The ones that he could have tumbled on his own, the easy women, were easy for it too. Sometimes he lived off women. He should have been able to see all the way inside when he picked it up, but somehow he couldn’t. When she glanced downward, her fingers slipped and she dropped the black shell. But she went with him, and when they entered his bedroom, Robert set the shell down on his dresser as usual — though he had learned to leave it on the floor after these episodes. He had wasted thirty- five years worth of time already, as much of it as possible doing nothing. He screamed and ran nude into his living room. It shattered on the rocks below. But he didn’t get what he expected. For the rest of that day she did anything that he asked of her, wildly and enthusiastically.
