Works/Telepath

1. Landsdowne Street

There is a certain sameness in the frontages, but not a monotony; it is not a gray sensation, but instead a wretched excess of bright colors punctuated by too much black, as if someone decided to insert a period after every word in their manuscript.

The shiny exteriors chip and peel as soon as they are repainted; the color of choice is the one Susan insisted on referring to as fuck-me red. I don't believe she intended it to be ironic; she wasn't capable of it. She once insisted she wasn't a lesbian while she had three fingers inside me, and her thoughts confirmed she believed it. That was back when a lover was more than one night.

The neons argue with one another, until someone throws a rock at them and they shatter; the owners of these clubs undoubtedly spend a fortune on replacement. You would imagine Boston to look like some quaint colonial throwback. This street looks like a well-lit slum.

The color black walks around on two legs, in leather, vinyl, spandex, lace, velvet. Any fabric will suffice, actually, as long as it's vaguely sexual, and black. I do not understand this need to wear black. Is there some shared grief I'm unaware of? Is there a need to project a grief that doesn't exist, as if atoning for the guilt of being born in this generation, privileged and well-fed but desperately denying any such allegations?

Perhaps it is only a misguided belief that black hides one's faults. I'll agree that black conceals a multitude of late-night pancakes, consumed under the influence and regretted later; black hides the track marks of saturated fats and the sagginess of lethargy. Black does not conceal your brain, however, and your brain, not your body, is where your sins lie.

Why don't you people do more thinking? You go into these clubs and you watch and ogle and grind and leer, but never think. Then again, if you did more thinking, who would I take home? I am criticizing the hand that feeds me.

This one fancies herself a vampire. Emaciated young woman, with breasts that would never bear the weight of a lover's hands, sunken cheeks and eyes like an addict. I wonder which one she mistakenly finds sexual, addiction to heroin or addiction to blood? They may overlap in her mind. No matter which, she is wrong. If she were actually dependent upon any commodity for five minutes, her frail little frame would vibrate apart before anyone had a chance to notice her powdered, angst-ridden face.

I realize that I am clearly in a bad mood tonight. I resolve to be careful. If I emanate, no one will come near me.

This one is interested but too scared. I've stopped dealing with the nervous ones. They take too much work. They interpret my interest as aggression and run away, or they want to be picked up and dragged, kicking, for their own good. Go willingly or don't go. You make me tired just watching you.

Where are the cocksure ones? They seem to be avoiding this establishment. All I see are frightened people attempting to look sure of themselves. Give it up. Underconfidence is sexual; true overconfidence is likewise; anything in between is a waste of everyone's time. Of course, as soon as you learn that, you'll automatically become overconfident. There is always a shortage of ingenues.

I try the next club. The crowd wants to be a little rougher here. Thick-soled work boots instead of decorative shoes. In the universe of black clothing, apparently the little changes imply a lot.

These clubs make me feel old.

That one. The one leaning on the bar, alone, watching the room. I try to get him to see me. There is too much background noise to tell from here, but he looks promising.

I walk over purposefully. I am never coy, but it does me no good. I can't seem to speed up the process no matter how often I try. Apparently I am expected to leap through the hoops of pretense before he admits that he understood at the very beginning of the conversation what he will only admit to understanding at the very end.

I have tried going up to men and making the blunt proposal. It rarely succeeds. Yet I have had a man approach me a second time thirty minutes later and strike up the conversation of pretense, then eventually leave the club with me. What didn't he understand the first time? Did he think I was joking? I am not interested in you people for your conversation.

This one is a quick study. That's good, as long as he doesn't try to take charge. He asks the minimum number of questions, and draws his own conclusions. He doesn't want to go back to his room. No surprise there - he lives in a filthy apartment with three other thugs. I steer him out of the building and hail a taxi. We get in and I name my hotel. He looks surprised. He is suspecting a plot.

