Free Fucking Daphne by Daphne Gottlieb Page A

you’ve gotta look out for.
    â€œHey, Diana,” says Daphne. “You’re looking good.”
    â€œThanks. So are you.”
    â€œDiana and I used to work together,” Daphne says to Nat by way of explanation. Nat doesn’t ask where, just nods, so I figure she has put it together and doesn’t care. I haven’t had that many jobs, so she probably knows which one Daphne’s talking about.
    I don’t feel like annoying Nat and I’m not the most sparkling conversationalist anyway, so I say goodbye and walk off. The pool party is banging. There are a million people there, most of them naked. Jay throws great parties. She likes to have lots of people around. She’s got a big backyard, bigger than any other I’ve seen in the city. She’s got money. I heard she worked at Yahoo! in the very beginning and got out after they had an IPO. She’s my age, somewhere around thirty,
but she doesn’t work now. Every time I come to one of her parties, I think, It’d sure be nice to have cash. She must know everyone within two hundred miles of San Francisco. There are a lot of people here I don’t recognize. My normal crowd all tend to look like me. It’s a uniform: baggy jeans, studded belts, baseball caps. But there’s chicks here all decked out. Lots of girls. Pretty ones, too.
    The sun is really warm, but I don’t want to swim and fuck up my high. Lita Ford is playing on the sound system. I’ve eaten a couple of brownies, smoked some pot. I look around for a place to settle and spot a couple of girls I know through Nat. They’re lying around on plastic chaise longues next to the pool. They’re screaming. Laughing. I can hear individual peals of girlie laughter on top of high-pitched squealing. It sounds like a henhouse, but inviting. When I get closer, I see they have a bunch of pink marshmallow Peeps, the kind you get at Easter.
    â€œWhat the hell are you doing with those Peeps?” I ask the pretty brown-haired girl. She’s got one of them in her mouth and has sucked off all the pink sugar. It looks naked.
    â€œWe’re playing spin the Peeps. Wanna play?” She takes two Peeps and throws them on the table. “Okay, so, whoever the beaks are pointing at has to kiss. That’s you guys,” she says to two of the girls sitting next to me. And then, like I’m watching the motherfucking Spice Channel, these two bikini-clad Amazons get up and start full-on making out. There’s a girl in a red striped bathing suit with long, fire engine-red hair, and another one who’s a little shorter with short bleached hair. I have no idea where they’ve come from. I never see girls like this around. Where do they live besides pool parties? It’s like being at gay supermodel camp or something. When they part lips, I grab the Peeps and throw them on the table and tell a couple
of pretty girls to get up and kiss each other. I’m some kind of pervert Svengali. At some point, instead of throwing two Peeps, I throw three, and then four. No one seems to notice or mind; they just get up and kiss in multiples. This entertains me for a very long time.
    When everyone is tired and chapped-lipped, I finally extricate myself to go get another beer. Daphne is standing by the cooler alone. Nat is nowhere to be seen.
    â€œDaphne girl, lemme get you a beer,” I say suavely.
    â€œI’m gonna stick to Diet Coke, but thanks.” Whatever, I think, and gulp down some of my beer. “So, what are you doing now?” I look at Daphne and smile. Who cares what she’s doing? I don’t know if I should talk to her. I want her to like me again, though.
    â€œNot too much. Hanging around. You look fucked up. I guess it’s nice to see you.”
    â€œYou dating anyone?”
    â€œArnie.”
    â€œWho’s Arnie?” I say, but then I realize I know who Arnie is. Arnie is the guy who ran the massage