“Thick as a python allegedly,” Angie said.

“It’s not the size of the wand—”

“Keep telling yourself that, Patrick—maybe one day you’ll believe it.”

The two women and their boy-toy then moved on to TT the Bear’s Place in Central Square, where Lauren and her band played like tone-deaf Hole wannabes. After the show, Jason took a ride home with Lauren. They went into her room, lit incense, and fucked like sea otters to old Patty Smith CDs until shortly before dawn.

On the second night, in a bar on North Harvard, I bumped into him as I was coming out of the bathroom. I had my eyes on the crowd, trying to spot Angie, and I didn’t even notice Jason until my chest hit his shoulder.

“Looking for someone?”

“What?” I said.

His eyes were full of mischief, but without malice, and shone a bright green in the light shafting from the stage.

“I said, ‘Are you looking for someone?’” He lit a cigarette, drew it from his mouth with the same fingers that held his scotch glass.

“My girlfriend,” I said. “Sorry I bumped you.”

“No problem,” he said, shouting a bit over the band’s tepid guitar riffs. “You looked a little lost is all. Good luck.”

“What’s that?”

“Good luck,” he shouted into my ear. “Finding your girl or whatever.”

“Thanks.”

I cut into the crowd as he turned back to Jade, said something in her ear that made her laugh.

“At first it was fun,” Angie said on our fourth day.

“Which?”

“The voyeurism.”

“Don’t knock voyeurism. American culture wouldn’t exist without it.”

“I’m not,” she said. “But it’s getting kind of, well, sodden watching this kid fuck everything that isn’t nailed down. You know?”

I nodded.

“They seem lonely.”

“Who?” I said.

“All of them. Jason, Gabrielle, Jade, Lauren.”

“Lonely. Hmm. Well, they seem to be doing a good job hiding it from the rest of the world.”

“So did you for a long time, Patrick. So did you.”

“Ouch,” I said.

The end of the fourth day, we split the duties. For a kid who packed so many women and so many bars into his day, Jason was very structured. You could predict, almost to the minute, where he’d be at any given moment. That night, I went home, and Angie watched his dorm room.

She called while I was cooking dinner to tell me that Jason seemed to have settled in for the night with Gabrielle in his own room. Angie was going to grab a cat-nap and walk him to class in the morning.

After dinner, I sat on my porch and looked out the avenue as night deepened and chilled. It wasn’t minor lessening in warmth, either. It was a total plummet. The moon burned like a slice of dry ice and the air smelled the way it does after an evening high-school football game. A stiff breeze swept the avenue, bit its way through the trees, nibbled at the dry edges of leaves.