American Psycho

by Bret Easton Ellis

  Girls

  Tonight an infuriating dinner at Raw Space with a vaguely ditzed-out Courtney who keeps asking me questions about spa menus and George Bush and Tofutti that belong only in someone’s nightmare. I utterly ignore her, to no avail, and while she’s in midsentence—Page Six, Jackie O—I resort to waving our waiter over and ordering the cold corn chowder lemon bisque with peanuts and dill, an arugula Caesar salad and swordfish meat loaf with kiwi mustard, even though I already ordered this and he tells me so. I look up at him, not even trying to feign surprise, and smile grimly. “Yes, I did, didn’t I?” The Floridian cuisine looks impressive but the portions are small and costly, especially in a place with a dish of crayons on each table. (Courtney draws a Laura Ashley print on her paper place mat and I draw the insides of Monica Lustgarden’s stomach and chest on mine and when Courtney, charmed by what I’m drawing, inquires as to what it is, I tell her, “Uh, a … watermelon”). The bill, which I pay for with my platinum American Express card, comes to over three hundred dollars. Courtney looks okay in a Donna Karan wool jacket, silk blouse and cashmere wool skirt. I’m wearing a tuxedo for no apparent reason. The Patty Winters Show this morning was about a new sport called Dwarf Tossing.

  In the limousine, dropping her off at Nell’s, where we’re supposed to have drinks with Meredith Taylor, Louise Samuelson and Pierce Towers, I tell Courtney that I need to score some drugs and I promise that I’ll be back before midnight. “Oh, and tell Nell I say hi,” I add casually.

  “Just buy some downstairs if you have to, for god’s sake,” she whines.

  “But I promised someone I’d stop by their place. Paranoia. Understand?” I whine back.

  “Who’s paranoid?” she asks, eyes squinting. “I don’t get it.”

  “Honey, the drugs downstairs are usually a notch below NutraSweet in terms of potency,” I tell her. “You know.”

  “Don’t implicate me, Patrick,” she warns.

  “Just go inside and order me a Foster’s, okay?”

  “Where are you really going?” she asks after a beat, now suspicious.

  “I’m going to … Noj’s,” I say. “I’m buying coke from Noj.”

  “But Noj is the chef at Deck Chairs,” she says, as I’m pushing her out of the limousine. “Noj isn’t a drug dealer. He’s a chef!”

  “Don’t have a hissy fit, Courtney,” I sigh, my hands on her back.

  “But don’t lie to me about Noj,” she whines, struggling to stay in the car. “Noj is the chef at Deck Chairs. Did you hear me?”

  I stare at her, dumbfounded, caught in the harsh lights hung above the ropes outside Nell’s.

  “I mean Fiddler,” I finally admit, meekly. “I’m going to Fiddler’s to score.”

  “You’re impossible,” she mutters, walking away from the limo. “There is something seriously wrong with you.”

  “I’ll be back,” I call out after her, slamming the limo’s door shut, then I cackle gleefully to myself while relighting a cigar, “Don’t you bet on it.”

  I tell the chauffeur to head over to the meat-packing district just west of Nell’s, near the bistro Florent, to look for prostitutes and after heavily scanning the area twice—actually, I’ve spent months prowling this section of town for the appropriate babe—I find her on the corner of Washington and Thirteenth. She’s blond and slim and young, trashy but not an escort bimbo, and most important, she’s white, which is a rarity in these parts. She’s wearing tight cutoff shorts, a white T-shirt and a cheap leather jacket, and except for a bruise over her left knee her skin is pale all over, including the face, though her thickly lipsticked mouth is done up in pink. Behind her, in four-foot-tall red block letters painted on the side of an abandoned brick warehouse, is the word M E A T and the way the letters are spaced awakens something in me and above the building like a backdrop is a moonless sky, which earlier, in the afternoon, was hung with clouds but tonight isn’t.

  The limousine cruises up alongside the girl. Through its tinted windows, closer up, she’s paler, the blond hair now seems bleached and her facial features indicate someone even younger than I first imagined, and because she’s the only white girl I’ve seen tonight in this section of town, she seems—whether she is or not—especially clean; you could easily mistake her for one of the NYU girls walking home from Mars, a girl who has been drinking Seabreezes all night while moving across a dance floor to the new Madonna songs, a girl who perhaps afterwards had a fight with her boyfriend, someone named Angus or Nick or … Pokey, a girl on her way to Florent to gossip with friends, to order another Seabreeze perhaps or maybe a cappuccino or a glass of Evian water—and unlike most of the whores around here, she barely registers the limousine as it pulls up next to her and stops, idling. Instead she lingers casually, pretending to be unaware of what the limousine actually signifies.

