Rules of the Game

by Neil Strauss

  “Will you take us to our car?” Gymgirl asks when the bar closes. “We don’t like walking alone late at night.”

  “That will cost extra,” Kevin tells them. They don’t laugh. “Just wait a sec while we find our friends.”

  Of course, we have no friends here. This is Kevin’s way of getting me alone to make a plan. And that is great. Because I enjoy plans.

  “Okay,” I conspire with him. “Let’s tell them that our friends left without us, and we need a ride home.”

  “Love it. What about your car?”

  “We’ll just leave it with the valet and pick it up tomorrow.”

  The girls agree to take us home without hesitation. A simple plan can make all the difference between going home with company and going home alone.

  We’re walking down the street now, arm in arm. We are saving them from criminals. They are saving us from taxicab drivers. It’s a fair trade.

  “Wow, it’s funny how we paired off into couples,” Bookgirl says. My head reaches her shoulders. And if she doesn’t care, I don’t care.

  Their car is a BMW convertible, which indicates that they surely could have afforded the valet. Maybe they also had a plan.

  Bookgirl wants to play me her music. This concerns me, but it also allows me to proceed with stage two of our plan.

  “This sounds great,” I tell her. It is sappy and makes me want to punch butterflies. “But it’s too windy to hear your lyrics. Just bring it upstairs and we can play it where it’s more quiet.”

  She agrees.

  Women are not stupid: She knows what she’s just agreed to. We park and walk arm-in-arm to my front door. Infidelity is in the air. It is dark and smells like macadamia nuts.

  I reach into my pocket to grab the keys.

  They are not there.

  I double-check my pockets, as if everything’s just fine. Give myself a full-body pat down. I feel the potential of the evening begin to dissipate.

  The girls are looking at me suspiciously now. All the doubts that liquor and smooth talk held back are creeping to the surface of their minds with each passing second. They know something is up.

  Okay. No need to panic. Obviously, I must have my keys because I drove to the club. Otherwise …

  Fuck. I’m an idiot. I valeted the car. So the valet still has my keys. And I’m locked out.

  In the blink of an eye, I develop a plan. There’s always a plan.

  “I left my keys upstairs,” I tell the girls. “But it’s no problem. I’m just going to climb up to the balcony. I always do this.”

  I never do this.

  “What floor do you live on?” Gymgirl asks. Good question.

  “The third. Just wait right there. I’ll be back in a second.”

  I run to the side of the building and look up. This is possible. It’s just a puzzle. And every puzzle has a solution.

  Gotta think quickly. I’m losing them.

  I believe I can make it. No problem. If I fall, I die.

  The girls follow me and look up the side of the building doubtfully. “I’m getting kind of tired,” Bookgirl says. “I should probably go home.”

  I suppose this makes sense. After all, she is pregnant. And I really should not be having sex with her.

  “This’ll only take a second,” I tell her. “Just wait at the front door, and I’ll be right there to let you in. Don’t worry about it.”

  It is time to save the night.

  I climb onto the first-floor railing. It’s loose and shakes beneath my feet. I did not plan on this. Have to move fast.

  Grab the bottom of the second-floor balcony and pull myself up. Forearms shaking. Shouldn’t have stopped going to the gym. Kick my legs over. A little winded. Take a short break here with the rear of my Levi’s premium boot-cut jeans hanging in the air.

  Okay, just have to pull my upper body up now. Quietly. If I wake anyone, they may call the police. Or shoot me.

  On the second floor now. Everything is under control. Just repeat, and I’ll be on my balcony and home, having sex with this girl and her embryo.

  I stretch and grab the base of my balcony railing, then hoist myself up and kick my legs onto the ledge. I am almost home. Just need to pull my body up so my jeans aren’t hanging in the air.

  There is a slight problem. I can’t move. My tie-belt is caught on something. Can’t see it from this position. Probably a nail.

