The Savage Girl - Alex Shakar [88]
He grins, teeth and TV lenses gleaming.
“Do you live here now or something?” she shouts up.
“Every great man needs a couple of slavish disciples,” he replies as the buzzer sounds.
The loft Ivy shares with Sonja is still virtually bare, despite the fact that the girls have been here for almost three months. There are no boxes, no curtains, no foodstuffs in the kitchen cupboards as far as Ursula can see. The only decorations are the magazines strewn around on the floor and the lease agreement sitting on the granite island counter—exactly where it was signed, no doubt. The main area is occupied by a total of two oversized pillows and a giant TV set with an integrated DVD player, which sits like the Tycho monolith in the middle of the floor. There are no other furnishings to get in the way of the streaming skylight and white walls. The place looks disturbingly like a photographer’s studio, as though the girls were determined to inhabit the bright, blank world of their photographs. Sonja stands with her back to the wall, dwarfed by the empty space around her, wearing a black T-shirt and a long black skirt. Ivy stands in the kitchen area, gazing into the empty recess of the Sub-Zero refrigerator, a little tuft of hair sprouting like a blond avocado plant from an elastic band at the top of her head. She’s wearing a tube halter top, hot pants with a British flag–print crosshairing on her ass, and bunchy white socks. Couch assists with her wardrobe now, whenever she decides to let him. Her feet, however, are still clad in her disposable hospital slippers, a last holdout of unconquered territory. Still bent over, red and blue ass protruding, face hazily backlit by the wisps of cold air and refrigerator light, she looks at Ursula and waves. These days Ivy’s every motion seems calculated to appease a hypothetical camera. She smiles or pouts incongruously, holds any potentially striking or seductive stance just a second too long to come off naturally.
“I thought you two were going to go out and get some furniture this week,” Ursula says, looking from Ivy to Sonja.
“Taken care of,” Couch calls out from his perch on the windowsill. “Picked everything out myself. It’ll all be here Monday at four o’clock. Installed by five. Party at six. Orgy at six-fifteen.”
“You let James pick out your furniture?” she says to Sonja. “Do you think that was wise?”
Sonja stands straight, legs together, arms at her sides, as though facing a firing squad. “Why?” she asks.
“Look at the way he’s dressed.”
Couch rises to his feet, mock-indignant, displaying his attire: plaid pants and a Japanese product T-shirt that reads Black Black Chewing Gum. Excellent. Hi-Technical. Taste.
“My haberdashery is meticulously calculated,” he huffs.
“ ‘Calculated’? It’s horrible.”
“I’m a contrarian. Plaid is down right now, a once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity for anyone man enough to take the heat.”
Sonja stares at Couch’s wardrobe, her face suddenly troubled.
“Anyway,” Couch says, striding toward the kitchen area, “someone had to get the furniture. These girls never leave the house. They’re too busy furnishing other things. My sexual needs, par example.”
“Could you possibly be more repulsive?”
Couch walks up to Ivy, who maintains her pose at the open refrigerator. He studies her ass for a moment, then, with a smarmy smile to Ursula, places one hand on it and the other on her collarbone and straightens her out. Even then, Ivy’s eyes stay fixed on the lit shelves until the door swings shut.
“Don’t worry, baby,” Couch says, slowing down and overarticulating the words to the point of obscenity, “I’ve got some hot, hot, spicy Indonesian food on the way.”
“God,” Ursula gasps. “Get away from her.”
He looks at Ursula innocently, pretending not to comprehend.
“Don’t talk to James that way,” Ivy says, wide-eyed. “James is our trusted friend.” The line seems forced, overdramatic, as though she were reading it from a TelePrompTer mounted on the far wall. Ursula can’t shake the feeling that Ivy