  When the window opens, she smiles but looks away. The following exchange takes place in less than a minute.

  “I haven’t seen you around here,” I say.

  “You just haven’t been looking,” she says, really cool.

  “Would you like to see my apartment?” I ask, flipping the light on inside the back of the limo so she can see my face, the tuxedo I’m wearing. She looks at the limousine, then at me, then back at the limo. I reach into my gazelleskin wallet.

  “I’m not supposed to,” she says, looking off into a pocket of darkness between two buildings across the street, but when her eyes fall back on me she notices the hundred-dollar bill I’m holding out to her and without asking what I’m doing, without asking what it is I really want of her, without even asking if I’m a cop, she takes the bill and then I’m allowed to rephrase my question. “Do you want to come up to my apartment or not?” I ask this grinning.

  “I’m not supposed to,” she says again, but after another glance at the black, long car and at the bill she’s now putting into her hip pocket and at the bum, shuffling toward the limousine, a cup jangling with coins held in a scabby outstretched arm, she manages to answer, “But I can make an exception.”

  “Do you take American Express?” I ask, switching the light off.

  She’s still gazing out into that wall of darkness, as if looking for a sign from someone invisible. She shifts her stare to meet mine and when I repeat “Do you take American Express?” she looks at me like I’m crazy, but I smile pointlessly anyway while holding the door open and tell her, “I’m joking. Come on, get in.” She nods to someone across the street and I guide this girl into the back of the darkened limousine, slamming the door, then locking it.

  Back in my apartment, while Christie takes a bath (I don’t know her real name, I haven’t asked, but I told her to respond only when I call her Christie) I dial the number for Cabana Bi Escort Service and, using my gold American Express card, order a woman, a blond, who services couples. I give the address twice and afterwards, again, stress blond. The guy on the other end of the line, some old dago, assures me that someone blond will be at my door within the hour.

  After flossing and changing into a pair of silk Polo boxer shorts and a cotton Bill Blass sleeveless T-shirt, I walk into the bathroom, where Christie lies on her back in the tub, sipping white wine from a thin-stemmed Steuben wineglass. I sit on the tub’s marble edge and pour Monique Van Frere herb-scented bath oil into it while inspecting the body lying in the milky water. For a long time my mind races, becomes flooded with impurities—her head is within my reach, is mine to crush; at this very moment my urge to strike out, to insult and punish her, rises then subsides, and afterwards I’m able to point out, “That’s a very fine chardonnay you’re drinking.”

  After a long pause, my hand squeezing a small, childlike breast, I say, “I want you to clean your vagina.”

  She stares up at me with this seventeen-year-old’s gaze, then looks down at the length of her body soaking in the tub. With the mildest of shrugs she places the glass on the tub’s edge and moves a hand down to the sparse hair, also blond, below her flat porcelain-smooth stomac
h, and then she spreads her legs slightly.

  “No,” I say quietly. “From behind. Get on your knees.”

  She shrugs again.

  “I want to watch,” I explain. “You have a very nice body,” I say, urging her on.

  She rolls over, kneeling on all fours, her ass raised up above the water, and I move to the other edge of the tub to get a better view of her cunt, which she fingers with a soapy hand. I move my hand above her moving wrist to her asshole, which I spread and with a dab of the bath oil finger lightly. It contracts, she sighs. I remove the finger, then slide it into her cunt, which hangs below it, both our fingers moving in, then out, then back into her. She’s wet inside and using this wetness I move my index finger back up to her asshole and slide it in easily, up to the knuckle. She gasps twice and pushes herself back onto it, while still fingering her cunt. This goes on for a while until the doorman rings, announcing that Sabrina has arrived. I tell Christie to get out of the tub and dry off, to choose a robe—but not the Bijan—from the closet and meet me and our guest in the living room for drinks. I move back to the kitchen, where I pour a glass of wine for Sabrina.

