Lady Bug, Lady Bug

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IVORBALMI FOUND THE PARTY already in progress when he arrived back at his studio. “Studio” was a lofty coloring for a colorless loft, but in the New York of that season, so vastly in flux with all the right people either just returning and unsettled, or moving to the Coast, to Europe, especially to the Maritime Alps — Ivor Balmi’s “studio” was one of the few places to go for stimulation. For all to go, that is, but Ivor Balmi; to him, the parties — the interminable, dull-gaudy brawls with rising laughter and empty tears — were hunting sessions.

For tall Ivor Balmi, whose eyes had a caked look of European deprivation and a glistening look of American hunger, the parties not only served to pay his rent, but furnished him with fresh prey. It was simply too much trouble, the barbaric dating and picking-up, the ritualistic fencing and prancing so necessary to get a girl within reach.

Ivor Balmi was very much a self-contained man, and his interest in women was on an elementary level: they were sex. He felt no warmth for them, felt no desire to do for them or give to them or have them around when they became complicated. It was a very transitory warmth Ivor Balmi sought.

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