Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

cockring? Well, Jesus … lemme see. It’s this steel ring about … yea big … although sometimes it’s brass or leather … and you put it around your … equipment.”
    “Why the fuck would you do that?”
    “It helps you to keep it up longer.”
    “Oh.”
    “Isn’t life interesting?”
    “Do you have one?”
    Michael laughed. “Hell, no.”
    “Why not?”
    “Well … it’s just one more thing to remember. Christ, I can’t hang on to a pair of sunglasses for longer than a week.” He laughed suddenly, thinking of something. “I used to know this guy … a very proper stockbroker, in fact … who wore one all the time. But he soon got cured of that .”
    “What happened?”
    “He had to fly to Denver for a conference, and they caught him when he passed through the metal detector at the airport.”
    “God! What did they do?”
    “They opened his suitcase and found his black leather
    chaps!”
    Brian whistled, shaking his head.
    “It’s not too late for a cup of coffee at Pam-Pam’s.”
    “You got a date, man!”

She Is Woman, Hear Her Roar
    S HORTLY AFTER SEVEN, BEAUCHAMP STUMBLED OUT OF bed and into the bathroom.
    DeDe rolled over and continued to breathe heavily, pretending to be asleep.
    This time she didn’t want to hear his excuse. She was numb from excuses, drained by the effort it took to believe in him.
    He had come in at 4 A.M . Period.
    There might not be Another Woman, but there were definitely other women.
    Her response to that fact must be forceful, reasoned and intrinsically feminine. She tried to imagine how Helen Reddy might have handled it.
    The phone woke her at nine-fifteen.
    “Hello.”
    “You asleep, darling?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “You sound down.”
    “Do I?”
    “Look … if it’s about the you-know-what … well, it’s a simple little procedure and you …”
    “Binky, I …”
    “It’s not like the old rusty coat hanger days.”
    “All right, Binky!”
    Silence.
    “Binky … I’m sorry, O.K.?”
    “Sure.”
    “I … had a bad night.”
    “Of course. Look … I called with a juicy one. Wanna hear it?”
    “All ears.”
    “Jimmy Carter is a Kennedy!”
    “Uh … once more.”
    “Isn’t that the absolute ripest gossip you’ve heard in months?”
    “Rank is more like it.”
    “Look … I’m only telling you what everybody was talking about at the Stonecyphers’ last night. Apparently there’s been some hush money paid to make sure that …”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Miss Lillian used to be Joe Kennedy’s secretary.”
    “When?”
    “Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport, darling. I think it’s a divine story.”
    “Divine.”
    “Well, it explains all those teeth, doesn’t it?”
    When she finally got off the phone, she headed for the bathroom with a shudder.
    A half-hour conversation with Binky was like eating a Whitman Sampler in one sitting.
    Avoiding the kitchen, she dressed hastily in a cashmere turtleneck and Levi’s, throwing on her Anne Klein suede jacket as an afterthought.
    She wanted to walk. And think.
    As usual, she went to the Filbert Steps, where the gingerbread houses and alpine cul-de-sacs provided a Walt Disney setting for her woes.
    She sat down on the boardwalk at Napier Lane and watched the neighborhood cats promenading in the sun.
    Once there was a cat who fell asleep in the sun and dreamed she was a woman sleeping in the sun. When she woke, she couldn’t remember if she was a cat or a woman.
    Where had she heard that?
    It didn’t matter. She didn’t feel like a cat or a woman.
    All her life, she had done as she was told. She had moved, without so much as a skipped heartbeat, from the benevolent autocracy of Edgar Halcyon to the spineless tyranny of Beauchamp Day.
    Her husband ruled her as certainly as her father had, manipulating her with guilt and promised love and the fear of rejection. She had never done anything for herself.
    “Dr. Fielding?”
    “Yes?”
    “I’m sorry to bother you at home.”
    “That’s all right. Uh … who is this, please?”
    “DeDe Day.”
    “Oh. How are you?”
    “I … I’ve made up my mind.”
    “Good.”
    “I want the baby, Dr. Fielding.”

The Doctor Is In
    B EAUCHAMP DECIDED TO DRINK HIS LUNCH AT WILKES Bashford.
    There, amidst the wicker and lucite and cool plaster walls, he downed three Negronis while he tried on a pair of $225 Walter Newberger boots. He was fitted by Walter Newberger himself. “How does it feel?” asked the designer. “Heaven,”