By the time the cab got to the Farley mansion it was already well past midnight, and I could tell the party was already going rapidly going downhill into that depressing post-New Year's Eve degeneracy and drunkenness. I usually don't do New Year's Eve for just that reason, but since I already had to be downtown for my publisher's publicity bash, I figured I'd might as well stop in at the Farley's and pay my respects. Ilene Farley's my sister-in-law—my ex-sister-in-law, actually—and used to handle my legal stuff, but since Monica and I split up that got a bit awkward, and her husband Bruce takes care of it now.
The Farleys are good people as far as lawyers go, and their firm represents a lot of artistic types, so I thought their party might at least be interesting. I knew that Ilene felt responsible for the way her sister had dumped me, running off with the publicist from one of the theater groups she represented, and though it had been almost five months, I wasn't above basking in a little sympathy. It's a poor excuse for a holiday and always disappointing, but still, no one wants to be alone on New Year's Eve.
There was no one to meet me at the door, so I just walked in and braved the music blasting from the living room, stood in the doorway waiting for my eyes to adjust. The living room was enormous and it was dark in there, and the similarity to a ballroom was enhanced by the mirrored disco ball spinning from the chandelier, suitably tacky and disorienting, sending a confetti of light across the furniture and faces and piles of streamers and paper hats. It was mostly theater people in there, some in costumes, some not. You can tell theater people because they always seem to be having a better time than it's really possible to have. That's one of the things Monica had liked about them.
New Year's Eve is supposed to be a time of new beginnings and doors opening, but I don't know anyone over the age of sixteen who believes that. More often it seems like a time of regret and sadness, another year of missed opportunities and lost hopes gone. The sight of so many people in costume was encouraging though. It made me think that maybe there were some surprises waiting to happen. Maybe it wasn't all the same old faces.
There were men dancing with women and women dancing with women—no men dancing with men—the usual theater crowd. I tried not to stare at anyone as I looked around for someone I knew. I didn't recognize anyone.
There was a girl on the far side of the room who immediately caught my eye. It wasn't just that she was wearing a man's suit and hat; it was that she was flirting too, quite ostentatiously in life-of-the-party mode, and with both women and men. She was standing with a group of about five people, obviously the center of attention, making the others laugh. It struck me that she was dressed in the same clothes as I was.
There was no doubt she was a woman, though. She was about my height, but very slim, even willowy—a model's body. She had blonde hair pinned up under one of those floppy poet hats that no real man ever wears, and a white shirt and a tight black suit and skinny tie. She wore a glittery black mask, and it was hard to tell with the lights shooting over her face, but it looked like she had a moustache penciled on as well, a thin one, the kind that Frank wore.
And though her clothes were male, she obviously wasn't trying to pass as a man. There was no mistaking that neck, those hands, and the exaggeratedly female way she moved: from the hips rather than from the shoulders. She was just what she appeared to be, a girl dressed up as a boy. She was enjoying herself immensely.
That moustache bothered me. Was someone pimping me? Trying to remind me of Frank and the way he'd run away with Monica?
She left that group and either felt my eyes on her or knew other people were looking because she moved through the crowd obviously aware of being watched. She found a couple of girls standing against the wall, leaned towards them in a predatory, seductive manner, and whispered something to them. From their laughs I knew it was something dirty. She glanced up at me as if to include me in the joke and I found myself staring right into her eyes. I might have been more self-conscious had I not been so captivated.
I wasn't the only one watching her either, because as I stood in the doorway, some guy walked over to her and tried to talk her up. She gave him her ear for a moment and then said something—tossed off some comment—and it must have been something nasty, because the guy drew back as if he'd been stung, and I could see him muttering "bitch" as he walked way. The blonde smiled after him, and I could almost see her adding another notch to her rapier.
I might have just taken her for a gay girl having some fun had she not looked across the room at that moment and found me again. I was too interested to do anything but stare, but despite her harlequin mask, there was no mistaking the look in her eye—half challenge, half invitation, asking me whether I wanted to try my luck. I was tempted—something almost masochistic in me stirred—but first I really had to find Bruce and Ilene.
