TheWaterRat

It is very hard to say no to your child. My parents rarely said it to me. I was told either “yes” or my request was met with a stony silence that I understood to mean “no”.

There was not much communication growing up in the Bateman household. As it never existed in the first place, I never missed it.

It just wasn’t there.

My son, P.B., always knows how to reach me. He has been Emailing since he was six, and received his first cellular phone at seven. By then, all of his friends already had them.

I am charmed by his innocence. Last month, some friends of his from school flew him down to Palm Beach for the weekend. He came back all excited about how big their plane was and about all the people who were on it. And it had big red letters on the side. A “T,” a “W,” and an “A.” How come the letters on our plane are so small, and why are there are only 12 chairs? And, Jason Berns has a horse so can I have one, too?”

I reminded him that horses made him sneeze. He realized I was correct, so he offered a compromise. “How about if I don’t ride him and we just watch him run around?”

His point was well made.

“P.B.’s Prince of Pleasure” sired by the great-grandson of “Secretariat” is favored 3-to-1 to win at this year’s Kentucky Derby.

Virtually yours,

Patrick Bateman

Does anyone really read “Playboy” for the Jokes? “Hustler” for Larry Flynt’s views on politics? Watch “Baywatch” for the story line? No, it’s about skin tight bathing suits revealing more the wetter they become, and the grabbing of perfect bodies under the guise of being saved. When was the last time you saw somebody from “Baywatch” in a Merchant-Ivory movie? Howard’s Rear End? I don’t think so.

The porn videos of the “80′s” are not much more revealing than today’s HBO. Sex, in the city, and in prison. It’s everywhere you look. On your TV. It’s all about immediate gratification. And the selling of it.

Gucci. Buy these clothes and have sex with the models. Even the designers are great looking. How many of his customers fantasize about Tom Ford? But does any woman really want a roll in the hay with Yves Saint Laurent? Compared to Bill Blass, Ralph Lauren is Tom Cruise. And how many gays have a thing for Marc Jacobs? Have you noticed how the Vuitton men’s line has taken off..

And what about music? It’s not a recent phenomenon. From Sinatra, to the Beatles, to Mark McGrath of “Sugar Ray.” Girls everywhere scream “Take me! Take me.” From suburban mansions to trailer parks, girls everywhere fantasize about the rock star of their dreams. All one has to do is study an emerging market to realize the importance of sex in the marketplace. Latin Media. Ricky Martin or Marc Anthony, who has the better voice or the bigger career? The answer is the better ass.

The “Backstreet Boys,” could they be more obvious? And how brilliantly they are managed and marketed. Little girls everywhere bemoan the fact that two of the band’s members are engaged, while “I Want it That Way” has become the Gay national anthem.

What I do find greatly ironic, in this “mine’s-bigger-and-better-and-hotter” world, is the competition over the cellular phone. In what other category is the winner the one who can boast, “mine’s the smallest”?

Virtually yours,

Patrick Bateman

It seems that society at large feels the need to attach a certain level of guilt to all sexual activity. The level of guilt varies on a scale dependant on the sexual act in question. In the case of consenting adults who are both married and desirous of procreating, the guilt should be negligible. In the case where one of the participants realizes after the fact that the temptress he has just seduced is a minor, then the guilt level could hover somewhere around enormous.

No, I do not condone this, I am just making a point.

The problem with analysis is that those trained in the art of delving into the confines of another man’s psyche often get lost in the depths and lose sight of the fact that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Also, an essential part of sex is the fantasy that is attached to it. While there are no boundaries, there still might be guilt. But guilt must be acknowledged before it can have any effect. I tried to confess once, but no one would listen. I agree with your statement that fantasy doesn’t always need to become reality in order to be satisfying.

I do feel, however, that the boundaries of sexual behavior have been significantly expanded by the Internet in an inverse proportion to the anonymity that it provides.

The joke, of course, is that Internet sex is not sex at all, only typing.

Virtually yours,

Patrick Bateman

One of the most notable changes in the ritualistic dining habits of jaded New Yorkers and other nationals who frequent the city’s most prominent restaurants is the advent of the female Maitre’ d.

This disruption in the natural order of things, of course, cannot be found in the stalwarts of the best city restaurants. Walter is still in charge at “21″ and Benito maintains his guard at the palace that is “Le Cirque,” but at many of the priciest and hardest to get into of the current group of temples to trend-dining, women seem to be in charge. Sarah guards the portals of “Nobu,” Phoebe plays Noah to the ark that is “Pastis,” and Amy runs “Lot 61″ as if it were the Concorde lounge at Orly.

