He splashed water on his face from a beveled rectangular sink of metal, aware of several people moving about the hallway, loitering, wandering, or going room to room, sampling a kind of berserk sensual smorgasbord. An antique, windowed surgeon's cabinet held a generous assortment of recognizable commercial palliatives. Art gulped four Excedrin and swallowed tap water from his cupped hands, remembering how Price had done it when feeding drugs to the very conflicted Bry-Guy. He did not notice any of the odd black-and-white capsules among the stuff crowding the cabinet.
The door was pushed open and Suzanne walked halfway in, now wearing her shoes, clunky, squared-off heels with fat rubber soles.
Her expression contracted upon recognizing Art and her mouth shrank to a tiny puncture of surprise.
"Oh… shit." She began to back away.
"Suzanne, wait up a minute." Art moved toward her and quickly saw this was a rotten idea. Her hands moved up in defense and her eyes glinted at him in warning.
"You stay the fuck away from me!"
"Hold on. I need you to tell me what the hell-"
"Price!" she yelled, waxing toward panic. "Price! Get your ass up here, Price! And you just… stay right there."
Their host must have been within earshot, even past the din of the music, because Art saw him loping up the stairs two at a time.
When he saw there was no immediate bloodshed or weapons involved, his mien relaxed. Art, meanwhile, tried to configure new sentences, new ways of asking what in blazes was going on. None made it past the first few syllables. Suzanne was wild-eyed, hair-triggered; he could see in her eyes that she was on the verge of smashing crockery.
"You just back the fuck off, or I'll gouge your eyes out. I'll do it!"
"Oh, I doubt that," said Price. "But I want to watch, if you try it. Art?"
"I don't know what's wrong with her, Price, I just-''
"That asshole raped me!" Suzanne interrupted, moving to position Price between her and Art.
"I didn't rape anybody,'' said Art.
"Rape is a highly fluid term," said Price. "Art, did you rape our Suzanne?" She was clutching at his arm.
"No." Now was the time to be succinct. Later Art could unreel his more verbose explorations. The situation-whatever it was- needed defusing in the moment, and Price was aware of this.
"Suzanne, did my new friend Art rape you?"
"He took advantage of me!"
"Just now?"
Doubt or confusion clouded her rage. "No! Last night! Got me drunk and was all over me!"
Two beers and a pint of club soda did not, in Art's most remote recognition, classify as drunk. Staring at Price, he merely shook his head no.
"Price, he did! I was trapped there!"
Price turned; maybe he just inclined his head, but the move was a study in economy of motion. His fingertip homed directly to Suzanne's lips, and he spoke quite evenly. "Suzanne. Shut up." Her mouth still moved but her voice failed her. When Art made to jump into the sonic gap, Price shushed him, too.
Once Art had bumped into a woman on the BART train, a woman who smelled like laundry, wore too much damp tweed, and was bindled to a well-worn nylon backpack. She had begun hollering that Art had tried to steal her "purse," and a transit cop hustled forth to intercede. It was the only time Art had ever seen a member of the enforcement arm of mass transit actually riding the train, and though he was completely innocent, he paled, broke a freshet of cold sweat, and began trembling. He felt the same way now.
"I don't scope Art as the raping type," said Price. "But what the hell, the night is young. Did ya fuck her, Art? Never mind. Your expression says you did. Now, Suzanne-did you fuck him?"
Her expression faltered. Art saw her attitude, her poise, click from offense to defense, and she did not like it. "Took advantage of me," she said again.
"Please. Next you're going to say someone had his way with you. and I'm going to start laughing. Either make me believe you or be quiet."
"I just asked to use his phone and got, like, attacked.''
"That true, Art? Did you, how you say, force your affections on her? Let's try to clarify this: Did you put anything of yours inside anything of hers against her will?"
"That's really nobody's business," said Art.
Reflections in Price's eyes sought Art, now, like sunlight winking off fighter jets at high altitude. "Take a look around you, new fish. Everything here is my business."
Art was startled by the way this man could command. He rallied enough to say, "I'll just be leaving you to that business, then, whatever it is."
