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now.”

    “We’re just going to try to get you guys back to baseline,” he said. “We’ve got more to do today.”
    “Shit,” I said.
    “Rats,” she said.
    “Drip on?” he said.
    “Acknowledge,” we said.
    Soon something began to change. I mean, she was fine. A handsome pale girl. But nothing special. And I could see that she felt the same re me, i.e., what had all that fuss been about just now?
    Why weren’t we dressed? We real quick got dressed.
    Kind of embarrassing.
    Did I love her? Did she love me?
    Ha.
    No.
    Then it was time for her to go. We shook hands.
    Out she went.
    Lunch came in. On a tray. Spaghetti with chicken chunks.
    Man, was I hungry.
    I spent all lunchtime thinking. It was weird. I had the memory of fucking Heather, the memory of having felt the things I’d felt for her, the memory of having said the things I’d said to her. My throat was like raw from how much I’d said and how fast I’d felt compelled to say it. But in terms of feelings? I basically had nada left.
    Just a hot face and some shame re having fucked three times in front of Abnesti.

III
    After lunch in came another girl.
    About equally so-so. Dark hair. Average build. Nothing special, just like, upon first entry, Heather had been nothing special.
    “This is Rachel,” Abnesti said on the P.A. “This is Jeff.”
    “Hi, Rachel,” I said.
    “Hi, Jeff,” she said.
    “Drip on?” Abnesti said.
    We Acknowledged.
    Something seemed very familiar about the way I now began feeling. Suddenly Rachel looked super-good.
    Abnesti requested permission to pep up our language centers via Verbaluce™. We Acknowledged. Soon we, too, were fucking like bunnies. Soon we, too, were talking like articulate maniacs re our love. Once again certain sensations were arising to meet my concurrently arising desperate hunger for just those sensations.
    Soon my memory of the perfect taste of Heather’s mouth was being overwritten by the current taste of Rachel’s mouth, so much more the taste I now desired. I was feeling unprecedented emotions, even though those unprecedented emotions were (I discerned somewhere in my consciousness) exactly the same emotions I had felt earlier, for that now unworthy-seeming vessel Heather. Rachel was, I mean to say, it . Her lithe waist, her voice, her hungry mouth/hands/loins—they were all it .
    I just loved Rachel so much.
    Then came the sequential geographic reveries (see above): same pine-packed valley, same chalet-looking house, accompanied by that same longing-for-place transmuting into a longing for (this time) Rachel. While continuing to enact a level of sexual strenuousness that caused what I would describe as a gradually tightening, chest-located, sweetness rubber band to both connect us and compel us onward, we whispered feverishly (precisely, poetically) about how long we felt we had known each other, i.e., forever.
    Again the total number of times we made love was three.
    Then, like before, came the dwindling. Our talking became less excellent. Words were fewer, our sentences shorter. Still, I loved her. Loved Rachel. Everything about her just seemed perfect: her cheek mole, her black hair, the little butt-squirm she did now and then, as if to say, Mmm-mmm, was that ever good.
    “Drip on?” Abnesti said. “We are going to try to get you both back to baseline.”
    “Acknowledge,” she said.
    “Well, hold on,” I said.
    “Jeff,” Abnesti said, irritated, as if trying to remind me that I was here not by choice but because I had done my crime and was in the process of doing my time.
    “Acknowledge,” I said. And gave Rachel one last look of love, knowing (as she did not yet know) that this would be the last look of love I would be giving her.
    Soon she was merely fine to me, and I merely fine to her. She looked, as had Heather, embarrassed, as in, What was up with that just now? Why did I just go so overboard with Mr. Average here?
    Did I love her? Or her me?
    No.
    When it was time for her to