I poured the drink, and I sat down, and I started the book. Not far, mind you. But I've got the main character. His name is Mike. He lives in a cabin in the woodsy mountains outside a small college town. And here's what I've decided about Mike: he's going to kill somebody. Not in real life, of course. But in my novel. He's going to murder...somebody. I just don't know who yet.

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Mike Case was a good man, mostly. He usually told the truth. And he often was faithful to women. Whenever he committed one of the seven deadly sins, he felt bad about it almost every time. He said his prayers whenever he was scared about his own mortality. The minister at the church in town even knew him by name. And he'd call him by it every Christmas and Easter. Yes, as men go, Mike was a pretty good one...

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And I think about how the day before I had been crying into my hardwoods, scratching at the floor and thinking of the best way to die. And how the night before I held that bartender down on the dirty floor of the supply closet at the Main Street Tavern (I'm stronger than I look) and I rode that drink-slinger's Salty Dog until it wept.

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My dad used to tell me there were two Rita's. I never really knew what he meant by that, but I always felt vaguely guilty about it. But he assured me it was a "gift." He said he had two "hims," as well. He also said I would be like him one day. And Christ, I hope that isn't true. Because both "hims" were killed by a black bear as they were escaping from their mistress's second-story window. See? Turns out at least one of his hims was an idiot. I have a deep suspicion I'm harboring one of those myself. An idiot. Excuse me: a gift.

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So this morning he came back. Mike, I mean. I considered not answering again, but figured that might get awkward. I opened the door in white pajamas, the top casually unbuttoned, revealing and covering, like a wish. I hadn't looked at my hair, but I knew it was pleasingly disheveled. Men have told me I look sexy in the morning. Like I don't know this? Like I don't know exactly what the fuck I look like in the morning?

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Of course, there's Mike. I could see him. But some things seem too dangerous, even for somebody like me. I'm old enough to know a man like him is no good for me. I'm also old enough to know that that's what makes him the perfect kind. Also, I've already fucked myself twice today. So...there's that. And besides, I'd have to shave my legs.

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The phone woke me from a sleep that was in no way natural. A sleep that had been brought on by a number of chemicals, some of which, if you want to be technical about it, do occur naturally, I suppose. But if you think, like I do, that you should define sleep as something that happens organically, like when you're tired, something that you fall into as a result of natural fatigue, a byproduct of natural activities--;you know, like talking and engaging in the world and going for walks and stuff--well, then this sleep wasn't that.

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Our selfhood, the thing we refer to as the "me" or the "I," is just a story we tell ourselves. And maybe mine is one long suicide note. The words scrawled out, forming the pavement for this curvy, wet, cliff-side road I'm driving. My foot pressed hard on the clutch, engine revving. Then up. The other foot down. And the squealing of these ball-point tires. The long insurgent slide. The excited fall. And then nothing. Silence. Peace.

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And later, when I'm on my knees and putting my lips around him in the small bathroom that smells like cinnamon air freshener, I do the same. Look him in the eye. Then away. His pants around his ankles and his thickness on my tongue, and his belt buckle clink, clinking on the cold tiled floor. A bar towel still flung over one shoulder. His hand, strong at the back of my neck, the other against the door that opens inward and doesn't lock. And if somebody tries to come in, the door might open a bit, but then he pushes it firmly shut.

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I am big on repetition. I worry that this is a symtpom of my atrophying mind. I worry I have to repeat things in order to understand them. And that maybe I'm not smart enough to understand them the first time. But then I think I have probably always been this way. Because I've always been big on repetition. So perhaps I have never been smart enough and this is nothing new and I should stop worrying. Or maybe it's just that I like repetition. Maybe that's all it is. If I were a lawyer, I'd be a staunch advocate for repetition. If I were a doctor, I wouldn't treat anything presenting as repetition, even if it were infected and festered. If I were a fighter, I'd have repetition's back, by god. And I'd cut an asshole that got all up in repetition's face.

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