But of course, this is only an illusion, for when an unruly patron crosses the boundaries of acceptable behavior, or those told to wait for a table that is most likely never to become available realize that they have been played, it is a man, usually a pair, who dispatch those whose position has been demoted from unlikely patron to that of squatter.

It is at one of these “Vadiners” that Jean suggests we meet for lunch. As usual, she is late. So we have to rush through the usual how are you, you look fine, I’ll have the fish, no butter, I feel fat today.

When what she really means is how much longer do you plan to keep me in this legal vice that is squeezing the desire to live right out of my body, and I really don’t like using our child as a bargaining device but I have gotten quite used to an unlimited amount of money so please can’t we agree on something and stop this torture?

Jean, dear, if that Jil Sander suit you had on didn’t look a little snug, I’d offer to share the Creme Brulee.

Virtually yours,

Patrick Bateman

I hate Davis Ferguson because he mocks my respect for perfection.

And because he is a liar. The image he conveys is one of down home Americana that is as fake as the artificial twang in his Yale educated voice. Though it is obvious that he descends from peasant stock, by the time the Second World War was to commence his family’s various enterprises and ill gotten gains made them one of the richest in Pre-Internet America.

Our last meeting, at his insistence, took place at a Denny’s restaurant near Lincoln, Nebraska, a chain he doesn’t even own. His goal in taking me there was to make me uncomfortable enough so that I might inadvertently reveal why I have been buying up shares in his various corporations.

As he consumed enormous quantities of bright yellow food covered in rivers of maple syrup mopped up with the whitest of bread, I thought at least Elvis had the class to keel over and die after a lifetime of consuming such victuals. This wildebeest had the gall to guffaw in my face, (I detest even the notion of a guffaw), and boast that there is another group interested in his various corporations, and he might just go ahead and meet with them, to teach me a thing or two about how good ‘ole boys do things down around his way.

Go ahead, I say to this evolutionary misstep, and keep to myself that this other party reports to me.

Virtually yours,

Patrick Bateman

In the Art of War, Sun Tzu states that intimidation is the only acceptable initial impression one can give his opponent.

In the wars that I choose to fight, I intimidate through an initial precise physical and sartorial impression that, stated simply says, “The first move is mine.” There is an appropriate tailleur for every requirement.

My suits and evening wear, by such maestros of fashion as Cerrutti and Valentino, convey an aura of quiet superiority. My shoes, by Lobb and when appropriate, Gucci, are superior in both quality and fit. I can’t allow my time to be intruded upon by the mundane aspects of tailoring. I have maintained both my weight and muscle tone in the exact same proportions for nearly two decades. Whatever I desire is sent to me by the vendors already familiar with my tastes, which tend to anticipate trends rather than follow them.

I have a great affinity for watches and complicated timepieces. I respect that beneath the simple beauty of their faces lie complex articulations of machinery that are at the same time both minute and grand.

When venturing out after hours, I wear concealing eyewear and rarely the same outfit twice.

I can be invisible when I choose to be.

Virtually yours,

Patrick Bateman

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The weather has never affected me much. Occasionally we are forced to modify a flight plan, and for certain social engagements a Top coat is appropriate, but that’s only for fashion’s sake. People like me never get wet.

I go from the elevator to the car and back. The elevator that is reserved for my use alone. The illusion that I am present and available is necessary.

I remain in contact through technology. Between the Sat phone, Satnav, the DSL lines that radiate from wherever I may be like a web, I am never out of touch, be it by voice or digital command. I am only unreachable when I choose to be.

During the coming month, I will be forced to make myself available to many I’d choose to ignore, permanently. Marcus Halberstam wisely chose to leave New York after some rather unpleasant innuendo regarding Paul Allen seemed to attach itself to him. Friend that I am, I offered him an opportunity that for the most part keeps him out of the country. Luis Carruthers, on the other hand, has proven himself quite useful at sucking valuable information out of some of the most important media and entertainment figures there are, thus rendering himself far more useful than even he realizes.

It is Davis Ferguson whom I abhor the most. It is almost as if he knows that my total revulsion at his mere existence gives him an upper hand.

He is almost correct.

Virtually yours,

Patrick Bateman

Another post by my friend Patrick.

According to my Platinum 1938 Breguet Minute Repeater, (a lesser version in Rose Gold recently sold in London for the equivalent of $217,000.00), I see that it is time for our Therap-e session. I must advise you in advance that if it were not for The Issue, and my desire to retrieve my child from his mother, I would not devote the time to this exercise. You asked me if I am interested in solving my problems or if I just want to give the impression that I have solved them so I can win custody of my child. I am interested in winning. Period. On all fronts. You suggest that I use arrogance and hostility as a mask to hide behind. I thought that’s what the Internet was for.

Virtually yours,

Patrick Bateman

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