Doing up the buttons of my britches, I told her, "Maybe the truth is I really want to like you instead."

And with both hands above her head, making her black hair brain tight again, Paige said, "Maybe sex and affection aren't mu­tually exclusive."

And I laughed. My hands tying my cravat, I told her, yes. Yes, they are.

Denny and me, we get to the seven hundred block of, the street sign says Birch Street. To Denny pushing the stroller, I say, "Wrong way, dude." I point behind us and say, "My mom's house is back there."

Denny keeps pushing, the bottom of the stroller making a growling sound against the sidewalk. The happy couple are drop-jawed, still watching us from two blocks back.

I trot along next to him, tossing the pink doll head from hand to hand. "Dude," I say. "Turn back around."

Denny says, "We have to see the eight hundred block first."

What's there?

"It's supposed to be nothing," Denny says. "My Uncle Don used to own it."

The houses end, and the eight hundred block is just land with more houses on the block after that. The land is just tall grass planted around the edges with old apple trees, their bark all wrinkled and twisting up into the darkness. Inside a bunch of brush, blackberry whips, and scrub, more thorns on every twig, the middle of the land is clear.

On the corner is a billboard sign, plywood painted white with a picture across the top of red-brick houses built against each other and people waving from windows with flower boxes. Under the houses, black words say: Coming Soon Menningtown Coun­try Townhouses. Under the billboard, the ground's snowed with peeling paint chips. Up close, the billboard is curling, the brick townhouses cracked and faded pink.

Denny tips the boulder out of the stroller, and it lands in the tall grass beside the sidewalk. He shakes out the pink blanket and hands me two corners. Between us, we fold it, and Denny says, "If you can have the opposite of a role model, he'd be my Uncle Don."

Then Denny flops the folded blanket into the stroller and starts to push the stroller toward home.

And I call after him, "Dude. You don't want this rock?"

And Denny says, "Those mothers against drunk driving, for sure, they threw a party when they found out old Don Menning was dead."

Wind lifts and crushes the tall grass. Nobody but plants lives here now, and across the dark center of the block you can see the porch lights of houses on the other side. The black zigzags of old apple trees are outlines in between.

"So," I go, "is this a park??

And Denny says, "Not really." Still walking away, he says, "It's mine."

I pitch the doll head at him and say, "For real?"

"Since my folks called a couple days ago," he says, and he catches the head and drops it into the stroller. Under the street­lights, past everybody's dark house, we walk.

My buckle shoes flashing, my hands stuffed in my pockets, I say, "Dude?" I say, "You don't really think I'm anything like Jesus Christ, do you?"

I say, "Please say no."

We walk.

And pushing his empty stroller, Denny says, "Face it, dude. You nearly did sex on God's table. You're already shame spiraling big-time."

We walk, and the beer's wearing off, and it's a surprise how the night air's so cold.

And I say, "Please, dude. Tell me the truth."

I'm not good and kind and caring or any of that happy horse-shit.

I'm nothing but a thoughtless, brain-dead, loser dude. That I can live with. This is who I am. Just a puss-pounding, seam-reaming, dog-driving, fucking helpless sex addict asshole, and I can't ever, ever let myself forget that.

I say, "Tell me again I'm an insensitive asshole."

Chapter 27

How tonight's supposed to work is I hide in the bedroom closet while the girl's taking a shower. Then when she comes out all shiny with sweat, the air steamy and fogged with hair spray and perfume, she comes out naked except for a lacy bathrobe. Then I jump out with some pantyhose stretched over my face and wear­ing sunglasses. I throw her on the bed. I put a knife to her throat. Then I rape her.

Simple as that. The shame spiral continues.

Just keep asking yourself: "What would Jesus NOT do?"

Only I can't rape her on the bed, she says, the spread is pale pink silk and will spot. And not on the floor because the carpet hurts her skin. We agreed on the floor, but on a towel. Not a good guest towel, she said. She told me she'd leave a ratty towel on the dresser, and I'd need to spread it on the floor ahead of time so as not to break the mood.

She'd leave the bedroom window unlocked before she got in the shower.

So I'm hiding in the closet, naked with all her dry cleaning sticking to me, the pantyhose over my head, wearing sunglasses and holding the dullest knife I could find, waiting. The towel's spread on the floor. The pantyhose are so hot my face is running with sweat. The hair plastered to my head starts to itch.

Not by the window, she'd told me. And not by the fireplace. She said to rape her near the armoire, but not too near. She said to try and spread the towel in a high-traffic area where the carpet wouldn't show as much wear.

This is a girl named Gwen I met in the Recovery section of a bookstore. It's hard to say who picked up whom, but she was pre­tending to read a twelve-step book about sexual addiction, and I was wearing my lucky camo pants and cruising her over a copy of the same book, and I figured what's one more dangerous liaison.

Birds do it. Bees do it.

I need that rush of endorphins. To tranquilize me. I crave the peptide phenylethyl­amine. This is who I am. An addict. I mean, who's counting?

In the bookstore coffee shop, Gwen said to get some rope, but not nylon rope be­cause it hurt too much. Hemp gives her an inflamed rash. Black electrical tape would work, too, but not over her mouth, and not duct tape.

"Pulling off duct tape," she said, "is about as erotic as getting my legs waxed."

We compared our schedules, and Thursday was out. Friday I had my regular sexaholics meeting. No chits for me this week. Saturday I spent at St. Anthony's. Most Sunday nights she helped run a bingo event at her church, so we settled on Monday. Mon­day at nine, not eight, because she worked until late in the evening, and not ten because I had to be at work early the next morning.

So Monday comes. The electrical tape is ready. The towel's spread, and when I leap at her with the knife she says, "Are those my pantyhose you're wearing?"

I twist one of her arms behind her back and put the chilled blade to her throat.

"For crying out loud," she says. "This is way out of bounds. I said you could rape me. I did not say you could ruin my panty­hose."

With my knife hand, I grab the front edge of her lacy bathrobe and try to tug it off her shoulder.

"Stop, stop, stop," she says and slaps my hand away, "Here, let me do it. You're just going to ruin it." She twists away from me.

I ask if I can take off my sunglasses.