Once in Montreal I seduced a woman. She was French-Canadian. My friend hit it off with her friend, a boy, so we were left to each other, and in my pidgin French I decided to lie. ‘Je suis bi,’ I said. Her face lit up. She was tiny and plump, with a long shaggy fringe that made her look like a girl I’d known at school, a bad girl, who always tried to get me into trouble. We were drunk. The four of us piled into the boy’s car when the bar threw us out, and he drove us back to our hotel. I took the girl to my room. She was shy: she wouldn’t take off her clothes, though I tried to persuade her. I slid my hands up underneath her shirt, whispering to her that she was pretty, ‘Tu es jolie, trop jolie’. She kissed me in little pecks, like a bird with a soft beak. I could tell from the way she was breathing that she was excited. I was nervous about touching her, but it didn’t matter: all she wanted to do was climb on top of me and rub herself against me through her jeans. I have no idea whether she came. I certainly didn’t. We fell into a stupid drunken sleep and I felt nothing. I felt like a man.

It was not the first time he had grown hard from reading the notebook, but it was the first time his hardness had not been unwelcome. He knew he should be reflecting on what the entry meant, though God knew Claire hadn’t bothered – but he could not concentrate. He was absolutely rigid. Then it was like the first time he’d hunted for the notebook and found it and known he was going to open it, known he would start reading. Just like that, he knew what he would do. He was surprised he hadn’t done it sooner. He opened his jeans and pulled out his cock and began to stroke it. He read the entry again. Certain phrases detached themselves and began to throb with new meaning. He groaned. He was going to come quickly. No need to flip back to the other entries today, the one about Claire’s bruised breasts, though this was another thing he knew: that the next time, or the time after that, he would. He was going to use this book. It even crossed his mind to come on its spread pages, but at the last second he turned aside and cupped himself with his hand. Not today. Perhaps never. But if this new accommodation ever became as intolerable as the last, he reserved the right to ejaculate into the notebook, then squish it shut and put it back under the mattress for Claire to find.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS