The Rules of Attraction Read Free Page A

Robert Ludlum books. Who is this guy? Probably drives a Jeep, wears penny loafers, his girlfriend in high school wore his letter sweater. He checks his hair out in the mirror and tells me his roommate’s in Vermont tonight. Why don’t I tell him that my boyfriend, the person I love, the person who loves me, the person I miss, the person who misses me, is in Europe and that I should not under any circumstances be doing this. He has a refrigerator and pulls out an ice-cold Beck’s. Slick. I take a sip. He takes a sip. He pulls off his L.L. Bean sweater and his T-shirt. His body’s okay. Nice legs. Probably plays tennis a lot. I almost knock over a stack of economics books that are on his desk. I didn’t even know they offer that here.
    “You don’t have any herpes or anything, do you?” he asks while we undress.
    I sigh and say, “No, I don’t.” Wish I was drunk.
    He tells me he heard that maybe I did.
    I don’t want to know who he heard that from. Wish I was very drunk.
    It feels good but I’m not turned on. I just think about Victor and lay there.
    Victor.

 
    VICTOR Took a charter flight on a DC-10 to London, landed at Gatwick, took a bus to the center, called a friend from school who was selling hash, but she wasn’t in. So I wandered around until it started to rain, then took a subway back to the friend’s house and hung out there for four or five days. Saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. Ate a grapefruit next to the Thames River, which reminded me a lot of the cover of that Pink Floyd album. Wrote my mom a postcard I never sent. Looked for some heroin but couldn’t find any. Bought some speed from an Italian guy I bumped into at a record store in Liverpool. Smoked a lot of hash that had too much tobacco in it. Even though they all spoke the same language I did, they were all assholes. It rained a lot, it was expensive, so I split for Amsterdam. Someone playing saxophone at Central Station which was kind of pretty. Stayed with some friends in someone’s basement. Smoked a lot of hash in Amsterdam too, but lost most of my stash in some museum. The museums were cool, I guess. Lots of Van Goghs and the Vermeers were intense. Wandered around, bought a lot of pastries, a lot of red herring. The Dutch all know Englishso I didn’t have to speak any Dutch, which was a relief. Wanted to rent a car but couldn’t. The people I was staying with had bikes though, so I went biking one day and I saw a lot of cows and geese and canals. I pulled off to the side of the road, got stoned and fell asleep, woke up, wrote a little, took some acid, made a few drawings, and then it started raining, so I biked to Danoever, to a youth hostel where there were some cool German guys who spoke a little English, and then I went back to Amsterdam and spent the night with this really stupid German girl. Next day I took the train to Kroeller in Arnhem where there were tons of cool Van Goghs. Hung out in the sculpture garden and I tried to get high there but didn’t have any matches and couldn’t find one. Got a ride to Cologne and stayed at a youth hostel in Bonn which was
the
worst youth hostel where there were a lot of really screwed-up kids, and it was too far away from the main part of town so we couldn’t do anything. Had a beer then headed South through Munich, Austria, and Italy. Got a ride to Switzerland, said fuck it why not. Ended up spending the night at a bus stop. Wandered around Switzerland but the weather was bad and it was too expensive and I wasn’t into the situation so I took a train and then started hitching. The mountains were huge and really intense and the dams were surreal. Found a youth hostel and then headed south with a couple in their early thirties who had stayed at the hostel and they gave me a ride. I spent two days in Switzerland. Then I took a bus from Switzerland to Italy, then hitchhiked to get to this town where there was this girl from school who had graduated and who I was sort