…two weeks later i was suffering… i was beside myself with anguish a spanish boot clamped around my heart… no telling what was the cause and what merely the occasion but i fell head over heels for a girl a love that arose spontaneously unexpectedly and for absolutely no reason at all… my tower got hit my roof caved in i forgot my own name my own life and everything tied to them… on top of everything else i forgot punctuation… nothing left but dots in every line all standing in for the letter l… before me and inside me there was only her… everything else vanished beneath the rays of her gray eyes… i was broken and beheaded… another organ became my guide… i felt myself turning into an animal gripped by passion wanting only one thing only to possess her… maybe it was the vitamin-packed diet working on me… maybe if a chubby girl in glasses with a gap-toothed grin stretching ear to ear pimply skin and bandy little legs had stood in her place i’d have been dripping with the exact same want… maybe it was sperm pressing on the back of my skull and i was ready to plunge into any old female driftwood… i don’t know… i don’t know… i don’t know…
A hefty pillow came flying from her half of the room and rattled my skull.
Aha!
My musings had struck a nerve! She wasn’t indifferent to me!
I flung the pillow aside and — to hell with the whip! — rushed toward her.
She jumped up and started lashing my arms, shoulders, and back. Hellish pain sliced through my body, as if one, two… five… ten rods heated in hellfire had been pressed against it. Out of the corner of my eye I caught drops of blood flying past my shoulders. No matter!
I saw only her, only her gray eyes and the body fighting me off.
I saw, but I couldn’t manage it. She fought me off.
Spent, exhausted, whipped raw from every angle, drained of strength but not of desire, I collapsed… fell still. I still wanted to possess her, but only in my thoughts now. My body craved rest. Tears of helplessness welled up in my eyes. I think I hated her, just then.
— There, there, — she said suddenly, running her palm over my head. — Calm down, it’ll pass.
What was she talking about?
