Scott Turow - Personal injuries

"Well, I was always chasing the Myth. Like everybody else in there. You know? The myth of love. Right? Love will make me different. Love will make me better. Love will make me dig myself."

"But it doesn't work," she said. It was the first thing she'd said for herself. Naturally, he didn't notice she wasn't speaking about him.

"At the time? Romancing, getting there? It worked. In the sack? It worked. A lot. Because I was really there. And she was really there. The whole experience is beyond bullshit, right? It's beyond everything else in my life I've fucked up. I don't have a past or a law practice or a sick wife at home. And neither does she. I can be happy. And so can she. We can make each other happy. I can be something great and good to her. And she can be that way to me. And for an hour or a night, for a while, man, we can love each other for it.

"You know, sometimes, I'd just sort of wake to it, like, Here I am, sharing this experience, intimacy, I mean close this way, all ways, to a person I didn't even know existed six hours ago, and I'd ask myself, Is this so bad? Is this really so goddamn wrong? For me, you know, I'm not one of these guys who thinks sex is the only thing in life, but it was glorious. That's all. Glory us." He spelled it. "That's how I'd think of the word."

He'd gotten caught up and looked across to her in the dark auto. There was something soft on the radio and she found herself unable to answer him. The unguarded way he spoke about himself, as if he were somebody else, open to himself and anyone within the sound of his voice, was often breathtaking.

"It's just when it was over," he said. "By the end, it didn't work. Jesus, afterwards, it was always like I could never get out of there fast enough. I don't know what it was. Embarrassed, I guess. You know, that creature need made such a big jerk out of me. Or that I'd thought she was more beautiful. But what was worst was probably just seeing how separate we were. At the end of things. She was here, with whatever it was-her classes tomorrow at cosmetology school and her dad, a copper cold-cocking himself with brandy every night, and her mom saying novenas. She had her life and our minute hadn't really changed anything. All the women-I never spent the night. Even when I was single. Even Lorraine. After we were engaged, you know, naturally. But not before. And even there, the first few times-I mean, she was like, Robbie, come on already. So I stayed. But I didn't sleep. Not a wink.

"But next year, two years from now, whenever it happens," he said, with the same unruffled knowledge of the future and himself, "give me three single-malt whiskeys on a Friday night, give me the whole scene, the jostling by the bar, the jokes, the cigarettes, the shouting over the music so loud it feels like big wings beating the air-give me the whole shot and I'll believe it. Big time. The Myth. I'll be right back there, spotting somebody across the room and thinking, Yeah, she's it, if I can get with her, I'll be great."

Evon had no trouble envisioning that. She could see him, with two or three Sylvias attending him, the dashing millionaire lawyer catching sight of someone else, younger, prettier, more perfect, the one who for a second could make him better than he was. A throb of what had passed through her in the bar briefly revisited and Evon looked out the window at the hulking dark buildings of the city. He'd ask that perfect young woman what numbers she liked, even or odd. She knew that much. He laughed when she predicted that, asking him what would come next.

"Everybody likes even numbers," he said. "That's how it turns out."

"So what do you say then?"

"I don't know. I'd probably tell you about me. What I like, don't like. I didn't like horror movies when I was a kid and I still don't. I bet you do, right?"

"Right."

"Sure. But I like thunder. Most people don't like thunder. Bam! I think that's a gas." He smacked his gloves together.

And then? she asked.

"I'd probably ask you what you're afraid of. You know, really scared of. That's a great one."

"And what kind of answers do you get?"

"Well, it depends how drunk you are, how honest. I've heard it all. Breast cancer. That's a very big one. Driving at night or on snow. Rape, naturally. Spiders. Rodents. Elevators. One woman-I really dug her for this-she told me that there's some little piece of her that still gets scared when she hears the toilet flush. And there's a lot of stuff people can't really name: Things that go bump in the night. The bogeyman."

"And what do you tell them you're scared of?"

"Truth? I make it up. Whatever will play. If she says breast cancer, I'll say, `Amazing, God, my old man died of breast cancer. What man gets breast cancer? Two in ten thousand. But I'm scared to death of that."'

"That's not true, though, right?"

"My old man may be alive for all I know."

"But they buy it?"

"Some. The ones who want to go with me. Either she buys it or she knows at least that I care about making her comfortable. So she's not afraid to get on to what happens next. You know?"

Evon didn't answer.

"If it's perfect," he said, "we have a good meal, and we split a bottle of some red wine so fantastic it could burn a hole in your sock. And then we drift back to her homestead or the Dulcimer, and I always ask this…" He dared for a second to look her way. "Where should I touch you first?"

She was briefly aware of the river of sensation rushing past her shoulders.

"Maybe you want me to come up softly from behind and put my palms on your hips. Maybe you like having your breasts touched in just this way. Almost not a touch. A hint. A grazing. Like a breath. So that your nipples get so hard it's a little painful in your clothing."

"Not me," she said quietly. "Don't talk about me." The words had not quite cleared her throat. She had thought when she started to speak that she was going to tell him to stop completely.

"I take my time with the clothes. I've never cared for the strip-down-and-do-it stuff, like there's a meter going in a taxi. Some people, all this buildup, and then it's, Hey, let's get it over with. I take my time. A skirt, a blouse. I like the layers. I like to say hello to each new part like it's a jewel. Hey, look at this elbow! This shoulder. Then something sudden. Maybe I slide my tongue halfway down her ear. But I want it to be right. Everybody's so different when it comes down to, you know, the little mannerisms of pleasure. Hard or slow. Touch me here but not there. I always want to know. I want both of us to be free. This one gets off by rubbing my business with her titties, and that one can't come unless my finger's up her fanny. But it's always a gift. Always. Even if it was a five-minute stand up in a phone booth, I've kept a piece of every woman I've ever made love to with me. Glory us," he concluded.

She had not said a thing. Sometimes it was amazing that life had gone on. It went on and you didn't know exactly what had happened. She didn't know now. Across the city, somewhere, a lowing truck horn boomed out. She was going to tell him to stop. For good. If he went on, she'd tell him. But he didn't.

"So what are you scared of?" he asked. She laughed, but he insisted. She didn't have to reveal any details of her forsaken identity, he said, but she couldn't simply be the interrogator. "What's your Big One?" he asked her.

She looked out the window. Near nine o'clock, a young boy who had apparently been sent down the block to the corner store waited for the light, coatless in the cold as he clutched a brown sack.

"Death," she said.

"That doesn't count. Everybody's scared of death."

"No, I mean, it's very strange. Some moments, I just know it. As if there's a record stuck in my head. `This will end. This will end. This will end.' I just see the light closing off, me disappearing. I can't even move I'm so scared." Alone. That was the worst part somehow. Fully, inalterably alone. She did not say that.