He was willing to oblige. He pulled my skirt up, high above my waist, then yanked my underwear down past my thighs. I wiggled out of them, let them fall to the ground as his hands wandered freely, blatantly groping, rubbing, squeezing. They were everywhere, finally, my ass, my tits, between my legs…everywhere…

   But I needed more than his hands. There was a booth a few feet away. I pushed him down onto it and dropped to my knees.

   …you just dropped to your knees for the first fresh dick that came along…

   Shut up, Jason. Shut the fuck up.

   Bartender kindly kicked the table away as I unbuttoned his pants and pulled them down to his ankles. Then I rested my elbows on his knees and lingered there for a moment, staring. Because now I knew what a redhead looked like. And it had been a long time since there was something new.

   I couldn’t take him into my mouth, though, even though I had planned to. Not with Jason’s words still echoing in my brain. I climbed up onto his lap instead. He was probably disappointed, but I didn’t care. Why should I care? He was too excited to last very long, and I hadn’t driven thirty-one miles just to let some strange guy get off in my mouth. I made it up to him by pulling my shirt off as I straddled him. And just as I slipped Bartender’s dick inside of me I remembered:

   It was the same shirt I’d worn the first time Brian had fucked me.

   It didn’t matter now, didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was that there were hands and fingers unhooking my bra, pulling it off, and a mouth that was all over me now. Hot, wet lips and hotter tongue and what mattered was that I was fucking someone, fucking someone, finally, thank God, someone who wanted it as badly as me, who wanted me badly. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see red hair, didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to see anything. I just wanted to feel him inside of me, feel his hands and mouth, all over me, wanted to hear him, his moaning and grunting and broken, halting words, the sounds that reminded me how much he loved the way I tasted, loved the way I felt, loved the way he felt inside of me and it didn’t take me long to get there, not long at all. Because I’d been waiting for hours for him, waiting for months for it, waiting for Brian please, Brian, please just one more time. Just once more Brian and you’ll see, you’ll see, you’ll fucking see how much you’ve missed it, how much you’ll miss me, how much…

   Yes. I know. And I love…you…too, Brian…

   And then it was over. I was done, Bartender was done. I had driven thirty-one miles and it had barely taken five minutes. And when it’s all over, just what do you say to a man whose hands are on your ass, whose face is buried between your tits, whose dick is buried inside of you, whose name you don’t even know? I couldn’t think of a thing. Unfortunately, he could. He looked up at me, his head still between my tits, and said:

   “Who’s Brian?”

   “What?”

   “Brian. You said his name.”

   “I did?”

   He nodded.

   “Oh. Sorry. He’s…um…”

   But I couldn’t think about Brian anymore, couldn’t talk about him. Especially not while another man’s dick was inside of me. So I said it again.

  “I’m sorry.”

   He shrugged. “Why be sorry? It doesn’t matter to me.”

   Of course it didn’t. He’d just gotten a good, free fuck. Why should he care what--or who--the woman that came along with it was thinking about while he was getting it?

   You know what, Brian? Fuck you.

   I cleared my throat and tried to think of what to do next. It didn’t take long to figure it out. What I had to do was clean myself up. Because I hadn’t thought about protection. Hadn’t thought about anything. And I wanted to ask him if I had anything to worry about now, if he had the Clap or AIDS or some other disgusting disease or infection, but why bother? He probably didn’t, and he’d probably just lie about it if he did. And I had to get away from him. Couldn’t look at him anymore. Couldn’t let him look at me for even one second longer.

   I hopped off, pulled down my skirt, collected the rest of my clothes, and sped into the bathroom. My purse was still on the counter. I searched inside it with shaking hands, shivering hands, for some change and found a handful of quarters. I used them to buy a pad from the dispenser on the wall. I didn’t want him all over my underwear. Then I cleaned myself up as best I could in a public bathroom that had no soap, got dressed, and took a quick look in the mirror. At my mascara and red lips and long, fake-blonde hair. I still looked fine. Just So. Even after I’d fucked a strange guy on a booth in a bar thirty-one miles away from home.

   Bartender was already dressed, picking up glasses and bottles and trash. It made me remember that I hadn’t paid my bill. I pulled my wallet from my purse, but he waved me off.

   “Nope. You’re all set.”

   I plunked the money down. “This is not up for discussion. And…just keep the change.”

   He chuckled lightly. “Oh, I think you gave me a big enough tip already.”

