Years later, I found out that the Feeling is a documented phenomenon, and was not, as I had thought, a magic specific to us—look how quick I am to say us, foolish thing—alone. The official term for it is ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response), and the little alternative versions of us who practice it these days get their Feelings via YouTube clips, watching some wispy woman with a soft voice apply makeup to her face, or click her long fingernails together, or name everything in the room in a frantic whisper. In one video, a slim-nosed blonde with a German accent fits a wig onto her camera so she can give the viewer a haircut. She combs the limp bangs that hang across the lens. She snips at them with a pair of sewing scissors. Can you feel it? she asks. Can you feel what I’m doing right now? It may seem like you can’t, but just see if you can. There. There. You feel it, don’t you? Yes, yes, yes, doesn’t that feel good?

I watch it and think: we are all so desperately lonely.

Serena told me once that giving herself the Feeling was the only way she could have dreams.

“Without the Feeling it’s only blackness,” she said. “Not just nothingness, not just going to sleep and waking up. It’s like I’m dreaming the blackness.”

“What’s the blackness like?” I asked.

But she wouldn’t answer.

After it was over, Serena reached into the pocket of her kimono and pulled out a silver box. From this she extracted a slim cigarette, placed it between her lips, and lit it with a little silver lighter. She didn’t offer one to me or to anyone else.

“Those things will kill you, you know,” Janet said.

“Don’t be boring, Janet,” Serena said, leaning back on her elbows and exhaling with exaggerated relish. “Anyway, what was it Shantideva said? Life is a party thrown by an executioner.” She looked at me. “So, did you get it?” she asked.

“I think so,” I said.

“If you don’t know,” Laurel said, “you didn’t.” She glowered prettily, and I remembered a cartoon I’d seen as a child: a singing goldfish, plump and shiny, made sexy with long eyelashes and purple eye shadow and a coquettish pout, its gossamer tail flicking suggestively around the screen. That was the earliest shadow of a sexual impulse I can remember—from a place near the base of my spine I wanted all of this: to possess it, to become it, and to squeeze it unmercifully in my hands until it died.

“I got it,” I said.

“Good,” Serena said. “Because the Feeling is only the first step.”

“Oh.” Laurel sighed. “Don’t.”

“The first step to what?” I asked. I wanted to kick her again.