I held him tight in my arms that night. He was pale, thin, and more nervous than I remembered him being before. He seemed to change there in my arms into someone more fragile, more vulnerable, as if the night was wearing him down and the gray, thick asphalt was draining him daily. I kissed him. I kissed him everywhere: forehead, eyes, nose, lips, neck, nipples, navel, and there. I held him tight. His penis responded to my wet caresses, and I kissed it again and again. Metro held me, his thighs tight, his fingers knotting my hair. His moan, my moan, some kind of song from his deep chest and mine. But it wasn’t a song and his chest wasn’t filling with desire or love that could hold safety and assurance for us. It wasn’t that, but his teeth edging like a razor on one word: “Nigger.”

I froze. My stomach churned with sudden fear and heat. I reached for the light. I couldn’t say anything. I looked at him. My words were slow in coming. “What did you say?”

“I said, ‘nigger.’ ”

“You mean that, Metro?”

“You wanted it low, didn’t you? You wanted it dirty. Yes, I meant it.”

“But I don’t understand what you mean.”

“You wanted to ride the rough train, huh? Well, ride it, nigger.”

“You goddamn son of a bitch.”

“No, I’m Metro, remember. You call me that. You want it low. You want me to take you there. Down under. Well, down under you ain’t nothing but a nigger. A coal-black nigger.”

I hit him once, and I hit him again. He didn’t hit me back. I hit him again, harder, so he’d hit me back, but he just lay there moaning and fighting the air. He wasn’t fighting me. He wasn’t even seeing me. He was pulling at himself. I stopped and watched him pulling and punching at himself and pulling and punching again until he moaned again and stopped as abruptly as he had begun. The bed was wet, his groin was wet. His hands slippery with his own semen.

“That’s what you get being a snow queen.” It was Clementine.

“Huh?”

“I was watching you. You must have been asleep. You were yelling ‘nigger, nigger,’ in some high girlish voice so I knew it really wasn’t you saying that. You wouldn’t call yourself a nigger, would you?”

“Who’s that? How’d you get in?”

“Clementine, darling. Like I said, that’s what you get being a snow queen. Don’t you know white boys only want to get close enough to you so they can call you nigger to your face then have you fuck them hard up the ass to get your revenge? And you know what happens?”

“What, Clementine?”