   I had to grab tight hold of the bar. Because the room was spinning and nothing was in focus. And I tried to think, through the fog, of some words to say to him; words that were filled with venom and hatred and disgust. But there were no words inside of me, and the only hatred I could dig up from the hard, frozen ground, the only disgust, was for myself. Because, of course, Bartender had it

   exactly right. So I did the only thing I could do. I grabbed my purse and walked out of the bar.

   I stood alone in the parking lot, shivering, my teeth actually chattering. Even though it was April. Even though it was spring. I hugged myself tightly, rubbed my frozen arms, and looked across the street, up at Ugly Woman’s apartment. The light was on and there was no curtain in the window, so I could see her sitting at her kitchen table. There was an open bottle of Something in front of her. Even though she’d spent all night drinking, she was sitting there drinking some more. Drinking herself into oblivion. Into a haze. Filling her stomach and liver and brain and empty heart with poison.

   I looked away from the window, away from her, because I knew. That would be me. When I was too old and ugly and desperate to get a guy to give me the Something that I needed to make the voices go away. To make the empty, god-awful ache in my heart disappear.

   That would be me.

   Bullshit, Tess. That’s you right now. Right now. Because you fucked that guy. You know that, don’t you? You fucked a man you don’t even know. You climbed on top of him and took him inside of you and let him make you come. You let him come. Inside of you. It’s still inside of you, right now. And you don’t even know his name.

   That’s what I did.

   I was. I really was that girl. And I probably always would be.

   And that’s when I heard another voice, a younger voice. A girl who had always just whispered, when what she’d really wanted to do was shriek. She was still whispering, still, and I could just barely make out what she was saying underneath all the other voices. The voices that bellowed

   the voices that sneered

   the voices that told me…that told me…

   She was trying to tell me something. Something from long, long ago.

   Your heart is like soil and mine was trampled and hard. Packed down tight from a lifetime of pushing it down, all the things that hurt. All the useless emotions. All the things that you can’t do anything about anyway. Pack it down tight, so far down that you can’t feel it. And when it’s hard, too hard to stay, it comes to the surface. A big fat ugly rock that you have to puke out, and that hurts, too, hurts even worse, because it leaves behind a crater. So you fill it up with Something, anything, it doesn’t really matter what. Fill up the empty, aching, gaping, goddamn fucking hole. Fill it with booze, sex, work, drugs, religion. Find yourself a lover, find yourself a daddy, find yourself a god, find yourself a dick. Just fill it up. Fill it up. Just make it. All. Go away.

   I looked again at Ugly Woman--at Sharon--trying desperately to fill up her holes. Because I could do that, too. I could go back into that bar, right now, and drink ten of Bartender’s sweet, red, rummy concoctions, but it wouldn’t do the trick. I could fuck him again, I could fuck him all night, and it wouldn’t fill up the hole Brian had left behind. Just like Brian couldn’t fill up the one Jason had left. Just like Jason couldn’t…couldn’t…

   “Oh, shit…”

   I had to close my eyes. Because the world was spinning and nothing was in focus. I stumbled to my car. Opened the door. Fell onto the seat.

   And. I did.

   I started the car, turned the heater on high, and pulled out of the parking lot. Drove past the hospital where Matthew had been born, where Alice had died, where Rachel had spent the last week of her life aching and shaking and puking

   past the woods beside the hospital, where she had died

   and towards the middle of town. I stopped at the red light near the interstate. The sign on the overpass reminded me that I was thirty-one miles south of Brookfield and thirty-one miles north of New Mills. It was the sign that meant I had to decide. There was a breakdown coming, that much I knew. And I had to figure out where I was going to have it.

   Green light.

   I drove the thirty-one miles to the only place I could think of to go. A place where I might feel safe and loved. And when I got there I was surprised to see that it was only 12:55. Less than an hour since I’d last done the Something that used to make all the voices go away. The Something that didn’t work anymore. So I tried something new. I sat there, shivering, even though the heater was on high, and tried to cry. Because I hadn’t done it in such a long time. Not after Rachel died. Not after I’d put all her stuff in the boxes that meant she was gone forever, or when I’d opened up the envelope with the money that meant Brian was gone, too. Not even when I’d moved into the new apartment that meant that everything had changed.

   I knew I was supposed to be hurting. I knew that, somewhere, there was searing pain because they were gone. But it was all still buried beneath the hard, frozen ground where I couldn’t feel it. It’s where the tears were, too.

   And that meant that nothing had changed.