“Yeah—what do you do for work?”
“This is my work,” she said. “I’m researching a story for a friend of mine about women who have sex like men. You know, they have sex and afterwards they feel nothing.”
Mr. Big eyed her. “But you’re not like that,” he said.
“Aren’t you?” she asked.
“Not a drop. Not even half a drop,” he said.
Carrie looked at Mr. Big. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, I get it,” said Mr. Big. “You’ve never been in love.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“And you have?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
They went back to his apartment. Mr. Big opened a bottle of Crystal champagne. Carrie was laughing and carrying on and then she said, “I have to go.”
“It’s four A.M.,” he said. He stood up. “I’m not going to let you go home now.”
He gave her a T-shirt and boxer shorts. He went into the bathroom while she changed. She got into the bed and lay back against the down pillows. She closed her eyes. His bed was so comfortable. It was the most comfortable bed she’d ever been in in her life.
When he came back into the bedroom, she was sound asleep.
7
The International Crazy Girls
If you’re lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it), you might one day run into a certain type of woman in New York. Like a constantly migrating, brightly colored bird she’s always on the go. And not in the mundane, Filofax-filled way. This woman travels from one international hotspot to another. And when she gets tired of the party season in London, when she’s had enough of skiing in Aspen or Gstaad, when she’s sick of all-night parties in South America, she might come back to roost—temporarily, mind you—in New York.
On a rainy afternoon in January, a woman we’ll call Amalita Amalfi arrived at Kennedy International Airport from London. She was wearing the white fake-fur Gucci coat, black leather pants custom-made at New York Leather (“They’re the last pair they made in this leather—I had to fight with Elle Macpherson over them,” she said), and sunglasses. She had ten T. Anthony bags, and she looked like a movie star. The only thing missing was the limo, but she took care of that by prevailing upon a wealthy-looking businessman to help her with her bags. He couldn’t resist—as virtually no men are able to resist Amalita—and before he knew what had hit him, he, Amalita, and the ten T. Anthony bags were crawling toward the city in his company-paid-for limousine, and he was offering to take her to dinner that night.
“I’d love to, darling,” she said in that breathless, slightly accented voice that hints at Swiss finishing schools and palace balls, “But I’m terribly tired. I’ve really just come to New York for a rest, you see? We could have tea tomorrow though. At the Four Seasons? And then maybe a little shopping afterwards. There are a few things I have to pick up at Gucci.”
The businessman agreed. He dropped her off in front of an apartment building on Beekman Place, took her number, and promised to call later.
Upstairs in the apartment, Amalita put in a phone call to Gucci. Affecting an upper-crust English accent, she said, “This is Lady Caroline Beavers. You have a coat
on hold for me. I’ve just arrived in town, and I’ll be picking it up tomorrow.”
“Very good, Lady Beavers,” the salesperson said. Amalita hung up the phone and laughed.
The next day, Carrie was on the phone with an old friend, Robert. “Amalita’s back,” she said. “I’m having lunch with her.”
“Amalita!” Robert said. “Is she still alive? Still beautiful? She’s dangerous. But if you’re a guy and you sleep with her, it’s like becoming a member of a special club. You know, she was with Jake, and Capote Duncan . . . all those rock stars, billionaires. It’s a bonding thing. You know, the guy thinks, Me and Jake.”
“Men,” Carrie said, “are ridiculous.”
Robert wasn’t listening. “There aren’t very many girls like Amalita,” he said. “Gabriella was one of them. Marit too. And Sandra. Amalita’s so beautiful, you know, and really funny, and very bold, I mean, she’s incredible. You’ll run into one of these girls in Paris, and they’ll be wearing a see-through dress and it will drive you nuts and you see their pictures in W and places like that, and their allure keeps growing on you. Their sexual power is like this amazing, dazzling force that can change your life, you think, if you can touch it, which you can’t, which . . .”
Carrie hung up on him.
At two o’clock that afternoon, Carrie was sitting at the bar at Harry Cipriani, waiting for Amalita to arrive. As usual, she was half an hour late. At the bar, a businessman, his female associate, and their client were talking about sex. “I think men are turned off by women who have sex with them on the first night,” the woman said. She was dressed in a prissy navy blue suit. “You’ve got to wait at least three dates if you want the man to take you seriously.”