Free Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis Page B

this party tonight I will kill you.”
    “My mouth suddenly is so dry I can’t even like gulp, man.”
    Damien starts laughing and joking around, so I try to laugh and joke around too.
    “Listen, bud,” he says. “I just don’t want the city’s most bizarre bohemians or anyone who uses the term ‘fagulous’ near me or my friends.”
    “Could you write that down, JD?” I ask.
    “No one who uses the term ‘fagulous.’” JD nods, makes a note.
    “And what’s with the fucking DJ situation?” Damien asks disinterestedly. “Alison tells me someone named Misha’s missing?”
    “Damien, we’re checking all the hotels in South Beach, Prague, Seattle,” I tell him. “We’re checking every rehab clinic in the Northeast.”
    “It’s a little late, hmm?” Damien asks. “It’s a little late for Misha, hmm?”
    “Victor and I will be interviewing available DJs all day,” JD assures him. “We’ve got calls in to everyone from Anita Sarko to Sister Bliss to Smokin Jo. It’s happening.”
    “It’s also almost eight o’clock, dudes,” Damien says. “The worst thing in the world, guys, is a shitty DJ. I’d rather be
dead
than hire a shitty DJ.”
    “Man, I am so with you it’s unbelievable,” I tell him. “We have a hundred backups, so it’s happening.” I’m sweating for some reason, dreading the rest of this breakfast. “Damien, where can we find you if we need to get ahold of you today?”
    “I’m in the Presidential Suite at the Mark while they finish doingsomething to my apartment. Whatever.” He shrugs, chews some muesli. “You still living downtown?”
    “Yeah, yeah.”
    “When are you gonna move uptown with everyone else—hey, leave the foot-shaking outside,” he says, staring at a black lace-up from Agnès b. my foot happens to be in. “Are you okay?”
    “Fine. Damien, we’ve got—”
    “What is it?” He stops chewing and is now carefully studying me.
    “I was just gonna ask—” I breathe in.
    “What are you hiding, Victor?”
    “Nothing, man.”
    “Let me guess. You’re secretly applying to Harvard?” Damien laughs, looking around the room, encouraging everyone else to laugh with him.
    “Yeah,
right.”
I laugh too.
    “I just keep hearing these vague rumors, man, that you’re fucking my girlfriend, but there’s like no proof.” Damien keeps laughing. “So, you know, I’m
concerned.”
    The goons are not laughing.
    JD keeps studying his clipboard.
    I’m inadvertently doing Kegels. “Oh man, that’s so not true. I wouldn’t touch her, I swear to God.”
    “Yeah.” You can see him thinking things out. “You’ve got Chloe Byrnes. Why would you do Alison?” Damien sighs. “Chloe fucking Byrnes.” Pause. “How do you do it, man?”
    “Do … what?”
    “Hey, Madonna once asked this guy for a date,” Damien tells the bodyguards, who don’t show it but in fact are impressed.
    I smile sheepishly. “Well, dude,
you
dated Tatjana Patitz.”
    “Who?”
    “The girl who got fucked to death on the table in
Rising Sun.”
    “Ri-i-ight. But you’re dating Chloe fucking Byrnes,” Damien says, in awe. “How do you do it, man? What’s your secret?”
    “About … hey, um, I don’t have any secrets.”
    “No, moron.” Damien tosses a raisin at me. “Your secret with women.”
    “Um … never compliment them?” I squeak out.
    “What?” Damien leans in closer.
    “Not disinterested, exactly. If they ask tell them, y’know, their hair looks bleached .… Or if they ask tell them their nose is too wide .…” I’m sweating. “But, y’know, be careful about it .…” I pause faux-wistfully. “Then they’re yours.”
    “Jesus Christ,” Damien says admiringly, nudging one of the goons. “Did you hear that?”
    “How’s Alison?” I ask.
    “Hell, you probably see her more than I do.”
    “Not really.”
    “I mean, don’t you, Vic?”
    “Oh, y’know, me and Chloe and, um, probably not, but whatever, never mind.”
    After a long and