A Battle Between the Forces of Good and Evil

1     We were grappling on the floor. He groaned and I said Jesus Christ. The weight of his body on me, its warm intent. Then the clothes –

2     We had to stand up again to walk to his bed.

2.1   Then I realized what we were doing.

3     Because there was only that paltry near-futon, I felt exposed. It made our embrace seem like an experimental procedure, from which all extraneous variables had been removed. A parallel Ralph/Chrysa coupled elsewhere in an identical chamber, and a science team would study our comparative success. The second couple were the control group, in which Ralph had not just bashed in my brother’s face.

3.1   Ralph would leave tomorrow morning, with some stammering excuse. I would smile and say I understood because you’re not allowed to cower on the ground, screaming. It would be sunny and the windows would be happy blue. The birds would twitter cheerily and hop.

Once Ralph left I would get under the bed/I would not get under the bed/I would/no, I would not

I would cut off both my hands. I would bleed expressively, waving my grisly fountaining stumps like roach antennae.

3.2   You won’t be able to do this thing on a basis of distrust.

4     Thinking – bad.

4.1   He was stroking me as if no one was there. There was something reverential in the way his big hands slowed to entirely feel me that made me want to cry. It occurred to me he really did want to have sex with me: he wasn’t just trying to be nice. I couldn’t really give that much credence, but I reminded myself how people say that men will fuck anything, and maybe I should just take that at face value.

5     “You aren’t really into this.” Pulling back from me slightly, he made me hold his hand.

I said, almost in time: “No – no fear of that.”

Then I wanted to laugh intimately but Ralph didn’t laugh. He stroked my brow in an interpreting way, caring what was wrong. I didn’t care what was wrong with me, I wanted to shout, Oh, do it!

He said, “But, you’re sure?”

(Well, once people started asking things like “But you’re sure?” you can forget it. We would now sheepishly retreat into our clothes. We would have a cup of coffee or something else that people really do) but I rebelled against this certain knowledge, peeping:

“Oh, I’m really very sure.”

– flamboyantly unsure, but he pretended to believe me –

We fucked like second nature, on the brink of terrified. We fucked like people in love.

Then I opened my eyes. His body was there like an amazing free gift. I was surprised to see it was still night.

“Chrysalis Moffat, Chrysalis Moffat,” Ralph muttered, looking at me with a dumbfounded nothing.

Then he said: “Do you love me?”

I was disproportionately shocked. I said, “Oh – yes. Really. I mean, of course.”

He said, stiff with embarrassment, “That’s good.”

I had to look away. It occurred to me that Ralph might be vulnerable. Like anyone else, he longed for reassurance. His ego was fragile: he was scared.

Yet I felt this was cowardly sophistry, an extrapolation from what I would feel. This once, I should accept I didn’t understand.

Ralph said, “Come here,” we made love again, the trance resumed. Caressing and sighing, we fell into pampered heightened sleep. Once in the night I woke up and we were fucking again. Already I felt a strange, magnified health.