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Page 42.
 “Why do you write?” she asked later as they dined on cheese, dry bread, and red wine. Once again, they sat on the bed, or she lay at his side as they had before.
“Because I feel a longing inside. Same reason a musician will never be separated from his or her instrument. Sometimes we pluck nonsense, and other times big symphonies, and sometimes just idle daydreams, or aches full of longings.”
“Longings about what?”
“I can’t always explain. It just aches inside, and the only way to soothe it is to write.”
“I go shopping,” she said, realized how dumb that sounded, and buried her forehead in his lap.
He loved her for it. He loved her for being light and airy and different from him. “I’m not sure I could stand being around another poet,” he said reassuringly. “Thick air, you know?” He stroked her silky hair, enjoying the shape of her skull underneath, and the warmth of her skin. He bent down to inhale her fragrance. “A guy like me needs a girl like you to pull me out out of my moods.”
She dabbed her fingertip against his cheek. “I like when you call me a girl. I am a girl, really. A woman who is a girl, or a girl who is a woman. I’ll be your girl if you want me.”
“I want you.”
She snuggled. “I like when you tell me that.”
“I’ll tell you every day at least once. My girl.”
She rested her cheek against his torso and sighed the deepest sigh he had ever heard anyone make. He stroked her back to comfort her. It was almost a huge sob. “Read me another poem.”
And he did. “This is from the singles scene.”
“Do you pick up girls much? Tell me you do. I want to imagine how sexy you are, and how they come on to you.”
It wasn’t quite like that, but she wanted fantasy. “All right.” In reality, he and Jack spent many hours hanging out, and often the best that came of it was a nice buzz from beer or wine. Sometimes there was a thing with a female. Whichever of the two scored would fade away into the night with Mademoiselle this or that, to report with a shrug a day or two later when they met again. The other would take the Métro home alone. Most of his meaningful conquests had come at school, or driving a taxi last year, or at all sorts of odd moments. They were generally all younger or his own age. The older women in bars were often putes or barflies, looking with hard, mercenary eyes and sharp, knife-like red lips for a one-night wallet with a man attached. Or woman. Whatever worked. You had to take the cruising scene lightly and not get lost in it. Then you learned to stay away from certain types of places, and ultimately it was just you and Jack and Pierre and a few of the guys hanging out over beers in a place without women. Whatever. Not much fantasy there.
“I have a few here about singles bars,” he said.
He read one titled Café Macho #1.
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