Syrup

by Max Barry

“It’s a democratic society, Tina,” 6 says. “Your opinion of what’s quality is no more valid than mine. Popularity is quality. And so marketers are today’s real artists.”

  “Drink, anyone?” I say.

  scat gets clueless

  Most people—including Cindy—leave by midnight, but a lot stay on until about one. A few hang around until two, when Tina disappears into her bedroom with James, and a few obnoxious assholes don’t leave until it’s three A.M. and I open the door and point to it.

  6 has spent the last hour watching Clueless, which Tina has on tape, and I can’t work out whether it’s weirder that Tina has this or that 6 is watching it. “Well,” I say. “That’s the last of them.”

  6 ignores me. Alicia Silverstone says, “As if.”

  “So,” I say carefully, sliding onto the sofa next to 6, “I guess it’s just you and me.”

  6 frowns slightly but doesn’t take her eyes off the screen. This is a little disconcerting, and I bite my lip for a second, then shuffle a little closer. 6’s frown deepens, but again that’s the limit of her reaction.

  I’m not sure if she’s deliberately brushing me off or just really absorbed in the movie. I struggle between the two for a moment before realizing I should just find out.

  So I do.

  a stolen kiss

  I lean in fast, but even so she beats me easily. With my lips puckered and heading for her cheek, she whirls and slaps both hands on my cheeks, catching me smack in mid-descent.

  “God damn!” I yell. I pull my head free and jump up from the sofa, my cheeks burning. “God damn! What was that?”

  6 rises from the sofa, her eyes like black flames. Her voice is low and murderous. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m kissing you! What do you think I’m doing?”

  “We need to get something straight,” 6 says. “Whatever might have happened between us at Coke, I am not your little woman.”

  I gape. “Little—?”

  “You think it’s all over,” 6 says, as if she is amazed. “You think because of what happened at Coke, it’s over. Well it’s not. Do you understand that?”

  “6, I just wanted a kiss.” I rub my cheeks. “You’ve kissed me twice.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that you’re a control freak.” 6’s eyes widen. “You want to keep me on a leash, so every time—”

  “This is so not true,” 6 says.

  “Is so,” I say, a little sullenly. Doesn’t really match the rest of my argument to date.

  “You need to realize something, Scat,” 6 tells me, leaning close. I try to act nonchalant, but don’t even get close. “You can’t ever take me for granted.”

  a stolen kiss [2]

  When the credits roll on Clueless, we make up our sofa-floor bedding combination in silence. We plant our backs to one another and, feeling resentful, I don’t even try to modulate my breathing.

  I’m annoyed with 6. Now, I know I have a long tradition of being wrong, but here I’m fairly sure I’m right. If 6’s behavior doesn’t qualify as mixed signals, I’m giving up on relationships.

  Growing steadily more righteous, I start running through a few revised arguments in my head, making my points clearly and effectively in all of them. However, they all seem to end up with 6 apologizing profusely, and that’s just too implausible to swallow.

  Despite this, I eventually slip into a light doze and dream something weird involving Sneaky Pete and a cactus. It’s one of those dreams where everything is spinning out of control, and there’s so much going on in my head that a vague rustling from the sofa takes a long time to pierce my consciousness. It could be minutes before I become aware that 6 is leaning over me.

  I concentrate on not moving, which is a little difficult since my heart and lungs immediately shift into fourth. 6’s scent teases my nostrils, and I even feel her hair tickling my chest. I have no idea what she’s doing, but I’m willing to take the risk that it’s good.

  Then she moves, and with dismay I realize she’s leaving. But she’s not. Like a brush from angel wings, I feel the unmistakable contact of 6’s lips on mine.

  action and reaction

  At this point, I’m very, very lucky.

  You see, my reaction is instinctive. The kiss is so unexpected that I have no chance of controlling my body’s response. A few of the less appealing possibilities include snorting, gasping, and sitting bolt upright and screaming.

  Fortunately, I do none of these. Instead, my entire body, maybe figuring that this display of affection from 6 must be a dream, shuts down. I don’t freeze, I relax. I’ve never felt so relaxed in my life. It’s like her lips have drugged me.