  Must use brute force. I pull hard on the balcony railing. Forearms getting tired. Now the railing is bending toward me. This is not good.

  They really make strong ties in London.

  Think, Neil. Think. You’re smarter than this nail.

  There is a hotel across the street. Maybe I can signal to someone in the window. But what would they do? Probably just call the fire department and make a big scene.

  Need to retrace my steps. Unclimb the building.

  I lower myself back to the second floor and the tie slips off a rusty nail that probably once held a planter.

  Standing on the second-floor balcony, I remove the tie-belt and stuff it in my pocket. The jeans slip halfway down my ass. Won’t be able to climb with pants falling off. Need to remove them.

  I take off my boots, step out of my Levi’s premium boot-cut jeans, lean over the edge of the railing, and toss them up to my balcony.

  They plummet to the pavement below.

  When I look down to see if the jeans survived, I notice headlights in the street. It’s a convertible. The girls are leaving. The night is ruined. I knew I should have stayed in and written. Why do I let Kevin talk me into these things?

  “It’s okay,” Kevin yells, as I’m putting my boots back on. “The married girl is coming back.”

  He is talking way too loud. He’s going to wake the whole neighborhood.

  “I think we can double-team her,” he shouts.

  “Shh,” I admonish him.

  A light inside the apartment I’m standing outside flips on. And I’m on their balcony in boxer shorts and one boot.

  There is only one way to save the situation. I race to the railing, climb on top of it, then spring onto my balcony. It all happens so fast, and in such a panic, that I don’t even know how I did it. I may have just proven the theory of evolution. Surely, if I can access the climbing genes of my ancient monkey ancestors, I can live without technology for that book idea.

  What a horrible night. And my room is a mess. Clothes are everywhere. My heart is hammering. Gotta remember to get my boot off the downstairs balcony later.

  And pick up my jeans from the street.

  And retrieve my keys and car from 2.3 miles away.

  Have to add all this to my list. But first I absolutely must check my e-mail. Something important could have arrived that I may need to deal with. The glow of the computer screen and grinding of the hard drive soothes my nerves. This is where I belong. It’s a jungle out there.

  Kristen is coming to town and wants to stay with me. Magnus wants me to meet some Norwegian rappers. And Stephen Lynch wants me to send clips of an article I wrote about him.

  I have a book due in two weeks. I can’t possibly do any of these things. So I write and tell Kristen I’m working on a book, but she can stay as long as she understands that I need to write. I tell Magnus that I’m working on a book, but I can meet them really quickly for dinner, since I need to eat anyway. And I tell Stephen Lynch that I’m too busy to send his clips right now.

  Clip my nails. Must add that to my list right now before I forget again.

  The buzzer. Who could that be at this hour?

  “What the fuck are you doing up there?”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  Kevin is sitting in front of my building. He is not happy with me. I’m probably not the kind of friend he’d call if his car broke down.

  “Take that ribbon off your neck,” he snaps. “You look ridiculous.”

  We wait and wait and wait. Gymgirl returns, then tells us she’s tired and wants to go home. And I’m
okay with that. After all, she is married. And we really should not be having group sex with her.

  Sometimes mistakes happen for a reason. I need to write my book anyway. It’s due in fourteen days. Actually, thirteen days now.

  And a book is a lot of work. It requires a massive amount of organization and planning. Fortunately, these are things I’m good at.

  RULE 3

  GAME IS A BORDERLESS STATE

  I am writing this in case anything bad happens.

  If I disappear, please come looking for me.

  Just remember the name Ali Raj. He’s a magician, but he may have an illegal sideline. He’s supposedly friends with the prime minister’s son. And on the off chance that I’m breaking some taboo here, I want you to know what happened.

  I love the game. And I believe I may be an addict. It’s changed my life in ways I never thought possible. In high school and college, my friends came back from winter and spring breaks talking about their vacation hookups. I never got anything on vacation but a sunburn and a refrigerator magnet. I was never able to just relax and have fun. I was too busy worrying about what everyone else thought of me.

