend of hers who was bisexual. She went out with women and men. She'd be with a man she liked, and then she'd meet a woman she liked and leave the man for the woman.

"I mean, I've never been with a woman," Alex said. "Maybe I'm the only one—but who hasn't said, T wish I could be a lesbian just so I wouldn't have to deal with men.' But the funny thing is, my friend said being with a woman was so intense because you're both women in the relationship. You know how women always want to talk about everything? Well,

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until four in the morning. After a while, she has to leave and go back to a man because she can't take the talking."

"Have you ever been with a woman?" the Girl asked Carrie.

"You'll like it."

"Okay," Carrie said. She was thinking, I'm ready for this. It's time. Maybe I've secretly been a lesbian my whole life and I just didn't know it. She imagined the kissing. The Girl would be softer and squishier than a man. But it would be okay.

Then Carrie went back to the Girl's house. The Girl lived in an expensive high-rise, two-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side. The furniture was that Danish stuff with knitted afghans.

There were porcelain kittens on the side tables. They went into the kitchen and the Girl lit up a roach. She had a small, earthenware bowl filled with roaches. She had an open, half-empty bottle of wine. She poured them both some wine and handed Carrie a glass.

"I still sleep with men sometimes," the Girl said. "They just drive me crazy."

"Uh huh," Carrie said. She was wondering when the Girl was going to make her move and how she would make it.

"I sleep with men and women," the Girl said. "But I prefer women."

"Then why sleep with men?" Carrie asked.

The girl shrugged. "They're good for stuff."

"In other words, it's just the same old story," Carrie said. She glanced around the apartment. She lit up a cigarette and leaned back against the counter. "Okay," she said. "What's the deal? Really. You must be independently wealthy to be able to afford this place, or else you've got something else going on."

The Girl took a sip of her wine. "I dance," she said. "Oh, I see," Carrie said. "Where?"

"Stringfellows. I'm good. I can make about a thousand a night."

"So that's what this is about."

"Topless dancers all sleep with each other because they hate men."

"Yeah, well," the Girl said, "the men are all losers." "The ones you know. The ones who go into the club," Carrie said.

"Is there any other kind?" the Girl asked. In the kitchen hght, Carrie saw that her skin was not so good, that it was pockmarked under a heavy coat of foundation. "I'm tired," the Girl said. "Let's go he down."

"Let's do it," Carrie said.

They went into the bedroom. Carrie sat on the edge of the bed, trying to keep up a patter of conversation. "I'm going to get more comfortable," the Girl said. She went to her closet. She took off her fancy leather pants and put on sloppy gray sweatpants. She took out a T-shirt. When she undid her bra, she turned away. Without her clothes on, she was short and kind of chubby.

They lay down on top of the bed. The pot was beginning to wear file://D:\Bushnell, Candace - Sex and the City.htm 2008.09.06.

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off. "Do you have a boyfriend?" the Girl asked.

"Yes," Carrie said, "I do and I'm crazy about him."

They lay there for a few minutes. Carrie got an ache in her stomach from missing Mr. Big.

"Listen," Carrie said, "I've got to go home. It was great to meet you, though."

"Great to meet you," the Girl said. She turned her head to the wall and closed her eyes. "Make sure the door is shut on your way out, okay? I'll call you."

Two days later, the phone rang and it was the Girl. Carrie thought, Why did I give you my number? The Girl said, "Hi?

Carrie? It's me. How are you?"

"Fine," Carrie said. Pause. "Listen. Can I call you right back?

What's your number?"

She took down the Girl's number, even though she already had it. She didn't call back, and for the next two hours until she went out, she didn't answer the phone. She let the machine pick up.

A few days later, Carrie was at the Ralph Lauren fashion show in Bryant Park. The girls, tall and slim, came out one after another, their long blond hair floating over their shoulders. For a moment, it was a beautiful world, and when the girls passed, their eyes met and they gave each other secret smiles.

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Women Who Ran with Wolves:

Perennial Bachelors? See Ya

In the past few weeks, several seemingly unrelated yet similar incidents occurred.

Simon Piperstock, the owner of a software company, was lying in bed in his plush two-bedroom apartment, nursing the flu, when the phone rang.

