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"Feel it."<br />
And she does.<br />
"Very strong," she says.<br />
"Rock solid. Feel that," I say and guide her hand to my stomach.<br />
"Very nice."<br />
"I just want to make sure we know where we stand."<br />
"You're crazy," she says and smiles.<br />
"Crazy in a good way. Are you crazy?"<br />
"I can be," she says.<br />
"How crazy? How crazy can you be?"<br />
Now it's me holding her eyes and even though she's only nineteen, even<br />
though she's only a babysitter, she holds mine back. I don't blink. She<br />
doesn't blink. I don't smile. She doesn't smile. I just think about fucking<br />
her and that's what I give her, from my eyes to hers, I'm going to fuck you,<br />
right there, in my stare.<br />
"Very good," I say and my voice is low.<br />
She doesn't say anything, just keeps holding my eyes, and I'm thinking<br />
I have a real fighter here, someone who reminds me of me when I was<br />
nineteen, which isn't that tough since I'm no different than I used to be, not<br />
really. A woman I'd gone out with met me again after many years and told<br />
me just that. She had a husband and a kid, and when she asked about my life<br />
she looked at me and told me I hadn't changed at all. She even accused me<br />
of living an empty life, as if her pedestrian existence was full. She brought<br />
her kid along, to show me her big accomplishment, and after lunch her kid<br />
said something about wanting to put on his mother's lipstick. The kid was<br />
old enough to know better and the woman laughed it off, but I knew she was<br />
embarrassed. I didn't rub it in her face, I didn't tell her that her meaningful<br />
existence wasn't exactly working out picture-perfect, but she knew. I smiled<br />
at her kid and winked, a gesture he'd use one day when he became a fullfledged<br />
transvestite.<br />
I'm still looking at my nineteen-year-old and she's still looking at me.<br />
"Should we keep this staredown going or both turn away at the same<br />
time?"<br />
"You like games, don't you?" she says.<br />
"I just like these heightened moments," I say.<br />
"So you're one of those."<br />
"One of those? Am I a type to you?"<br />
"I'm not sure yet," she says and in that vague statement she has the upper<br />
hand.<br />
She's right about the games. I do like games. My favorite game is the<br />
one where I tell women I'm twenty-five and then after I fuck them I show<br />
72 The Smell of Mortality
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