  Sabrina, however, is not a blond. And standing in the doorway after my initial shock subsides, I finally let her in. Her hair is brownish blond, not real blond, and though this infuriates me I don’t say anything because she’s also very pretty; not as young as Christie but not too used up either. In short, she looks like she’ll be worth whatever it is I’m paying her by the hour. I calm down enough to become totally unangry when she takes off her coat and reveals a hardbody dressed in tight black peg pants and a flower-print halter top, with black pointy-toed high-heeled shoes. Relieved, I lead her into the living room and position her on the white down-filled sofa and, without asking if she wants anything to drink, bring her a glass of white wine and a coaster to place it on from the Mauna Kea Hotel in Hawaii. The Broadway cast recording of Les Misérables is playing on CD from the stereo. When Christie comes in from the bathroom to join us, wearing a Ralph Lauren terry-cloth robe, her blond hair slicked back, looking white now because of the bath, I place her on the couch next to Sabrina—they nod hello—and then I take a seat in the Nordian chrome and teakwood chair across from the couch. I decide it’s probably best if we get to know each other before we adjourn to the bedroom and so I break a long, not unpleasant silence by clearing my throat and asking a few questions.

  “So,” I start, crossing my legs. “Don’t you want to know what I do?”

  The two of them stare at me for a long time. Fixed smiles locked on their faces, they glance at each other before Christie, unsure, shrugs and quietly answers, “No.”

  Sabrina smiles, takes this as a cue and agrees. “No, not really.”

  I stare at the two of them for a minute before recrossing my legs and sighing, very irritated. “Well, I work on Wall Street. At Pierce & Pierce.”

  A long pause.

  “Have you heard of it?” I ask.

  Another long pause. Finally Sabrina breaks the silence. “Is it connected with Mays … or Macy’s?”

  I pause before asking, “Mays?”

  She thinks about it for a minute then says, “Yeah. A shoe outlet? Isn’t P & P a shoe store?”

  I stare at her, hard.

  Christie stands up, surprising me, and moves over to admire the stereo. “You have a really nice place here … Paul,” and then, looking through the compact discs, hundreds upon hundreds of them, stacked and lined up in a large white-oak shelf, all of them alphabetically listed, “How much did you pay for it?”

  I’m standing up to pour myself another glass of the Acacia. “Actually, none of your business, Christie, but I can assure you it certainly wasn’t cheap.”

  From the kitchen I notice Sabrina has taken a pack of cigarettes out of her handbag and I walk back into the living room, shaking my head before she can light one.

  “No, no smoking,” I tell her. “Not in here.”

  She smiles, pauses slightly and with a little nod slips the cigarette back into its box. I’m carrying a tray of chocolates with me and I offer one to Christie.

  “Varda truffle?”

  She stares blankly at the plate then politely shakes her head. I move over to Sabrina, who smiles and takes one, and then, concerned, I notice her wineglass, which is still full.

  “I don’t want you to get drunk,” I tell her. “But that’s a very fine chardonnay you’re not drinking.”

  I place the tray of truffles on the glass-top Palazzetti coffee table and sit back in the armchair, motioning for Christie to get back on the couch, which she does. We sit here silently, listening to the Les Misérables CD. Sabrina chews on the truffle thoughtfully and takes another.

  I have to break the silence again myself. “So have either of you been abroad?” It hits me almost immediately what the sentence sounds like, how it could be misinterpreted. “I mean to Europe?”

  Both of them are looking at each other as if some secret signal is passing between them, before Sabrina shakes her head and then Christie follows with the same head movement.

  The next question I ask, after another long silence, is, “Did either of you go to college, and if so, where?”

  The response to this question consists of a barely contained glare from each of them, and so I decide to take this as an opportunity to lead them into the bedroom, where I make Sabrina dance a little before taking off her clothes in front of Christie and me while every halogen bulb in the bedroom burns. I have her put on a Christian Dior lace and charmeuse teddy and then I take off all my clothes—except for a pair of Nike all-sport sneakers—and Christie eventually takes off the Ralph Lauren robe and is buck naked except for an Angela Cummings silk and latex scarf, which I knot carefully around her neck, and suede gloves by Gloria Jose from Bergdorf Goodman that I bought on sale.

