Bret Ellis - American psycho - a novel

I throw my swizzle stick at him.

"Anyway, so we're back at my place and listen to this." He moves in closer to the table. "She's had enough champagne by now to get a fucking rhino tipsy, and get this–"

"She let you fuck her without a condom?" one of us asks.

McDermott rolls his eyes up. "This is a Vassar girl. She's not from Queens ."

Price taps me on the shoulder. "What does that mean?"

"Anyway, listen," McDermott says. "She would… are you ready?" He pauses dramatically. "She would only give me a hand job, and get this… she kept her glove on." He sits back in his chair and sips his drink in a smug, satisfied sort of way.

We all take this in solemnly. No one makes fun of McDermott's revelatory statement or of his inability to react more aggressively with this chick. No one says anything but we are all thinking the same thought: Never pick up a Vassar girl.

"What you need is a chick from Camden ," Van Patten says, after recovering from McDermott's statement.

"Oh great ," I say. "Some chick who thinks it's okay to fuck her brother."

"Yeah, but they think AIDS is a new band from England," Price points out.

"Where's dinner?" Van Patten asks, absently studying the question scrawled on his napkin. "Where the fuck are we going?"

"It's really funny that girls think guys are concerned with that, with diseases and stuff," Van Patten says, shaking his head.

"I'm not gonna wear a fucking condom," McDermott announces.

"I have read this article I've Xeroxed," Van Patten says, "and it says our chances of catching that are like zero zero zero zero point half a decimal percentage or something, and this no matter what kind of scumbag, slutbucket, horndog chick we end up boffing."

"Guys just cannot get it."

"Well, not white guys."

"This girl was wearing a fucking glove?" Price asks, still shocked. "A glove? Jesus, why didn't you just jerk off instead?"

"Listen, the dick also rises," Van Patten says. "Faulkner."

"Where did you go to college?" Price asks. "Pine Manor?"

"Men," I announce: "Look who approaches."

"Who?" Price won't turn his head.

"Hint," I say. "Biggest weasel at Drexel Burnham Lambert."

"Connolly?" Price guesses.

"Hello, Preston," I say, shaking Preston's hand.

"Fellows," Preston says, standing over the table, nodding to everyone. "I'm sorry about not making dinner with you guys tonight." Preston is wearing a double-breasted wool suit by Alexander Julian, a cotton shirt and a silk Perry Ellis tie. He bends down, balancing himself by putting a hand on the back of my chair. "I feel really bad about canceling, but commitments, you know."

Price gives me an accusatory look and mouths "Was he invited?"

I shrug and finish what's left of the J&B.

"What did you do last night?" McDermott asks, and then, "Nice threads."

" Who did he do last night?" Van Patten corrects.

"No, no," Preston says. "Very respectable, decent evening. No babes, no blow, no brew. Went to The Russian Tea Room with Alexandra and her parents. She calls her father – get this – Billy. But I'm so fucking tired and only one S toli." He takes off his glasses (Oliver Peoples, of course) and yawns, wiping them clean with an Armani handkerchief. "I'm not sure, but I think our like weird Orthodox waiter dropped some acid in the borscht. I'm so fucking tired."

"What are you doing instead?" Price asks, clearly uninterested.

"Have to return these videos, Vietnamese with Alexandra, a musical, Broadway, something British," Preston says, scanning the room.

"Hey Preston," Van Patten says. "We're gonna send in the GQ questions. You got one?"

"Oh yeah, I've got one," Preston says. "Okay, so when wearing a tuxedo how do you keep the front of your shirt from riding up?"

Van Patten and McDermott sit silently for a minute before Craig, concerned and his brow creased in thought, says, 'That's a good one."

"Hey Price," Preston says. "Do you have one?"

"Yeah," Price sighs. "If all of your friends are morons is it a felony, a misdemeanor or an act of God if you blow their fucking heads off with a thirty-eight magnum?"

"Not GQ material," McDermott says. "Try Soldier of Fortune ."

"Or Vanity Fair ." Van Patten.

"Who is that?" Price asks, staring over at the bar. "Is that Reed Robison? And by the way, Preston, you simply have a tab with a buttonhole sewn into the front of the shirt, which can then be attached by a button to your trousers; and make sure that the stiff pleated front of the shirt doesn't extend below the waistband of your trousers or it will rise up when you sit down now is that jerk Reed Robison? It looks a hell uva lot like him."

Stunned by Price's remarks, Preston slowly turns around, still on his haunches, and after he puts his glasses back on, squints over at the bar. "No, that's Nigel Morrison."

"Ah," Price exclaims. "One of those young British faggots serving internship at…?"

"How do you know he's a faggot?" I ask him.

"They're all faggots." Price shrugs. "The British."

"How would you know, Timothy?" Van Patten grins.

"I saw him fuck Bateman up the ass in the men's room at Morgan Stanley," Price says.

I sigh and ask Preston, "Where is Morrison interning?"

"I forget," Preston says, scratching his head. "Lazard?"

"Where?" McDermott presses. "First Boston? Goldman?"

"I'm not sure," Preston says. "Maybe Drexel? Listen, he's just an assistant corporate finance analyst and his ugly, blacktooth girlfriend is in some dinky rat hole doing leveraged buy outs."

.'Where are we eat ing?" I ask, my patience at an all-time low. "We need to make a reservation. I'm not standing at some fucking bar ."

"What in the fuck is Morrison wearing?" Preston asks himself. "Is that really a glen-plaid suit with a checkered shirt?"

"That's not Morrison," Price says.

"Who is it then?" Preston asks, taking his glasses off again.

"That's Paul Owen," Price says.

"That's not Paul Owen," I say. "Paul Owen's on the other side of the bar. Over there."

Owen stands at the bar wearing a double-breasted wool suit.

"He's handling the Fisher account," someone says.

"Lucky bastard," someone else murmurs.

"Lucky Jew bastard," Preston says.

"Oh Jesus, Preston," I say. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Listen, I've seen the bastard sitting in his office on the phone with CEOs, spinning a fucking menorah. The bastard brought a Hanukkah bush into the office last December," Preston says suddenly, peculiarly animated.

"You spin a dreidel, Preston," I say calmly, "not a menorah. You spin a dreidel."

"Oh my god, Bateman, do you want me to go over to the bar and ask Freddy to fry you up some fucking potato pancakes?" Preston asks, truly alarmed. "Some… latkes ?"

"No," I say. "Just cool it with the anti-Semitic remarks."

"The voice of reason." Price leans forward to pat me on the back. "The boy next door."

"Yeah, a boy next door who according to you let a British corporate finance analyst intern sodomize him up the ass," I say ironically.

"I said you were the voice of reason," Price says. "I didn't say you weren't a homosexual."

" Or redundant," Preston adds.

"Yeah," I say, staring directly at Price. "Ask Meredith if I'm a homosexual. That is, if she'll take the time to pull my dick out of her mouth."

"Meredith's a fag hag ," Price explains, unfazed, "that's why I'm dumping her."

"Oh wait, guys, listen, I got a joke." Preston rubs his hands together.