Lexicon

began to walk over, because this was curious, but one of the men turned to her and she felt very cold and stopped.
    The people moved inside. She returned to the bench. Jeremy emerged, smelling of soap. “Are you okay?”
    She shook her head. “I saw some people. Poets, I guess.”
    He looked at the cars.
    “One was an older guy. White hair. Tan skin.”
    “Oh,” Jeremy said. “Yeah. That’s Yeats.”
    “The teachers, they’re in there somewhere. You know? They’re brick walls, but you can tell there’s something behind the wall. This guy had shark eyes. Nothing in them. Just . . . eyes.” She shook her head. “Junkies get them, if they’re in a bad place. It freaked me out a little.”
    “Come to my room,” he said. “Hang out.”
    “Okay.” But she wasn’t ready to move yet.
    “Seriously, don’t worry about Yeats. You’ll never speak to him.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because he’s a million miles above us,” Jeremy said. “He’s the head of the organization.”
    • • •
    Jeremy was going to graduate. She had known it was coming. But he became a senior and she was no longer able to pretend the day belonged in some far-off future. He started begging off slushie runs. He didn’t watch her play soccer anymore. Whenever she knocked on his door he was deep in books, looking tired, making her feel stupid for bothering him.
    “Just fail,” she said. “Stay another year. We’d be about the same level. We could even study together.”
    “I can’t fail, Emily.”
    She got off the bed, annoyed, because she had been only joking. Or maybe not, but still. She began sifting through his drawers, looking for anything interesting. But of course there was nothing, because Jeremy Lattern had no personal effects. Certainly no hidden words. She had looked, a couple of times. Just out of interest. It hadn’t always been like this: She remembered a little toy robot with red arms. He had gotten rid of it sometime since she’d met him. That was what people did here. They shrunk and shrunk until there was nothing interesting left.
    She went over and put her hands on his shoulders. He tensed. “Relax. It’s a massage. Therapeutic.” She kneaded his muscles until they loosened. When she moved up his neck, he tightened again. “Stop fighting it! I’m helping.”
    He relaxed. She slid her fingers into his hair. She rubbed his neck with her thumbs. After a while, he put down his pen. It had been a while since he’d turned a page. She ran her fingernails lightly down his back. “Take off your shirt, so I can do your back.”
    He didn’t respond. She bit her lip. That had been kind of obvious.
    “You can’t focus if you’re tense and distracted. You can’t pretend you’re not made of biology.” She pressed her thumbs into his shoulders. “You have a deficiency need, you satisfy it. That’s Maslow. You can’t move on to higher needs until you satisfy the base ones.”
    He looked up at her.
    She said, “I’d like to have sex with you, if you want.”
    His eyes were unreadable. “Okay.”
    She smiled, but he didn’t, so she stopped that. He rose from the chair. He looked like he was concentrating on a puzzle. She unbuttoned his shirt. Her fingers shook and he must have noticed. She felt his hands on her waist and she pulled open his shirt and his chest was smooth and hairless and smelled of him in a way that was powerful. She kissed his skin. She craned her neck to reach his lips but he turned his face away. So there was to be no kissing. He removed her jacket. She backed onto the bed and he climbed on top of her. His face betrayed nothing. He was breathing more quickly; that was all. She tried to be like him, not react as his hand moved up her stomach, but a sound came out of her before she could stop it. His eyes flicked at her.
    “I’m okay.” She pulled him closer. She felt his erection against her and had a moment of panic. She wasn’t a virgin but it had been a long time and everything was different. He continued to press. Her body fizzed with tiny stars and she remembered how this went. She reached down and touched him through his pants and made him grunt. She liked that. She squeezed again.
    His hand sought admission to her skirt. She lifted her butt, unzipped, and pushed the whole mess of fabric down. His fingers pushed against her and she gave a little gasp. He hesitated. She wanted to grab his hand and force him onto her. She tugged him out of his pants. He buried his face in her