They lingered at the bar and slammed back shooters. I’m not unhappy, I’m in between, he’d said. She thought about that. And she slapped him.

He’d eaten spicy food the night before. So when she complains that her stomach “feels hot inside,” he feigns the worst kind of indifference.

And then he leaned forward to kiss her and she leaned back and he looked at her confused, hurt almost, and she said, I don’t like your socks

He speaks endlessly of philosophy and desire and he orders another bottle of wine, and asks her what she believes in and she says, Not you.

The bus was crowded, and the driver was surly. Revolution was in the air. The bus stopped. People got off. And it wasn’t so crowded anymore.

The pictures arrive in the mail everyday. In every one she’s in a different city, with a different man. She would use snail mail, he thinks.