He doesn't say anything, so I carry on.
"According to what criteria can you say, This thing ends there, and here's where another thing begins? What exactly is 'being' anyway? Unless you go down to the atomic level, there seem to be no spaces between things. Even empty space is teeming with particles. But when you look at atoms closely you realize there is hardly anything but space. You must have heard that analogy that an atom is like a sports hall with one tennis ball in the middle? Nothing is really connected to anything else. But we create connections between things in language. And we use those classifications and the spaces between them to create a culture such as the one we're now in, in which we both understand that it would be wrong to sleep together in a priory in which I am a guest."
Adam's eyes are hard but his voice is now soft.
"Why is it wrong?"
"Come on, you know why. We'd offend everyone here if they knew what was going on."
"But surely that would be their fault for not understanding about the atoms?"
"Would it? That's not what culture says. Imagine using that as a defense for murder. But judge, I didn't really stab her because the atoms in the knife never touched the atoms in her body. We can't just exit culture because it doesn't suit us. Well, we could—or we could tell ourselves that's what we'd done—but we'd feel guilt, anyway." I sigh. It's so easy to talk like this but it's not easy to explain what I'm actually feeling. What would I say? Adam, I want to see you naked. I want to suck your cock and lie back and let you fuck me but not in a priory because it makes me feel dirty and evil and I'm probably going to die soon and even though I'm not sure I believe in heaven, I have seen an entity that claimed to be a god recently and so I don't want to mess up my chances at the last possible minute.
And then I think of Derrida again. It's as though I'm in some kind of auction and my last bid for purity is this: I'm thinking about his cock in my mouth but I'm not speaking it and I'm not doing it. I'm not letting the atoms get too close.
Adam turns to the window again. This time he opens the curtains and looks out.
"Is it still snowing?" I ask. That reminds me of some quote: Tell me, my dear, does it still snow? But I can't remember where it's from. Maybe in the quote it's not even snow. Maybe it's rain.
"No." He sighs. "I should have stayed at your flat on Tuesday."
"I wouldn't have slept with you then, either."
Are you listening, God?
He nods. "You don't find me attractive."
"It's not that. I think it's more that I don't find myself that attractive."
"That sounds like shit to me."
"Sorry. You're right. But I just can't. I want to—but I just can't."
Now he turns around again. He doesn't look me in the eye, though. There's no connection—whatever the hell that connection is when someone focuses on your eyes and you focus on theirs and for a second it feels like you're machines plugged into the same socket, or even that one of you is the machine and the other is the socket. Machines, sockets, electricity, lines of force ... Our eyes might not connect, but all the other lines of force are still there, pulling me towards him.
"But you do want to? You do want me?" The way he speaks is as if he's been told that he's got a terminal illness but a year to live. Is it possible to take sex this seriously? Is it possible to take sex with me this seriously? Patrick says I "do" things to him but all I really do to him is implicitly promise to provide what I always provide: dirty sex with no strings. But if he never saw me again I don't think he'd care. Do I want Adam? Well, that's easy.
"Yes. But I can't have you. I'm wrong for you."
"You know that I've never..." He lets the sentence drift away, like a snowflake that melts before it lands.
"I know. That's why as well. The thing is that I have. Thousands of times, with hundreds of people."
"Ariel, for God's sake."
"What?"
"Why are you saying it like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like you're trying to make yourself seem ... I don't know."
"Like a bit of a slut?"
"I wouldn't put it like that."
"No. You're too nice." I bite my lip.
"Oh, fuck off. You think I'm nice because I used to be a priest. I don't want to be nice. I want..."
"What? You want to be like me? You want to be unnice? You want to be dirty? Well, come on then." I start undoing my dressing gown. "Let's fuck in the priory. Have a little bit of what I've got. Look: Here's some of what I've got." I hold up my arms, wrists facing outwards as though I'm pushing something away. "That's what happened last time someone fucked me."
Adam walks forwards and for a second I imagine that he's on his way to rip open my nightdress and push me down on the bed. Is that what I want him to do? Or do I want him to feel sorry for me with my fucked-up wrists and my hundreds of sexual conquests? But his eyes are as still as fossils as he walks right past me and out of the room. Whatever I do want I'm not going to get it. He's gone.
Half an hour later I'm under the covers in my bed in the cold, still room, alone. Adam never came back, not that I expected him to really. Oh well. I achieved my objective, even if it wasn't in the most elegant way. It's like when someone fills a whole blackboard proving something in mathematics and then someone else comes along and shows that it can be done in one line. I could have just told him I wasn't interested. It would have been a lie but it would have been elegant; more elegant than the maybe/never I've ended up with. Now I don't know if he'll ever want to speak to me again.
But I'm still here, at least: no blond men. I still exist.
Now I can go into the Troposphere.
This time it doesn't take long to go through the tunnel at all. But when I get out the other side it's different. The street I am so used to isn't there anymore. Instead I am in a cluttered town square with gray cobbles, which looks tiny compared with the mansions and castles crowded around it. There must be hundreds of these buildings, although objectively I can see that this should be spatially impossible. Nevertheless, they are "there." Some of them are built in pale stone, others are rendered in a dark, rusty-looking brick and have gothic spires and turrets that seem to reach into the clouds, as if they were trying to claw their way to heaven. Clouds. That's bizarre. There haven't been clouds in the Troposphere before. But it's still nighttime here; maybe I can only see the clouds now because of the full moon. But then I realize that the moon hasn't been here before, either.
There's a statue in the center of the square, shining in the moonlight. It seems to be a copy of Rodin's Le Penseur: a man sitting on a rock with his chin resting on the back of his hand. But as I walk closer I see that this man has a mouse face. It's a statue of Apollo Smintheus without his cape on. An owl hoots and I jump. Last time I heard sound in the Troposphere it wasn't a good sign at all. But nothing else happens so I decide it's just an owl. How many buildings are there here? An impossible number. It's very hard to describe what is in front of me but there does just seem to be too much stuff: too much information, all packed into such a small space. As well as the scramble of turrets and spires, I can see drawbridges and moats, mounds, smoke from fires, a rainbow bridge, and various flags; behind the buildings are mountains and cliff tops and lakes, all jumbled together like a bunch of landscape photographs overlapping on a crowded wall. In between these grand buildings are other, more familiar places: a couple of tea rooms, a small bookshop, and a shop selling magic tricks. They all seem to be closed, though. One place seems especially compelling, but it's not a building. It's an overgrown garden with high walls and a wrought-iron gate. Inside are a bench and several trees. I want to go in there, but it's locked. The other places here are also closed. Anachronistic neon signs glow pinkly all over the place. Closed. Fermé. Closed for Renovations. Closed. Shut. No Vacancies. What kind of place has gothic castles and towers with pink neon signs everywhere?