Jessica is heaving with breath. Her thighs are quivering against the sides of my head. She can’t help clenching her groin, and each time she does my ears pop. After a few minutes, I stop and raise my head.

She raises herself on her elbows and looks down at me between her cleavage. “What the fook are ya’ doing?”

“I can’t,” I say.

“What the fook?” she repeats. She runs a finger over one of her black eyebrows and flicks off a bead of sweat.

“Your pubes,” I tell her.

“What about them?”

“They’re like pine needles. They keep poking my face and tongue.”

“Bloody ’ell. You have to tell me now? It can’t wait a few minutes?” Her heels are hooked under my armpits. I think she’s going to release them, but instead she locks down and tries to pull me back in place.

“It hurts,” I tell her. “Seriously. It’s like porcupine quills.”

She collapses onto her back and sighs, but doesn’t release me from her leg lock. I can’t believe how strong she is. She’s like really strong.

“Can you please just continue and we can talk about this in a wee bit?”

“It really hurts. What do you do to them?”

“What the fook do you think I do? I take a shower and they get clean.”

“Do you comb them or anything?” It’s a perfectly fair question.

“No I don’t fooking comb them. Should I?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Can you wax?”

She looks down at me between her cleavage again. “Would you like that?”

“I’d love that,” I tell her.

“I’ll look like a little girl. Would you like to think about that each time we fook?”

“No,” I say. “That would ruin the mood.”

“Exactly.”

She finally loosens her legs, and I lie next to her. She pulls up the blankets and covers herself. It’s quiet for a few minutes.

“What?” I ask.

“What d’ya think?” she replies.

We lie like that for a while. I listen for the heavy in-and-out sounds of her deep-sleep breathing, but they don’t come. She’s already pissed, so I figure I might as well ask. I nudge her. “Hey...um, you use a lot of toilet paper when you’re here. Do you think you could bring your own? You can keep it in a drawer or something.”

She doesn’t say anything, so I let it go. Maybe I’ll ask again in the morning.

She turns away from me and curls into a ball. I’m stretched out long and staring at the ceiling. We look like one of those binary power switches. She’s the “◯” on one side and I’m the “|” line on the other side. It’s kinda funny if you think about it.