BOOKWORM

I get up late the next morning to the blare of Duran Duran coming from my mother's room. The door's open and my sisters are lying on the large bed, wearing bathing suits, leafing through old issues of GQ, while watching some porno film on the Betamax with the sound turned off. I sit down on the bed, also in my bathing suit, and they tell me that Mom went out to lunch and that the maid went shopping and I watch about ten minutes of the movie, wondering whose is it - my mom's? sisters? Christmas present from a friend? the person with the Ferrari? mine?

One of my sisters says that she hates it when they show the guy coming, and I walk downstairs, out to the pool, do my laps.

-- Brett Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero