MY FRIEND is fucking a girl who has a thing for knives. She likes to cut people. Sometime during the sex she likes to cut you. I am supposed to understand that these are not mortal wounds, that it’s more of an erotic thing or symbolism or something and what I say to that as he smiles and says it’s no big deal really is Yet. When I ask what he supposes happened to this girl, what happens to people who can only have sex in ways like this, ways that hurt, he says I don’t know. Something. He says the girl with the thing for knives looks like a normal person and dresses like a normal person (khakis, black tee, chunky black wedgies) which in this case, in my estimation, is a disguise. (Conversely, I disguise myself with ink and vintage when the truth is I am obviously at least normal enough to be mystified by the knife thing.) The girl with the thing for knives has some kind of really normal job (anything I can’t understand by title alone and characterized by the presence of benefits and little overtime and vacation pay and made-up words like visioning) and a normal apartment where the knives are no more conspicuous than they are at anyone else’s house who has knives but not a thing for them. So I ask my friend, who is also fucking a few other girls, if anyone else noticed, and he says oh sure they have and I say what did you tell them and he says he told them he walked into his car door or something. How he explained why he might have walked into his car door naked I’m not sure, because knife girl cut him on his ass and so I am thinking that when he amasses cuts on his neck and his back and his dick, and you know it’s got to go that way, I am thinking this is a ruse that won’t last long and I am a little concerned for him because he’s a sweet guy (disguised as a player) and because he’s pretty, and I’d hate to see that pretty face messed up and because he likes trouble, more than me even, and I like a little trouble.