Life as I know it is nothing more than repressed desire, in that I want to be hurt, no not in a physical sense. I want to be able to give you the blood from my heart, transfuse it into your brain, thereby making you know how much you have hurt me.

      I'd die just to see if you would cry, to see my blood run out of your eyes, to make you feel, if not for me then for yourself.

      The cool posture you hold even around me, knowing that you made me cry the first time we made love, tears of joy and amazement streaming down my cheeks, you licked them and realized I was pure, for my tears were not salty from a bad diet, alcohol, another man's seed, etc...

      Yet you abuse me with your aloofness, your mask for the charisma that first drew me to you.

      Remember the snowfall in April, that led to us sitting on ice, sucking strawberries from each other's mouth. We were nineteen. You showed me a well of passion, infinite, morbid yet too tempting to run from. So what if my proclamations came too soon? I wanted you to commit to infinity, yet you saw it as only monogamy, suicide to a young male.

      So now I wait on the sidelines while you sow your oats in a barren field, refusing to come and be nurtured by Bliss, your soul mate, your shadow. To disapprove your notion that I was whipped by the first stud I met, I saddle the mustang and drive through this ghost town but my tank always runs back to empty.
Your limited sight may trick you to think your assumptions right, but what's left you may never know.

Always in my prayers,

Bliss

Simone finished the letter and placed it back in the text book. She sat on the edge of Frank's bed. The two phone calls while they made love last night, and the three others while Frank was out buying breakfast had not troubled her. All five women said basically the same thing: Frank this is such and such. Give me a call when you get a chance. She couldn't just dodge this letter, taking his usual excuse that he was the captain of a winning team, that she wasn't there, and he was hurt. This letter wa s dated two days ago from a woman he dated two years before her. She wondered if there were any more letters. As Simone made her way to the closet, she heard the front door opened. "I'm back!" She resigned herself to just ask Frank about the letter, and if he should ask why she was going through his stuff. She would say 'how else am I supposed to get to know you' in her most sincere voice.

      Frank entered the bedroom and kissed her. She forced a smile, thinking the best way to bring it up. "How come you don't turn the ringer off and the answering machine's volume down when you have company?"

      He laughed, "I have nothing to hide. Do you do that?"

      What's with the tennis match, she thought. Simone regretted saying it but felt her honesty would be matched, "Yes."

      He laughed it off by playfully pushing her, "You skeezer." She had fully constructed the question in her mind but the phone rang. Frank asked, "Should I turn the volume down?"

      "No. It may be her."

      The greeting played. "Who?" She asked him to be quiet. The beep sounded. Simone looked at Frank, her brown skin turning purple. The caller had said: Hi this is Smiley. Call me. I'll be home studying. "What the fuck? Smiley is Bliss?"

      "What? What are you talking about?" Frank laughed, rolling on the bed to get close to her. Simone thought to herself: comparative philosophy- men are cold blooded snakes, lies are their venom. She stood, out of his reach, and looked at him. Frank must have sensed the seriousness in her eyes, "Smiley's calling for Monk."

      "For Monk? Why would she be calling for Monk?"

      "This is some shit you can't repeat to anyone. But they've been kicking it over the phone for a couple of weeks."

      "She would have told me."

       "Only reason I know is cause I'm Monk's roommate."

       Simone didn't push the issue. "What about this Bliss?" Frank's eyes said he wanted to know how she knew, but her eyes read: skip the small talk.

       "This girl who goes to school here. She wants to be the first to win the Nobel Prize for two totally different categories, Physics and Literature." Simone turned her back on him and walked out of the room. He came out after. He held her softly, "She' s this psycho chick."

       Simone was pissed, "That's no psycho chick! That's love!"

       He pushed away from her, only to turn back and face her. The words stormed out of his mouth. "That's not love. Love is not a letter in the mail. A postcard on a desk. A picture taken in an amusement park." She liked what she was hearing, knowing she had pushed his talk button. "Those things are the result of love. Things we were supposed to do these past months."

       "No, no, no." She wanted him to stick to Bliss.

       "Where the fuck were you?"

       "You don't have to cuss!"

       "Well where were you?" Volleyed.... "Healing."

       "So was I," said Simone, the words echoing through her body.

       Frank sat on the sofa, a circle of tears lay flat in both eyes. He stared at the Nosakhere painting, of the little girl with the wide eyes and her mother in the foreground. He squeezed his nostrils to keep his tears from scattering from his irises. Si mone did not go to him. Pop philosophy- if all else fails, a man will cry to release his venom.

       Monk opened the front door. His eyes revealed the shock of seeing her in only a long T-shirt. He greeted her. She got it off quickly, "Smiley called." She kept Monk's eyes on her.

       "I told her I wouldn't be back til this afternoon." She sensed Frank's thought: Monk's the man. Simone thought: I have to get Monk to call Smiley this very minute.

      "You're too much." The look on Frank's face meant he also knew her thoughts.

      "What?" Monk asked.

       Frank answered that it was nothing and made his way back to his bedroom. Simone did not follow him. She wanted to be left alone with Monk. "So Monk..."

       Frank kept walking. "You..." Simone paused. Frank kept walking. "came back early? Are you coming to Barrington before this semester ends?"
      
       "Yes." After a few comments about the various paintings on the wall, she realized it was best to pursue this at a later time. She returned to Frank's bedroom for breakfast.