“It’s gotten so boring that I appreciate that Todd bends me over, so we don’t have to look at each other when we fuck, so I can fantasize about someone else in peace.”

“You could just close your eyes,” I said.

“He complains when I do that. He asks where I am. I want to tell him, I’m spread out underneath you, but I know you’re just thinking about some online cam girl.”

“Better than someone in real life, no?”

I let her continue while I smiled at the bartender, whom I had become friendly with since moving to the neighborhood, and worried he was judging me for this conversation. She was getting louder and talking more animatedly about dicks, but happy hour wasn’t over. I hoped she hadn’t driven herself here.

I capped myself at four glasses of wine, which she paid for. After we hugged, I walked home, one foot in front of the other, and told myself I should avoid probing e-mails from now on. She would not leave her husband, because I had not made a compelling case for giving up all the accessories to her life, and all the forward momentum that came with being a married couple. She did not pity me, but she did not envy me strongly enough, either. She said she would probably be getting pregnant soon, and I knew I’d never see her again after that.

Instead of going out on more of these humiliating meet-ups, I focused on the following: online shopping for housewares, most of which never left my shopping cart; spending more time at the wine store and developing crushes on the wine-store employees, who I believed were emotionally invested in my having a good time; telling myself I had to leave my apartment at least once a day, and then doing so—either to take a walk for a minimum of forty-five minutes to breathe fresh air and look at the sky, or to go to Ralphs, where I would wander the aisles staring at food I no longer had any appetite for. I filled my refrigerator full of food that would inevitably need to be thrown away a week or two later, while wondering how many times was too many times to go to the wine store. I had taken to going once a week to collect an assortment of under-ten-dollar bottles of wine to bring home, usually capped at six. I was too embarrassed to make an unfortunate second trip later in the week, when my empty bottles filled the trash. I also worried what would happen when my weed pen ran out. Bobby had bought me one with 250 hits in it and I had lost count of how many I had actually taken. I worried every hit would be my last, and I couldn’t afford to get another. I started a complicated system for rationing all my substances.