At night I keep having hermaphrodite dreams. One night there are two hermaphrodites in the dream. They both have long blond hair, obese, fleshy tits, and gray, squiggly cocks like silver corkscrews. One lies beneath me, one on top. I writhe frenzied, sandwiched between breasts and cocks. I come again and again, and when I wake up in the morning the sheets are wet, soaking. First I wonder if this means I will meet hermaphrodite twins, then I wonder if this new obsession is a kind of hysterical reaction to recent events, some kind of posttraumatic stress disorder. I have a dreadful compulsion to read all about the attacks. In the mornings I pull on some clothes right after waking, and go out and get the newspapers. When I open the downstairs door and step out into the streets, there is that now-familiar burnt charcoal smell in the air. Across the river the fire is still burning.

My nocturnal yearnings for a hermaphrodite continue to baffle me. I find myself undressing for bed earlier and earlier. Last night I was under the covers at a quarter past nine. This time I imagine a hermaphrodite who is little more than a boy, a delicate cocoa boy with mochaccino skin, golden nappy hair, and eyes the color of honey; his tiny cock, not much bigger than a praline in my mouth, tastes of cinnamon. I had three fingers in the slit below his caramel bonbons. He was suckling gently at one nipple while with his nimble, wee fingers he pulled playfully at my snatch. The phone rang. I didn’t want to leave him so I let the machine take it. The voice of Steve Nicholson, a painter and one of my dearest friends, floats out into the room. He has decided to move back to his family farm in northern California. “My hands are always trembling,” he said, “I’m too nervous to paint anymore, I sold my loft to Tony Bambini.” I’m shocked; how will I cope without him? Now I jump up and grab the phone.