I wanted to climb out of the bath, be closer to her. James wrapped me in a thick towel, rubbing it up and down my body. He picked me up and carried me into the next room. I fought against him, wriggling. I didn’t want to leave Lonnie, but when he put me down on the bed I found I hadn’t, she was already there, next to me.

THOUGH WE ALL KNEW WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN, IT WAS obvious very quickly she wasn’t having a good time. I was not far gone enough to ignore it. I took her hand and put it between my legs. Looking at her face, her precious frowning face, I expected her to pull it away. I expected her to say, “What are you doing?” But she didn’t. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t look at her hand even. She just stared ahead as if I weren’t in the room. I rubbed her hand against me. Her hand like a soft clay mold. The melting. The utter limpness of the thing.

How could I jolt her awake? How could I pull her into this moment? I stood on the bed, my legs shaky on the moving surface of the mattress. I pulled off my towel, conscious of the fact that I didn’t look sexy as I did so. I was incapable of a striptease, now, because of the drugs, but also probably always. Performance had nothing to do with the sex I had. I took what I wanted from my lovers without finesse, without worrying about them. The fact that they had wanted me back, each of them, with equal force, with equal disregard for erotic buildup, had been lucky.

I tried to make up for my gracelessness with speed, so as not to draw attention to it. I hurled the towel to the floor and collapsed again on the bed. James was behind me, touching my back and shucking his own pants off. I ignored him. I went for the hem of Lonnie’s dress, tugging it up. The skirt was short and she didn’t need to move for me to lift it. I manipulated her arms to take it off her head, like I was undressing a sleepy baby. Her breasts appeared, braless, starkly white compared to her browned chest and stomach. I thought about Carlow touching them, under her robe that first night I saw them together. I cupped one in my palm. “Do you like this?” I asked her.

She didn’t answer. I put her nipple into my mouth, flicked my tongue against the tip. It was dangerous, her lack of response. I could do anything I wanted to her.