“The Gymnopédies.” Tim had turned back round now and when he did she saw that he had a cigarette in his hand—a marijuana cigarette, like the one Ken had handed her that morning. He crossed the room and sat between them on the couch, then made a show of lighting the cigarette, taking a deep drag and holding in the smoke before passing it to her.

“But, Tim,” she said, grinning and taking it from him in the firm pinch of two fingers, the way she’d seen Ken and Charlie do it, “I thought you were against drugs—illegal drugs anyway. Or is this legal now?”

“You bet it is. We’re on a space station, our very own space station. And we make the rules here, not the squares. Go on, indulge. It’s good stuff—good shit, as Charlie and all the other hepcats would say; Ginsberg, have you met Allen? No? I’ll introduce you; he’ll be here sooner or later—and while it’s not in a league with the true sacrament, it’ll do for tonight, don’t you think? Joanie? Alice?”

She passed the cigarette to Alice, who laid her head back on the arm of the couch, closed her eyes and drew deeply on it. She stretched out her legs and crossed her feet and Joanie saw that she’d shucked her shoes, because who needed shoes? This was a slumber party, one long slumber party. Joanie pulled up first one knee, then the other, and dropped her own shoes to the carpet, one thump, two thumps.

“And you know something else?” he went on, his voice coming from somewhere far off, as if he were a late-night disc jockey on the jazz station out of New York. “It’s got the same aphrodisiac qualities LSD has”—and here he casually laid a hand in her lap and they both took a moment to study it there in a way that was both intimate and unbiased at the same time. “Though, of course, not as intense, but what I’m thinking is we don’t really want to have a session at this hour . . .”

He trailed off. The piano music fell like a blizzard of soft warm feathers all around her. She looked into his eyes and smiled and he added, “Do we?”

Chapter 5

5.