She was in love. At night Karen stared out the window and imagined Patuk was standing behind her. During the day she sat in school and imagined he would be waiting for her in the bathroom; she’d glide quickly into the stall like an eel and he’d do it there. It. The thing she knew nothing about. How it felt. Despite her prodigious knowledge. Former knowledge, since her hormones had shrunk her brain. When Karen had a date with Patuk, she sat on her bed a full hour in advance and hoped not to pass out. Half an hour beforehand she stood in the entry hall of her building and tried not to lick the walls out of excitement. She stood in front of the building and tried to wait with absolute disinterest so it was possible to pull herself away from the door in the event Patuk didn’t show up. Which she assumed would happen. But. Patuk always showed up. In his car or his uncle’s car, who fucking cared, a car, and then they drove to Hollingworth Lake or to Manchester. If Karen were a girl who squealed, she would have constantly squealed: “He is so cute. OMG he is sooo cute.” And then she would have fanned herself excitedly with her hands. Karen did that on the inside. Inside she was flailing about with every appendage and had crossed eyes and was hyperventilating. Yep. She was, however, a little less delirious than at the start of her—attention: love. The drugs Patuk always carried with him—it was as if he’d stuffed the secret interior pockets of his sports jacket, which he never wore, full of all sorts of merchandise—disburdened Karen of her personhood. She happily accepted the proffered chemical helpers. Light drugs. Fun drugs. Pills. Coke. They were Karen’s salvation. They let her forget her astonishment at the volume of the sexual claims Patuk made, as well as his lack of complexity. The drugs that liberated her from her inhibitions. Finally she no longer had to be aware of herself stammering—she was the stammer. When she was high she could sit on the grass kissing Patuk and welcome his hand as it wandered into her pants.