A Place I've Never Been Read Online Free

flew. “I’ve never had sex under a dry-docked boat.” “I’ve never had sex with more than one other person.” “Two other people.” “Three other people.” By then Lizzie was out of pennies, and declared the game over.
    â€œI guess I won,” Dorrie said rather softly. She had her pennies neatly piled in identically sized stacks.
    I wondered if Lizzie was worried. I wondered if she was thinking about the disease, ifshe was frightened, the way Nathan was, or if she just assumed death was coming anyway, the final blow in her life of unendurable misfortunes. She started to gather the pennies back into their bowl, and I glanced across the room at Nathan, to see if he was ready to go. All through the game, of course, he had been looking pretty miserable—he always looks miserable at parties. Worse, he has a way of turning his misery around, making me responsible for it. Across the circle of our nearest and dearest friends he glared at me angrily, and I knew that by the time we were back in his car and on our way home to Manhattan he would have contrived a way for the evening to be my fault. And yet tonight, his occasional knowing sneers, inviting my complicity in looking down on the party, only enraged me. I was angry at him, in advance, for what I was sure he was going to do in the car, and I was also angry at him for being such a snob, for having no sympathy toward this evening, which, in spite of all its displeasures, was nevertheless an event of some interest, perhaps the very last hurrah of our youth, our own little big chill. And that was something: Up until now I had always assumed Nathan’s version of things to be the correct one, and cast my own into the background. Now his perception seemed meager, insufficient: Here was an historic night, after all, and all he seemed to want to think about was his own boredom, his own unhappiness.
    Finally, reluctantly, Lizzie let us go, and relinquished from her grip, we got into Nathan’s car and headed onto the Garden State Parkway. “Never again,” Nathan was saying, “will I allow you to convince me to attend one of Lizzie Fischman’s awful parties. This is the last.” I didn’t even bother answering, it all seemed so predictable. Instead I just settled back into the comfortable velour of the car seat and switched on the radio. Dionne Warwick and Elton John were singing “That’s What Friends Are For,” andNathan said, “You know, of course, that that’s the song they wrote to raise money for AIDS.”
    â€œI’d heard,” I said.
    â€œHave you seen the video? It makes me furious. All these famous singers up there, grinning these huge grins, rocking back and forth. Why the hell are they smiling, I’d like to ask?”
    For a second, I considered answering that question, then decided I’d better not. We were slipping into the Holland Tunnel, and by the time we got through to Manhattan I was ready to call it a night. I wanted to get back to my apartment and see if Roy had left a message on my answering machine. But Nathan said, “It’s Saturday night, Celia, it’s still early. Won’t you have a drink with me or something?”
    â€œI don’t want to go to any more gay bars, Nathan, I told you that.”
    â€œSo we’ll go to a straight bar. I don’t care. I just can’t bear to go back to my apartment at eleven o’clock.” We stopped for a red light, and he leaned closer to me. “The truth is, I don’t think I can bear to be alone. Please.”
    â€œAll right,” I said. What else could I say?
    â€œGoody,” Nathan said.
    We parked the car in a garage and walked to a darkish café on Greenwich Avenue, just a few doors down from the huge gay bar Nathan used to frequent, and which he jokingly referred to as “the airport.” No mention was made of that bar in the café, however, where he