Price's hand shot out, open. "Not so fast. That's not like you, Art. Cut and run? Escape? That makes you look guilty." He sniffed hard to catch fresh air for the jury in his head. "Here's what I think: I think you two had a little ooh-la-la, and now Suzanne is trying to excuse what may or may not have been a hasty choice of sex partners. An ill-considered, spur-of-the-moment deal. Art, on the other hand, is embarrassed at acting like some horny sophomore." He turned back to Suzanne. "Were you hurt? I mean damaged."
"My arms are all bruised."
Art remembered clamping her upper arms when he orgasmed. Too hard.
Price checked, and saw her light parallel contusions. "Oww, two points for Suzanne's argument."
Art felt hopeless again. Suzanne brightened. Then Price changed channels on them both, again.
"But, as evidence of rape, less than shit. You wouldn't have allowed yourself to be chauffeured back here, you would've screamed about this the second you rolled in the door. Nope, this rape was invented long after the actual fucking went down, so here's what I suggest-. Suzanne, go visit the cabana or stay up here with Bryan or Dina for at least an hour. Art, you come downstairs with me. Everybody calm down and see what you think in an hour.''
"No, I think it's definitely time for me to leave," said Art.
"Come on, Art, it's a misunderstanding. Don't make me get all stern. It's a misunderstanding, right, Suzanne?"
"I'll stay up here," she said, and retreated to the third bedroom, nearly stumbling, slamming the door.
Price transfixed Art with a dour stare, then snickered. "You've never raped anybody. She probably begged you for it."
Art felt the irrational urge to defend her. "I don't buy that. Nobody 'begs' to be assaulted, no matter how they're dressed, or how they behave."
"You saying you assaulted her?"
"No, I just-I don't-this is all too much for me, Price. She was friendly when we came here. You saw it. Now…"
"She flipped on you," he said. "Became sort of the opposite of what she was before." It was as reasoned an answer as any.
"Price, what the hell is going on here? At this party? I see people feeding people drugs and everybody's suddenly acting mental."
"But you don't know any of these people. They could be this way all the time." Price started walking him toward the stairs.
"Yeah," said Art. "But I get the feeling they're not.''
Price nodded as though Art had confirmed some suspicion. He seemed mildly pleased. “Stick around, and you'll find out. You seem pretty smart."
"No, I think I've got to go home.'' Right now, Art missed the solitude of his home very much.
"C'mon, one beer won't kill you. Who knows? You might get laid." He laughed.
Art recalled the first time he had watched a football game, utterly unaware of the rules. The motions and objectives had all seemed baffling then, too. Now he felt a jolt of competitive macho; he wanted to return Price's hard serves in a fashion that said he was not a child, that he could be a worthy contender, even an opponent.
"Dina says you were screwing Suzanne. She's all upset because she thinks you don't want her."
It was good enough to interrupt Price's stride. "Dina said that? Wow." He shook his head in the manner of someone who expects bad news, but is prepared for it. "I'm surprised that chick was able to get her head out of her own ass long enough to consider the world outside the envelope of her ego. She wants to fuck me?"
"That's the general impression."
"Hm. I don't think I will. I already know how it would go."
"She's upset because of you and Suzanne. She said."
"Nah, I didn't do Suzanne either. She's nice-like a Wally Wood cartoon come to life-but I don't need the grief. Some of these women crave the attention victims get; they think their lives are more interesting if they come to you in peril, so you can rescue them. But it's all a setup, because you then must become the new peril from which they'll require someone else to rescue them, in order to continuously demonstrate their idea of worth, which is based on some imaginary profile of a person so attractive or interesting that they are constantly victimized."
"Somebody seems to have shaved their head in your upstairs bathroom. There's hair all over the floor.''
"Is it black?" Price nodded. "That'd be Malcolm. He wants to write meaningful novels that only get reviewed in the free papers. He's constantly worried he's not had enough, punk rawk enough, edge enough. He's probably out in the cabana getting his ear pierced with a hot ice pick, right now. Wonder where he got the razor?"
