(He never left that damned tree during any of my meetings with him there. Not once. Just tossed my cure down to me.)

Sirin and Sybel were the only men I didn’t sleep with during that time—for, suddenly, I had dozens of lovers. I slept with more men than there were paintings on the walls of my gallery, my nights a blurred fantasy of probing tongues, stroking hands, and hard cocks. I slept, quite a few times under the stars, with Lawrence, with John, with James, with Robert, with Luke, with Michael, with George … and the list goes on without me, intertwined with the sound of drums and a line of dancers. About as interesting, in retrospect, as Sabon’s necklace. I’m sure Duncan rolled his eyes behind my back whenever I mentioned a new “boyfriend,” since the longevity of my boyfriends was akin to that of a mayfly. I can hardly remember their names. (Since I was actually paying attention during that period, I remember them. There was the painter James Mallock, whom you called “old hairy back”; and the sculptor Peter Greelin—too clutchy, you said; and the theater owner Thomas Strangell, who had trouble getting it up on opening nights; and so many more—“an endless parade of erotic follies,” as you used to typify it. In an odd sense, it didn’t bother me, Janice. At least you were enjoying yourself. I don’t know if you ever realized this, but before that you rarely seemed to enjoy yourself.)

I became addicted to anonymous sex, sex without love, sex as an act. I loved the feel of a man’s chest against my breasts, the quickening of his breath while inside me, the utterly sublime slide of skin against skin. Each encounter faded from memory more quickly than the last, so that I only became more ravenous. Before, I had been starving; now, I felt as if I could never be satiated.

In other words, I began, under the steady, orgasmic pressure of fame, to become someone totally different than I had been. Can I blame me? It felt marvelous. It felt so good I thought I would die from ecstasy. I was successful for the first time ever. For the first time ever, it was me, not Duncan, who commanded respect. If our father had been alive, he wouldn’t have ignored me—he couldn’t possibly have ignored me. (He never ignored you, Janice. No one ignored you. You just couldn’t see them looking at you, for some reason.)