American rust by Philipp Meyer Page A

started rubbing her back and her leg.
    “You're not being fair,” she said.
    “I love you,” he told her.
    She sighed and burrowed into him.
    “You don't have to say it. I don't care.”
    “I love you, too,” she said.
    Soon she was touching the bare skin on his stomach. He put his hand up her skirt and she pushed against it and he undid his pants and slid them down and reached for her. She let him. She rolled on top of him and he pulled her underwear over and got partway inside, it was as quick as that. She raised herself up to get it in smoothly. They were still for a minute. She grabbed his shirt and squeezed it hard and then quickly rolled to one side and took her underwear off.
    They started again and after a minute or two there was a look on her face like she was concerned with something and he pulled her mouth to his neck so she wouldn't make noise. Eventually the tension went out of her and they were going slower.
    “Do you want to be on top,” she said.
    “I think I'm done.”
    “Me too,” she said.
    After lying like that for a while they took all their clothes off, just to be touching, and she lay with her back to him, his arms around her. She had a raised mole on her back, on the one shoulderblade, and he leaned and kissed it. He knew the other one wouldn't, is why. He knew she meant something different to the other one, she did not mean as much to the other one. It didn't matter. She was not the same for him but that didn't matter, he was going to write it down, a life lesson. Shut the fuck up, he told himself.
    Then he thought she was just doing this as a favor. It was just her doing a favor for you, old times’ sake, next time she will be gone to you. He felt cold. He was considering all the possibilities but then he decided no, it wasn't from pity, it was from several different things, he was fine with it. But it was time to get going, in an hour he might be nervous or angry, he didn't want her to see that. He slipped out from behind her and began to look for where his clothes had fallen, then stood up and began dressing.
    The coldness woke her and she opened her eyes.
    “Where are you going?” she said.
    “I dunno,” he said. “I guess home.”
    “I'll drive you.” She stood up, naked. She was so small. “Jesus, I'm shitfaced,” she said. “No wonder I wanted to seduce you.” She smiled at him.
    He was slightly hurt by the implication but he smiled anyway and his head began to feel straight again, this was as good as it would get, two old friends, occasional benefits, any more and she'd take him under and then leave him there. He was glad it had happened, a good reminder of how it was supposed to be. It was supposed to mean something, it was more than just body parts. Life was long and he would feel this way again only not with her. He couldn't figure out why he was feeling so natural about it, he hoped the feeling would last, he knew this was how he should close it. The end of one book of his life. He did not want to think about it.
    “I'm glad I got to see you again,” he said. He cleared his throat and made himself lean forward to kiss her forehead. She tried to pull him back to the couch.
    “You might as well stay a while longer,” she said. “We might as well do it all night.”
    “I should get home.”
    “I meant what I said.”
    “I know,” he said. “I know you did.”
    As he was leaving, he turned to wave and saw something move in Isaac's window. He kept walking. Soon he was in the dark under the trees.

8. Lee
    S he was lying on the couch, looking around at the home she'd grown up in but had put from her mind five years now, water- stained ceilings, patches of wallpaper curled from dry plaster, Isaac's books flung everywhere. Since she'd left, the books had filled the house. Old science textbooks he'd picked up at thrift stores, copies of National Geographic, Nature, Popular Science, piles of them on every shelf, on her mother's upright piano, the stacks of books and