Prologue

     Flashes of the night before: colored stars, a backroom, naked flesh, Her face.

     Sharply, I inhale. Beside me, Jonesy smiles, probably believing my gasp is a result from feet-numbing fear instead of gut-churning horror. I attempt to attach Her face to the naked flesh the night before. The colored stars fade into Christmas lights; the back room into a bathroom. Music –- the Violent Femmes? Kisses inside my bare leg. I’m naked …

     I look out to Her. She’s looking back, her half leer full of tales that could fill a Penthouse Forum. Or am I imagining the look? Is she squinting from the setting sun? Or is she trying not to cry because it’s all about to slip past us –- the potential, the wanting, the desire to say ‘fuck all’ and run off to the jungles of Brazil or the mountains of Argentina or some remote place where we can just be alone, just be us, just be naked, just be entwined in the passion of …

     Something happened. I know something happened. But when I close my eyes and look down at the woman kissing her way up my body everything goes white and I …

     The music starts. Not the muffled Violent Femmes, but the march … the march of the grip, closing on the future, closing on the jungles of Brazil and the mountains of Argentina and promising a life of comfort and routine instead of sweat-down- the-back excitement. Everyone stands, including Her, and they all look back, including Her, and I can’t help but follow their gazes -- Her gaze -- to the foot of the aisle and the bride walking toward me … my fiancée, the future mother of my children … Pamela …

     I want to run.

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