No quotation marks tonight: Joyce didn't always use em. Also, listened to too much Cher.

You don't have a lover, she asked?

No.

She streaked the red lipstick across her lips, squinting at her face in the mirror.

Then who keeps you company?

My unwanted desires.

But that can not leave you - she paused, flourishing the lipstick and shaking her breasts - satisfied.

It doesn't, she says, and she thinks, you kissed me last night, you fucking kissed me, and I sucked the skin in between the bones of your rib-cage like my father sucks his steak.

Men are the best pills for insomnia. She puts down the lipstick. They are also the best antidepressants.

You kissed me. You fucking kissed me. Cunt. Whore.

She smiled. Ready. Want to go out for coffee? Also, there is a new book I want to buy.

She thinks of her mother saying to her father, "You kill me with your silences". Her mother was holding a steak knife, and the half-eaten red meat sat between them.

Raw.

What is that you said?

Raw. I was thinking of the weather.

Mmm.

They are already out the door, which locks firmly behind them - one of those automatic locks, for they live in a neighborhood marked by hookers: They live on Wanda street, named after the tranny Mama who likes purple eyeliner.

Who do you like better, they once asked, the men or the women?

Honey, at least men are silent. Women? They're some of the noisiest love-makers I've ever seen.

Men aren't silent with me, she whispered, and for a second, you thought she was going to hold your hand, but then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette. No, you thought, I'm not silent either. But you were silent that night, with your mother, with the steak knife. What was there to say?

You have become silent like a man, your mother said.

Fuck you, you think, I could suck the skin between your bones like a piece of thigh - your favorite part of the chicken, my favorite part of a woman - and a man, I suppose, when I can catch them. But they are tiny and slippery, like flies. If only I were a frog, beautiful and green, and unrelated to the human who stands before me.

Another thought to keep you company when you can not fall asleep.