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Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Cast of Characters
  7. Part One
  8. One
  9. Two
  10. Three
  11. Four
  12. Five
  13. Six
  14. Seven
  15. Eight
  16. Nine
  17. Ten
  18. Eleven
  19. Twelve
  20. Thirteen
  21. Fourteen
  22. Fifteen
  23. Sixteen
  24. Seventeen
  25. Eighteen
  26. Nineteen
  27. Part Two
  28. Twenty
  29. Twenty-one
  30. Twenty-two
  31. Twenty-three
  32. Twenty-four
  33. Twenty-five
  34. Twenty-six
  35. Twenty-seven
  36. Twenty-eight
  37. Twenty-nine
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-one
  40. Thirty-two
  41. Thirty-three
  42. Thirty-four
  43. Thirty-five
  44. Thirty-six
  45. Thirty-seven
  46. Thirty-eight
  47. Thirty-nine
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-one
  50. Forty-two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-four
  53. Forty-five
  54. Forty-six
  55. A note on the Author

Then I started thinking that blow jobs are especially weird. Then I thought about it so much that, for a whole day, I convinced myself there was a cock in my mouth that no one else could see. I thought about it some more, and then I was leaning over the toilet bowl, heaving up my guts. “Please don’t let there be a cock in my mouth, please don’t let there be a cock in my mouth,” I was weeping when John arrived at my door that afternoon. He pulled me just about together with a couple of Xanax. I got to work the next morning.

I had to owe him the cash. Even though my previous film did great business, I still needed money. I don’t know where it goes. I have a grand and then the day ends and I have nothing to show for it, except bits of string, maybe some chewing gum wrappers.

I missed getting to look at Sebastian. I missed watching his abs flex with each breath he drew. I missed the way his long lashes curled at right angles. I missed the way the clean lines of his body made me feel clean, redeemed just because I was with him. It seemed so preposterous to me when cabs wouldn’t stop for him. Everyone should stop for Sebastian.

Is it okay to like someone just because they are beautiful? Yes. They make us feel less alone. I like beautiful people the same way others love sports. It is a definite answer for those of us who don’t understand mathematics. In beauty as in sports and math, there is right and wrong. There is a winner. Whereas art and music are open to interpretation and people are still arguing about whether or not Bob Dylan is as significant a poet as William Blake.

The answer is they both lose because they are both ugly. Jakob Dylan is the winner. And Blake is the runner-up because he’s dead so no one cares what he looks like. You see where my mother comes in? That’s how she saved herself. Why is Audrey Hepburn a saint? Because she was beautiful or because she is dead? Both. It’s the best way to be. Did the woman who leaped to her death from a Lower East Side high-rise last week feel less pain than Marilyn Monroe? Or did she not have hair like cotton candy and a face with all the airy sweetness of angel food cake? You know the answer. You know as well as I do that if you’re going to kill yourself, you’d better be beautiful or everyone will think you were just being a whiner.