THE DOG HUNTERS (completed)

48 - PASSIONATE OR SEX

I thought maybe this exchange would make the sex more passionate, or at least emotional. It didn't. She barked orders. I put everything I had into the experience, figuring this was probably it. Afterwards we curled into our respected positions on her bed, and she laid it out for me. "I'm going to tell you something and you can judge me however you want, but hear me out."

"Okay,"I said.

She kept talking like I hadn't said anything, like I was invisible. She said, "I went to the University of Chicago, and then Princeton. I'm one of those people. I don't know what you think about stuff like that, but let me tell you, it's a trap. I'm higher functioning. You know what that is?"

She wasn't looking at me. She was talking to the ceiling.

I thought maybe she was talking about autism, something I didn't know anything about. I shrugged.

She said, "I lie here at night, and I think how fucked up everything is. I mean, before you forced your way into my life and startedfucking me all the time, I'd lie here and think about... Just howfucked up everything is.

"I don't think I used to be higher functioning. I think I was a normal person. Once. I think – I don't think I thought things were sofucked up. I used to care about shit. But... like, my mother was a school teacher, so school was the big push. That's what I thought life was about. School. Do well, be a perfect student. I missed other experiences that my brain needed, and now it's too late.

"You go to one of these good schools and then you find out it really isn't any different, and you're surrounded by a bunch of other people just like you, you're around a bunch of people with no social skills, and no one knows how to have fun, and all you know how to do is be good at school. And then everyone's telling you you've made it, but you know you haven't made it because nobody knows how to do anything other than get great grades... So the only thing you can do is be better than anyone else, and complain about how boring and fucked up everything is, because none of it makes any sense, because you know the game is so stupid. And that's how you become higher functioning.

She kept talking and I kept waiting for her to bring up cheese and how it was part of this great conspiracy. I couldn't remember exactly what her problem with cheese had been at the psych hospital, but it seemed to fit into everything else she was babbling about.

Tabby never mentioned cheese. At one point she took a breath, let it out slowly, and said, "You know, my pussy gets so wet when I think about some of the high marks I got in school. I'm not kidding, check it out."

She pinched my left hand at the wrist and placed it on her pussy. She was right. Her slit was slick and ready for action.

"I'm thinking how in fifth grade I did a book report on The Phantom fucking Tollbooth that blew my fucking teacher's mind."

She slipped my fingers inside her.

And so we continued.

I'd hang out during the day, then she'd come home, either eat silently or complain about me being a weirdo, then several drinks, then sex, with lots of orders, then, once she'd broken through to where ever she'd been needing to get to, she'd complain again, basically about everything. And then there'd be a mission to the diner for more food.

It really wasn't that bad.

There was no real expectation for a conversation because she liked to do all the talking. I could handle the constant high intensity sexbecause I was getting good about getting the right combination of food/booze/coffee before she got through the door with her sushi andbullshit. They say even bad sex is good sex, and I would agree with this. I enjoyed watching Tabby while she commanded me on how to fuckher. I enjoyed watching her get somewhere in the maze of her head and become undone. I often wondered if we'd have anal sex, and it seemed there were several times when we came close. I thought about it during the day and wondered why I never brought it up. With my other girlfriends it was never something I'd thought about – I'd never thought about it until I hit Skid Row. I knew with Tabby I could bring it up, but still I didn't. It wasn't because I was afraid she'd say no. No, I decided it was because it wasn't something I was in charge of. I couldn't understand it beyond that.

She never spoke of her time in the hospital. I kept waiting. I kept waiting for her to flip out and kick me out, for something really dark and intense to drop.