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Late night.

The only light comes, flickering blue, from the TV in the

corner. The sound's turned down low because it's not so

important to hear what's being said as it is to see what's

going on. I've seen this movie before, a few times, in

pieces, but it's the first time I've ever seen it al at once.

He lifts his head from kissing me when it comes on, his

hands stiling on my bely where they'd been wandering

their way up toward my breasts. 'Hot,' he murmurs. 'This their way up toward my breasts. 'Hot,' he murmurs. 'This movie is hot.'

I push his face back to mine and take his mouth to keep

his attention on me, not the TV screen. I open my mouth

and legs to him, puling him down on top of me. Puling him

close. My heart's open, too, though I haven't yet told him I

love him. Those are words for prom pictures and class

rings.

We don't have that, him and me. We have the backseat of

his car, we have the space beneath the bleachers after

school. We have the back row of the movie theater. We

have the basement in his parents' house and this couch.

But when I hear the song, the one my mom plays over and

over on those old mix tapes from her youth, I lift my head

from his kisses to see what's going on. I know why she

loved this song. She'd been a fan of Duran Duran in her

youth, complete with fedora hat and bleached-blond

streak in her hair, just like the bass player. John Taylor, the

same guy singing this song. Wel, not singing it. Chanting it,

sort of. I knew she loved this song because he sang it, but

until now, I hadn't known this was the movie it had come

from.

The woman on the screen bites her finger. The slide show

she's watching cycles through to another picture, but the

movie doesn't show what she's looking at. Only her. She

touches herself, her thighs opening, her head faling back in

ecstasy as she makes herself come.

He watches me watch. His hand presses flat on my chest,

over my heart. My breath had caught in my throat and I let

it seep out, slow and silent, not wanting him to know I'd

been holding it.

'Do you do that?'

I tear my gaze from the TV to look at him. 'What?'

He jerks his chin toward the set. The movie's moved on to

something else, but I know what he meant. 'That. Do

you?'

'Do I touch myself? Do I get myself off?' I hitch higher

against the arm of the battered couch his parents donated

to the basement. A cat had scratched it; a dog had lifted its

leg on it. We'd fucked about a thousand times on its faded

cushions, or maybe only ten.

He sits back. His shirt hangs open at his throat. I'd been