ight. Your dick is bigger, but he's
better in bed. He's a user-experience designer at Lucas-SGI, in Studio City. He
never fucking shuts up about what's wrong with this or that. We dated for two
years, lived together for one year, and broke up just before you and I met. I
broke it off with him: He was making me goddamned crazy and he wanted me to come
back from London and live with him. I wanted to stay out the year in England and
go back to my own apartment and possibly a different boyfriend, and he made me
choose, so I chose. Is that enough of a briefing for you, Arthur?"

"That was fine," Art said. Linda's face had gone rabid purple, madly pinched,
spittle flecking off of her lips as she spat out the words. "Thank you."

She took his hands and kissed the knuckles of his thumbs. "Look, I don't like to
talk about it -- it's painful. I'm sorry he's ruining our holiday. I just won't
take his calls anymore, how about that?"

"I don't care, Linda, Honestly, I don't give a rat's ass if you want to chat
with your ex. I just saw how upset you were and I thought it might help if you
could talk it over with me."

"I know, baby, I know. But I just need to work some things out all on my own.
Maybe I will take a quick trip out west and talk things over with him. You could
come if you want -- there are some wicked bars in West Hollywood."

"That's OK," Art said, whipsawed by Linda's incomprehensible mood shifts. "But
if you need to go, go. I've got plenty of old pals to hang out with in Toronto."

"You're so understanding," she cooed. "Tell me about your grandmother again --
you're sure she'll like me?"

"She'll love you. She loves anything that's female, of childbearing years, and
in my company. She has great and unrealistic hopes of great-grandchildren."

"Cluck."

"Cluck?"

"Just practicing my brood-hen."

21.

Doc Szandor's a good egg. He's keeping the shrinks at bay, spending more time
with me than is strictly necessary. I hope he isn't neglecting his patients, but
it's been so long since I had a normal conversation, I just can't bear to give
it up. Besides, I get the impression that Szandor's in a similar pit of bad
conversation with psychopaths and psychotherapists and is relieved to have a bit
of a natter with someone who isn't either having hallucinations or attempting to
prevent them in others.

"How the hell do you become a user-experience guy?"

"Sheer orneriness," I say, grinning. "I was just in the right