All Gone by Stephen Dixon

and plenty of kindling and hard wood and you could undress me if we haven’t already undressed and I’ll undress you or we’ll undress separately if we undress at all—”
    â€œCan I have another drink?”
    â€œSure. I’ll get it.”
    I go to the bar and get another scotch and glass of wine and bring them back.
    â€œWhere was I? We were in front of the fireplace?”
    â€œI was thinking,” she says.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œLet’s go to the party. We’ll stick with the lie you just made up. I like the cat out the window. That sounds real because it sounds possible and I do have one in my room so I know how they love ledges and what they’re like if anyone asks me about him and the stupid things he can do. And you made the party sound like fun—the whole evening. I won’t let myself meet anyone else and I’ll leave when you want us to or maybe a little before then when I want to if I’m feeling uncomfortable there or things get sticky. You’ve been nice and I expect you to stay nice. But you can’t kick me out of your apartment at three or four in the morning, all right?”
    â€œWhy would I?”
    â€œSome guys have. Even the ones I was in love with. Suddenly they don’t want me. Maybe I can’t blame them sometimes—the new ones I just meet overnight. They get scared their wife or girlfriend’s coming home or that’s just an excuse and they want me out because they’ve had enough of me or they suddenly feel guilty or even diseased sleeping with me. Or listen to this, they have to go to work extra early that morning they say and don’t want me in their apartment alone. I don’t want you doing that.”
    â€œTomorrow’s Sunday. I’ve the weekend off. If you come to my apartment—though who knows what could happen by then. I might get drunk at the party, though I don’t usually, and make a stupid scene about something else and you’ll get embarrassed or frightened and leave without me and regret you ever met me.”
    â€œYou won’t do that?”
    â€œNo. What I’m saying is anything can happen to spoil it but I doubt very seriously anything will. We’ll go to the party and stick with the story. We’ll talk, eat, drink, leave around the same time everyone else does, cab to my apartment if you still want to and light a fire and take a shower or anything like that but all reasonable, sane, comfortable, etcetera. Then we’ll go to bed or even make love on the rug in front of the fire or wait till morning for that or not even in the morning—not ever—anything you want.”
    â€œAnd you’ll give me twenty-five more dollars when we get to your place?”
    â€œThat I can’t do.”
    â€œYou have no more money at home?”
    â€œI have but I don’t want to give it.”
    â€œBut I need at least fifty to keep the landlady away. And I’m already sacrificing a lot by going to the party for just that single twenty-five. The other men. Those are the best hours of the best day of the week for that. By one o’clock I could make one-fifty if I work real hard and am lucky—a hundred at the very least.”
    â€œI can’t give you anything but the twenty-five I’ll give now if you come to the party with me. It just wouldn’t be the same thing giving you more at home.”
    â€œThen I can’t go.”
    â€œBe reasonable. One evening.”
    â€œNo I can’t.”
    â€œThen don’t.”
    â€œI won’t.”
    She finishes her drink says goodbye and leaves. I go to the party and meet someone new and just as the party’s ending I ask and she says yes and we cab to my apartment.

CAPITAL LABOR
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    A friend of my sister calls and says “I was chatting with Lula just before and asked how you are and she said looking for work and I said ‘Yeah? Because something’s come up in our