That night's sleep was appalling. I should have taken that Sven, or whatever his name was, home. But I had anticipated that in half an hour I would want to throw him out of the window just for not letting him torture me by the sight of his face. So I recalled my naive youth and put out in the nearest alley outside the club. My ass had gotten unaccustomed to such treatment in the last two years, and also, I scraped my forehead against the bricks of the wall. But it was exactly what I needed. Stephen (Stanley?) has nothing to do on the ruins of my life; a smarting ass is more than enough.

           But I woke up about a hundred times that night.

           I was plagued by nightmares of breaking up with Blake. In fright, I was starting to grope for him to find solace in his embrace. I wanted to tell him: "Guess what I dreamt of!" Then I recalled he was gone. That was horribly painful, and I, unable to endure it anymore, got up and tried to work. But I failed to concentrate. When the clock struck nine, I called work and told Cynthia I had been throwing up all morning. Without elaborating, it was too true.

           I decided to sort Blake's books from mine. Yesterday we'd already taken to his place all his textbooks, guidelines and everything else related to his psychology classes. Fiction remained. It was not going to be easy to remember what he gave to me and what I gave to him. Collected writings of Dostoevsky were bought by Blake for himself. I opened "The Idiot" and started to thumb the volume. Farewell, Nastasia Filippovna! And you, Prince Myshkin, as well. I shuddered to think how Blake was sobbing at this book.

           We were waiting in the line at airport check-in, all tanned after a vacation with plenty of swimming. Perfect timing for being serene and relaxed. And had not I told him, "Do not take that brick of existential pain with you. Read, say, Wodehouse". No, in that fucking line he was sniffling and shedding tears right onto the book, driving me mad.

          Just before the vacation Blake had entered the university. During the exam prep he was awfully nervous and spread hysterical fluids eight feet around himself. Birds were dropping dead, one third of my hair became grey. And then, at last, he received his SAT results and then the order for admission. High time to have a rest, to relax. And to give me the chance, too. But he took Dostoevsky to the seaside, got upset and wept at the airport. I was not yet aware of what was ahead and what was the real reason of the sobs, otherwise I would have probably played Captain Nemo without a submarine.

           I smiled, recalling that vacation. Actually, but for a headlong collision with masterpieces of world literature, everything was gorgeous. It turned out Blake could not swim. That gave me a great chance to have real fun, splashing and fooling around. I stood chest-deep in the sea, my hands under Blake's stomach, and he paddled and laughed. In the end he managed to remain afloat without my support, and a couple of days later we were swimming together along the coastline and kissing, holding onto a buoy. And in the evenings we used to sit on the sand, holding each other, listening to the wash and looking at the stars or the moon gleam on the water. But after five days or so he apparently got bored with happiness again and started to read Dostoevsky. It was a great metaphor for our relationship at large. Only I had to hit on Kafka.

          Suddenly it dawned to me that I was also weeping over pages of "The Idiot". What a wonder of writing craftsmanship! One does not even need to read the book: you just open it - and burst out sobbing.

           I recalled sitting with Blake at the beach at night. There was nobody around, and only balm crickets were chirping. And Blake offered, "Shall we dance?" I said, "Just like that, without music?" And he goes, "What do you mean, without music? As for me, I hear violins and drums!" And he took my hand, and we started to waltz, laughing and sinking in the sand.

           A year and a half back. Felt like it was a whole lifetime ago.

 ***

           I closed the book and put it into a box. Took the next one. A photo fell out of it:  It was Blake and Rita, hugging. An amusing sight as Rita is both taller and bigger. Her tee is pink with "sexy" set in rhinestones on it and her afro is big enough to hide a watermelon. On the first day of Blake's classes I took him to a restaurant and asked him to tell me everything. I thought I was in for a synopsis of a lecture on the brain and its absence. But instead Blake said, "I met such an engaging girl!"

