Read Page 23

"I don't know how that is going to"-I clear my throat-"fly with Alison."

"What's she gonna do? Pinch me?"Advertisement

"Cool cool cool." I nod. "JD, you know what to do."

"After tonight no one should get in for free. Oh yeah-except very good-looking lesbians. Anyone dressed like Garth Brooks is purged. We want a clientele that will up the class quotient."

"Up the class quotient. Yeah, yeah." Suddenly I cannot tear my eyes off Damien's head.

"Ground Control to Major Tom," Damien says, snapping his fingers.

"Huh?"

"What in the f**k are you looking at?" I hear him ask.

"Nothing. Go ahead."

"What are you looking at?"

"Nothing. Just spacing. Go ahead."

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After a brief, scary pause Damien continues icily. "If I see anyone and I mean anyone unhip wandering around 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 f**king 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 doing something 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 Agnes 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 f**king 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..."

You can see him thinking things out. "You've got Chloe Byrnes. Why would you do Alison?" Damien sighs. "Chloe f**king 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 f**ked to death on the table in Rising Sun."

"Ri-i-ight. But you're dating Chloe f**king 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. pqdm.com