Calm

Mark's throat tightened as the door opened upon Jenny's form. As far as he could tell, his eyes were jutting out of their sockets like some bad excuse for a monster mask. Her sandy-blonde hair was untied and wild behind her head, her thick black-rimmed glasses were in the corner of the couch half-folded, and her feet were bare. He hocked a silent ball of gelatinous snot into the back of his mouth and swallowed. "What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" she said, her widened eyes slowly narrowing.

"Your mom said you were at the mall-"

"She did?"

"Yeah-"

"Stupid bitch." Jenny shrugged and walked over to the couch and sat down on her glasses. "I told her I was coming over here to study."

"Have you been studying?"

"No, asshole, just smokin' weed and watchin' TV." Jenny looked away, her face reddening, and giggled.

"Where's Irwin?"

"In the bathroom, I think-"

"You think?"

"Yes. Therefore I am-"

"Shut the fuck up-" Mark leaned back and stretched, then snapped his fists out, his elbows popping.

"I hate it when you do that-"

"I know." He looked down at his girlfriend's curled up legs under her short skirt as she turned on the TV and could see half her ass but not the slightest hint of panties. Something sounded behind him and he turned, only to catch the back half of Mr. Cook's emaciated, slouching, towel-wrapped body whisk its way down the hall. "I've got to pee."

The bathroom was humid, a film of antibacterial soap smeared on the walls and toilet, the mirror a refuge of manufactured fog. A triple-bladed shaving razor with a curly spring of a hair lay on the slippery sink. As he pissed, he leaned over and peered into the waste basket: empty. A zip and two deep breaths and he was in the hall again, a vein in the side of his forehead filling and emptying as fast as he could think.

Mr. Cook's bedroom door was shut. So he went into the other bedroom, where Mr. Cook kept his computer and where he and Jenny had spent many nights sleeping at nonexistent friends' houses. "Jenny," he called.

As she tiptoed into the room, Mark pushed her onto the day-bed and closed and locked the door behind him. He dropped to his knees and heaved his face between her legs, into her hairless labia, which were stiff and leathery and smelled, under the initial scent of shaving cream, of latex and chlorine. He stabbed four fingers in her, scraping with his nails against the walls of her vagina, digging flesh into his fingertips, until she pulled his hair and cried, "Stop, Mark, that hurts-"

"But you like it to hurt-" he panted.

"Not like that." She let out a breath as he pulled his hand out of her. "Just fuck me and get it over with-"

Mark got up on the bed and back on his knees but next to her head. He unzipped his pants. "Just suck it."

Fifteen or twenty vacuums of her lips and tongue and Mark pulled his penis from her mouth, jerked her head back with his blood-stained hand, and pumped semen into her face with the other. He quickly buttoned his jeans and wiped his hands on her skirt. "I've got to go."

At the door to the bedroom, he turned and watched for a moment as Jenny rubbed her eyes with a corner of blanket. He shut the door behind him without making a sound.