I explain to him that I travel back and forth to New York several times a week and that my permanent residence is there. This will satisfy him if he ever sees me in the clubs again, although they never remember, so I'm probably being overcautious. I close my eyes for the length of the trip. Even the taxis in this town make me nervous. I'd never really live in New York.

Here already? One hoop down, one to go.

This next obstacle is actually in my favor. I need time. Alcohol, however, is the traditional time-killer, and I can't use that. I want him no drunker; he is too far outside sober for my comfort already. He needs to enjoy this, and booze dulls the senses.

I prepare his dosage - he looks about one-ninety to me. The flavored syrup which I add to it makes it cloying, with a bitter aftertaste that cannot be disguised. Fortunately this group that prides itself on its recent adulthood is vulnerable to attack on grounds of maturity. I tell him that it's a cordial, make it sound exotic and dignified, and he has to restrain himself from gulping it down. That would, after all, look childish.

Now comes the painful part, where we must sit next to each other, not yet intimate but not yet allowed to become intimate by some social rule system I never inherited. I don't know what people say here. I have never found the magic formula in their heads, that code word which would enable us to take off our clothes and begin right away. Maybe it doesn't exist. So now I'm reflecting on the yet-to-happen, not listening to what he's saying. He doesn't really want conversation anyway.

I tried intelligent people, the ones with the awake brains; I was hoping they'd be more able to focus. Instead they turned out to be, as a class, more likely to fantasize. Fantasy distracts. I tried letting people do what they wanted with me, but most of them were not concerned enough with my pleasure, and the others all insisted on this horrid habit of fantasy. I realized I had to steer, and I realized that to steer properly I needed an empty vessel.

He is beginning to slur his words. His tongue is thick in his mouth and I'm sure he assumes it's what he drank, which is true, but for the wrong reasons. He's pawing at me now, trying to remove my clothing. I can help him with that, but it's entertaining to watch him try to undress me without seeming like he's eager to, even though he's clearly unable to concentrate on anything else. Another rule. It's apparently wrong to admit to wanting.

I relent and tug him into the bedroom, where I push him backwards onto the mattress. I kneel on the bed next to him and unfasten his pants. They're the same pants all of his friends are wearing. His friends are still in the clubs, wondering why he got lucky and they didn't. It would be more interesting to put my mouth on it while his pants are still on his legs, pulled down around his thighs, but I decide to err on the side of efficiency, removing his shoes and socks, pulling his pants down his legs and inching them painstakingly over his feet, then dropping them rudely on the floor.

I have to do this for him. He is barely capable of concerted movement now. Aware, aroused, but not in control. I'm getting nothing from him except anticipation and static.

I know he'll enjoy this. I lie between his legs, still dressed, and lower my mouth, inching my tongue around the base of its head. Oh - instantaneous feedback! A warm wet probing sensation, slippery. There is something licking my penis. I worry the soft skin on its underside, waiting for the response which tells me I've found the most sensitive spot. I feel the uncomfortable ticklish pleasure and he squirms under me.

He's already about to come. This happens sometimes; the drug seems to affect some of them this way. I stop and one of us sighs. He cannot come this soon.

I open his shirt and wander my fingers along his body, learning where the good parts are. He has almost no sensation in his nipples, but the inside skin of his legs is like a baby's, and my fingernail scrape there causes me to gasp involuntarily. I lean in and lick the inside of his thigh, long strokes of the tongue, until I'm breathing heavily from the sensation and can't continue.

Am I the world's most or least selfish lover? I only want to do things they will enjoy, but I do them only so that I can enjoy them.

I've allowed myself - allowed him - to be aroused too soon. He's too ready. I wait for him to calm down a little, watching as he breathes jaggedly. I take off my clothing without attempting to be particularly sexual about it. I despise theatre.