  Now the three of us are on the futon. Christie is on all fours facing the headboard, her ass raised high in the air, and I’m straddling her back as if I was riding a dog or something, but backward, my knees resting on the mattress, my dick half hard, and I’m facing Sabrina, who is staring into Christie’s spread-open ass with a determined expression. Her smile seems tortured and she’s wetting her own lips by fingering herself and tracing her glistening index finger across them, like she’s applying lip gloss. With both my hands I keep Christie’s ass and cunt spread open and I urge Sabrina to move in closer and sniff them. Sabrina is now face level at Christie’s ass and cunt, both of which I’m fingering lightly. I motion for Sabrina to move her face in even closer until she can smell my fingers which I push into her mouth and which she sucks on hungrily. With my other hand I keep massaging Christie’s tight, wet pussy, which hangs heavy, soaked below her spread, dilated asshole.

  “Smell it,” I tell Sabrina and she moves in closer until she’s two inches, an inch, away from Christie’s asshole. My dick is standing straight up now and I keep jerking myself off to keep it that way.

  “Lick her cunt first,” I tell Sabrina and with her own fingers she spreads it open and starts lapping at it like a dog while massaging the clit and then she moves up to Christie’s asshole which she laps at in the same way. Christie’s moans are urgent and uncontrolled and she starts pushing her ass harder into Sabrina’s face, onto Sabrina’s tongue, which Sabrina pushes slowly in and out of Christie’s asshole. While she does this I watch, transfixed, and start rubbing Christie’s clit quickly until she’s humping onto Sabrina’s face and shouts “I’m coming” and while pulling on her own nipples has a long, sustained orgasm. And though she could be faking it I like the way it looks so I don’t slap her or anything.

  Tired of balancing myself, I fall off Christie and lie on my back, positioning Sabrina’s face over my stiff, huge cock which I guide into her mouth with my hand, jerking it off while she sucks on the head. I pull Christie toward me and while taking her gloves off start kissing her hard on the mouth, licking inside it, pushing my tongue against hers, past hers, as far down her throat as it will go.
She fingers her cunt, which is so wet that her upper thighs look like someone’s slathered something slick and oily all over them. I push Christie down past my waist to help Sabrina suck my cock off and after the two of them take turns licking the head and the shaft, Christie moves to my balls which are aching and swollen, as large as two small plums, and she laps at them before placing her mouth over the entire sac, alternately massaging and lightly sucking the balls, separating them with her tongue. Christie moves her mouth back to the cock Sabrina’s still sucking on and they start kissing each other, hard, on the mouth, right above the head of my dick, drooling saliva onto it and jacking it off. Christie keeps masturbating herself this entire time, working three fingers in her vagina, wetting her clit with her juices, moaning. This turns me on enough to grab her by the waist and swivel her around and position her cunt over my face, which she gladly sits on. Clean and pink and wet and spread, her clit swollen, engorged with blood, her cunt hangs over my head and I push my face into it, tonguing it, craving its flavor, while fingering her asshole. Sabrina is still working on my cock, jacking off the base of it, the rest of it filling her mouth, and now she moves on top of me, her knees resting on either side of my chest, and I tear off her teddy so that her ass and cunt are facing Christie, whose head I force down and order to “lick them, suck on that clit” and she does.

  It’s an awkward position for all of us, so this only goes on for maybe two or three minutes, but during this short period Sabrina comes in Christie’s face, while Christie, grinding her cunt hard against my mouth, comes all over mine and I have to steady her thighs and grip them firmly so she won’t break my nose with her humping. I still haven’t come and Sabrina’s doing nothing special to my cock so I pull it out of her mouth and have her sit on it. My cock slides in almost too easily—her cunt is too wet, drenched with her own cunt juice and Christie’s saliva, and there’s no friction—so I take the scarf from around Christie’s neck and pull my cock out of Sabrina’s cunt and, spreading her open, wipe her cunt and my cock off and then try to resume fucking her while I continue to eat out Christie, who I bring to yet another climax within a matter of minutes. The two girls are facing each other—Sabrina’s fucking my cock, Christie’s sitting on my face—and Sabrina leans in to suck and finger Christie’s small, firm, full tits. Then Christie starts French-kissing Sabrina hard on the mouth as I continue to eat her out, my mouth and chin and jaw covered with her juices, which momentarily dry, then are replaced by others.