           Funny, huh? I was the one who drove Blake to the university half an hour before the classes because, otherwise he certainly would have been late as usual. So, he entered the classroom and saw Rita at once. He said it was love at the first sight. Come to think of it, all of Blake's loves are of that kind, why should this one be different. We first met in front of a club, and that was the start of the spin. Some GHB, a little crystal - an enchanting love story. And Rita had got the lecture time wrong, that was why she was sitting there and reading a huge volume of Sheckley. Blake sat next to her to ask what book that was - he will never ever miss a single book - and Rita told him the whole plot. She made some jokes and laughed at them; her laughter makes buildings crumble. Then she gave the book to him, saying that she had nobody to share her impressions with.

           "Is it possible that you have no friends?" Blake asked. And Rita trumpeted: "Gotta hell of a lot of them, but fuck it helps!!!"

           As a matter of fact, in the preceding six months many of my thoughts had been about finding friends for Blake. He had had only rehab colleagues to communicate with, and that had been all about work. I had met him at the get-together of gay skiers, but, as I learned afterwards, he had been there just to fuck with one of them. Having moved in with me, Blake had broken all the contacts with the rectal athletes. Of course I had wanted Blake to find friends in mine. But Emmett had never been able to stomach him, and one can become Brian's friend only accidentally (and after sailing over an ocean of disgust), and with Michael and Ben, everything had been complicated. We'd been to a score of dinners at the Bruckner-Novotny place, but every time Blake opened his mouth, Ben had looked at him with such hideous friendly compassion, that I had wanted to clap a bowl of miso soup on his head. Blake is anything but stupid, but to the PhD,  his discourses about literature had certainly seemed something like the naïve babbling of a toddler who's just heard about Mary and her lamb. And if I had been bending my ear to the babbling with tutorial pride, Ben just had nothing to do with it.

           Sometime a very long time ago, probably, on the occasion of Blake's SAT passing score, we had a small celebration and invited his coworkers. One of the women said to me, "You are everything to him."  Back then, I thought that being everything to someone is a second rate prospect. And also, I wanted my boyfriend to have plenty of hobbies and pleasures of all kinds, especially after all the shit he had in his life before he met me. So I talked him into entering college. I helped him out with the exams. I was personally spending an hour a day doing algebraic equations with him until he passed SAT. I hope that my lectures found a niche in his head, because psychologists study statistics. Basically, I did everything for him to have quite a different life, besides work and myself. And here comes the fulfillment of hopes!

           Blake has quite a different life. But I have no spot in it.

           I asked him if he was going to drop out. His answer, praise God, was, "Of course, not!" I told him I would keep on paying for tuition, but Blake turned me down. He said he would take two more groups at the rehab and hustle on Fridays. I said, "You will not pull off two more groups." And he answers with, "Then I will have to hustle Fridays and Saturdays." Then he convinced me that he would get some grant money, but I will have to call the financial department of the college now and then.

 ***

           Having sorted the books, I put mine back on the shelves. I arranged them first chronologically, then alphabetically, and finally by my personal rating. I took my cell, opened Blake's messages and thumbed through them. ‘Teddy, I'm cooking a duck. I love you more than anything in the world!’ ‘Honey, I'll be home at 8. Luv u!’ ‘Pls get my coat frm drclnrs! <3!’ I pushed "Delete all" and watched the phone swallow the messages one by one.

           Blake was absolutely right yesterday. We were not making it. Together we were just hurting each other. And separately, we will be just fine. Everything is not too bad yet; the last months were worse. Brian will get by without me somehow, because in the last five weeks I was working with barely any weekends off and security was ushering me home. I fucking hated going home because the home was Blake's and mine. And now it is my own. And here, I can do whatever I want, without being afraid of wounding someone's feelings and looking at them, all withered in a puddle of bloody slime.

           Yesterday, Stephan put his card in my pocket. Damn, he happens to be Stuart. I called him and told my address. Apparently, I can never have enough butt ache. But if I have any options, best to let it hurt because of sex.