twelve.

LONG SHADOW OF A NAKED WOMAN becoming man with green skin. The velvet surrounds us, keeps us. Two bodies in the dark. The only light comes from television and bathroom in fever pitch of dream and mirrors. Otherwise dark. I separate from her in dreams and go belowground to hunt blind silverfish, bony creatures that are more frog than fish but taste of spider. Other travelers pass me in the dark and I offer to trade my silverfish if they can answer a riddle.

What is the shadow with green skin that is not man, not woman?

The mind wanders, as it will.

At one point, there was a digital clock in this room. It gave off fine green numbers that floated in the dark like fireflies until the clock met with a sudden misfortune. Jude took it apart in a cocaine fury several hours or days ago and now there are bits and pieces of clock in the bed and on the floor, plastic bread crumbs scattered for terrible birds. Because it was humming, she said. Humming. The internal clock says this is morning and backs it up with the big morning penis that comes out of nowhere, wandering and discontent. The penis that wants a piece of chocolate cake and won’t be fucked with.

Jude is asleep, however. Or pretending to be.

I grope through the tangle of sheets and find under my pillow a small tube of Astroglide, a substance originally designed for the slippery purpose of getting astronauts in and out of their spacesuits. To my mind, space travel is an accurate but ultimately gruesome metaphor for fucking. There is no air pressure in space, no gravity. For one breathless moment you are a feather in the void and the brain is on holiday. The dead weight of soul and ego are cast adrift and you are nothing but blood. Then you achieve orgasm. You notice the tiny hole in your spacesuit and now your guts are spilling out of your ears like pudding.

Curious George, I say. It all goes back to the man in the yellow hat.

Jude pushes two fingers into my mouth and tells me to shut up. Her fingers taste of salt. I nibble at them and the bed heaves and she is on her feet, breathing like a fighter. The shadow bends, as if to kiss me. Her hands find my throat and I tell myself not to fight and abruptly she kisses me. The taste of her mouth is like chewing on rose petals sweet with mint, with poison and I want to kiss her again but she dodges away and now one of her hands slithers over my ribs and across my belly and down. I try not to think of monkeys and in another minute I’m inside her.

Arms and legs thrashing. The hammer of blood and so on.

It’s okay, she says. I’m right here.

But I can’t see you.

Violence and whispered apologies. Detachment of self. The eyes wander and drift, as if searching for something never seen, something that hides in the dark under bone.

What’s wrong with my eyes?

Hush, she says. Nothing is wrong with your eyes.

How long? I say.

How long what? she says.

How long have we been crashing around in the dark.

Two days, she says. Maybe three.

Jude and I have returned effortlessly to form. Immediately after I evicted Jeremy from the room, Jude broke out a large quantity of the excellent pink cocaine. Together, we snorted enough of it to kill a small horse. My face was completely numb. Jude picked up the phone and called John Ransom Miller. She told him that we needed some time to get reacquainted. She also told him I needed time to get into character, which made me laugh like a goddamn crazy person. Then she hung up the phone and turned off the lights, one by one. She told me to take off my clothes.

The skin between us is destroyed, unrecognized. Dead and dying tissue between us. Visible wounds that move from one to the other and back. There’s a nasty gash down my right shoulder in the shape of California but backwards, gouged by Jude with a corkscrew. The wound is much worse than she intended. Oozing and slow to heal and soon it will be impossible to lift my arm. And perhaps was not Jude at all. Perhaps was inflicted on self. I remember how awkward the cut had been to make, how unlike the cut of a knife. The flesh unyielding, slow to give. And it happened not long ago because an echo of the pain lingers in my arm now even though the skin appears to be smooth and good as new, the wound is gone without trace but this is not possible and I worry for Jude, I worry for the body that moves with me now as if through water. I have mistaken her breathing for my own and it seems that she pushes me along even as I push at her and I have the idea that neither of us can swim and if one us fails to push then both will drown. I am aware too that I should stop thinking, that conscious thought will surely fuck things up between us but I am worried about her shoulder, I want to examine her shoulder for a wound in the shape of California and already I am losing her and now she swims ahead and it appears that if anyone is going to drown it will be me.

Arms and legs thrashing. The hammer of blood.

I’m coming, says Jude.

And holds her breath. Orgasm is brief, nonviolent.

What color? I say.

Devastating blue, she says. The pale blue eyes of a murdered boy.

Very nice.

You remembered, she says.

Jude comes in colors. How could I forget. Trembling blond orgasms that seem to piss her off and rare pink orgasms that never end. Chemical red orgasms that fill her with guilt and perfect orgasms black as fresh earth. Orgasms shadowy and gray that may or may not cause her to weep and orgasms the color of bruised skin, orgasms that fade from purple to yellow and remain visible for days.

I want to turn on the lights.

Please, she says. I prefer the dark.

But the dark is making me insane.

You’re not insane, she says.

Thanks, I say. How do you know?

Because insane people never think they are insane.

I’m tired, Jude. I’m tired of sitting in the dark.

You remind me of Pinocchio, she says.

Before or after he became a real boy? I say.

Did you hate your father? she says.

No, I say. I don’t think so.

Jude blows air through her teeth. Then it was your mother who fucked you up.

Fuck you. What’s this bullshit about Pinocchio?

I think it’s obvious, she says. He hated his father.

That’s nonsense.

One of her hands slips into my lap, cold. I flinch and she laughs.

I could eat you, she says. Truly. I could eat your skin from the bone.

Geppetto wouldn’t hurt a mouse and the boy adored him.

Whatever, she says. Pinocchio was a freak. He was the little wooden Elephant Man and he would never have existed if the old man hadn’t carved him. Gepetto was like any other punchdrunk god who thinks he’s doing you a favor and then just completely shits on you.

Then silence.

Which is it? I say. Pinocchio or the Elephant Man.

Jude shrugs. Both.

Well. I can see the Pinocchio bit, I say. The donkey’s head, for instance. And his problem with telling the truth. The Elephant Man, though. He was a sweetheart. Hideous to look at and you wouldn’t want to touch him, but he was probably a nicer guy than me.

Who do you think of? she says. When you fuck me?

I close my eyes and try to think of a normal, well-adjusted response. My mind does tend to wander during sex. I suffer strange, inappropriate visions. I often think of Jenny, a neurotic border collie I used to have. Jenny had wings. That dog could catch a Frisbee no matter how high or far I threw it. The trouble with Jenny was that she would never give the Frisbee back unless I threatened her. Jenny would run from me, she would hide in a patch of tall grass and chew and suck at the Frisbee in a way that was manic and eerily sexual. And she could destroy a good Frisbee in five minutes.

Do you see whores from your past? says Jude. Pale pubescent girls? Waitresses with bad skin or small hairless men?