He says, I just picked some tartar off my teeth, and it is then, really, that she begins to think that she’ll never have sex with him again.

He called her his “little Jelly Tot.” And later, alone in her room, she googled it. And then called him. To tell him he was too old for her.

And then I got insistent. And yelled. Self interest does nothing for long term gain, I said. And she handed me a mirror. And she walked out.

And then the night passed into drunkenness. I tore at her shirt. Her boyfriend assaulted me. The police were called. But they didn’t show up.

We speak to walls and complain that the walls are deaf. We throw food away and then yell of acute hunger. We purchase love. And then we cry.