  6 hovers above me for a few more moments: I feel her there. Then, perhaps satisfied, she rolls over and resumes her position on the sofa, her back to mine. I slip back to sleep like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and I don’t dream at all.

  welcome to the weekend

  We’re woken by Tina snapping a Polaroid of us, which ensures that 6 starts the day in a foul mood. She mutters about privacy and Tina mutters about whose apartment it is and in the end I have to cook breakfast and talk inanely about the weather.

  The whole morning feels very strange until I realize that for the first time in a long while, 6 and I don’t have anything to do. We have the whole weekend to kill: no deadlines, no last-minute struggles, no panic. It almost feels illegal.

  Midmorning, 6 takes me shopping for new clothes. I try to tell her that unless my new clothes cost less than sixteen dollars, I can’t buy anything, but she produces her credit card. “We’ll get a budget from Coke. Trust me, if we’re successful, we can charge whatever we like.”

  “Really?” I say. “Wow. What if we’re not successful?”

  “Then,” she says, “it will be the least of our problems.”

  6 is a dynamo: she stalks through shops like a commando, her eyes flicking from one rack to another. Occasionally she rests her hand on a jacket or a pair of pants, which is my signal to go try it on. Then she studies me, which is pretty unnerving but also pretty exciting, and makes the final decision. We buy everything I try on, and by the time we get back to Tina’s, we’ve totaled up just over five thousand dollars’ worth of purchases.

  In the afternoon, Tina drags us to an all-day film festival in Santa Monica, which turns out to be such an astounding bore that I vow to never see an independent film again. After fidgeting through a thirty-minute epic about a man who wanders around Hollywood telling people, “Bluebird,” 6 and I walk out. That night, Tina tries to explain that it was a heartfelt examination of mankind’s failure to acknowledge nature as the precept of civilization, and I nearly throw my takeout at her.

  Around seven I ask 6 if she wants to go for a couple of drinks down by the beach, and she actually agrees. We take Tina’s car and watch the sun set over the Rollerblades and bikinis.

  By the time we get home, it’s eleven o’clock and we’re both tanked. In the bathroom, I boldly peck 6 on the cheek and she glances at me in a way that I could swear is affectionate. When we go to bed, she lets one forearm dangle off the sofa so that her fingers graze my arm but acts like she doesn’t know she’s doing it, and I could believe that this is the best night of my life.

  mktg case study #13: mktg magazines

  GIVE AWAY FREE CRAP (PREFERABLY ADVERTISER-SUPPLIED FREE CRAP). DOESN’T MATTER HOW WORTHLESS OR USELESS IT IS: SALES WILL RISE. STRANGE BUT TRUE.

  a day of rest

  I wake on Sunday and spend ten minutes just looking at 6. She is splayed out across the sofa, her face hidden in a mass of midnight hair, and with the soft orange sun teasing at her it’s like I’m looking at a vision. I don’t notice that Tina has emerged from the bedroom until she speaks.

  “Hey,” she says quietly. I look up, startled, but she’s smiling. “Coffee?”

  love and success

  “Have you told her?” We’re sitting on the steps outside, nursing coffees while
bums and kids in baggy jeans trawl the street.

  I feign confusion. “Told her ... ?”

  Tina rolls her eyes. “That you’re in love with her.”

  I splutter into my coffee. “Hey, I never said anything about—”

  “Scat,” Tina says. “It’s obvious.”

  I search Tina’s eyes for a way out and fail to find one. I sigh. “Yes, I told her.”

  Tina snickers.

  “What?”

  “You’re screwed.” She takes an impressive swig of her coffee.

  “Pardon me?”

  “She didn’t say it back, did she?”

  “Uh,” I say. “Well, you know, not everything is said in so many words ...” Tina’s green eyes bore into me. “No.”

  “Oh, brother,” Tina says, shaking her head.

  “So help me.” For a moment, the irony of asking Tina for relationship advice is dizzying. “What should I do?”

  “Look for a new girl,” Tina says shortly.

