The Date

the escort service set me up with clarise, not pasty--how in god's name would this work?

She had two heads. That was my initial response after she opened the door, but, as I soon discovered, they in fact shared one body.

"Clarise?" I asked, praying that the aberration before me was not her. But even before she opened her mouth I knew this was my client. There could be no other reason why the job was paying so much.

"That would be me," she said, smiling. "You're Norman from the escort service, right?"

For the life of me I could not come up with a reason why I wasn't me and at the same time explain why I knew her name. So I nodded and walked into the apartment. I mean--yeah, she had two heads, but that was no reason to hurt her feelings. Besides, the job paid more than any other I'd ever had. I just wished my dispatcher had prepared me before sending me out on this assignment. This was what I got for being low man on the totem pole.

"Norman, this is my sister, Patsy," she said matter-of-factly and pointed to the head on her right shoulder. "We're conjoined twins."

Well, of course you are, I thought. What the fuck else would you be? "Hi, very nice to meet you," I said as normally as possible.

"Whatever," was Patsy's response. I got the distinct feeling that she didn't really want to be there.

The apartment was nice. Huge windows showcased the western skyline across Central Park. The last remnants of dusk were beginning to fade behind the buildings and lights were coming on everywhere. I was fairly sure none of the furniture came from Ikea. A glass spiral staircase with a gold banister led to the upper level of the duplex. Whatever these two did for a living paid extremely well.

Clarise had a strangely confident demeanor, one I would not have associated with a woman in her situation. It was businesslike; she somehow reminded me of an accountant. Patsy had shocking red hair. Clarise's was a natural auburn, and so, no doubt, was Patsy's under the dye. They wore a black evening dress, custom-made, I assumed. Clarise told me to make myself at home and asked me to name my poison. I had actually quit drinking the day before on the advice of my doctor.

"Scotch," I said. I was not going to make it through this night sober. In my head I was compiling a list of the darkest, most out-of-the-way places in Manhattan that I might take Clarise/Patsy to. The fewer people who saw me on this date, I thought, the better. She brought me my drink, which turned out to be a double. Good girl, I thought. Whatever her faults, at least she's grounded in reality.

I sat on the right end of the couch, which I discovered was the wrong end. Clarise explained that it would be rude to Patsy if we conversed with her in between us. I was to sit on the left end. Patsy's dates sat on the right end. "I don't understand," I said. "Am I not escorting both of you tonight?"

"Oh, no," Clarise said, as though this were some major faux pas on my part. "You're my date tonight." Heavy emphasis on my. "Patsy is just tagging along."

"I don't pay for men," Patsy interjected. I sat silently with my drink in hand, no doubt sporting a perplexed look, because she quickly added, "I have a boyfriend," stressing the word like a spoiled little girl.

"You don't say!" I said without thinking. From her expression I could tell she was annoyed by my astonishment.

"Is it so hard to believe someone could love me?" she said.

"Look--either be civil or hush up," Clarise told her sister. "He's my date. Keep your conversation to an absolute minimum or put up half the money for the service." Clarise's businesslike veneer was slipping.

Patsy turned her head the other way with contempt. I downed my scotch in one quick gulp and politely asked for another.

"Of course," Clarise said. "Patsy, Norman would like another drink."

"It's over there Norm--knock yourself out," Patsy responded.

"Patsy! Norman is our guest. Let's get up and fix him a drink."

"Norman is your employee. Do we fix drinks for the maid?" Patsy's refusal (continued on page 86)The Date(continued from page 78) to get up put clarise in an embarrassing situation. Apparently they each controlled one side of their body and had to work in unison in order to move about or even accomplish the most basic tasks. I offered to get the drink myself and to freshen hers while I was at it.

They sat glaring at each other while I took my time at the wet bar, glancing at the photos on the piano and the walls. They had had a surprisingly normal childhood, considering: graduations, proms, picnics, recitals, birthdays and even Little League baseball. Clarise/Patsy were apparently far more dexterous than I would have guessed. The photographs showed that they came from a family chock-full of one-headed people. I looked at the paintings hung around the room. One, or both, of them had taste. I brought back the drinks and sat at the correct end of the couch. I asked Patsy if she'd like a drink also.

