Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis — Read

Everything was suddenly a mirage. I drove Robby and Sarah home while replaying the first time I met Aimee Light: a girl staring at me blankly from across a campus party, the cocaine I'd snorted in the dingy bathroom giving me a burly, reckless confidence, the ensuing conversation about her thesis during which I realized I could probably control her even though she was throwing off the opposite vibe-I located it in the yawn after she told me its title ("Destination Nowhere"), and it was in the studied indifference, the (ho-hum) calculated laughter, her "boredom": all just defense mechanisms-but I was patient, and was so adept at pretending to be interested in women I simply wanted to sleep with that I had perfected my own performance: the devil grin, the deep and persuasive nodding, the off-the-cuff comments about other girlfriends and my famous wife. Ultimately, everything was an act. We were on a stage. The cup of beer she sipped from was a prop, and the subsequent foam cresting her upper lip caused my eyes, as if rehearsed, to hone in on her mouth, and when she realized I was gazing at her she swayed toward-and complimented-a sculpture made of wire hanging in a corner of Booth House. Male undergrads were slithering around her, merely outlines in the darkness, and her face was streaked orange by the glow of a lava lamp, and an hour later I had followed her around the entire room without realizing it and she was now smiling the whole time, even when I walked away since it was late and I was a family man who had to get home and it was wrenching and I had already lost my faith. But I regained it when I looked back and saw that her face was creased with a frown. Had she known Clayton then? Had Clayton stopped by my office knowing she'd be there? Had-

"Daddy, the light's green again," I heard Sarah whimper, and I shot forward.