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apiece.”
    “Amp.”
    “When I have more money.”
    “Clothes.”
    “Why? Soon as you get caught up, they change all the fashions so you just have to start all over again.”
    “That sounds exactly like something I would say.”
    He grinned. “Maybe that answers your question of why we should be together.”
    “Or why we should stay away from each other at all times.”
    “Face it: we’re both snobs.”
    “We don’t like anybody or anything—”
    “That’s ’cause nobody and nothing is good enough for us—”
    “Or so we think —”
    “So here we are, pretending we’re right and they’re wrong—”
    “When really we both know better—”
    “If we don’t they’ll be letting us know real soon.”
    “Would you rather spend the rest of your life in prison or the nuthouse?”
    “That’s a rough one. Gimme some time. Neither.”
    “My answer exactly.”
    “But what’s gonna happen when we get to the point—”
    “Wait, I already know what you’re about to say—”
    “When we both think the same thing—”
    “Always—”
    “So we no longer need to talk at all?”
    “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
    “Either that or find out what we can’t stand about each other and go our separate ways.”
    “All right. So we’ve agreed about all the things we hate —so much so we don’t even need to discuss them….
    “Yeah …”
    “Yeah, well, what about the things we actually like ?”
    “What about ’em?”
    “Well, JUST WHAT ARE THEY? I mean, I wanna see an itemized list .”
    “Can’t be done.”
    “Why not?”
    “Guess.”
    “We don’t like enough things to fill out the fingers of one hand much less a whole sheet of paper.”
    “Right again.”
    “Though there is one thing …”
    “Yeah … ?
    “Well … I’m kinda hesitant to bring it up …”
    “For God’s sake, WHY?”
    “Because … well …”
    “Are you talking about what I think you’re talking about?”
    “Uhh …”
    “You are. After all we’ve been through.”
    “Yeah, but look at it this way: when the rest of human experience is totally worthless, and we see eye to eye to such an extent we can barely talk, that leaves just ONE THING.”
    “Hmmm … and what if that runs out, too?”
    “It won’t.”
    “Why?”
    “Trust me.”
    “Why?”
    “You’ve got nothing better to do.”
    “True enough.”
    “Hey.”
    “What?”
    “Let’s fuck.”
    “I thought you’d never ask.”
    From that night it began to seem as if they measured their time more in terms of when and for how long they had to be apart than when they saw each other. They became so attuned to each other’s thought patterns that conversation did indeed sometimes become all but superfluous. Yet, curiously, that was all they lived for. Or so they thought. So he thought. There was never the slightest doubt in his mind.
    After a few months, she began to have second thoughts. They were too much alike. Lovers brought something unexpected, some tension to the relationship that made it click, cook, and change. This was more like brother and sister. Which she never told him, but she increasingly found less than dizzyingly erotic. It was simply too pat. Yet there he was, as happy as she had ever seen anyone be in her life. Her reservations made her feel guilty, and the fact that she didn’t voice them compounded the guilt. She was hiding plenty from him, more all the time in fact. She couldn’t stand the thought of him being unhappy. If things continued on their present course, she was going to end up bored out of her fucking mind. She was beginning to feel like his mother: precisely because she understood all this and he didn’t. Whereas he felt like a 100 percent fulfilled LOVER , if not a flat-out husband.
    One thing was clear: they were not communicating. He just thought they were. He was living in a dream that she had the power to break in a moment, with a word. She had never heard of anything more unfair in her life. And