"Only one of us drinks at a time," Clarise said. "Otherwise we tend to get drunk too quickly."

I nodded. I can only imagine what the expression on my face must have looked like. I was numb with amazement. Patsy had lit a cigarette, resulting in a strange smoky halo wafting behind Clarise's head like some kind of ethereal frame. It reminded me of Morticia Addams' idea of a smoke from the old TV series. "So you share everything" I asked, glancing at their torso.

"Oh, no," Clarise said, defensively. "Mosdy the blood supply. We're para-pagus twins."

"Oh, right," I said, feigning comprehension. Patsy rolled her eyes and blew air from her lips. She seemed to have a shrewder idea what others might really be thinking than Clarise did. "We share everything from the gut down," she said. "Our torso looks like one body, but we've got separate spinal columns down to the waist."

"I've got my own heart," Clarise said, like a child with an ice-cream cone.

I could see that telling their story was wearing thin with them. They looked to me to be in their late 20s. How many times must they have told their tale in the course of their lives? I decided to curb my heightened curiosity, both to be polite and to keep in line with the rules of the escort service. The client always sets the agenda.

"You know--it might be easier for us to converse if I sat there," I said, pointing to the chair placed facing the couch. Clarise didn't like that idea. She said I was fine where I was. The smoky halo behind Clarise was the only indication that there was any activity going on back there. It was clear that she wanted Patsy to stay out of the conversation as much as possible, and Patsy's head out of my line of sight.

"Are you a professional escort man?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Uh, no. I'm a law student at NYU Escorting women is better than waiting tables," I said with a stab at humor. This was true on most days at least. "I've been told I have what it takes--that is, physically--so I figured, Why not? My tuition's extremely high and, as you know, the money's pretty good."

Clarise smiled and said, "Well, you certainly are handsome." Then she brushed my ankle with her foot. "Tell me," she asked, "do you ever sleep with your clients?" I downed my drink in one quick gulp. My face contorted and I felt flushed from the burning in my throat. It bought me a few extra moments before I had to give my response.

"Well, you're only my eighth client," I stammered. "My last one was old enough to be my modier, and, believe me, I didn't try."

Clarise could tell I was attempting to sidestep the question. She continued to smile as her foot found its way under my pants leg. I was beginning to feel warm as her toes rubbed up and down my calf, but I wasn't sure if this was from the scotch or from her advances. Regard, I felt a bulge forming in my crotch. I considered it the ultimate act of betrayal by my body. She noticed it and smiled. The next thing I knew, she was rubbing my crotch with the ball of her foot.

"Did she try?" asked Clarise.

"Try what?" I asked anxiously.

"Did she make the moves on you, silly?"

"Well, yeah, actually she did."

"And?"

I was really in the shit at that point because, as it turned out, I did sleep with the client. I could tell Clarise suspected this by the way she smiled as my eyes shifted, trying to avoid her gaze. She found my discomfort amusing.

"He fucked her," Patsy chimed in. "He fucked her brains out."

Yeah, I did. The woman was in her late 50s, but she was attractive--and she had only one head. My hesitation gave me away. Clarise had gauged my scruples, and it would be that much harder coming up with an excuse to get out of this predicament. I mean, I couldn't tell her I didn't want to sleep with her because she was a freak. This was the best-paying job I'd ever had and I was on shaky ground here if I couldn't keep the client happy.

I jumped up under the premise that I was going to refresh my drink, and I offered to do the same for her. She just smiled at me in a naughty way. I felt both pairs of eyes follow me to the bar. I imagined them mentally stripping away my garments the way I'd done to women a hundred times. It made my hackles rise.

Any other date would have mentioned that I'd arrived only 20 minutes ago and was already on my third double scotch. Not her. She was in tune with reality. She wanted my inhibitions to relax. She smiled every time I headed for the alcohol. I decided to take it easy and mixed a single with some water added in, standing behind the wet bar as though it were some kind of shield--a little fort of glass and steel between me and her. From the other end of the room I asked her what she did for a living.

"I'm a stockbroker," she answered.

"Oh, really?" was all the response I could muster. She probably worked for Shearson--Ringling Brothers. I had to suppress a smile. Anyone who could overcome such a burden in life and still manage to make something of herself deserved a little respect. "So you earn enough to afford all this?" I asked, indicating the apartment.

