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At that moment, Bastian gently stroked my wrinkled brow with the very tips of his fingers, as if to wipe away my concerns. I, too, could be heard without saying a word.

“Don't worry, bella.”

I felt comforted, knowing that someone, anyone, was paying attention.

I reached up to touch this man's hand. I let it hover over his for a moment, still unsure if this is what I wanted to do.

I did.

I pressed my hand against his. His fingers twisted into mine and I was surprised by how soft they were. We let them fall, entwined.

And I wondered, Is this a story I haven't already heard?

the thirtieth

Dexy is a madcap beauty right out of a screwball comedy—with emphasis on the “screw” part. Have I mentioned that Dexy is kind of a slut? Well, uh, she is. But she's also my new best friend at school since I kicked Jane to the curb. Through Dexy, I've learned that prolifically promiscuous free spirits are incapable of embarrassment.

“So I'm blowing the Phishhead I met at the final show,” Dexy said tonight at Mama Mexico's. “And not two seconds into it it's like . . .” She grotesquely contorted her features into what I now instantly recognize as her imitation of the male “cum face.” She then broke into what I now know is her favorite “cum song.”

“Ooo eee ooo ah ah ting tang walla walla bing bang!”

As someone who's only kissed five guys, dry-humped four, jerked off three, gone down on two, and had sex with one, I often find myself asking questions that someone of her ilk might be able to answer.

“So Dexy,” I said, shoveling a chip into guacamole. “Would you ever have sex with a married man?”

“This wouldn't have anything to do with your Spanish boyfriend, would it?” Her eyebrows did the hula. She affected a country twang. “Tell me a lie, say you're not a married man . . .”

“Shhhhhhh!” I said, thrusting a chip into her open mouth. “Someone who knows him might overhear.”

“Don't worry,” she said, spitting tortilla across the table. “The more openly and loudly you talk about something, the less interested people are in hearing it.” She dramatically lowered her voice. “It's when you start whispering and acting all sneaky that people try to eavesdrop.”

I doubted her logic.

“So what do you think?” I asked. “What would you do if you were me?'

“Okay.” Her overloaded fork suspended in midair. “Am I me, but you on the outside? Or am I really you?”

“Uh . . . what?!”

“Because if I'm really me on the inside, but you on the outside so that everyone thinks I'm you, then I as you would fuck him, because that's something I would do.” She loudly chugged her beer, then went on. “But if I were you as you, then there would be no difference between the you as you we know in reality and hypothetical me as you, in which case I wouldn't sleep with him because that's not something you as you would do.”

I took a moment to process this.

“So you're saying that sleeping with a married man is something you would do, but not something I would do?”

Here's the insane thing about that quote: At the time, I said this defensively, as if an attack had been made on my character.

Dexy heaved a labored, bored-with-the-world sigh. “What if I told you that I've already had sex with a married man?”

I dropped my burrito. “You did not!”

“Would I lie to you?” she sang. “Would I lie to you, honey?”

“When?”

“Last winter, when I did that community theater thing. When I was in the chorus for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

I nodded, remembering how shocked I was that anyone had cast her in a show that people would pay money to see.

“I screwed the director, who, shockingly, was both straight and married.”

Well, that explained how she got the part.

“So how did it happen?”

“He said I needed more vocal coaching, so we started spending extra rehearsal time together. And then he started griping about how his wife didn't understand him and how they didn't have sex anymore and how he missed being with someone so young, and with so much fire inside and, well, you know it doesn't take much to woo me, so it was like, ‘Okay, let's do it!' so