Chapter 31

31

Jonathan

I am going to die. She is going to kill me. I kind of want her to.

She leaves me in the hotel room. She is off to bribe the guards or tell them to make popcorn.

I am in way over my head; that much is clear. I want her so bad, my whole jaw aches. She has me right where she wants me, sitting on the end of a bed like an ape in an eighteenth-century floral orgasm.

I cannot even move, except to check my watch. It has been approximately seven seconds.

My ears are fuzzy. My throat is dry. My heart is hammering.

I am pathetic. I am so wholly fucking pathetic, like a heart with an arrow through it.

I should go. Now.

That would be the strong thing to do. The real-man thing to do. I should walk away. Save myself. I wanted to fuck her once, but in the Hall of Mirrors I will fuck her an infinite number of times. I might never stop. She is making it too good: the mirrors, the glass, the gold, the historical significance. I am about to be fucked where World War I ended. It is all too much. I have to have limits.

She offered to make me come in nineteen seconds. I could be home now, washing my hands. Brushing my teeth. Crawling into bed.

Instead, I am stapled to a floral bedspread, eyes on the floral wallpaper, designing plans to avoid premature ejaculation.

I need to forget the mirrors and the glass and the gold and the historical significance. I need to focus on something unhorny, unfuckable, whatever the word is: un-come-able .

There has to be something that can slow this train down. And there is. I have thoughts at my disposal that could stop any train, but the trouble is, I do not want to use them.

I have such a compelling reason not to.

Just one night. Just one fucking night.

One fucking night fucking.

I want to be like everyone else. I want to be happy.

Not forever. Not always. I know I cannot be cured.

But for the next few hours I want to be just another guy, fucking a girl in the Palace of Versailles.