A long time ago, I was sitting on Dave’s back. He couldn’t move his neck from hours of writing. I was rubbing my hands up and down his back. Dave has a lot of hair on his head but no hair on his back. He has a smooth, feminine back. I was using my thumbs and making pink splotches come up on Dave’s skin. I leaned over and put my mouth on the curve where his neck meets his shoulder. I let my tongue touch the skin at the same time I breathed out through my mouth. Dave stood up and put his shirt on.
       “Do you want to watch Apocalypse Now?” asked Dave.
       “Okay,” I said. We sat close together on the couch watching Apocalypse Now. Dave started rubbing my arm. I climbed on Dave’s lap. He put his hands on my hips then pulled his hands away. He cupped my elbows with his hands. Our faces came closer and closer together and I stuck my tongue out a little and Dave stuck his tongue out a little and our tongues touched outside of our mouths and it seemed like our mouths were going to keep getting closer together until they also touched, with our tongues inside the mouths, but Dave was pushing me further and further away by the elbows. My tongue was out as far as it would go. It felt dry. I opened my eyes. My ass was on Dave’s kneecaps.
       “Ow,” said Dave.   
       “This is weird,” said Dave. “You’re my best friend. You’re a lesbian.”
       “Do you know those vegetarians who sometimes eat meat if they find it in the trash?” I said.     
       “Feel this,” said Dave. He put my fingers on the side of his neck and I rubbed and could feel the flesh sliding over something flat and cornered and hard.
       “A microchip?” I said.
       “I’m afraid I’m not human,” whispered Dave.
       I nodded.
       “Have you noticed how perfect my skin is?” asked Dave. “Like, too perfect?”  
       “Yes,” I said. “I’ve noticed. I notice everything.”
       The depressed man and I look at the glittery knitted flowers. I notice they were made with reflective yarn. The artists didn’t make the reflective yarn. They just knitted the flowers. Filipino kids make the reflective yarn in the Philippines. They make the yarn thinking about higher powers.
       “What’s a higher power to kids in the Philippines?” I ask the depressed man. It can’t be the ocean, the Philippines is surrounded by ocean, ordinary ocean. The depressed man thinks.  
       “Simon Cowell,” says the depressed man. “Grand Theft Auto.” He sneers. Really, though, the depressed man’s cynicism is a veneer. Underneath he is tremulous and filled with awe.
       “Intimacy is the process by which two people gradually discover they are exactly alike,” I say. “True or false?”
       “C,” says the depressed man. “It’s always C.”
       “It’s not,” I say.
       “More than 25%” says the depressed man.
       “There are 26 letters,” I say. “I don’t mean that. That was Eurocentric.”
       “Let’s get dumplings,” says the depressed man.