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Show 357 at the faint green glow of his watch he made out that it was nearly midnight. He would not, he decided, give her the satisfaction of masturbating while she was sleeping comfortably overhead with someone in a warm room. He would lie there and plan his moves until he fell asleep. The two flattened squares of moonlight had moved from the bookcase to the place where the wall and ceiling met, and he fixed his eyes on them and conjured a sun-filled beachfront apartment with a sunken living room containing soft leather chairs and a grand piano, and his easel containing a monumental canvas on which luminous flowers pulsed against a spectral background, and a naked girl who looked like Alice sat huddled in a corner of the dark leather couch waiting for him to be through. It was a line of thought that made him happy, and he continued it until small white things crept down the wall on tiny feet that looked like nipples, and then he went to sleep. He came upstairs the next morning after he had heard Floyd leave and found her eating a grapefruit. A newspaper was propped in front of her against a milk carton. "Good morning," he said. He felt unbathed. She looked up. "Hi. What can I fix you?" "Listen, don't go to any trouble or anything. I know this is inconvenient. Just if you have any coffee or anything." "Just let me finish my grapefruit." He sat down across from her because he felt stupid standing there. Sitting down at the table didn't feel quite right either. It was as though he expected to be waited on. He said, "Oh," as though he'd forgotten something, and excused himself and went back downstairs. He straightened |