It took me so long to learn this! Years, years, in which sex was the low point of my existence, when by rights it should have been the pinnacle. Cheated by their brains. Cheated by insistence on thinking, day business and other faces and random ideas, which may have served some purpose for them, but which would invariably drive me straight out of what I was doing. Your fantasy is not mine. My fantasy is that you shut down your brain and concentrate on sensation. Why do you only think when it's inappropriate?

I straddle him and ease myself onto him, sliding over his erection slowly. The tight insertion, two sides at once. It overwhelms. This one will be quick - too quick. But fun. Up and down. He will not be any help. My penis is being caressed from all sides by heat. There is something inside me, pushing out and expanding into my body. I don't want to come. I mean, I don't want him to come. I'm not ready yet. I stop, still mounted, and play with my clitoris, closing my eyes as it flushes happily with blood.

I stop when I know to stop, and lie forward onto him, my body against his, rubbing my clitoris on him roughly. I am thrusting deeper into myself each time I slide back and forth; as ever the combined sensation makes me want to scream. But I never do. He is sending agony. Some of it is from what he must be receiving from me. He wants to come so badly. I'm nearly ready. He will come when I do.

There are red waves crossing my vision as we both make a loud incoherent sound, remarkably the same although in different keys. I writhe in place, convulsing, for the briefest of moments a single person in two bodies. Then it's gone and I lie across him, dripping sweat onto his chest. They always pass out immediately. It's probably too much for them.

Slowly I slide up and off, grasping the last small bits of feedback. I cover him with sheets. I shower and dress without ceremony. I fold his pants and put them on a chair, leaving the room key on top, and exit, locking the door behind me as I go.

He won't remember the evening in the morning. I know. Susan never did. Not once.

- - -

On the street, it's still early. The temptation is there. I could get another hotel room. Instead I stop and get steaming, bitter coffee in a paper cup. The wind is up as usual, sweeping trash paper in circular whirls along the sidewalk so that it almost looks attractive if you don't stop to think what you're looking at. I walk down the street in no hurry, sipping.

Passing by, couples hand in hand, running off to their little assignations where they will fuck pointlessly while each thinks of other things. I'll never understand and I can never explain. It depresses me. I don't like this coffee.

That woman down by the next corner, the one trying to cross the street. She looks like Susan, at least from this angle. Fortunately she is too far away; her brain is lost in the noise. I don't want to know.

Susan. I had the idea that someone of the same sex would be more straightforward in bed, but she kept thinking things that I really didn't want to know. If there were another like me, I wonder constantly, would I get on better with that person? Or would it be the same?

I do wish sometimes that there were someone. I get tired of using lovers as mirrors. But you'll never understand.

There's no way you can understand.

2. Public Garden

Only the lunatics stroll through the gardens in January. All of the trees are deciduous there. The barren branches cast shadows on the frozen surface of the pond. The swan boats have long since been hidden away, and the swans themselves are indoors, in their heated winter quarters. Anyone who crosses the gardens does so in a hurry, getting from one side to the other as fast as possible.

Am I a lunatic? I can't dismiss the possibility.

A word of advice: If, one day, you begin to hear words that no one spoke, begin to imagine that unsaid things were actually said - if you find yourself responding to comments that people did not make, and frightening them in the process - if, in short, you wake up one morning and find you know what others are thinking, get out of the city immediately. Go to some remote place and be terribly lonely. Trust me.

There are six hundred thousand brains in this city, all churning at the same time. The thoughts echo up and down the streets, bouncing from wall to wall in the canyons created by the buildings. I obtained silence once in a small boat on the Charles, equidistant from both shores. Once on a zero-visibility day when no one else was in the lookout at the Hancock Tower. Once, one beautiful summer day, on a picnic at a harbor island. And every winter in the Public Garden.

I should leave this place. But I was born here; I'm trapped, it's the only home I can imagine. I've come back to the gardens so many times, to think and ask myself the same questions I've asked myself since high school.

