Mary Gaitskill - Bad Behavior

Stephanie was talking to Brett, an alert Chinese girl with waist-length hair. Brett had been in “the business” for ten years, since she was seventeen, and she said she was ready to leave. She told story after story about how customers were always trying to take advantage of her, humiliate her or intrude on her sympathies in some grotesque way. “It was just awful,” she said, concluding a particularly obnoxious story. “It was as if he’d done it almost, having to listen to him say it, you know?” She leaned forward for a handful of french fries, stuck some in her mouth and chewed meditatively. “When I was younger I had more energy to fight them off. No matter what they said or did, I could keep them away from my real self. But it gets harder and harder and I don’t know how much longer I can go on. I want to do something else anyway. I’m bored.”

The other women began to talk about the terrible things men had done or tried to do, and how they’d thwarted them or gotten them back. There was a tenacious sense of defended pride in the room, which Stephanie felt both distant from and very much a part of. She thought of how pathetic this pride would seem to someone like Sandra, who had once disgustedly described a brief stint as a cocktail waitress as making her feel “like a whore.”

The buzzer rang and Bernard the lawyer appeared, hands in his pockets, a sophisticated fellow playing the part, with mild amusement, of the casual businessman about to enjoy himself with a cheap woman. Stephanie smiled at him and sank back into the couch, feeling she was a sophisticated woman playing cheap. Soon they were back in the Shadow Room.

“Do you remember those cartoons in Playboy? ” she asked as they lay, not yet touching, on the bed. “The ones about prostitutes with the same faces and bodies lying on pillows, wearing lacy nighties? And the men who were standing with flowers and chocolates in their hands?”

“Yes, of course.”

“It’s funny, because I used to look at those things when I was ten and eleven years old and — well, I didn’t really know what prostitutes were, but it looked like a good thing from what I could see in Playboy . They were beautiful and they didn’t have to do anything but sit on cushions and men loved them. So I told my mother I wanted to be a prostitute when I grew up.”

“That’s fabulous.” He smiled as though this was the most entertaining thing he’d heard all week.

“Naturally she freaked out, and my parents sent me to a psychiatrist.”

“Oh, good Lord.”

“But after a few visits the psychiatrist decided I was normal. I mean, I had good grades and friends and everything, so I didn’t have to go anymore.” She shrugged. “My poor sister wasn’t so lucky. He had her on lithium by the time she was eleven.”

“But the psychiatrist was wrong about you, wasn’t he?”

She laughed, but she thought: He was not wrong. I am actually pretty normal.

“So that’s what you’re doing. You’re playing prostitute.” He stroked her face and hair.

She was startled that he seemed to be thinking in the same terms as she had been downstairs. She pictured him with his orange-haired, chain-smoking performance artist, and she had an almost visual sense of his delight in this educated woman who flew in the face of society, deliberately taking on a role that he probably considered demeaning, and then analyzing it. “Actually, I’m not playing. This is for real. I’m not going to give you your money back.”

“You know what I mean.” He drew her against him and lightly scratched her head.

“But even as a kid I realized there were problems with the customer-hooker romance. Because once, when I was about twelve, I was in my father’s study rubbing his neck — I used to do that all the time for him — and there was this Playboy calendar over his desk and some babe was on it and I said to him, ‘Do you like her?’ and he said, ‘Sure I do,’ and I said, ‘Would you like to meet her?’ and he looked shocked and said, ‘No, she’s just a dumb broad.’ And I was appalled.”

Bernard’s smile almost became a laugh. “Well, but you know he was lying. He would’ve loved to meet her.”

“It’s not funny. I was hurt by what he said. I was hurt for her.”

“No, I know it’s not funny. I’m sorry.” He lay on top of her and kissed her, cupping her head tenderly in his hands. They kissed and touched each other and then broke apart to talk some more. She told him about the conversation with Brett and how it made her feel. She told him about the opening she had been to the night before, leaving out her almost frightened sense of isolation. She asked what his wife was like.

“She’s intelligent, and very independent. She’s better at being alone than I am. And she’s adventurous in her own way. Last year she went to South America by herself, which isn’t something most woman her age would do.”

“How old is she?”

“Thirty-nine.”

“What does she do?”

“Teaches high school, which she likes very much. I enjoy her, even if it isn’t passionate. We actually have separate bedrooms.”

“I couldn’t be married like that,” she said. “There would have to be passion.”

“You’re very idealistic.”

“You’re not?”

“No, I’m not. Anyway, marriage isn’t about passion for me. We’re excellent company for each other. And I don’t want to be alone.”

They were silent for a moment; she gently felt his earlobes.

“Why do you come to places like this?” she asked.

“Why do you think?”

“I really don’t know. How any grown man can accept what happens here as sex is beyond me. You could have affairs if you wanted, I’ll bet. You don’t seem that interested in sex here, anyway. So why do you come?”

“To meet fascinating creatures I’d never meet in the usual course of my life. Like you.” He touched her nose and smiled.

Of course, she realized what he liked about her. He loved the idea of kooky, arty girls who lives “bohemian” lives and broke all the rules. It was the kind of thing he regarded with a certain admiration, but did not want to do himself. He had probably had affairs with eccentric, unpredictable women in college, and then married the most stable, socially desirable woman he could find. This did not make her feel contempt or draw away from him. She liked this vicarious view of herself; it excited and reassured her. She wasn’t a directionless girl adrift in a monstrous city, wandering from one confusing social situation to the next, having stupid affairs. She was a bohemian, experimenting. The idea made rock music start playing in her head. She kissed him with something resembling passion.

“I would like to actually fuck you sometime,” he said. “But I don’t think you enjoy sex here. I don’t want it if you can’t enjoy yourself.”

She smiled and tweaked the light layer of flab at his waist. “But that doesn’t apply to blow jobs, right?”

After he left, the day suddenly became very busy. Most of the men she saw were unpleasant, and she found herself taking refuge in the idea of Bernard the lawyer as she endured their malodorous company.

That night Sandra called her. Stephanie was sitting on her bed eating orange sorbet from a pint box and trying to view her life in a positive way, and she welcomed the interruption.

“Hi,” said Sandra. “You’re not writing, are you?”

“No, in fact, I was avoiding it.”

“Again?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Sandra sighed. “Maybe you’re trying to write at the wrong time of day. Most people have times of day when they’re more productive than others. Have you considered that?”

“No, I haven’t. Anyway, I have a job, you know.”