The main open space downstairs branched off in two directions from the turret, forming an area which, in an architectural show-and-tell, would be called the hot space. Together Art and Price descended back into this warren of morphing activity, part green room, part Bedlam. Art noticed there were no clocks, and the TV screens in the circular pit of the turret were obviously broadcasting prerecorded material. Price surveyed what he had wrought with the air of a minor god choosing his next mortal folly. "So, Dina's nursing a secret lust for me?" he said again, as though the idea was unexpected, yet obliquely pleasing.
"Like I said."
Michelle spotted them and snaked past bodies without upsetting any drinks. "We've got a couple more MIAs, not in the cabana. I think they went outside."
Price looked toward the picture windows, bowing now and again with the force of the wind and rain. "Solomon?"
"Not Solomon, he came in. Unless a few just went home."
"Nonsense, it's too early to go home, right, Art?"
"I should be," Art said. "Soon, anyway."
"You should cruise the cabana," said Price. "Find out where your limits are, maybe redefine a couple."
Art stopped Price from moving into the fray by placing his hand on one arm. "Price, you've got to understand about Suzanne. I don't know why she threw that fit upstairs. It surprised me. Earlier, she was the way you saw her when we came in. Now… I just don't know what's going on.''
"Like she acted in a completely unpredictable way?"
"Very unpredictable."
"Might have something to do with the fact she's been babysitting her ex-boyfriend upstairs-a guy whom she despises and fears. I'm sure she told you."
Art was honestly perplexed. "Why?"
"Because she tells everybody the Bryan story."
"No, I mean why go back to him?"
"Who knows? Revenge, maybe." Price's kung fu skill at deflecting queries was undeniable.
"C’mon, allow me to drag you away, sweetheart," said Michelle, taking Art's hand.
As soon as Price disengaged, Michelle had him. Her sway was persuasive, but he stuck to his plan of sane escape. "Drag me back toward the kitchen, because I've really got to go home and feed my dog."
"The cabana doesn't strike me as your scene," she said. "Unless you'd enjoy having your asshole widened by a domme with wildly mismatched skin illustrations covering more than eighty percent of her body."
"It's not that," said Art as they interleaved partygoers. "People can scar or burn or pierce or ink themselves however they want. It's just that it's become assimilated; tattoos are now what van art was to the seventies." He liked making Michelle laugh.
"God, I'd disagree, except I've seen some really stupid ones. You sure you want to take off?" She was gauging what to offer as an incentive for him to linger.
"I can't ignore the storm," he said. "But tell me something, Michelle. This whole party is a bipolar mood swing personified as a crowd. It seems like a big round of musical chairs. People scurry around a selection of different personalities and flop down on whichever one they can grab, and it all changes again at a moment's notice."
"Musical chairs is an elimination game."
"The odd man would be whoever freaks out in the bathroom next."
"I see the point, but this isn't that."
"No, the real point is that Price seems to know this, like he's responsible for it, somehow. He talked about getting people together here like some sort of social experiment, a big Skinner box full of volatile ingredients, a petri dish for emotional stress testing."
She regarded his thumbnail with frank admiration. "That's Price. Just celebrating somebody's birthday with a cake would be a drag."
"But, Michelle… if it's on purpose, doesn't it all seem a bit cruel?"
She lowered her eyes. "Sometimes yes, I suppose."
"Michelle, have you seen Tobias anywhere?" It was Shinya, the Asian woman Art had originally met in the kitchen. "I was scanning the room for that big blue shirt he was wearing, and''-she held up the shirt-"I found it on the couch, but he wasn't in it."
"You check upstairs?" Michelle said.
Shinya shook her head. "He had this kind of mad fit, you know, like when you suddenly just have to get out of a room? He said if he took off his glasses, he could see how ugly everybody was and it was starting to bug him." Shinya was fidgeting. Her hands did not know where to land; they got pocketed and withdrawn, moved to compulsively twirl strands of hair, then toyed with her broad belt, yanking out the leather tongue, then slotting it back. She might have actually been trembling.