trailers and dilapidated houses owned by men who often
seemed more interested in the way my mom cooked and
kept house than anything else about her. There had never
been enough of anything, but especialy hot water for
showers.
In the best of them, I'd been able to sneak a late-night
shower when nobody else needed to use the bathroom,
the washing machine wasn't running and nobody was
cleaning dishes. In the worst of them, I'd sought the
shower as a refuge from the shouting and the slamming
doors, shivering under spray that turned frigid long before I
was ready to get out.
I worked hard and sacrificed much to afford the smalest
I worked hard and sacrificed much to afford the smalest
unit and cheapest maintenance package in one of
Harrisburg's hottest new apartment buildings. Unlimited
hot water might be wasteful, and I didn't care. I took
advantage of it every chance I could.
By the time I came out dressed in a pair of stretched-out
fleece pants and a T-shirt that had been threadbare when I
stole it from Austin's drawer, I felt better. I fixed myself a
sandwich and a glass of cold milk, and I set it on the table.
The note was stil there.
It slid into my hands as though it had been made for my
fingers. The same black letters stroked this paper with the
same black ink, and this time, with nobody to see, I
brought it to my nose and breathed in deep.
Fresh, good ink smels like nothing else in the world. I
closed my eyes and breathed again. The paper stil had a
scent, faintly musky like cologne or perfume I didn't
recognize. I sat to study it. Bold, heavy strokes of the pen
carved the number on the front. No envelope, no name, no
postmark to show where or when it had been mailed. Not
even a fingerprint smudge to give me an idea of the size of
the hand that had written it. The elegant handwriting
showed no gender.
showed no gender.
Without an envelope and stamp it couldn't have come
through the mail, which meant someone had pushed it
through the slot. The wrong slot, again. They'd taken the
time to write the number on the front, but hadn't paid
attention to the number on my mailbox. It wasn't a note for
me, and I should not have read it. If I hadn't, everything
would have been different.
If only I'd done the right thing.
Chapter 12
You wil take your finest paper and your best ink.
You wil write down in explicit detail your most erotic
experience. It may be real or it may be fantasy, but you
