As I recall this night again—it has had so many midnight performances in my sleep—I always wonder why she did not just get up and leave. She must have been very curious about it, all my vile talk, directly and specifically aimed at her and derived from her. She couldn’t often have been the subject of such intense disdain. Whether she only felt it or could identify it, she had produced in me a powerful effect. I had always condescended, chuckled, and sympathized, and nodded distantly, but at that moment I was filled with hatred for her, glutting my eyes on every detail of her person. I would find that degree of attention flattering, myself.

“And then again, people do not care to hear what you told your psychiatrist. No one wants to know what he told you. But you complain and moan and confide your internal irregularities. When someone treats you rudely you produce a tantrum and harrow everyone else in reach with it, including those people whose parents brought them up to be kind to freaks. There’s only one solution. You are stupid.”

Tears streamed down her face, dripped onto her forearms. She didn’t sob or moan. Her nose did not run.

“I know I’m not as intelligent as you…” she said. Her accent was still heavy, still fluttering the cadence of her high, thin voice. I took it then as an admission, as a vindication of all I said. Now it sounds in my skull like a plea, and the beginning of some small self-defense.

“I don’t blame you, really, for taking whatever comes to your door at night. You don’t have any choice. I wouldn’t blame a starving man for stealing bread. But in a way I have to be grateful to you. I could never allow anybody who has screwed you to touch me. Once a prick has been dipped into that rotting meat of yours, it’s permanently defiled as far as I’m concerned. So, in a way, that is a loss. But I’m glad to know that Dusty isn’t worth a damn before I spend any more time or effort on him. Any man who would even consider baring himself to a woman like you, any man who could manage to get it up over you, even in the dark, is too desperate for notches on his cock to have any character at all. The syndrome, I believe, is known as pig fucking.”