The Rules of Attraction

PAUL My lack of trust in him amazes me but I can’t help it: I don’t like Sean. There’s no one else on the bus when we pull out of Boston, and not too many people get on at the various stops along the way. Just me and an old couple up front for most of the way there. I idly wonder what Mom will say about this abrupt departure. Will she pop a Seconal? Will she cry? Stay? Flirt with bellhops? Richard will probably be relieved, though he’ll still look for a date on Saturday night, and Mrs. Jared won’t care-why do I even care what she thinks? I try to sleep as the bus lumbers on some nameless route (7? 9? 89? 119?) toward Camden. And it stops raining somewhere near Lawrence, and the sun comes up, full and rising, at Bellows.

I can’t sleep.

I will rush straight to Sean’s room and what will I find? Him in bed with a girl I have never noticed or talked to but who I will instantly recognize, or maybe he’ll be tired but wake up smiling and we’ll look and touch and shake hands and while shaking hands he’ll pull me down onto his bed and after that we’ll drive to that French cafe on the edge of town — no way, Sean would never eat there. He’s probably never been to a nice restaurant; just a life of Quarter Pounders, Tastee Freezes, Friendlys. Do they even have Friendlys in the South? No Walkman, no cigarettes, no magazines on a bus can be unbearable. I’m going crazy, still horny from the okay sex from last night, and I try to masturbate in the bus bathroom but when I realize what I’m doing, the sloshing of the refuse below me as I sit on the toilet, hand wrapped around my dick, and start laughing, it’s high-pitched, maniacal, scary.

Some people get on at Newport. Some people get off at Wolcott, and some more get on at Winchester. Hungry, exhausted, my breath repulsive, I finally get off at the station in Camden and take a cab back to campus and by the time I get there, it’s almost twelve. I must be dreaming this.