  But once I learned the game, everything changed. Wherever I went, new adventures beckoned. I visited Croatia and ended up having sex in the ocean with a nineteen-year-old who hardly spoke a word of English. I flew to a small town in the Midwest for a New York Times article and fooled around with a rich housewife, then slept with her niece. And on my first night in Sweden, I met a girl who stripteased to ABBA in my hotel room as foreplay.

  Now I’m in Bangladesh, where there are no clubs, no alcohol, and no dating. And I have options.

  But I don’t know the rules here. And I’m worried that I’m about to get myself killed.

  I’m staying at the Dhaka Sheraton. The only other person who knows me here is my traveling companion, Franz Harary, the illusionist. He has longish blond hair, usually wears yellow shirts with puffy patches on the chest, and has a very gentle demeanor. Think Yanni with magic tricks.

  He thinks I’m sick right now.

  But I’m in my hotel room, waiting for Tripti to arrive, hoping that Ali Raj and his henchman don’t get here first.

  Here, really quickly, is how this all started:

  Harary is here at the invitation of Ali Raj to perform at the First International Magic Festival. I’m here working on a book that I haven’t told anyone about. I’ve been traveling the world in search of people with powers that defy scientific explanation. I want to find real magic, proof of the existence of the unknown, something to believe in. And there’s a village on the outskirts of Dhaka, the capital city here, populated by a small tribe with a blind elder who can supposedly perform miracles on command.

  Both the festival and the village are frowned on by local authorities. Bangladesh is largely a Muslim society and, as such, considers magic and miracle working a sin. According to strict Islamic law, these acts are punishable by death. Importing magicians from all over the world is a luxury that only a man like Ali Raj, with a lot of money and high-level government connections, could have made possible.

  We first saw Ali Raj himself when we cleared customs. Lean, with perfectly feathered black hair and a dark walking suit, he reminded me of a wax statue of a matador. I don’t believe he ever spoke a word. Trailed by a motley entourage of magicians, goons, relatives, and cologne-splattered men who identified themselves as traders, he led us to a press conference that had been set up in an airport waiting room.

  The reporters clustered around Harary, who made a Coke bottle—the symbol of America—vanish for the cameras. The reporters were amazed, but Ali Raj was not. He nodded to one of his henchmen, a fat-faced Bangladeshi with a fanny pack, who ended the press conference.

  Raj’s men herded Harary and me into a minivan with the magicians. As we drove through the crowded streets of Dhaka, women with missing teeth and bleeding gums, men with fist-size tumors on their faces, and children with club feet and shredded lungi skirts swarmed the van at every red light, begging for change. And though the poverty was appalling, the people in the street seemed happier than the average middle-class American. I suppose if you’ve never had anything, you don’t have anything to lose—just surviving is an accomplishment. At home, we tend to take unlimited upward mobility for granted.

  I saw Tripti for the first time in the hotel lobby as I was returning to my room from breakfast the next morning. She stood out not just because she was the only female in sight, but because she was wrapped in an immaculate all-white sari with a matching sequined shawl around her neck. She had long black hair, the full lips of a supermodel, and large, round breasts that seemed to lift the fabric away from her body.

  She was standing with Ali Raj, so I assumed she must be his wife and I shouldn’t be staring at her breasts.

  Raj, as usual, didn’t speak. “Harary?” she asked through perfectly formed lips.

  “He’s up in his room working on the helicopter vanish,” I told her. Raj translated, and we entered the elevator together.

  “I like,” she said, touching my earrings.

  The earrings are silver spikes I bought after learning about a concept called peacocking. The idea is that, just as the peacock spreads its colorful plumage in order to attract the female of the species, so, too, must a man stand out in order to attract the opposite sex. Though I was initially skeptical, once I began experimenting with these items, as obnoxious and uncool as they seemed, the results were immediate—even in Bangladesh.

