6.

Marty was smoking bongs in front of the TV, the strange woman who’d broken in now awake and sitting on the couch near to him, when the sound of Alex’s shower started. After a few minutes of the water moaning in the pipes the soapy slapping of Alex masturbating in the shower became evident. They both ignored it with dignity. Alex did this just about every morning and Marty was somewhat sure that Alex had no idea that it could be heard throughout the apartment at all.

After having two bong hits the strange woman pulled out a glass tube with steel wool stuffed into its end, set a crack rock at its tip, then lit it and inhaled wildly. Her eyes went wide as she sucked in the smoke then she let it out in a great ecstatic sigh.

“I could call the cops for you breaking in here,” said Marty.

She did not say anything; her eyes fluttered about insensibly.

“How about you get the hell out of here now?” said Marty.

Under a hazy ecstasy she reached out for the bong, which did not have anything in the bowl, and seemed to hover in indecision about taking a hit off it. She cradled it like a little girl with a doll and smiled.

“What’s your name?” she said.

“I’m Marty.”

“I don’t give it away for free,” she said. Marty found her repulsive. He imagined that her crotch was cheesy and fetid. When a woman has lived like her into middle age, he thought, sex with her is more repulsive than fucking a 70-year-old.

“I could call the cops,” Marty repeated. “How about you just get the hell out of here?”

“I don’t give it away free, Marty.”

Marty stood and paced back and forth. He’d thought he was going to go make some coffee, but then he seemed full of confusion; and he gripped the side of his hair and didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t going to call the cops. Not a pothead like him, with so much weed smoke and weed bags and the few hits of acid in the freezer and the bong and . . .

“How about you make me breakfast!” he said suddenly. He wasn’t sure why he said it, nor what he meant to accomplish by it. He wasn’t even all that hungry.

splat onto the dirty frying pan, and shoved the pan onto the stovetop. Moments later she was on the couch smoking another rock and hadn’t turned on the burner at all.

“What’s your name?” said Marty.

“I don’t give it away for free, Marty,” she said.