Placing her empty pasta bowl neatly in the dishwasher, Ruby excused herself politely and went to the bathroom. Turning the faucets on full, she leaned over the toilet bowl and started the evil orgasm. “Oh God!” she panted as the last piece of salmon fell crushed, but still pink, into the toilet. “Oh God, I’m disgusting,” she breathed, pulling herself back up. Her knuckles flamed puce as she held her hands under the water. Rachel’s bathroom was a temple to cleanliness. Five different facial cleansers sat on the sink and she deliberately picked the most expensive with which to wash her fingers. She took a cotton ball and patted toner across her face. When she went to the towel rack, she meant to dry her hands. But instead, she took a fluffy blue bath towel and wrapped herself in it, crouched with her back against the bathroom door. She had been there fifteen minutes when Rachel started to knock. Ruby had not bothered to lock it and her hostess let herself in, shoving Ruby into the side of the tub as she did.

Rachel crouched down beside her, then, sensing that she might be there some time, let herself lean back against the wall, too.

“Are you a drug addict, Ruby?”

Ruby shook her head.

“Are you bulimic?”

“Maybe.”

“You have to stop.”

“What do you know about it?”

“A lot. You want to know personal or academic?”

“Both.”

“Okay. Bulimia is clearly self-loathing, but it’s also quasisexual. But it’s a dirty shameful Victorian brand of sexuality that is never ever erotic. You want it so bad and then you feel lousy afterward. Being bulimic is like having rough toilet sex all the time—quick, jam your foot in the door, bend over, hurry up kind of sex with no variation. No love, just a means to an end. A way to while away the time so you don’t have to think about how much you hate yourself.”

“I think, if it’s okay with you,” demurred Ruby, “that I’ll be running along to bed now.”

But she didn’t run, she walked, very, very slowly, hoping, with each step, to feel Rachel’s arms around her.

In the morning, Rachel was exhausted and Ruby was cheerful again. She tidied the kitchen, picking up the cutlery where it had been abandoned during their discussion “What are you doing?” asked Rachel through fuzzy teeth.

“Tidying! I enjoy it in other people’s houses. I can make sense of other people’s apartments. Just not my own.

“Uh, thank you,” nodded Rachel, blearily drawing her robe tighter across her swan neck. Opening her mouth as wide as a Muppet puppet, she gave an enormous Children’s Television Workshop yawn. As Rachel stretched out on the sofa, Ruby bounced around the room, before coming to rest at her feet.

“I have a question, Rachel.”