I sat in my seat and listened to my Walkman. I felt the music coming out of me, as much as it went in. I thought about the sounds I made during sex. Sometimes I had to keep myself from laughing. I felt nothing. At worst, it hurt. At best, it was an irritation, like a fly buzzing around my head. I thought about speak-singing at the end of pop songs: “I’m crazy for you,” Madonna said, dropping from her Minnie Mouse squeak to a deep, throaty purr. I said it once in bed, for my own amusement: “I’m crazy for you.” Scott’s breath quickened.

“God, your pussy feels so good.”

And in my head, the voice whispered: “Here pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy. There’s a good tabby cat.”

In my haste to get away from him, I had forgotten my earrings, and though they had only cost twenty bucks, the loss made me cry. When I was little, I hated my mom leaving me so much that when she’d go out for the evening, I’d have her put a pair of her earrings through a tissue. Then I’d sit the tissue on a chair by my bed and pretend it was her. “You’re a weird kid,” she’d whisper as she kissed my ear, and, one hand already petting the tissue, I’d solemnly agree.

I rearranged myself in the first-class seat, trying to take the pressure off my aching crotch. Squirming, I opted to watch the movie with the sound off. It was awful. I was in it.

Four

Scott says

Oh my God, that girl knew how to fuck. I’ve had a lot of girls in my time, but I’ve never had the sexual connection that I had with Ruby, I’ll tell you. The sex between us was just un-fucking-believable. It was too beautiful. I can’t imagine either of us will ever have sex that great again. I always think that’s why she left. Because it was too intense. She’s young. She couldn’t take it.

Five

To-do list

The first thing I did when I got into Manhattan was have the cab pull over at a McDonald’s. I ate a Big Mac in the back, my hand lolling out of the window between bites, burger juice dripping over my rings and onto the sidewalk.