Afterward, Sarah would reflect that David’s description was generally, tonally in line with what Claire had told her about Half Blessed, but that he didn’t say anything about the group’s structure or intent, nothing about the “society’s” rules or foundation or who was or could be a member, or how one joined. Instead, he focused on the acts, and in this you could tell where his brain was (somewhere near his hand), and also that he was totally making it up. And so David delivered into the space between the chair and the lower bed his set of images—the sexual exercises, the trials and performances for the group, the testing and matching, the shared fluids—and Sarah reacted to it, she crossed her legs and let him talk as she blushed furiously, as her skin crawled in embarrassment. She was used to a certain level of internet-derived morbidity from David, she’d seen glimpses of it, but in the months they’d dated, he had never talked like this. They had achieved a certain level of touch but no one had even mentioned sex, their relationship had been strangely prudish in that way, so as she sat there on the bed she felt distinctly two ways: (1) that David clearly had not accumulated any practical sexual experience since they’d broken up (she found herself relieved to know this), but he definitely had imagination, or at least a sordid browser history, and (2) in light of this imagination, she had probably dodged something weird and upsetting. But she let him say his piece, and when twenty minutes later he seemed to be expired of imagery she asked, as if the monologue hadn’t just taken place, “And what is it called, this group?” To which David replied with two more grossly combined words, “Burst Marrow.” He didn’t realize the unexpected relevance this term would carry in Sarah’s life.

There was no indication from David, going forward, of why he would have approached Sarah with this sex cult story rather than any of his other friends, what specific advice of hers he sought—he was not sophisticated enough a liar to foreground this. And maybe this, his fundamental honesty even while he poorly lied to her, while he projected these obvious sexual insecurities and not-so-hidden desires, maybe this lack of competent deceit was how they’d ended up dating.