A man passes by, his collar pulled up to brace against the wind. He needs a scarf. He notices me, despite his hurry. He likes the way I look, and because he likes it, he assumes I am unattainable - that I am spoken for, or that I would find him beneath my notice. One more pattern of their minds I have never understood. There are so many.

I never understood Susan. Not once. She was always so uncertain, always wondering if I really loved her, always worried that I'd leave, that I was losing interest. Ironic, given that finally it was her who left. She said it was like living with a statue.

Sometimes I think it must be horrible for them, not knowing, always wondering about everyone else. There are probably even people who would envy me. They can't see that while not knowing is horror, knowing is hell.

I thought about telling Susan. She was the only person I've considered telling since I was a child. But I looked at her head full of doubts and fears and realized she was no more trustworthy than the rest.

I wrote this when I was sixteen. It was the beginning of the end. The first time I knew for certain what the rest of my life would be like.

- - -

"I was different early.

"What I mean is, this was not one of those things where you don't learn you can do it until later in life, or where it doesn't start happening until puberty, or like that. I was this way from the beginning.

"My mother doesn't remember any real problems with me as a small child. In fact, she says I was a good kid. I was probably well-behaved because of it, now that I consider. I probably was picking up when she was pissed at me and how pissed exactly she was. If you catch that your mom's seriously thinking child abuse because of the mess you've made in your room, if you get a mental image of your butt being blistered, you clean up your act in a hurry.

"My mother was kind of a recluse then; she was still suffering from my dad's death, I guess. We didn't get out of the house very much. We lived on the insurance and I stayed out of school until the first grade. So I was, what, seven? before I found out that everybody else couldn't do it too.

"Little kids aren't stupid. When I found out nobody else got all the extra information I did, I shut up about it.

"I don't just pick up randomness. If you're thinking about income tax, I'll get your braindump on income tax, but I won't get, say, your riff on new car dealers or anything else.

"I didn't start out hating people. What was I going to compare it to? I got people the way they really are, so I never had an idea that things were supposed to be any different. People cheat and lie a lot. That's life as usual. The weird thing is when everybody pretends it's anything different, then they act all shocked when it's not.

"Most people don't think about actually having sex much unless it's a conversation about sex. I know, I know, you think about having sex all the time. Sure. But when you're thinking about having sex, that's usually all you're thinking about. When you're talking about something else, trying to concentrate on the job, and you're having sexy thoughts about the person you're talking to, usually you're undressing them or kissing them or something but you're not fucking them.

"So if you're in first grade and you see a bunch of teachers talking about classes or something, and one of them is picturing another without any clothes on while he talks, you don't exactly connect that with sex. You just figure it's normal. A lot of people do it all the time, even when they're not into that sexually. They just mentally undress everyone they speak to. They may not even know it.

"All I got from the other kids was mysteries. They thought about sex all the time, but they mostly just wanted to know what went on. I did too. I remember one boy who was always saying rude things to the girls - sex things, although I knew he didn't know what some of the words meant - and I told him he should talk, he didn't have any idea what girls had between their legs. Well, he didn't. He got really red and walked away.

"The next day he knew what girls had between their legs. I don't know who he asked. His parents? Maybe not.

"I had enough mental pictures to know what boys had and what girls had, but I don't think I connected that with the mysterious sex thing. For the longest time I thought sex was something people did with their mouths. I mean, you took a pee from down there; how was I to know it did two things? And everything else - what you ate and drank and the cold medicine you took in the winter when your nose ran - that all went in through the mouth. And I had seen people kiss. And gotten thoughts from people about kissing. Kissing seemed very important.

"When I was nearly done with elementary school - I think I was twelve - my mom started seeing men again. A decade to get over my dad; they must really have been in love. I wish I'd known him.

"I was a really responsible kid, like I said, so I usually got by without a babysitter. There was a woman next door who was always home and I knew how to call her if I got into trouble. I never got into trouble. I'd sit in my room and read. I didn't like TV much. With TV the writer couldn't tell you what the people were thinking.

