“I don’t mind,” Cyrus says. “Sounds like fun.”
“Just buy someone who uses React Native,” I say. “Oh, and check their bathrooms to make sure they don’t force their female staff to pump milk in them.”
“Right,” Jules says, pretending to make a list. “？‘Fun-loving CEO seeks small to medium company with a focus on arcane rituals to merge with his already impressive portfolio. Must speak Native and treat women with a modicum of respect. Accepting applications.’？” He starts singing a tune from a musical called Once Upon a Mattress. “I did it in high school,” he announces.
We have an opening for a business
A beautiful bonafide business.
He says in the original, it’s princess. A beautiful bonafide princess. Cyrus and I throw pillows at him and order him out of our room. “I’m going for a swim. See you later fellow assassins!”
We’re getting ready for bed when Cyrus’s phone rings. It’s Craig. Cyrus puts him on speakerphone.
“You gotta come meet me,” Craig says. “I’m at this party, you’d love it.”
I make a slicing gesture across my neck.
“Asha and I were just about to retire,” Cyrus says.
“Retire? What’re you, ninety years old?”
“Where is the party?”
“Not far. My driver will pick you up.”
I’m shaking my head, but Cyrus is looking at his phone. “Maybe just for an hour? Asha, what do you think?”
“Um, I’d rather not, to be honest. Why don’t you go ahead without me.”
“Asha, seriously, these people are great, you’re going to love them. C’mon, let me show you some Californian hospitality,” Craig insists. I’m not sure I want to find out what this entails, but Cyrus has already said yes.
“My car’s on the way,” Craig says. “See you guys soon.”
* * *
“Californian hospitality apparently means dragging your friends to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night,” I whine. We’ve been in Craig’s car for nearly an hour. The tiny tide of energy I rode in the first moments of getting dressed is long gone, and I am regretting not putting my foot down. “Why couldn’t you just go by yourself?”
“Because we roll together.”
The car goes up yet another winding road, but this time it stops at a gate, where a man with a big head leans in, checks the driver’s name, and waves us through.
The house is large and flat and wrapped in glass. We walk through room after room of brown, low-slung furniture, tables of food, and a row of television screens turned vertically so that they resemble paintings, except they are video installations. I watch fifteen seconds of multicolored lines moving up and down.
In the last room, like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, there are clusters of bodies melting into other bodies. They are mostly naked, and without needing to stare, I can tell they have all been born with perfect proportions, and whatever God neglected to give them has been provided by working out and eating whole foods. All the kissing and fondling is very quiet, so we have to whisper.
“How the fuck are we supposed to find Craig?”
We back out of the room and into a courtyard fringed by small gecko-green trees.
Craig appears at Cyrus’s shoulder. “Who says all the fun happens in New York?” He smiles, waving his arm as if he’s conjured it all himself just to prove an East Coast/West Coast point. “Let’s get you two a drink.” He disappears for a few minutes, during which I beg Cyrus to leave, and then he comes back with a pair of martini glasses. No way I’m drinking this. It’s probably spiked to make me want to lasso my bra around one of the small bronzes in the hallway.
“So do you guys hand out condoms at the door?” I ask brightly, as if I’ve ever seen thirty people naked at the same time before.
“Oh, there’s none of that,” Craig says. “The cuddle puddle is a strictly non-penetrative ritual.” He looks to Cyrus for approval. Cyrus, who has finished his drink, appears not to have heard him.
“Want to microdose?” Craig asks, removing a small vial from his pocket. I shake my head, but Cyrus doesn’t, so Craig passes him the vial and Cyrus casually tips the contents into his mouth. Cyrus and I have never done drugs and never really talked about doing drugs, and I wonder if there was a time before he met me when things like Molly were regularly on the menu.
Within a few minutes we’ve lost Craig’s interest, and he has disappeared into the crowd. “Let’s wander,” Cyrus says, taking my hand. The house is shaped in a giant U, and in the middle of the U is a swimming pool. More cuddle puddlers are in the pool, their bodies bobbing gently in the water.