The Rules of Attraction

SEAN I’m in the middle of having lame nightmares when the phone rings on the other side of the room behind the green and black striped parachute Bertrand hung up earlier this term and wakes me. I open my eyes hoping it’ll pass, wonder if Bertrand’s answering machine is on. But the phone keeps ringing. I get out of bed, naked with a hard-on from the nightmare, walk through the slit in the parachute and lean down to answer it. “Hello?”

It’s a long distance call and there’s a lot of static. “Allo?” a female voice calls out.

“Hello?” I say again.

“Allo? Bertrand?” More static.

“Bertrand’s not in.” I glance over at the pumpkin with the beret on it. Jesus.

“Is it Jean-Jacques?” the voice calls out. “Allo? Ça va?”

“Jesus,” I mutter.

“Éa va? Ça va?”

I hang the phone up, walk back through the slit in the parachute and lie down. Then it hits me: I remember last night. I moan and cover my head with the pillow but it smells like her and I have to take it off my face. Why in the hell did Judy tell Lauren? What in the hell was going through that girl’s mind when she told Lauren? I tried to talk to the bitch last night but there was no answer when I stopped by her room at Wooley. I moan again and throw the pillow against the wall, depressed and tense and horny. Move my hand over my hard-on, try and jerk off for a little while, reach beneath my bed and pull out the October issue of Playboy, reach a little further and find Penthouse.

I open up the Playboy to the centerfold. First I check out the girl’s face, though I’m not sure why since it’s her body, tits, cunt, ass, that seem so much more prominent. This girl is okay-looking; contemptibly pretty; her tits are tan and big and smooth; the flesh looks salty; run my hand over the thick, glossy paper, the small triangle of hair between the legs is carefully brushed and fluffy. I don’t like the legs too much so I fold part of the centerfold over. This girl thinks she’s smart. Her favorite movie is Das Boot, which is weird since a lot of these girls’ favorite movie has been Das Boot lately, but she’s obviously retarded, even though she does have nice tits. Spitting on my hand I think she might even look slightly horny, and I move my hand faster, but spit always dries up and I can’t find any Vaseline in the mess of my room so I hump the discarded pillow instead and check out her measurements. 35-22-34.

And then I see it: Next to the measurements, next to height and weight (is that information supposed to turn us on? maybe it does) and color of eyes, is her birthdate. My mind does some quick subtraction and I realize that this girl is nineteen and me, Sean, is twenty-one. This girl is younger than me, and that does it — instant depression. This woman, this flesh was always older and that was part of the turn-on, but now, coming across this, something I’d never noticed before upsets me more than thinking about the conversation Lauren and Judy must have had. I have to close the Playboy and reach for the Penthouse and flip it open to the Forum section but it’s too late and I can’t concentrate on the words and I keep wondering if I really did bite the inside of Judy’s thighs and, if so, then why? I can’t even remember why it happened or how. Was it a week ago? It was the night of Vittorio’s cocktail party. Had there been anyone else since Lauren? Shut my eyes and try to remember.

Throw the Penthouse across the room, where it accidentally hits the stereo, somehow turning it on and it’s Journey and then “The Monster Mash” coming from a station in Keene and I have to moan again, my erection completely deflated. I drag myself from bed, put on my underwear, walk to the closet, open it, look at myself in the mirror hung there, finger the hickey Judy (or was it Brooke or Susan who I saw last night after stopping by Judy’s place?) gave me, scowl at the reflection. I reach for a wire hanger, for the tie draped over it, a brown Ralph Lauren tie that Patrick sent me for a birthday I’ve forgotten. I tug it, stretching it, toss it away. Pick up another tie I got at Brooks Brothers and it seems stronger. I tug it, testing its strength, then knot it carefully, making a noose. Take the fern that some girl gave me off the large gold hook that some other girl stuck in the ceiling and place the dead plant on the floor, slip the part of the tie with the knot around the edge of the hook. I go to my desk and hurrying, pull the chair from it, stand on the chair, put my head through the pink and gray striped cotton noose and, about to hang myself, have a memory of a Christmas mass, why? “The Monster Mash” still coming from the radio, without any more hesitation, close my eyes and

I kick the chair away….

I hang there for about a second (not even a second) before the tie rips in half and I fall like an idiot to the floor, screaming “Shit.” Laying on my back in my jockey shorts I stare up at the piece of ripped tie, swinging from the hook. “The Monster Mash” ends. A cheerful D.J. says, “Happy Halloween New Hampshire!” I get up off the floor and get dressed. I walk across campus to the dining hall. Get this over with.