“I hate you too,” he said limply. But she didn’t seem to hear him. It was as if she had chanted herself into a trance, like one of those Pentecostal women in the storefront church beside his father’s liquor store in Baltimore.

“IhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhateyouIhateyou …”

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore and he snapped.

“Fuck you,” he said. He had grown tired of taking the high road. “Fuck you, Sylvia!”

It felt good. He turned to walk away.

His hubris, though, had caught her attention. “Where are you going?” she demanded.

“Fuck you, Sylvia,” he repeated.

He stood with his back to her and she could see his shoulders heaving with rage. He sounded resolved, which upset her, because it meant that she hadn’t stung him hard enough, that he hadn’t paid the full price. Desperate to make him writhe, she concocted a mix of venom.

“Where’re you going?” she screamed. “To fuck Margaret Weir? That fucking whore you were chatting to when you had me waiting in the cold outside the Blue Note?”

Lewis turned around.

“Maybe you don’t have to pay her,” she continued. “Maybe you lent her money like you lent Ian. And what is she paying you in? Blow jobs?”

“Shut your fucking mouth!” he yelled.

She went on, retching up undigested feelings about him.

Stunned by the deluge, by its suddenness, by its volume, by its violence, Lewis stood still, although he wanted to run. Words like pompous, insensitive, selfish, snob, shallow, opportunistic, venal, and materialistic rained down on his head, until their bitterness shocked him into action.

“Me?” he shot back. “Me? Sylvia, you say all this shit about me. What about you? If I’m all this and we’re together, what does it say about you? You can’t say anything about me without saying it about yourself, Sylvia. ‘Show me your company and I’ll tell you who you are.’ Ever heard that?”

He paused and wiped saliva from the corners of his mouth.

“You’re a sorry bitch, Sylvia,” he said with a mocking laugh. “You are one sorry bitch. Talking about me like that as if—shit, you said it outta your own mouth, Sylvia: if I wasn’t who I am you wouldn’t be with me … said it with your own mouth at Claire’s …”

She began to reply but, emboldened by the obvious shift in power, he bulldozed her.

“You call Margaret a whore, Sylvia? Then what are you? A … a … a call girl? A … a … an escort? Or should I be a little literary and say strumpet … or courtesan … or … slattern? At least Margaret is honest. She sleeps with whoever attracts her, whether it be preacher or pimp. Doctor or deli clerk. You, on the other hand, choose men by rank, by position … profession, stature … status. Of course you wouldn’t be with me if I was a cop or a fireman or a … an accounting clerk. I know that. And I wouldn’t be with you if you were a word processor or a lab technician. You, though, are trying to make me feel bad for feeling this way. And I refuse. Who knows, Sylvia, maybe you want me to feel bad because you feel bad about your whorish interest in me. I don’t feel bad, Sylvia. I’m a whore and I accept that about myself. You’re a whore and you don’t. In fact you can’t.”