GET ONE, GET THEM ALL

"The trick is to get one big girl—like a Hunter Reno or a Janna Rhodes," says George. "These are girls who have done covers in Europe. If you get one, you can get them all. At a nightclub, you pay attention to the older girls. They always want to go home early because they have to get up and work. You walk them out to a cab, being a gentleman, then you go back in and attack the young ones,"

"These girls just want to be comfortable," says Mr. Felske. "They're so young. They're just finding their way in a grownup world. They're not fully developed, and they meet these guys who know all the tricks. How hard can it be?"

Back in the loft, Barkley opens a bottle of Coke and sits on a stool in the middle of the room. "You think, Who's prettier than a model. But they're not so smart, they're flakey and fucked up, they're a lot looser than you think. It's way easier to screw a model than a regular girl. That's what they do all the time. It's the way regular people are when they're

on vacation. They're away, so they do things they wouldn't normally do. But these girls are away all the time because they travel from place to place. So that's what they're like all the time."

Barkley takes a sip from his Coke and scratches his stomach. It's three in the afternoon, and he just woke up an hour ago. "These girls are nomads," he says. "They have a guy in every city. They call me when they're in New York, and I always imagine that they call someone else when they're in Paris or Rome or Milan. We pretend that we're going out when they're in town. We hold hands and see each other every day. A lot of girls want that. But then they're gone." Barkley yawns. "I don't know. There are so many beautiful girls around that after a while you start looking for someone who can make you laugh."

"It's amazing sometimes what you'll do to be with these girls," George says. "I went to church with one girl and her daughter. I've started to hang out with older girls almost exclusively. I've got to retire soon. They keep me from getting work done. They make me fuck up my life." George shrugged and glanced out the window of his 34th-floor office at the view of midtown Manhattan. "Look at me," he says. "I'm an old man at twenty-nine."

6. New York 's Last Seduction: Loving Mr. Big

A fortyish movie producer I'll call Samantha Jones walked into Bowery Bar, and, as usual, we all looked up to see whom she was with. Samantha was always with at least four men, and the game was to pick out which one was her lover. Of course, it wasn't really much of a game, because the boyfriend was too easy to spot. Invariably, he was the youngest, and good-looking in that B— Hollywood actor kind of way— and he would sit there with a joyously stupid expression on his face (if he had just met Sam) or a bored, stupid look on his face, if he had been out with her a few times. If he had, it would be beginning to dawn on him that no one at the table was going to talk to him. Why should they, when he was going to be history in two weeks?

We all admired Sam. First of all, it's not that easy to get twenty-five-year— old guys when you're in your early forties. Second, Sam is a New York inspiration. Because if you're a successful single woman in this city, you have two choices: You can beat your head against the wall trying to find a relationship, or you can say "screw it" and just go out and have sex like a man. Thus: Sam.

This is a real question for women in New York these days. For the first time in Manhattan history, many women in their thirties to early forties have as much money and power as men—or at least enough to feel like they don't need a man, except for sex. While this paradox is the topic of many an analytic hour, recently my friend Carrie, a journalist in her mid-thirties,

decided, as a group of us were having tea at the Mayfair Hotel, to try it out in the real world. To give up on love, as it were, and throttle up on power, in order to find contentment. And, as we'll see, it worked. Sort of.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 1178