“Does he really want to be in a committed relationship?” I asked Rachel. Some guys like to bullshit a woman just to stay close to the pussy.

She answered, “He says he does, but I don’t believe him anymore. I mean, how can I? He hasn’t acted like it.”

I couldn’t beat the guy down. Some guys couldn’t afford to be honest and still get what they wanted from a woman. Each man had to do what he had to do to survive.

I asked her, “So you’re down here by yourself ?” It sounded like an incriminating question. She didn’t have to answer it if she didn’t want to.

She smiled and nodded to me. “Mmm hmm.”

I smiled back. “I mean, that doesn’t mean anything. I just wanted to get the facts straight.”

“Who are you here with?” she asked me back.

“A celibate friend.”

I found the idea of celibacy interesting to talk about, at least from someone else’s perspective, because I definitely was not going there.

Rachel frowned and said, “Celibate? Why?”

“Some people just need to cleanse themselves from the whole process of lust for a while, that’s all.”

Rachel nodded. “I agree.” Then she looked at me. “So are you celibate, too?”

I began to laugh at the question. “Not at all,” I answered.

“You couldn’t do it, huh?”

“That’s why I’m down here now, trying to walk and talk off the energy.”

“You think it’ll work?”

“That’s what I’m going to have to find out,” I told her.

“Do you masturbate?” she asked me.

That was quite a frank question. “Well, I try not to. I try as best I can to save my juice for the real thing, you know.”

She said, “But sometimes you gotta take care of what you have to take care of. And in this world, masturbating is a lot safer than anything else.”

She had a point. I said, “But nothing beats the real thing.”

She laughed. “Don’t I know it. That’s why I’m up now my damn-self. I’m in a terrible heat. I had to pray on it. I don’t even know if this is natural.”

I asked her, “Has it happened before?” I already knew the answer to that. Of course it had happened before. Women had needs just as much as men. They just had to be more tactful about it. A ho is a ho in everybody’s book.

She said, “I can’t lie.”

“So what do we do? We both go to the room and masturbate?”

“Whose room?” she asked me. She had this mischievous look in her eyes.

“I meant that in general,” I told her.

She paused and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.” Then she added, “You’re a little slimmer than what I’m used to.”

She was beginning to broadcast her thoughts to me.

I said, “I look good though, from my head to my feet.”

I figured I would play things her way, but only as a counterpuncher, responding to her lead.