"Well--yes and no...."

"Go ahead--tell him," Patsy interjected. Clarise threw her sister a glare. Patsy continued. "If you won't tell him I will."

"My date--my conversation," Clarise noted. She turned her attention back to me. "You ever see those Doublemint gum commercials--the ones with the twins?" I nodded. "Well, we filmed one of those when we were teenagers." Clarise began to contemplate her cuticles, leaving me to ponder this new information.

I tried to recall ever having seen this advertisement but drew a blank. Perhaps the sight had been so horrific, I had blocked the memory. "I don't remember seeing that ad," I said.

"Well, there's a reason for that." Clarise hesitated. Patsy looked ready to burst if her sister didn't finish the story. "You see, we were local celebrities in Chicago. One of the executives thought it would be a cute idea to use us in a commercial. But no one outside Illinois had ever heard of us, and the ads didn't test well in market research--they ran them for test audiences and got very low scores."

"One old lady threw up!" Patsy said gleefully.

"So they weren't going to run them. Our lawyer didn't like what they were offering as a kill fee. We stood to make quite a bundle on residuals, so we threatened to turn this into a civil rights case about discrimination against the handicapped."

"No way in hell you could have won that," I interjected, surprised into tactless sincerity.

"We knew that. They had every right to pull the ad," Clarise said. "But our feelings were really hurt and we wanted to get back at them. Wrigley's didn't want to chance the publicity, so we ended up settling for five times our original fee."

"Next thing you know, Clarise uses the money to buy Microsoft at $20 a share. The rest is history."

"That's amazing," I said. I made a mental note to research the specifics if their case at the law library. Stuff like this was the reason I was going into law.

"And Pasty--are you a broker too?"

"Well, pasty never finished college, "Clarise said in a disapproving, maternal manner.

"Oh, just drop it," Patsy said. "It's so old."

"All you had to do was try. I mean, it's not as though you weren't there in class anyway. You wasted all that time!"

"Hey, it was my time to waste. You just feel guilty because I never bitched about having to go when we both knew I wanted to be anyplace else. You just hate that you owe me."

"Owe you? Anything I owed you for letting me finish college I've paid back in spades."

Curiouser and curiouser, I thought, as they continued to bicker. I was running out of things to do behind the bar, so I meandered back to the center ring, where I made a startling observation as I resumed my seat next to Clarise: The more I drank the better she looked. By herself--that is, if I ignored the other head--she was actually an attractive person. The girls had distinct personalities. The physical manifestation of this was that they wore their hair differently, breaking the symmetry. Patsy's hair was in a punk crop, while Clarise wore hers long and free. It was pretty hair.

I realized that at some point, if I kept drinking, I'd have double vision. This notion was somewhat appealing until it occurred to me that double vision, not being selective, would lead to four heads on two bodies and only compound my predicament. Did I want to get to that point of inebriation, which seemed to be only about four drinks away--two if they were doubles?

The doorbell rang. All three of us looked at the front door in mesmerized unison, as though we were in a scene from Children of the Damned. I heard someone calling Patsy's name. Clarise appeared upset.

"I can't believe that you invited him over," she cried.

"I didn't invite anyone over. He's my fucking boyfriend and he's allowed to stop by any time he wants to."

"Well, I'm not getting up to let him in," Clarise said. "This is my night. We agreed on it."

"He's not going to go away," Patsy said, as she tried to drag her sister off the couch. Clarise wouldn't budge. "Why can't you just treat him right?"

The doorbell rang again. Clarise was more and more upset. "That scuzzball can just stay out there. After all I've done for you--putting up with him--you can't even let me have one night for myself?"

"Don't you pull this shit, Miss High Fucking Society," Patsy said angrily. "I'm always going to your boring cocktail parties so you can shmooze with investment bankers and high-finance gurus. God! When was the last time we got to hang out in Soho, or go to a gallery opening?"

"But he's such a scuzzball! He's going to give us herpes one day! Or worse!"

"Herpes! You're the one who hired a fucking gigolo. If anyone's going to give us herpes it's him!" Patsy retorted, pointing to me.

"You're an ungrateful waste of life," Clarise cried.

"Go fuck yourself," Patsy responded.

"Bitch!"

"Freak!"

