Not So Model Home - By David James Page 0,13

go online and in 2.5 nanoseconds, figure out that I was a real-estate agent, and know instantly what I was there for. These boys probably couldn’t discuss Cartesian metaphysical and epistemological principles, but you could bet that they could figure out when there was a threat to their financial well-being.

“Yes, I’ve been best friends with Sean for years,” I said, making my first big faux pas.

“You mean Ian,” Aleksei corrected me like a tired schoolteacher giving the answer to a simple question to a dumb student.

“Ian. Yes.”

“I know how easy eet eez to call out zomeome else’s name,” Gilles retorted, jumping right in. “Especially during sex. I hear that Aleksei does it all the time when he’s with Ian.”

While everyone was incensed with the way Gilles ceaselessly lobbed flat-footed insults like show-me-your-breasts Mardi Gras beads, Ian seemed to cherish the tussles that he instigated. Ian, it was clear, thrived on conflict and liked being fought over.

Jeremy attempted to wrap things up. “Now zat we all know each other . . .”

“No, we don’t,” Gilles spoke up. “Who’s zat?” he asked, pointing at a rather plain-looking, middle-aged man standing off to one side of the dining room.

“That’s Lance Greenly,” Ian explained. He’s my CEO and business manager for my hair-products empire. You’ve met him a dozen times. He comes here all the time on business.”

More blank stares.

It was becoming clear that unless you were muscled or handsome, you didn’t register here. At all.

Don’t get me wrong, Lance wasn’t ugly by a long shot. But being surrounded by these abnormally handsome men was enough to make George Clooney look like a skank. Lance must have been around forty, with a receding hairline that he wisely kept short. He had a long, drawn-down face with a heavy five-o’clock shadow and red eyes that made him look like he had been crying for decades. I guessed he was about five feet eight. Lance, working for a style Nazi like Ian, dressed very, very well, but he didn’t stand a chance in this room of mannequins. Like the attitude of the boys at the table, whose motto surely had to be “amaze me or I will dismiss you,” Lance was probably cast off long ago due to his lackluster appearance and his terrifying potential to use scary and hard-to-understand corporate terms that could upset the guys now sitting at the table.

Tony Marcello, Jeremy’s silent servant, tiptoed up to Jeremy, whispered in Jeremy’s ear, then departed the room walking backward like a peasant in King Henry’s court.

“Well, we were going to save this surprise for later, but Ian’s therapist, Aurora Cleft, is here in town a few days ahead of schedule. We might as well have her come in and introduce herself,” Jeremy said, waiting for our surprise guest to appear.

A minute later, she entered the room and clattered across the soft pine floors on heels so tall, they pumped her petite frame up almost five inches. The soles of the shoes were a bright red: Christian Louboutin. Though she was very small, she walked with an intensity that suggested that very little would stand in her way, and anyone who did would end up like flattened roadkill. She dressed in a voluminous black knitted dress cinched tightly around her wasp-waist with a huge black belt. She wore black tights that completely covered her legs. She looked like a female superhero: Black Spandex Woman. In contrast with her preference for dark clothing, her hair was shocking Annie Lennox white, parted severely in on the right side of her head, with the left part perpetually covering her left eye like an eye patch. I suppose in parts of Los Angeles this was supposed to be fashionable, but to me, it looked sinister—an effect that probably wasn’t lost on Aurora. If she were suddenly thrust into a fashionable woman’s prison, Aurora would be nobody’s bitch.

Aurora didn’t take a seat at the table even though there was a chair open for her. Instead, she leaned forward and placed her widely spaced hands (with talon-like fingernails, painted black) firmly on the table as if to remind a reluctant board meeting that she was in charge.

“I’m sure Jeremy introduced me already, but just in case he hasn’t, I’m Aurora Cleft. I am Ian’s psychiatrist, and I’m here on the show as a relationship counselor, to help him choose a suitable boyfriend—and heir. I’ve had a very successful practice in Los Angeles for over a decade, and I’ve treated some of the