  “Tina, that’s not very helpful.”

  “Okay, fine. You want 6? Be a bastard.”

  “I don’t want to be a bastard.”

  “Oh, sure you do,” Tina says airily.

  “Tina,” I say levelly, “I’m not every man you’ve ever dated, okay?”

  “Ooooh,” Tina says. “Look, it’s true. It’s how she is. She won’t respect you unless you don’t let her control you. And that means you have to fight her.”

  I boggle. “She’d whip my butt.”

  “So, like I said,” Tina says, growing bored of the conversation, “find another girl.”

  I watch the street for a moment. “Can’t I just win her admiration and affection by proving to be a spectacular public success?”

  “Yeah, well,” Tina says, “whichever you think is easier.”

  the end of innocence

  6 is showered and prowling the kitchen in Tina’s pajamas when we come back up, and she regards us both suspiciously. “Hi, 6,” Tina says flippantly, and 6’s eyes narrow even further.

  “So,” I say, a little too heartily. “What do you want to do today? Go see a movie? A real one?”

  “We’re going home,” 6 says. “We need to prepare for tomorrow.”

  “What? Prepare how?”

  “We need to anticipate Sneaky Pete’s attack,” she says, sawing through a loaf of bread. “And prepare our response.”

  “Aw, 6 ...” After a whole day of not having to worry about any of this stuff, I’m reluctant to give up my chance at another. “Can’t we leave it until tonight? It’s a beautiful day out there.”

  6 doesn’t even bother to answer. I gloomily start getting my stuff together, and by one we’re on the bus.

  last rites

  It feels very different at Synergy. At Tina’s, it was possible to ignore the fact that Sneaky Pete is waiting for us on Monday. Here, it’s not. Here, it feels like Sneaky Pete is oozing out of the walls.

  6 settles into her Captain Kirk with a huge notepad. I pace the room and occasionally kick around the crumpled-up bits of paper that 6 throws onto the floor. “So what do you think he’s going to do?”

  6 frowns, still writing. “Sabotage the project.”

  “What?” I say, genuinely surprised. “But it’s still his movie. He’s VP Marketing.”

  6 sighs and runs her fingers through her hair, unexpectedly exposing an expanse of soft, gleaming neck. It’s so abruptly erogenous that I feel a little dizzy. “Sneaky Pete’s already proved himself. If it crashes now, after we start making changes, who do you think will be blamed?”

  “Shit,” I say reflectively.

  “He’ll disown himself from the movie now. Find something to take him away from it. That way its failure will be entirely our responsibility.”

  “Failure? How can it fail?”

  6 sighs, not answering.

  night moves

  I cook up some fettuccine in 6’s tiny kitchen while she scribbles late into the night. By the time we’re ready for bed, it’s nearly midnight and Sneaky Pete is just eight hours away.

  I’m cleaning my teeth with a brush I stole from Tina’s, ready to retire to my closet space for the night, when 6 pauses outside the door. I look up at her expectantly, but she just hovers there, her red satin pajamas shimmering at me. I stare at her for a second, caught between the pros and cons of trying to speak through a mouthful of paste.

  “Scat,” 6 says hesitantly. “We’re partners, right?”

  I nod. “Mmm-hmm.”

  She nods. “So—we’re in this together.” She nods again.

  I wonder if it would be bad etiquette to spit at this juncture, and decide probably yes.

  “It’s cold,” 6 says suddenly, apparently deciding to change tack. “Isn’t it? This place gets cold at night.”

  “Mmm,” I say noncommittally.

  6 stares at me for a moment and she really seems caught up in something. Her brow furrows. “If you wanted,” she begins reluctantly, and it looks as if the words are killing her. “If it made sense to you—” She stops.

  I raise my eyebrows encouragingly.

  “Oh, fuck it,” 6 says. “You can sleep with me tonight.”

  I spit.

  sex

  Imagine that a huge new billboard is erected along Sunset Drive. And this billboard, instead of carrying an advertisement for Pepsi or American Express or Ray·Ban, sports a naked woman. A very naked woman. Naked, smiling, reclining. A Playboy centerfold, splashed across one of the most famous streets in the world.

  On the day this billboard went up, massive crowds would surround it. People would hear about it, go, “No way,” and zip down for a look. Protesters would gather within hours. Traffic would back up for five miles (or, at least, five miles further than usual).

  Imagine that, for whatever reason, this billboard stays exactly where it is. Congress misfiled the Decency Act 1991 and now they just can’t find it anywhere. That naked woman just stays there.

  For the next month, men all over the city would be making unnecessary detours past it. They’d be gathering in groups, saying, “Hey, want to go down to the picture of the naked babe?” A nightclub would immediately spring up on the opposite side of the road.

  But it wouldn’t last. It would take a while, but, eventually, no one would notice the billboard at all.

  Because sex isn’t sex at all.

  It’s marketing.

  sex, sex, sex

  If you have a men’s magazine in the vicinity, I’d like you to flip to the “model profile” section. You know, the part where the mag quits pretending it’s in the business of producing high-brow fiction and informative reports on the decline of efficient manufacturing processes in America and gets down to the business of showing pictures of naked women.

  There will be a few models, so you’ll have to pick one. Stacy. Fine. You’ll notice that the first page shows a picture of Stacy’s face. Just her face. There will be a little text, like: “Stacy is a dental assistant, but wants to travel the world. Her interests include opera, white-water rafting and men with hard cocks.” (Incidentally, I can’t help but wonder if the magazine adds that last bit themselves. I see Stacy at home three weeks later, flipping through her advance copy, going, “ ‘Men with hard cocks’? I just said opera and rafting! Man, that changes the whole context!”)

  On the next page, you’ll see Stacy’s face and Stacy’s buttocks. You will probably also see a hint of breast, but only a hint. Stacy will be half out of four different outfits, as if she’s the world’s sloppiest dresser. Then, on the next page, Stacy’s breasts will pop free. You’ll see them from the side and you’ll see them from the front, and there’s a fair bet you’ll also see Stacy cupping them with an expression of utter surprise, as if she’s never noticed them there before.

  In one of the pictures, you’ll see a few strands of Stacy’s pubic hair, but you have to turn the page again to get any further. And there it will be: Stacy completely naked, saying, “Okay, I’ve got nothing
left now. All my clothes are gone. Go on, you might as well take a look.”

  Now, my point is this: What are all the previous pictures for? If you want to see Stacy’s breasts, well, there they are, on the last page. There is, in fact, everything that was peeking out from behind this and half hidden behind that in all the other pictures.

  The answer is marketing. Stacy has been marketed to you.

  You could produce a magazine with page after page of naked women, just standing there. But it wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t even be’erotic. It would be like those articles in Cosmo (“Are Your Breasts Normal?”) where six average girls decide to expose themselves to the nation—but even worse, because at least with Cosmo there’s the clandestine satisfaction of knowing they didn’t mean to be perved at.

  What it comes down to, you see, is that a naked body is just a naked body.

  But the possibility of a naked body is something special.

  sex and 6

  “You stay on that side,” 6 warns me, gesturing. Her pajamas ripple like a deep, mysterious pool.

  “Okay,” I say, slipping under the covers. I discover that 6 has an electric blanket and the bed is like a little furnace.

  “And don’t fidget,” 6 says, frowning at me. “You tend to fidget. Don’t do that.”

  “Okay,” I say again, wiggling my toes. So warm.

  “Good,” she says, pulling up the covers.

  We lie there together on our backs. 6’s Barbie lamp fills the room with soft yellow light, illuminating her miniature TV and vast collection of pop culture posters. Gillian Anderson in particular seems to be eyeing me suspiciously.

  “This is really cozy,” I say to the ceiling.

  6 says nothing.

  “Much warmer than my room. Thanks for letting me move in here.” I glance across, but she’s biting her lip and staring at the ceiling. I sigh. “You know, 6, I understand that right now you’re having some doubts about me being here. Suddenly I’m all over your personal space, and you’re wondering if maybe you made a mistake.”