"I had instructions to put myself to bed at a certain time, and one night I was in bed half asleep when my mom came in downstairs with someone else. There was a lot of 'sssh, don't wake her up,' but the house had thin walls and her bedroom was right next to mine.

"That was the night I first got a mental picture of what happens during sex. I was kinda disgusted, to tell you the truth. But for a few seconds, they didn't think anything. It was like their brains stopped. Nothing but - oh, I don't know. Happiness, I guess. Something I don't know how to describe.

"So I tried it. Not the next day, not the next week, but as soon as I could. It was great, of course. All of a sudden I couldn't hear his head, couldn't feel anything except what my body was doing, and what his was doing. I was both of us at the same time. It was great.

"He and I got together again the next week. But he wasn't concentrating at all! He was thinking about what his friends would think, now that he was having sex with the same girl twice. He was wondering what I thought of his body, whether I was really interested in it or just faking it. He was wondering if I was really enjoying myself, wondering if he seemed greedy, wondering if his dick was too small. I got up and put on my clothes and left.

"Every boy I've been with since then has been the same way. It's not fair! I finally find out what sex is and how good it can be and now I'll never get to have that much fun ever again."

- - -

The wind is making my legs numb. I need to go inside. Another man scurries past, not even giving me a glance. He's heading for the Ritz. He's meeting someone there. They'll go upstairs to her room and she will smile at him knowingly, as she uses one hand to unclip a garter from her expensive silk stocking. Eventually they will have ferocious sex, if his memories of previous trysts are to be trusted. Memory exaggerates.

I don't remember. I keep Susan and a few other faces. The bodies are never notable. The rest of them are lost. After their bout, they will shower. They will put on the same clothes, which they have carefully folded over the backs of chairs. I wish I kept more, but I think it's probably for the best that I don't. They will go downstairs and have high tea, their feet touching each other's gently, knowingly, beneath the table. I need to go home now.

I want to remember. But if I remembered, I would have to admit too many things. This dull ache, this frozen sensation, is not just from the weather.

I pass through the gates, turn the corner, and walk to the subway, wrapping my scarf over my frozen lips.

3. Massachusetts Avenue

He wondered that night (he told me later) why people thought getting drunk was such a bad thing. There must be something good in it, he considered as he moved unsteadily down the street, or why would people want to do it? People don't want to do unpleasant things, do they?

He realized, not for the first time, that he should get drunk more often. Despite the stumbling, he walked down the street with his head up and his back straight. He didn't care, for once, who was looking at him and whether they were whispering about him after he passed. He didn't care who thought he was sexy, who thought he was a freak. Usually this consumed a large chunk of his life. But for a short time, until the glow passed, he didn't care what anyone thought.

He had stopped in front of a local bar to read the strange sayings they liked to put on the chalkboards outside. He had stopped long enough to read and let the words dissolve in his brain, and as they percolated, he realized there were other things in his head as well. Things he didn't think.

Geez, how long is this bitch going to gab? Smile, look interested. Remember, if she goes home with you, you win. Crap. The things I put up with to get laid .... How in hell did I get here anyway? Where's all the GOOD snatch hiding?

He's not even bothering to look at me anymore. He just wants me to shut up and go home with him. I wish he'd come out and say it. What a bastard. I should just walk out of here right now .... Who am I kidding? .... He'll pull off my clothes, and grab my tits for a while, then try not to touch me while he bangs away, like I'm horrible .... Am I that bad? I'm a little overweight, I know, okay maybe more than a little ... but I'm not that bad. Not yet. God. I can't go home to that apartment again. Go home and talk to the cat, wait for someone to call ... I should walk out, I know I should ....

He ran down the street, not stopping until the foreign ideas left his head and he could separate himself again from the other people who had been there with him. He was panting and sweating. Maybe that's the bad thing, he thought. Is that why we shouldn't drink?

He decided that what he needed was another bourbon. Research.