"You piece of shit," said a woman's voice.

"What?" Simon said. "Who is this?"

"It's me."

"Oh. M.K. I was going to call you, but I got the flu. Terrific party the other night."

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," M.K. said. "Because nobody else did."

"Really?" Simon sat up in bed.

"It's you, Simon. Your behavior is reprehensible. It's disgusting."

"What did I do?" Simon asked.

"You brought that bimbo. You always bring a bimbo. No one can stand it anymore."

"Hey. Hold on a second," Simon said. "Teesie is not a bimbo.

She's a very bright girl."

"Right, Simon," M.K. said. "Why don't you get a life? Why don't you get married?" She hung up.

Harry Samson, forty-six, a well-known, eligible-bachelor art dealer, was having one of his typical drinking evenings at Frederick's, when he was introduced to a very attractive woman in her mid-twenties.

She had just moved to New York to be an assistant to an artist with whom Harry worked.

"Hi. I'm Harry Samson," he said in his East Coast drawl, affected, perhaps, by the fact that he had a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

"I know who you are," the girl said.

"Have a drink?" Harry asked.

She glanced at the girlfriend who accompanied her. "You're that guy, aren't you?" she said. "No, thanks. I know all about your reputation."

"This place sucks tonight," Harry said to no one in particular.

There's something rotten in New York society, and it's the character formerly known as the "eligible" bachelor. It's not your imagination. Those men in their forties and fifties who have never been married, who have not, in years anyway, had a serious girlfriend, have acquired a certain, unmistakable stink. The evidence is everywhere.

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Miranda Hobbes was at a Christmas party when she ran into Packard and Amanda Deale, a couple she had met briefly through Sam, the investment banker she had dated for three months over the summer.

"Where have you been?" Amanda asked. "We called you to come to a couple of our parties, but we never heard from you."

"I couldn't," Miranda said. "I know you're friends with Sam, and, I'm sorry, but to tell you the truth, I just can't stand him. I can't stand being in the same room with him. That man is sick. I think he hates women. He leads you on, tells

you he wants to get married, and then doesn't call. Meanwhile, he's trying to pick up twenty-one year olds."

Packard moved closer. "We're not friends with him anymore, either. Amanda can't stand him, and neither can I. He's gotten to be friends with this guy named Barry, and all the two of them do every night is go to these SoHo restaurants and try to pick up women."

"They're in their forties!" Amanda said. "It's gross."

"When are they going to grow up?" Miranda asked.

"Or come out of the closet," Packard said.

On a gray afternoon in late November, a man we'll call Chollie Wentworth was holding forth on one of his favorite topics— New York society. "These perennial bachelors?" he asked, ticking off the names of some well-known high rollers who have been part of the scene for years. "Frankly, my dear, they're just a bore."

Chollie tucked into his second Scotch. "There are a lot of reasons why a man might not get married," he said. "Some men never grow past sex; and for some people, marriage spoils sex. Then there's the difficult choice between a woman in her thirties who can bear you children, or a woman like Carol Petrie, who can organize your hfe.

"Mothers can also be a problem," Chollie continued. "Such is the case with X," he said, naming a multimillionaire financier who was now in his late fifties and had still not tied the knot. "He suffers from a permanent case of bimbo-itis. Still, if you're X, who are you going to bring home? Are you going to challenge your mother with a real standup woman who will disrupt the family?

"Even so," Cholhe said, leaning forward in his chair, "a lot of people are tired of these guys' commitment problems. If I were a single woman, I'd think, Why bother with these guys, when there are 296 million amusing gay men out there

who can fill a chair? I'd find a very amusing gay man who can be entertaining on a hundred topics to take me out. Why waste your time with X? Who wants to sit there and listen to him drone on about his business? To have to fawn all over him? He's old. He's too old to change. A man like X is not worth the effort. These men have cried nonwolf too many times.

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"After all, it's women who decide if a man is desirable or undesirable. And if a man is never going to make the effort to get married, if he's never going to contribute . . . well, I think women are fed up. And for good reason."

JACK'S THANKSGIVING

"Here's what happens," said Norman, a photographer. "Take Jack.