The occasion warranted gravity so he picked out a Nirvana album. At some point he realized the condom had torn but he didn’t tell her or stop. He threw it away while she was in the bathroom. She came back. They nervously spooned. Variant anxieties were retroactivated, seeded backwards through time into a past like gardenrows aching to burst brutally into a thrive of incompatible colors and flora-forms. Her song came on. She thought their second time would be nicer than the first, though the first had been nice, but that maybe the second time it would feel more natural. She had small breasts and kissed like a timid starlet who tasted good. I could get used to this, she thought, and turned her head back to look lovingly upon he who held her. She waited for him to kiss, kiss her lips. He was far away, sinking into a dream of the incipient future, how sick he would feel every day upon waking, how that feeling would fractal and simmer. He wondered how well he’d fake self-assured tenderness or if instead he’d let her down, maybe ruin her. Neither knew it was a cover song. They had never even heard of The Vaselines. The future was as real to him as her glistening skin. He wondered what day of the week it would be when she called with the apocalyptic news. It would be a Thursday, he hoped.

Thursdays he had tennis lessons and wouldn’t be home. But of course she knew that, too.