whole time although my interest comes and goes, at some
point the boy takes o ff the shirt and I’m wondering who he is
and w hy he’s here, and I don’t have to w orry about her
sentimentality because the boy isn’t seeking variety and he
don’t want to watch, this is a boy who wants to fuck and he
moves good but he’s boring as hell, the same, the same, and
when the pain hits me I am pretty sure I am really going to die,
that the clot is loose in my blood somewhere and it’s going to
go to m y brain, and I’m trying to think this is real glorious,
dying with some Olympian fuck, but the pain is some vicious,
choked up tangle o f blades in my gut, and I try to
choreograph the pain to his fuck, and I try to rest when he’s
not in me, and I am praying he will stop, and I am at the same
time trying to savor every second o f m y last minutes on earth,
or last hours as it turns out, but intellectual honesty forced me
to acknowledge I was bored, I was spending m y last time
bored to death, I could have been a housewife after all; and the
light comes up and I think, well, dawn will surely stop him;
but he fucks well into daylight, it’s bright morning now with a
disagreeably bright sun, profoundly intrusive, and suddenly
there’s a spasm, thank the Lord, and the boy is spent, it’s the
seventh day and this man who fucks must rest. And I thank
God. I do. I say, thank you, Lord. I say, I owe Y ou one. I say, I
appear still to be alive, I know I was doing something
proscribed and maybe I shouldn’t address Y ou before he even
moves o ff me but I am grateful to Y ou for stopping him, for
making him tired, for wearing him out, for creating him in
Y our image so that, eventually, he had to rest. I can’t move
because m y insides are messed up. M y incision is burning as if
there are lighted coals there and I’m afraid to see i f it is open or
i f it will bleed now and m y shoulder has stones crushed into it
as i f some demolition team was crushing granite, reflexive
pain from some dead spot, I don’t know where, and I truly
think I might not ever move again and I truly think I might
have opened up and I truly think I might still die; and I want to
be alone; die alone or bleed alone or endure the pain alone; and
I’m lying there thinking they will go now when the girl starts
pawing me and says stupid, nice things and starts being all
lovey dovey like w e ’re both Gidget and she wants now to have
the experience, if you will, o f making love with a wom an; this
is in the too-little-too-late category at best; and I am fairly
outraged and astonished because I hurt so much and m y little
sister in sensitivity thinks we should start dating. So I tell them
to go; and she says but he doesn’t like me better, m aybe he
needs you to be there— needs you, can you imagine— and I’m
trying to figure out what it has to do with him, w hy it’s what
