The Convulsion Factory by Brian Hodge

Gary said, and clinked his glass to hers. “But not all who wander are lost.”
    One eyebrow ticked upward as she appraised and approved, or pretended to. “You’re literate enough to read bumper stickers, at least.”
    Talk progressed, easy and loose and non-binding. They traded names, Gary for Lana, and libidos simmered during the seductive ballet. He liked best these encounters where roles were blurred. Who was predator, and who the prey? A tossup, one answer as valid as the other. In the end, he supposed it didn’t matter, as long as the orgasms were mutual.
    Six years of high-ticket vagrancy had shuffled him through a succession of primary, secondary, and graduate schools of one-night stands and short-term loves. Money was no problem; an umbilical credit card kept him linked to the New England bank account. He never had to stick around when it no longer seemed wise. He didn’t want to leave behind a legacy of pain any more than he wanted to lug one around inside.
    “You like riddles?” she asked after four rounds of drinks had worked their magic.
    “Usually. Let’s hear it.”
    “It’s not easy.” Lana smiled mischievously. “But. Do you know what the worst part of being me is?”
    “The worst thing, let’s see.” He studied her a moment, the fine-boned face, the tall straight posture, the so-black hair, shoulder length. She didn’t appear to have lived too harsh a life thus far. Her eyes knew pain, though, and her soul was evidently as on display as her small cleavage. “You don’t know how to love.”
    A coy shake of her head. “Wrong. So wrong.”
    “You’ve never been in love.”
    Another shake. She was enjoying this immensely. Sometimes this was the most fun game of all, opening yourself like a maze and escorting strangers into blind alleys.
    “You don’t think,” he tried slowly, “you’ll ever find the right one to love.”
    Lana tapped her chin, half conciliatory. “You’re still off, but you’re getting warmer.”
    He offered a few more stabs at it, then gave up. Lifted his drink and swirled it, watched it in near-hypnosis. “I can think straighter later.”
    “Love and friendship,” Lana mused, obliquely avoiding the answer to her challenge. “They’re opposites, in a way, you know.”
    He professed skepticism.
    “Really. Joseph Roux, in Meditations of a Parish Priest , said, ‘What is love? Two souls and one flesh. Friendship? Two bodies and one soul.’” Lana nodded. “I believe that, with all my heart.” She dropped her hand to his thigh — that thrilling rush of first contact. “How ‘bout you? Do you believe it?”
    “It could work on me, give it time.”
    And what would it soon be for them, he wondered. Love, or friendship? Two bodies, or one?
    Snap judgments were risky, but he thought he’d be amenable to either. Something about her eyes, her manner, her tip-of-the-iceberg hints that, for the right person, she was much more than someone who merely wanted compatible flesh to sustain her until morning light. A needle-in-the-haystack find among French Quarter sin — someone worth sticking around for.
    “Well, if you can believe that,” she said, leaning in close to whisper, “then I have so many secrets to share with you.”
    Gary watched, listened, through dual filters: The Romantic longed to believe her, while the Cynic thought it mere puffery. Or worse yet, sweet bait so she could lure him to a partner in hiding and they would mug him.
    He would bite. He would swallow. Have a little faith.
    Soon they danced, pressed close as they leaned together and slow-shuffled about the floor, glowing with neon bleedthrough from the street. They were watched by the dismal eyes of other drinkers, weary survivors clinging to rafts of Jim Beam and Gilbey’s. The jukebox scratched out the mournful, gin-soaked laments of Tom Waits, the quintessential skid row troubadour.
    She later led him out back to an alley with too little light, and for a moment he was sure that his