“Gideon.”
“Gideon. Didn’t he introduce you?”
“Go to sleep, Jadine.”
“I can’t. I’m tired, but not sleepy.”
“You’re agitated. Calm down.”
“You won’t bother me? I don’t want to wrestle.”
“I won’t bother you. I’ll just be here while you sleep, just like I said I would.”
“I’m not up to any fucking.”
“For somebody who’s not up to it, you sure bring it up a lot.”
“I know what’s going to happen. I’ll fall asleep and then I’ll feel something cold on my thigh.”
“Nothing cold is going to be on your thigh.”
“I just don’t want to fuck, that’s all.”
“I didn’t ask you to, did I? If I wanted to make love, I’d ask you.”
“I didn’t say make love, I said—”
“I know what you said.”
“You don’t like me to use that word, do you? Men.”
“Go to sleep. Nobody’s talking about fucking or making love but you.”
“Admit it. You don’t like me to say fuck.”
“No.”
“Hypocrite.”
Son thought he must have had this conversation two million times. It never varied, this dance. Except when you paid your money and there was no seduction involved. Free stuff was always a pain in the ass, and it annoyed him that this conversation should be taking place with this sponge-colored girl with mink eyes whom he was certain he could not live in the world without. He wished she would either fall asleep, throw him out or jump him. “Listen,” he said, “I’m not a hypocrite. Whatever you call it, I’m not doing it.”
“What do you call it?” Jadine turned over and lay on her back.
“I don’t call it anything. I don’t have the language for it.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t. It’s not love-making and it’s not fucking.”
“If it’s not making love, it’s because you don’t love me and you said at the beach that you did.”
“I said that because I don’t know how else to say it. If I had another way, I’d have used it. Whatever I want to do to you—that’s not it.”
“What do you want to do to me? I mean if you had the language what would you do?”
“I’d make you close your eyes,” he said, and when he didn’t add anything Jadine raised up on her elbows.
“Is that all?”
“Then I’d ask you what you saw.”
She lay back down. “I don’t see anything.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Not even the dark?”
“Oh, yes, that.”
“Is it all dark? Nothing else? No lights moving around? No stars? No moon?”
“No. Nothing. Just black.”
“Imagine something. Something that fits in the dark. Say the dark is the sky at night. Imagine something in it.”
“A star?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t. I can’t see it.”
“Okay. Don’t try to see it. Try to be it. Would you like to know what it’s like to be one? Be a star?”
“A movie star?”
“No, a star star. In the sky. Keep your eyes closed, think about what it feels like to be one.” He moved over to her and kissed her shoulder. “Imagine yourself in that dark, all alone in the sky at night. Nobody is around you. You are by yourself, just shining there. You know how a star is supposed to twinkle? We say twinkle because that is how it looks, but when a star feels itself, it’s not a twinkle, it’s more like a throb. Star throbs. Over and over and
