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Last night I dreamt about Emily again: that I started to follow her down a long, white corridor. She walked a few paces ahead, with me begging and screaming the whole time for her to turn around. No response. And then I realized that she
couldn’t hear my pleas because I suddenly—or maybe gradually or maybe always—had a circular shard of glass between my lips that prevented me from speaking. The hallway kept going, led nowhere. She walked faster and further away from me, though, and when she slipped around a corner I cried out and bit down and then heard a shrill popping
sound and then saw spots and kept blinking and blinking and blinking, and I couldn’t seem to focus and felt my arms flailing. My mouth went numb; blood and small pieces of broken glass covered my hands and speckled the white floor around me; and Emily was gone.
I wince a little bit and then dismiss the dream entirely while Marie takes a hit. She half-closes her eyes and inhales with short, measured breaths.
I ask, "Do you have any friends that you absolutely wouldn’t sleep with?"
"Um." She drags on the small joint wedged between her thumb and forefinger and then offers it to me. "What?"
"I mean," I say and then pause. "I don’t know. Forget it." I wave away the weed and instead remove a cigarette from behind my ear and set fire to it while she puffs again. Neither of us speaks; from the desk across the room faint, hollow music
creeps into the moment from my computer’s speakers.
She smiles a familiar smile. "Adam, are you asking me to fuck you?"
"In a roundabout way."
"I thought so."
"Right." I point to the roach. "Is that beat?"
She nods, exhales a thick cloud of sweet-smelling smoke, and stubs the joint out in the ashtray that sits on my couch.
"Actually," I say with a hint of seriousness, "I meant, like—do you have any friends whose sex lives are so disgraceful and debauched that you’d go so far as to warn others against sleeping with them? You know?"
"I don’t know. I think I’m really stoned. Do you have any coke left from the other night?"
"There’s never any coke left over. So no. But d’you know what I mean?"
"Kind of. Are you going anywhere with this?"
"Yes, yes. Good Christ. It’s nothing."
"A girl?"
"Well. Of course."
"A girl whose friends warned you not to fuck her?"
"More or less."
"She sounds classy. Let me know how this turns out."
"Well that’s the thing…"
"What is?" She lights a cigarette. "Are you shitting me about not having coke?" I don’t say anything, and she absently studies the small, thin silver cross hanging from a chain around her neck. After a minute or two, she looks up and asks,
"Who is she?"
"You don’t know her."
"I might."
"She’s a sophomore."
"Try me. First name?"
"Karen."
"Last name?"
"Harrison, I think? Something like that."
She laughs. "If you don’t know that much, then I probably don’t know her."
"She hangs out at Matt’s a lot."
"Nobody goes there anymore. And Matt! Everybody fucking hates Matt."
"I know. But anyway I met her there a few weeks ago and started hanging out with her and stuff, and since then a bunch of her friends have told me to watch out."
"For what? Wear a condom."
"Not like that. Well, kind of. She’s coming over here in a few hours, but she’s supposed to be…y’know, a player. Or whatever. I don’t know."
"A player!" A mask of feigned shock, and then a genuine eyeroll. "Just fuck her and be done with it." She snorts and mutters to herself, "a player; fucking wow, Adam."
"Right, right. But what if that’s her plan for me?"
"What if it is? Then you’re both on the same page."
"Not exactly."
"Why not?"
"Because I’m not cool with this shit if she’s conscious of the process as it’s happening. Like, how am I supposed to get off on using this girl if she’s getting off on using me?"
"You’ll figure it out." She shrugs and chews on her lower lip as her gaze wanders around the room. "There’s, like, a haze in here, Adam. Open a fucking window or something." I extinguish my cigarette, and she glares at me. "I bet you
have coke."
I offer an exaggerated sigh and a guilty smile. "I’m saving it for Karen." |