“Wasn’t it?”

Of course not. The Green Goblin put a gun to my head and, finger on the trigger, marched me out of the house. He threatened to splatter my brains across the tile walls of that damn rest stop if I didn’t drop to my knees and take that stranger’s huge cock in my mouth. The King of Unpainted Furniture had set me up, paid the goddamn gremlin for the hit job, and, mission accomplished, booted me out on my ass. I had nothing to do with it.

“Do you think Alice was happy?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you think that?”

“She never said she was unhappy.”

“Has she tried to contact you?”

“She can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Curtis won’t let her.”

“How could he stop her?”

God, this priest can be obtuse. Curtis keeps the Green Goblin on retainer, a hired gun, muscle to enforce his will. Alice has been kidnapped, held against her will, chained in the basement, bound and gagged, threatened with starvation and dehydration if she even entertains the thought of attempting to contact me.

“You don’t understand,” I say.

“Do you?”

Maybe I don’t want to. Maybe I’m not ready to accept the possibility that Alice, my wife, doesn’t want to see or hear from me, not now, not just yet, maybe not ever.

“Have you considered the possibility she’s trying to move on?” he asks.

Move on, go forward, proceed, progress, advance…

Why not…go back, retreat?

No, no way, that sounds too much like a military maneuver in the face of defeat.

How about…repatriate?

Yes! Repatriate, reclaim, restore, rebuild.

Has he considered the possibility that she’s just called a time-out to consider her negotiating strategy, to finesse the conditions of the truce and draft the terms of the treaty?

I’ll sign it. Unconditional surrender. I’ll be the best goddamn fucking husband in history. As devoted as Winston to his Clementine, Ronnie to his Nancy, Edward to his Wallis.

One more chance. That’s all I’m asking for, Alice. I’ll be perfect, just wait and see.

“I would imagine she needs some distance to move on and she’s trying to help you do the same.”

“Isn’t that your fucking job?” I say, sounding more hostile than I feel, suspecting he’s placating me, sugarcoating the obvious fact that my wife hates me by deceiving me into thinking that her motives are altruistic, Saint Alice of the Little Flowers. Not that I need her help, or his for that matter, to move on. A raging success, a whopping triumph, a touchdown, a home run, no, a grand slam home run-how should I describe my remarkable achievements in the arts and sciences of relationships as I’ve scoured the lower forty-eight of Our Great Nation for Shelton/Murray over the past few months?

DATELINE: BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

He takes me by the hand and leads me to a king-sized mattress and box spring. Unfolded laundry is tossed everywhere, underwear on stacks of yellowing newspaper, unpaired socks in open dresser drawers. His desktop is cluttered with broken pencils, twisted paper clips, dry felt tips of every imaginable hue, junk mail circulars, cheap plastic pens chewed nearly beyond recognition, invitations for credit cards with 6% interest and forgotten utility bills. Sneakers, wingtips, loafers, sandals-all creased by sweat and worn at the heel-collect dust at the foot of the bed. The nightstand’s well stocked with a supply of lubricants and poppers and a pile of loose condoms he scooped up by the handful on his way out of the baths. The sheets are stained by his old enthusiasms. He makes love like he’s starved, as if it’s his first time, or his last.

Then he cums and shuts down in a flash.

“Should I leave?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says, a mocking smile on his lips, “I’m a real bitch in the morning.”

I break a shoelace, racing against the stopwatch.

“Got everything?” he asks. “Wallet? Gloves?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Meaning get out.

“I have no idea where I am.”

“Just ask the doorman to turn on the cab light. You’ll be back at your hotel in fifteen minutes.”

And then I’m out on the street, shivering in the cold New England night, waiting for a taxi that never comes.

DATELINE: CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

The bar is packed, shoulder to shoulder, but the bodies miraculously part, allowing him to rocket by, swept along by the winds whistling off the whitecaps of Lake Michigan. Just as he’s about to disappear into the sea of flannel and black lambswool, he snaps to attention. He’s picked up a scent. He grabs my elbow, peers into my face and says “hey.” “Hey,” I say back. He does a Popeye two step, mimicking my deep voice: “Hey.”

“I can’t believe this,” he laughs. “You’re too young for me.”

We determine that I am sixteen, almost seventeen, years older than him.

“See,” he says. “You’re way too young for me.”

“Are you wooing me, Rocket Boy?” I ask.

“Do you want to be wooed?”

More than he can ever know, for as long as he’s been on this earth.

Four, five, is it six?, beers later, he tells me what he is seeking. Someone he enjoys being around, someone sweet and sincere. Sweet and sincere…Here! I know he’s been waiting for me. Why don’t I wrap him in my arms, squeeze the air out of him, fold him in a neat square, tuck him in my pocket, and carry him away?

Our romance ends as abruptly as it started. He announces he has to work in the morning. It’s late. The alarm will go off soon enough. It’s only nine o’clock, I protest. I need a lot of sleep, he says. I walk him to his bus stop, saying nothing as he climbs the steps and drops his coins. I see his paw clearing a circle on the frosty window. He presses his face against the glass, searching me out. I step back so he can’t see me. The bus rumbles down the street, stealing a piece of me I can never retrieve. The exhaust pipe spits a black chunk of ice at me. It splatters on the street, missing my feet.

DATELINE: SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI

He opens his eyes and snuggles against me, getting as close as he possibly can. He’s purring, as coy as an irresistible and yielding French sex kitten. But cooing and mewing can’t eroticize his prissy turned-up nose and thin lips and the pinched squint that makes him look as if he’s sniffing a perpetual fart. It’s embarrassing, this performance, like being forced to watch a middle-aged maiden aunt do a striptease.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he gurgles, his pale eyelashes crusted with sleep.

He goes down on me, sucking like a Hoover, trying to get me hard one last time.

“Mmmmm,” he says, straddling my hips, his pencil stub of a cock at full attention. His little titties jiggle on his soft pink chest, reminding me of the piglet in Winnie-the-Pooh.

“In the mood to get fucked?” I ask.

“Always,” he murmurs.

Good. I want to drop this load quickly and get it over with.

“…but it’s quarter to eight and I need to shower,” he snaps as he jumps off the bed, leaving Little Andy at full salute and pointing at the ceiling.

What I’d give to wring his scrawny neck, wipe that smug little smirk off his face, shove him through the window, see him splatter on the sidewalk twenty-six floors below.

“She’s not coming back, Andy, and you know it.”

“I know that. She hates me.”

“I doubt that. But you’ve made it impossible. You realize it, don’t you.”

“I made a mistake.”

“You think it’s as simple as that? You made a mistake? One mistake? Which of the many was the fatal one?”

The one where I let her fall in love with me.

The one where I believed her love would save me.

Goddamn. Son of a bitch. Motherfuck.

The damn priest’s got me crying.

Not really crying. More like “a little misty,” red-eyed, maybe a little tight in the throat. Not sobbing, not snot-nosed and dripping. I do not need a tissue from the fucking box he’s shoved in my face.