That stretch of street is lined with small bars, some quiet and unpretentious, some loud and unpretentious, some very pretentious indeed. He entered the next one down without stopping for taxonomy.

I can't believe this, we're in public and she's giving me the same old shit. I support her, I work to pay her god-damned bills and she's never satisfied. So I get it on the side. So what? If she'd act halfway interested it wouldn't be a problem .... Christ, people are looking. That guy who just came in, he stopped in his tracks. I gotta go take a piss or something. I can't sit here like this.

Where's he going? He doesn't want people to see us fighting. Well, fine. I'm out of here. He can just take a taxi home. I figure I can get the things I need and be gone before he gets there. I'm not sleeping in that house tonight .... He can go cry to that slut he's been screwing. Wait 'til she gets tired of HIM.

God, my voice is shaking. I bet he knows. I'm sure he knows. I can't fuck this up. That body ... no, no, don't think about that body, you'll just make it worse. Be calm. You want to be desirable. Not one of these desperate older men. Like Joe, trying to look twenty-five with his hair falling out and his gut showing. I work out, damn it. There is nothing wrong with my body. I'm experienced! I bet he can tell. I'm not being calm enough.

Christ, old man, get on with it. I have other things to do tonight, yunno. Let's just go back to your house and you can drool on my body and fuck my ass ... if you can keep it up long enough ... then you fall asleep and I get your cash and maybe a gold card ... Hector says I owe him two grand, he's full of shit, but he'll cut off the stuff if I don't pay it ... what a bastard. What do you think you are, man, some kind of playboy? Just shut the fuck up and ask me home ... if I have to trick tonight after you I don't want it happening at four in the fucking morning ....

The voices from the third booth weren't voices. Pictures. Raw needs. Images of chasing something down into a dark place, something screaming ... hitting it ... hurting it ....

He doesn't know how long he stood there. He hadn't gotten more than a foot inside the door. He may have been screaming when he ran. He doesn't remember.

- - -

I had almost completely stopped the club hunts. I couldn't do it anymore. Every year it was a little worse. Every year they got shallower and more idiotic. I couldn't even get up the energy to drug them.

I wasn't in the bar to find sex; I was in the bar to drink. I hate drinking. But one morning I got up and went to the bathroom and threw up the pills from the night before; I spent the next two days in bed, unable to move my left arm or feel the skin on my head and face; every time I tried to move the world skidded. I couldn't take pills anymore after that. I was tired of my vibrator and it didn't drown out the voices well enough.

I was starting with my first vodka of the night, and he sat beside me. I almost didn't look - the whole point of the exercise is to not hear their brains, why make it difficult? But I had to know what he was going to attempt.

You tell them you're not interested, and they take it as a challenge. You tell them they're idiots and they call you names. You walk away and they follow you and try to hit you.

"I'm guessing you don't like men much, then," he said.

My God, I thought to myself, it had to be a good guess. He had to have been reading my face. This has happened before, and it's always been a good guess. It's nothing.

His eyes went wide.

I nodded. We stared for a while, absorbing. Seeing.

Finding out.

"I'm sorry," I said. I put a five-dollar bill down for the vodka I hadn't drunk, and walked out.

- - -

He found me three days later. In another of the neighborhood bars. I didn't ask how. My orbit was simple. He could have just asked all the bartenders.

"You are very messed up," he said.

"Go away."

"Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"If you don't leave I will."

"I'll find you again."

"Leave me alone. I'm not like you ...."

"I'm just trying to make things better."

"They're not worth it," I said. "Look at 'em. If the world ended today ...." I finished the vodka and gestured for another. "Not a bad idea, heh, make everyone like us ... total destruction in a week, tops .... Give what's left back to the plankton ...." I grabbed the bar, suddenly dizzy.

"I bet you don't think that when you're sober."

"I'm meaner when I'm sober. Goodbye." I tried to stand up. It didn't quite work. I supported myself against the barstool and got upright.

