There she goes, down a hallway that probably leads to the kitchen. This is a perfect moment. Do it now or forever hate yourself. Right? But I can’t. I don’t know her, after all. It’s their home, for God’s sake; it’d probably just be loud and embarrassing and she wouldn’t understand. She couldn’t. How could she realize that I’ve been standing here for three hours, wanting her, not even knowing what it is about her that enchants me so. She’s barely spoken once. I don’t love her hair, at least not the way she’s wearing it, and she’s shorter than the kind of women I usually go for. She’s forty-five at least. At least. And I can’t stop thinking about her. She’s like a charming town you’ve been to yet it doesn’t appear on the map, or a first-edition book that you can’t really afford, but you love the dust jacket. She’s that kind of person.

I guess women in general are like that, special like that. They get in your head at the strangest times and for the oddest reasons, and there they stay. Haunting you. Who can say what attracts us, makes a person like her interesting to a guy like me? I don’t know, I really don’t. I have no idea. But you know what? I think I’ll just wander out into the kitchen for a minute, see if they have any more ginger ale. If she’s there, I’ll say hello. No harm in that, right? It’s just hello. Anyway, I can’t help myself, even if hello has paved the road to hell more often than good intentions. After all, she’s a woman. A real woman. And I’m a man. It’s a party. Anything can happen.

Ravishing

I remember this one time, maybe three years ago, not sure, could be longer, but around there. One of the first girls we did. I mean, did like that. A black gal, half black, really, must’ve had a regular white mother, grandparent in there somewhere. But anyway, just this woman we found, half knocked out on coke up the street … asking twenty bucks a blow job. We get her into the car, both of us were there, I’m driving, gonna take her over to a storage space we rented, out in the Valley … ten feet by twenty, like a hundred bucks a month. Tiny place for shooting, but quiet. Nice and quiet.

So I’m at the wheel, he’s in back, getting her talking … we’re taking a risk, not really knowing anything about her, so we’re tooling along, seeing if she won’t open up, tell us where she lives, a boyfriend. Says she’s got a kid. Family’s all gone, no relations around to worry their heads off, but there’s this kid.