The Urban Fantasy Anthology (Peter S. Beagle) (Kitty Norville 1.50)

“It’s just…well, I found out that Bill’s been going to this website called SuicideGirls. You know, it’s one of those pay porn sites where girls pose naked. Girls who, you know…”

“Are all tattooed and pierced like me.”

She nods. “Everywhere you turn, that’s the cool thing. Actors, musicians, porn stars for god’s sake. They’re all cool. It’s like you’re a Neanderthal if you don’t have a half-dozen tattoos and something stuck in your tongue, or dangling from a place that was never meant to dangle anything.”

“In your opinion.”

“In my opinion, yes. All of you are the people who are sexy and cool while the rest of us are just, I don’t know, drones or something.”

“I don’t think you’re a drone,” I tell her. “And I don’t think that there’s anything innately cool about tats or piercings. They’re either something you use to express yourself, or they’re not.”

“That’s not what the media seems to be telling us these days.”

I smile. “Except mostly what I see in the media are skinny women with big boobs and blonde hair. They’re not exactly Goths, or punks.”

“No, but they make it out like there’s this whole exotic underground that ordinary people can’t be a part of.”

“Do you want to be a part of it?”

“That’s not the point. They’re selling it as the new cool. I mean, Angelina Jolie’s already way more beautiful than any of us could ever hope to be. Do they really need to add in tattoos when they hype her?”

“So don’t listen to them.”

We fall silent for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have said anything like that.”

I can’t help but smile. I know I should be a little pissed off, but this is Gwen. She’s so square that they check rulers against her to make sure they’re straight.

“But you can’t help but feel relieved to find out that ‘cool’ people—” I mark quotations in the air between us. “—have their problems, too.”

“I know. I’m an awful friend, aren’t I?”

I shake my head. “No, you’re just being honest. We’ve earned the right to that between us.” I wait a beat, then add, “So you think Bill’s cheating on you, too. Maybe with some little tattooed Goth girl?”

“Oh, God, no. I just find it weird that that kind of thing could turn him on.”

“Did you ask him about it?”

She shook her head. “In a vague sort of way. But he thought I was accusing him of lusting after you.”

“And you didn’t correct him?”

“No. Because then he’d know I was poking through his browser history. Oh, come on,” she adds at the look on my face. “Everybody does that. Don’t tell me you never have.”

“I never have,” I say. “And even if Edric wasn’t a complete Luddite and actually used our computer, I still wouldn’t.”

“He doesn’t use a computer?”

“He doesn’t like any kind of modern technology. I got him a cell phone, but while he carries it around, he doesn’t even have it turned on. When I asked him why he kept it, he said he thought of it as a talisman to remind him of me.”

“That’s…different.”

“No, that’s just Edric.”

“So what are you going to do about him?”

I shrug. “What else can I do? The next full moon, I should follow him to whatever gig he’s supposed to have.”