"Ahem," I grunted.

Clarise reddened, Patsy paled. "I'll get it," I said. The incessant ringing was giving me a headache. When I opened the door I faced a small, grungy-looking man who came up to my chest. He had light brown skin, long woolly black hair, a black mustache, boots, ripped jeans and a leather motorcycle jacket with a Hell's Angels patch on the arm.

"Who the fuck are you?" he growled. The guy reeked of sweat and beer and garlic. I got the feeling I was living in interesting times, in the Chinese sense of the term. His attitude was confrontational, to say the least.

"Hi, I'm Normal--I mean, Norman," I said, trying to sound natural.

He strutted into the apartment and eyed me cautiously. He looked to the girls and then back to me. His eyes were slits and his mustache formed a thin black line. Everything was silent as time slowed to a crawl. He looked again toward the girls and rubbed his stubbled chin with his hand. Then he turned, shook his finger at me and asked, "Did you fuck Patsy?"

"Who, me? I never touched her!" Clearly, that was not what I would expect him to say.

"Don't play no fucking sematics game with me, motherfucker, or I'll cut ya," he snarled. His vocabulary told me this was someone who thought too highly of his intellectual capacity.

"I'm not playing with semantics," I said defensively. "I'm Clarise's date for the evening." The girls hurried to introduce me to Patsy's boyfriend, Ben. They had regained their composure. Watching the two of them move in unison was amazing. After all these years together they had managed to achieve some state of grace in their motion. "I'm strictly Clarise's escort for the night," I added. This seemed to have the opposite effect from what I intended. His agitation only grew.

"What, you think I'm a fucking moron?" he snarled. "You take out one, the other goes with you too. You ain't got no freakin' choice!"

"Look, man," I said, "you're going overboard here. No one's hitting on Patsy. I've barely talked to her. Clarise is my client. If anything happens tonight, it's between me and her! It's nobody else's business. I'm just trying to make a living here."

I couldn't believe I had actually said that. I was defending my stake in a woman I wanted no part of. This was quickly becoming a testosterone-driven pissing match. Patsy looked frightened, no doubt because I outweighed her boyfriend by a good 30 pounds. Clarise looked confused. She was unusually quiet. She had two men fighting over her--a situation I figured she had never experienced before. I don't care what feminists claim, women love this shit.

Ben looked about ready to take a shot at me. Patsy pleaded with him to let it alone. He bit his lip and settled down. I felt as if I were trailing in some kind of competition. I was trying to catch up with events. I'd felt off-center since Clarise had answered the door. Between the sisters and the scotch, there always seemed to be information beyond my reach. I was certainly missing something important at the moment.

Patsy murmured softly into Ben's ear, like a jockey whispering to a racehorse before a match to calm it down. But Ben shook his head vehemently. He was not keen on whatever she was telling him. I was getting fed up with his attitude. It was obvious that Clarise had to endure this hotheaded jerk every time Patsy went out with him. I wondered how Patsy found a boyfriend when Clarise couldn't. Maybe it was the circles she traveled in. Maybe Patsy was just that much more interesting. Who knows? But I did get the feeling that Clarise was lonely. Perhaps I was her fantasy date, her expensive way to experience a little romance on her own terms. Maybe she just wanted to be the center of a man's attention--a man who wasn't Ben. For all Clarise's accomplishments--physical, educational and professional--maybe all this girl really wanted was some loving to call her own. (I have always been surprised at how profound good scotch whiskey tends to make me.)

(continued on page 148) The Date (continued from page 88)

"Don't you think you're being a little selfish?" I asked Ben. I wanted to move the night along so that it could end and I could get paid. "After all," I continued, "Clarise has a right to some attention too."

Ben looked at me with contempt. His hands were trembling, palms up. He searched for the right words to express what he was feeling--it seemed his only option other than throttling me. I stared at him. "Don't you have eyes'?" He pointed at the girls. Patsy seemed annoyed, Clarise mustered a weak smile. I looked at them: two arms, two legs, two breasts, four eyes, four ears, two mouths, two noses and a nice black evening dress. I looked back at Ben, confused.

"They only got one pussy!" he yelled in a rage. "You can't fuck Clarise without fucking Patsy too, you somabitch." The girls' eyes anchored the floor. It finally dawned on me. Throughout life they had to share every moment together, even the intimate ones we monoheaded folk take for granted.

