“So how’d you meet Harrison?” Jesse said.
“Actually I met Tommy first and he introduced me to Harrison.”
“Tommy?” Jesse said.
“Tommy Ralston. He’s got a yacht, too. The
“How’d you meet Tommy?” Jesse said.
“Cathleen Holton,” Katie said. “Cathleen brought a bunch of us out to Tommy’s boat. She said it was a chance to meet some really cool guys.”
“She have a boat?” Jesse said.
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“Naw, Tommy sent a launch for us.”
“How many were you?”
“Excuse me?”
“How many of you went out.”
“Me,” she said. “And Cathleen, Beth, Nancy and Brittany, five all together.”
“All around your age?”
“I’m the youngest,” she said. “I always hang around with older kids.”
Jesse nodded.
“Tell me about what happened on the boat.”
“It was wild,” Katie said. “There were four guys and a couple of older women. We had drinks, and we smoked some weed, and the guys said it was like an initiation. We all had to have sex with all the guys.”
“Everybody cool with that?” Jesse said.
“Everybody but Nancy. She started to cry and said she didn’t feel good and wanted to go home.”
“And did she?”
“They said they’d have somebody take her home in the launch, but she had to do a striptease first.”
“She mind?”
“She didn’t want to, but they said she had to if she wanted to go home . . . so she did. It was pretty pathetic.”
“And then she went home?”
“Yeah, one of the sailors took her in the launch.”
“And the rest of you partied.”
“Yes.”
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“And the older women?”
“First they watched, then they joined in.”
“Hell of a good time,” Jesse said.
“Sure, and then Tommy said I was so good that he wanted me to meet his dear friend, and said could I come back tomorrow, and I said sure, and so the next day the launch took me to Harrison’s boat. Just me.”
Jesse was silent. Katie looked at him oddly, like she wanted something.
“Most people,” he said, “are probably doing mostly what they need to do. And maybe you need to do this. But it’s not a good way for you to live.”
“Why not,” she said.
“Again,” Jesse said, “long answer. Short version is you don’t become more important because a lot of people are willing to fuck you.”
“I’m not trying to be important,” she said. “I’m just having some fun.”
“I need the names of the other girls,” Jesse said.
“Are you going to tell them I told?”
Jesse looked at Molly, who had said not a word during the entire conversation. She shrugged and shook her head.
“To tell you the truth, Katie,” Jesse said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I’ll start by taking names.”
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35
J enn always brushed her teeth before bed.
Jesse lay in bed on his back with his hands clasped behind his head, watching her