  She gestured to my shaved head and asked, “I touch?” Without waiting for an answer, she rubbed her hand warmly on my head. Women in Bangladesh rarely get this physical in public with men. Her touching my ears and head was the equivalent of a woman grabbing your crotch in an elevator in America.

  I led them to Harary’s room and took my leave as he gave Ali Raj his requirements for the illusion—a helicopter, a pilot, a field, and a helicopter-size sheet.

  For the rest of the day, Tripti sat at a table in the hotel lobby, selling tickets to the magic show with the rest of Ali Raj’s team. Every time I walked past, she shot me a lingering glance that conveyed an invitation to so much pleasure.

  So I decided to accept the invitation.

  “Why don’t you take a break and get some lunch with me?” I suggested.

  She looked at me sweetly and smiled blankly.

  Translation: Keep it simple.

  “Lunch?”

  As she tried to explain something too complicated for broken English, a short, muscular Bangladeshi man with black hair and a red shirt arrived with two Styrofoam dishes of some rice concoction he’d bought in the street.

  I introduced myself. “I am Rashid, my friend,” he replied. “I am cousin to Tripti.”

  “Do you also work for Ali Raj?”

  He nodded in the affirmative. Everyone works for Ali Raj.

  I suggested that we all eat together upstairs. If I couldn’t get her alone, at least I could win the trust of her cousin. This was Bangladesh: I wasn’t expecting to get very far anyway.

  I took them to Harary’s room and sat with them on the couch. Tripti’s cousin politely handed me one of the rice dishes. I tried a small spoonful, and some sort of hot, deadly venom seared my internal organs.

  “You like, my friend?” he asked. It’s interesting how whenever someone calls you his friend when you’re not really his friend, it sounds malicious.

  “It’s great,” I choked.

  Sometimes, in the heat of passion, there’s a temptation to have sex without a condom. At that moment, I felt like I had performed the culinary equivalent: every guidebook warned against eating street food in Bangladesh.

  Between the sexual energy emanating from Tripti, the brutal spiciness of the rice dish, and the awkwardness of the situation, beads of sweat began sprouting on my forehead. It was ridiculous to think I could have an affair with this girl. Our cultures are too different when it comes to dating and sex. We prefer premarital sex; they p
refer arranged marriages.

  I decided to cut my losses and take a nap in my room. This just wasn’t worth risking days of diarrhea.

  As I rose to leave, however, Tripti turned and whispered something in her cousin’s ear. He nodded, then she stood up to join me.

  When I walked into the hallway, she followed. So I led her to my room, uncertain of what she wanted or expected.

  As we entered, I was mindful to leave the door open so she didn’t feel uncomfortable. I wanted to demonstrate that I understood the morals of her society.

  I sat down on the bed and she maneuvered into position next to me, too close for conversation. Suddenly, diarrhea seemed like a worthwhile risk.

  I’ve seen many Bollywood movies, and one of the strangest things about them is that the hero and heroine never actually kiss. Instead, they just come excruciatingly close to doing so all through the film. So I stroked Tripti’s hair. She didn’t flinch. I looked her in the eyes and brought my lips close. She smelled like muscat, like desire, like something forbidden.

  Suddenly, she pulled away. Then she stood up and walked toward the door. Perhaps I’d been too forward and misinterpreted her actions.

  Instead of leaving, however, she closed the door. “I like you,” she said as she walked back toward the bed.

  Evidently she was more a fan of Hollywood films than Bollywood—which are Indian anyway. So I threw her onto the bed and we began making out.

  This was where things began to get weird. I realize they were already weird, but they got weirder.

  She placed my hands on her breasts and began speaking in a stream of fractured Bengali-English. It came breathy, in my ear, difficult to make out. All I could catch were the names “Bill Clinton” and “Monica Lewinsky.”