This, I had come to learn, was classic Kyle: riffing on an obscure factoid he had gleaned from the Internet to simulate a far vaster knowledge than he really possessed on any given topic. He told me the migration of the fifty-two-hertz whale through the Pacific was strange, in that it didn’t match the movement of any other known whale species. It was a mystery. But the same, singular fifty-two-hertz call has been recorded every year since first being detected two decades ago. Calling forever into the void of the dark Pacific. Never to find another of its kind.

The loneliest whale in the world, I said, nodding. I looked up into the sky, as if I might find it hiding in the clouds. A moment later, we pulled off onto the gravel shoulder of San Mateo Road, alongside the electrical substation, with its humming transformers and power towers. I checked my mirrors for passing cars or onlookers, and after a deep breath, gave the all-clear.

5

PAUL AND I REPLACED SEX WITH AUDIOBOOKS. IT WAS A gradual process, over four or five years. Occasionally, we still managed both. After I moved back into our bedroom, following my exile in The Gym, we began listening to The Magic Mountain. One night, as the plummy British narration played from the Bluetooth speaker, I was standing at the window, struggling to unclasp my bra, lost in the Alpine majesty of the prose, the long sentences, full of switchbacks, when Paul came up behind me and undid my bra clasp with a dexterousness that belied his big hands.

Who is this again? he asked.

Thomas Mann.

Oh man, oh man, he murmured, sliding his hands over my breasts and cupping them, and I laughed, for when Paul played smooth, it was a caricature of smoothness. There has always been something of a joke about sex for Paul, which probably arose from some innate discomfort with his own, ungainly body. One of us tackled the other down onto the bed, and we were both laughing, which we hadn’t done together in a while, and honestly it was probably the laughing more than anything that began to turn me on. I reached over and switched off the speaker, and when I turned back to Paul, he had a truly impressive boner sheathed below his underwear, which he sprang free with gusto.

What’re you challenging me to a duel?

He swished it around, En garde!

Sir Gawain, and his Walmart boxers.

Prepare to be run through the gauntlet.

I flopped onto my back, chortling. He lay down beside me with a dopey grin. What? he asked.

You can’t run someone through the gauntlet, you’re putting two things together.

Sure you can, with a sword.

No, you ‘run someone through.’ You ‘run the gauntlet’ when you like—

Oh right.

—do something really hard.

Paul gestured to his jaunty member—Well.