She grins. “I like it on.” She places her hands on my chest.

“Well, like, f**k that. I want it off. Deal with it.”

“I’ll turn it off.” She does. “Is that better?”

We start kissing again. Now, what’s going to happen, I wonder. Who’s going to initiate the dreaded f**king? What would her parents say if they knew that this is all she does here? Write haiku on her Apple, drink vodka like some crazed alcoholic fish, screw constantly? Would they disown her? Would they give her more money? What?

“Oh baby,” she moans.

“You like this?” I whisper.

“No,” she moans again. “I want the lights on. I want to see you.”

“What? I don’t believe this.”

“I want to know what the f**k I’m doing,” she says.

“I don’t see how you can be confused,” I tell her.

“I’m into neon,” she says, but she doesn’t turn it back on. I push her head down.

She starts sucking my c**k again. I start to get her off with my hand. She gives decent head. I tell her “Wait-I’m gonna come…” She lifts her head. I go down on her, slowly, kiss her tits (which are sort of too big) and then past her stomach to her cunt, spread, swollen, three fingers easing into it, licking it at the same time. Bruce is singing about Johnny 69 or someone and then we’re f**king. And I come—spurt spurt—like bad poetry and then what? I hate this aspect of sex. It’s always someone wanting and someone giving but the giver and the wanter are hard to deal with. It’s hard to deal with even if it goes good. She hasn’t come, so I go down on her again and it tastes vaguely seedy and then … where do you go once you’ve come? Disillusionment strikes. I can’t stand doing this and I’m still hard so I start to f**k her again. She’s groaning now, humping up, down, up, and I put my hand over her mouth. She comes, licking my palm, snorting. It’s over.

“Susan?”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s the Kleenex?” I ask. “Do you have a towel or something?”

“Did you come yet?” she asks, confused, lying in the darkness.

I’m still in her and I say, “Oh yeah, well, I’m gonna come. In fact I’m coming now.” I moan a little, grunt authentically and then pull out. She tries to hold me, but I just ask for some Kleenex.

Susan says, “I don’t have any,” and then the voice cracks, she starts to cry.

“What? What’s wrong?” I ask, alarmed. “Wait. I told you I came.”

LAUREN Victor hasn’t called. I’ve changed my major. Poetry.

What do Franklin and I do? Well, we go to parties: Wet Wednesday, Thirsty Thursday, parties at The Graveyard, at End of the World, Friday night parties, pre-Saturday-night party parties, Sunday afternoon parties.

I try to quit smoking. Write letters to Victor in computer class that I never send. Franklin always seems to be broke. He wants to sell blood to get some cash, maybe buy some drugs maybe sell some drugs. I sell some clothes and old records in Commons one afternoon. We spend a lot of time in my room since I’ve got a double bed. I’ve stopped painting completely. Since Sara left (even though the abortion by her account wasn’t traumatic enough to excuse her absence) I watch her cat, Seymour. Franklin hates the cat. I do too, but tell him I like it. We hang out in the Sensory Deprivation Tank. Sometimes Judy and Freshman and me and Franklin go to the movies in town and no one cares. What is going on? I ask myself. We drink a lot of beer. The boy from L.A., still wearing shorts and sunglasses and nothing else, came on to me at one of the parties last week. I almost went home with him but Franklin intervened. Franklin is an idiot, really unintentionally hilarious. I have come to this conclusion, not by reading his writing, which is science fiction, which is “heavily influenced by astrology,” which is terrible, but by something I don’t understand. I tell him I like his stories, I tell him my sign and we discuss the importance of the stories but … I hate his goddamned incense and I don’t know why I’m doing this to myself, why I’m being such a masochist. Though of course it’s because of a certain handsome Horace Mann graduate who’s lost in Europe. I try to quit smoking.

(… no mail from Victor …)

But I like Franklin’s body and he’s good in bed and easy to have orgasms with. But it doesn’t feel good and when I try to fantasize about Victor, I can’t.

I go to computer class. I hate it but need the credit.

“Did I tell you I was strip-searched in Ireland?” Franklin will mention at lunch.