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numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk.’ How’s by you?”
    â€œOkay, I guess. So-so.”
    â€œBaga baga baga, pah, pah, pah,” said the baby. He slapped Perkins’s chest. Perkins gave a grunt and lifted him into the air. The baby squealed and wriggled.
    Perkins lowered the baby and kissed his neck. He was comforted a little by the softness of the baby’s skin and hair, and by the fact that the kid liked him. With a great effort, he propped himself up so he could set the baby on the floor beside the bed. Then he let go and the baby started crawling away.
    â€œStick to the classics,” Perkins said, “and don’t put your fingers in a socket.”
    The baby babbled his farewells and crawled off among the books.
    â€œMy advice to the generations,” said Perkins. He lay back heavily on the mattress. He took Avis’s hand. He looked up at her. The small features of the valentine-shaped face, hovering over him, soothing. She brushed at his forehead again, smiling down at him. He felt his cock stir at her cool touch.
    â€œYour Nana called,” she told him gently.
    He closed his eyes. “Oh boy.”
    â€œShe says she couldn’t reach you. She says your phone is off the hook.”
    â€œJesus. I don’t even know where it is. Was it urgent?”
    â€œOh, I don’t know. You know Nana. It’s a catastrophe.”
    â€œOh no.”
    â€œI told her you’d be over there in an hour.”
    Perkins kept his eyes closed. He felt her cool fingertips. “Maybe I should call her,” he murmured. “Maybe I can find the phone.”
    â€œNo, her nurse was just coming. She wants you to come over.”
    â€œOkay,” he said. It was barely audible. His mind was drifting now. He was thinking now about Avis. He was picturing her: the way she had been on the one night he had had her. He remembered her lying facedown on his mattress, sobbing into the pillow. He had stood over her, breathless and helpless. He had just finished dealing with her husband. His knuckles were pouring blood. After a long time, he had knelt down next to her. He wanted her to stop crying, and he wanted her, and he did not know what else to do. His breath caught when she lifted her hips to let him work her leggings down. She had parted her legs too when he stretched out on top of her. All the while he was rocking in and out of her, she had held his hand in front of her and sucked the blood off his fingers. He had murmured to her, and he thought he heard her whisper something. He didn’t catch it though. She would never tell him what it was …
    The memory was giving him an erection. He opened his eyes. He saw Avis steal another glance down him. She nearly smiled, but then she took her hands away. She stood up quickly. Grabbed his bedsheet off the floor and dropped it over him.
    â€œYou could get dressed, you know,” she said. “You could pretend that I was here.”
    â€œI know you’re here,” he said. The light was bad, but he thought he saw her cheeks color. Anyway, she hurried across the room to the baby, who was stretched across The Idiot now, chewing on Perkins’s sweater. She got the sweater from him. Draped it over her arm.
    â€œYou do this too much, Perkins,” she said.
    â€œI got carried away. Don’t clean up.”
    â€œYou get carried away too much.” She lifted his jeans while the baby watched her. “It’s like every night, every other night.”
    â€œIt’s not every night. Avis … Don’t clean up. I’m telling you.” He tried to get up, but the movement shifted the sand in his head. He could only sit on the edge of the mattress, his feet on the floor. He covered his face with his hands. “Oh man!”
    â€œI’m telling you , Oliver,” Avis said. “It’s getting to be a real habit.”
    He forced himself to look up at her. She was placing