The Bookstore by Deborah Meyler

night, in the doorway. I think of the time when, the time when, the time when. My foot in a high-heeled shoe trying to get some grip against a bathroom basin; the time when he led me into a lecture theater in the dark at the New School. “You’re going to learn something now.” No lust?
    I say, in a small, puzzled voice, “No lust—at all?” It is a question I will very much regret. Self-respect is hard to hold on to all the time. Especially when you are twenty-three and fail to incite lust in your boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend.
    He shakes his head, sorrowful, regretful, his knife glinting.
    “From that first time you kissed me—when you put your hand between my legs—it always seemed that there was lust . . .”
    Mitchell shrugs. “I do that,” he says.
    The cruelty is almost funny. A wicked grin flashes up; he catches my eye, ready to make me complicit in my own abasement. I flicker a smile back at him. I will not let him see that this is a tragedy rather than a comedy.
    “I’m sorry,” he says. “For me, it has to be—I want disgusting sex. With Clarissa, it was always disgusting . With you—it’s nice. You know?”
    I nod again. I even infuse a little sympathy into the nod. Poor Mitchell. “Then why . . . ?”
    “Then why did I hold on this long? I like you, Esme. You’re fun to be around, you’re smart, you—I enjoy your company.”
    “Oh,” I say, dully. “Thank you.” That’s what I say, instead ofa stream of abuse or vitriol, because how does the world benefit from that? Thank you.
    “You don’t need to thank me,” he says, his eyes alight with amusement. “That’s so English, Esme.”
    He takes my hand between both of his.
    “I don’t want to hurt you,” he says. A new kind of smile comes.
    “No,” I say, “no, of course . . . Mitchell—it didn’t seem as if you were going to break up with me when—when I last saw you, or spoke to you. Have I done something wrong?”
    He grimaces. “As to ‘breaking up,’ Esme, I’m not sure that’s exactly the right term. I mean, it’s not as if we’re exclusive . . .”
    I think dimly of country clubs, fancy hotels, Bergdorf Goodman.
    “Exclusive?” I say.
    “I mean, we never made that commitment to each other.”
    “You’ve been seeing other people?” I say. My voice sounds level, conversational almost. Mitchell knows it’s bad, though.
    “Esme, you know how it works . . .”
    The nanny, with the princess, is walking sedately past again.
    “No,” I say, carefully. “Ask me anything about the Italian Renaissance though. I know how that works.”
    He says nothing. I feel as if I am falling, falling through air and space. I can’t hold on to all that is happening. I am pregnant, and I am not supposed to be, and my boyfriend isn’t my boyfriend. I am one of the girls he dates. I am alone amid the alien corn.
    “You’d better tell me how it does work,” I say at last. “Are you dating a lot of women?”
    “I’ve been on dates with a couple of other girls, just one-off things. One—a few dates with one. I am sorry if there was a misunderstan—”
    “Do you sleep with them?”
    “Esme.”
    “Do you?” My voice is on a rising wail, but I can’t help it. “I think I should know that . I didn’t realize that when I went to the—when I had a checkup, I should have been asking for tests for HIV and, and herpes !”
    I look at him; his eyes are glassy, as pitiless as a bird’s.
    I wonder how horrible it is to have an abortion. If it hurts. If I will need an anesthetic. If the nurses will secretly hate me. If my insurance covers it. If it will break my heart.
    “Before I go—what did you want to say to me?” Mitchell asks.
    The pregnancy is nothing to do with him, after all. I must walk away from him, call the clinic, and terminate what should never have begun.
    “Nothing that matters now,” I say.
    He nods. “I thought so.”
    I hold my hand out to him. “Good-bye, Mitchell.”
    “You’re hurting, I know,” he