Patsy spoke to Ben gently. "Be fair, Ben. Clarise and I have tried to arrange things to make our lives bearable," she explained to him. "Otherwise, how could we function? What everyone else in the world takes for granted are hurdles for us. Even something as simple as going to the corner to buy a quart of milk requires the other's permission. You knew that, Ben. She doesn't enjoy sex with you. She does it for my sake. I wish she could appreciate you for the brilliant artist that you are. Then maybe we could share your love. But we're different people and we like different things. She needs a chance to live her life too."

Ben took her words with a grain of salt. "But who ever heard of a time-share vagina?" he cried.

Time-share vaginas are said to be quite popular in France, but I kept this tidbit to myself. I didn't want to break the moment. Patsy seemed to be getting through to him. To my horror I realized it would now be much harder, if not impossible, to get out of sleeping with Clarise/Patsy. After this brouhaha and my history with the previous client, I'd have to be Truman Capote to come up with a story to get me out of this mess. I was not particularly thrilled about traveling somewhere Ben had been, either.

I excused myself to go to the bathroom. I hoped a few moments alone would produce some resolution to the situation. I put the seat down and sat on it with no particular purpose (or newspaper) in hand. The intermission lent itself to some esoteric reflections about the state of my life. As I sat there, staring at myself in the mirror, I came to the conclusion that as a person I was about as deep as a puddle of water. My ethics and scruples were in a constant state of flux and my morality was questionable. I was the prisoner of my greed, the victim of my desire to make an easy buck. Upon this revelation I smiled--I was going to make a terrific lawyer. Whatever nature excluded from my spirit I could subsidize with material wealth.

And then I heard the front door close.

Clarise/Patsy were alone in the living room smoking a cigarette, drinking a scotch. Ben was gone.

"Is everything OK?" I asked.

"No," said Patsy. "But it'll do for now. Did everything come out all right?"

I had been in there for quite a while. "I thought it'd be better if I weren't in the room."

"I'll bet."

"Should we sit down?" Clarise asked.

"Let's go out," I said. "Let's get this evening started."

"After all, he's on the clock, you know," Patsy muttered.

"Excuse me, but do you have a problem, Patsy?" I knew that if I didn't address Patsy's attitude now I would be the butt of her jibes all night.

"I do have a problem, Norman. What are your intentions?" Clarise got a worried look in her eye.

"My intentions? What do you mean?" I asked, as if I didn't know.

"Cut the bullshit, Norm."

"Patsy, please!" Clarise cried.

"Look, my sister's great at options and mergers, but she's a spaz when it comes to matters of the heart. You have probably spent half the evening trying to figure how to get out of this assignment." She paused as she blew smoke out of her nostrils, giving the impression of someone who was prepared to fight. "Well, the check won't bounce and she deserves to get her money's worth, so let's forget the crap about going out. She wants to fuck some GQ-looking stud. She wants someone who's not Ben. So what's it going to be, rent-a-stud? Isn't this what they teach you in law school? How to fuck your fellow man for profit?" Patsy took another drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke out meticulously. The moment dragged on as I tried to decide what I was going to do. "Do you play or do we demand a refund?" she added.

That was it in a nutshell. Normally, I didn't have to sleep with the client if I didn't want to, but these two could cause problems for the agency that might lead to my dismissal. They probably kept that lawyer from the chewing gum case on retainer. As Patsy stared me down, I realized she had the qualities of a good lawyer herself, something that surprised me coming from an arty type.

"Fine," I said evenly. "It's been a while since I've been in a threesome. You understand we accept tips--in cash, of course. No reason to alert Uncle Sam about revenue that I need more than he does." The girls smiled.

"I'm a two-headed bitch, not a communist," Patsy confirmed. The girls went to their purse and pulled out five Ben Franklins. "Five now, five later if you actually manage to ring our bell. Consider it an incentive." Generous, I thought. This would be the most I had ever made in a single night. And, despite Ben, I had the impression that Patsy didn't mind the situation as much as she pretended to. I chugged down the rest of my drink.

