I move to sit in the green chair. I smoke and watch her read for a while. It’s peaceful but weird, and I realize I’m unaccustomed to peace. Jude and I are rarely so quiet together.

What are you reading?

The Lover, she says. Margurite Duras. Have you read it?

No.

It’s pretty sexy, she says. And depressing. But it reads like film.

What’s it about?

She stares at me and I wonder if she suspects the truth, that I’ve seen the movie twice and, for perverse reasons of my own, don’t want to admit it. Molly smiles and before she can tell me what the book is about, I commence to babble at her.

It’s about obsession, I say. It’s about a French girl living in the Philippines. She wears a man’s fedora, which probably has to do with the fact that her father is dead or missing from the scene. I don’t remember which. Her mother is crazy and her brother is crazy and they have no money. Then she meets a very wealthy Chinese man and becomes his child lover and pretty soon she’s extracting money from him.

You’ve seen the movie, she says.

Yeah.

Why did you pretend to know nothing about it?

Because there’s something wrong with me.

Molly kneels on the bed, eyes bright. Her shirt hangs open as a promise. Throat and collarbone exposed. Her nipples are shadows behind pale camisole and I wonder what her hair smells like, what her skin tastes like.

You didn’t say a word about love, she says.

What about it?

Do you think she loved him, the Chinaman?

No. I think she loved the sex. She loved being the object of desire. But then, I haven’t read the book. I may be ignorant.

Are you in love with Jude?

Whoa.

I’m sorry, she says. Too personal?

No. But kind of sudden.

I’m sorry, she says. Anyway. Are you?

Fuck. You’re one of those people, I say.

I light another cigarette, still jumpy from that coke. Molly seems serene, though.

Which people? she says.

The relentless question people.

I’m just curious. And I think it’s relevant to the project.

Okay, then. I don’t know.

Why?

Jude and I have been apart for too long, I say. And when we were together, we went through some hairy shit, old-fashioned psycho-ward shit. And I don’t think we trusted each other, which is a problem. The sex was good, is good, but it has a lot more to do with domination and pain than actual tenderness.

You believe, though. You believe in love.

I have to believe in something.

Molly shrugs. Good answer.

Thanks, I say. I want to brush my teeth.

Okay, she says. There’s a spare toothbrush on the sink. Or you can use mine, the blue one. And there’s Valium in the medicine cabinet if you want it.

Valium, yes. I could use some of that.

She nods. You look a little…uneasy.

What about you, I say. Do you love Miller?

Molly sinks onto the bed, gazes up at the ceiling. He doesn’t love me, she says. He never loved me.

That isn’t what I asked you.

No, she says.

I wait for her to finish the thought but there’s no more coming. Her eyes are closed tight but she’s staring hard at something unseen.

I get up and walk through the silver wings. I lean on the sink with both hands and give myself a good long stare. I just wish I had a reliable smile. The sort of smile that flashes out of reflex, the smile that puts other humans at ease. I work on it for a minute but it’s just no good. I still look like Travis Bickle when I smile. I look like a young Robert De Niro with a bellyful of maggots and a ticklish hair up his ass. Best not to smile at all. But it will come in handy when I want to become Joe Blow and I might as well take care of my teeth. On the edge of the sink is a toothbrush still in the package. The kind the dentist gives you after he’s done fucking up your day. I flick at it with my finger and it spins slowly. Then I reach for the blue one in the pewter cup. Molly’s toothbrush, still wet. I have a feeling we’re going to be intimate.

When I come out of the bathroom the room is dark but for a guttering candle. Molly is tucked beneath the covers, shadowy and feline. I hesitate. This is a peculiar situation. I am about to crawl into bed with a woman I don’t really know. And yeah. I have done that before, numerous times. But I was typically a lot more fucked up on those occasions and there was a different energy in those rooms, with those nameless and faceless women. There was that underlying vibe of desperation and self-destruction, that slow aching psychological suicide by a thousand cuts that comes with meaningless sex. But I feel none of that now. Molly is just another human, with warm blood and fragile skin and a skull filled with her own angels and insects and childhood shadows. She wants nothing from me but kindness. I take off my clothes and blow out the candle, then creep into bed next to her.

She sleeps with her back to me. I move close enough to smell her hair but not close enough to poke her with my erection. Because that would be rude, I think. Molly wears a long white nightgown, silk with thin spaghetti straps. Her hair smells like the wind when there’s a storm coming. Her shoulders are pale and smooth as eggshells. She sighs, or growls. Then moves close to me. Molly presses herself against me and I realize that she wants to spoon, which seems bizarre to me, freakish.

But I know good and well who’s the freak in this bed. I’m just not used to this sort of thing. I can adjust, though. I tuck my penis out of the way so that it presses innocently against her thigh, then slip an arm under her neck and without really thinking about it, I find myself holding one of her breasts in my hand. As if someone just handed me a ripe melon and said with a sly smile, are you hungry old boy? I move my hand away and tell myself not to grope or fondle her again. I position my arms so that one hand is flat against her stomach and the other is resting on her shoulder. Molly is smaller, softer than Jude. Her bones are arranged differently and somehow her body is a better fit against mine. This feels absurdly good and it occurs to me that it is easier to find someone on this planet you want to fuck than someone you might really want to sleep next to.

In a city like San Francisco, you can throw a rock out your front door and hit someone with a nice ass and pretty brown eyes. But to find someone you want to fall asleep with, someone you want to breathe and dream next to, is terribly rare.

I kiss her softly on the back of the neck, just once. Good night, Molly.

I wear yellow gloves, yellow gloves stained with blood. I’m in a motel room with bright orange carpet the color of dull fire under plastic sheets. There’s a single naked light bulb above casting shadows like manic fingers. The bed is stripped of linens and covered in thick plastic. A tall pale handsome white man, early forties, is handcuffed to the bed. Jude stands over him and in this particular dream, her name is Jesse Redd. She wears a white raincoat, sprayed with blood, and holds an electric bone saw in gloved hands. I stand across from her holding bucket and sponge. Jude takes a breath, then resumes the task of hacking off this pale man’s left hand just above the wrist. I look at the man’s face, twisted and white with endorphins and sheer masochistic joy. He looks like a Heisman quarterback gone gray and this man is not a victim, but a client. He is paying us twenty-five thousand American dollars for this service. He has a profound amputee fetish, and he wants to become one. The handcuffs were his idea and he declined the use of ether. Jude is a field surgeon but this work requires very little skill. It requires steady hands and a belly of stone, which I lack. The one time I tried to wield the saw, I threw up a muddy puddle of beans and rice and tequila and I’ve been relegated to sponge duty since then.