"Babes!" Gerald said. "What were you doing at a party in Soho! You've got to be in Notting Hill. Or even better, Shepherd's Bush. If s all happening in Shepherd's Bush. We're the new bush-geoisie!”
"I can't stand the people in Notting Hill," Crispin said sullenly. "They live wild lives, and they all say they don't want to get married, but then they do. And they all say they don't have any money, but then you see them driving a bloody Mercedes!”
“Excuse me. But aren't you getting married?" I said.
"He lives in Shepherd's Bush. So if s okay," Gerald said.
"Whatever you do, don't go out with one of those Chelsea types," Crispin said. "They're all upper class, and they engage in Gothic sex.”
Gothic sex?
"I slept with an aristocrat once," he said. "And she could only come if she pretended I was her horse." Crispin drank my cocktail. "I didn't neigh or anything, but I had to go along with it.”
"Well, I'm supposed to have sex with someone, so I might as well have sex with one of those Chelsea men.”
"They've all got small willies and they're impotent," Crispin said. "If s something in the water. The entire water system in London is polluted with female hormones.”
"Aha," I said. "So that's why Englishmen talk so much.”
And that was why, secretly I suppose, I was walking around Chelsea on Good Friday. I was looking for one of those Chelsea Englishmen—a guy who had sex with his socks on, possessed a microscopic willy, and came in two minutes. Or less. Not that I was really looking forward to it or anything.
I was walking by Joe's Cafe when I bumped into Charlie, a man I'd met a couple of days before at the bar Eclipse. Which was also in Chelsea. Charlie was one of those Englishmen who was divorced but still wearing his wedding ring.
"I've been trying to reach you for days," he said.
"You must come and have lunch. I'm meeting The Dalmatian." The Dalmatian was not a dog but a person, a freckly English lord. "And this other chap might come too," he said. "Rory Saint John CunningsnotBedwards.”
"One of the long-names," I said.
"What’s that? Oh right," Charlie said. "He's a very, very funny chap. Very, very English. I don't know him that well, really just met him last night at China White, but he's very amusing. I thought he might be good for your research. He's so very English, you see.”
"How perfect," I said, for some reason picturing this obviously horrible St. John Cunningsnot-Bedwards person as being short, fat, bald, and somewhere around the age of fifty.
I was only about half wrong.
Charlie and The Dalmation and I were sitting, drinking Bloody Marys and smoking cigarettes when the Rory chap made his entrance. He swaggered into the restaurant with that kind of self-absorbed energy that forces people to look at you. He was in his thirties, slim, dressed in jeans and an expensive suede coat, and even though he was a little bit bald, he was beautiful in the way that Englishmen can be and Americans never are. Okay, he was damn goodlooking, but also horrible.
"Right then," he said. "You must be the American.”
“Yes," I said. "And you must be the Englishman.”
He sat down. "And what are we talking about?”
he asked, lighting his cigarette with a silver-encased Bic. He was very precise in his smoking.
"What do you think we're talking about?" I said.
"I have absolutely no idea," he said. "I have just arrived and wish to be informed as to the content of the conversation.”
As it just so happened, The Dalmatian was in the middle of a story about how he once had sex with his old girlfriend in a steam room in Germany, and there were other men in the steam room, but they couldn't see who was having sex and it was driving them crazy.
"Sex," I said.
"The most overrated activity in the universe," he said. "I mean really. I find sex so boring. The repetition of it. In. Out. In. Out. You're in and then you're Out. After two minutes, I want to fall asleep. Of course, I'm known for being terrible in bed. I've got a tiny willy, about half the size of my little finger, and I come almost immediately. Sometimes before I say hello.”
"You're perfect," I said. "I know that, but I have absolutely no idea why you should know that.”
I smiled.
"I've heard you're doing research on Englishmen," he said. "I shall tell you everything you need to know right now. The English are a fierce warrior race ...”
"I wasn't aware that the English were, exactly, a race," I said.
"I think you two should have dinner," Charlie said.
The Dalmatian offered to drive me to my friend Luanda's house after lunch. The Rory person agreed to come along. The car was a two-seater.
"I hope you don't mind," I said. "Obviously, I'm going to have to sit on your lap.”
"I don't mind at all," he said. "In fact, I shall enjoy it.”
I sat on his lap, and he put his arms around me.
The thing about Englishmen, this type of Englishman, anyway, is that you never know where you are with them. "You can put your head on my shoulder if you want. If s more comfy," he said. He began to stroke my hair.
Then he whispered in my ear, "The thing I like about you is that you're always observing things. Like me.”
Lucinda lived in Chelsea. I jumped out of the car and ran up the steps to her white house. I was shaking a little. "Darling!" I said.
"Oh darling, " Lucinda said. She had just gotten married to a paleontologist and was decorating her house, looking at samples of fabric.
"I think I've met a man," I said.
"Darling. That’s marvelous. What’s his name?" I told her.
"Oh, he's lovely. But darling," Lucinda said, looking at me. "I've heard he's really bad in bed.”
"I know," I said. "That was the first thing he told me.”
"Well, if he told you, then that makes it okay." She hugged me. "I'm so happy for you. And don't worry about it. All Englishmen are bad in bed.”
I went to Rory's house for dinner. I couldn't decide what to wear, so I wore my combat pants. I was nervous. And who could blame me? I had never deliberately had sex with a man who had a willy the size of a little finger before.
"Calm down," he said airily. "Everything's going to be okay.”
"I like your apartment," I said. It was filled with overstuffed couches and armchairs and antiques. It had a fireplace. There was quite a bit of chintz, but I didn't think that much about it, because most English people who live in Chelsea have chintz.
"Oh yes," he said. "If s terribly ... cozy, isn't it?" Then we drank champagne. American men almost never drink champagne because they think it's kind of a sissy drink. Then we put on music and danced madly. American men almost never dance. And then it hit me.
Ohmigod, I wanted to scream. You're gay!
Of course. The champagne, the dancing, the chintz ... the only men who were like that in New York were ... gay.
I turned down the music. "Listen," I said. "There's something important I have to talk to you about.”
“Yes?" he said.
"You may not be aware of this ... in fact, chances are that you've probably been wondering yourself why it is that you don't like sex with women ...
but honestly, I think you're gay," I said. "And I think you should admit it. I mean, wouldn't you be much happier if you were out of the closet?”
"I have considered that very possibility," he said slowly. "And I have come to the conclusion ... that I am not gay.”