Across the front hall was their sitting room, which seemed to be filled with gay men, and behind that was the dining room and the sun porch. I walked back there but they weren't around. When I got back to the living room, she was gone.
I'd stopped on the way back from the poetry party and bought a bottle of the Irish whisky that Farley liked and a few cigars—rum-soaked coronas. I put a cigar in my mouth and was trying to find a path back into the kitchen when a girl standing against the wall glared at me.
"I hope to God you're not going to light that fucking thing in here."
The venom in her voice took me by surprise, and all I could do was stare. Her girlfriend next to her seemed to be waiting for me to respond, but I was determined to keep out of this New Year's Eve bitterness so I just gave them a sickly smile and said nothing.
I put the cigar in my pocket and pushed my way back to the kitchen, and halfway down the hallway, here came the blonde in the man's suit walking out with two other girls, one dressed as a princess, the other just in jeans and sweater.
The people standing around made it even more crowded and awkward, and I caught the soft billowy tits of the girl in the princess gown on my chest as she squeezed past, and then here was blondie with her little French moustache and black mask, sidling past me, close enough to bite. She glanced up and I saw the flicker of deep eyes, a glimmer of a smile, and then felt something hard in her pants drag across my thighs and cock—something like a man's erection, but different too: too hard, and obviously artificial, a dildo of some kind, made of plastic or rubber. It slapped across my thighs and cock like a stick across a picket fence, and then it was gone and blondie with it.
I stood there with my mouth open in astonishment as the girl in jeans snuck past. Blondie threw me a look over her shoulder as if asking me whether I'd enjoyed it, then all three of them laughed and were gone.
I felt as if I'd been groped. Or worse—groped by a man. But no, she obviously wasn't a man, though she almost felt like one. I'm not sure what I felt, except that as I walked away my own cock was hardening inexplicably in my shorts.
Ilene was in the kitchen cutting limes amid the general party devastation. There were empties everywhere, and plastic cups with beer going flat. The big sushi platter was empty, nothing left but some wasabi and pickled ginger, and even the cold cut platter and spinach dip seemed pretty well picked over. Nothing left but the crudities and cheese cubes on toothpicks.
Apparently the kitchen was lesbian territory, and they didn't seem especially glad to see me. It wasn't a good place to take an incipient erection, so I covered myself with the bottle of Irish and smiled. They sat at the table and on the counter, drinking wine mostly, and kibitzing with Ilene as she worked.
"David!" she exclaimed when she saw me. "So glad you could make it! How are you, darling? And all dressed up!"
She put one arm around my neck—the one that wasn't holding the knife—and pressed her cheek to mine. "What can I get you, Davey? Nothing to eat, I hope. We've been cleaned out!" She gestured around, but didn't introduce me to her friends.
"Just a glass and some ice," I said. "I brought a bottle. Where's Bruce?"
"Around, around. Maybe upstairs. So what have you been up to? Why are you all dressed up?"
I told her about the poetry party, and Ilene translated to her friends as if they might not understand man-speech. She told them I was a writer and poet and a client of her firm, but they seemed more interested in the limes she was cutting. I'd obviously barged into the middle of something and didn't want to stay.
Thankfully, Ilene didn't mention Monica. She poured some of my whisky into a plastic cup and threw in some ice, then pulled me aside into the pantry.
I didn't want to come out and ask, but Ilene's a good sort and she said, "You haven't heard anything? Monica called me day before yesterday. They're going up to Bangkok and needed money. Seems Frankie met someone and they're all excited about it."
I frowned. "A girl?"
"A boy. I'm not too sure of the details. She said that ,
they'd
met someone, but you know Monica. She doesn't work that fast, so it has to be Frank. All I know is that it's a boy with one of those Thai names that sounds like a teapot falling down the stairs— Ramalamadingdong or something."
I was confused. "Since when is Frank gay?"
Ilene gave me a sympathetic, motherly look. "Labels, Davey, labels. No one thinks like that anymore. Everyone's everything. You should know that. Don't you write about these things?"
