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: : : IT'S LATE AT NIGHT AND Clark's riding the subway with Oliver, drunk. Her head feels heavy and she's too exhausted to keep trying to manage the trick of balancing it on top of her body, so she's slumped way forwards in her seat, resting her face on the handrail mounted on the seat in front of her. The metal is cool against her skin; it's nice; she smiles.
Oliver is leaning up against her. The first time he puts his hand on her thigh she mumbles get off, and limply slaps his hand away. The second time, though, just a minute later, it seems more comforting and less annoying—some virtue of repetition?—and so she lets him leave it there. It's not like he's never touched her there before.
They've started fucking again. The first time was after that stupid meeting two weeks ago—they went out to the bar and got drunk, drunker even than they used to get, and after that there was this whole complicated blurry sequence of events (she remembers wandering around in a 24-hour Walgreens, desperate to buy a bottle of water so she could hydrate; she remembers bruising her ass by sitting down too hard on a fire hydrant)—and at the end of this sequence they were back at his place, making out violently against the wall. Near dawn, her bladder woke her up—she made her wobbly way to the bathroom, and then, while pissing, was forced to look at her haggard sobering face in the mirror directly across from the toilet. She fell into the trap of her reflection. After a few seconds in there her flight response kicked in, and fifteen minutes later she was out on the street corner calling Yellow Cab.
This is going to necessitate a long conversation, she thought, but the next time they saw one another they both pretended it hadn't happened. And then they went out again, and got drunk again, and at some point he said I think there's more alcohol back at my place and they ended up there, up against the wall again. Things were even more violent than they'd been the first time—she can recall one point where she was menacing him with a pair of scissors. In retrospect she feels lucky that she didn't stab him in the throat in some moment of Maenadic abandon. Maybe tonight, she thinks, and the idea that she's been saving it up makes her snicker.
—What's funny? Oliver asks.
—Huh? Clark says. She opens her eyes, blinks at the surfaces surrounding her, which seem to be ridiculously overlit.
—You were laughing, says Oliver.
—Oh yeah, says Clark.
—So what's the gag, snickerpants?
—I was thinking about stabbing you, she says.
Oliver nods knowledgably. —I can see the humor in that, he says.
The train gets to his stop. There are no words exchanged, there is no period where they articulate their intentions and wishes for the night. But when the doors open they both rise from their seats and stagger out onto the platform, where they are slapped by the cool air of this summertime night, under the waxing moon.
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