blurring_the_edges_7_suburban_decay birdmad You ride with Zoe,, Michelle, and Tony in the "Cadillac of Death" toward Jimmy K's house up on the northeastern fringe of Scottsdale. The houses in this neighborhood, while not immense, are considerable larger than your own modest little accommodations. Tony has the top down and you are in just a good enough mood that you have the urge to stand up in your seat as you are rolling along. From the seat behind you, Zoe leans forward and starts playing with your hair, her fingernails grazing the back of your head in much the same fashion as you might pet a cat. And right about now if you had the mechanism to purr appropriately, you would. There are about a dozen cars parked around Jimmy's house. The place had been a horse-property when his parents owned it, but since his mom and dad divorced and sice Jimmy K hated his parents horses, he tore out the stables and uses the plot for extra parking so as not to piss of the prissy neighbors. You spot Eric's car among the throng and are reassured that the theme of tonight's festivities is most likely to be "better living through chemistry." In your black silk shirt and black jeans you cut a more subtle appearance than some of your fellow party-goers. As if to reinforce that thought, Jimmy Watson steps out of his car in a very elegant suit paired with a shirt that seems so intesely loud that both Stevie Wonder and Beethoven could find it in the dark. He and Jimmy K shre a quick, flirty kiss in the driveway before Watson goes inside. You fish one of your loaded smokes out of the cigarette case which is in your shirt pocket. Lighting it up, you lean against the Caddy while Tony chats with Jimmy K, Mike and Greg just off to one side of hte entryway. Zoe, it appears, is scoping out the various and sundry partygoers to see who looks like fun. Michelle follows alomg, looking somewhat listless and bored in the process. As you walk in, cigarette still in hand, a lungful of opiates still waiting to be exhaled, you see Tricia whispering to Greg's wife Dana in the hallway and both of them give you a big knowing smile. Well, Alex, i think we can guess how you have gotten to be so popular lately, no? Thsi whole thing with Greg marrying Dana is new to you, but not surprising. His parents are part of the whole rarefied atmosphere of this part of town and would be highly upset if they or their equally influential friends found out that their darling baby boy was, in his own words "as gay as a tree full of monkeys on laghing gas." So, to avoid being disowned and cut-off before he can finagle his way to the MBA he's chasing when not dealing large quantities of dope, he and Dana have decided to play House for the benefit of the allegedly respectable families that his parents do business with. Of course, you have to laugh at how many of those families are probably having the same sheet of wool pulled over their eyes as well. But that's just one of those things that you have to keep largely to yourself. Dana, of course, isn't content to simply sit around and afford the mirage that she and Greg have painted fcr his family. The woman is damn near insatiable and as such seems to require a near constant flurry of attention of the type that Greg is not particularyl oriented toward giving her. It doesn't hurt that she's also insanely beautiful. Knowing that it would arouse suspicion if she was spotted out in too many places without her "husband" in tow whenever she felt the need to satisfy herself, she occasionally calls on you or one of a small clutch of the other "straight" guys in the bunch. It shocks no one that while many of them are quite dressed-up for the evening, Dana is in a black one-piece swimsuit and a white terrycloth robe and appears to have just stepped out of the pool. It's a warm night for late Febrauary and it's a heated pool so you don't blame her for seizing the opportunity before the more debauched occurences of the unfolding party necessitate a call to the pool cleaner. "Michelle!" Dana calls out, cheerfuly. "Oh my god, i missed you." You remember just then that there are few women besides Zoe, Tricia and Michelle who Dana will have anything to do with, and of those three, Michelle is the one closest to her. You've never asked or been told the reasons behind that, but from what you know about Michelle, you can guess, as you are one of the few men who Michelle will bother to talk to, much less be intimate with. Whoever is running the sounds for this litle affair is on a tear tonight as you hear the sound of S-Express "Superfly Guy" bouncing off the walls of the house. You smirk to yourself as a a man and woman you've never seen before place couple of large glass bowls on the dining-room table, one is your typical bowl of party snack-mix and the other only slightly smaller bowl appears to be a bowl full of condoms and little trial-size packets of lubes. By the time morning comes around again, the house will be largely a mess, reekinjg of sex, weed-smoke and someone too jacked up on morphine to keep from burning whatever they were trying to cook to a crispy black mess of carbon fragments in a skillet on the stove. The bowl of snack-mix will be just a little less than half full and the other bowl will be completely empty. You will find Dana and Michelle are asleep on one of the couches in the den downstairs. Right now though, in your haze, you find yourself seemingly between Tricia and Zoe. Needing a glass of water, you brave the burnt smell and make your way through the kitchen. Many of the people who were here in the evening are gone, but you can see a corss section of the guests strewn about the various places where a body or two can come to rest. a woman with a woman over here, a man with a man over there, a guy with two women in one room, a woman with two oguys in another and a man and a woman tangled up together, oblivious to the rest of the world on a chaise by the pool. You feel the wtwitch and go hunting for your cigarettes. It's a hell of a world you're living in Alex. It amy be fun, but is there a point to any of it? 030411 what's it to you? who go blather from