I am a fantastic lover. I’ve got to give me that. There are only two things about me that females don’t like: the fact that I sing when I drive—admittedly, I’m not a musician—and my skiing. All the girls I know ski moguls well—really solid bump skiers—and I try to turn in the swells and lose my downhill line. I have thick hair, I’ve got a car that stinks from new leather. My skin, my body—that’s all decent. But I get ridiculed on bumps, and the way I sing gets mistaken for a joke or an imitation of someone dippy, when in fact your car is one of the few places besides the bathroom where you can sing the best songs the way they were meant to be sung. They all think my singing is terrible. Screw them. (I did.) You sing in the car because it feels good, you can’t help it, and because you know the fucking words. Everyone I’ve gone out with—it’s like a secret tradition they pass down from one to the next behind my back—laughs, then puts her hands over her ears, and after a while gets huffy or angry when I sing. I confess I’m not a professional, but I’m at least trying. You know, I wish I had some say in what traditions they pass from one girlfriend to the next.

What is it with me, though? I mean, I lie, I fuck whoever will let me, I can never remember the name of her best friend, and I hate to dance. I will, I do often, I volunteer, but it makes me sick, and I end up sweating too much. I come off with my shirt soaking, probably because I’m so out of shape. I attract a crowd of people who can’t believe how bad I am. Like the worse I act, the more they want to be around me.

By the time Louise and I left the party, the liquor had done things. I kept running into the curb on the way out of the parking garage. I went home and shut my eyes and tried to sleep, except there was this guy, the guy who looked like a chick, walking around the party in my mind. I watched him walk up to the bartender, I saw him reach into his front pocket to get money, and I saw how his round butt stuck out a little—somebody stop me—and I was horny, so horny I couldn’t believe it. I kept thinking about it and squeezing my legs together. Just his butt in his jeans. I’m like tingling. I actually wanted to whack off to him. See, in my mind he was sort of a woman, but—What do I want to say here?