Written with the Notepad app of Cybill’s iPhone while I waited for her to shower (9/9/2011)

"I think my period's due or something," said Deborah with a flick of her wrist, ashes to the carpet like ill tidings, like the cigarette in her hand negotiating its own way out of a Faustian bargain, any bargain, pick a bargain, always a catch in there somewhere, name your poison, nicotine or those sour, sour droplets for the stomach cramps once the barman manning the blister card starts yelling Last Rounds. She shrugged, still, shaking off the notion of a coping mechanism unsure even to herself, then took one last drag from that selfsame rationale before putting it out on Pieter's spew-colored ashtray. "But Carmichael's late nevertheless."
"Carmichael's an ass, Debs."
"Let it go, Pieter," Deborah responded without taking her eyes off the dying embers of her cigarette on her room-mate's ashtray.
"Well he IS an ass" --emphasis-- "and you shouldn't go on sleeping with him like that. Please tell me you make him wear a condom." Pieter's voice had been starting to sound more acidic than usual, she surmised, and correctly so, on the account of his not getting his fix of cock and balls ever since that pavement artist, god what was the creep's name, left him last July. Still, too many theories for the season alone and not enough butterflies fluttering over the dandelions at that tiny little garden near the Mall as with all the Summers before this one.