Ghupta sometimes laughs at Steven. A great admirer of the opposite sex, Ghupta once told me with a sly grin that he wouldn't be able to get it up for even one of Gatsby's women, that they're all so terribly domestic. "I wouldn't either, Ghupta," I seconded him with an embarrassed smile, feeling a little awkward about betraying Gatsby that way. It was as if Ghupta and I were the real men, and Steven wasn't. I was even sorry for the miserable Gatsby. Poor Gatsby, Ghupta and I had first-rate women for whom we could get it up, whereas he had women for whom we couldn't. For some reason we were confident that Gatsby could get it up for ours.
That Ghupta could get it up for my women I am reminded by one of my jackets, a jacket he gave me the day after he fucked Tatiana. More accurately, Ghupta gave me a jacket from Saks in exchange for my having «given» him a Russian woman named Tatiana, who was somebody's estranged wife and even the mother of his two children. Tatiana is dark-haired and beautiful; she doesn't look Russian at all but Spanish. She turned up soon after I succeeded in publishing my long-suffering novel in Russian, a copy of which I immediately sent to Efimenkov — let him enjoy it. Thanks to the novel, Russian girls and women started hovering about me like bees and flies and wasps around something sweet. I had no objection. Tatiana was one of them.
Tatiana speaks in a quiet voice and considers herself very unfortunate. I, Edward, don't believe that she's all that unfortunate. She has a slender, sensuous body and a small moist cunt. It's pleasant to fuck Tatiana; she's delicate and adores being fucked, and during the act she sobs a little from pleasure. It may be that part of her misfortune, including her last husband, is explained by the fact that she can't resist a prick.
I had been fucking Tatiana since May, with only a brief respite after she supposedly discovered she'd caught an infection from me, although she hadn't really, and then she would secretly meet me at a bar on the West Side and sit there in a black shawl and weep and talk to me in a whisper. At first I even liked her crazy behavior and her black outfits and tear-stained eyes, but by September I was sick of her little quirks, which, for example, included paranoia. That's right, ordinary paranoia — she thought the CIA was after her. She had a certain basis for believing that; one of her lovers had in fact been a CIA special agent, although the distance between having a CIA lover and being followed is, you'll agree, not inconsiderable. But it's also quite possible that her lover was following her and possibly even using CIA resources to do so, for all I know. I've had enough problems of the detective variety in my own life.
But I was much sicker of Tatiana's carelessness than I was of her paranoia. A couple of times she failed to turn up at the millionaire's house when I was expecting her, and several times she turned up when I wasn't, once even scaring off a young cunt who happened to be staying with me at the time. Which is why I lost my temper with her, and one time when she called, I told her I was going to give the phone to Ghupta, which, despite her indignant protests, is what I did.
Ghupta spoke tenderly to her for a while, pronouncing her name with a Georgian accent for some reason, and managed to arrange a date with her, which was easy; all you had to do was pressure her a little.
Ghupta had seen Tatiana at the house several times and had liked her very much. Which isn't surprising — she's beautiful. "I'm tired of my own girls," he said while cooking up some vegetables for himself in a frying pan; he's a vegetarian. "American girls are fine, Edward, if you're going on a picnic with some friends, say; they're great company, they drink beer right out of the can, and they laugh loudly, but in bed they're all the same. There is something mysterious about your Tatiana, however, something romantic," Ghupta sighed hypocritically. It was obvious he wanted Tatiana. As far as I could tell, the majority of Ghupta's girls weren't Americans at all. He was fucking Jacqueline, who, despite her French name, was from Finland, and I'd also seen him with a Jamaican girl, so his so-called poverty was just a pretense.
Ghupta's attitude toward women is tenderly cynical and very practical, and I understand him; if I had a business life as demanding as his, I'd obviously have the same kind of sexual philosophy.
"All the beautiful girls in New York are actresses and models, Edward," Ghupta lectured me once, "and eighty percent of them at least use cocaine, which is considered very chic, and buying them cocaine is the quickest and easiest, although unfortunately not the cheapest, way to fuck them and hold on to them. You didn't know my girlfriend Letitia, did you?" he asked me, immediately answering his own question. "No, you couldn't have; Jenny saw her a few times. Letitia worked for Elite," he said, naming one of New York's best known model agencies, already aware that the interests of the housekeeper Edward were far from limited to the kitchen. "She really suited me and I enjoyed fucking her — you know how hard it is to find a bed partner who satisfies you, Edward. Letitia was, moreover, a very striking girl, and it was a pleasure to go places with her. I got so used to her, Edward, that I even started taking her on business trips with me. Once when we were going through customs, however, they found some cocaine on her. I used to give her money for cocaine, and I even snort it myself on occasion, although not very often," Ghupta added, "but here in the United States that form of entertainment is merely child's play, whereas there are countries where it is simply inconceivable, and I didn't let Letitia take cocaine with her on our trips. It's a good thing it happened in a country where I could simply pay the customs agents off. If it had happened in my own country, I would have been finished; we have very strict laws and my money wouldn't have helped, Edward," he said very seriously, and I sympathized with him. "I broke up with Letitia after that," he said. "She couldn't live without the white powder anymore, so what else could I do?" he appealed to me once more.
I think it was in fact for the sake of his girls that Ghupta at one time was obsessed with the idea of buying Isabelle's house, and it was an idea that was very hard for him to give up. "It's so impossible to maintain relationships with women," he complained to me, "and how can I, if I'm only in New York once a month? When I suddenly come back a month later, my women have all made other arrangements."
Poor Ghupta. I don't understand what he's so nervous about. He has so many women in New York, they start calling him a week before he gets back to the city. He uses my telephone number, so I'm the one who gets the calls. Poor Ghupta, his eyes are much bigger than his stomach, and he wants them all.
On one of the following evenings Ghupta fucked Tatiana in our house — in my house, since I live here too. How do I know? I came home around midnight, and the light in the hallway and stairs had already been turned off, something Ghupta usually doesn't do, since it is Steven's and my privilege to turn off the hall light. The light was turned off, and from the solarium came the sound of classical music — Tchaikovsky, whom Tatiana adores and whom I can't stand.
It was obvious from all the signs that somewhere in the depths of the house Ghupta was at that very moment sticking his Burmese dick into Tatiana.
A couple of weeks later I was spending a Saturday evening at home with a large lady named Teresa whom I had been fucking the preceding night and all day Saturday, although without much success. Teresa had just returned to New York after living for more than ten years in Europe. I was seeing her for the second time in my life.