"You're not going to make it home by yourself," he said.

"Don't even think about it. Ha! Don't even think .... Try the vodka."

He followed me out anyway. We got to my apartment and I fell on the bed, in no condition to undress. He watched me. "You're still here 'n I wake up," I mumbled, "I'm 'na have to kill you ...."

- - -

He was still there when I woke up. At noon the next day. "You're a bigger fool than I thought," I said, rubbing my temples.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I slept on the sofa. I wanted to make sure you were okay. You were really drunk."

"I've been drunker," I said. "And I always make it home just fine by myself. Don't get chivalrous on me. I can read your mind."

He had the nerve to smile. "And?"

"And I am not interested in your line of work. I'm not interested in you. I'm not interested in anything you have to say. And I don't want to see you again. Aren't there other neighborhoods you can play in? I hear New York has a lot of deranged people."

He sighed. "You've been like this so much longer than I have. Haven't you ever wished for someone to share it with? Someone else who was the same way?"

I sat down. "Tell me about when it first happened. Was it pleasant?"

"Hell, no." He told me the story I've told you.

"It doesn't get better," I said. "You think you're enjoying it. You think you're making good use of it. You're wrong. There is no good use for it.

"When I was twenty, I read a man who murdered little girls. Five and six years old. He'd prowl around kindergarten playgrounds. He didn't have psychoses; he didn't have anything wrong with his brain chemistry. He was completely sane. He killed them because he liked it. He liked to hear them cry for their mothers. He liked to hear them scream. He especially liked it when they were screaming at the very end, so he could listen to it turn into a choking gurgle as he cut their throats. Then he'd hang them upside down for a while and bleed them like deer he'd shot -"

"Stop."

"Oh, no, I can't stop. Can't turn it off when you need to, that's the problem. Better listen now; you'll want to be ready. I wanted to kill that man. I passed him on the street, that was all; pure chance. I wanted to leap on him and claw at his face, tear at him, bite him like an animal. That was what the man did to me. And I couldn't. All anyone would see was a crazy woman commiting battery. I couldn't tell anyone he was a murderer. They'd have locked me up if they bothered to go that far.

"I had to walk past that man, walk past him and continue down the street. I didn't stop walking until I was three blocks away. I was scared that if I stopped walking, I'd turn around and run after him and throw myself onto his back. When I stopped, my mouth was bleeding. I'd bitten through my lower lip. The palms of my hands were bleeding from where I'd pressed my fingernails into them .... Get out."

"What?"

"Get out. Now. Or I call the police and say I have a burglar."

"But -"

"What, you thought we were getting all revelatory and cozy? Example's over. I am not going to talk to you again. Get out."

It took me an hour to stop shaking after he left. Twice I went to the cabinet and reached for the vodka bottle. But I couldn't do it. There was some possibility I'd dream.

I hadn't opened that box in nearly twenty years.

- - -

I have a new hobby now. I go to clubs where people take a particular drug. Its name keeps changing; I can't keep up. It was Ecstasy once. I hate the music, but the minds are great. They can't make complete thoughts at all. They just drift around in a haze. It's wonderful. It's like the feedback I used to get from sex, only a lot more people are doing it at once. Sometimes it overwhelms me and I just have to sit in a corner and giggle. Sometimes I take it myself, but then I only get my own bliss, not everyone else's.

I hear it may cause memory loss. That made me laugh - is it supposed to be a bad thing? If they had a drug that gave complete amnesia, I'd be first in line.

One day I'll have some bad experience in one of these clubs, or the drug will have its day and vanish ... and that'll ruin this for me too, just like everything else. But I'll enjoy it until then. It's the best I've got.

I think about him sometimes. He really did think we belonged together, just because of that. I could see it. He thought so from the beginning. He was wrong about so much. So wrong.

I hope he's surviving, wherever he is.

Copyright © August 2000. Do not distribute or reproduce.