Their first time in Manhattan they stayed with Felicia’s college roommate, Dolores, and her roommate, a good-looking boy named Gary.
The second night there, Gary, who had been gone all evening, came back to the flat with a man named Morton. Morton was about thirty-five years old and wore a gray suit. Dolores was away visiting an aunt and uncle somewhere up on Long Island and Gary and Morton slept together in Dolores’s bed. David lay awake listening to them.
“It makes me sick,” he said.
“Ssh,” Felicia said. “Live and let live, babe.”
“Not me,” David said, “I’m getting the fuck out of here. I hate this goddamn place.”
Felicia reached out and held on.
“Come back here, you silly,” she said.
She kissed his arm and pulled him back down. “Listen,” she said, “you know that I know Gary from school, don’t you? Do you know that?”
“No,” David said.
“Well, I do,” Felicia said. “And I worry about him. I used to worry about him a lot. He’s had some pretty horrible things happen to him. His mother slept with him until he was sixteen. Did I tell you I slept with him once? I think I’m the only girl he’s ever slept with.”
“No,” David said, “you didn’t tell me. Did it make any difference? He seems pretty happy the way he is.”
“Not like us,” she said. “Now here, come here, let’s be happy too.”