We all look at him again, expecting resistance.

“Ok,” he says.

* * * *

Girlfriend and I took a trip to Alcatraz last month. The first thing you have to know about Alcatraz is that it’s really fucking cold. There is a reason all the stupid tourists are waddling around Fisherman’s Wharf in big, goofy San Francisco sweatshirts, because when they were chilling out in Iowa, or wherever they’re from, they were like, yeah, it’s California, it’ll be warm, like shorts weather, and then they learn that they made a big fucking mistake.

Alcatraz is pretty fucking cool, though. You can put these headset things on and tool around throughout the prison and listen to a recording that has interviews with inmates on it, their real voices. So that’s what girlfriend and I did. We were all lovey-dovey kissy-huggy on the ferry ride out, but once we got there, and I started listening to this guy on the headset thing talk about how he could smell perfume from across the bay, then I was all about business, not holding her hand anymore, and instead going in and out of prison cells, looking at shit. Crazy shit, Alcatraz. Though upon reflection, it was a pretty small prison, you have to figure all the prisoners knew each other. Like a family almost.

Back to snuggly snuggly on the ferry ride home. I was yapping on and on about the guy who could smell perfume across the bay, because that’s what I’m like, I can smell perfume three blocks away and it really gets me raging.

“All that guy wanted to do was to see a girl, and he couldn’t.”

“He must have spent a lot of time roughing up the suspect,” she says.

I bust out laughing. “Look at you!”

“What,” she says, feigning innocence, “it’s what you say all the time.”

“Yeah, except I don’t need to do it.” I nuzzle her forehead.

“Very sweet,” she says, but her mood changes abruptly. “What do you want to do?”

“Heavy petting, mutual masturbation.”

“No, I mean, with the rest of your life.”

“This sounds like a conversation I don’t want to have.”

“Ha.” She blinks at me. “Seriously, are you going to be in a trading floor dogpile forever?”

“Whoa, I just started working down there. What gives?”

“It’s not a career.”

“Of course it’s not a career. You take the money and run.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know, I’ll figure it out.”

She gives me the no, no, no head shake. “I’ve seen what happens to these guys. They either blow up or they make money and the money blows them up. I don’t want to see it happen to you.”

“Well, what do you want to do, Mrs. Administrative Assistant?”

“I want to go to business school.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, I’ve applied to three.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know, I’ll figure it out.”

We smile.

She touches my head. “Do you love me?”

I have gotten this question before. “Of course I love you.”