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She shakes her head then reaches down into my lap and still smiling sweetly squeezes my balls then picks up the napkin, kisses me on the cheek, whispers "I'm still in love with you" and glides away, floating past Damien, who tries to reach out for her but she's gliding away, floating past him, the expression on her face saying don't touch.

Damien just stands there, mutters something, closes and opens his eyes, then takes Lauren's seat next to mine as Lauren walks over to Timothy Hutton and gently turns to him in an exceedingly intimate way, and Damien's puffing on his cigar, staring at the two of them, and I'm waving smoke away, slouching in my seat, my cigar unlit.Advertisement

Damien's saying things like "Have you ever felt like crawling under a table and living there for a week?"

"I've spent most of this night gasping," I'm conceding. "And I'm exhausted."

"I think this place is actually great," Damien says, gesturing at the room. "I just wish it wasn't such an awful night."

My eyes are still watering from the squeeze Lauren gave me but through the tears I notice she's not terribly far from the seat Damien vacated next to Alison's, and my heart speeds up, something tightens in my stomach, my armpits start tingling and Lauren's swaying her hips exaggeratedly and Alison's totally wired, sucking on a joint, greedily chatting away with Ian Schrager and Kelly Klein, then Damien looks away from me and watches too as Lauren says something that causes Tim Hutton to raise his eyebrows and cough while Uma's talking to David Geffen. Her eyes gleaming, Lauren brings the cocktail napkin to her lips, kissing it, wetting it, and I'm holding my breath watching everything and Alison whispers something to Kelly Klein and Lauren leans away from Tim and with the hand holding the cocktail napkin pats Alison on the back and the napkin sticks and Damien makes a strangled noise.

On the napkin is one word in giant garish purple letters: CUNT. Alison glances up briefly. She pushes Lauren's hand away.

Next to me, Chloe's watching too and she lets out a little whimper. Damien lurches from the table.

Lauren's laughing gaily, walking away from Tim Hutton in mid-sentence. And then he notices the napkin on Alison's back.

Before Damien can get to Alison she's already reaching behind her neck and she feels the napkin and pulls it off and slowly brings it in front of her face and her eyes go wide and she lets out a giant mama of a scream.

She spots Lauren making her way out of the dining room and hurls a glass at her, which misses Lauren and explodes against the wall.

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Alison leaps up from her chair and races toward Lauren but Lauren's out the door, heading up the stairs to the private VIP lounge that hasn't opened yet.

Damien gets to Alison and while he wrestles with her she starts sobbing hysterically and the napkin falls out of Alison's hand and somebody takes it for a souvenir and then I'm standing and about to run after Lauren when Chloe grabs my arm.

"Where are you going?" she asks.

"I'm going to try to, um, deal with this," I say, gesturing helplessly at the door Lauren just breezed through.

"Victor-"

"What, baby?"

"Victor-" she says again.

"Honey, I'll be back in twenty"-l check my wrist but there's no watch and then I look back at her-"in like ten minutes."

"Victor-"

"Honey, she needs some air-"

"In the VIP lounge?" Chloe asks. "In the VIP lounge, Victor? She needs some air in the VIP lounge?"

"I'll be right back."

"Victor-"

"What?" I say, loosening my arm from her grasp.

"Victor-"

"Honey, we're having a fly time," I say, pulling awav. "'Talk to Baxter. Spin some damage control. That's what I'm gonna do."

"I don't care," she says, letting go. "I don't care if you come back," Chloe says. "I don't care anymore," she says. "Do you understand?" Dazed, I can only nod my head and rush out of the room.

"Victor-"

We'll slide down the surface of things... .

I find Lauren in the private VIP room on the top floor where earlier lay I interviewed prospective DJs but now it's empty except for the bartender setting up behind a stainless-steel slab. Holly just points over a banquette, where Lauren's feet are sticking out from beneath a tablecloth, one high heel on, one high heel hanging off a totally delectable foot, and a just-opened bottle of Stoli Cristall is standing on the table and when a hand reaches up the bottle disappears, then reappears noticeably less full. The high heel falls off. pqdm.com