Louis needed groceries for the week. He envisioned picking up a man at the bathhouse, bringing him back to the psychologist’s home and whipping up French toast after they slept until noon. Strange––he saw Daya’s face in his mind’s eye, disapproving of this prospect, the lingering afterimage of her chaperoning presence. He wondered if he ever lived like that in the minds of his students, his arched brow appearing before them unexpectedly when they indulged in their small but constant acts of plagiarism. It shouldn’t––he couldn’t have cared less.

Sarah had always been drawn to disaster: the heel stuck in the sidewalk crack, umbrella inverted, face contorted, her mother yelling, “Goddamn your father!” She stared openly as a child, wondering if she, too, could one day do all that. She was too cute in a poncho, with no perm yet to flatten in the rain. When she fumed it was childish, if she cried it was vain. Older, she imagined it might be properly tragic, that she would expand to fill such moments: “Goddamn my father!” Wavy, wet hair in her eyes and stuck to her forehead, maybe.

Fred turned toward him. “It’s like this,” he said, and he gave Steven a deep kiss, finding his tongue at just the right time, gripping his face with one hand, four fingers on Steven’s cheek and pinkie tucked behind his ear. Smell was everything, that’s why Bryan was giving him the ick. His skin smelled wrong. This man’s smelled like saltwater, like a memory Steven wanted to bury himself in, like catnip. Some unconscious chemistry evolved to help him have the healthiest offspring. Good luck with that, he thought, which made him smile mid-kiss.