Do you see it now?
I do.
I’ll tell her.
Thank you.
Ok.
Fuck. This is just like a decade ago.
It was her then.
It was me, too. That was Edward standing there. The co-executioner.
Doesn’t seem a little strong, does it?
What if I asked her to forgive me?
Who? James?
Yes.
Sure, go right ahead then if you feel it’s right, but it’s your funeral.
What made you think I’d take you seriously?
I don’t know. Maybe just because-
Say no more. You’ve developed a conscience since grade school. How terribly grown up!
That might be it.
That’s great. Of course, I was only kidding.
Of course.
I think you’re better now.
She never let him touch her when she was going through them. But how much more achingingly, unusually beautiful she was.
Somehow those small though perfectly shaped breasts deeper into that shallow chest. Somehow the hollow of her stomach stretched. Somehow a painful grace seeped into her gait.
It hung on her like an illness. Those times. But even the nausea she expressed in those slow conversations had their intangible allure.
She never let him touch her. She always recanted, At least I’m not a bitch. And without fail, if just at the outset, he always thought, How wrong you are. How wrong you are.
How wrong he was. Without fail, it inevitably went beyond understanding to an agreement that made moot anything that could be said. At least not until the next time.
So when he awoke on mornings to watch as she approached naked from bathroom to bed, her hair dripping pale concentric circles upon the spread; moved her mouth but briefly to touch his winking brow and licked the hollow of his neck as if some other the bottom of the bowl, he would always moan. No, baby, no.
But she bent over him further and looked directly into his eyes, almost blinding him.
Yes, baby, yes.
Where she would then place a kiss on his lips so firm that it was only broken as her tongue lifted to wash away any lingering dilemma from his waning body.
If only I had the nerve, he thought. But he knew it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t let it.
Do you know what makes me happy? Well, part of it anyhow.
No. What?
How I make others happy even if I might not be myself.
Oh.
It makes me happy. Even if it’s not all the way. Some part of me, somewhere- Grins.
Have you read Nick Hornby?
Probably not. Who is he?
A british author. If judging by High Fidelity, David would probably say that he’s one of the more extreme victims, er, writers, of metafiction.
Ah. Wish I knew what that was. Metafiction.
Well, it’s- Never you mind. It’s really just that his main character makes mention of one of your favorite books.
Which one?
Kundera.
Oh.
Rob is trying to make show as if he isn’t just a one-track-minded tommy whose only diversion is maintaining a huge record collection of vintage pop music. Says he’s read books like the Unbearable Lightness of Being and Love in Time of Cholera. He thinks he understands them. They’re about girls, right?
Well, they are.
I know they are. There’s just something that I think is funny here.
Well, of course.
No, not the obvious; not that. Something else. Do you ever notice that most of the books written about girls are really rather good? At least in comparison to those written about men.
And most books written about girls are written by men whilst most books-
Hey, let me finish. I know all that. I was just trying to say- Have you read Paul Auster?
I can’t remember. I think I may have at one point. Why?
He said that books are born out of ignorance and if they go on living after they are written, it’s only to the degree that they can’t be understood.
I see. I get where you’re going now.
That books written about girls are so much better because their authors are so stumped by their subject that it waxes poetic?
Yes.
Do you want to know what I write about?
I was just going to ask that! So humor me.
Sometimes men. Probably because I’m genetically predisposed to such work considering my subspecies.
Ah. Yes? There’s a hint of going on.
But mostly girls.
When you said that you had heard of me on that intercom there, what did you mean?
Well just you in general I suppose. The usual best friend issues.
Oh.
And that she had proposed to you.
That too?
Yes.
Funny mess. It was.
You can really never tell with girls. Even with the good ones.
Yes, but you are wrong in one part.
Which?
You can really never tell with girls. Especially with the good ones.
I love you though you're horrible, she said.
Am I really that bad?
He was answered with a nod and laughter.
But it doesn't matter.
I know.
They paused and she asked, Where do you see us in twenty years?
Dead. Under a pile of rubble of a post-apocalyptic-
See! You are horrible!
But in each others arms.
Oh.
Where do you see us?
Apart.
