Free Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis Page B

to ask Blair if she wants to go but Spit, still smoking the joint, comes over with some surfer to Dimitri and says, “Heston has some great acid,” and the surfer with Spit looks at Blair and winks and then she pats my ass and lights a cigarette.“Where’s Kim?” Spit asks when he doesn’t get an answer from Dimitri, who just stares into the pool, strumming the guitar. He then looks over at the four of us standing around him and for a minute it looks like he’s going to say something. But he doesn’t, just sighs and looks back at the water.
    This young actress comes in with some well-known producer, who I met once at one of Blair’s father’s parties, and they check out the scene and walk over to Kim, who’s just gotten off the phone, and she tells them that her mother’s in England with Milo and the producer says that last he heard she was in Hawaii and then they mention that maybe Thomas Noguchi might be stopping by and then the actress and the producer leave and Kim walks over to where Blair and I’ve stood and she tells us that it was Jeff on the phone.
    “What did he say?” Blair asks.
    “He’s an asshole. He’s down in Malibu with some surfer, some guy, and they’re holed up in his house.”
    “What did he want?”
    “To wish me a Happy New Year.” Kim looks upset.
    “Well, that’s nice,” Blair says hopefully.
    “He said, ‘Have a Happy New Year, cunt,’” she says, and lights a cigarette, the champagne bottle she holds by her side almost empty. She’s about to cry or say something else when Spit comes over and says that Muriel locked herself in Kim’s room and so Kim and Spit and Blair and I walk inside, upstairs, down a hallway and over to Kim’s door and Kim tries to open it but it’s locked.
    “Muriel,” she calls out, knocking. No one answers.
    Spit pounds on the door, then kicks it.
    “Don’t fuck the door up, Spit,” Kim says, and then yells out, “Muriel, come out.”
    I look over at Blair and she looks worried. “Do you think she’s all right?”
    “I don’t know,” Kim says.
    “What’s she on?” Spit wants to know.
    “Muriel?” Kim calls out again.
    Spit lights another joint, leans against the wall. The photographer comes by and takes pictures of us. The door opens slowly and Muriel stands there and looks like she’s been crying. She lets Spit, Kim, Blair and the photographer and me into the room and then she closes the door and locks it.
    “Are you all right?” Kim asks.
    “I’m fine,” she says, wiping her face.
    The room’s dark except for a couple of candles in the corner and Muriel sits down in the corner next to one of the candles, next to a spoon and a syringe and a little folded piece of paper with brownish powder on it and a piece of cotton. There’s already some stuff in the spoon and Muriel wads the piece of cotton up as small as possible and puts it in the spoon and sticks the needle into the cotton and then draws it into the syringe. Then she pulls up her sleeve, reaches for a belt in the darkness, finds it and wraps it around her upper arm. I spot the needle tracks, look over at Blair, who’s just staring at the arm.
    “What’s going on here?” Kim asks. “Muriel, what are you doing?”
    Muriel doesn’t say anything, just slaps her arm to find a vein and I look at my vest and it freaks me out to seethat it does look like someone got stabbed, or something.
    Muriel holds the syringe and Kim whispers, “Don’t do it,” but her lips are trembling and she looks excited and I can make out the beginnings of a smile and I get the feeling that she doesn’t mean it and as the needle sticks into Muriel’s arm, Blair gets up and says, “I’m leaving,” and walks out of the room. Muriel closes her eyes and the syringe slowly fills with blood.
    Spit says, “Oh, man, this is wild.”
    The photographer takes a picture.
    My hands shake as I light a cigarette.
    Muriel begins to cry and Kim strokes her head, but Muriel keeps crying and drooling