Their bedroom was huge. In the center was a king-size canopy bed made up in satin sheets. French doors led to a balcony overlooking the park. The moonlight coming through the glass made a checkered pattern of light on the bed. I took them by the hand and started to kiss Clarise. She had a pleasant minty taste. We were quickly out of our clothes and rolling around in the bed. I began to suckle her breast when I felt Clarise's hand on my cheek, trying to pull me away from it.

"No, sweetie--my breast, here." I realized that I had Patsy's breast. These girls were wired to separate sides of their body, whereas I instinctively go for the bigger one first. Patsy has a bigger tit than her sister, I thought to myself, remembering my own sisters' boob rivalries. As I swung to Clarise's side I caught Patsy's eye. She wore a sly smile.

I licked my way down to where only a single woman existed. With a thousand bucks on the line I was going to ring their bell, and to hell with where Ben had been already. As I touched their button with my tongue both girls groaned generously, knotting the bedsheets in their hands. I took my time and was rewarded with a heavily glazed chin for my efforts. Finally I plunged in, taking care to remember whose neck to nibble on as I thrust my way to a big payday. And yet the whole time something was bothering me. There I was, having sex, nibbling on her neck, trying to figure out why something felt wrong other than the fact that it was sex for money or that my partner had two heads.

They wrapped their legs around mine and stroked my back and neck as I thrust myself into them. Patsy stroked my head, running her long Fingers through my hair. Clarise grabbed my right butt cheek and squeezed tight, pulling me into her. As I continued to pound my way to freedom and wealth I turned to the left to find myself locking stares with Patsy. And then it hit me like a revelation. Gazing into her eyes, seeing her grimace, watching her bite her lip with pleasure, I realized I liked Patsy. I mean, I liked Patsy a lot. Her attitude and her fire were much more appealing than Clarise's were. Patsy could take charge and stand up for herself. Her cynical nature, her biting wit--these were the things in a woman that turned me on. And wasn't she flirting with me--flirting silently with her eyes right there next to her sister? For a moment, I was sure she'd be willing to trade Ben in for another type of bad boy. The notion amused me, and I pondered it as I continued to fuck them. I wouldn't even have to worry about whether she'd put out or not--she already had. She was rich. If she had a taste for the unscrupulous type then maybe I could be her sinister half. I continued with Clarise, wishing I could kiss Patsy instead.

They came.

Hearing two women groan at the same moment from the same orgasm was surreal. I came soon after. As far as I was concerned I was out of there. As I started to get dressed I caught sight of them in the mirror. They lay in bed exhausted; Patsy and I gazed at each other through our reflections. She wore a devilish grin. They seemed satisfied. Maybe Ben wasn't ringing their bell. Maybe this was an ideal way for Patsy to keep Ben as a boyfriend and get some satisfaction on the side. College or not, Patsy had the better instincts and she wore the pants in this relationship. I had the feeling that manipulating Clarise had become Patsy's way of dealing with her resentment of her sister. They had an odd relationship. They never could be alone. Clarise stirred and Patsy shifted her gaze from me before her sister noticed.

"Patsy?"

"Hmm?"

"Where's the condom?"

"The condom?"

"You did give Norman a condom to put on."

"He's your fucking date. When Ben comes over, I provide the protection. When you have a date, you supply the rubber."

"When did I ever have a date? The condoms are in the drawer in the night table on your side of the bed."

"How could you be so fucking stupid!"

"I've never had a man over. Why don't you take an interest in what goes on with your own body?"

"Bitch!"

"Slut!"

I left the room. I found the purse and helped myself to the rest of my bonus. As I shut the door behind me they were still at it. Items were being flung about and shattering against the wall. What if I had knocked them up? It wasn't my problem. It wasn't as though they couldn't afford all the options.

As I entered the elevator I was greeted by an old lady taking her poodle out for a walk. I smiled in return, then noticed it was still fairly early. If I cabbed it to the Village, I could catch my fiancée coming off shift. As the elevator doors shut, I fingered the cash in my pocket, then I startled the old lady when I said, "Geez, what a way to make a living."

Second prize in this year's College Fiction Contest went to Stephen Saunders of the University of Oklahoma. Third prizes went to Christina Chiu of Columbia University, Ari Lieberman of the University of British Columbia, Matthew McIntosh of the University of Washington and Matthew J. Sullivan of the University of Idaho.